by Robyn Carr
“My parents are unnaturally tight,” he said. “They’re kind of amazing, I guess. Deeply supportive of each other, almost to the exclusion of everything around them and everyone else. Protective. They’re in their sixties, as in love as the day they met, and total whack jobs. But sweet. They’re very sweet.”
Her arms dropped to her sides. “What makes them whack jobs?”
“Well, they always described themselves as hippies. New-age disciples. Free thinkers. Intelligent and experimental and artistic. They’re from that dropout generation. And Deadheads.”
“As in, the Grateful Dead?”
“Exactly. Just a little more complex.”
She dropped down to the ground like a child fascinated by a bedtime story filled with adventure and excitement. She circled her knees with her arms. He’d seen this before. It was kind of fun, as a matter of fact.
“Where are they now?” she asked.
“Living on my grandfather’s farm in Iowa. My grandfather passed away quite a while ago and my grandmother, just a few years ago.”
“Are they still whack jobs?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said, working his spade again. “Or maybe it’s more kind to say they’re eccentric. My mother doesn’t hear voices or anything.” Then he smiled. “But my dad is another story. My father fancies himself a new age thinker. He’s incredibly smart. And he regularly gets...um...messages.”
“Oh, this is fascinating,” she said. “What kind of messages?”
“Come on, nosy. How about you? Are you the oldest in the family?”
“The only. My parents divorced when I was six. My mother lives in Golden with my stepfather. What kind of messages?”
“Well, let’s see...there have been so many. One of the most memorable was when my father believed space aliens were living among us and systematically killing us off by putting chemicals in our food. That was a very bad couple of years for meals.”
“Wow.”
“It definitely hits the wow factor. They—we—were gypsies with no Romany heritage and my parents glommed on to a lot of bizarre beliefs that came and went.”
“And this has to do with Jerry Garcia how?”
“He appealed to their freedom factor—no rules, no being bound by traditional ideas or values, crusaders of antisocial thinking, protesting the status quo. They were also very fond of Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley. My father favors dystopian literature like Brave New World. My mother, on the other hand, is a very sweet lady who adores him, agrees with everything he says, likes to paint and weave and is really a brilliant but misguided soul. She usually homeschooled us since we were wanderers.” He took a breath and dug around a little bit. “My father is undiagnosed schizophrenic. Mild. Functional. And my mother is his enabler and codependent.”
“It sounds so interesting,” she said, kind of agog. “And you’re an only child, too?”
He shook his head. “The oldest of four. Two boys, two girls.”
“Where’s the rest of the family?” she asked.
“Here and there,” he told her. “My youngest sister was on the farm with my parents last I checked. There’s a sister back East living a very conventional life with a nice, normal husband and two very proper children. My brother is in the military. Army. He’s an infantry major. That’s taken years off my mother’s life, I’m sure.”
She laughed and it was a bright, musical sound. “You are no ordinary camper! What are you doing here?”
He leaned on the spade. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Looking after Sully,” she said.
“Oh, but that’s not all,” he said. “Neurosurgeons don’t just take weeks off when duty calls.”
“True. Not weeks off, anyway. I was already here for a vacation. My practice in Denver shut down because two of my former partners are not only being sued but being investigated by the attorney general for fraud and malpractice. I am not being indicted. I had no knowledge of their situation. But I can’t float a practice alone.”
“And that’s not all, either.”
“My father had a heart attack,” she said indignantly.
“I know, but there’s something else. Something that made you run home, run to your father, who is a remarkable man, by the way. There’s at least one more thing...”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“That little shadow behind your eyes. Something personal hurt you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“A man,” he said. “I bet there was a man. You had a falling out or fight or something. Or he cheated. Or you did.”
“There was no cheating! We just parted company!”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said, grinning at her.
“That’s just plain rude, prying like that. I didn’t do that to you. I was only curious and I asked but if you’d said it was none of my business, I wouldn’t have pushed. And I wouldn’t have given you some bullshit about something behind your eyes.”
“I think I’m getting a name,” he said, rolling his eyes upward as if seeking the answer in the heavens. “Arthur? Adam? Andrew, that’s it.”
She got to her feet, a disgusted smirk marring her pretty face. “Oh, that was good, Calhoun,” she said.
“Frank told me,” he said. “You weren’t thinking of keeping a secret around here, were you?” He laughed, very amused with himself. “And it’s not Calhoun.”
She brushed off the butt of her jeans. “You’re going to pay for that. I don’t know how yet, but trust me...”
“Someone has to teach you how to have a little fun, Maggie,” he said.
“Well, it’s not going to be you, Carlisle.”
He just shook his head and laughed. Then he worked on tilling the garden plot.
To find yourself, think for yourself.
—Socrates
Chapter 4
The days were getting just a little longer, a little warmer. Flowers were starting to sprout along roadsides and trails. It was turning beautiful in and around Sullivan’s Crossing. Sully wasn’t able to plant his bulbs around the house but Maggie did it for him, with his relentless supervision.
Maggie and Sully had been back for five days and she’d driven to Timberlake as many times. First for some fresh vegetables and salmon, then for seedlings for Sully’s garden along with fertilizer, then for some fish and chicken breasts. She went ahead and stocked up on frozen shrimp and ground turkey and she spent a lot of time on her laptop looking up heart-healthy meals.
This was not how Maggie envisioned her escape from reality. She’d been hoping to relax and empty her brain of all those disappointments and worries. But this? She was working her tail off. She was not used to cooking, for one thing. When she was working she typically ate hospital food which, paradoxically, was not the healthiest. It was so starchy, cafeteria quality. It wasn’t the food they served patients, either. If not eating at the hospital, she’d grab something on the way home, something light—there was a conveniently located grocer and deli that sold prepared meals for one. And then there were the times she went out with friends or some of the staff for a meal and they were partial to either sushi or Italian.
But now she was working hard at feeding Sully delicious things to at least intrigue him rather than bore him to death. Before, when Maggie was at the campground, they’d decide what they were having for dinner and meet at about seven, throw a steak, burgers or maybe some chicken breasts on the grill. And they’d eat their meat with fries or potato chips.
She was already tired of this new routine.
She also watched while Cal got the garden ready. This was not his first garden. He created neat, straight rows of slightly raised dirt, ready for planting.
There were two fishermen in the campground and one older couple
in an RV. The couple was interested in getting pictures of the wildflowers that were springing up all over, some even popping through the snow at the higher elevations. Because there was still so little traffic there was a sign on the front door of the store—Winter Hours, 8-5.
After dinner one evening, she walked over to the store to pilfer a beer and she saw there was a campfire on the beach, one lone man enjoying the mild evening. She grabbed two beers and walked down to the lake. He was sitting on top of a picnic table, feet on the bench, his elbows on his knees. His short brown hair was wet, as was the collar of his sweatshirt. He’d had a shower and shave.
“Evening, Caldwell,” she said.
He turned toward her in surprise and she handed him a beer. “Caldwell?” he asked. “You’re getting desperate.”
“That’s true, but not about your name. I’m getting a little restless.”
“Maybe it’s time to go back to work,” he said. He toasted her, clinking the neck of her beer with his.
“I do a lot of chores around this place. Sully has always been a tough taskmaster. I’ve always had to haul stock, sweep, clean, chop wood, dig out trenches, clean gutters, clean that damn bathroom and shower, work in the store, but never what I’ve been doing this time—cleaning house, cooking dinner. I’m already bored with my little housewifely duties and I’m getting cabin fever. I’m sick of heart-healthy food. If I see one more hunk of fish I’m going to gag. Sully said he’s growing fins.”
Cal laughed.
“You think it’s funny? I can smell your bacon before I smell coffee in the morning. I sneaked over to Timberlake for a hamburger today and Sully claimed he could smell it on my breath.”
He leaned closer to her, sniffing. “Yep.”
“I asked him if he had any ideas for dinner and he said he’d like a New York strip, smothered in onions on a hoagie bun.” She took a pull on her beer. “God, that sounds good.”
“I knew it,” he said. “You’re a carnivore.”
“You’re kind of interesting, Caliber. You shower and shave while you’re camping.”
“I wash my clothes and change the lining in the sleeping bag, too. I’m a very clean fellow. Are you ever going to go back to work and leave Sully alone?”
“Gimme a break, I haven’t relaxed a day yet,” she said. “Are you?”
“Sure. I just left a job about six weeks ago. I work. I’m just not working now, except for you.”
“Well, not me, exactly,” she said. “You work for Sully. Have I said how much we appreciate all the free labor? It’s very nice of you to pitch in.”
“I have time on my hands,” he said.
“What was your last job?”
“I was an assistant to an assistant in human resources in a theme park. It basically meant driving a golf cart around, checking on people, helping them fill out forms or taking complaints. Or, sometimes it meant catching them screwing around on the job and reporting them to my supervisor. As little of that as possible.”
“Really? A theme park?” she said, fascinated again. “Which one?”
“The big one.”
“Really? Was it fun?”
“It really was. I applied to the ground crew but there wasn’t anything and they offered me the job in HR. I met all the actors. It was cool.”
“And you quit?” she asked.
“No, I got fired. I was checking someone’s human resources very closely. Not in public of course. Not on the job. It was consensual and private, but word got out. Apparently even adults have to refrain from that. There are rules if you want to work there. Strict rules. More for some than others.”
“They can’t do that,” she said. “That’s discrimination.”
“Not for everyone. Princesses are not allowed to do some things, even on their own time.”
“You were doing a princess? Which one?”
“Get outta here, I’m not telling you.”
“You’re too old for those princesses!”
“Oh, she was a lot older than she looked! Plus, she was an animal!”
“So not only was it a bad decision, you didn’t like it?”
“I never said that,” he said. He grinned lasciviously.
“You’re lying!” she said. “I don’t believe one word of that!”
“Okay,” he said. He took a drink of his beer. “It’s true, though. A very embarrassing situation. We both got fired. I lost a pretty fun job and I think she lost her lifetime dream. I was planning to take a few months off to camp, but I wasn’t planning to start until April or May. I hate being cold. However...”
“Callahan, I think you’re a liar, con man and maybe a predator.”
He just laughed at her. “Seriously, you ever going back to work?”
“I told you, the practice shut down,” she said.
“We both know there are things you could do.”
“I was picking up work here and there from colleagues. I just came to Sully’s for a badly needed break. I packed up a bunch of stuff, left the disposition of the office in the hands of a broker who can be sure the equipment, furniture and supplies are sold or stored, emailed all my colleagues that I was taking a leave of absence. I was burned out, bloody well sick of all the controversy my partners had stirred up and I was exhausted. I was only home for twenty-four hours when Sully crashed. That’s almost four weeks ago. I haven’t thought about anything but Sully since.”
“You can let go of that pretty soon. Aside from being a little ornery and sick of salmon and chicken, he’s doing great.”
“I know. But I don’t know if I want to go back to that grind. Check with me after I’ve actually had some time to think. But one thing I’m not crazy about is being a caretaker the rest of my life.”
“Maybe another residency? A different specialty?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Right now I just want to escape. Have you ever felt like that?”
He chuckled. “I’ve been in your campground for five weeks. Through rain and mud and heart attacks. What do you think?”
“You’re traumatized by the aftershock of screwing a princess?”
“It takes a lot more than that to traumatize me,” he said. He put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay to take a break, Maggie. I’m not sure it’s good for you to obsess about Sully, though. It might be misplaced anxiety. Really, he’s going to be fine.”
“You didn’t see what I saw,” she said.
“No one saw what you saw, honey,” he said very sweetly. “I was right there when they loaded him into the ambulance. You saw your father slipping away. Everyone else saw a cardiac episode. I think you’re a little terrified.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Guilty. I’m not very close to my mother and I have no siblings. And it was Sully. Maybe it’s because I always felt deprived of him when I was growing up—my mother and stepfather lived in Chicago and it wasn’t easy to see Sully. Or it could be that he’s as special as I think he is. You don’t know him that well yet. He’s one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever known. If you were going to be around here longer, like through summer, you’d see...”
“Tell me,” he said.
“Oh hell, where to start. I’ve seen him break up fights, rescue drowning kids and dogs! You didn’t think a dog could drown, did you? He was tangled in fishing line. He’s given refuge to the lost, tracked and killed a bad cat, a mountain lion who attacked a hiker. That almost never happens and Sully got in so much trouble! Took him forever to work through that. But maybe the most important thing he does—he creates relationships with people. Unforgettable relationships. They write him, send him pictures, mention him in their writing, their blogs, long after they’ve gone. They hang out at the store and he listens to their tales from the trails. He gives them tips, does little favors, lets them
charge up their phones and stuff so they can make contact with friends and family. He tells jokes, encourages people, praises them, and most of that without anyone knowing that’s what he’s doing. He lets kids’ organizations come out and camp for free—he’s partial to the autistic kids. Sully relates to a lot of them and I have no idea why. He doesn’t know why, either. He plows in winter—he clears our road and then he goes out to the neighbors who are snowed in and clears theirs. He’s the third generation—his grandfather built the store and Sully didn’t get a son to run it. All he’s got is me. What’s going to happen to this place when Sully can’t run it anymore? Will the next owner carry on that legacy? You have no idea how much Sully is loved. Needed.”
It was still and quiet for a moment. The sound of night birds and crickets and the occasional splash of a fish was all she heard.
He tightened his arm slightly, pulling her a bit closer. “What a lucky man,” he said softly.
“I never looked at it that way, as Sully being the lucky one. I always thought it was the rest of us who were lucky.”
“It’s the rest of you, too. One of the things I think about a lot when I’m alone is what makes a life well spent? It sounds like you described one.”
“Yeah, Sully is very happy. I’d say he’s good at making relationships with everyone. Well, except maybe me. He never tried very hard to make a relationship with me.”
“You? I thought you two were very close.”
“We are, I guess. Except my mother took me away from him. And of course he never came after me. He said I was better off.” She shrugged. “I guess I should get over it by now. Huh?”
He gave her shoulders another squeeze. “Some things stay with us a long time,” he said. “No one knows that better than me, the boy raised on the road by Jed ‘Looney Tunes’ Jones.”
* * *
Maggie had a new friend. The days around the store and grounds were busy but in the evenings, when things were quiet, she wandered down to the lakefront or over to Cal’s campsite. One night she invited him to meet her on her front porch at the house. They talked about their lives, even though she wasn’t sure how much of his was true.