Deep River Promise

by Jackie Ashenden

  Damon took a step in his direction, but Connor turned his back very deliberately and walked away.

  The pain felt like claws. Damon had let him down, and he knew that. But it was for the best. Better a short, swift lesson now and then the kid could put it behind him. He needed a much better father figure than Damon would ever be.

  Turning back to the groups of people, he took another scan around, but Astrid definitely wasn’t there.

  Dammit, he didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.

  Cursing, he hauled his duffel higher and made a circuit of the town, trying to find her. He didn’t want to go up to her house, because he didn’t want to impinge on their space, especially given Connor’s level of pissed-offness.

  Then he spotted her just on the point of going into her office.

  “Hey,” he said quietly, moving toward her, then stopping.

  She glanced at him and a ripple of some bright, painful emotion moved over her face. “Coming to say goodbye, then?”

  “Yes. I have to go to Juneau tonight, drop the plane off.”

  “Okay.” Her gaze roamed over his face, as if she was memorizing him. “I suppose you won’t be back.”

  It wasn’t a question, and he saw no reason to answer. It was the truth after all.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing it was pointless. Knowing it didn’t mean anything but saying it anyway. “It’s better this way.”

  Her gaze was very steady in the fading light. “I’m sorry too.”

  He wished he could say something that would make her feel better, but he couldn’t think of anything that would help. “If things were different…”

  “But they’re not different,” she finished. “It’s okay.” She turned away to the door of her office, and then stopped. Then she turned her head to look at him, and for a second her eyes glittered. “No, actually, it’s not okay. I know we haven’t known each other very long and you’ve had a really hard time. But I think you were wrong when you said love wasn’t something you could do anymore.”

  His heartbeat thumped in his head. “What?”

  “You said you would have loved me if you’d been able to, but love wasn’t something you could do. I think you’re wrong, Damon. You’ve done nothing but care since you got here. Caring about Cal and what he asked you to do. Caring about Connor. Caring about this town. Caring about me.” She gazed at him as if she was seeing things in him that even he didn’t know about. “You have so much love inside you, Damon Fitzgerald. I can see it every time I look at you.”

  He stiffened in instinctive denial. “No. Whatever you think you’re seeing…it’s not that.”

  “It is. But I get why you think it isn’t.” She gave him the saddest smile he’d ever seen, and it almost broke his heart. “Just remember that love isn’t finite and you don’t ever lose the ability. It’s always there, always part of you. It’s just that sometimes fear gets in the way.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said through gritted teeth, as if he said it enough times it would be true.

  Astrid let out a breath. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you go now.” She turned away, pulling open the door. “Goodbye, Damon,” she said and disappeared inside.

  He stared at the closed door, pain tearing at his chest. He’d let her down and he knew it. But there wasn’t another way.

  She was wrong about all of it.

  Damon turned on his heel and walked back to the boardwalk, heading for the docks.

  Kevin Anderson only nodded as Damon approached to ask for a trip over the river. It seemed to take too long and yet no time at all, and then he was moving in the growing dark to the hangar, where the Cessna sat waiting.

  He began the usual preflight checks and then stopped. He hurt. Everywhere. And there was no good reason for it. No reason at all.

  Astrid was wrong. There was no love left inside him, no spark in that dead hearth. It was all gone, sucked out of him by the endless demands of Ella’s illness and then her death, by the grief that had swamped him and by the lack of support that he’d had afterward. There was nothing left but meaningless smiles and empty charm.

  His phone beeped in his pocket. He took it out, glancing down at the screen to find that he had service. And then prompted by an urge that came from God only knew where, he found himself pressing his mother’s number.

  She answered almost straightaway.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said.

  “Damon? Is that you?” Her voice was so familiar, that Texas drawl she’d never left behind.

  “Of course it’s me,” he said. “Who else calls you ‘Mom’?”

  “Huh, well, you never know.”

  “Look, I’m heading to Juneau now, which means I’ll be back in LA pretty soon.”

  “Good,” she said. “I need to talk to you about the strangest phone call I got yesterday.”

  Oh hell.

  Damon closed his eyes briefly. “What phone call?”

  “From a child. At least, I think it was a child. He was telling me about some town in Alaska called Deep River and how wonderful it was, and that you were there and you liked it.”

  His mother knew where he was, but sometimes she forgot.

  “Yeah, I’m there right now. But I’m leaving to come home.”

  “He said I would like it. That there was a house with a porch and a chair on it. And there were mountains I could look at. And he would come visit every day.” She sounded curious. “I don’t know why he would, but I do like talking to young people.”

  “He shouldn’t have called you,” Damon said through gritted teeth.

  “Why did he? I wasn’t sure what he wanted.”

  Damon sat down on the concrete of the hangar floor and leaned against the little plane’s front wheel. The pain refused to leave him, sitting heavily in his chest like the mountains surrounding the town, and he knew he shouldn’t have this conversation. His mother had never been able to deal with her own emotions very well, let alone his, and it was unfair of him to unload his issues on her. But he was tired of holding it all inside. So goddamn tired.

  “He wants me to stay in Deep River,” Damon said. “And I told him I couldn’t because of you.”

  That’s not really why.

  He ignored the thought.

  “Huh.” She sounded unfazed by this. “Why because of me?”

  “Because you’re sick, Mom. And you need someone to take care of you.”

  She gave a snort, as if that was the most preposterous thing she’d ever heard. “Where’s his father?”

  Of course she didn’t want to talk about her illness. She never did.

  “His father died,” Damon said flatly.

  “What about his mother?”

  The pressure in his chest became wrenching. “He lives with her. She’s a single mom, brought him up on her own. Very strong. Very capable.”

  “She sounds decent,” his mother pronounced. “Why does he want you?”

  Anger suddenly coiled inside him, hot and raw, and he didn’t have the energy to keep it down, not right now. “I don’t know, Mom. Why would he want me? There’s no reason, is there? I’m no use to him. No use to Rebecca. No use to Ella. And I certainly was no use at all to you.”

  There was a long and terrible silence.

  He’d never shown his temper to her. He’d shown her nothing but patience and calm. Sucking it up and carrying on the way she’d always taught him.

  But he didn’t want to suck it up and carry on anymore. He was tired of pretending. Tired of forcing down what he felt and locking it away. Because that’s what he’d been doing the past few days, wasn’t it?

  Only the past few days? Try the past few years.

  His breath caught and he stared out over the river, unseeing, his thoughts whirling.

  Years? Had he really being doing that for years? F
orcing everything down? Locking everything away?

  You know it’s true. Sucking up and carrying on is what you’ve been doing ever since Ella died.

  It felt as if the very ground he was sitting on had shifted beneath him, rearranging itself into a landscape he didn’t recognize. A place where his emotions hadn’t been burned out, where his heart hadn’t died. Where the feelings he had weren’t the last electrical impulses from a dying limb or the last sparks in a dead hearth full of ashes. Where those feelings had always been there. Forced down and locked away—because that’s what he’d been taught to do—but still there. Always still there.

  His heart felt painful, his chest full of glass, and this time he didn’t ignore the agony or tell himself he didn’t feel it. He sat there with it, examining it.

  He knew where it was from. He knew why it was there.

  You’re angry and you’re in pain, and you can’t stop thinking about her, can’t stop wanting her. Because you’re in love with her.

  Love isn’t finite and you never lose the ability, that’s what she’d told him. It was only that fear gets in the way.

  Was she right? Was this pain all because he loved her and was too afraid to admit it?

  “Of course you were of some use,” his mother said at last, oblivious. “You couldn’t help Ella, and it wasn’t your fault that woman left. She should have stuck by you. I certainly never approved of her leaving.” She made a chiding noise. “Anyway, what’s got your goat?”

  Damon took a slow, silent breath, pain seeping into every part of him. But it was different this time. It wasn’t the last gasp of his dying heart. It was more like the pain that came from sensation returning to limbs that had been frozen for a very long time.

  “My goat,” he echoed, a strange amusement filling him. “You really want to know what’s got my goat?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.”

  “Fine. Why did you always say ‘suck it up and carry on’?”

  There was another long silence.

  “Because life is hard. I told you that.” She paused a moment, then went on, “And you were such a caring little boy. You felt everything so deeply and I hated to see you get hurt. My daddy always told me that carrying on was the best way when life got tough, that you had to develop calluses, otherwise you’d just fall down dead where you stand. And he was right.”

  He’d heard that same story for years. About how tough life was and how you had to be hard to survive it. And he’d internalized all those lessons.

  But now that story felt different, because he was seeing it differently. His mother hadn’t been cutting him off or abandoning him. She’d been trying to protect him the only way she knew how. Teaching him things that had worked for her because of her life and her choices.

  You don’t have to do that, though. Your life is different and so are the choices you make.

  The earth slowed and came to a dead stop. A moment hanging in time, endless, depthless.

  Yes, he was different. And he could make different choices.

  For years, he’d chosen the surface life. Choosing to drift with the currents and never go deeper. Giving only so much and no more. Never committing, never giving his all, because he was afraid of returning to that black place after Ella had died, where he was alone with his feelings and there was no one to help him through it.

  But had he really come through it? Sure, he wasn’t in the darkness, but he wasn’t exactly in the light either. He was in a kind of half world, in limbo, where everything was muted and gray. Where there was no pain, but no joy. No sadness, yet no happiness. Nothing to regret, and nothing to look forward to.

  He was a kite with no string, and it was freeing being that kite. But sooner or later, the wind was going to shred you or you’d crash into a mountain or the rain would make you come apart.

  You needed a tether. You needed something to ground you. To hold you when the wind got too strong. To shield you from the rain. To watch for mountains in your path.

  You needed joy and happiness and a future, even if it meant pain and sadness and anger. Because otherwise, what was life? What was the point?

  You might as well fall down dead where you stand.

  The truth dawned on him, slow and clear, like the first streaks of dawn after a cold and lonely night.

  It wasn’t sucking it up and carrying on that protected you.

  It was love.

  And he could choose that if he wanted. If he stopped being afraid. If he opened himself up and didn’t hold back. He could put down roots and tether himself. Feel all the pain that love brought, but all the joy too, because he’d forgotten that there was joy.

  Ella’s arms around his neck, her smile lighting up his world. His mother making him hot chocolate on a Sunday night as they watched TV together. Connor clinking bottles with him. Astrid holding him. Astrid smiling at him. Astrid’s gray eyes full of stars as they looked at him.

  Astrid…

  She was a woman who’d been dealt one of life’s shitty hands, but she hadn’t run away or given up. She kept going, but it wasn’t because she sucked it up and carried on. It was because she loved her son. Love had kept her going, through her own personal darkness and into the light. And she hadn’t just found that light; she’d created something beautiful with it.

  She’d become part of a community who supported each other, who had each other’s back. A family—together.

  He wanted that. He wanted the light, the community, and a family. He wanted her with every single part of his soul. And not because of a promise he’d made to a dead friend or because he wanted to save her, protect her.

  It was because he loved her.

  “Damon?” his mother asked. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, Mom.” His voice was gravelly as a dry riverbed. “I’m still here.”

  A silence. A long one.

  “You like this boy?”

  “Yeah, I do.” He looked out over the river, to the hill behind the town and the scattering of lights on it, trying to find one specific light. “And I’m in love with his mother.”

  “Oh.” His mom sighed, and he didn’t know whether it was shock or disappointment or something else. “Does she feel the same?”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “Oh,” his mother murmured again, and this time he heard a note in it that he was sure was relief. “Oh…I’m so pleased. You’ve been so unhappy. And don’t think I haven’t noticed. You try to hide it, but I can see. You haven’t been quite right since Ella died.”

  Damon closed his eyes again. Of course his mother cared; she always had. He’d just been too blind to see it.

  “I just want you to be happy, Son,” she went on. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

  Damon took a breath and opened his eyes. “Then will you come here, Mom? Will you come and live in Deep River with me? Meet Astrid and Connor? Let me take care of you?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I believe I will. Like I said, I always wanted to see the mountains.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Damon ran down the gravel path to the dock. He didn’t know what he’d do if Kevin’s boat wasn’t there, but for some reason, it was still bobbing gently at the end of the dock.

  Kevin was coiling ropes on the deck and he looked up as Damon approached. “Back again, are you?”

  Damon stepped onto the ferry. “You were waiting, weren’t you?”

  “It was an even bet.” Kevin shrugged. “Some folk can’t bring themselves to leave, and some you never see again. I figured you might be one who stayed.”

  Damon smiled, and this time it felt genuine. It felt real. His heart was full of light and the heaviness had gone. “You’re right. I am.”

  “Damn straight,” Kevin replied and went into
the wheelhouse.

  Fifteen minutes and they were on the other side. Damon sprang out of the boat, climbed up the stairs from the dock, then ran hell-for-leather all the way up the hill to Astrid’s.

  He charged up the steps and hammered on the red front door.

  It opened and Connor stood in the hallway. Shock rippled over his face as he took in Damon before it changed into sheer, blue-eyed fury. He opened his mouth.

  “I changed my mind,” Damon said before he could speak. “I want to stay here with you and your mother. And I’d very much like to be your friend. If you still want that.”

  Connor shut his mouth. Fury cycled through to shock, then something else more intense. “I don’t know. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’re going to leave again.”

  “I’m not,” Damon said fiercely. “I made a mistake. I thought leaving was the best thing for both of you, but I was wrong. I want to stay, Connor. And it’s not for some promise I made to your dad. I want to stay because I need someone at my back to look out for me. Someone I can trust. And I’d really like you to be that someone.”

  Connor stared at him and slowly all the fury dissipated, replaced with a dawning hope. “Seriously? You really want that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in all my goddamn life.”

  Joy broke over the kid’s face, and Damon had the impression that Connor kind of wanted to hug him but was holding back, too uncertain.

  But Damon wasn’t uncertain.

  He stepped over the threshold, pulled the boy into a brief, hard hug, then let him go.

  “Friends?”

  Connor grinned. Hugely. “Friends.”

  “Oh,” Damon added. “One more thing. I’m going to marry your mother.”

  Chapter 17

  Astrid was sitting in the kitchen, staring into the glass of wine she hadn’t touched, trying to tell herself that she was okay. That yes, she’d had her heart broken, but she’d been okay before and she’d be okay again. She’d go on; she always did.

  She’d known that the last meeting she’d had with Damon hadn’t made any difference to him, and sure enough, it hadn’t. Not that she’d expected it to. He’d made his decision, and if there was one thing she knew about Damon Fitzgerald, it was that once he’d made his mind up, he didn’t change it.