Her Heart's Promise

by Carolyne Aarsen

  The second push to Holmes Crossing came when Dan's stepfather, Keith Cook, booked a midlife crisis that resulted in him doing a boot-scootin' boogie out of hearth, home, Holmes Crossing, and the family farm, leaving a vacuum in the VandeKeere family's life that Dan decided we would temporarily fill.

  Temporary had been a recurring refrain in our life so far. The first two years of our marriage, Dan had worked for a small garage in Markham while I worked in the ER at the Scarborough Hospital. When an oil company needed a maintenance mechanic, we moved to Fort McMurray, and I got a job as a camp nurse. Two years later, an opportunity to be his own boss came up in Vancouver. When we packed up and moved, Dan promised me this was our final destination. Until now.

  "It's only a year," Dan assured me when he laid off the employees, pulled out of the lease on the shop, and filed away the blueprints we had been drawing up for our dream home. We could have lived off my salary while Dan got his feet under him and worked on our relationship away from the outside influences of a mother Dan still called twice a week. But Dan's restless heart wasn't in it. Being a mechanic had never been his dream. Though I'd heard plenty of negative stories about his stepfather, Keith, a wistful yearning for the farm of his youth wove through his complaints. We were torn just like the adage said: "Men mourn for what they lost, women for what they haven't got."

  The final push came when a seemingly insignificant matter caught my attention. The garage's bilingual secretary, Keely. She could talk "mechanic" and "Dan," and the few times I stopped at the garage, she would chat me up in a falsely bright voice while her eyes followed Dan's movements around the shop.

  When her name showed up too often on our call display, I confronted Dan. He admitted he'd been spending time with her. Told me he was lonely. He also told me that he had made a mistake. That he was trying to break things off with her. He was adamant that they'd never been physically intimate. Never even kissed her, he claimed. She was just someone he spent time with.

  I tried not to take on the fault for our slow drift away from each other or the casual treatment of our relationship as kids and work and trying to put money aside for our future slowly sunk its demanding claws into our lives, slowly pulling us in separate directions.

  I also reminded him that I had remained faithful, taking the righteous high road. Dan was chastened, Keely quit, and her name never came up again. But her shadowy presence still hovered between us, making Dan contrite, and me wary.

  Now, with each stop that brought us closer to the farm and Holmes Crossing and the possibility of repairing our broken relationship, I'd seen Dan's smile grow deeper, softer. The lines edging his mouth smoothed away, the nervous tic in the corner of one eye disappeared.

  Mine grew worse.

  A soft sigh pulled my eyes toward the back seat. Anneke still lay slack jawed, her blanket curled around her fist. Nicholas stirred again, a deep V digging into his brow, his bottom lip pushed out in a glistening pout. Nicholas was a pretty child, but his transition from sleep to waking was an ugly battle he fought with intense tenacity.

  I had only minutes before the troops were fully engaged.

  My previous reluctance to arrive at the farm now morphed into desperation for survival. I stomped on the gas pedal, swung around the two horse trailers, and bulleted down the hill into the valley toward my home for the next year.

  My cell phone trilled. I grabbed it off the dashboard, glancing sidelong at Nicholas as I did.

  "What's up?" Dan's tinny voice demanded. "What's your rush?"

  "The boy is waking up," I whispered, gauging how long I had before his angry wails filled the car.

  "Just let him cry."

  I didn't mean to sigh. Truly I didn't. But it zipped past my pressed-together lips. In that too-deep-for-words escape of my breath, Dan heard an entire conversation.

  "Honestly, Leslie, you've got to learn to ignore--"

  Dear Lord, forgive me. I hung up. And then I turned my phone off.

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  Excerpt - All In One Place

  Chapter One

  By the time I left British Columbia, I'd stopped looking over my shoulder. When I started heading up the QUE2, my heart quit jumping every time I heard a diesel pickup snarling up the highway behind me.

  I was no detective, but near as I could tell, Eric didn't know where I was.

  Four days ago, I'd waited until I knew without a doubt that he was at work before packing the new cell phone I had bought and the cash I had slowly accumulated. I slipped out of the condo we shared, withdrew the maximum amount I could out of our joint account, rode the city bus as far as it would take me, and started hitchhiking. Phase one of my master plan could be summed up in three words: Get outta town.

  Okay, four words if you want to be precise about it.

  Now, as I stood on the crest of a hill overlooking a large, open valley, I was on the cusp of phase two. Again, three words: Connect with Leslie.

  I let the backpack slip off my shoulders onto the brown grass in the ditch and sank down beside it in an effort to rest my aching feet and still my fluttering nerves. I was leery of the reception I would get from my sister and not looking forward to what she might have to say. Since August, nine months ago, I'd tapped out two long, rambling e-mails telling her what was happening in my life and laying out endless lists of reasons and excuses. But each time I read the mess of my life laid out in black and white on a backlit screen, guilt and shame kept me from hitting the Send button.

  I knew she had a cell phone, and I knew the number, but a text message couldn't begin to cover either apologies or explanations.

  So I was showing up after nine months of nothing hoping for a positive reception.

  But at the same time my heart felt like a block of ice under my sternum, the chill that radiated out of it competing with the heat pouring down from above.

  The click of grasshoppers laid a gentle counterpoint to the sigh that I sucked deep into my chest. I slowly released my breath, searching for calm, reaching into a quiet place as my yoga instructor had been yammering at me to do.

  I reached down, tried to picture myself mentally going deeper, deeper.

  C'mon. C'mon. Find the quiet place. Anytime now.

  The screech of a bird distracted me. Above, in the endless, cloudless sky, a hawk circled lazily, tucked its wings in, and swooped down across the field. With a few heavy beats, it lifted off again, a mouse hanging from its talons.

  So much for inner peace. I guess there was a reason I dropped out of yoga class. That and the fact that my friend Amy and I kept chuckling over the intensity of the instructor as she droned on about kleshas and finding the state of non-ego.

  The clothes were fun though.

  I dug into my backpack and pulled out my "visiting boots," remembering too well how I got them. Eric's remorse over yet another fight that got out of control. On his part, that is. He had come along, urging me to pick out whatever I wanted. I had thought spending over a thousand dollars could erase the pain in my arm, the throbbing in my cheek. But those few hours of shopping had only given me a brief taste of power over him. His abject apologies made me feel, for a few moments, superior. Like I was in charge of the situation and in charge of the emotions that swirled around our apartment. That feeling usually lasted about two months.

  Until he hit me again.

  I sighed as I stroked the leather of the boot. For now, the boots would give me that all important self-esteem edge I desperately needed to face Leslie.

  As I toed off my worn Skechers and slipped on the boots, I did some reconnoitering before my final leg of the journey.

  Beyond the bend and in the valley below me, the town of Holmes Crossing waited, secure in the bowl cut by the Athabasca River. For the past three days, I'd been hitching rides from Vancouver, headed toward this place, the place my sister now called home. In a few miles, I'd be there.

  I lifted my hair off the back of my neck. Surely it was too hot for May. I didn't expect Alberta,
home of mountains and rivers, to be this warm in spring.

  In spite of the chill in my chest, my head felt like someone had been drizzling hot oil on it, basting the second thoughts scurrying through my brain.

  I should have at least phoned. Texted.

  But I'd gone quiet, diving down into my life, staying low. I wasn't sure she'd want to see me after such a long radio silence. I knew Dan wouldn't be thrilled to see me come striding to his door, designer boots or not. Dan, who in his better moments laughed at my lame jokes, and in his worse ones fretted like a father with a teenage daughter about the negative influence he thought I exerted on my little sister. His wife.

  Leslie had sent me e-mails about my little nephew Nicholas's stay in ICU and subsequent fight for his life, pleading with me to call to connect. I knew I had messed up royally as an aunt and a sister by not being there. Not being available.

  And I'd wanted to be there more than anything in the world. But at the time, I’d been holding onto my life by my raw fingertips and had no strength for anyone else.

  You had your own problems. You didn't have time.

  But I should have been there for my only sister. I could have tried harder.

  The second thoughts were overrun by third thoughts, the mental traffic jam bruising my ego.

  I pulled a hairbrush out of my knapsack. Bad enough I was showing up unannounced. I didn't need to look like a hobo. As I worked the brush through the snarl of sweat-dampened curls, I promised myself that someday I was getting my hair cut. I stuffed my brush back into my backpack and brushed the grass off my artfully faded blue jeans, thankful they were still clean. Zipping up my knapsack, I let out one more sigh before I heard the sound of a car coming up over the hill. My low spirits lifted as I turned to see who might rescue me from walking on these stilettos all the way to town.

  They did a swan dive all the way down to the heels of my designer boots.

  A cop car, bristling with antennas and boasting a no-nonsense light bar across the top, was slowing down as it came alongside me.

  Did Eric sic the Mounties on me?

  I teetered a bit, wishing I were a praying person. Because if I believed that God cared even one iota about my personal well-being, I'd be reciting the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary--anything to get His ear right now.

  My nerves settled somewhat when I saw two young girls huddled in the backseat of the cruiser. They didn't look older than seven or eight. What could they have possibly done to warrant the heavy artillery of a police car and two officers?

  And what would the cops want with me?

  ……….

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  Excerpt - This Place

  My life had come full circle.

  Abandoned child. Check.

  Uncertain guardianship of said child. Check.

  Only this time I wasn't the one crying upstairs, cast off yet again by my biological mother, rejecting hugs offered by a loving foster parent.

  The time it was my niece who lay prostrate, staring sightlessly at her bedroom wall, so quiet it seemed she was afraid to draw even the smallest bit of attention to herself.

  Earlier in the evening, I had sat beside her until she fell into a troubled sleep, my hand curled around hers, my heart breaking for so many reasons. I wanted to stay at her side all night. To drink in features I had imagined so many times. To be there for her if she woke up, crying.

  But I had other issues I couldn’t put off. So I reluctantly drew myself from her side, and returned downstairs to find a small blaze crackling in the corner fireplace of the living room. The heat warmed the house but did little to melt the chill in my bones. It had settled there, deep and aching, as I watched her parents’ coffins being lowered into the icy ground.

  Duncan Tiemstra, Celia's uncle, hovered by the fire as if attempting to absorb all of its warmth, one arm resting on the mantle, looking at a picture he held in his other hand. He had aged since that first time I met him at Jer and Francine’s wedding. Then he looked young. Fresh. Ready to face life. And very interested in me.

  Now he looked like a grieving Visigoth, with his blond hair brushing the collar of his shirt and framing a square-jawed face. The hint of stubble shadowing his jaw made him look harder and unapproachable. When we met at the funeral all I received was a taciturn hello. No memory of the feelings we had shared eight years ago.

  My heart folded at the contrast from then to now.

  Then we were dancing on the edges of attraction, flirting with possibilities. I was twenty-two, my life ahead of me. He was twenty-seven, looking to settle down. We laughed together. Even went on a couple of dates.

  Now, we were separated by years and events that had pushed us apart, yet connected by the little girl that lay upstairs.

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  Excerpt - A Silence the Heart - coming soon

  Holmes Crossing #4

  She thought she heard the cry of a child.

  The haunting sound slid through the early-morning quiet just as Tracy stepped out of her car. Still holding the door, she canted her head to one side, listening.

  There it was again. Softer this time.

  Tracy strode around the concrete-block building trying to pinpoint the origin. But when she came around the side, the street in front of the clinic was empty as well.

  The tension in her shoulders loosened and she shivered, pulling her thin sweater closer around herself. Ever the optimist, she had left her warmer jacket hanging in the hallway closet of her apartment this morning, counting on the early-September sun to melt away the coolness of the fall morning.

  Then a movement caught her eye.

  She stopped and turned to face whatever might come.

  Then a small boy shuffled cautiously around the corner of the clinic, his head angled down, his thin arms cradling something. He looked to be about six or seven.

  Tracy relaxed as she recognized him. For the past two weeks she had seen him walking past the clinic in the early morning on his way to school. The last few days he had stopped to look in the window. It had taken a few encouraging waves and smiles from her to finally tease one from his wary face.

  She always felt bad for him, going to school on his own, remembering too well her own early morning treks as a young child.

  Tracy might have been inadequately dressed for the weather, but this little boy was even more so. He wore a short- sleeved T-shirt, faded blue jeans and in spite of the gathering chill, sandals on bare feet. As she watched, he shivered lightly.

  “Hey, there,” Tracy said quietly, sensing he might startle easily.

  “I want to see the doctor,” he said, sniffing lightly as Tracy came nearer. “This kitten got hurt.” He angled her a suspicious glance through the tangle of dark hair hanging in his brown eyes.

  “The veterinarian isn’t in yet.” Tracy crouched down to see what he was holding. The tiny ball of mangled fur tucked in his arms looked in rough shape. One eye was completely closed, the fur around it matted with blood. A leg hung at an awkward angle. Probably broken.

  “What happened to it?” she asked quietly.

  “I dunno. I just found him laying here.” The little boy stood stiffly, his body language defensive. “Can you fix him?”

  Tracy’s heart sank. She knew the little boy couldn’t pay the vet fees, and from the looks of his clothes, doubted his parents could.

  “Where’s your mommy?” she asked, touching the kitten lightly.

  “I dunno.”

  Those two words dove into her soul. Too familiar.

  “Is she at your home?”

  He kept his eyes down, looking at his kitten. Tracy looked over his worn clothes and the dried smear of tomato sauce on his face and stained shirt and filled in the blanks. She guessed he had gone to bed looking like this and that there was no one at his home right now.


  “I wanna keep him,” the little boy wiped his nose on the shoulder of his T-shirt, a hitch in his voice. “He can be my friend when I’m by myself.”

  Tracy’s thoughts jumped back in time. She saw herself a young girl of eight, standing in the kitchen of her apartment she and her mother shared, saying the same words, also holding a kitten, hope lingering.

  “Not enough money,” her mother had said, though Velma managed to use those same limited funds for lottery tickets and liquor. How Tracy had longed for that kitten. A friend. Someone to hold when there was no one around.

  Tracy pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s go inside.”

  The boy slanted her a narrow-eyed, wary look, holding back as she unlocked the door and opened it.

  “It’s okay,” Tracy said quietly. “We have to go inside to look at your kitten.”

  He nodded and slowly stepped inside, his head swiveling around, checking out the reception area of the clinic.

  “What’s your name?” she asked as the door fell shut behind them.

  “Are you a stranger?” he asked, suspicion edging his voice. “My mom says I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers.”

  “I’m a vet technician,” she answered, sidestepping the guarded question. "And my name is Tracy Harris.”

  He stood in the center of the room, a tightly wound bundle of vigilance, clinging to the kitten like a lifeline. His eyes darted around—assessing, watchful. They met Tracy’s as he straightened, as if making a decision. “My name is Kent,” he said with a quick lift of his chin. “Kent Cordell.”

  She had been given a small gift of trust and in spite of the kitten that might be dying in his arms, she gave Kent a smile. She skimmed his shoulder with her fingers. “Good to meet you, Kent.”

  The back door slammed and a loud singing broke the quiet. Crystal, the other vet technician burst into the room with her usual dramatic flair, bright orange sweater swirling behind her. “And a good morning to you, my dear,” she called out snatching a knitted hat off her deep red hair, then stopped when she saw Kent.