The Country Guesthouse

by Robyn Carr

  He was honest with Hannah when he said he’d had a perfect childhood. But he hadn’t mentioned the painful fact that his son hadn’t.

  He didn’t ever talk about it. Sometimes people managed to find out, he supposed because of his ex-wife’s notoriety. She still worked under the name Abrams, though she’d remarried and had two more children. But he didn’t like telling people because the tragedy of it was so overpowering that the look of shock and pity in their eyes was just plain unbearable.

  His seven-year-old boy, Brayden, was playing in the front yard one minute, gone the next. Owen had been putting out trash and straightening up in the garage while Brayden was riding his skateboard up and down the driveway, up and down the sidewalk—he had a three-house distance limit. Owen was organizing because the mess on the workbench and shelves, tools and photography equipment, was all his. It moved around as he slept, he told Sheila.

  It couldn’t have been more than five minutes. He had not heard a car. He came out of the garage and there was the skateboard and no Brayden.

  He’d heard other parents who’d experienced such travesty talk about how everything was a blur, a haze. Not so for Owen. He remembered every detail. Since Owen had been working in the garage and Brayden had not passed by to enter the house, he went in search and found the skateboard a couple of doors down. He called out to Brayden and there no response. Then he knocked on a few doors. Only one family had kids Brayden’s age and they weren’t home, but none of the other neighbors had seen him. He checked, yelling into the house, but his wife said he hadn’t come in. Sheila was making dinner so he raced up and down the street, calling Brayden’s name. It only took a short block and half for him to know—this was not going to be okay.

  The police were called. There were hours of questioning while they assured Owen and Sheila that other officers were looking everywhere: playgrounds, schoolyards, strip malls, empty lots. They gave the police a picture; there was an Amber Alert. Days passed, days of not sleeping, days of crying, trying to comfort his wife, hearing about small leads that went nowhere. At first, Owen and Sheila were treated like suspects. The FBI was called. There was no ransom call. Owen’s parents offered a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for information that led to the discovery of their grandson—money Owen couldn’t imagine them actually having.

  They all lived in constant fear and pain—Owen and Sheila, their parents, their siblings, the neighborhood, the school. The city. Owen and Sheila made public pleas for information, for help. Volunteers manned phone banks and knocked on doors and walked through nearby fields.

  Days and then weeks and then months passed. All the while the police and FBI had certain ideas of suspects but no trace of Brayden could be found. Owen and Sheila couldn’t hold it together. He withdrew into himself, single-minded about finding his son but just not up to any public scrutiny. Sheila, on the other hand, became a PR genius overnight and turned to all the help agencies and organizations that advocated for lost and missing and abducted children. She became vocal about trafficking and abuse and was making speeches and televised public service announcements. She was interviewed on all the major talk shows.

  Even before Brayden’s remains were found Owen knew they weren’t going to be able to keep the marriage together. And then they discovered that Brayden had been buried in the desert outside LA in a place that could have been seen from the road, had anyone been connecting the dots. He’d been dead eighteen months. His kidnapper was one of the police’s prime suspects and was identified and convicted through DNA testing. That brought a whole nightmare of images that threatened to rip Owen’s guts out.

  Sheila took to the public to stir up the outrage and to work to protect innocent children from this kind of trafficking and to make the requirements of convicted pedophiles even stricter, she’d brand their foreheads if she could. She left her law practice and became a full-time advocate. She began getting offers from everywhere, from lobbying groups to commercial television. She made the rounds of talk shows again and spoke to larger and larger audiences.

  Owen couldn’t do it. He needed to be alone. He needed to grieve. He didn’t have any problem with Sheila going that route, making her grief not only public but useful. But he couldn’t. He went to his sister’s house in Denver. He walked through the Rockies and other ranges for a year, his camera in his backpack. He talked to Sheila every few days, cried with her, comforted her and took her comfort.

  And then one day she said, “You’re not coming back to LA, are you?”

  And he had said, “No. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “I understand,” she said. “As long as you don’t blame me.”

  “Blame you? God, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine! I was watching him!”

  “Here’s what we know,” she said so calmly, so sanely. “The monster who took him knew that all the conditions were perfect—no cars, no pedestrians, no one looking out of windows, a tall hedge, a van. He needed ten seconds or less. And since no one on God’s green earth can promise never to look away for ten seconds, I’m going to do everything in my power to make it harder for the predators. To keep at least a few children from going through this.”

  “And a few parents,” he said. He admired her so much. “Please tell me you can forgive me that I can’t go on this crusade with you.”

  “Owen, I love you and I’m going to do this with or without you, but understand something—I never thought I had this in me. But I do. And it matters. It can do good things.”

  “It matters,” he repeated. “It will do good things. Thank you. I’m proud of you.”

  There was one more casualty before life could move forward. Owen’s father, Ben Abrams, died of a heart attack. Brayden had not been gone two years, his remains barely found, and Ben’s heart had been in tatters. From the time Ben’s firstborn grandchild, Brayden, went missing, the victim of a violent crime, Ben had been suffering. His tears had been harder on Owen than his own. Ben had been the sweetest man to ever live; never a temper, rarely a frown. He had been married to his wife for almost forty years and in that time there had been so much love and laughter. Until a monster with no conscience had interrupted their lives.

  Owen held his mother tight and said, “Please don’t leave me. I need you. You have to be strong. You have to live. I think one more loss will kill me.”

  “We will live, Owen. We will live the way Ben and Brayden would want us to live. We will sleep peacefully knowing that they’re together, waiting for us to join them. And they’ll be happy to wait a long time.”

  So it was that twelve years after losing his son, the joy of his life, the great rains and floods of Taiwan kept him home from his trip where he met a pretty and funny woman and her little boy, the boy in leg braces who needed a man and his dog because they were also suffering a terrible loss. It would not be a life-changing event for him—his life was not changeable. But he had a couple of weeks to make their lives a little better.

  Love comes to those who still hope

  even though they have been disappointed,

  to those who still believe even though they

  have been betrayed, to those who still love

  even though they have been hurt before.

  —Author Unknown

  4

  It was not yet seven when Hannah sat on the porch with a cup of hot coffee and watched as Noah moved across the yard to the barn. She had told him very sternly that Owen and Romeo might not be awake and he was not to knock! No knocking! And he’d said, “Okay. I can be really quiet.” Noah crept up to the door and pressed his ear against it and was completely still. Listening. Then he shouted across the yard, “I think they might be awake in there!” And Hannah laughed so hard she was surprised she didn’t slide off the chair.

  Within moments Owen opened the door. He was wearing his sweatpants, a long-sleeved T-shirt and slippers. Yes, old-man slippers, the leather kind that grandfathers on televis
ion wore. He held a cup of coffee. Romeo almost knocked Noah over in his happiness to have a visitor.

  “Let him take a minute to go to the bathroom, Noah,” Owen said. “He’s probably about to explode.”

  “Okay! Romeo, do your business!” Noah raised a crutch and gestured at the yard. As if he understood, Romeo walked out there, sniffing, looking for just the right spot.

  “Did you sleep well?” Owen asked.

  “I did,” he said. “Hannah said I was worn to a nub.”

  “You did have a pretty big day,” Owen said, ruffling his hair. “You ready for another one?”

  “Okay. Without the getting knocked in the lake part.”

  “I feel ya, buddy,” he said. He walked up onto the porch and smiled at Hannah.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but her eyes were full of glee. “I told him to be very quiet.”

  He sat down on the porch chair. “That’s what happens when you make friends with a five-year-old. Did you sleep well?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “And Noah slept through the night for the first time in a long time. I think all that activity is good for his muscles.”

  “Have you had breakfast?” Owen asked.

  “I could make us some. Noah has already had cereal. As you probably witnessed, keeping him in till a reasonable hour was pretty tough. You want some eggs?”

  “Since Noah has eaten, we can have another cup of coffee, comb our hair, lock up Romeo and go to town to the diner. Best breakfast anywhere.”

  “Is that what you normally do?” she asked.

  “I’m known to make an appearance now and then. But after breakfast I’d like to go to an aquatic shop in Colorado Springs. We’re going to get wet suits, me and Noah. I was reading about diplegia. Swimming is great. We could find a pool but look out there, we have the best pool.”

  She was speechless.

  He leaned toward her. “That lake doesn’t warm up until July, I swear. And we can’t get in there and learn swimming and come out with nuts. Well, I suppose you can.” Then he smiled boyishly.

  “Sounds like another very big day,” she said. “When are we going to see your pictures? And what you’re working on?”

  “After a little breakfast and a shopping trip,” he said.

  She stood. “Ready for a little more coffee? And incidentally, my hair is combed.”

  “It looks beautiful,” he said. “I meant to add that.” When she brought back the coffee, he asked, “Did you think about what kinds of things you wanted to do while you’re here?”

  “Besides bond with my new partner? I’d love to do a little hiking but that might not be feasible. I’m not sure Noah is up to a lot of hiking.”

  “The trails are sometimes uneven terrain,” he said. “But we can pick some easy ones and I can piggyback him when he gets tired. If you’ll carry my backpack.”

  “What’s in the backpack?”

  “Guess,” he said with a grin.

  “Of course. You never go anywhere without a camera.”

  “Everything looks like the shot of a lifetime when you don’t have your camera.”

  “I had visions of reading in a hammock...”

  “I’ll put up the hammock,” he said.

  “What made you come here? Build here?”

  “I was visiting my sister and I did a lot of hiking and some camping, though not so much of the latter. Poor woman, I told her I wanted to come for a couple of weeks and I never left. But I had taken over her basement game room—I needed a shop. I stumbled on this land for sale. It was a nice plot with a barn on it. The barn was still in decent shape and I thought I could make it an apartment. It was perfect. Then three years later I built the house, don’t ask me why. Because I could. It’s an investment. I should probably live in the barn and sell the house but I just can’t.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Well, I like it a lot. But the bigger question is, what if I sell it and don’t like my neighbors?”

  She just shook her head. “You’re a very strange man.”

  “I know it,” he said. “I’m going to go put some jeans on. I’m hungry. Does Noah have to change?”

  “No, but I do. I’ll be right with you.”

  Before they left, Owen put Romeo in the barn. “I’ll be back in about four hours.” Then he closed the door. Noah was standing there, openmouthed. “Romeo can tell time,” Owen said. “Know how I know?” Noah shook his head. “If I’m late he gives me the cold shoulder, like he’s mad about something.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what I think,” Owen said. “Let’s get going—I shouldn’t be late getting back.”

  Breakfast at the diner was very successful. Hannah was stuffed. It was so good she kept eating long past the need. She had some kind of breakfast sandwich—eggs, cheese, peppers, onions and sausage inside thick bread that was grilled. It was amazing and she moaned for a half hour afterward.

  The trip to the aquatic supply store was not quite as successful. Owen, at six foot five, was not able to find a wet suit in his size, and Noah, at five years old, could not find one. Only Hannah, who had not been convinced she should have one, found a wet suit that fit. But the manager measured them and said he could find wet suits and have them shipped to Owen’s address. “Priority, please,” Owen said. “We only have a little over a week left before Noah and Hannah leave and we want to get in some serious swimming before that.”

  Then they were off to Owen’s barn to see his pictures. Some of them anyway.

  Hannah didn’t mention that before dropping off to sleep the night before, she had raided Owen’s library. She’d had a hunch there would be samplings of his work and she was right, though they were hardly prominently displayed. Owen’s house had a very small library, possibly eight by ten feet. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves and one overstuffed leather chair and ottoman with a standing lamp behind it and a small table at the right hand. But it was chockablock full of books and she found his lovely narrated photo books tucked neatly into one corner. Trees, flowers, exotic food, native costumes, weddings around the world and, of course, the landscape and wildlife of Colorado. She carried them off to the bedroom to page through them.

  The library had one small sign on a shelf that said “Be so kind as to return books to the shelves and not to your suitcase so that the next guest might enjoy them.”

  The books were beautiful but even more beautiful was Owen’s voice. She could hear him on the page, telling each picture’s story. Nothing serves as a greater illustration of our own existence than the tree, boughs spread wide and curiously reaching, roots deep and firm. There were pictures of lush, healthy forests as well as brutal logging and fires that left hillsides bare. There were images of Mexican maidens who’d married trees in Oaxaca as well as tree huggers chained to trees to protest illegal logging in the Pacific Northwest. People across the globe planted, chopped, destroyed, replanted. Birth, death, rejuvenation. Conservationists rail about the killing of the planet as if they don’t know—the planet will survive. It always has; it always will. Left alone, it will scrub the poison out of its air; vegetation will replace the death of an assaulted earth; animals will breed and populate. It is we who will die. And disappear.

  There was a melancholy in that voice. A sweet, soft vulnerability that probably wooed women everywhere, just as that narrative voice wooed her. She suspected a deep wound. His failed marriage, perhaps. He said they were still good friends, that they stayed in touch.

  When Noah woke her in the morning, she was sprawled out on the king-size bed, lying atop books and dreams. She quickly gathered them up and put them away. Noah had no concept of discretion—he told everything he saw.

  But that visit with Owen’s amazing talent made her even more anxious for an afternoon spent in his shop, looking at his pictures and learning his process.

  The
barn wasn’t huge. Half was his shop—computers, large wide-screen monitors, cupboards, shelves, countertop, easels, storyboards, reams of photo paper, cutters, tools of all types. An archway led to a small one-room apartment behind his shop. He had a bed, sofa, shelves with books, a table and two chairs, a galley kitchen and a large bathroom with a big shower. In his walk-in closet there were drawers as well as rods for hanging clothes and a small stacked washer and dryer.

  “This is amazing. From outside it looks like a small barn, not much more than an oversize shed,” Hannah said.

  “It once held a tack room, supply closet and four horse stalls. Cal Jones has a barn. Huge barn. He gutted it and turned it into a big, beautiful house—five bedrooms and an office, four-and-a-half baths. He works out of his home. If I can think of an excuse, I’ll take you to see it. Amazing remodel.”

  “You could live here comfortably forever.”

  “I know. That’s why I flirt with the idea of selling the house. It feels so self-indulgent for one man.”

  “Noah! Honey, don’t touch that,” she said, noticing Noah’s hands curiously checking out some big lenses.

  “You’re okay, Noah. That’s a telescope. One night when we have a clear sky we’ll get it out and look at the moon and stars.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Really. How’d you like to take some pictures?”

  “Huh? Can I?”

  “Sure. Let’s find a camera more your size.”

  And the hours were eaten up by browsing through pictures, both printed and matted in oversize file drawers and on his monitors, and with Owen showing Noah how to point, focus and snap pictures. Noah’s favorite model was Romeo, big surprise. Then Noah asked if Owen had any peanut butter and jelly.

  “Oh, Noah, it’s after four!” Hannah said. She’d been sitting on the floor near the bookcase, paging through some of Owen’s books—his and those of other photographers. “Good thing you had two breakfasts! We missed lunch. Oh, I’m a terrible mother! Come on, let’s go over to the big house and I’ll make you something.”