by Sarah Price
“Stay out of trouble, Abigail…Vale?”
“What fun would that be.” Abby replies as if they are old friends. Knowing Abby the way she does, Tia doesn’t doubt that she has made it a priority to get to know Jack. And for the first time in her life, despite all of her adventures, Tia feels envious of Abby. When the door closes behind him, Abby wastes no time in bringing up the topic of Jack.
“So, you’ve met Joachim then?”
“Yes. He showed me to my room yesterday.”
“He did, did he?”
Tia can see Abby’s eyebrows raise and a mischievous smile spread across her face as if she is the cat who just swallowed the canary.
“Oh stop that. He knew you were expecting me. He was just being a good host.” Tia pauses and then, without time to think, probes Abby regarding her relationship with Jack. “He thinks the world of you, though.”
“I think the world of him.”
“Does someone have a bit of a crush?” Tia notices the tone in her voice. It sounds playful but underneath, she is annoyed. She wonders what on earth is causing her to act this way. Abby is her friend and Jack, simply a childhood romance. How silly to feel anything close to jealousy. Yet, she realizes, that is exactly what she feels.
“He is just a friend. Not my type really,” Abby admits.
Tia lets out the breath she was apparently holding in waiting for Abby’s answer.
“I am more attracted to the rebel, a bit of a bad boy streak. Joachim is too grounded for my taste. Come to think of it,” Abby says, pausing for the effect. “Perhaps, however, he’s more your type.”
Tia looks at her and frowns. Does Abby know, she wonders.
Catching the expression on Tia’s face and the blood rushing to her cheeks, Abby continues with a question of her own. “So what’d you think of him? “
Rather than have her hear it from somewhere else, she decides to tell Abby about Jack. “I know him.”
“That was fast. Most of the women here have been working all summer trying to get to know him. ”
“No, I mean, as kids. My father knew his father. We spent time together during my summers here except I didn’t call him Joachim. He was Jack to me.”
“Jack, huh?”
“Yes, he wanted me to teach him English and as a tease, I would call him by his American name. It stuck.”
Abby looks at Tia trying to decipher any change in facial expression or shift in body movement-anything to give away her feelings for Jack. Tia makes sure to be still so as not to raise any suspicion.
“It was so long ago. I am sure he doesn’t even remember me.”
“From the way he was looking at you when you walked in, I highly doubt that.” Then, Abby asks. “He’s quite the looker, don’t you think?”
Deep down, Tia agrees with her, but she doesn’t want to admit that to Abby. She feels protective of her memories and doesn’t want that tainted by Abby’s casual teasing. Despite it being there, Tia isn’t prepared to deal with her strong attraction to Jack or the memories of her first love. So instead of answering yes, Tia simply answers with a shrug of her shoulder that she hopes signals to Abby a lack of interest.
“I guess.”
Abby either knows that Tia doesn’t want to talk about it or really believes that she is not interested. Either way, Abby moves on to another topic-still about Jack but not about how much she feels for him. “Well, he’s got quite a story to him.”
Tia tries to sound uninterested. “Doesn’t everyone have a story?”
“Not quite like this.”
Tia struggles with the strong urge of knowing everything there is to know about Jack with her fear of getting to know too much about him. In the end, curiosity wins out and Tia prods Abby for more. Trying to sound casual, she asks, “So tell me, what deep dark secrets does our innkeeper have?”
“Well, for one, he married his childhood sweetheart.”
“He is a dark and sinister soul, isn’t he?”
“Patience, my dear. There is more to the story.”
“More than getting hitched?”
“Yes much more. He married Sarah Oviedo from this village. Apparently, their families are close and they went to school together. Big event right here at the Inn. The celebration went on for days. Everyone was so thrilled for them. They apparently made a very handsome couple. He was happily married for five years”
Happily married? The phrase hangs over Tia’s head like a neon sign. She was once happily married to Michael but unlike fairy tales, they didn’t live happily ever after. Also, it bothers Tia that Jack married and moved on with his life. She knows it is silly to think of Jack staying exactly the same as he did that summer but in her mind, he lives as a fourteen-year old boy who smelled of grass and tasted like sweet grapes. Tia notices that Abby used the word “was,” meaning, just like her, his fairy tale didn’t end with a castle and dreams of forever.
“What happened? The big D?” To Tia, everyone’s marriage ended for that one reason. Misery loves company, after all.
“Worse.”
“I don’t know what’s worse than divorce. I’m certainly living proof of that.”
“The other big D. She died in a car accident.”
Tia’s stomach churns over. She suddenly regrets what she said about her life being so horrible. At the same time, Tia feels an overwhelming sympathy for Jack. She wants to tell him how sorry she is for comparing her life to his. Tia knows how painful divorce can be but she can’t imagine how much more painful it is to lose your spouse, not because you want to but because you have no choice. Abby is still talking, unaware of Tia’s reaction to the news.
“Apparently, she was driving home from the inn late one night when a drunk driver crossed the dividing line and slammed head on into her car.”
“What happened with Jack? He must have been devastated.”
“He was, considering he was the first one on the scene. He left the inn only five minutes after Sarah. He drove right onto the accident.”
“How awful!” Tia gasps, covering her mouth with her hand as the tears well up in her eyes. It’s hard not to feel the pain he must have been feeling. Tia thinks that if anything were to happen to Michael, worse yet, her children, the pain would be unbearable. Even after the divorce, she can’t imagine living a life without Michael somehow in it. She wonders how Jack survived it all and continues to manage the inn, with a smile no less, instead of crawling under a rock, which is exactly what she would have done, exactly what she did do after her divorce.
“They were planning to start a family.”
“Was she…?”
Abby doesn’t need Tia to finish her sentence. Instead, she swears that she sees a hint of pain in Abby’s eyes as she speaks the next words. “No, I don’t think so.”
“This is unbelievable.”
“I know, which, of course, makes him the most sought after man in this province.”
“Jack?” Tia feels her nerves unhinge as she says his name again, accompanied by a momentary sense of panic that he might be dating someone.
“Is that so hard to believe? I mean, Tia, even you can admit the man is handsome.”
“I guess so. I really hadn’t noticed.”
“Sure,” Abby replies with a look that clearly tells Tia she is not to be believed. “He’s something every woman seems to want?”
“What’s that?” Although Tia does not want to hear the reasons why other women find Jack desirable, part of her needs to understand why she still finds herself attracted to him.
“He’s committed. He has loved completely and has lost completely. It’s been three years since Sarah died and he still has not dated anyone and believe me plenty of women have tried.”
“Maybe he’s not ready.” Tia says this protectively. She can certainly understand why he wouldn’t. She had not wished to be close to any man since her divorce from Michael.
“Maybe you’re right. I mean, they tell me he still goes up to the cemetery, the one by that l
ittle church just up the hill. Do you know which one?”
Tia nods. She knows it very well. Her grandparents and her father are buried there, which reminds her of what she has promised herself she would do. She wants to go to his gravesite and have a moment with her dad. Even though it has been years since his passing, Abby feels the loss as fresh as if it happened yesterday.
Abby once again interrupts her thoughts. “He visits his wife faithfully, at least once a week, sometimes even more, with a bouquet of wild flowers from the garden in their home. He’s clearly devoted to her. I wonder what it must be like to be so much in love like that.”
Tia feels emptiness in those words. Never did she imagine that she would no longer be in love with Michael the way Jack is still in love with his dead wife.
“What do you think about me being buried up at that cemetery?”
Tia looks at Abby in shock. She is just getting used to the idea of Abby being sick and hasn’t even grasped yet the thought of her dying.
“To be so close to such devotion. I think my spirit would be happy to see that for eternity.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in those things?” Tia asks.
“I don’t,” Abby replies with a casual shrug of her shoulders. “But still, just in case I’m wrong, it would be nice to be surrounded by love.” And then, just because she is who she is, Abby adds with a wicked smile. “And it would give me something to look forward to…a visit from a hot guy at least once a week.”
Tia laughs despite herself and shakes her head.
A few days later, Tia gets up early, has breakfast and makes the short walk up the hill to the church. Her feet guide her as if they remember the feel of the gravel and the curves of the road. Once up there, Tia asks the woman at the rectory where she’d be able to find the grave of her father, Javier Vale. The lady, whose name, in Tia’s limited Spanish, sounds like “Maria Jose”, gives her a knowing smile and, with hand gestures, tells her how to locate her father’s resting place. Apparently, Tia really doesn’t need to explain to Maria Jose why she is there, as word has spread throughout the small town that Rafael’s daughter is in town to visit. So, naturally, faced with a woman she doesn’t recognize and that speaks with an American accent, Maria Jose assumes the obvious.
Tia quickly leaves the rectory and walks brusquely to the gate of the cemetery, not wanting to lose the visual directions that Maria Jose has given her. It is hard to find her father’s grave. Although it has been ten years since her father died, this is the first time she has come to visit his grave. The guilt of having to miss her own father’s burial now weighs heavily on her.
When her father retired and decided to spend half the year in Spain, Tia promised her parents she would visit often but the demands of a family and a job took up all of her time and, just like she had no time for Abby, she also could find no time for her parents. So when her father died, Tia knew that the right thing to do would be to make the trip to say goodbye to him. Michael was very supportive of her going but at the time, Tia didn’t think it was possible. Her mother said she understood but Tia never got the sense that she did and since that day ten years ago and up to the time of her own death a few years back, Tia’s relationship with her mother was never the same. Now, walking among the tombstones, the tears start to flow and the feelings of letting her father down comes back to her in a flood of emotions. In that moment, Tia realizes that she is here not only for Abby but for her father, to finally say her good byes to him as well.
The cemetery is very old and most of the tombstones loom over the grounds of the church larger than life. Some have etchings with date from the 1800s with words that Tia could only imagine were commonly used to describe the deceased at that time. Taking a moment to translate some of them, words such as “Man of God,” “Deeply Pious,” and “Rest at Heaven’s Gate” come up again and again. Some tombstones are so old that Tia is unable to read the etchings, the writing so faded it is no longer legible in any language.
Finally, Tia comes to the place she has been looking for. The tombstone is barely visible. The weeds and grass are so overgrown that it almost covers the stone-but the name on it peaks through the blades of long grass-“Javier Rafael Vale” and in Spanish, reads “Devoted Husband and Father.” Tia lets out a small cry. She is angry at the neglect of her father’s final resting place and overcome with the grief of her loss that has suddenly resurfaced raw and new after all of those years of holding it in. Although it has been years, being there brings it all back to Tia as if it happened only yesterday. Tia suddenly realizes how much she misses him. She falls on her knees, cupping her face in her hands and begins to sob. She cries for her father, for the loss of her mother and finally she cries for Abby. Tia has tried so hard to hide her feelings from her friend, knowing that Abby needs all of Tia’s strength to face her death but, in this remote place, on top of a hill, with no one to witness it, Tia lets herself go.
After a few minutes, Tia wipes away the tears from her eyes and not knowing what else to do, begins to pull the weeds and grass from her father’s grave. Tia pulls on one weed whose roots are strong. She tries several times without success. Tia nearly jumps out of her skin when she hears a voice from behind her say, “These can be very difficult to pull out.”
Tia turns around and sees Jack standing behind her. She wonders how long he has been standing there, watching her fall apart. She is too ashamed to look directly into Jack’s eyes, feeling vulnerable and still very emotional. She feels embarrassed and foolish at the display of emotion before a man she hardly knows anymore. It takes all of her efforts, but when she finally does look up, Jack looks concerned and his lips curl into a small smile as if to say to Tia that he understands what she is feeling and it is normal to feel that way. In that moment, Tia’s embarrassment washes away and they seem tied together in a common bond of grief.
Jack moves forward, brushing his arm up against her as he passes to kneel down on the ground right next to her father’s grave. He speaks to Tia and asks her, “Please let me do this for you.” She nods in silence, unable to find her voice to speak, afraid that it will crack and she will begin to cry again. She is relieved when Jack does not ask her why she is at the cemetery and why she is so distraught.
Tia watches as Jack grabs the weed in both of his hands and pushes back with all of his strength, grimacing and grunting with every pull. Finally, he manages to pull the weed out. He then begins to clear the rest of the grass that surrounds the tombstone. She watches as he does this. He seems to be completely immersed at the task before him, unaware that Tia is staring at him from behind, noticing his every move, his strong hands working furiously and a look of determination on his face. She can’t get a handle on her thoughts at the moment. All she can think of is how she wants somehow to have him hold her with those same strong arms.
Jack lifts himself up and brushes any lingering grass from his pants with his hands. For the first time since he approached her, Tia notices how he is dressed. He is wearing a blue buttoned down Oxford shirt and khaki pants. He looks even more handsome than she remembers and then suddenly, as if someone is whispering into her ear, Tia is reminded of Abby’s words, “He goes to the cemetery at least once a week in his Sunday best to visit his wife.”
Jack finally speaks, breaking into her thoughts: “It looks much better now.”
“Thank you,” is all she can say.
“It shouldn’t have been left to grow like that.”
“It’s my fault. It’s been years since anyone has visited.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll let Maria know that someone from the church should be taking better care of this.”
“Thank you again.”
Then as if treading carefully, Jack timidly asks.
“Tia, do you remember me?”
Tia has two choices. She could lie, pretend that she doesn’t know who he is and that she doesn’t remember what he once meant to her. It would be so easy to do and then there would be nothing more to say. Just a
quick reintroduction and then move right along. But, Tia knows better than that. She’d never be able to pull it off and, as she feels the heat of his gaze on her face, she realizes that she doesn’t want to try. Instead, she chooses the second option and hears herself answering honestly.
“Of course I do.”
He smiles as though relieved to hear her admit that she remembers. “It’s been too long.”
“Life does that sometimes.”
“How have you been?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest, his gaze still scanning her face as though trying to connect the woman before him with the memory of the young girl he once knew.
“I could be better and you?”
“Same.”
Wanting to change the subject, Tia looks around. “My father was happy here, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was. Very.”
“Did you see him much when he was alive?”
“Every Saturday. He would play cards with my dad in the pub. They were good friends. He talked a lot about you. He was hoping you would come to visit.”
“Yes, I know.”
“He was very proud of you.” The words tug at Tia’s heart. Jack continues. “My father died about a year ago and is buried not too far from here.” Jack stretches his right arm out over her shoulder and points to a few rows of burial plots ahead of her.
“Do you visit often?” Tia asks, not daring to mention his wife by name.
“As often as I can. I visit with my father and then with Sarah.”
Tia remains silent, not quite sure what to say.
“Sarah was my wife.” Jack replies as if to answer her thoughts. She is shocked still by Jack’s candor. Tia finds it hard enough talking about her divorce with Michael and here is Jack talking about his wife as naturally as it is to breathe in and out. He has nothing to hide or be ashamed of it. To him, it is a normal thing to say.