Love Rebuilt

by Delancey Stewart

  Cam’s truck was still parked outside the lodge, and without a real plan, I wandered toward it. When I rounded the back edge of the truck, I was surprised to find Cam leaning against the front bumper, staring ahead of himself with unseeing eyes.

  “Hey you,” I said, surprised that my voice sounded normal and revealed none of the pain that was eating at my insides.

  “Hey.”

  “What’s going on?” I was surprised to find him still here. I figured they’d be headed back down the hill by now, and it wouldn’t have surprised me at this point for him to leave without a formal goodbye, no matter what Jess had promised.

  “I think we’ll be here another night or so. You wouldn’t think it, but long car rides can be really draining.”

  I knew Cam wasn’t talking about himself. I wondered how much of Jess’s reluctance to leave was about being tired from the ride, and how much was about her insisting on staying until things were definitely resolved between Cam and me.

  “I’m glad you’re staying,” I said. “It’s nice to see you. And to meet Jess.”

  He cocked his head to the side, giving me a piercing look. For a minute I thought he was about to let loose, give me a dressing down for all the infractions over the years. I felt like I might just collapse under the weight of my regret if he did. After the words Connor had just thrown at me, I didn’t know how much more I could take. But Cam didn’t say anything awful. Instead, he smiled. “It’s nice to see you again, too. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

  I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of smiling, but I managed it nonetheless. “What are you doing now?”

  “Just giving Jess some quiet. She needs rest.”

  I nodded. “You could come back to my place, if Jess didn’t mind.”

  He shrugged and then smiled. “I’ll just let her know. Be right back.” He jogged into the lodge and reappeared a few minutes later, climbing back into his truck. “I got to see the outside, but why don’t you show me around this trailer you’re so proud of?”

  “Ha!”

  “I want to get another look at the house, too.” Cam had worked with Chance and Sam many summers before, helping build some of the cabins around the meadow. I knew he was thinking about the house with his contractor mind now, when before he’d seen it just as my angry brother.

  I got back into my car and Cam followed me through the village we had played in as children, up to the lot that once held only our beat-up station wagon and a couple tents, some folding chairs and the same old picnic table that I used now. A strange slow shame crept through me as he took time to look at the half-erected mansion that Jack had planned, wandering through the rooms. I walked at his side, silent.

  “This is pretty ambitious,” he said, his voice low. He kept his tone neutral, and it occurred to me that he was trying to keep the newfound peace between us, just as I was.

  “It’s too much,” I said, agreeing with the words he hadn’t spoken. “I haven’t had the funds to re-plan it and finish it.”

  He gave me a direct look then, and I knew he understood being short of funds and was thinking of Dad. And of Jess.

  I gave him the two-minute tour of the trailer and the house. He spent some time wandering the perimeter of the property, and I knew he was remembering the time we’d spent here as a family. I often did the same thing, but when Cam wandered through his memories he looked down, running the toe of his shoe through the soft mountain dirt. When I remembered, I always looked up. It was the trees that had always drawn me to this place.

  After a bit, I joined him behind the frame of the house where he stood looking down the hill toward the trickle that was once a river.

  “What do you remember about that day you fell in?” he asked.

  “Not much. How old was I? Four?”

  “Maybe five.”

  “I remember climbing the rocks along the edge of the river. I remember that the water looked deeper than normal.”

  “And faster.” Cam’s voice was grim. “We shouldn’t have been down there. There’d been so much snow that year.” He looked up at me, his eyes narrow. “It had never been a real river before. It was more like a trickle. But that year it was big.” He shook his head slightly. “I should never have taken you down there.”

  My heart swelled with hope. This. This was my big brother. He was back, at least in the memory of that day. “It wasn’t your fault, Cam.”

  “What else do you remember? Do you remember the kid that pulled you out?”

  “I don’t think so. Only in flashes, but I can’t see him, just a shadow above me. Do you remember who he was?”

  Cam squinted, looking down the hill again, as if he was watching the older kid pulling me back up the hill to my dad. “He had this crazy dark red hair, and a little sister.”

  My mouth might have fallen open just a bit as I turned to look at Cam. Something had just clicked in my mind, and my memory snapped into place. The shadow above me in my memory had red hair that caught the sun and blazed in shades of red and orange, I just hadn’t remembered that part until now. Connor. I swallowed hard, wondering if it could be true that Connor had saved my life as a child. If it was him, did he remember it?

  We turned back and walked to the picnic table, both of us sliding into the same spots we’d always taken as children, leaving room for our parents at the other end without even thinking about it. But as soon as I was settled, I stood again. My mind was turning furious circles. “Beer?”

  Cam nodded.

  I returned and he started talking, holding the long bottle between his palms and rolling it back and forth.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t let you meet Jess earlier.”

  I sat still, listening.

  “We met when I was traveling for a film, out in Arizona. Everything was hot and dry there—it was a desert set—and there she was, bright and cool and bubbly.”

  “She’s wonderful,” I agreed.

  “Things happened really fast. She moved in with me, we got married. She doesn’t have family, so we went to the justice of the peace on a trip to Hawaii.”

  He tilted his head and stared at me for a second, but I knew he wasn’t seeing me. I waited for him to continue.

  “She got sick last year. They gave her six months and she’s already lived twice that.”

  “Cancer?” I asked.

  He nodded. He didn’t offer more, and I didn’t press.

  “I hope I can help.”

  “I don’t know how long we have,” Cam said. “How about if I call Jack and see if I can persuade him to let go of that account?”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “Maybe I can help.” He stared at the tabletop. “You were right. What you said. About how you needed me, and how I just left you with him. I should never have let you marry him. I should never have walked away.”

  “It wasn’t your call.” My voice was weak.

  “You needed me. And I left you.” Cam’s voice broke and he looked away, taking a long pull from his beer.

  “Well, if you can persuade him, you might have a future in law or sales. Maybe you can manage something my lawyer hasn’t been able to in a year.”

  He nodded, a half smile turning up his lips. “Maybe. Jack’s such a pussy. What’d you ever see in that skirt-wearing douchebag?”

  I shrugged.

  “You know how to pick ‘em, sis. This guy, Connor…he’s been in the newspaper back home. Did you know that?” The words hurt, but Cam’s voice was soft and his eyes shone as he watched me.

  I nodded, cringing as I thought about the picture Jack had stolen. My picture, and it was being used to help smear Connor’s name.

  “Think it’s all true?”

  I shook my head. “I know it isn’t.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but I believed Connor. I believed his story about his sister, and I believed him about Amanda, too. “He wanted to buy this land, Cam. That was how I met him.” Should I tell him about my memory, about my suspicions that Connor was the kid wh
o’d pulled me from the creek? “But he changed his mind suddenly a while ago, and now I might understand part of the reason why.”

  “I didn’t know you were trying to sell it.” Cam’s voice was steady, but he was looking at me with hard eyes.

  “I wouldn’t have been able to. But he changed his mind before it came to that.”

  “Why?”

  “This is going to sound nuts. But I think it was him that pulled me from the creek.”

  Cam’s eyes widened.

  “I never put it together until now. But he has red hair, and he’s always looked so familiar to me, kind of…comforting in a weird way I couldn’t put my finger on.” I stared into the distance for a minute, thinking about the way Connor had changed his mind about buying the land.

  “I think he wanted to buy until he figured out who I was. I told him the land had been in our family for years, that I played up here as a kid, and then he changed his mind suddenly. I think he remembered me, but he didn’t say it.” I searched my brother’s face, as if the answer might be there somewhere, hidden in the rough-looking goatee, or in the lines of worry around his eyes.

  “I don’t know what to make of that.”

  “What else do you remember about him?”

  “Not much,” he said. “I remember a red-haired kid with a sister. But his name wasn’t Connor.”

  “It was Christopher.”

  “Yeah!” Cam smiled. “Chris. And his sister was Cathy, I think. They played with us a few times one summer. Now I remember. You seriously don’t remember him?”

  “I was four.”

  “Well, I do remember him pulling you out of that river. He must be what, seven or eight years older than you? I remember that he was the oldest kid when we were roaming around in our little pack. I thought he was pretty cool, actually. He’d invent games for us, spy games and stuff.” Cam must have read the questions on my face. “He was a nice kid, Maddie.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to freak you out.”

  “It freaks me out more that he’s been spending time with me, that he knew and I didn’t. And now the thing Jess said, about everyone he saves in his books looking like me. That’s just weird.”

  “I don’t read the books,” Cam said. “Too dark.”

  “You make seriously weird movies. His books are too dark for you?”

  He smiled and shrugged, and I glimpsed the brother I’d known for years, the little kid I’d gotten into trouble with. “What are you going to do?”

  I shook my head. “That’s a good question. I was going to take Jack for everything he was worth and build the cabin that should be here. But I couldn’t do it. And I was going to sell Connor out by peddling a photo of him to the press. But I couldn’t do that either.”

  Cam didn’t comment.

  I stared at the open walls of my former dream home. “Now I want to help you and Dad, and survive the winter, I guess.” A cool breeze kicked up, as if summoned by my words. It smelled of green things and old, fertile earth.

  Cam stared at me. “Well you’ve got me,” he said. “Anytime you need me.”

  I couldn’t help it. The tears squeezed their way from the corners of my eyes as I smiled, and a sob climbed my throat and flew out. I let him take my hand and I dropped my head to the table onto my other arm. The vacuum in my life where my brother used to be had grown so big that I thought I’d never be able to fill it. I’d gone on, trying to ignore it, but knowing that he was back was the best answer I could have hoped for. Things almost felt right, but now there was a new hole where Connor had been, and that void was full of confusion over a past I didn’t remember, but one that I was certain Connor did.

  When I could stop crying, I stood and wiped at my face.

  “I should get back to Jess, Mads.” Cam’s voice was soft.

  “I know.”

  “She has appointments this week, but I think we’ll be here at least another night.”

  “Okay.” I turned and stepped in front of him. “For what it’s worth, I really, really like her, Cam. And I’m so sorry she’s sick.”

  He nodded and pulled me into his arms, holding me there long enough to almost make up for the three years he’d left me alone.

  Chapter 17

  I didn’t go back to Connor’s and I didn’t call him, though I felt the ache of having so much unresolved between us every second of the day. I still couldn’t figure out what to do with the knowledge that he knew me when I was a child and had saved me, that he’d potentially exploited that memory in every single one of his books. I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or frightened, but more than that, I had no way of knowing if his interest in me was real now, or if it was a remnant of a memory. He seemed legitimately hurt by the belief that I’d betrayed him, as if he’d really cared for me in some way. But I didn’t know what to think about our time together. Maybe being with me as an adult had been just a novelty after so many years spent remembering me as a child.

  Cam and Jess left the following day, both of them full of smiles and good wishes. I hated seeing them go, and my heart ached with loneliness as Cam’s big truck pulled away from the village.

  I worked, I hiked and took pictures, and spent my free time making my website precisely the way I wanted it. The creative impulse was coming back to me, like a light that hadn’t been turned on in a while, flickering and dim at first, and then slowly glowing back to brightness. Part of me was coming back with it, and I felt stronger and less lonely as I worked. When I wasn’t at the diner or in the library, I kept busy despite Connor’s continued silence. I had dinner with the Trenches. I met with Ella Peters, helping her write essays and assemble letters of recommendation for the scholarship application package she needed for school.

  Work at the diner continued to slow down, and Miranda and I ended up with a lot of time to work crossword puzzles and stare out the windows. Adele didn’t often have us both working at once anymore, but there were still times when we overlapped and we got to catch up, and I ended up telling her about everything that had happened with Connor, with my brother. We hadn’t gotten far into the lessons in flirtation I’d promised—my own confidence in that department had suffered a blow, and Miranda had insisted she’d given up on Chance. Her eyes told a different story every time the tall hunky local walked into the diner, but I didn’t want to push her. Pushing Miranda usually meant wearing a pot of coffee and the potential for second-degree burns.

  The absence of Connor was like a painful wound. I missed everything I’d come to know in such a short time—the smell and feel of his smooth skin, the scratch of his jaw against my neck, his strong arms pulling me close. And while all of that was nice, what I missed most was the knowledge that he was there, that he was thinking of me. I didn’t realize that I’d been guarding that idea like a shiny rock tucked away in my mind, that I’d been pulling it out to look at when no one was around and rubbing my fingers over it as a source of comfort. But that security token was gone now.

  After a rare busy period at the diner, Miranda cornered me, her blue eyes wide behind her glasses.

  “This stuff really has you turned upside down, doesn’t it?”

  “Sorry?”

  “You gave table six table four’s food. And that guy wanted tea, but you gave him coffee. You’re a mess! Maybe you’ve been around me too long.”

  I looked around. I wasn’t sure if I’d made those mistakes, but it didn’t surprise me. “Crap. Sorry.”

  As things fell back into a lull and I was able to catch my breath, Miranda and I both leaned over the counter, resting on our elbows and watching the street beyond.

  “I kind of want to go kick Connor’s ass for upsetting you like this.”

  “It’s not his fault.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s for the best, right? I thought the guy freaked you out.”

  “I don’t know him, Maddie.” She stared out the window for a minute, and I wondered if she w
as picturing him in her mind. “He’s pretty hot, though.” A huge grin spread across her face.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “He is. It doesn’t matter now though.” I hadn’t told her the part about Jack, about the photo.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not speaking to me. I haven’t talked to him over in a week. He thinks I betrayed him.”

  “Betrayed him? Why does he think that?”

  I opened my mouth to explain but Miranda was no longer listening to me. She was staring out the window, open-mouthed, as a long procession of police cars flew through the parking lot outside, coming out of the village.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I’m generally the last to know.” I watched the cars pull out onto the main highway. In the back of one car, the shadow of a figure could be seen. It was impossible to tell who it might have been, but the sinking feeling in my stomach told me I already knew. And that I’d been wrong again—about everything. The car followed the others out to the main highway and disappeared, and my heart squeezed painfully.

  “Holy shit,” Miranda said under her breath. “That was some kind of serious show of force right there.”

  I turned to look at her. “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

  “Whatever.” She was still staring out at where the procession of black and whites had been. “Do you think that was…?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I hope not.”

  The rest of my shift was painful. Everything I thought I’d decided, everything I thought I knew about Connor—could I really have been that wrong? I wasn’t surprised. I’d been wildly off base before, after all. But if that really had been Connor in that car, that meant the police had found enough evidence to arrest him. And if that was the case, then I hadn’t only been wrong, I’d been stupid. I’d been alone with Connor several times. I’d sought him out at his house. I’d ignored every warning anyone had given me. God, I’d had sex with him.

  *

  “Someone to see you, Princess.” Adele’s voice cut through my distraction as I washed my hands in the back of the kitchen, getting ready to leave for the evening. I was going to go find out about Connor, but now that I was free, I was dragging my feet. If that wasn’t him in the car, I would still have to face the fact that he was angry with me. For good reason.