A Light at Winter’s End

by Julia London

  What had happened to Hannah? What horrible thing had made her turn to booze and pills? And had she, Holly, Hannah’s sister, been so self-absorbed that she hadn’t been there when Hannah needed her? That was a painful thought. Holly and Hannah had their differences, but Holly didn’t want to think that had made her blind to Hannah’s troubles. But it had, apparently. She’d been so busy proving to her family that they were wrong about her that she hadn’t seen her sister was suffering a crisis.

  How tragic that someone like Hannah would be reduced to such an incredible state of dependence. Holly was angry with Hannah for what she’d done to her and Mason—nothing could excuse that—but Holly was sad, too. She felt bad for Hannah. She couldn’t imagine the sort of pain her sister must have felt that she’d tried to medicate herself to such an extreme.

  But still … what about Mason? Could Holly, in good conscience, give him back to Hannah, knowing what she knew now? Shouldn’t there be some sort of wait-and-see approach? What if Hannah fell off the wagon? If she did, what would happen to Mason?

  But that meant Mason would be with her … did she want to keep Mason?

  The thought was startling, but it was not entirely surprising. The truth was that Mason felt more like hers each day. He wasn’t hers, and nothing could ever make him hers—she understood that—but somewhere in the last weeks she’d crossed a line from being inconvenienced by him to unable to imagine her days without him. Mason had grounded her. He’d made her feel needed and capable on a level she’d never believed of herself. He was entirely dependent on her for his care. He’d learned to walk and was beginning to talk. He laughed and he loved trucks and he liked to dance when she played piano …

  Maybe Holly could suggest to Hannah that Mason should remain with her until Hannah … until she was sure she would never take drugs again. Was that so unreasonable after what had happened?

  The sound of Wyatt’s truck on the road down to her house shook her out of her thoughts. Okay, shake it off, pull it together, she told herself. She was not going to let Hannah ruin this day, and tossed her phone into her purse. She looked at herself in the mirrored planter and smiled, thinking of yesterday.

  How strange that before yesterday, when Holly had thought of the play date, she’d tried to picture herself with the Marlboro Man while the kids played. She’d imagined a lot of awkward silences, she’d expected tedium, but the day had been anything but. It had been extraordinary.

  She remembered looking at him across his kitchen table with his black hair pulled back and his square jaw and dark blue eyes. She’d looked at the lonesome Marlboro Man who listened to song lyrics and built pergolas and brought firewood to his neighbors, and thought that she’d never met another man like him.

  And then, of course, there had been that kiss. That spectacular, unplanned-for, unanticipated, unlikely, out-of-the-blue kiss. That kiss was chocolate soufflé, it was expensive champagne, it was a warm fire on a snowy winter day. Wyatt had seemed shocked by his own actions. He’d stared at her when he’d lifted his head, clearly stunned by what he’d done, and she’d felt him retreating, felt him pulling away, cobwebs and all, and she’d grabbed him back, had kissed him back. That kiss had been a gold strike, a summer thunderstorm, New Year’s Eve fireworks. Spec. Tacular.

  There hadn’t been another kiss after that, not after the kids were up and running around. But that didn’t mean Holly wasn’t intensely, acutely aware of him. All of him. She’d examined his back and his shoulders as he grilled steaks, and how the muscles moved beneath his shirt, how big his hands seemed next to the steaks. She was aware of his hips, lean and tight, and his thighs, made thick by gripping a saddle … or so she’d fantasized.

  As he cleaned the kitchen while Holly kept the kids occupied, Wyatt had kept looking around for her, giving her that lopsided smile. Something had clicked; a door had opened and waves of balmy attraction had begun to shimmer between them. It had been real. It had been exhilarating. It had been so palpable that Holly had asked if he and Grace wanted to come to her house the following day to play in the big tire tubes that someone had left in the shed.

  “That depends,” he’d said, his eyes sparkling in the light of the chiminea.

  “On what?”

  “On how many of those cookies you’re going to force me to eat. I don’t have a belt large enough to handle it.”

  She’d laughed. They’d said good night, and at her car he’d said, “Keep that guitar handy.” He’d taken her hand, letting his fingers tangle loosely with hers. “’Cause I won’t be leaving until I get a song. Fair warning.”

  Fair enough. Holly tried to remember the last man she’d been this excited to see. She had to go way back, and that man had worn a red coat, had had a long white beard and six reindeer to guide him.

  Wyatt honked as he pulled up to the house.

  “Doo-ey,” Mason said when he saw Wyatt and Grace coming up the porch steps. He was standing at the old heavy wooden coffee table with his two toy trains, rolling them around, crashing them into each other.

  “Hi!” Holly said, and stepped aside, making room for Grace, who entered dragging two pull toys behind her. Holly smiled up at Wyatt. She was astonishingly happy to see him, especially after Hannah’s phone call. “Hi,” she said again.

  “Hello.” A smile creased the corners of his eyes. He stepped across the threshold with a paper bag in one hand, flowers in the other, and a brisk wind at his back. “Grace, you have to share.”

  Grace apparently didn’t think she needed to, because she started running with the pull toys, which played an almost maniacal version of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

  “That sounds like hours of entertainment,” Holly mused.

  “That sounds like I might lose my mind,” Wyatt said, frowning slightly. “They didn’t sound quite so loud in the store.”

  Holly glanced at the flowers he was holding in one hand. “Are those for me?”

  Wyatt looked down as if he’d just realized that he had them. “Yes,” he said, and held them out to her.

  Holly smiled broadly and brought them to her nose, inhaling their fragrance. “Thank you. Come on in,” she said, and walked into the kitchen. Mason and Grace followed in her wake like minnows. She gave them each an animal cracker and shooed them out with their toys. Wyatt put his bag on the kitchen bar, shoved his hands into his pockets, and watched the kids a moment, then glanced around the kitchen. He looked uncomfortable. A little nervous, maybe. She couldn’t imagine why a man like Wyatt would be nervous around her. She, on the other hand, was very nervous. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because she really, desperately hoped she hadn’t imagined everything yesterday.

  “So,” Wyatt said. “This is where you grew up?”

  “Right here in River City.” Holly opened a cabinet and pulled out a vase. The glass was cloudy, probably from sitting in this same dreary cabinet for many dreary years. “I lived here until I was seventeen.” She picked up a cloth to clean it with.

  “Seventeen? Then what?”

  “Then I moved to Austin.” She smiled at the memory of her teenage self, with her big hair and tight jeans. “I loaded up my Volkswagen Beetle with my guitar and a few clothes and off I went in search of fame and fortune.”

  “Really?” Wyatt said, looking interested. He moved deeper into the kitchen but kept one eye on the children. “That’s a big step for a seventeen-year-old. Where did you go?”

  She laughed wryly and shook her head. “To the trailer park on Barton Springs Road, next to the Shady Grove Restaurant.” She glanced back at him. “Remember that little park under the pecan trees? It was sandwiched between all the restaurants.”

  Wyatt nodded.

  “Well, I met a guy who played in a band, of course, and he lived there with a couple of the band members.” The truth was that she’d hardly known Zach. He’d played in a swing band on Saturday nights at the old Rooster Dance Hall, the dive on the edge of Cedar Springs. He had had long blond hair and would drape himself ove
r his guitar as if he could feel the music coming from it. Holly had thought it was very artistlike; she’d been completely captivated, falling in love with him almost instantly.

  Zach had been happy to have her adore him, in spite of their eight-year age difference. He’d encouraged her to come to Austin. “You’ll never get anywhere out here,” he’d scoffed.

  So Holly had packed her things. Hannah had warned her she was making a mistake. She’d stood there at the door of Holly’s room, her arms folded, watching stoically as Holly rifled through her clothes, picking some and quickly discarding others. “You know that if this guy really cared about you, he’d come and get you and talk to Dad himself,” she’d said.

  “He cares,” Holly had insisted. “You don’t understand. He’s an artist, a musician.”

  “Being a musician doesn’t mean he shouldn’t come here and get you if he’s really into you,” Hannah had persisted. “I know that kind of guy, Holly, and I’m afraid you’re going to be really sorry.”

  But Holly hadn’t listened to her sister. She’d had visions of great things happening to her. Love. Freedom to be a musician. Stardom.

  Hannah had been right in the end, as it turned out. Not two weeks later, Holly was rooming with a waitress from a beer joint whom she hardly knew. Her soulful artist had turned out to be a major pothead. He’d been draped over his guitar, not because he was feeling the music, but because he was stoned. He had no money, no plan for his future, and worse, he hadn’t been nearly as interested in creating music as Holly was.

  “Your parents couldn’t have been happy about that,” Wyatt said idly, bringing Holly’s attention back to the present.

  “Oh, that is putting it mildly,” she said with a laugh. “My dad was very unhappy.” In fact, he’d ignored Holly’s note that she’d gone to pursue music and had made Hannah tell him where she was. Holly would never forget opening the door of that Airstream trailer and seeing him standing there. He’d made her come home. Holly’s adventure had only added to tensions with her mother, which seemed to exist like permafrost between them, unchanging, unyielding. “Now all of Cedar Springs will think we’re trash because we couldn’t keep our own daughter home,” her mother had said.

  “It was a dumb thing to do, but at the time I was convinced I had to leave or stay out here and get married. Are you from here?” she asked.

  “Burnet County.”

  “Aha,” Holly said, nodding. Burnet County was just like Cedar County—steeped in ranching and football. “Then you must have felt the pressure to hurry up and pick a girl and marry too.”

  “Nah,” he said, with a shake of his head. “I felt the pressure from friends to have a good time and date as many girls as a I could.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t a problem,” Holly said, smiling at him over her shoulder. “I bet girls were launching themselves like grenades at you.” He smiled back a little self-consciously, but he didn’t deny it. “Where’d you go, U.T.?” she asked, referring to the University of Texas in Austin.

  “Yep. You?”

  “Same here,” she said. “For one and a half years. I wasn’t exactly college material.”

  “That’s because you had a different path,” he said. “I don’t think musical talent can be learned in a classroom.”

  “That was my argument with my mother. I stayed long enough to learn music theory, which helped me a lot. But honestly? I went to college to get away from home.” Her smile turned rueful.

  “I’m sure you weren’t alone,” Wyatt said. “I’d bet half your class was there for that very reason. Gracie, no,” he said through the doorway to the next room, and walked out of the kitchen.

  Holly filled the vase with water and unwrapped the flowers, then set them in the vase. Wyatt returned with both kids, one under each arm. “I thought, with two identical toys, we might have a little harmony, but apparently I was wrong.”

  “Dada,” Grace said.

  Wyatt put them down. “Play nice,” he said to them, and watched them toddle back to the living room.

  Holly put a plate of cupcakes on the kitchen bar and smiled proudly. They were perfectly formed, perfectly iced. “Red velvet,” she said.

  “Wow.” He nodded appreciatively.

  “I used my mom’s recipe. They are the best.”

  “You weren’t kidding about turning yourself into a cook.”

  “Which surprises the hell out of me. It was always a joke in my family that I didn’t know where anything was in the kitchen except the refrigerator.” She opened the bag of things he’d brought and gasped with delight. “Malbec! That happens to be a favorite of mine. And hummus! Yum.” She placed the items on the bar.

  “Shall I open the wine?” Wyatt asked.

  “Yes, I’d love for you to. Look at this! Olives and cheese and crackers too?” Holly beamed at him. She had an inkling that perhaps that kiss had meant something to him, too. “This is going to make my low-rent tuna casserole look a little more uptown. It was my mom’s specialty. Hope you’re okay with that.”

  “I am … definitely okay with tuna casserole,” he said, his gaze on hers.

  Holly felt it again, that electric shiver coursing through her.

  They searched for a corkscrew—an item that was not handy, given her mother’s dislike of alcohol, but one Holly thought she might have found more easily, given the eye-opening number of empty wine bottles in the closet. They found an ancient one in the back of a utensil drawer. It looked hidden to Holly. Was she imagining things now?

  Wyatt had to work it but got the cork out.

  They joined the kids in the living area, and as they drank wine they chatted about everything and nothing, about life, about diapers and walking and the important graduation from bottle to sippy cup.

  Wyatt loved music and was very interested in her career, which thrilled Holly. She felt validated, that she had a career that was not just a hobby but a true and worthy profession. She told him that songwriting had always appealed to her, in part, because she found words fascinating. “It’s really hard for me to choose the right words to convey a lot of emotion in a few lines,” she’d said. “I can’t help but think of all the things I’ve said or didn’t say, and of all the ways I might have said them better, you know?”

  He stared at her. She was afraid for a moment that he thought she was nuts. But then he said, “Yes. I know. I know how much words and their meanings matter. The wrong words can ruin a song. The right words can convey a lot of emotion.”

  “Give me an example,” Holly challenged him.

  “Okay.” He leaned back, thinking. “Paul Anka, ‘Having My Baby.’” He sang off key: “‘Haviri my baby / What a lovely way of sayiri how much you love me…’”

  “Ack, stop!” Holly cried, and laughed so hard that the kids paused in their playing to stare at her.

  “See?” Wyatt said, grinning. “That’s some bad lyrics right there.” His eyes were shining. “Top that.”

  “Okay,” Holly said, ready to accept the challenge. “‘MacArthur Park,’ Donna Summer, ‘Someone left the cake out in the rain …

  Wyatt laughed a deep, rich laugh. He was amazingly different from the man she’d previously thought—he was fun. Imagine, that gruff cowboy, fun! “Yeah, those are some bad lyrics,” he cheerfully agreed.

  “Tell me some good lyrics,” Holly asked.

  “Easy,” he said. “Patty Griffin. Great songwriter. ‘Long Road Home’ is the song. You know that one?”

  “I do,” Holly had said, beaming at him. “Tell me what you like about it.”

  “I like that she makes you think. Give me a minute,” he said, and put down his wineglass. “Okay, here goes: ‘Forty years of things you say you wish you’d never said / How hard would it have been to say some kinder words instead …’“

  Wyatt stopped there and smiled self-consciously. “I don’t think that’s the right tune, but you get the idea.”

  “‘I’ve had some time to think about you / And watch the stone set l
ike a stone …’” Holly finished quietly.

  He held her gaze again, a pregnant moment of silent anticipation that simmered in Holly’s veins. “That’s the tune,” he said. “And you have a very pretty voice, Holly.”

  “Thank you.” She was feeling quite warm all of a sudden, and removed the scarf draped around her neck. “Are you hungry?”

  Over tuna casserole, they covered a range of topics, such as the Dallas Cowboys’ chance at making the play-offs (Wyatt seemed a little surprised that Holly was a knowledgable fan) and the greatest vacation spots. He’d traveled much more than Holly. “Cabo San Lucas,” he said. “You can’t beat it for ambience or things to do.”

  “I’ve never been,” Holly said as she handed Mason his sippy cup of milk. “I have always wanted to go to Scotland,” she said dreamily.

  “Love Scotland,” he said. “I played golf there a few years ago.”

  Holly laughed. “You golf?”

  He chuckled. “Yes. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, eyeing him. “You don’t look like a golfer.”

  “Oh yeah? What do I look like?”

  Holly smiled and took a bite of casserole, studying him.

  Wyatt leaned across the table. “What do I look like, Holly?” he asked again.

  Those blue eyes could entice a woman to do just about anything, she thought. “Rodeo,” she said.

  “Rider? Or clown?”

  Holly laughed. “Rider!”

  He sat back, apparently satisfied with that.

  After the meal, Holly put the kids down for a nap. When she came downstairs, Wyatt was nowhere to be seen. She walked to the sliding glass door her father had installed in place of the old double screen doors and looked out, but she didn’t see him. Overhead, thick gray clouds were sliding down from the north, squeezing the sunlight from the day.

  “I think we need a fire.”

  Holly turned around; Wyatt had come in the front door with an armful of wood.

  “What about the creosote? You said I could set the house on fire.”

  “I told you that to keep you from trying,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t exactly exude an air of confidence.”