by Claire Adams
“Do you always do different dates like this?” I asked.
“Honestly? No. I’m usually a dinner and a movie kinda guy. Not because I’m not creative, but because that’s usually what women expect. But, tonight, I didn’t wanna do what someone expected, I guess.”
“Why not?”
“That, I can’t really answer. You just stepped out onto the porch, and the situation screamed lake, so here we are,” he said.
“What if I screamed help?” I asked.
“Then I’d come running until I found you.”
“Oh, come on. Be honest with me. This date is just a requirement because you said it was payment for the car repairs you did,” I said.
“Only because you said you didn’t have money. I’d honestly never turn down money,” he said.
“So, you don’t wanna be on this date. I knew it.”
“Why the hell wouldn't I wanna be on a date with a kind, nice, gorgeous woman who my daughter happens to like?” he asked.
He had me hooked. Not only was I impressed by his ability to take my curious jokes in stride, but he also seemed very genuine. I’d met my share of playboys who traveled through this town looking for their fantasy country girl fling, and Jason didn’t strike me with any of those attributes. At this point, I was beginning to suspect he was more than just a playboy looking for his latest notch, and something inside of me relaxed.
Until that damn rumor popped into my head.
“I’ve heard a rumor going around town about you,” I said.
“Oh, really?” he asked.
“Hm. And I gotta ask, is it true you’re known by women as Maximum?”
“Well, Lucy, I suppose you’ll just have to find out for yourself.”
There was the douchebag statement. The one statement that should’ve stopped this entire charade in its tracks. He’d just admitted to laying a whole bunch of women and being proud of it, and everything inside of me should have come to a grinding halt. But, as the truck began to bob and weave as we approached the lake, all I felt was a raging ball of fire roaring to life in my stomach.
And my hand twitched closer to his as we continued to approach the lake.
Chapter Fourteen
Jason
With the clear sky and the full moon, the lanterns really lit up the lake. I parked the truck and grabbed everything out of the back. Lucy ventured out to the lakeshore while I got everything ready. I spread a blanket down and pulled everything out of the cooler, and when I’d poured us a couple glasses of wine, I studied the way she looked at the moon. Her hair cascaded down to the middle of her back when she craned her neck to watch the stars, and the way her waist flared into her thick, luscious hips stirred something inside that had been dormant for a long time. She looked as beautiful as Danielle had when the lake backdropped her body, and I had to swallow back a knot in my throat so I could call her over for food.
She walked back to me, and we began to eat. The lanterns really lit up where we were sitting, which gave me ample light to study her features, and she seemed to relax with every sip of wine she took. I listened to her tell me about her likes and dislikes, and I found we really had more in common than I’d originally thought.
“My sister’s the girly one of us. I’ve never been into the whole makeup, doing hair thing.”
“What does your sister do?” I asked.
“The hair thing,” she said, giggling. “She’s a stylist in town at that new place that just opened up.”
“Ah, the hair and salon spa place. I’ve been meaning to go in there. Apparently, they have barbers who work on the guys, and they do those old-fashioned shaves with the warmed shaving cream and all that stuff.”
“Sounds nice. I just wash my hair with a two-in-one and keep trucking,” she said. “After all, the woods don’t care about what color my hair is.”
“You get into the woods a lot?” I asked.
“Every chance I get. I used to hunt and fish all the time, but now I just go to pick apples and take walks.”
I loved that she was an outdoorsy kind of person. It meant I’d chosen the right venue for the date. With her quiet demeanor and how shy she was, I was worried we weren’t going to be too compatible with one another. But, then again, she always did seem to have a surprise for me every time I saw her
“Does Jenna like going outside?” she asked.
“Winters are brutal for her. She hates being cold but always wants to go outside and run around,” I said.
“She’s such a cutie. You’ve really done a good job with her.”
“Thanks. It’s been tough, raising her on my own. I was so lost in the beginning and had to figure out so much. Did you know little girls can get yeast infections as early as six months?”
“Holy yikes,” I said. “Seriously?”
“Sorry. That’s really gross, but that’s the kinda shit I’m talkin’ about. I didn’t know any of this.”
“Well, she’s a wonderful girl, so you’re obviously getting something right, despite the surprises and difficulties,” she said.
“That might also be because she really likes you.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. And that’s odd for Jenna. It’s just been me and her since she was born, and sometimes she can be real difficult around new people. Probably because she’s growing up without her mother, so being around older women is foreign for her since it’s only been the two of us.”
“She didn’t seem all that difficult to me when I first met her,” she said.
“I know. It’s why it's so weird. I’ve never seen her take to someone like she’s taken to you.”
I was talking with her about shit I didn’t normally talk about with anyone. Things about Jenna and her mom, talking about her growing up without Danielle and being finicky around other women. I didn’t talk about this type of shit ever, and somehow Lucy’s presence coaxed it out of me.
It was new for me to feel like this with someone. I honestly hadn’t felt that way with anyone since...
Well, since Danielle.
What was this woman doing to me?
“I suppose I was fortunate in that regard,” she said. “I don’t know if I ever could’ve done the single parent thing. Not after David died.”
I was rooted to my spot when it flew from her lips. A part of me was relieved because I no longer felt like I was hiding something from her—a part of her I knew about because someone else couldn’t keep their mouth shut—but part of me was shocked that she brought it up at all. Her eyes were intensely focused on the lake in front of us, so I poured her another glass of wine before I turned my gaze out toward the scenery.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” I asked.
“It was a brain tumor,” she said. “Popped up and six months later, he was gone.”
“How long has he been gone?” I asked.
“Just shy of three years.”
“My wife died during childbirth. With Jenna.”
Lucy panned her gaze around to me, and when her eyes connected with mine, tears were brewing in them. This was not how I saw this date going at all, with tears and sappy shit being talked about, but it felt nice talking to someone who understood. Someone who got the feeling behind losing a spouse. A partner. An unending love.
The silence hung heavy between us while a tear cascaded down her cheek, and without thinking, I picked my hand up and brushed it away from her skin. Her cheek was soft and silken, red from the tears she was trying not to shed and still, somehow, innocent despite the pain she’d suffered in her life.
“David brought me here on our first date,” she said.
“Well, I’m just nailing this thing, aren’t I?” I asked, jokingly.
“No, no, no, it-it’s good. I haven’t been here since he died, and it’s nice to be here with someone.”
“Danielle loved the lakes. I gravitated toward them when Jenna was an infant. I’d take her to them and sit on the edge of the lakes while she would sleep in my arms, and it ma
de me feel like her mother was still a part of everything.”
“God, I couldn’t imagine raising a child on my own like that,” she said.
“It’s hard. And it takes its toll.”
“It does,” she said.
Silence blanketed us again, and only the crickets could be heard in the background. Some of the fish were jumping, and the moonlight was rippling over the moving water, but even with the change in conversation, I couldn’t get over how beautiful the moonlight looked bathing Lucy’s hair. That was something that separated her from Danielle: Lucy had these light, innocent features, while Danielle had been dark, exotic, and bold.
“Do you think we’ll ever truly be over it?” she asked.
“I don’t think so, no. I think that’s why people who’ve lost spouses gravitate toward one another.”
“I had so many fights with my sister,” she said. “Fights where she thought I needed to be over it and get back out there. She’d set me up on dates and hand out my number to random strangers.”
“I’da shut that shit down in a hurry,” I said.
“I did. And I get it’s coming from a place of love, but it’s hard to talk to people who just don’t understand.”
“I understand.” I took a chance and reached out for her hand that had fallen off to her side, and I was surprised yet again when she didn’t yank it away from mine. Her hands were so small, and her fingers were so slender. When she wrapped hers around the tops of mine, we sat there staring out at the lake together.
Just us, the crickets, and the moonlight.
“I can remember the first morning I woke up, and it really hit me,” she said, breaking the silence. “I’d rolled over a few days after David’s funeral to kiss him good morning, and my lips hit a cold pillow instead.”
I squeezed her hand, letting her know I was there, but I honestly didn’t think I could talk to her about it without crying. I hadn’t talked to anyone, anyone at all, about Danielle since she’d died, and I wasn’t sure if I could now.
“I cried so hard that morning, I gave myself a migraine and had to rush to the toilet to throw up,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What about you?”
She looked back at me with those big teary eyes and something inside me broke. The entire well of emotions I’d been damming up since I’d watched the life slip from Danielle’s eyes poured forth in oral regurgitation, and the more I talked, the tighter Lucy squeezed my hand in return.
“For a while, it happened every time I looked at Jenna. She looks so much like her mother, you wouldn’t believe it. And she’s got her mother’s spunk and attitude as well. Sometimes, I look at her in the mornings before I’ve had my coffee, and I have to turn my back so she doesn’t see the hurt in my eyes.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lucy said.
“But, I think the moment it really sank in for me was when we packed up and started traveling. The place I came from, it wasn’t where I wanted to raise my daughter. I wanted a place that really felt like home with people who would surround her with comfort and protection. People like her daycare workers.”
“People like me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “People like you. Anyway, I watched the city welcome sign fade in the background and looked over to the empty driver’s seat and lost it. I’d buried her in that city, and I felt like I was abandoning her, taking away everything she held dear and was just leaving her behind.”
All at once, I felt Lucy’s arms wrap around my body. My arm raised so she could get deep into the crook of my waist, and then she just sat there with her head on my shoulder. I felt a tear every once in a while drip onto my shirt, and part of me wanted to kiss the top of her head every time I felt it happen. Her shoulders rose and fell steadily while I held her close to my body, and our wine soon ran dry while the two of us continued to talk about emotions and memories only the two of us understood.
And for the first time since I’d left that city with my infant daughter in the backseat, I felt like I was home.
Chapter Fifteen
Lucy
The ride back in the car was silent. Eerie, in a settling way. Like the blades of grass blown by a wind the body cannot feel, or a crashing wave upon the shore of a mirror-like ocean. Our connection grew stronger between us, and the lens from which I viewed him reverberated a severely different light from the lens I looked through at the beginning of this date. The air was thick and fraught with tension, not even sliceable with a knife sharpened by the blades of the gods themselves. It was hard to breathe when I first got into the car, but his hand clamping down around my hand steadied my breathing as well as my mind.
We shared a fundamental connection, an understanding. He sympathized with the chaos of my life ever since I’d lost David, and I understood the emotional swells he had experienced after watching his wife die. We talked about how lifeless their eyes looked, dead and barren after years of being filled to the brim with memories, feelings, and desires.
I recounted to him the first time I’d seen David. His eyes were still open, and the doctors were guarding the door. They were trying to release him from the ports and the IV’s, and they were struggling to get them from underneath his still-warmed skin. It was as if his brain hadn’t quite shut down, his body not quite ready to let go, and I could still feel the pain bubbling in my toes as my eyes drifted over the skeletal structure of who had once been my husband.
He recounted for me the moment he saw the life drain from Danielle’s eyes. Jenna was being cleaned off, and she had wrapped her little fingers around his. She was crying and flailing, looking for the one person she had been fully and completely connected to for nine solid months. He told me about how the droning sounds of all the machines mocked him in the depths of his memories for months after the fact, how her lifeless eyes would be staring back at him every time he looked in the mirror.
He admitted to taking down all the mirrors at one point, only to see the bright, lively eyes of his wife in Jenna’s eyes.
There was a respect there for him I hadn’t had up until this point. The windows of his truck were rolled down, and my hand was on top of his, while we cruised back into a town that seemed somehow shifted in perspective. I’d found someone who got it, who had lived the trauma of loss and come out the other end completely and utterly altered at their base functions. I’d met a man whose guard had been up for years, like mine had been, in order to keep out any intrusions that might upset the balance of the juggling act he was practicing.
The balance of living, breathing, and crying alone at night.
I talked with him about how I had to remind myself to live. I had to remind myself that I would wake up in the morning and that tomorrow would come, whether I wanted it or not. I talked with him about talking myself off ledges spawned from trains of thought that conjured from the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind. I regaled him with memories of how I had to teach myself how to breathe again, how the simple act of doing something he was no longer doing ached me in a place I never understood existed until I’d met him.
David.
The love of my life.
He told me about their first dance. How he held her beneath the sunrise of the morning after hours of fighting. He told me of their explosive moments, the times where her passion overflowed into their arguments, and things were thrown against walls. He told me it was why he fell in love with her, because the passion she threw into everything she did triumphed over everything he thought he did best. He told me she pushed him to be the best he could and then outdid him in that same respect just for a laugh.
And he gladly did it to see the laugh lines appear on her face.
This man, this wounded soul, had been raising a child by himself for years. This was not the carcass of a playboy whose dick sunk into every woman he’d come across. This was not the body of a man who threw himself at desperate redheads walking down the road in need of his attention. This was not even the body of a man who wa
s actively looking for anything in his life.
This was simply the body of a man whose world had been torn apart by the very thing that should bring beauty into it. I was holding onto the hand of a soul whose dichotomous existence bordered on the happy and the depressed with every glance he took in his daughter’s direction. The joyful glee of his child’s smile brought a searing pain at what he’d lost that day, and celebrating her birthday was simply a practice in refrain.
Refraining from grieving over the loss of his wife to celebrate the birth of his daughter.
I didn’t care what the rumors around town said. I didn’t care what reputation he may have held back home, nor did I care where he decided to lay his bed after tonight. I didn’t understand where the Maximum rumor came into play, who started it, or why it began in the first place.
I could choose to dwell on it, or I could choose to ignore it.
And as I looked at his face, his stoic, chiseled profile with the stars twinkling upon his skin and the moonlight peppering the shadows of the trees upon his chin, I realized what I would do with all the information that had been thrown my way.
I would ignore it.
The truck ride was silent, save for the crickets as we passed through the town. The cool autumn air seemed to boast of winter, and the cold snap that descended upon us shivered me to my bones. My hand gripped his a little tighter, and he turned his head slowly toward me. I saw the exact thoughts I had been thinking all the way home deep within the confines of his mind.
He felt the same way. There was a kindred spirit existing within this beautiful man, and from the moment he had told me about Jenna’s mother, I’d been hooked.
I was bound to this man by common experiences and emotions, and there would be no relationship from here on out that would permeate what we had just built.
“Did you have a good time tonight?” he asked. We pulled into his driveway and sat there for a while, and I allowed the question to ricochet off the corners of his truck. The town was blanketed in sleep, and the stars were out in droves, and as the wind kicked up again, it blew the sweet smell of apples our way. It was as if the Earth was reminding us that life moved on. Questions would be asked, and people would be met, experiences would be had, and plants would be grown.