by Laura Kemp
“I love you.”
And then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I didn’t die—but the light at the end of the tunnel did make a cameo appearance in the form of a fluorescent bulb just above my hospital bed.
I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth and drew a dry breath. One wiggle of my fingers told me my wrists had been stitched up. One furrow of my forehead said I had one hell of a goose egg where Red Rover had slammed me into that door frame.
I parted my lips, tried to lick them and opened my eyes. At first, I saw nothing but a bedside tray littered with the things I’d had in my pockets. Next to that was my cell phone and a bouquet of wildflowers with an unopened card that read simply: “Flats.”
I chuckled, my throat raw and wondered what the doctors had been up to.
“Justine?”
I blinked hard, saw my mom seated in a mauve chair, Pam to her left, and thought maybe I’d been wrong about the dying part.
“Thank God,” my mother said while pushing to her feet, coming to my bedside, and taking my hand in hers.
“How did I get here?” I asked, confused.
“Dylan called an ambulance. They met him at the trailhead.”
I tried to lift my hands and found them cocooned in gauze. I glanced at Pam.
“We had to tell them something,” she said. “Not the truth, of course.”
“We said you’d been depressed over a break-up,” Mom offered, and I didn’t know whether to be offended or laugh my head off. Yes…the nurses would be sure to handle me with tender loving care, the pathetic girl who had slit her wrists over a man.
Another glance at Pam and she pressed her lips together, patted my hand, careful not to disturb the gauze.
“Pam and I were catching up,” Mom added, as though she and my father’s mistress, side by side and together was as ordinary as spending the night in intensive care.
“Adam?” I croaked out, hating the sound of my voice.
Pam got up, came to my bedside. “He’s in the waiting room. Has been since they brought you in.”
I frowned, thinking of what my loved ones had been through while I’d been in la-la land. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Pam said. “I’m so glad we have you two back, safe and sound.”
“Although it was touch and go with you for awhile,” Mom offered, her tone unsure and I fought the urge to apologize again.
“Rocky?” I asked them.
“Is fine,” Pam smoothed my hair from my forehead and I instinctively glanced towards Mom. She smiled, something of the woman I’d seen in the wedding album still there after all these years.
“How much did you two know?”
“I knew about as much as Pam did. Robert—” A slight pause and I wondered if his name was still a tender spot between them. “He didn’t want us to worry.” Then, to Pam, “Did he?”
“No,” she answered.
Mom looked down, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps relieved or distressed or still in mourning for the man who had married her in the country chapel, just as Pam might be for the lover that had found her in his silver canoe.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Pam offered, stepping towards the door and I knew she was leaving to check on Adam.
Once upon a time, being alone with my mother would have terrified me, but now I found a strange peace as she pulled the mauve chair to my bedside.
“I met Dylan.”
I looked up, my face hopeful, “Is he okay?”
“A little banged up but it doesn’t hurt the eyes much.”
I blushed, thinking about what he’d said in the woods, wondering if it would change anything between us.
“Where is he?”
“He went home to shower and change,” my mother paused, pleased with something and I could hardly imagine it had anything to do with me. “He slept here all night, you know,” she motioned towards the chair Pam had just vacated. “In that.”
“Mom…”
“You did good, Muffet.”
I felt my eyes water, wondering why her opinion mattered so much and realized it always had, from the time she’d charged full steam into single motherhood to the awkward dance we’d done ever since.
“Your father would be proud.”
I looked away, unable to answer as she reached out again, squeezing my shoulder.
“You loved him so much…more.” She paused. “Maybe I was jealous. I never understood it, never heard the things you did or saw the things you seemed to see.”
“Mom—”
“But I guess I didn’t want to get close to something I could lose.”
I closed my eyes, wishing away her words and at the same time holding them close.
“I should have been there when you were afraid—when you needed someone to comfort you,” she stopped, and I thought I heard her voice catch. “To tuck you in at night.”
I turned my head, the tears flowing now as I thought back on an eleven-year-old used to her father’s goodnight kisses climbing the steps alone, a mother at the bottom telling her to set her alarm clock so she wouldn’t miss the bus.
“We can’t go back and change the past.”
“I know,” she nodded, her face marked with a type of happiness I’d never seen before. “But I’d still like to change the future.”
I looked at her, tall and slim and still pretty, her blonde hair the same color as mine and saw myself in her for the first time.
“You can start now,” I smiled, tugging at the covers on the side of my bed, throwing them back in a way that said she could straighten them, pull them up to my chin, and kiss my cheek before turning out the light.
And she did.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The old man was sitting by my bed—waiting before I even opened my eyes and I saw his face, remembered it from somewhere beyond the moment and knew he was a friend.
I sat up and he smiled, his amber eyes crinkling at the corners before I was able to remember. His gray hair had a startling effect, as did the clothes that seemed to come from another era.
“Jamie?” I asked, and he nodded, his face a mixture of resignation and relief. “How can you be here? I thought—”
“That I was dead?”
“Yes,” I said, guilt causing me to look down and fiddle with my gauze.
“Takes a bit longer than a day to undo a hundred years,” He got up, walked with a shuffling step to the window and pushed aside the curtain with a finger. “And besides, I wanted to thank you while I still had the chance.”
I didn’t want to ask him but knew I had to. “Your father?”
He put his hands in his pockets, leaned against the window. “He’s gone.”
“And my father?” I asked, looking past him.
He shook his head, his kindness displayed plainly now, and I wondered if it had been hard for him to pretend to be something he wasn’t. Or if he’d been fighting the darkness that had consumed Henry Younts. “Pa and him met up in the woods and—” He paused, unable, or unwilling, to continue.
“My father is dead, isn’t he?”
Jamie looked up at me and for a moment I thought he might tell me it was all a cruel joke and Robert Cook was waiting down at the diner in the corner booth, ready to share a coke and cheeseburger. And even though I could have imagined a thousand things I would rather be doing with Dad, the thought of sharing a simple meal hurt the most.
“I saw his picture in the newspaper downstate,” I said. “That’s why I came. During your big snowfall. In the hardware store—”
The old man held up a hand and I stopped. “I think he wanted you to see. Only you. To get you here. But he’s gone, Justine. Forever.”
His words left me reeling, even though I’d known if Dad had been alive he would have fought to protect his children.
“Where did Henry Younts…leave him?” I asked, wanting that much at least.
“Pa never told me. I never wanted to know. It was the same way with
Butler.”
“Jamie—” I began, my eyes welling up with tears, thoughts of Dad and his paints and his strong arms putting me in the crook of that hollow tree swirling like a fog suddenly lifted with sunlight.
“He was a Cook. And because of that a little bit of the man who loved Odessa lives in you and always will.”
“Don’t—” I began, too weak for grief this strong. “Not now…”
Jamie nodded, came towards me and touched my arm. “Just know that he loved you and your Mother very much. He never wanted to hurt you. Or leave you.”
I wiped at the tears, “I know that now. Thanks to you. And I’m sorry…for what happened to you and Esther. Maybe I’m even sorry for what happened to Henry Younts.”
“Don’t be.” He stepped back from the bed, darkness blurring his features and I wondered if that was how he wanted it. “You did what needed to be done. What should have been done if things hadn’t gotten so”—he paused, searching—“out of hand.”
“He loved Odessa.”
“No more than his pride.”
I waited, then realized he was trying to make sense of the man he’d shared so many lifetimes with and gave him a moment.
“I did my best to help you,” he stood looking down at me, an old man who would soon get the answers he sought. “Even when I thought Pa might find out.”
“Karen?” I asked, wondering what had happened on that dusty road in the black Jetta.
He nodded, ready to talk as well. “I got close to her on purpose until Pa said it was time to end it and I just couldn’t…kill her like that. So, I took off, thinking we could run away or I could take her somewhere but he came out of the woods, stood in front of the car with his shotgun and I had to swerve… I had to, Justine—or he would have killed her on the spot.”
“And when you saw my scar that day at Three Fires—”
He touched his forehead. “I knew Pa had made a mistake. But the images came to him in bits and pieces. He couldn’t see clearly until you and Adam were together. He was like a predator stalking his prey and the scent was stronger. And I started to feel myself turning,” he paused. “Becoming more like him. But I fought it, Justine. You have to know that. I fought it with all I had—”
“Jamie—”
“I should have tried harder to save her, to save Suzy Marsh, to save you.”
I smiled at him, grateful. “You did more than enough.”
He looked away, back towards the summer day dying slowly outside our window. “But was it enough? Do you think—to see Esther again?”
I looked over at the bedside tray—at the things that had been taken from my pockets and saw the cameo amongst the clutter of insignificance. Reaching out, I took it and brought it into the light where he had to bend close to see. At once his face changed, and he held out his hand asking to hold it and I placed it in the center of his palm, folded his fingers around it.
“From her?” He could hardly ask, his eyes going soft at the memory. “She was wearing this the night we met. At the barn dance, in Millersburg.”
“She’s in a good place,” I said, knowing it was true. “And she’s waiting for you.”
He opened his hand, looked down on the cameo. “And I’ve been so long getting around to it. She must be pretty mad by now.”
“Tell her you had to wait on me.”
His laughter swept the room before tapering into a gentle cough I knew would get worse as time wore on and I wondered where he would go and how he would spend his last days and with whom.
“Thank you for this.” Then, sensing my thoughts, “I’d best be moving on before someone catches wind I’m not your Uncle Rex from Indiana.”
I smiled, watching as he worked the cameo between his fingers before sliding it into his pocket, and I reached out to him, my arms open as he stepped into them, bending as best he could, and felt like it had always been meant to be.
We stayed that way for several seconds before I felt someone enter the room, someone I’d been waiting for since the beginning and I wanted to hold onto this moment before he slipped away forever.
But I did let go as Jamie stood upright, Dylan just inside the doorway.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Dylan began, not recognizing the elderly fellow who’d been embracing his girlfriend.
“Was just leaving,” Jamie spoke, his voice very much the same and I saw Dylan pause, focus on the eyes before taking a cautious step backwards.
“Stoddard.”
A slight nod of acknowledgment. “Locke.”
An awkward silence descended, one in which all of our unspoken thoughts seemed to gather in the air.
“Thank you,” Dylan finally said. “For what you did out there.”
The old man nodded, dropped his hand to the pocket where I knew he would touch the cameo again. And again, when the darkness came for good.
“I loved Karen.” A slight pause. “And a part of me was glad she found you,” he stopped again, coughed into his fist. “If she had been who I thought she was, done what she was meant to do…it would have hurt her to see me like this.”
I looked at Dylan and admired the courage it took for him to listen.
“Believe me when I say I never meant to hurt her.”
“I do.”
“The accident—”
“Doesn’t matter anymore.”
The old man turned towards the door. “I suppose you’re right.”
And with that simple statement, Jamie Stoddard walked out the door and down the long, paneled hallway and I was left with a heaviness that would mark his place in my life for a long time to come.
“J?” Dylan’s voice reminded me of where I was, how much I’d missed him, and I turned, found him sitting on the side of my bed and began to cry because I was so happy.
He bent over, cupped the side of my face and kissed my forehead. “Please don’t.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s over, baby.”
“I know,” I sobbed, and as I bawled he did the best thing a boyfriend could do—he crawled into bed and held me.
And so, we remained as he told me about how he had traced my cell phone to the farmhouse, how he had heard the gunshots coming from the woods and had taken off at a dead run, certain that Red Rover had killed me.
“Did I forget to tell you I know how to shoot?” I teased.
He smiled in return. “You might have.”
“I was afraid you weren’t going to get there in time,” I confessed. “I broke that branch at the Ocqueoc trailhead.”
“I saw it. But you shouldn’t have started without me.”
“I had to. Red Rover was right behind.”
“I know, but—”
“You stopped the bleeding,” I reminded him.
“Barely,” he caught hold of my right hand, squeezed gently. “When you passed out I thought”—a quick shake of his head—“I don’t want to think about what I thought. I carried you that way up to the trailhead.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve never seen someone lose that much blood and live to tell about it.”
“I did,” I turned his face to mine. “Thanks to you.”
He didn’t move at first, just looked at me as he had the night he’d let my name dangle between us like a chime in the breeze. “Just don’t ask me to do it again.”
I felt my chest go hot and wondered if I would ever tire of being in love with him.
“I heard what you said.”
He closed his eyes, a slight smile making his lips that much more appealing. “I wasn’t sure if you did. But I meant it just the same.”
One inch closer and his mouth closed over mine, a feeling of completion making me heavy and lightheaded. Moments later he broke contact, sank back into his position with I could only assume was weariness and asked, “What do we do now?”
I knew he wanted to know if I could stay in Lantern Creek—and I fought hard not to mention a cute bungalow in New England, the
novel I hoped to write someday, and his job with the local athletic department.
“I can’t leave,” he said.
“Can’t?” I asked. “Or won’t?”
I felt him tense up, draw back. “Dad’s sick.”
“I know.”
“I need to help Mom and Avery.”
“You need to make your own life.”
“I have. And it’s here.”
“That’s great,” I said.
“But not good enough.”
“No,” I began, hoping a subtle change of subject would put us back on track. “I think it’s good you became a cop when you couldn’t be a lawyer.”
The look on his face told me I couldn’t have shoved my foot any further down my throat.
“Dylan—”
“It’s okay,” He laughed it off. “Going to law school was never my thing.”
I paused, began picking at the gauze around my wrists again. “What is your thing?”
He looked at me, unsure if this line of questioning could be trusted. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” I persisted, wanting him to open up. “I mean the thing you would do if you knew you couldn’t screw it up.”
He shrugged, as though what he wanted wasn’t worth telling. “I don’t know…I guess I always kind of wanted to be a history teacher.”
I smiled, loving the image, feeling the warmness in my chest that meant it was right. “Why didn’t you?”
He chuckled, “Have you met my mother?”
“Once.”
He smiled. “Then you get it.”
I touched the side of his bruised face, pictured him grading papers at a cluttered desk, pushing a pair of reading glasses up from the bridge of his nose, students waiting outside to ask him about an upcoming test and it seemed as natural as anything I’d ever seen him do.
“You can do it, Dyl—we can do it.”
“No, I can’t.”
“But you had a scholarship.”
“For sports,” he corrected, his tone telling me the last place he wanted to be discussing his educational future this was in my hospital bed. “I can’t hack it, J. Wasn’t making the grades before Dad had his stroke so like it or not I’m never going to be anything but a hick cop and the woman I marry has got to be okay with that.” I felt him watching me and shrunk under the gravity of his statement.