Dean had done everything he could to make Annie’s dreams come true. He had come to Rockland on her birthday with more than just flowers. Under the tree that Christmas Eve was a tiny velvet box. Annie nearly fainted, then looked frantically first at her mother then, more importantly at her father.
“Dad—?” Annie was sure he’d disapprove, but her father just beamed.
“The young man asked me first, dear.” Annie looked at Dean wide-eyed. He nodded, then took the ring from the box and held out his hand for hers.
But before he slipped it on her finger he paused. “You know, you don’t have to say y—”
“Yes!” Annie threw her arms around his neck, then kissed him. “Yes.” Kiss. “Yes.” Kiss.
“Yes,” he said huskily, and pulled her into their first truly passionate kiss.
Dean rented a room in a boarding house in Rockland and commuted with Annie to Davenport. She took extra classes, and with summer semesters, she graduated with a double major just a few months after Dean finished his doctorate in child psychology. He’d told her he was tired of putting out emotional fires, and would rather help kids before things started going wrong.
“What are you going to major in at Davenport,” he had asked her, the two of them bundled in front of the fire on that Christmas Day evening.
“I don’t know for sure. I’ve almost two years of general education credits to work on, so I guess I’ll wait to declare, see what feels right.” He rubbed her back affectionately, then pulled her closer.
“I’ve got an idea,” he murmured in her ear. She pulled back.
“Why, Dean Moore, what do you—” He shushed her with a finger to her lips.
“I think you should be a psychologist.”
“Me?” Annie was both flattered and shocked.
“You’ve got a natural grasp of the concepts. I told you how impressed I was by how you handled…that whole business.” They’d begun to refer to Connie’s murder as that whole business.
“I don’t know. I’d feel strange competing with my…” Her diamond solitaire sparkled in the firelight. “Husband.”
In the end, they compromised. Annie took a double major in psychology but also in business because, while Dean admitted to being, as Annie insisted, a brilliant psychologist, he was lousy at finances.
They visited Seattle a few times because Annie had truly enjoyed her time there, but in the end, Rockland won out.
“Are you sure I’m not hurting your feelings, Dean?”
“Anne Stewart, there is nothing you could to that would ever seriously hurt my feelings.”
“It’s just that you really loved Seattle—”
“I did not love the rain.” They both laughed.
“I like Seattle, too, but the truth is, I love Rockland more, and I really don’t want to leave.” And so they didn’t.
As a pre-wedding present, Annie’s father paid to remodel the old mechanic shop by the train depot into an office for them. He also paid for the wedding, everything from altering her mother’s wedding dress, right down to the peppermint twist roses in Annie’s bouquet.
As Annie was dressing for the ceremony, which was to be held in front of her family’s Christmas tree, Ellen was busily adjusting her veil when there was a knock on Annie’s bedroom door.
“Dean Moore, go away!” Annie shouted playfully. The knock came again. The girls looked at each other and shrugged. Annie hid partially in the closet while Ellen went to the door.
She opened it a crack then said, “Come right in, sir.” Annie gasped.
“Ellen Lane—!” But it wasn’t Dean who peeked around the corner. It was Annie’s father with an envelope. He insisted she open it right then.
“Dad…” Tears filled her eyes. “Dad, this is too much.” Her father had paid for a full week’s honeymoon at the bed and breakfast in Rockland, and then two more weeks in New York, complete with tickets to the current hit Broadway shows.
“It’s not that much, Annie.” Ellen dabbed at the corners of Annie’s eyes with a tissue.
“Why not?”
“Look at the tickets again.” She did and laughed. They weren’t airline tickets. They were for the train. “Your young man told me he really enjoyed the train, so I got you a sleeper car, if you know what I mean.” He winked. Annie threw her arms around her father’s neck and tried not to weep. It wasn’t the last time she had to struggle to hold back tears that day. At least her groom made her laugh when he dramatically dipped her for a kiss at the end of the ceremony.
Annie threw her bouquet. Ellen caught it. But when Annie’s mother took her aside just before Dean swept her off for their wedding night, as she hugged her daughter, a seam tore in the shoulder of Annie’s going-away dress. The two women froze for a moment, then looked each other and laughed, remembering the similar scene in Annie’s mother’s favorite movie. They’d watched Sleepless in Seattle together at least a dozen times since that first Thanksgiving weekend after Paul Jenks’s fortuitous party.
“So, Annie, dear,” her mother chided gently. “Now do you believe in signs?”
***
Annie snuggled close to Dean on the east-bound train. It was January second, and this was the seventh morning she’d awakened to his voice in her ear, good morning, Mrs. Moore. They had boarded the mid-morning train and now, rocked gently by the motion of the wheels on the rails, together they watched the snow-covered landscape roll by.
“So, Doctor Moore,” she turned to him. “How are you enjoying your ride?”
“With you, Mrs. Moore, everything’s a wonderful ride. And I have to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For holding on to your dream of life in Rockland. I didn’t know it was my dream, too. It’s turned out to be the home I’ve always wanted.”
“You are what I’ve always wanted,” she said and kissed him gently.
“There is something your perfect little town has forced us into though, Mrs. Moore.”
“And what would that be, Dr. Moore?”
“Now we have no choice but to live happily ever after.” Annie sighed and leaned into her new husband. She had Rockland, she had Dean, and she had everything she’d always wanted and more.
“Happily ever after,” she murmured and let the rocking of the train lull her to sleep.
32
He was a veteran of the system, but even in reverse, the process was long, slow, and frightening.
The sounds. The doors clanging shut, the men shouting, the imposing faces of the guards, all heavily armed. And the smells. Sweat, and thick, heavy air, and the feeling of confinement that seemed to have an odor. Even though he was leaving, he would always feel confined, just having been there so long.
Nothing was different. Nothing was shocking. The well-oiled machine of the state penitentiary was absolutely predictable, right down to the length of time he had to wait before he was allowed out of the gate. He felt just as on display as he had when he first entered.
However, the logistics of the place didn’t trouble him as much this time. The only moment that seemed strange was when he moved to the guard who checked his pass.
“So, I see you’ve been a good boy. You got yourself a good little boy reward.” He wanted to punch him, but he’d learned to stuff his anger down. And save it, he reminded himself. So he kept walking even as the guard called at his back.
“Just like dealing with any other kind of animal, you know. Treat ‘em a certain way, they respond a certain way. You hear me, boy?” He stopped long enough to turn to the guard and feign compliant respect.
“Yes, sir. Thank you again for the pass, sir.”
“And you remember the rules, dontcha—boy?”
“Yes, sir. I know exactly when to be back—sir.”
***
He stood on the platform, smoking a bummed cigarette to ward off the mid-morning cold. He combed a hand nervously through his hair. He looked down the tracks, willing the train to come into sight.
“Where ya o
ff to, friend?” He finished the last of his cigarette, flicked it away, stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, and looked over at the old man on the bench.
“East,” he answered, his breath clouding the January air.
“Whereabouts, sonny?” He looked at the old man for a moment, then turned back to watch for the train.
“New York,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting in a sneer. “I’m going to New York.”
***
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A Small Town Dream Page 18