by Ruth Wind
"It isn't me who's hurt," she said.
He parked in front of his grandmother's house. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You would know if you would just open your eyes and look," she said, and opened the door. She jumped down and turned back. "But just like all guys, the only thing you care about is how you feel."
Exasperated, he leaned over to catch the door before she could slam it. "You want to tell me what this is all about?"
She tossed her head, and he saw in the gesture a thousand years of women stubbornly asking men to read their minds. "No. Figure it out." She slammed the door.
Perplexed and annoyed, Eli watched her cross the grass to his grandmother's house. What had he done to deserve that?
He'd been planning to go home, maybe read awhile, and catch up on some paperwork, but suddenly the idea of going to his lonely house and spending the evening alone held no appeal. On the other hand, he was hardly fit company. He ran through the possibilities in his head – he could call a friend, go to a bar and have a drink with one of his brothers, visit someone…
No. "Damn her!" He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. What he wanted was to go to Sarah. Not with any nefarious secondary purpose, though God knew he wanted her. Needed her. But right now, he just wanted to be in her company.
He hated himself for it. With a curse, he flung the truck into gear and backed out. This had to end. It had to stop. He needed to make love to her, to see what still lived between them – or find out if it had died. He needed to talk to her about the baby, because the two of them had shared a terrible, life-altering loss that had never, ever been allowed to heal. He wanted to know if this pain would go away if he held her.
Teresa's words haunted him. Just like all guys, the only thing you care about is how you feel.
When he got to the end of the driveway, he turned right impulsively, driving north without a goal. The wind coming in through the windows was warm, scented with evening, and the fields of sage glowed a soft gray-green on either side.
Teresa was right. He had been considering only his own feelings. Clearly, Sarah would not or could not manage what was happening between them. And what did he do? Pushed her harder. Further. Forced her to acknowledge not only the growing passion between them, but the past as well, even when he suspected she would crumble to dust if he pushed too far.
He needed someone to talk to. Someone who was outside the situation, someone who had no personal stake in the outcome. Someone who would just listen. And he could not think of a single possibility. For the past ten years he'd been so completely focused on business that he'd had little time for friendships, and in all honesty, the members of his large family met his friendship needs. He thought of Jenny, the graphic designer with whom he'd become friends, and nearly pulled over before he realized how odd that would be.
Finally he thought of Thomas Concha, who had been his friend since high school, a man already settled and happy in his life. There had always been something calm about Thomas, too, a reasonable nature balanced with a strong sense of the absurd.
Feeling better, he took a right at a forked road that led to the reservation, and followed the winding roads through the lush, green plains that belonged to the Taos. Though the pueblo was famous and drew a huge crowd of tourists each year, few families still lived there. Many others had built homes on the outlying lands owned by the nation, land spreading out from Taos Mountain in undulating fields. He passed ranch homes and trailers and adobes, and finally took a smaller road that led to the Conchas' spread, nestled near the creek, with tall cottonwoods shading an attractive, brand-new adobe with a Spanish tile roof. In town, such a house would be worth a million dollars. Out here on Indian land, no movie star in the world could touch it. The thought made Eli smile as he got out of the truck.
A pair of shepherds came barking around the house, and redoubled their cheerful greetings as they recognized Eli. "Hey, guys," he said, letting them lick his hands. He heard voices and followed the sound to the side of the house, to a place beneath the trees where a wide patio lay, lit with candles against the dying day. At one corner a three-foot wall met a kiva-style fireplace that provided warmth and cheer in the spring and fall.
Three people clustered there. Joanna sat on a bench against the wall, her long tanned legs stretched lazily out in front of her, and Thomas sat in a chair by the wooden table. The other head, even from the back, was instantly recognizable, and Eli swore under his breath. He froze, unable to manage this last bit of bad luck. How was it possible?
Joanna caught sight of him. "The finger of fate strikes again," she said with a smile in her voice. "Sarah, look who's here."
He saw her shake her head, slowly, and then she stood and turned around. Eli saw she held the baby, dark and plump and sleepy, in her arms. "We don't seem to be able to avoid each other very well," she said, as much to the others as to him.
"I'm sorry," he said, raising his hands. He backed up. "I'll go. I was just…" He stopped, unable to think of what he'd been doing. Why he had come.
"Don't be silly, Elias," Joanna said. "We're all adults here. We've been friends for too many years to stop now. Come sit down. Sarah won't mind."
Across the damp-smelling grass, with a cool breeze from the creek blowing toward them, Eli looked at her, waiting. She did not have to speak, and she knew that; he saw her waver, shifting the sleepy baby closer as if to shield herself.
"I don't mind, Eli," she said.
So he moved forward, trying not to smell her skin as he passed, and took a chair on the graceful patio with his friends. The older dog, heavily black along his back, with only a little gold along his muzzle and in spots over his eyes, settled on his foot. Sarah sat back down on his left side.
The night fell cool around them, with hidden crickets whirring in the grass, and the slowing calls of birds, and the faint near-clatter of the flat cottonwood leaves. Thomas was learning to play guitar and picked out some country songs he liked, then Joanna took the instrument and played ballads, singing in her strong voice from Simon & Garfunkel and mournful Joan Baez. It made Eli smile. "You were born too late," he said to her, grinning through the dark. "You would have been happier singing in a park somewhere, with love beads around your neck."
She threw a tiny twig at him. "Shut up, Eli."
"Instead she had to make up some causes," Thomas said. "Can't waste that crusading spirit."
"You, too," she said, and threw another twig.
"Now see what happens?" Thomas said with a twinkle in his eye. "She gets married, has herself a baby and gets all soft. Probably be fat as a cow by next year."
Joanna only smiled serenely and put a hand over her belly. "Won't even take until next year. I'll be fat as a house by Christmas."
"Another baby?" Sarah exclaimed. "That's wonderful!"
"Congratulations," Eli said. Without thinking, he turned and rubbed the back of the baby Sarah held. The boy slumped, oblivious, his little mouth spilling clear saliva to her blouse, in the deepest of sleeps. "I can see why you'd want more. This one is a charmer."
"He sure loves Sarah," Thomas commented. "Followed her all over, lifting up his arms until she held him."
Sarah absently rubbed her chin lightly over the baby's head, a faint smile her only comment.
Till now, Eli had been able to keep everything at bay, taking pleasure in the comfort of friends, in the pleasure of feeling at ease with himself in the soft darkness. But looking at Sarah now, with the baby so happily slumped against her, brought everything back. He knew she was aware that he looked at her, but she didn't acknowledge it, only brushed her fingers over the tiny ones pressed against her breast. Candlelight gave a halo of light to the crown of her head, and spread a burnished line over the curve of her cheekbone and mouth.
A mournful feeling awakened in Eli. A feeling that said this should have been his, this quiet, this small comfortable gathering, the baby asleep, the bed waiting inside to hold him and the body of his wife.
; He looked at Thomas, and his old friend stood up, touched his wife's head lightly and said, "Me and Eli got man's business," in a mockingly macho voice that made the women smile.
Grateful, Eli followed him inside.
* * *
Chapter 10
«^»
Inside, Eli accepted the cup of coffee Thomas poured for him. It smelled faintly of cinnamon. He poured in some milk and drank a little, remembering a Mexican chocolate drink his grandmother had often made for him when he had had a bad day at school. With the chemist portion of his brain, he wondered if cinnamon held some soothing quality, or if it maybe jolted the mood centers of the brain.
"So tell me," Thomas said.
Eli sank into a ladder-back chair and could not think how to go on. Words rose to his lips, then dissipated, none of them quite right. "I have barely slept since she came back," he said finally. "I think of her every minute."
"And you don't want to."
"Would you?"
Thomas pursed his lips. "Maybe not." He sipped his coffee, considering. "But maybe there's a reason."
"Yeah?"
Thomas chuckled.
"It's stating the obvious, but maybe you still have feelings for each other, huh? Not so strange. She came here to talk about you, you came here to talk about her." He lifted a shoulder. "Maybe you should talk to each other."
"She won't talk."
"At all?"
"She runs from the hard things."
"So start with the easy ones."
Eli blinked. "Oh."
Thomas slapped his shoulder, laughing. "Man, you always take things so seriously. Everything isn't that hard, you know. Gotta learn to just take one little step, then maybe another if the first one is okay. You don't have to do everything at one time." He winked. "Even back in high school, you did this number … what if, what if, what if, and you called it all down on your head. She got pregnant, her father locked you up, she got sent away and everybody lost everything."
Eli looked at him.
"Maybe this time you should think more about what you do want, instead of everything you don't." He cracked a grin. "You worry too much, man."
Eli gave him a rueful smile. "I have to think about this."
"Nope." Shaking his head, he reached over and took the coffee cup from Eli's hand. "That's your trouble, thinking all the time. Act, Elias." He gave the name its Spanish incantation, and said again, "Act."
Eli wondered if he had the courage. If he could face rejection if it came, if he could bear to lose her again. Once had nearly killed him. And he was older now, more set in his ways. He did not bend so easily anymore.
But suddenly, sitting there in the friendly kitchen made by a man and the wife he loved, Eli knew that was what he wanted. Another chance. A chance to build a life like the one Thomas had built, a life with children and a wife and the peace he knew some people found.
No. Not just any wife. He forced himself to take the next step in his self-examination. He wanted to find out if Sarah could still be that woman. Until he knew, he would never be free.
With a quick nod, he moved toward the patio. His heart pounded unevenly as he crossed the kitchen's clay tile floors, and passed through the living room with its broad, dark windows, then moved through the glass doors that led to the patio. There was an odd weakness in his elbows as he stepped into the darkness.
He looked at Joanna hard, and without a word she stood up. "I'll be right back."
Which left him standing alone in the cool night, alone with Sarah and a sleeping baby. He wanted to tell her what he thought about when he saw her with this baby, that he wished it was their own child, that he wished they'd had the chance…
But he remembered what Thomas had said, and started with something simple. "Will you let me drive you home, Sarah?" But that wasn't quite what he wanted. "Or maybe we could just take a drive?"
She raised her head. "Yes. I would like that." She paused. "The drive, I mean."
He held out his arms to help her with the baby, a weighted mass of unconscious child that swayed like a sack of sand. Eli held him close, smelling lotion and baby sweat, and he couldn't help putting his head down to the rosy cheek to inhale. "He smells so good."
Sarah bent and pressed a gentle kiss to the baby's head. Her hair brushed Eli's nose, and it seemed she lingered a heartbeat longer than she needed to, leaning close to both Eli and the baby. Then she ducked away without looking at him. "I'll wait here."
* * *
There was a deep, somehow comfortable quiet between them as they drove back toward town. Sarah sat with her hands folded in her lap, neatly seat-belted in the passenger seat. Eli did not invite her to move over, and she did not offer. "Do you have a preference?" he asked.
Sarah paused to think about it. "No, not really."
"I know a place," he said, and seemed to sit a little straighter, the decision made.
He took a side road away from the main body of town, going deeper into the rich blackness of a desert night. "There are so many people here now," Sarah commented, amazed at the pockets of lights that diluted the darkness. Mostly very expensive houses, on large tracts of land.
"It happened slowly for me – a house here and there, another little bunch. It must seem very strange to you."
"Yes."
Wind blew through the windows, smelling of rain, and along the ridge of mountains to the west, branches of lightning flickered silently and were gone. Sarah found herself relaxing, almost against her will, and let go of a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She put her head back against the seat. "This is nice," she said. "It makes me remember—" She stopped, embarrassed, afraid the memory would ruin this careful peace between them.
He reached over the seat and took her hand. "Remember what?"
She turned her hand over to accept the offering of his touch. "Remember when we drove around all evening, just driving and driving, all over."
"Those are good memories for me."
The musical sound of his voice, warm and beautiful, added to her sense of well-being. "Me, too."
The truck bumped and bucked a little over the rough track. "Hang on," he said. "We're almost there." He drove a little farther, then turned and parked. "Come on," he said. "Let's sit outside, watch the storm come in."
Aware of a tingle of anticipation and worry, Sarah got out. Eli pulled the seat forward and grabbed a striped blanket, then walked to the end of the truck and pulled down the gate. Sarah followed more slowly. He waited for her.
When she joined him, he said, "Thomas said you came to talk to Joanna about me. I went to talk to him about you. He said maybe it would be better if we talk to each other."
"That depends on what you want to talk about, Eli."
"Nothing important." He tossed the blanket into the bed. "You used to be my best friend, Sarah. Maybe I'd just like to know if that might still be true."
The admission pierced her, and like nothing else could have, drew forth her honest response. "I missed you for years, Eli. Such a long time. It was like losing an arm – and what I missed the most was being able to tell you things. I've really never had another friend like you, ever since."
He bowed his head. "Same here." Gracefully he leap into the back of the truck, and turned around to give her a hand.
Sarah jumped up, chuckling over the sparkling-clean rubber bed liner. "I can tell this is a hardworking truck," she said, tongue in cheek.
He laughed. "Oh, yeah. Much as I paid for it, I'd never fill it with a real load." He sat with his back braced against the cab and gestured toward her. "Come sit with me."
A pulse jumped in her belly, but she did as he asked, sitting down beside him. Only their knees touched, but it was enough.
"Are you cold?" he asked, lifting the blanket.
"Not at all."
He turned his face up to the sky. "How long do you think till the rain gets here?"
Sarah looked up. Ominous clouds boiled up to the west, racing toward the east, but
in front of them was still a lot of star-studded sky. "Maybe two hours."
"You have been away a long time." He looked at his watch, then the sky. "I say maybe forty-five minutes. Probably less."
"It's a bet." She breathed deeply, feeling the night and the cool air fill every corner of her lungs. "So, tell me, Eli. What matters to you these days?"
"Hmm. Good question. Work, mainly. I work a lot." He turned his head, and faint light played over his high cheek-bones. "You?"
"Not much of anything anymore, somehow. That was the biggest reason I came home. I was just wandering all over the place with no purpose."
"You know what I think? You need to put your art back into your life."
She snorted. "I take pictures all day."
"Not that kind. Art, like you used to do."
Sarah thought of the kind of work she had done when he knew her. "I do miss it sometimes, the still lifes and landscapes."
"I still have some of your old ones."
"Really?" A rush of warmth went through her. "Like what?"
"There's one of a blue jay on a sunflower."
"I loved that picture!" Sarah exclaimed.
"Me, too. There's another one of a man with a cigarette, and my own favorite – one of a rose against a stucco background. There's sun on half and shadows on half. It's a great photo."
"I'm surprised you didn't tear them into pieces."
He shrugged. "I thought about it."
Sarah laughed, nudging him with her elbow. "That was not the right answer."
He braced his elbows on his knees, and gripped one wrist with the other hand. "Should I lie?"
"No. Just be kind."
"You changed the subject."
"I did?"
He leaned a little closer. "You always do when it comes to art or babies."
"I don't mean to." Her gaze fell on his mouth, not far from her reach if she wanted to sway a little, incline her head just the smallest bit. And wasn't that what she wanted? Wasn't that why she had agreed to "go for a drive"?