Gwen handed her a tissue. Georgia wiped under her nose and sighed. “I always thought I was braver than that. I never thought I would consider something like that. I guess I was desperate.”
“We all think we’re grateful. We all believe we‘re appreciative. But it’s only when it’s taken away that we realize how we took it all for granted.”
“Honestly, I feel like a selfish asshole.”
Gwen laughed. “No, no. You gave everything to your husband and children, but gave nothing to yourself. Now you know better, don’t you?” Georgia gave a small nod, hoping she would handle things differently.
“Has there ever been a case where someone didn’t wake up?” That terrifying thought hadn’t crossed her mind until that moment.
“No dear, everyone wakes up, and always the next day, but the amount of time that passes in the dream is different for everyone…Some people go to therapists to deal with events that have already come to pass. I help people with the past that never was, but that they wished had been.” Georgia shook her head. It was too much for her to wrap her brain around.
“There was this one gentleman, came to me in Denver. He hadn’t been able to move on from his wife’s death. It had been three years and he still couldn’t let go of the fact that he didn’t get to kiss her goodbye, tell her he loved her. He’d left for work early that morning and hadn’t wanted to wake her.”
“What happened to her?”
“Embolism, travelled to her head. She couldn’t have been older than thirty…He told me he found her sitting in the sunroom, her favorite place to have her morning coffee.” They both took a moment of quiet reflection. “In his dream, that’s where he found her, in her chair, very much alive. He was able to sit with her, kiss her, tell her how much he loved her. Only a few hours passed in his dream, but that was all he needed. I hear he’s finally remarried.” Gwen’s loving smile warmed Georgia’s chest. Gwen was special, that much she now knew, but what she didn’t realize was that Gwen was doing more than changing lives, she was giving people their lives back. What Georgia had perceived as a curse, now seemed like a privilege.
“Why are you in this dust bowl of a town? You could be famous, not to mention rich. Seriously, you should call Oprah.”
Gwen laughed again, brushing back a snow white curl that had escaped her tight bun. “Oh, Georgia, you have a delightful light inside of you. But money was never my goal. Think of me as a cleric. Helping my fellow man, or woman, is my reward. And as to this dust bowl, as you call it, I won’t be here long. Sadie’s packing up the books as we speak.”
So that was the girl’s name.
“Where will you go?” Georgia felt anxious at the thought of Gwen leaving.
Gwen shrugged her shoulders. The move made her seem much younger. “I’ll know it when I get there. I always land in the right spot.”
“Will I ever see you again?” She felt the tears building once again. Gwen must have noticed because she stood up abruptly and grabbed Georgia’s hands. With a tug she was on her feet as well.
“I’m a phone call away if you ever need me, dear. But I have the feeling you won’t. You’re going to be just fine Georgia Abernathy Bristol.”
Georgia pulled the curtain to one side, then turned to Gwen with a half grin. She’d almost left without getting the answer to the most important question.
“The other day, I found Bonnie in her room. Her dolls were in a circle and she had her pretend food out in the center. I handed her a juice box and sat down…”
“What are we playing?”
“Store.”
“Oh, store. That sounds fun. Can I play too?”
Bonnie nodded. “Course, Momma. I have a card to buy food.” Bonnie swiped the card on the carpet.
“Card? Like a credit card?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you get that from Mommy’s wallet?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Let me see that, Bonnie.” She pulled it close, then handed it to Georgia’s outstretched hand. When Georgia turned it over the card fell from her fingers.
“Bonnie, where did you find this?” Bonnie shrugged her shoulders and continued to play. “Bonnie, you tell momma where you found this right now.”
“Don’t know, momma.”
“Mommy’s going to keep this. I’ll get you a new card, okay?”
“Okay, momma,” Bonnie said over her shoulder, too engaged in her play to pay any mind.
Georgia marched out into the hallway, her breath shuddered and heart pounded, unsure of what to do next. She found herself in the center of the kitchen, clutching the plastic to her chest. Should she keep it? No, no one could find this, ever.
Spying the cylinder filled with utensils she sprung into action. She grabbed the kitchen shears, she cut and sliced, until only anonymous scraps remained.
“Do you know what my four year old daughter was playing with?… My student I.D. from college, the college I never attended. The one that was inside my wallet, the wallet I don’t really own. Will you explain that to me, please?”
“That is the strangest thing,” Gwen said, wrapping a few fingers around her chin. “Perhaps you were mistaken, dear.”
Georgia sighed. She would have to live with the fact that she would never get the concrete details she craved. Blind acceptance would be a struggle, considering her scientific approach to most things.
This one would just have to be a leap of faith, and faith she could handle.
“I feel like you’re my fairy godmother or something.”
Gwen smiled. “I’ve been called worse, dear.”
~Dream a little Dream~
Georgia sat on the porch swing, one leg tucked behind the other. She watched as the girls drew murals of chalk on the sidewalk a few feet away.
“Look, Momma, look, I drawed a uni-corn!”
“I see that, Bon, and what a pretty purple mane. Your daddy would be very proud.” Bonnie beamed and went to work on the tail, well, she thought it was the tail. It was a purple blob on the back of a white blob.
“Unicorns don’t have feet, Bonnie. They have hooves,” Amelia admonished.
“Dis one does, Melia! It makes it run faster,” Bonnie yelled. Amelia shook her head and continued drawing her seascape—shading in the dark red coral.
This was her happy place, at home with her girls. She said a prayer of thanks for her life every day. When she finally woke up back in her bed, she’d spent that day hugging and kissing her girls. She couldn’t stop touching their faces and smelling their hair. Drinking in all the details she was sure she’d never see again…And Nate. She couldn’t keep her hands off of him, either. That first night, she took him with the ferocity of a woman who knew what it felt like to lose the most important things in her life only to be given them back in an instant. He swore and tried to catch his breath, telling her she’d ridden him like she was trying to break in a colt. She took that as a compliment.
She smiled, looking at Bonnie’s white “unicorn.” It was a far cry from the framed piece Nate painted for Amelia’s birthday. When Amelia had pulled the bright paper away, she’d screamed, then hugged Nate with tears in her eyes.
Georgia had driven out to her in-laws’ the week before, and although the birthday painting was the reason for the trip, it wasn’t the one that had made a permanent impact.
She pulled the large metal door, both she and the door groaned with strain. A large canvas was on an easel just past the entrance. It was already wrapped, with a large teal ribbon tied around the center. She was disappointed. The whole reason she offered to pick it up was to get a sneak peek. Then she laughed. It was just like Nate. He wanted her to see it for the first time along with everyone else. He’d known what she was up to.
Curiosity, and nostalgia, had her flipping through the stacks of paintings leaning against various sections of the converted barn. When she came across one particular piece, she gasped and her fingers stilled. It was her, or at least she thought it was her, but this girl’
s eyes were too vibrant, her skin too flawless. Lips that never looked as full in her mirror. It was more than artistic license, it was how her new husband had seen her…angelic, ethereal.
She ran her fingers over alternating textures of paint, smooth then ridged, mesmerized by the beauty of it, of her. Georgia gripped her shirt as if it were the sheet in the painting in front of her. She didn’t know how long she stood there, in the half shadowed corner, but a ding from the phone in her pocket broke her stare. Hating the thought of dust marring the canvas, she covered it with a section of tarp…but not before touching it one last time.
After that afternoon, she found herself pulling him by the button of his jeans more often. Reacquainting herself with the passion that was always there, lying in wait. It wasn’t as if all of their problems were solved by the beauty of a painting, or even from her dream. Her marriage was, and would be, a work in progress, like every marriage since the dawn of time. But when it came down to it, she remembered what it felt like to face living without him. After that, his shortcomings didn’t seem so bad any more.
Part of the problem was her, her unhappiness with herself. She may have found a new sense of self upon waking, and gained self-confidence she hadn’t even realized she’d lost, but the adjustments were subtle, more a gradual shift, than an immediate change.
Sometimes, the changes in her weren’t so subtle.
The other part of the problem was the need to stand up for herself. You have what you tolerate, she heard someone say once. That was what had happened in her marriage. She stopped making herself a priority…She was done with that.
Nate had approached her after her “experience.” He wanted to head out to the cabin with his boys. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if he hadn’t just come back from a three day fishing trip. She’d looked him in the eye and said, “No, I’d prefer if you didn’t. And frankly, if I wanted to be a single mom, I’d have some young man candy on the side and a shitload of child support.”
Georgia smiled at the memory of his brow furrowing in shock at her refusal.
He surprised her by saying, “All right. I guess I do go on guy trips too often…But baby, if it bothered you, why didn’t you say anything? You always seemed okay with it, and I figured you liked the time alone.”
“Nate, I guess I was wishing you’d figure it out without me having to tell you no. That you would realize you were taking advantage of me. But wishing never gets the job done, so I promise I’ll tell you how I’m feeling from now on. That other way wasn’t working for me.”
He’d smiled and pulled her into his arms. “That’s my girl.”
And she was getting closer to the girl she was before. Doing things for herself, the biggest being online nursing classes. She even had a girls trip planned with Lucy in the summer. She’d finally see the Caribbean waters with her own eyes. It would be the first time to leave the girls in the care of their dad…and it was long overdue.
“Wow, girls, those are amazing.” Nate had just come outside and was looking over his daughters’ drawings from the top step. Georgia held out her hand and he took it. The swing rocked as he took the space beside her. She curled into his side, he rested his chin on her head.
“They get their artistic talent from you.”
“Yeah, well, they get their looks from you,” Nate said, kissing her head after a long inhale of her hair.
Georgia made a derisive sound. “Whatever, hottie.”
“Daddy, Daddy, see my uni-corn’s porple hair.”
“I see it, angel. That’s just about the best unicorn I’ve ever seen.”
Bonnie smiled and Amelia shook her head, once again.
“It has toes, Daddy,” Amelia pointed out.
“Oh, is that what those things are,” he whispered into his wife’s hair. They both chuckled.
The air began to cool as they swung in a comfortable silence. The only sound was the slow tick of the neighbor’s sprinkler and the occasional huff from their golden retriever sleeping by the back door.
“You happy, baby?” Nate asked. His question made Georgia lift her head.
“That’s a strange thing to ask.”
“Is it? I never asked you that…if you were happy. I guess I was afraid of the answer.”
“Nate, I’m happy, very. ”
He smiled, baring his white teeth and deep dimples. “I’m glad, Georgie…You just, I don’t know, seemed distant in some ways. Like you kept a part of yourself from me. I figured it was a piece that would never be mine.” He took a deep breath, she could tell by the rise in his chest. “But lately, it’s been different, you’ve been different, and I’ve been getting glimpses of that little piece, the one you kept tucked away. I like it. I want all of you.”
“You have me, Nate,” she replied, laying her head back onto his chest.
“I’m a simple man. I know we don’t have fancy things, but Georgia, what I do have…it’s yours. Hell, you want the moon? I’ll rope that sucker right now,” he said with laughter in his voice.
After a few seconds he squeezed her. “Those girls out there, they’re my heart. But you, Georgia, you’re my life.”
She smiled into his shirt.
“I know, baby, I know.”
And she did know, at last, down to her bones.
She sat up and turned towards him, cupping his face in her hands. This man who’d given her this life, the one she now cherished with everything she had. “I don’t need fancy things, Nate, or some fancy degree. What we have under this roof, inside those four walls…it’s all I’ll ever need.” She pressed her lips to his. It was soft and brief, but full of tenderness. “Thank you for our beautiful girls, for taking such good care of us.” She kissed him again, keeping her eyes on his. “I love you, Nate, more than anything.”
The look on his face warmed her from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. She knew at that moment that she was loved and cherished. And what made that love complete was that she loved and cherished herself in kind.
She snuggled back into his arms. The light was fading and the stars started to dot the sky.
“Momma, look how huge the moon is!” Amelia called from the yard, her head hanging back as she gazed at the sky. Georgia pushed off the swing and joined her daughter in the soft grass.
“Wow, that’s pretty amazing.”
“You see that dark area there? They call that the Sea of Tranquility.”
Georgia looked beyond her daughter’s outstretched finger. “Is that what that is? I’ve heard of it, but never knew where it was exactly.”
Bonnie was standing in front of them, staring at the moon as well, trying her best to say tranquility.
“See how it has a bluish tint?” Amelia asked.
Nate’s arms circled Georgia’s waist, as Amelia continued to fill them in on all things lunar.
“Okay, she got your brains, too,” Nate whispered in her ear.
Georgia grinned and leaned her head back into his shoulder.
She knew she didn’t need the moon, or the stars. She didn’t need a sea of tranquility, either. No, she was just fine with her little river of contentment, which she’d found somewhere in the space between letting go of the what if’s and embracing the what will be. That life is not about one thing, but a culmination of many little details, not what is missing, but what you make of what you have. Family. Friends. Allowing herself to be the first on her list of loves.
And a future of her own making.
The End
* Don’t miss the BONUS SCENE from Nate’s POV after the soundtrack! Also, check out the excerpt from Nikki’s first book, Rebound. A sexy, laugh out loud romp about second chances.
*Soundtrack*
1.The Reason- Hoobastank (Bonfire)
2.Three Libras- A Perfect Circle
3. No Surprises- Radiohead
4. Why Georgia- John Mayer (On the road)
5. Sleeping Lessons- Shins
6. Save Me- Muse
7. Sheep in Wolves Cl
othing- Little Hurricane
8. Bad Dream- Keane
9. Side- Travis
10. Meant to Live- Switch Foot
11. Shake it Out- Florence + The Machine
*Bonus Track*
The Space Between- Dave Mathews Band
~Nate~
“Hey, Bristol, throw me a Beast, dude,” his buddy Wayne bellowed from the bushes where he was relieving himself.
“How you gonna catch it, holding your dick?” Nate laughed, shaking his head. “How can you you drink this shit, anyway?” He grabbed a can from the cooler and tossed it towards Wayne just as he zipped up. He caught it with no problem, he was an All-State wide receiver, after all.
“It’s cheap, cold, and it gets you drunk. You do the math, Picasso.”
“Did you guys see Tara’s tits tonight? Fucking-A, they’re just begging to be touched,” Tim Baker remarked as he squeezed the air with both hands. “I mean, I wanna motor boat those like a motherfucker.” The guys laughed.
“Yeah, and spend the rest of your life eating through a straw,” Nate said dryly. Her boyfriend was a three hundred pound defensive lineman for Texas Tech.
“What? Can’t a guy dream? I’ll be jerking off to those beauties for weeks.” Tim walked over to the bed of his truck and jumped to sit on the edge, legs dangling. Nate shook his head, laughing at his friends. All they thought about was getting laid and getting drunk, but they were eighteen years old, what the hell else were they supposed to think about?
“Dude, you’d suffocate, anyway. One of her tits is as big as your little peanut head,” Gabe Daniels teased. He was right though. Tim’s head was small, he was a small guy.
Nate watched his buddies tease each other from a bag chair a good distance from the glowing light from the fire in the center of the clearing. It was hot outside, so the only reason for the bonfire was so that a party goer didn’t fall and break a leg. It was darker than hell out here in the middle of nowhere, especially since the moon was a tiny sliver. He started to space out a bit until a name brought him back to reality.
The Space Between Page 13