by Laura Kemp
“Is that a proposal?” I asked, then wished I hadn’t.
“Is that an answer?” he shot back.
“Dylan—” I began, miserable with the turn our conversation had taken.
“We came together for a reason,” he said, his voice resigned. “And now it’s over.”
“It was more than that.”
“Was it?” he asked. “Can we really go back to being a normal couple after all the shit we’ve seen?”
I felt my hands start to shake, the hands that were bandaged from thumb to forearm and wished for an instant that I’d died in the woods. “Why are you doing this?”
He put his head down, touched my gauze. “I know there’s so much more you want to do, so much more you deserve.”
I slumped back against the pillows, wishing we’d been content to snuggle and kiss and keep our big mouths shut. “I want you!”
“Then you get Lantern Creek and Three Fires Lodge and tending bar with Mallard Brauski as part of the package.”
I looked away, my heart broken. “You make it sound so glamorous.”
“I’m not trying to make it sound like anything other than what it is.”
“I can find a better job.”
“Where?” he demanded. “You’re talented, J. I read some of the stuff you keep in your journal. Sooner or later you’d get sick of this place and you’d hate me for making you stay.”
“Don’t do this,” I whispered. “You wanted me to stay—”
“I did,” he agreed. “But it’s pretty obvious you don’t.”
“I never said that.”
“I can’t let you plug yourself into a life meant for someone else.”
I bit my lip, stunned. “You mean Karen?”
He didn’t answer. The silence was potent and full and wet and heavy and I felt my throat clogging. “You wanted this with her?”
He didn’t argue and at once I felt him draw closer, felt his face against the side of my own.
“Come downstate with me,” I urged, reaching out to touch his arm. “Try school again. Do something for yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“Dylan—”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his fingers in my hair, pushing it back from my forehead.
“So am I,” I said, the poignancy of the evening somehow spoiled as I thought about our bungalow and the ocean birds gathered above it, light pouring over me from a southern window we would never get to see.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I came home on Wednesday morning and spent most of the afternoon waiting for my life to go back to normal. Holly was there with bells on, ready to cheer me with stories about what she’d done in my absence, the least of which was sprucing up the apartment for my grand return.
I looked around, sniffed the air, and had to admit she’d done a good job.
Clean litter box or no, it didn’t take long for my melancholy to return.
“So, what are you and Dave gonna do?”
She didn’t answer at first and I wondered if she knew about Dylan and the proposal he’d yet to extend to the girl who’d better get used to living in a crappy town with a hick cop.
“I was gonna talk to you about that.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “You were?”
She smiled, her excitement barely under wraps. “He asked me to move in!”
I felt a lead weight settle in my stomach and sat down on one of our wobbly stools as she placed a plate of spaghetti in front of me.
“The bigwigs at camp offered me a job through the winter. With the extra money we’ll be able to buy off his house and…” she paused, blushing for the first time. “Who knows?”
“Oh, Holl,” I said, rolling a bunch of noodles around my fork, happy she’d gotten the ending I’d wanted. And jealous. “That’s great.”
“Yep!” she squeaked, clapping her hands. “Once I move in you and Dylan can come over on Friday nights and play euchre!”
Ah, the sweet domestic bliss of it all. “That’d be swell.”
“He has a hot tub, too. Ooo, la la.”
I shook my head. “Hot tubs give me a rash.”
One glance at me and she knew something was off.
“You’re moving in with him, right? I never would’ve said yes but Dave was sure Dylan was getting ready to ask you.”
I smiled.
“You’re gonna say yes, right, because if you even think about turning the meathead down I’m calling Jen Reddy and—”
“Stop, Holly.”
She paused, really seeing my misery for the first time, and came around to my side of the bar. “What’s going on?”
I looked down, still miserable. “I want to go downstate. He doesn’t.”
She grimaced like she’d gotten an ice cream headache. “So, you’re just going to break up with him because of a stupid thing like that? Can’t you just pretend you like it here in Lantern Creek?”
“I do like it—”
“No, you don’t,” she shook her head, not angry, just pleased with herself for being so intuitive. “You just came up here to find your dad and now that you saved the world from that Preacher turned ‘Walking Dead’ extra you’re gonna bail on us. I get it.”
“My Dad died here,” I said—not angry either. “No…let me rephrase that- he was murdered here.”
“Squirt—”
“Oh, and his mistress would end up being my boss for the next twenty years, and if I get tired of that I could tend bar with Mallard Brauski, maybe work my way up into the upper tiers of tavern management and sling cocktails on band night.”
“Come on—there are other jobs—”
“Not at the newspaper. I’d have to figure something else out.”
Holly laughed, put her arm around my shoulder and touched her head to mine. “All right, already. We have the list of cons. So, what are the pros?”
I smiled, looked up at her. “Well, you of course.”
“That goes without saying.”
“And Adam. I mean, it would be great to have a brother.”
“Sure…and you can’t beat the scenery.”
I laughed, thinking the same thing she was. “He doesn’t want me to stay.”
“He’d go nuts without you.”
“You think so?” I asked, knowing full well I’d go nuts without him.
“I know it. And the last thing Dave needs is a depressed buddy so please give it a shot up here.”
“He wanted this life with Karen, not me.”
She grimaced again, this time in pity. “That’s not true. I saw them together. It wasn’t like the two of you are. Sure, they had to hide it but still…he loves you, Squirt. Really and truly loves you.”
“Sometimes that’s not enough.”
She let out a little huff, defeated, and decided to change the subject. “I can’t believe what friggin’ happened out there.”
“Neither did the hospital. They put me on a suicide watch.”
She shook her head. “Word on the street is that that Mr. S was poaching on state lands and had a hunting accident.”
I cleared my throat, my thoughts flying to all the things Jamie hadn’t told me.
“And that his son took a job in Florida.”
“Now that I can see.”
Holly laughed, and I was reminded of my first night in Lantern Creek when I’d gone looking for ghosts at the Presque Isle Lighthouse and found Dylan instead.
I thought back on that moment of first meeting and wondered if it looked anything like the barn dance Jamie had spoken of, a moment of lantern light and swirling skirts and Esther Ebersole’s cameo brooch.
Had they loved each other at first sight? Or had their feelings grown over time like Odessa and Butler’s did while planting the vegetable garden?
“I need to go,” I said to Holly while pushing to my feet. “Take a drive and clear my head.”
“You okay?” she asked, genuinely concerned.
“Not really,” I replied. “B
ut happiness is overrated.”
Moments later I’d changed into long pants and tennis shoes. Grabbing the keys to the Jeep, I headed for the door as the sun began its slow descent into the western forest.
I drove in silence to Back Forty Farm, a feeling of calm holding me in a warm grip, and when I got there I began walking towards the lavender field. Stopping just short of the oak tree, I saw that the leaves were starting to wither and curl and knew it was dying.
And that death was just the beginning.
HEY, SIS
I smiled, happy I could still hear him. Happier yet that I could speak to him without having to hide it.
“How did you know I was out here?”
YOU SERIOUS?
I didn’t look at him, knew he and Rocky were standing just over my shoulder and put out my hand, which he took with care. Turning towards the road, I knew it must have taken him at least a half hour to walk here.
“Your mom know where you are?”
He smiled. I’VE BEEN KNOWN TO SNEAK OUT
I returned his smile, thinking that Pam probably knew more than we gave her credit for.
“Where do you think Dad is?”
My brother didn’t answer and so I looked at him, saw his eyes scanning the forest and after a moment they came to rest on something, and so I followed his gaze, amazed at how the colors had changed in so short a time. But autumn came early to the northern woods and had transformed three hickory trees into a cluster of yellow paintbrushes.
I smiled again, my prayers about a second spring coming to these woods realized and I knew if my father could have chosen a place to be buried, this would be it.
Adam’s hands sought the necklace from around his neck. The next moment he was placing something in my hands.
I looked down, saw my own necklace and almost wept.
“How did you find this?”
I LOOKED FOR IT
I laughed, tears of joy mixing with my grief as we held them in our hands before making our way to the woods. We stopped beneath the hickory trees and knelt, our hands digging in the soft earth, making a place for the silver necklaces that fell from our fingertips.
And in this way, we buried our father, taking all the best he had given us and laying it to rest in a place of beauty, words of thankfulness skipping like a stone from my brother’s mind to my own as we imagined the man we’d never known—the man who had gone into the woods and never returned.
We sat until the moon began its climb and hung from the oak tree’s grasp like a glass orb, and I wondered what sort of life had been made in the house it shadowed. And at what cost.
One touch to the shoulder and I knew it was time to go.
I stood, looking at the brother I loved more than I ever imagined, and turned toward home.
* * *
That night I dreamt of Butler, saw him gathering earth and carrying it to the yellow wood where we had buried the necklaces. Once there, he knelt, drew a circle and touched the center of it. Standing once again, he turned to look at me and I felt his reverence for this place, his gratitude for what I had done for him.
I saw him straighten his shoulders and realized he was quite tall, saw him turn his back to me and walk away into the night and I hoped his life with Odessa was as happy as I imagined Jonas and Esther’s would be.
Which reminded me of my own romantic troubles as I sat up in bed.
I looked at Dylan lying beside me and wondered if Holly was right about how much he loved me.
Because I wasn’t sure he wanted me to stay. Because it would have been easier to stay if he’d wanted to go.
Knowing sleep was futile, I got out of bed.
“Justine?” he asked, more alert to my movements now than ever before and I bent over, kissed his bare shoulder while wondering if he would pull me down—ask me to make love—but he didn’t.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted that, either.
So, I walked down the hallway and sat curled up in the La-Z-Boy, wondering where I would be tomorrow when Holly moved out and if Joey would have a proper place to hang his scratching post. I sat as the clock ticked off an hour, then another as my boyfriend slumbered on.
Or so I thought.
“What’re you doing?” he asked. I swiveled and saw him standing beside me, all sleepy eyes and messy hair, my favorite boxer shorts hanging low on his hips and wondered why he had to look so hot at a time like this.
“Just thinking,” I sat upright, pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on top of them.
“About what?” He came and sat cross-legged on the shag, his blue eyes resting on me in a way that seemed resigned.
“Tomorrow’s my birthday,” I said. Not wanting a pity party or a cake with presents but wanting to acknowledge something that was real and beyond our troubles.
“I didn’t know—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “We had other things on our mind.”
He laughed softly. “We did. And we do. And you need to tell me what you’re really thinking about.”
“You know,” I answered, absentmindedly picking at my gauze, wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped the bleeding; if everything had ended then and there.
He nodded but didn’t look at me. “You’re going to go.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
He glanced up, his eyes hopeful and I hated him for it.
“I want you to come with me.”
“Justine—”
“I want you to want to go.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to me.”
He looked away again, didn’t try to explain because he’d already done that in the hospital. “So, what now?”
I turned my cheek into my knee. “You get the life you wanted.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t fit here anymore. It’s done.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
I didn’t argue. I had no strength for it. “You were right.”
No howls of despair or pleas to the contrary from Deputy Locke, and I hated him for that, too—hated the way he could let me leave town without a fight when he’d almost died for me in the woods beyond Ocqueoc Falls.
“When?” he asked, and I felt my throat closing on itself, picked at the gauze again and wanted to rip it off, open the wound.
“Holly moves out tomorrow. I guess I will, too.”
“Some birthday.”
“It won’t be the first time.”
He cleared his throat, his eyes still down. “I’ll be at work.”
I swallowed, unable to hide my despair. “I’ll leave the Jeep at the lake house.”
He shook his head. “You’re not driving the Heap.”
If his words were meant to sway me with chivalry, they did just the opposite. “Don’t worry about it, Dylan. I’m not your problem anymore.”
He didn’t react visibly to my words, but something in the way his shoulders tightened told me I’d hurt him. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”
I sat, rubbing my cheek against my knee as tears welled over my eyelids, wanting to tell him I didn’t mean it and wanting him to feel the same pain I was. And so, I said nothing.
“Hang onto the Jeep until you get to where you need to go. It doesn’t matter to me,” he stopped, cleared his throat and I wanted to curl up in his lap and hold him close so I would remember what he felt like on the lonely nights to come. “You matter more. You’ve always mattered more and I’m sorry I can’t make you believe that.”
“Don’t,” I got out of the chair, went to him on the floor as he folded his arms around me, rocking me as he had at the Falls, his face against my forehead and I felt something touch my skin, something wet and realized he was crying, too. “I meant it when I said this was enough.”
He pressed his mouth to my temple in a quick kiss, arms tightening as they had the night I’d jumped out of Jamie’s truck in the pink f
lip flops he’d dared me to walk home in. And I wondered if I would have done things differently knowing what I did now, taken another road to another town or simply stayed put, always missing the place he had filled in my heart but never knowing why.
“No,” he finally answered. “It wasn’t.”
Chapter Thirty
“Anyone know where I can get a good burger?”
I waited, my hand on the screen door as I surveyed the dark interior of the bar I’d come to love and spotted Mallard’s white muscle shirt at the end of it, Iris seated on the stool just in front of him.
“Well if it ain’t the ugliest barmaid this side of the forty-fifth,” Mallard shouted. “Pam said you might be comin’ ‘round to say goodbye.”
I nodded, tried to be brave and smile and act like my heart wasn’t breaking when just that morning I’d walked away from the love of my life for reasons only my feminine pride could answer.
“I’m all packed,” I chirped, daring a glance at Iris, wondering where she had been in the last few days and why she hadn’t dropped by or sent flowers or cooked me supper. Mallard just ambled to the screen door and glanced at the Jeep.
“You keepin’ the wheels?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Put out for it?”
I wanted to smack him across the back of the head for asking such a question in front of my grandmother.
“None of your damn business.”
He swung the door open, pushed past me while saying, “Just gonna check under the hood to see if she’s sound.” Then, over his shoulder, “Fix her up a plate, Iris.”
I’d never seen my grandmother take orders from anyone and was mildly surprised when she got off of her stool and went around back. Moments later the smell of sizzling hamburger met my nostrils, making my mouth water.
“Where you off to now?” she asked, her back still to me.
“Not sure,” I spoke above the sizzle, disappointed we wouldn’t be sharing that glass of lemonade after all.
“Doesn’t sound like such a nice place.”