His hands got sweaty, and he almost dropped the heavy lenses.
The one with long blond hair was hurt. On the ground. Crying. His angel. Crying. She’d always been his favorite. He’d loved both of them since the first time he’d heard their childish chatter as they crashed through the trees and underbrush of territory he’d always considered his own. But the shorter of the two had been the one he always sought out first, the one who made him feel warmest inside.
He wasn’t warm now. No, she was shaking so hard it looked like she’d break something. The other one was there, too, holding her. He couldn’t see their faces. If she was that sad here, in the hills, at their cabin, she’d leave.
He had to do something. He had to think.
Lowering the binoculars, he ran back home to make a plan. His tiny cabin was set way back in the woods where no one else had been for almost thirty years.
“THAT WAS STEVE on the phone,” Tina said as she came into the cabin’s living area just before dinner.
With a cup of hot coffee cradled between her palms, Jolene was sitting on one of the two sofas, staring out the windows at the tall grasses and pine trees swaying in the breeze.
“I figured,” was all she said. Jolene had known when they heard the ring that it would be Steve. She’d felt it. She’d let Tina answer it, and then she’d made her mind go blank. Concentrated on the movement of one particular branch, the sudden change in a blade of grass, tried to distinguish between various bird sounds outside the screened windows.
Her love for Steve was destroying her. She had to get away from it—from him—before she lost her health as well as everything else.
They were having a casserole for dinner. The cheeses and tomatoes and oregano smelled just as they always did. They weren’t supposed to be making her sick to her stomach. Still, she hadn’t had an appetite in months.
“He got a room in Edwina,” Tina said.
Only twenty minutes away. Not far enough. She needed distance. Lots and lots of distance. Maybe even a globe’s worth.
Tina sat at the other end of the couch, curling her long legs beneath her. Her sweatshirt had a smudge of dirt angling across the left side. “He agreed to leave us completely alone. He won’t come out here and he won’t call.”
“So he says.”
“Has he ever lied to you?”
“No.”
“He loves you, Jo.”
“I know.”
“I promised I’d call if you needed him.”
“When I find out I’m not pregnant, you mean.”
Tina sighed. Ran fingers through curly honey-gold hair that just grew like that naturally.
“He said it, didn’t he?” Jolene couldn’t let it go. She slid a thumb under the waistband of her jeans, holding the fabric away from her stomach. Even loose, the pressure of the material was uncomfortable. She might have waited too long to take a vacation, however brief. Might already have the ulcer her level of stress was promising her.
She glanced over at Tina, held her friend’s eyes for a long moment. “He did.” She repeated the words softly, a statement with a hint of question.
Please, Teen, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me his concern had nothing to do with medical procedures and test strips.
Tina’s nod almost made her cry.
“WE MUST, WE MUST, we must improve our bust…”
“For fear, for fear, we’ll never wear a brassiere…”
Tina grinned at Jolene as her friend, perched on a ladder in the old shed attached to the cabin, joined in, raising her voice to match Tina’s.
“…the bigger the better, the tighter the sweater, the boys depend on us! Hey, hey, Ma, Hey, hey, Pa, I think I need a bra, Hey!”
She barely got the last word out through the laughter erupting from deep within her. Jolene’s long hair was covered in cobwebs, a smudge of something beige was smeared across her left eyebrow, she had a hole the size of a grapefruit in the knee of her jeans, and her tennis shoes, ironically enough in style now, were the same kind of pointed-toe canvas things they’d worn as kids.
“I can’t believe I still remember that!” Jolene half coughed through her laughter. “I haven’t thought of that song in years!” She was holding a medium-size box she’d pulled down from a shelf near the roof of the shed. And for the first time since Tina had seen her three days ago, Jolene didn’t look so fragile. Maybe today she’d be able to talk her into just getting that damned test—and the finality of its results—over with.
“Are you kidding? You don’t still hear it in your head sometimes?” On her own ladder, Tina grabbed the next can of paint on the shelf, checking to see if it was worth keeping. “I sang it to Thad on our honeymoon. He’d been, uh, enjoying the tightness of my sweater and I told him you’d taught me how to please boys.”
Jolene sat on top of the ladder, ripping open the lid of the box, and laughed again. “I taught you a song, woman!”
“Yeah, well, I had him going for a second there….”
The lid on the can was rusted. Tina dropped it into an old wooden crate that used to hold deer bait. They’d converted it to a trash bin the previous morning when they’d decided to tackle the shed, clean it out and organize it, as a way of thanking Jolene’s uncle for the use of his place. They’d call someone to haul away the crate when they were done.
Thad had laughed at the song, his voice deep and rich with life. And then he’d taken her sweater-covered breasts reverently into his palms and held them. Simply held them. As though cherishing them as a part of her, not as a toy for him…
“Hey, look at this!”
Open box in her lap as she sat, still perched on the ladder, Jolene held out a bent and yellowed paperback book. Tina recognized it instantly.
“Our first romance novel!”
“I had no idea it was up here.”
“Do you remember what it was about?” Tina asked, wishing life could feel this full, this right, on a regular basis.
“Of course!” Jolene thumbed through the pages. “He’s a landowner and he forced her into a loveless marriage….”
“But damn he was sexy, wasn’t he?”
“He sure taught me what I wanted in a man,” she said in a light voice. But then she grew quiet, staring down at the book.
Tina sat on top of her own ladder. “And did you find it?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Jolene looked over, telling Tina something she already knew. “I did.”
“I did, too.”
“So that’s it?” Jolene asked, tossing the book into the trash bin. “We found it, and now we’re done?”
“For me, that’s it.”
“We’re only thirty!”
“You ready to take that test?” Tina regretted the words instantly. She’d been hoping to show her friend that she didn’t have to be done, through, finished. To remind her that the man who’d filled her romantic girl-hood dreams was still here—still wanting her.
Jolene’s expression, changing from sudden outrage to insecurity, reflected the delicate balance inherent in any happy moment for either of them.
“I’m ready to take a walk. How about you?” Jolene climbed down from the ladder. “We’ve made a great start here, but I’m tired of hiding out inside because noises in the woods scare me now.”
Tina joined her. She was tired of being afraid, too.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY HEARD NOISES. RUSTLINGS in the debris of last October’s fallen leaves. But Jolene did her best to ignore them. If she couldn’t find the courage to walk in woods that had always been a piece of heaven for her, then how the hell was she ever going to convince herself she could face that stupid little test strip back at the cabin? Or a life without Steve?
They walked alongside the stream, taking off their shoes and socks, rolling up the legs of their jeans to wade across to the field on the other side. And they found the big old fallen tree that had served many summers as a balance beam. All the times they’d tripped along that tree in their bare, little
-girl feet…
“I dare you to walk across it,” Tina said midafternoon on Thursday as they faced the gnarled and grayed old trunk spanning the rapid, six-foot-deep stream.
“Yeah, like you dared me to get wet that summer you fell in?”
“I didn’t want to be the only one in trouble! Being grounded together would’ve been fun.”
“Instead, I get pneumonia and spend the rest of the summer in bed.” Jolene glanced at the log. Remembered the girl she used to be. “I’m game if you are.”
They made it across. Twice. And halfway across the third time, Jolene’s right foot slipped. Not much. Just enough to make her stomach jump and take her breath away.
“Whoa, baby!” Her voice was shaky as she quickly lowered her butt to the tree. Once she was safely straddling the trunk, she looked up at Tina and grinned when her friend joined her.
“Does this mean we’re back to living life in fear?” Tina was smiling, her voice light.
“No,” Jolene answered slowly. “But growing up means losing the illusions, you know? We’re no longer invincible.”
“Danger’s not just out there, it’s hit home.”
Exactly. “It’s funny, though,” Jolene said. “I would’ve understood fear of being raped or murdered or poisoned by chemical warfare. I never would’ve figured being afraid of myself, afraid for my mental and emotional stability, afraid of noises in the woods.”
“You’re much stronger than you think, my friend.”
Sitting there, watching a light green leaf fall and get swept away by the tiny whitecaps of water, Jolene didn’t feel strong. She felt more like that leaf. Poised above the rapids, waiting to fall, to be pulled under by the current.
“It’s Thursday, Teen,” she said, head bent. “We only have three more days together, and I’m not ready to have you go.”
She wasn’t ready to hurt Steve any more than she had already, either. “I have no problem facing life on my own,” she continued. “I’m ready for it. And in some ways, I’m looking forward to the freedom of being enough just as I am, of not constantly worrying about disappointing the person I love. I…” Her voice trailed off.
“Are you ready, Jo? Really ready?”
Hands on the rough bark between her legs, Jolene stared up at the woman facing her. “Is anyone ever completely ready for anything? How can we be when we don’t know what’s coming next?”
Tina studied her for a second. Shook her head. “You want to know what I think?”
Jolene’s stomach twisted. “Of course.”
“I think part of the reason you’re so reluctant to take that test is that you aren’t ready for it all to be over.”
Maybe. A little. But who could blame her? Endings were hard.
“Well, Teen, if you’re anything to go by—and in my world you always have been—it’s going to take me a lifetime to get over him.”
An animal scampered in the trees behind her. Jolene flinched, she wanted to turn around and assure herself that no danger lurked at her back, but she didn’t. She was strong. She had to be. Or the next few weeks of her life, the next months, were likely to reduce her to nothingness.
“You know, I think I’ve realized something, coming here to the cabin,” Tina said, her knees almost touching Jolene’s.
“What’s that?”
Tina’s short curly blond hair was windblown. Her sweater was oversize and her jeans baggier than she’d worn them in high school, but she still looked every bit the gorgeous cheerleader type that had garnered her any boy she wanted.
“I don’t miss Thad as much as I used to.”
It was a bold statement. A life-changing one? Jolene was afraid to move, to distract her from a revelation that had been years in coming.
“All the talking we’ve been doing here about Thad, the remembering—there used to be an almost debilitating pain associated with it. I feel sad, don’t get me wrong, it’s just…more distant now.”
“And that’s as it should be.” Dare she hope that Tina was finally going to move on? There was still time for her to find someone to love, to start a family, to have the full and happy life Jolene had always imagined for her.
“I’ll tell you what I really miss, though,” Tina said, her chin resting on Jolene’s shoulder.
“What?”
“What Thad and I shared—that togetherness—that knowing there was someone out there who knew where you were, who expected you home, who helped pay the bills and cared if you bought new towels for the bathroom.”
“Someone to have cereal with on the nights you’re too tired to cook or go out or even be sociable,” Jolene added, refusing to turn around when the breeze, or a bird, knocked a twig down from a tree some distance behind her. She could do this.
Tina’s gaze was sharp, her hazel eyes unrelenting as they met Jolene’s. “You can still have that, Jo,” she said. “It’s not too late.”
For a second there, she let herself pretend, imagine, believe. And then she shook her head. “You saw him, Teen. You heard him. Do you really think Steve will ever be happy without a child of his own? A biological child?”
“He’s been happy with you all this time.”
“But do you think he’ll ever give up hoping?”
Tina didn’t reply. She didn’t need to. They both knew the answer.
“And that’s why I can’t stay,” she said, standing. “I can’t live the rest of my life disappointing him. I’ll end up hating him for the way I feel every month when I start my period.”
“But what if—”
Jolene held up her hand. “I can’t live my whole life in fear of what might happen,” she said, waiting for Tina to stand, to turn and head back across the log the way they’d come. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, I’ll take the test.”
Instead of scaring her, which the thought of that pregnancy test had done almost constantly, the plan, clearly stated, gave her a measure of peace.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Tina warned, taking one careful step and then another, in front of her, causing a slight swaying.
“Up in the hills,” Jolene added, not quite as confident as she’d been. “At our special place. Up there it’s easier to believe that life is manageable.”
Tina reached the bank. Hopped off the end of the log. And Jolene stepped forward, the bark solid and scratchy beneath her bare feet. She could do this. Had done it a million times before. Just one small step. And then another.
Lift a foot, put it down. Lift a foot and—
Something scampered behind her and Jolene jerked, arms flying up as she struggled for balance.
“Jo?”
Tina’s cry was the last thing she heard before she landed in water so icy she couldn’t breathe. And then, for a split second, as shock and numbness took hold of her, she was content just to be.
“IT WAS A SQUIRREL.” With both arms wrapped around Jolene, trying to impart some warmth, Tina moved them awkwardly through undergrowth and fields knee-high with weeds, back to the cabin half a mile away.
“S-sounded b-bigger than a squirrel.” Jolene’s teeth chattered so hard, understanding her was a challenge.
“I saw it,” Tina assured her. If they came back to this place in another twenty-five years, would they find as many changes in themselves as they were finding this silver anniversary? “He ran up that double-trunked oak just near the bank.”
“C-close then,” Jolene stuttered. “No wonder so loud.”
Huddled against her, soaked and small, Jolene had never been more precious to Tina. Or as delicate.
“We’re going to be fine, you know,” she said now, as though she was back at the university speaking to a room full of students, needing to convince them that if they’d dedicate their time to research, they would eventually find a cure for cancer. “We made it through separation, starting our periods, acne, and being dumped a week before prom. We’ll make it through this, too.”
If this stage of life required them to be afraid, so be it.
“We’re going to face our fears, you and me, Jo, and we’ll be back here fifty years from now, looking back and applauding. You mark my words.”
“I’m marking.” What she was doing was shaking, from head to foot.
“You aren’t going to get sick on me, woman, you hear?” Tina admonished her.
“Nope. Just cold.”
And underweight. And run-down. And as a robust child, she’d had pneumonia for more than a month after an unexpected plunge in the stream.
Not a believer in much anymore, for the first time in more than six years, Tina sent up a tiny prayer.
TINA WAS SITTING at the kitchen table, two cups of hot chocolate before her, as Jolene came around the corner from the bathroom forty-five minutes later. She felt warm and cozy in a pair of black sweats and an old black-and-white Colorado sweatshirt. Her hair was still damp and she wasn’t sure she’d ever wipe the memory of that freezing water from her mind, but she was pretty much recovered from her tumble. Sitting down opposite her friend at one end of the scarred solid-wood table, she took a long sip of chocolate. It was her second cup. Tina had left the first one on the bathroom counter for her to drink when she got out of the shower.
“Someone’s been here.”
Tina set her cup down, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“It dawned on me while I was in the shower,” Jolene told her friend. “That towel that was outside on the pump when we walked up…”
“Yeah?”
“I had it in my hand when we were leaving this afternoon, so I dropped it on the table out on the porch, right next to the water bowl. I knew if I forgot it, I’d find it there when I emptied the dishwater tonight.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Positive.”
Tina didn’t say anything. Her thumb tapped a rapid pulse against the rim of her cup.
“I’m sure it was Steve,” Jolene told her. “No one else is around and if they were, they’d either leave a note or wait for us to get back.”
“You aren’t scared?”
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