Aaron stood and walked over to the couch, touching the back of his hand to her hair. “It’s time for me to let you go, Becca. It’s time.”
He turned then and left the room, the front door closing quietly behind him a few seconds later.
Becca sat for a while after he’d gone, not moving, just trying to absorb all that had been said. She wanted to go after him, tell him he was wrong, that she could be what he needed her to be. But it wasn’t true. She knew it wasn’t. And maybe it was time she let him go. He was a man who deserved to be loved with the entirety of a woman’s heart, and in this way, she had failed him completely.
BECCA WENT UPSTAIRS and got dressed, hearing her mother up and moving around in her own room. She came back down a half hour later, stopping at the foot of the stairs just as Abby let herself in the front door.
“You’re home,” Becca said, a wave of relief washing through her. “How did you get here?”
“Beau drove me.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so glad you came back.”
Abby studied her for several moments and then said, “I’m not angry with you. I don’t want to spend my life second-guessing what you and everyone else did. I know you loved Emmy, my mother,” she said, breaking off there, flustered. “I know you loved her, and you must have done what you thought was best for her. I also know that you paid a price for that.”
Becca reached out and touched Abby’s cheek with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry for hurting you. That’s the last thing any of us wanted.”
“I know.”
Becca sat down on the steps, gratitude weakening her knees.
“Do I have other grandparents?” Abby said.
Becca blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Yes,” she said.
“Do they know about me?”
“They thought it best if—”
Abby held up a hand. “I don’t want to know anymore right now. I had to ask, but I think I’ll wait for the explanation.”
“Oh, Abby, I wish I could make this easier for you.”
“How can it be easy?”
“It can’t.”
She sat down next to Becca, reached across and took her hand between her two. “I’m going to marry Beau. At five o’clock this afternoon in town at the Methodist church.”
For a moment, Becca could not speak. When she finally did, concern underlined each of her words. “Oh, Abby. Please don’t do anything hasty. You’ve been through so much these past few days.”
“Yes, I have,” Abby said, a new maturity in her face that Becca could easily see. “But what I understand now is that people make all sorts of life-changing decisions for reasons that are sometimes not within their control. That they lose people they love because life takes a turn they never expected.”
Becca felt the well of familiar tears at Abby’s reference to the words Emmy had left her.
“Beau and I love each other. The way my mother must have loved my father. The way you loved Matt.” Abby’s voice broke there. “We love each other. Isn’t that all that should matter?”
Becca turned then and pulled Abby into her arms. Abby cried softly while Becca held her, rubbing her back and pressing her lips to the side of her hair.
Eventually, Abby pulled back and looked up at Becca, her lashes moist with tears. “You understand, don’t you, Mama?”
Becca’s heart constricted with the simple word. Mama. “Abby—”
“We’re not promised anything,” she said before Becca could finish. “If I’ve learned anything in the past few days, it’s that. Love is a gift. A gift I don’t want to turn away from. If Beau and I wait, if we put off what we already know we have, we may not have another chance. The way my mother and father lost their chance. The way you and Matt—”
She didn’t finish the rest, as if she knew the words were painful to Becca. In a soft voice, she added, “Neither of us is willing to risk losing each other. You’ll be there for us today, won’t you?”
“Oh, Abby,” Becca said.
“You don’t have to answer now. But I hope that you’ll come. You’re my mother. It will mean everything to me if you do.”
She got up then and walked to the front door. “I’ll go down to the barn now and tell Daddy.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No,” Abby said. “I think I should do this myself.”
Once she left, Becca went into the kitchen, standing at the sink with both hands grasping its edge. She felt as if her life had dissolved around her, the pieces so scattered and shorn that she had no idea how to begin picking them up again, if it would ever resemble anything of what it once was, even if she did figure out where to start.
Through the kitchen window, she could see the sun coming up behind Tinker’s Knob. A bright ray of light unfolded itself through the white cotton curtains, and, for Becca, with it came the sudden understanding of exactly where she should start. It seemed so simple, really, the realization that sometimes a person had to go back to the beginning if she were to ever figure out what the ending would be.
63
Ascent
“What are men to rocks and mountains?”
― Jane Austen
Now
The climb was steep. Far steeper than she had imagined in all the times she’d dreamed of climbing Tinker’s Knob. There really wasn’t a path, either, so she made her own, winding her way through dense pines and stretches of hardwoods that served as light-dappled canopies for the forest floor, all the while moving steadily upward, upward.
She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail, borrowing jeans and a shirt from Abby’s closet, clothes she was sure her daughter thought no one knew she had. She’d also put on thick leather boots that hit her mid-calf as protection from the rattlers and copperheads known to live on the mountain.
Along the way, she saw numerous families of deer grazing, squirrels darting from tree to tree, already working on their harvest for the coming winter. There were no wild boars, although she did see two wild goats, a male and a female, who studied her from a distance and then turned their heads back to a patch of grass growing between two old oaks.
The higher she went, the rockier the terrain became, and by the time she reached the top, exactly two-and-a-half hours from the time she left the farm, she was winded and sweating.
She stood for a moment, hands on her knees, drawing in deep breaths. She straightened then, looking behind her at the valley from which she’d come. She could see the white house where she’d grown up, the red barn and the black-and-white cows grazing in nearby green fields.
Heart pounding, she turned then and started the walk across the top to the other side. The peak of the knob couldn’t have been more than fifty yards or so, mostly rock with some low-growing green bushes scattered in between. She had to crouch down a time or two and work her way from one craggy jut to another.
As she approached the edge, she stopped and closed her eyes, wanting to see it all in one sudden sweep. She opened her eyes then, looking out at the valley below, taking in its vast expanse.
Under the velvet green spell of spring, startling swatches of color burst forth from black locusts, tulip poplars, and yellow sweet clover. Farms much like her own were scattered across the landscape below, cows and horses grazing along lines of white fencing. Like little moving dots, children played in the back yard of a tall brick house. Nearby, she saw a man and woman hug before the man got in a truck and drove away.
She felt in that moment, a swell of disappointment, realizing she had made this climb with the lingering expectation that something different might be revealed to her here. That she might find firm and final confirmation of her mother’s long ago warnings about crossing the boundaries of their own world.
But in reality, she found something else, something altogether different, validation in fact, of what she had once believed deep down to be true. That even when lives were divided by boundaries as high and imposing as this very mountain, boundaries imposed b
y the beliefs of others, the people on either side weren’t so different. And even when people looked different on the outside, whether it was in the way they dressed, the color of their skin, or the way in which they spoke, on the inside they were much the same. That for the most part, people had the same needs, the same wants, the same desires. They wanted the best for their loved ones and grieved when life brought them short of that.
It was rejection of this truth that had led to the tragedy of John and Emmy. Led her mother to close Jacob and Linda out for so many years. And, she could finally admit, to her own unacknowledged fear that the love she and Matt had found in each other would never survive those differences. That she could make herself love Aaron in the same way she’d loved Matt if she just tried hard enough.
She knew now that love didn’t work that way. That it was something the heart chose of its own accord. And as much as she had wished that she could change this within herself, that she could have avoided hurting Aaron as she had, she knew that she could not. This was something she would have to live with the rest of her life. The injustice she had committed against him.
Becca sat there on the rock, a low breeze lifting the wisps of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. So much pain. So much loss.
Abby’s words played through her thoughts then. We’re promised nothing. Love is a gift.
The truth of this settled around her, and with it came a deep sense of peace and acceptance. In her heart, she knew Abby was right. In her heart, she supposed she always had.
She stood and let her gaze linger for a few moments on the land below her. She turned then and began the return hike down the mountain. She would have to hurry. She had a wedding to attend.
64
A Sign
“Your will shall decide your destiny.”
― Charlotte Brontë
Now
Matt had spent the day packing. And most of the previous night arguing with himself about whether he should try to see Becca again, try to convince her that they belonged together.
He’d gotten out of bed a little after four a.m., made himself a pot of coffee and took a cup of it into the secret room at the center of the house. He turned on a single lamp and sat down on the old sofa, all too aware of the last time he’d sat here with Becca next to him.
He considered driving out to her place and pleading with her to give what they had a chance. He knew that she loved him as he loved her. They couldn’t lose that again.
But it was here in this room that he finally let himself hear what she had tried to say to him last night.
Becca had made her choice. And loving her as he did, how could he do anything other than honor it?
At eight a.m., he called a Realtor who happily met him at ten o’clock to list the house. He signed all the papers and then watched from the front porch while the woman posted her sign at the edge of the yard near the driveway. He felt a cutting sense of loss with this final step, turning away to go back inside and get the house ready to be shown.
He finished up around four-thirty, then went upstairs to shower and change into clean clothes. He took his suitcases out to the Land Rover, piling them in the back and then going inside to give the house one last check, sadness blanketing him. He closed the heavy wood door behind him, hesitating for a moment, and then locking it with his key.
He walked quickly to the truck, getting inside and reversing out without letting himself glance back at the house. He drove away with a solid lump of regret in his throat, giving in to the need to make one last loop through town.
He headed down past the cafe, cars filling up every parking space out front for an early dinner. He turned left and drove past the Old Simpson’s Grocery, the farmer’s market, and the hospital. He took another left at the light and headed past the coffee shop next to the courthouse, waiting out a light and then driving toward the Methodist church. He stopped at the light, glancing over at the front of the tall brick building just as the doors opened. A young woman in a white dress walked out, at her side a young man in a black tuxedo.
Matt realized then that the young woman was Abby, Becca’s daughter.
The light turned green, and he let the Land Rover roll forward, barely moving.
More people came out of the church, a man and a woman he didn’t recognize, and then two more that he did. Becca. And her mother, Martha Miller, older, but clearly recognizable to him.
Matt told himself he should drive on, but his hands turned the wheel of their own volition, and he pulled over alongside the curb just across the street from the church. She wore a light blue dress, simple but flattering, her long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. Matt stared at her, unable to look away.
He felt in that moment as if his very existence hinged on her looking up. And as if she had heard his thoughts, she lifted her head, her eyes finding him immediately.
They looked at each other for several long moments, while the church bells began to ring, their deep gong-gong resonating with joy.
He thought then about the losses in his life, and how deep down, he avoided putting himself out there. Aware that doing so meant he would have to live with the consequences if things went wrong.
Driving away today would be the safe thing to do. Or, he could take a chance.
An older woman took Becca’s arm and said something to her. Becca answered without taking her eyes off him.
A car tooted its horn, asking Matt to move forward.
He lifted a hand at Becca, and she raised her own to him.
He eased the Land Rover back into traffic, but instead of heading straight along the road that would take him to the 220 connect and the highway that led to D.C., he hung a left and looped his way back to his grandmother’s house on Highland Street.
He turned into the driveway, sat for a moment while the church bells still rang in his ears, and Becca’s sweet face hung in his memory. He got out then, walking over to the For Sale sign and staring at the words. He pulled the post free of the ground, shaking the dirt from the bottom. He walked back to the vehicle, opened the hatch and threw the sign inside. He gave the house a last glance, a fresh imprint on his memory, and then, sliding in the driver’s seat, he backed out and drove away.
Letter from Abby
115 Old Mill Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
May 10th
Dear Mama,
Things are going well here for Beau and me. He’s doing great with his classes, and I suspect he’ll make the Dean’s list again this semester. I’m hoping I will, too.
It’s a beautiful time of year. The streets are full now with flowering trees in pinks and whites. From our apartment window, we can see a park where little children play on seesaws and jungle gyms. Beau has become a volunteer in the local Big Brother program, and once a week he takes twin seven-year old boys to places like the Science Museum, a putt-putt course, or the zoo.
I talked to Daddy last week. He seems happy in Ohio, and I’m glad. I’m going to go up and visit him when school’s out.
Grandma called a few nights ago. She sounded good. She said Jacob and Linda are now running the farm full-time.
Michael is going to spend the night next Saturday so Jacob and Linda can celebrate her birthday. I invited Grandma to come down to see us. She said the next time you come, she might come with you.
Tell Matt I said hello and that the next time Beau and I come home, I fully intend to land a bass and upset his new Tinker’s Knob Lake record. By the way, I read the article in the News-Post(thanks for the subscription by the way!) on how well his practice is doing. It’s nice that he’s being compared to his grandfather. I can’t believe he actually accepted that miniature donkey as payment from old Mrs.Turner. Did she really ram the mayor’s car for saying the new animal shelter was a waste of money? Yay for Mrs. Turner. Did you know mini-donkeys can be housetrained?
I can’t wait to see the garden you’ve planted this year. Did Matt finish putting in the irrigation system?
&nbs
p; I’ll quit rambling now and get to the real point of why I’m writing. Beau’s mom called last night and said she’d heard that Mr. Perdue had moved away from Ballard County, and I’m glad about that, so there’s no chance that you have to run into him. No matter where he goes though, he has to take the knowledge of his actions and beliefs with him. And I think the tribute we can pay to my father and mother is to live as we would hope others might, treating others as we would like to be treated. Maybe that’s the best any of us can do.
Well, I better go now. Beau’s waiting for me. We’re heading over to campus for afternoon classes. I miss you, Mama. And I love you.
Your daughter,
Abby
Reading Group Guide
1. Do you think Becca made the right choice in taking on the role of Abby’s mother? Do you think her decision to do so was completely out of love for her sister? Or possibly, too, as a way to confirm her own belief that she and Matt could never have a life together?
2. Do you think we are very often led to choose the paths we choose for our lives based on our sense of duty to our families? Why do you think some people like Wilks take pleasure in belittling those who are different?
3. Do you think Matt should have realized the depth of Wilks’s prejudice against Becca and the way she was brought up?
4. Were Martha’s prejudices equal to those of Wilks?
5. Do you think Martha was wrong to go along with her husband’s belief that the best thing for all would be to let what happened to John, Emmy’s fiancé, be perceived as an accident? Do you find Martha’s unwillingness to disagree with him objectionable?
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