“I don’t have a car.” She was trying to be difficult, but even as she spoke, desire swelled in her. Who cared if he had a secret? Who cared if she had to wait two days for him to do whatever it was he needed to do?
“Alright,” he went on, “then just get your things, spend a little time with your family, and then fly to me in a couple days. We’ll pick up right where we left off.”
She pressed herself against him and dipped her head. “If I didn’t know better, I would say it sounds like you are trying to get rid of me for a little while.”
“Good thing you know better,” he said, and he spun her around and buried his hands in her hair, pulling her mouth toward his.
She let him lead her back to the bed then. The sheets still warm and wrinkled with sleep, and he made love to her in a new, gentle and tender way. Skimming his hand along her skin, whispering to her, nibbling gently on her earlobe and not entering her until her entire body arched upwards, aching with longing.
Afterward, he lay trembling against her, and, some time later, he placed a call to Margot, quietly instructing her to book Jess a flight to Denver, and he one to Los Angeles. His left eyelid twitched wildly, just the very corner of it, and Jess watched it for a time. The violence of this tiny part of his face, acting on its own, uncontrolled.
She lay there and wondered several things: How she would possibly get through the next few days without him, for the world would feel flat and choking in his absence. And she wondered what she would do if, at the end of those two days, he no longer wanted her, if his secret truly had the power to ruin everything.
He sat up, and he paused before wriggling into his clothes once more. He raked his hands through his hair and she was overcome with a love so profound for him, she knew that nothing, ever, would take him away from her. She would give him his two days. She would give him what he needed simply because he needed it, and, when the time was right, he would tell her what he needed to tell her. Meanwhile, she would return to her old life. She would try to bring this life, this feeling of confidence and freedom and power, into her old one. She would go home, and she would get her things, and she would spend time with Grandma, and she would say a few proper goodbyes.
And, if there was time, she might even do a bit of investigative work, if it felt right to do so. Maybe she would make some calls, do some reading, finish Jake’s book. Maybe she would be able to piece together, for herself, what Jake was so afraid of. The secret he feared would ruin him. Them. Everything.
Her entire body went cold, then, for reasons she couldn’t explain, and she shivered, as she watched him move toward his suitcase, as she watched him fumble with its zipper, as she watched him slip on his shoes.
Eleven
Jess
Jess was pleased to see a different driver waiting for her at the airport. He had the same tall black cap. The same way of standing, with his arms behind his back. The same quiet way of recognizing her, of putting his hand on the small of her back and ushering her toward the waiting car, of waiting for her to speak before he initiated polite conversation. But this was not the man who had picked her up for a midnight rendezvous. It was not the man who had watched her grandmother standing in the front yard trampling frail shoots of grass and shouting warnings.
No, this man had a kind voice and a soft way of being. He drove slowly, as though he knew Jess was unsure she ever wanted to reach her destination, but, when they finally arrived, he helped her from the car, then nodded his head once and wished her luck before sliding back into the driver’s seat and pulling away from the curb, leaving Jess to make her way up the concrete path of her mother and father’s home.
Jess thought then, that it was true: this notion that one could never truly come home again. She observed the painted siding, made drab by the sun, and she felt a certain distance from the events that had gone on in there. The events of her own childhood. It was a gentle sense of melancholy, a tugging, a fading and shrinking of that which had once been meaningful and beautiful. The mailbox at the end of the driveway, painted to look like a bird. A tightly rolled green hose. Carefully pruned rosebushes and hedges. All looked shabby, suddenly, awash with low light. The sight of them made her thirsty somehow.
Jake’s goodbye at the airport had been rushed. They’d made love once more before leaving the cottage, and so they were late to meet their car, and when the driver tried to make up for lost time, he was pulled over for speeding. From the moment they left the resort, their idyllic, quiet life together had fractured, and real life had come rushing in through the cracks, despite her efforts to plug the holes, to stem its tide.
Jake’s flight was already boarding by the time they arrived at the airport and so there wasn’t time for anything but a peck of the lips before a ticket agent brushed a manicured hand along Jake’s back and ushered him down the corridor to his waiting plane.
Jake was gone, just like that, and her own plane was delayed, so she found herself wandering, alone, throughout the airport, reflecting on the past two days and catching fragments of her expression in snips of glass and polished chrome. Sometimes her face shone with bliss; other times, it showed only bewilderment.
On the plane, she’d closed her eyes, and she had simply thought. She remembered and wondered and reminisced and analyzed. And now, as she entered her home, she did so as softly as she could, wanting to witness the world inside these walls before becoming a part of it. The quiet had a scraping quality as she walked in the door. It nearly crackled, like static electricity, and the air smelled of last night’s dishes. Stuck-on noodles, soaking in a pan. The tired edge of stale garlic, maybe some kind of marinara sauce, which she knew would be splattered across the stovetop. Then she saw Grandma, hunched at the dining room table, alone, where the light was low, working a jigsaw puzzle.
Grandma lifted her head then and her face broke into a smile. She clapped her hands over her heart. “Jessica!” She struggled to rise up, then sat again. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, Grandma, I’m fine.”
“Oh, Jess. We were so worried. The way you left, I just feel terrible about it. Monica, she got me all riled up, all excited, and I just, I just haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since you left.” Grandma turned in her chair and pushed against the table until she was standing. Her arms felt cold as they squeezed at Jess. “I’m just so happy to see you.”
Jess’s arms remained pinned against her body in the tightness of Grandma’s embrace. Had she really run out on this poor woman? Had she really put Jake ahead of everything else? Of her family? What had made her do it? What had given her the courage? She didn’t know, but she was so glad, finally, that she had. This weekend had changed her. It had made her into someone new; someone just like the old Jess but better, more loving, more understanding of her own power. She thought briefly about all that had happened to her, the grotto, the river, the horseback ride. The hard stone, the Apache tear, now buried deep in her pocket. It pushed against her thigh as Grandma administered a final squeeze.
“I was so upset about it… about the way you left,” Grandma repeated, pulling back and looking at Jess full in the face, “So upset that I very nearly lost it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s nothing to worry about now, Jessica, but I got very short of breath and just… well, just not well at all. Your mother took me to the emergency room last night, in fact, and they gave me some pills for my heart, which I guess are supposed to help. But you’re here now and so maybe I won’t even need to take them at all.”
“I’m so sorry, Grandma,” Jess said, trying to meet her eyes, but Grandma was sitting again and was focused once more on her puzzle. She grazed her hands through the pieces, and Jess took a seat next to her. “What kind of heart pills were you prescribed? Do you remember the name?”
“No, dear, but like I said, I don’t think I need them anymore. You’re here. You’re back.”
Jess patted at her grandmother’s arm, then
she gave it a squeeze. “Grandma, if your doctor prescribed medication, you need to keep taking it until the doctor tells you to stop.”
Grandma’s nose wrinkled, which pushed up her glasses. She didn’t look up, but she said, “It wasn’t my doctor. It was an Emergency Room doctor.”
“Still, Grandma. Any doctor.”
“He was very handsome And young, like you.”
“Where’s your prescription, Grandma? Where are the pills? Can I take a look?”
“Did I mention that he was very handsome?”
“You did.” Jess said. “Are the pills in your handbag, or on the counter?”
Grandma snapped two puzzle pieces together. “When you start working as a physician; that is, if you start working at our hospital here, which we all hope you do, maybe you two could get to know one another. Or maybe you could just have dinner with him some night and ask him for some help in getting your motivation back. Your motivation to finish things up.” She surveyed the table once again, before plucking a new puzzle piece and rubbing her fingers along its side. “I told him all about you. He sounded very interested. Really very interested. And he’s quite handsome.”
Jess stood and searched for the amber pill bottle. Ordinarily, Grandma kept all of her medications by the phone in the kitchen, but there wasn’t anything there. No vitamins, nothing. She returned to the dining room, her hands resting on her hips. It was a familiar role. One that Jess remembered liking and one that she liked again, just now. The feeling of control, of knowing what she needed to do next, of doing something that was so meaningful in a real, black and white, cut and dry way. She was helping Grandma.
“Don’t you want me to tell you what he looked like?” Grandma was saying. “Aren’t you the slightest bit curious?”
“No Grandma, I want to know what pills you are taking.”
“Oh, well, they are in my crochet bag, over there, on the sideboard.” She waved her hand without looking up. “He’s not married, Jessica. He told me so. I told him that you were nearly finished with medical school, and I told him how beautiful you are, inside and out.”
The amber bottle was turned upside down, in the bottom of her bag. The pills inside were huge. She imagined her grandmother standing at the sink, gagging and choking and trying to get them down. “Are you able to swallow these okay?” Jess asked.
“They’re fine, Jessica. There’s no problem.”
Another container rattled in the bottom of the bag. She fished it out. “What’s this? This St. John’s Wort? Are you taking this, too, now?”
“Yes, a doctor on the television said it was really good for a great many things.”
“Well, did you tell the doctor or the pharmacist that you were taking this, too?”
“I’m sure that I did. Are you even listening, Jessica? About the doctor?”
“Grandma, do these new pills make you dizzy? Because they make many patients dizzy. It’s a pretty high dosage.”
“The doctor’s name and phone number are printed right on the pill bottle. I thought that was a good sign. Really, I think he’s interested in you. And he’s really very handsome.”
“Grandma, every pharmacy prints the prescribing doctor’s name and phone number on the prescription bottle. It’s not any kind of sign at all.”
“Well, the man’s a good egg. Believe you me. I can just tell. And you should give him a call.”
“Grandma,” Jess tried again. “Does this medication make you dizzy?”
“Only if I get up too fast or if I move my head in a certain way, but I’m careful. And since you’re home, maybe I’ll call the doctor. The one on the pill bottle. His name is Dr. Evan Everhart. Isn’t that a wonderful name for a doctor? Like he should be a character in one of my stories. He looks like someone from my stories, too. ‘Days of Our Lives,’ or maybe ‘The Young and the Restless.’” She sighed. “They all run together in my head these days. Either way, maybe I’ll call him up and maybe I’ll tell him you’re home now because maybe now I don’t need to take these new pills after all. Since you’re home.”
“Well, since you brought it up, I am going to be leaving again, Grandma.”
“Oh!” Grandma clapped her hands together and looked her full in the face, her eyes bright. “You’ve decided to go back to school! I knew you would.”
“No, well, not yet.”
Grandma’s face fell, and she looked down at the table.
“I was planning to go to California, actually, for a little while.”
“Well.” She chose another puzzle piece and held it to the light. “That’s just nonsense. What would you do there?”
“That man I spent the weekend with. We’re really fond of one another, Grandma, and he’s asked me to go and be with him. To go and live closer to him.”
Grandma snorted and wrinkled her nose, which repositioned her bifocals. She chose a straight-edge piece and examined it.
“I really think you’d like him if you got to know him,” Jess said. “He’s amazingly thoughtful, and…” she paused and took a deep breath. “And he loves me. He really does, Grandma.”
Grandma’s mouth pressed into a tight line and she continued talking as though she hadn’t heard anything Jess said. “Well, if you’re going to be leaving me again, I guess we’d better call that doctor right now. Let’s see if we can set up an appointment to see him right away.”
“If he just prescribed your meds, let’s wait and see what kind of effect they have on your heart. I’ll be here for at least the next couple of days to watch over you. Then we’ll see what we need to do from there.”
Her hand drifted to Grandma’s shoulder and Grandma patted at it with her soft, smooth hands. Grandma’s skin was crepe paper thin and smooth and cold. Her cuticles were white and crescent-shaped, and her veins seemed to surge against her skin like fragile cords.
Jess felt a sudden empty space all around her. She breathed deeply and dipped her chin and grounded herself by silently listing everything she knew about this new medication. As she did, and as her mind clicked into action, she felt taller and more precise. She felt a sense of belonging and understanding. A sense that everything would be okay. And then the image of Elizabeth flashed into her mind. Tall, articulate, resolute. Maybe Elizabeth was a doctor or an attorney, or a detective. Someone who could separate herself from emotion. Maybe Elizabeth had been hired to look after Jake. Or, Jess scoffed, maybe Elizabeth truly was his lover, whenever no other lovers were around.
But he’d said he loved her, and her alone, and yet none of it seemed real, suddenly, and Jess feared that the longer she was away from him, the more she’d lose the sense that any of this had happened at all. She intentionally recalled the tilt of Jake’s head then, the way he’d pressed the obsidian stone into her hand. The way he’d urged her never to forget.
“Jessica.” Grandma gave Jess’s hand a final pat. “Be a dear, and hand me the cordless phone.”
“We don’t need to call Dr. Everhart just yet, Grandma. Let’s wait on that. Can we agree?”
“No, I am going to call Monica. She’s been worried sick. Not literally worried sick, like I was—having to go to the emergency room and all, but worried sick. I’m just going to call and tell her you’re okay.”
“Hey, why don’t you set Monica up with Dr. Everhart?”
“Oh heavens no.” Grandma made a chortling noise in the back of her throat. “He’s for you.”
Jess made her way to the kitchen, to where the white cordless phone sat atop its base. It felt heavy in her hand. She set it in front of Grandma, on top of the rows of edge pieces she had already fit together.
“Maybe you should call her, Jessica,” Grandma said.
“I don’t want to call her.”
“Well, you really need to talk with her and work things out. She’s been so worried about you…going off with that Jake character.”
“Only because she wanted Jake for herself,” Jess muttered.
“What was that?”
�
�Nothing Grandma. You go ahead and call Monica if you think you need to. I’m going to…” She wasn’t sure whether she planned to pack her things or to unpack them. She suddenly wasn’t sure how long she’d be staying. “I’m going to go downstairs for a bit.”
She didn’t look back to see whether Grandma was making a call. She didn’t listen for hints of conversation. She listened only to the sound of her own footsteps on the creaking carpeted stairs.
His book was still on her desk, just where she’d left it, and now, before she left for Los Angeles, before she reunited with Jake, she would read it, cover to cover. Maybe two or three or four times. She would get to know him—or at least she would get to know the face he put on for the world to see.
What was he doing at just that moment? She tried to imagine him, the way he must look right now. In his home, on the beach, with Elizabeth perhaps? The set of his jaw. The depth of his eyes.
She’d made love to him just hours before. She could still smell his scent on her skin. Her muscles were still taut, tender, from moving them in ways she had never before fathomed, and yet their time together felt like a dream. More and more with each passing moment. How could it so quickly begin to fade, to slip away from her?
If she were to let him disappear, if she were to let the dream of him fade into the night and into the next day and the next night beyond, would he chase after her? Would he forget her? Would his dream of her fade as well, the longer they were kept apart?
She perched at the edge of her bed, and then she kicked up her feet and she stared at the ceiling. She let her eyes relax and lose focus along the jagged popcorn texture, and before long, it began to swim. It moved in and out of focus and, in her mind, she was seeing Jake’s face, his eyes, the way they had looked at her when she’d emerged from the river, reborn. She pressed against the side of her head now, where it had cracked against the stone, deep in the water, as the river threatened to pull her away from him, and she fingered the tender area of her scalp. Pressing on it helped remind her that it had happened. It had all actually happened.
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