Within a Man's Heart

by Winton, Tom

  “Okay guys. It’s okay. I’m just coming to see your momma.”

  A moment later, reasonably satisfied that my door would be safe, I turned my attention ahead again. And as I looked back through the windshield I saw Gina stepping out onto the front porch. A short length of rope was hanging next to the doorway, and she gave it a few yanks.

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  At the other end of a rope there was a wall-mounted bell. The instant the yellow Labs heard it they stopped in their tracks, glanced over at Gina, and retreated. Their short run back to the porch was half-hearted, as they kept glancing back at me; but they obediently headed right toward their owner. I rolled forward a bit more, killed the engine, and got out just as Gina ushered the dogs inside.

  As I walked up to the porch, she closed the door and turned to me. Standing there in jeans and a snug black tee shirt, her arms crossed over her chest she said nothing. I wasn’t sure what to make of the look on her face as I climbed the wooden steps. She seemed perturbed, yet relieved at the same time. It was one of those times when I didn’t know for the life of me what I was going to say. Stopping in front of her the best I could do was say in a gentle, apologetic tone, “Does that dinner invitation still stand?”

  A long moment passed as she studied my eyes and face. Finally, she said, “I’ll tell you what . . . why don’t we talk first?”

  “Okay. Sure. Let’s talk.”

  “Have a seat,” she said, waving an open hand toward two wicker chairs with floral cushions. “I’ll go put the stove on low. Beer?”

  “Yeah, okay. That would hit the spot.”

  She went inside and the dogs let out a few barks, as if asking, “Who’s that out there?” She hushed them, told them it was okay then returned with a can of Bud Light and a glass of red wine.

  “Sorry about being so rough with you back at the library,” I said after she sat down, “but I’ve been a little put out after what happened at your Mom’s party.”

  “Look,” Gina said, resting her glass on the table between us, “It’s just like you said back at the library . . . we don’t know each other all that well. But I can’t help but to feel an attraction toward you. And I’m not just talking physical here. For as short a time as we’ve known each other, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I have this feeling that you and I just might be able to build a relationship.”

  “Build a relationship?”

  She squirmed in her seat a little before pivoting in my direction. Leaning forward now, she looked at me from the corners of those gray eyes and said, “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you Chris?”

  “Look Gina, I’ve got a lot of mental baggage. I can’t go into any of it right now, but the last thing I was looking for when I came up here was another relationship.”

  I paused for a moment, and her face tightened up even more than it already had. I felt terrible. But what I said next had nothing to do with sympathy. It was the truth.

  “No, Gina, getting involved with somebody was the last thing on my mind when I left New York. If that was what I wanted I would have had a far better chance of finding someone in a city with eight million people. Anyway, do I find you attractive? Yes, I sure do. You’re one good-looking lady. More important than that, I think you’re sincere. No, I know you are. And that’s why I got so upset and disappointed at the party.”

  The wheels were turning fast in Gina’s head now. She leaned back in her seat a little, keeping her eyes on me as she took a sip of wine. Then she slowly lowered the glass to her lap and said, “Rusty Barnwell and I dated for a while.”

  “I know that. Wally told me.”

  “Anyway, that is so over. Any feelings I had for him left, when he did a few years ago.”

  “It sure didn’t look that way.”

  “I’m sorry about that, I really am. It’s just that Mountain Step is a small town. The people who were at Mom’s party are all very close. They’re like family. Quite a few of them actually are. Anyhow, what I’m trying to get at here is that while some folks aren’t all that fond of Rusty, they all know him. And despite his hang-ups, the party turned out to be a homecoming of sorts for him.”

  I straightened up in my chair some, leaned forward, and said, “Look, Gina, why don’t we just let it go at that. You don’t really owe me an explanation. Let’s just forget about the whole thing.”

  Shaking her head, giving her hand a little wave, she said, “No. You were right. You and I were getting to know each other better. I knew I really liked you. I shouldn’t have walked away and ignored you for so long.”

  “Okay. Forget it.”

  “I will, but let me say one last thing. I honestly didn’t realize how long I’d been with Rusty at the party. Don’t forget, we have a past of sorts. And it had been quite some time since I’d seen him.”

  There were times when I could be honest to a fault. And this was one of them. I turned to the trees beyond the lawn and looked into them as I took a swallow of beer. I knew I shouldn’t say what I was thinking, but I looked back at her and did it anyway.

  “Sounds to me like you might still have a thing for him.”

  “Chris,” she said, “Rusty Barnwell has already gone back to the Mideast. He’s in Afghanistan, and I couldn’t care less. What little we had is long over. It’s dead! I sometimes wonder what I ever saw in him to begin with. The whole time we dated I never once felt the earth shake beneath my feet. But I kept rationalizing . . . fighting off the feeling that I was settling. I started seeing him shortly after I turned thirty. My age was beginning to bother me, and I was starting to wonder if I’d been keeping the bar too high. So I lowered it for a while, and that was stupid.”

  We looked at each other even more closely now and, as we did, both of our expressions softened. Surely she could tell by mine that I was accepting her apology and that, though it really wasn’t any of my business, I well understood the feminine angst she felt about hitting thirty. I had assumed that she’d never been married but, for at least the time being, I wasn’t going to go there. As for the look on her face, I could tell she was very relieved to have told me everything she did. And something else dawned on me. I now knew that she’d been every bit as upset as I had for the past two weeks. I could feel it. And again, I could feel her honesty as well.

  Finally I said, “You know, Gina . . . as attractive as you are, you’re a long, long way from having to worry about getting old.”

  “Oh stop,” she said, actually looking a little embarrassed now, “I’ll bet you tell all the girls that.”

  “Girls . . . hrmph! Who are they? It’s been a long while since I spent much time with one of them . . . a long while.”

  My words were weighed down with heavy-heartedness, and Gina picked right up on it. She looked down at her wine glass on the table between us. She touched the rim, twirled it once or twice then looked back at me.

  “You said before—the last thing you were looking for when you moved up here was a relationship. Is that why you left New York? Did you leave a bad relationship back there?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head slowly as I watched two large ravens land in the pines together. “I mean yes…I did have a relationship. And that was the main reason why I left Manhattan. But it wasn’t a bad relationship.”

  I turned back to Gina then, and her face was somewhat blurred. I knew she could see that my eyes were welling up. I also knew she was feeling my pain. I just knew it. And I could tell she wanted to reach out to me.

  For one long, heavy moment, we went deeper inside each other’s eyes. Then she reached out. She leaned toward me, reached over the table between us, and laid her hand on top of mine.

  “I see,” she said in a soft, sympathetic tone. “Is it something you’d like to talk about, Chris?”

  Dropping my gaze to her hand; then raising it again, I said, “No, Gina, but thank you. I really appreciate you trying to help. But I’m . . . I’m just not ready to talk about it. I can’t. Not yet. I’m sorry.�
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  She forced a small smile, gripped my hand, and said, “Well . . . if and when you’re ever ready, I’ll be here. I can promise you that.”

  Old Feelings Return

  All through dinner those last words Gina said on the porch echoed inside my head; “. . . if and when you’re ever ready, I’ll be here. I can promise you that.”

  Scrumptious as her chicken casserole was to this plain-cooking widower, the satisfaction I got from the meal took a back seat to those words. Studying her kind, captivating features as we ate and talked, I knew now that Gina Elkin cared for me and I felt as if I’d been given a very precious gift that I didn’t deserve. It had been a long time since anything good had happened to me. I wasn’t used to strokes of good fortune. Though they had been gone for years, I once again felt the glow of hope, excitement, peace, benevolence, and even a tinge of love inside. But there was something else in there as well—a debilitating feeling that I still couldn’t shake. It shaded all the new good light inside me. It prevented it from shining as bright as it should. My stubborn old nemesis—guilt—refused to leave.

  But, despite that dark asterisk floating back and forth through my spirit, I still enjoyed myself at Gina’s that day. We had begun a relationship. No, it wasn’t an unadulterated, all-is-perfect relationship. I was still in a psychological quagmire. Half of me wanted us to have no boundaries. I wanted badly to go the distance with Gina. But that other half; my damaged, stubborn half, wouldn’t have any part of it. And that frustrated me to no end.

  As time went on, when alone at my place, I sometimes had talks with that prohibitive side of myself. But it wouldn’t desist. I couldn’t get it to back off one single step. Not even the few times I hollered myself hoarse inside my cabin.

  Nevertheless, Gina and I still saw quite a bit of each other throughout the summer. We got together at least once a week, and though I made a vigilant effort to keep a safe distance between our hearts, we always had a good time. One time we drove to the top of Mount Washington—that magnificent mountain visible from Gina’s home. Other times, on Saturday mornings, she insisted we drive into Conway to look for garage sales. Each time we took her truck because she was hell-bent on finding me a few things I’d need in my new rural life. She thought it would be a huge waste of money for me to buy everything new, and she was a hundred percent right. I got super deals on a terrific riding mower, a snow blower, wheelbarrow, axe, chainsaw, and a bunch of other things she said I’d need. The only two things Gina allowed me to buy brand new, and insisted that I get, were a pair of L.L.Bean boots, like her Uncle Wally’s, and a nice warm jacket. After we ordered both online, she guaranteed me that once winter set in I’d be thanking her.

  Although the tinge of love I first felt the day of the library incident steadily grew deeper, I remained vigilant in my efforts to keep some space between us. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done. Each time we got together it became harder and harder, but I managed. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Gina caught onto me until the day we drove to the top of Mount Washington.

  It was mid-August, and other than a few fair-weather clouds scooting by in the breeze, the sky was as deep a blue as one could imagine. I was driving; and the higher we climbed up Auto Road, the closer we got to the clouds, the harder the wind blew, and the cooler the air became.

  “Wow,” I said glancing down at the Volvo’s dashboard thermometer, “Would you believe it’s only fifty-one degrees up here?”

  “Hate to say I told you so.” Gina came back. “Now you know why I told you to bring a jacket.”

  “Yes Momma!”

  “Don’t be funny, city boy,” she said, as she jutted her delicate chin my way and gave me a cute little tough-guy look.

  Smiling now, I glanced ahead through the windshield; then to the right again. Looking out past Gina this time, I said, “This view is incredible. Just look at those rows and rows of mountains. They spread out there as far as you can see.”

  She looked out there and said, “Told you you’d like it up here. This is the highest mountain in the Northeast—six thousand, two hundred and eighty-eight feet to the summit. We’re just about there now.”

  “You’re a real bundle of knowledge,” I said, as I let my gaze linger a little longer than I should have. But Gina didn’t. She turned her eyes back to the road before I did, and it’s a damned good thing she did.

  “OH MY GOD, CHRIS!” she suddenly shrieked, scaring the bejesus out of me, “LOOK OUT!”

  Her scream was so loud and terrified that jolts of hot adrenaline shot down both my arms. Even before I could jerk my head back around to the windshield, my fingers clamped down on the steering wheel like miniature vices. High as I was sitting in the SUV, I couldn’t see over the hood, but I damn well knew my right front wheel was mere inches from going off the road. There was no guard rail and absolutely no shoulder next to the road—only that six-thousand-foot drop.

  With Gina’s screams ringing in my ears, the front right tire suddenly crashed down as if it had sunk into an impossibly deep hole. Just as quickly, a loud, frightening crunch came from behind that wheel. Then the right front end of the Volvo bucked up like a crazed stallion, lifting completely off the road. In one short, chaotic second all that happened; and the force of the jolt threw my left shoulder into the door next me. Neither Gina nor I had a clue what was going on. Glancing out at the range of mountains like we had been when approaching it, we had no way of knowing that a big chunk of asphalt had broken off the road and tumbled off the mountainside.

  Even before the front wheel slammed back down onto the road’s edge again, Gina let out a wail so loud that she sounded like a banshee warning of not just one but two imminent deaths. A nanosecond later, with her smack in the middle of that grief-stricken howl, the back wheel did the exact same thing the front had. It dropped, and there was another heart-stopping CRUNCH, but this time something else happened—the entire SUV listed—toward the drop. I snapped my head to the side, glancing out Gina’s window. Far as we were now leaning over, I could see more of the ground below—closer to the side of the mountain. I thought that was it. We were going down for sure.

  This final, ill-fated moment seemed to stop in its tracks. Everything freeze framed. Time, our indescribable fear, the entire world—all of it felt as though it were standing deathly still. But somehow, I reacted. I did the only thing I could. I jerked the steering wheel. I pulled it hard, and I mean hard. With the force of my shoulder and all my weight behind the yank, the vehicle suddenly stopped listing. It was just about tilted to the point there could be no righting the vehicle, another inch or two down and inertia would have kicked in. Gina, me, and the SUV would have all gone the same way that broken piece of road had.

  With me still leaning to my left, and the steering wheel turned all the way in the same direction, the Volvo suddenly began to veer back to the left. I’d done it. I’d kept us from going down. In a flash we were back on the road—but not safely.

  “WATCH OUT!” Gina hollered out this time.

  I had cut the wheel so sharply that we swerved over the road’s center line, into the oncoming lane. And something was there! A big white van had rounded a curve just ahead and was only two car lengths away from us. The van’s driver swerved as far over toward the mountain as he could without scraping it. As I yanked the wheel to the right this time, I couldn’t believe what was happening. Neither could poor Gina. She didn’t scream because this time she only had enough time to gasp.

  For the second time in only three or four seconds, somebody or some thing seemed to be watching over us. We just missed the van. But the madness still wasn’t over. With the loud, angry blare of the van’s horn now adding to the chaos, the Volvo was out of control again. I tried to straighten it, but it swerved and swayed like a wee-hours drunk. This time I thought for sure we were finished. For what seemed like a long mile, but was really only about fifty feet, I jerked that wheel back and forth. I didn’t dare to hit the brakes. I knew I had
to ride it out until it slowed down some. Then, somehow, I yet again righted the vehicle. And this time I had her back on a straight course.

  Gina fell onto the back of her seat, let her head bounce off the headrest one time then slowly said, “My good God . . . thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  I was surprised as hell when she didn’t jump all over me for making such a mindless, near-fatal mistake. Most anyone else would have. Instead she just sat there, deep in thought, her eyes lifted toward the blue sky at the top of the windshield. As my composure slowly returned, I wondered what she was thinking about. But I didn’t ask.

  Minutes later, still not believing what we’d been through, we reached the crowded parking area atop the mountain. Still driving ever so cautiously, I idled through two rows of parked cars, found an empty spot, eased the Volvo in, and the two of us got out slowly. My legs weren’t what I’d call wobbly, but they were tentative. It seemed like it took more effort than usual to make them do what I wanted them to—as if I were stepping out of an airplane after a hair-raising, hellacious flight. And I knew Gina had to be feeling the same way.

  People were walking all about on the sprawling observation deck. There had to be a couple of hundred visitors taking in the breathtaking scenery. Most were scattered along the railing, gazing out at the rows of mountains that seemed to stretch to the end of the earth. Some visitors had dogs on leashes; most had cameras. Still not saying much, Gina and I walked toward the far end of the deck where there were fewer people. When we reached the railing, we leaned against it and again said absolutely nothing. With the cool, blustery wind pushing our hair in every conceivable direction, we just stood there, looking in awe. The panoramic view was nothing short of amazing. I felt like we were high above a vast green sea, watching its smooth, verdant waves rolling to an impossibly distant horizon. It was one of those rare breathtaking visions that stay indelibly branded in the minds of all that see it. A site that could easily, if only temporarily, convert an atheist into a believer.