Just One Thing

by Holly Jacobs

  Lee laughed as he hugged her. “I used to spend my summers at my grandfather’s. Grandma would let me and John out after breakfast, then let us back in at bedtime. We did all sorts of things that would have turned her hair grey, but she never asked and we never told, so it all worked out.”

  “I’m not sure the neighbors would appreciate me just turning the heathens loose on the neighborhood for a whole day. Mrs. Mickey, next door, already calls me every other day to complain that the kids’ balls are in her backyard.”

  “I was thinking maybe we should buy some land and have a summer cottage. The kids could run the woods to their hearts’ content and there’d be no neighbors to complain. And might I add, no very tempting garage roof.”

  Lexie knew her husband and so knew that glimmer in his eyes. “You’ve been thinking about this.”

  He nodded. “There’s almost twenty acres I’d like to go look at. I thought we could pack up the heathens and a picnic and make a day of it.”

  She smiled and nodded her head. Lee looked relieved.

  “Don’t mention buying it to the kids,” she warned. If they heard that, they’d never stop pestering about it.

  Lexie packed an impromptu picnic, then herded the kids into the car.

  “Mom, she’s not bringing that old thing,” Constance whined.

  Gracie clutched her beat-up orange blanket closer and staunchly defended its inclusion. “It’s a picnic. We need blankets to sit on.”

  “She’s right.” Lexie winked at Gracie, who smiled. That was Gracie . . . smiling seemed to be her default expression. She was sitting in the center of the backseat with Conner and Constance on either side. They say twins have a natural closeness, but Lexie’s two Cons always seemed to be at odds with one another. They picked and prodded until someone was screaming.

  Lee used to tease that the universe had given them Gracie a year after the twins were born to serve as a buffer.

  He drove about a half hour from Erie through the small, picturesque town of Waterford, with its small shops and statue of George Washington. Then through the town of Lapp Mill up a long hill. From there, he drove on a winding dirt road, dust plumes kicking up behind the van. Light filtered through leaves. Farmhouses and fields dotted the landscape. They passed an Amish buggy, much to the delight of the kids. Conner asked if they could trade in the van for a buggy. Connie told him he was stupid. Gracie pointed to a field of cows and distracted the twins from their potential fight.

  Lee pulled over on the dirt road in between a stand of pines and a field that was dotted with weeds and wildflowers. He opened the door and looked out into the field. “Here it is.”

  Lexie got out of the van as well. “You’re sure this is it?” There was no sign, nothing to declare that the property was for sale.

  Lee pointed to the ones on the right side. “This is mostly pine, but according to the seller, if you follow the path back, it’s all hardwood farther in. The field is part of the property, too. The owner rents it out some years to neighboring farmers. There are a lot of Amish farmers out here. He didn’t bother this year because he planned on selling the plot. Oh, and he said there’s a barn back there somewhere. We’re welcome to hike it and see what we think.”

  “Dad, can we get out?” Gracie called.

  “You guys can go—” Lee started.

  The three kids spilled out of the van and were poised to make a run for it, but Lexie stopped them. “Sunblock and bug spray first.”

  They obeyed despite their grumbling. She held the bottles out to Lee, who shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  She snorted. Despite his Irish last name, Lee looked far more Nordic. Blond and pale. Even the slightest touch of the sun would leave him pink.

  “Hey, you’re the one who will burn and peel.”

  “We’re in the woods, goof. There’s not that much sun.”

  “We’re done, Dad,” Conner said.

  Lee set the kids free and like jackrabbits, they bounded in all directions. That was the nature of their relationship. Lexie was the discipline, while Lee was the fun. Lexie was rules and routine, while Lee was unpredictable. She didn’t mind most of the time. It worked for them. Their marriage had weathered time nicely, despite her mother’s dire predictions. Friends who’d married after knowing each other far longer had long since divorced, while they were still running strong. Oh, they hit tough times, like anyone, but they always made it through to the other side.

  Lexie took Lee’s hand, needing to touch him. “What if we lose them?”

  “We couldn’t be that lucky,” he teased.

  They could hear the kids whooping in the woods as they followed the barely-there path. It wound around the pines into a stand of hardwood trees. Tall branches canopied the woods and there, in the middle of it all, was a weather-greyed barn. “Why would anyone put a barn way back here?” Lexie asked.

  “The owner said that the pines were once a field, too. There used to be a farmhouse back here somewhere.”

  They walked up to the barn. The doors were bolted, but Lee proclaimed the building was sound. “We could put a small cottage right over there,” he pointed toward an embankment that looked down over the creek, “and clean the barn out so that you can use it as a studio. It’s close enough to town that I can commute when we’re out here in the summer.”

  Lee had it all worked out.

  Lexie suspected he’d already decided to buy the place before they’d even seen it.

  He talked excitedly as they explored the property. There was a small creek that meandered through it. A spring-fed pond. He rambled on and on about what they could do with all of it, hardly breathing. Finally, he wound down and left a silent space for her to interject a thought or suggestion. She couldn’t think of anything to add.

  When she didn’t say anything, he finally asked, “What do you think, Lex?”

  He waited and she tried to remember what she’d wanted to say. She couldn’t think of anything, so she’d simply nodded.

  And just like that, before they’d even unpacked the picnic lunch, they’d decided. Lexie loved the property. But even if she hadn’t, she’d have said yes simply because Lee was as excited as she knew the kids would be.

  It had been a long time since she’d seen him so happy.

  “Lee spent the rest of the afternoon searching for just the right spot for a cottage. He finally decided on the spot he’d originally pointed to up on a bluff that overlooked the creek. It was just a short walk to the barn. He was building the cottage in his head before we made it back to the road.

  “The kids were so filthy we had to strip them down to their underwear for the ride home. Even then, they had to sit on a blanket.”

  “That’s where you live now?” Sam asked. “On that property.”

  I thought about it. I guess I did live there. I hadn’t been home to our house in Erie in months. Math had never been my strong suit—it had been Lee’s. But I added up the months and realized it had been over a year since I’d been back.

  “Yes. It’s where I live now,” I agreed. The admission felt monumental. Like Lee naming himself. I’d just proclaimed my home.

  The cottage was where I lived.

  I pushed back my glass and left the bar.

  It was time to walk home.

  The week went by as weeks often do—one day after another. I moved from one activity to the next in order to stay busy.

  There is an art to staying busy when there’s nothing you have to do. No job to clock in at—no deadline looming. I spent a great deal of time at my loom working on a new picture in the tapestry. I did a small twelve-by-twelve-inch block. A barn, trees, and a picnic blanket to represent that first picnic at the camp. I focused on that day—that very happy day.

  I remembered to walk with Angus and to make meals. Well, meals might be a stretch. Food. I made food. But almost every waking moment that week was spent on the new section of the tapestry.

  As was my habit, I took Sunday off. Not that I went to church
. But I took a long walk through the woods with Angus and tried to remember a time when we’d all been happy here. Images from that first trip were somehow easy to recall. The kids talking excitedly about the bridge they’d made across the creek by tossing rocks in a line. About the salamanders and water bugs.

  Other moments kept trying to creep in. Moments when Lee and I fought, or worse, moments when Lee and I stopped talking. Old pains kept crowding out the happier memories.

  The dog and I walked to the creek. The little stone pathway the kids had made across the water had long since washed away, but there were still large stepping-stones. I walked across them, while Angus just forded through the water, sending small fish and bugs scurrying to escape his giant paws.

  It was peaceful here. My nearest neighbor was an Amish farm half a mile down the road. There was no noise from mechanical machines or loud music. Just peace and quiet.

  After almost two hours, Angus and I went home. Connie called. She invited me to come visit her in Cleveland. I didn’t give her a firm answer. I’d gotten very good at not really answering anyone’s questions . . . except for Mondays at the bar. Maybe it was easier to talk at the bar because Sam never really asked a question. I could talk because he let me lead.

  I heard the concern in Connie’s voice. “Mom, I’m worried. We’re worried.”

  I wanted to tell her I was happy, but I wasn’t sure that was the truth, so I settled for, “Honey, I’m content here. I think I’m even healing.”

  She sighed on the phone. It was such an adult sound, which was only right since Connie had long since stopped being one of my two Cons. She’d built her own life and that was good, but I realized that, somewhere along the line, my life had stopped.

  I pondered that the rest of Sunday.

  Monday came and I walked into town. As I spotted The Corner Bar, the worry that had pestered me since I spoke to Connie faded a bit.

  I walked into the bar and even the scent of it felt right. Years of beers, cigarettes, chicken wings, and pizza intermingled and welcomed me as I went to my stool.

  Sam slid me my Killian’s. “Lexie . . .”

  I waited for him to say, one thing. I had my one-thing prepared for the week. I’d tell him about the small shop I worked at in college. It was an arts and crafts store. I’d been thinking about it a lot as I worked on my piece last week.

  The story was poised on the end of my tongue, waiting for him to say those two little words. Instead he asked, “Why do you walk?”

  That threw me. This wasn’t our normal rhythm. “You’re asking a question?”

  “Yes.”

  Just that. No explanation why he was changing the rules of our game. And I sensed the irony in his timing since I’d just been reflecting on how easy it was to talk to him because he never really asked me anything.

  I could have avoided answering tonight’s question, just as I had Connie’s. I could have just given him his one-thing, drank my beer, and gone home. Why did I walk?

  I could try to explain it in many ways.

  When I left the bar tonight, it would be dusk. Twilight. That time of night is like a soft grey blanket being laid over everything. Gently. Slowly. Until it’s complete and everything is finally black.

  I could tell Sam that I walked to drink in the scents. Twilight smells of silent things. Of dreams. Of hopes. Of memories.

  I could tell him that I walked to listen. You’d think as the world moves over from light to darkness that things would get quiet, hushed. When I lived in the city, that’s what I would have said.

  Instead, there is a cacophony of sound at night. Insects buzzing. Animals rustling in the woods. Owls. Me walking. My footsteps always seem so loud. They make me sound bigger than I am, but the expanse of sky reminds me that I’m really very small.

  The stars. Oh, I could tell Sam that the stars are a large part of why I walk. They’re big and bright . . . not like in the city, where all the streetlights drown them out.

  Those explanations were all part of the reason I walk a couple miles every Monday night here, then a couple miles back. But there was a real reason—the biggest one.

  And that reason became this week’s one-thing. “I walk because there, in the dark, I can sense God in the things that surround me. I can believe he’s there. And I can even believe that one day, I won’t be so angry with him and maybe . . .”

  I let the sentence fade there, on maybe. It seemed like a hopeful word and it had been a long time since I’d felt hope.

  I wished I’d have said all the poetic phrases that had flitted through my mind, rather than that small, honest answer I’d given Sam. But Mondays were a time for honesty and that last bit really was the biggest part of my reason for walking.

  Those words should have been enough for Sam. Instead, he pressed, “Why are you angry?”

  “One thing,” I whispered.

  “One thing,” he echoed.

  “It’s just the first part of why. It’s when the anger started . . .”

  “Gracie McCain, if you don’t get up you’re going to be late for school,” Lexie shouted up the stairs. Her youngest was the busiest of the children. Gracie was always trying to cram just one more thing into her days. Which meant that when she finally fell asleep, she slept like a rock.

  And getting this particular rock to roll in the morning was hard. Getting her to move in time to get to school could be almost impossible.

  “Mom,” Connie whined, “Conner’s so gross. He—”

  This was Lexie’s life and most days she was honest enough to confess, at least to herself, that she loved every minute of it. The twins were ten—a complete two-handed age that Gracie, and her not-quite-there nine, sometimes resented.

  They aggravated and delighted Lexie in turn. She told friends that her kids kept life interesting. That was a curse. May you live in interesting times. She thought maybe it was a Chinese curse. Or maybe Japanese?

  She was pondering where that curse originated when Lee came into the kitchen and kissed her forehead. It was an absentminded sign of affection. “Hey, honey. I’ve got that meeting tonight and—”

  The phone interrupted Lee. Interruptions were part of their lives, but not phone calls at seven thirty in the morning. Lexie felt a rush of trepidation as she picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Lexie, it’s me.” The me in question was her mother.

  Marion Jones Morrow was a prominent Erie attorney who was disappointed that her daughter hadn’t lived up to her true potential and become an equally high-powered something or other. Lexie had felt that disappointment keenly for as long as she could remember, but they both pretended it wasn’t standing there between them. Always between them.

  “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

  Lee blew her a kiss and started for the door as Gracie finally came downstairs wearing what appeared to be the same outfit she’d had on the day before.

  “It’s your father. A stroke, they think. We’re at the hospital.”

  It felt like the moment hung there for minutes, hours even. Lexie finally managed to call her husband. “Lee.” Her voice stopped him in his tracks. “I’ll be right there, Mom.”

  Her father? He couldn’t be sick. “My dad. A stroke,” she explained as she hung up the phone, snagged her keys, and started toward the door.

  “Do you need me to drive you?”

  She shook her head. “No, you just take care of the kids.”

  “Lex, I love you.”

  The words were the balm she needed. “Love you, too.”

  Erie was small enough that the drive from their Glenwood Hills home to the hospital on the Bayfront wasn’t a long one. Even with the morning traffic it only took ten minutes, but it felt like an eternity to Lexie as she parked her van and hurried into the ER. “I’m looking for John. John Morrow,” she told the girl at the desk behind the glass window.

  A tech showed her back. And there he was—the once bigger than life, always in motion John Morrow—with her mother at his side.
Lexie didn’t need a fancy medical degree to see that he was gone. He was small and motionless, two words that never described her father while he was living.

  Her mother looked up as Lexie came into the cubby. “They said he was gone before he got here. There wasn’t a chance . . .”

  Her father had always been her champion. He’d been her companion and comforter.

  She remembered when she was in seventh grade—just half a step from her teens. In retrospect she realized she was already riding the wave of new hormones.

  She’d come home from school, upset about . . . She couldn’t remember. She simply remembered being sure that her life was over. She remembered crying to her father, in that overly dramatic way that went with the age.

  He hadn’t tried to tell her that everything would be fine. He’d held her and let her cry. He’d whispered, “No matter what, you’ll always have me.”

  She looked at his body and knew that had been a lie. She wasn’t ready to let him go. She still needed him. When things got bad and she wasn’t sure what to do, she could always count on him to hold her and remind her that she’d always have him.

  Lexie loved him, heart and soul. She loved her mother, too, but her mom pushed and prodded. She had always wanted Lexie to prove that her generation’s fight for women’s rights was worth it. Her father just wanted Lexie to be happy.

  He’d lied. She wouldn’t always have him.

  He’d left her. And missing him would be an ever-present feeling.

  Lexie never cried, at least not in front of anyone. Not even Lee. He’d marveled at how stoic she was when she’d given birth. How she faced everything head-on.

  But as Lexie held her mother and let her cry, she didn’t feel stoic; she felt shattered.

  She talked to the nurse, called a funeral home and . . . It was a long, long list of things that needed to be done. Lexie did them all without shedding a tear.