“Me?” he answered innocently. “I’m an open book.”
“Hardly, Jon,” she said in a dry voice, and then continued. “You were like Atlas. You carried the weight of the world around on your shoulders. You took care of everything and everyone and wouldn’t ask or let anyone help.”
“You were my wife. I wanted to take care of you. Was that so awful?”
“No, but you never let me take care of you in return. It needed to be a two-way street, Jon. Eventually, I just felt stupid and small. Like you didn’t trust me, or I wasn’t capable.”
“Not capable! Lil, you are the most capable person I know.”
“Really?” she answered, surprised.
“You went to Russia because you dreamed of a different life. You‘re courageous.”
“I wasn’t brave, Jon. I was just not afraid, there’s a difference.” She swished the small sponge in the pail of water to revive the suds then turned to look at him.
“I thought I was all I was ever going to be, and I didn’t like it. If I was afraid, it was because I was going to end up a bitter old woman, angry at the fates and at the world. I could picture myself as one of those old women in the nursing home who sit in their wheelchairs outside their room doors with the vacant eyes.”
“Lil, I think you have quite a while before that will happen, don’t you?”
“There’s little difference between them and me, Jonathan.”
“Hardly.”
Lillie stopped her clean up to look him straight in the eye. “Do you think they look like that because they are old?”
“Well, I guess so.”
“They look like that because they have no joy in their lives. They have outlived everyone they loved and are without hope.”
Jon said nothing, and Lillie continued, “They are alone and they are no different than me. I always remember that it is but for the grace of God, go I.”
Neither of them said anything more. She turned her back to him and hauled the bucket to the shore. She bent and rinsed each plate and utensil and returned them to the now sparkling bucket before making her way back to her tent to dress.
“We can make six or seven cabins today, it’s early,” he said to her through the thin tent walls as she rustled the fabric, slithering into a t-shirt and jeans.
“Great, how far?”
“Half a day, round trip. It’s much quicker with your help. I appreciate the hand, Lillie.”
“No problem, Jon. I’m glad to do it and glad to be out on the water again.”
“That will leave plenty of time to explore, maybe track a moose or two.”
“Sounds great,” she answered, with only slightly less enthusiasm than before.
* * *
Jonathan and Lillie finished the last of the cabins he’d scheduled for the day and pushed off from the shore. As they paddled, Lillie placed her paddle across her legs and brought one arm, then the other over her head to stretch and work out the kinks.
“Sore?” Jon asked from the back of the canoe.
“I guess so. I’m not used to paddling anymore.”
“Let's head straight across the lake and find a spot for some lunch. Are you hungry?”
“I am, although I shouldn’t be after that breakfast you fed me. At this rate, by the time we get back to Whitetail, you are going to have to roll me ashore.”
“I doubt that.” Jon chuckled. “You look pretty good from my vantage point.”
Lillie looked over her shoulder at him, and he leered in such a silly way, she laughed and said, “You’re goofy.”
“Speaking of Goofy,” he said. “How do you think the children are doing?”
“I spoke with them yesterday before I left for the cabin. They were great, and Rand and Cat were holding up admirably.
“They’re probably having the time of their lives.”
“I’m sure the kids are, but I think Cat and Rand will need a bit of time to recover. Cat will need to come home and work on the Catrina book her editor is demanding.”
“Tell me more about Hope and Alex, Lillie. I love to hear you talk about them.”
She dipped her paddle into the water again. She felt a twinge as her muscles protested, but she kept paddling anyway.
Jonathan must have noticed, because he said, “Turn around and just talk to me.”
“No, Jon. I’m okay.”
“Please? I get tired of talking to the back of your head.”
“Okay.” In one a fluid motion, Lillie swung her legs around and faced him.
“How do you do that? You always could. I’d capsize us for sure.”
Lillie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Anyway, tell me about the kids.”
“Well,” Lillie began. “Hope and Alex are as different as night and day. Hope is artistic and quiet. She’d rather play dress up or some other imaginative game. She is curious about the world around her but is more comfortable witnessing it from behind her brother or me. Because of that, I’ve kept her close, maybe too close. She’s shy, but kindergarten is opening her up. She has a handful of trusted friends and generally takes a while to warm up to people, but when she loves you, she loves you completely.”
“She sounds a lot like her mother,” Jonathan said, more to himself than to her.
“She is, I guess. I never thought about it.” Lillie paused for a moment before she continued.
“And Alex?” Jon questioned.
“Alex is always a surprise. From birth until now.”
“A surprise?”
“I think he may be the world’s only unplanned adoption. He’s funny and sweet, all boy but so sensitive. Both of my children love me, but Alex really, really, loves me, like only a boy can love his Momma.”
“I guess I know that’s true, at least where my mom is concerned.”
“Yes, I guess you would.”
“So, tell me about how you got them. What made you decide two, and from Russia?”
“Well, I wanted the sure thing. I wanted to go to the country that was most likely to give me a child. The climate changes from year to year in international adoptions. Some years some countries are easier than others. That year, it was Russia, so I filled out all of the paperwork, and I got on a plane.”
“From what I remember there is a bit more to it than that.”
“Well,” she answered sheepishly. “I suppose so. Then three years later, I got an email from Tatiana, the translator who helped me adopt Hope. Attached was a picture of a teeny, tiny boy who’d been born a few weeks before. He was Hope’s brother.”
“You hadn’t planned on adopting again?”
“No,” she sighed. “I was so busy with Hope that I’d really not had time to think about it. But apparently the fates had other plans.”
“I guess so.” He laughed in agreement.
“It’s best they did. I’m not sure I’d have ever thought I had the strength for two, let alone a little boy. But I would have missed out on one of the true loves of my life.”
“I’m proud of you, Lillie.”
‘“What?” she answered and leaned over and poked Jon’s shoulder in a good-natured way.
Jon paused and ran his hand though his hair as Lillie had seen him do a thousand times. “I look at you and you look so much the same—but you open your mouth and you are so different,” he ran his hand though his hair again, nervous and searching for words.
“Jon, I—“
“It’s okay. It’s just a little disconcerting, is all.” He smiled at her and reached for her hand.
“I am different, I guess. I didn’t have much choice in some ways.”
“Lil, I--”
Now she was the one to interrupt him. “No, Jon. Please let me finish.” She still held his hand. “I had to change because I realized that I didn’t like the person I had become. I was broken, and I looked to everyone else to solve my problems. I blamed everyone but myself…the fates, the doctors and you.”
“It was hardly your fault we co
uldn’t have a baby,” he said firmly.
“Yes, it was.” Jon looked at Lillie as if she’d lost her mind, but he did not interrupt again. “If I would have been more open to listening to you about adoption, maybe you would have felt you could be honest with me about how you were feeling instead of turning to someone else.”
Jon fumbled the canoe paddle and nearly dropped it into the lake. “What are you talking about?” Jon tried to protest, but Lillie held up a hand as they drifted along with the current. Both of them had stopped paddling now, and neither one of them seemed to notice.
“I understand. I shut you out, and I suppose it is only natural you would turn to someone else. Someone who listened to how you were feeling, what you needed instead.”
“What?” he nearly yelled in his confusion.
“I didn’t say that you loved her, just that she fulfilled needs that I couldn’t’, or wouldn’t.”
“Her who, Lillie? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know who, Jon. I understand you did what you thought was best, but you were wrong. I loved you so much. We could have worked it out if you would have loved me one-tenth as much as I loved you.”
Jon’s head snapped around. “Now, that is the only thing you are wrong about. I loved you with all my heart, with everything I had.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I love you. I’ll always love you, Lillian. From the moment I first saw you at Cassie and Ben’s until this moment, there’s been only you.”
“Then why Jon?”
“Lillie, I can’t…”
“All these years I’ve waited. Don’t I deserve to know?”
Jon’s open expression shut down and his eyes met Lillie’s for a long moment, but they were as unreadable and as cold as the steel blue lake on which they paddled. “Lillian, it’s been so long. Does it really matter anymore?”
“It matters to me,” she said in a whisper. Lillie looked out over the lake at the pair of loons just off their bow. “I thought you’d found someone else, someone that could give you a child. If that’s not the case…well, there’s nothing else that makes sense. I don’t understand. We loved each other…” Her voice broke, and she put the back of her hand to her lips as if to hold back the sob in her throat.
Jon pulled her hands away from her face, and she waited for her to look at him. When she did not, he tilted her face with one finger beneath her chin until her eyes met his. Then he said very slowly, very distinctly. “There is no one else, Lillian. There never was and never will be.”
Unable to hold back any longer, tears ran down Lillie’s face unchecked, and she turned in her seat without a word and began to paddle once again.
Chapter Twenty
Cecelia O’Brien pushed open the door to the office with a tray carrying plate of her daughter’s favorite cookies and a blue willow tea pot. Brenna cradled the telephone under her chin, and motioned for her mother to sit in Jonathan’s vacant chair.
Cecelia logged on to his computer and checked her own e-mail while she waited. Several years before Jon had set her up an email account. The Internet was the easiest way to keep in touch with her friends and family remaining in Ireland. International calls were expensive and the time difference always made connecting with them a challenge. She’d always loved to write letters and after Jon taught her to use the computer, she didn’t even need stamps.
Once Brenna finished with her telephone call, she poured two cups of tea and handed one to her mother. “Hmm…Earl Gray. My favorite.” She took a sip and savored the smoky flavor. Brenna nibbled a snicker doodle while she waited for her mother to reveal what precipitated her visit.
Cecelia took a sip of her tea and said, “Donna is happy to have Molly here.”
“Yes, I spoke with her this morning at breakfast. She was grinning ear to ear.”
“That she was,” Cecelia murmured. “Molly seemed to have faired the journey well, the dear bairn. T’was a blessing Lillie was able to accompany them. Molly’s not used to Jon taking care of her, although she seems to adore him.”
Brenna understood now what prompted her mother’s visit. Lillie. She should have known, but she’d been distracted by her phone call. “Yes, Lillie. She’s not what I expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Brenna said and took another sip of her tea. “I had expected some evil woman who’d wronged my best friend.”
“And you found differently?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Brenna admitted. “Whatever happened between the two of them, neither walked away unhurt. Lillie is still nursing a broken heart, I’d say.” Brenna told her mother about Lillie’s reaction to learning Jonathan owned the Lark Lake cabin.
“She seemed so…vulnerable, so surprised that he would have been sentimental about their marriage enough to purchase the cabin.”
“So she didn’t seem like a cold, callous creature who ditched our Jonny?”
“No, she didn’t.” Brenna paused to consider. “She didn’t behave like someone who didn’t care or someone who walked away from her husband callously and started a new life.”
“I guess I should have known. Donna has always adored her, and she wouldn’t have, I don’t think, had she treated Jonathan badly,” Cecelia considered aloud.
“Yes. I agree with you.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Well, Dr. Freud…” Brenna laughed at her mother. “I’m not sure. My first instinct was to hate her guts. But I can’t.”
“Ah,” her mother answered. “But…”
“But…mostly I think I was relieved.”
“Relieved?” She had not expected her daughter to say that.
“Jon is my best friend, but there’s a place in Jon no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reach.” Brenna took another sip of her tea.
“Do you love him, my darling?” her mother asked.
“I do, but not the way you wanted…or even the way I tried to.” Brenna put down her mug. “I loved the idea of Jon; we seemed perfect for each other.”
Cecelia sighed and Bren continued, “I want more in my life than friendship. Even a great one. I want a man by my side, someone to build a family with, a life. I deserve more than what he’s able to give me—we both do.”
“Oh, my baby is finally growing up.” Cecelia dabbed at a mock tear at the corner of her eye with the edge of her apron.
“She seems…” Brenna said with a frown on her face. “Had circumstances been different, I think we would have been friends.”
“Our Jonathan is a wonderful man; did you think he’d have chosen someone who was less than he?”
Brenna shrugged. “Well, I was prepared to throw her in the lake.”
Cecelia threw her hands in the air. “Just when I was commending you for your maturity.”
Brenna stuck out her tongue at her mother, and then smiled.
Cecelia got up from her chair and came around to embrace her daughter. “Oh, my Bren. Sometimes we can’t see the right thing until it comes to us.”
“Or it comes back to us…”she said, thinking of Jon and Lillie. “She’d better not break his heart.”
“I’ve a feeling if she does, it will just be temporary.”
“A temporary broken heart?” Brenna said into her mother’s shoulder.
“Only the good Lord knows, at this point, but I think they’re meant for each other.” Cecelia released her daughter and moved back to her seat before she continued. “I love Jon like my own son, and I’ve prayed for years now that you and he would find in each other what I have with your father, but in the past few days I’ve understood that probably won’t happen.”
“Me, too.” Brenna agreed. “He looks at her and…I don’t know what it is, but I do know he never looked at me that way. No even once.”
“That’s not an easy thing to admit.”
“Maybe I am growing up, Mommy.”
“You very well may be, my darling, but remember that growing
up seldom comes without pains.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The sun was setting when Jonathan and Lillian paddled back to camp. They’d agreed to press on and finish the rest of the cabins that day. After their mid-day conversation, they were both subdued and worked quickly through the remainder of the list of cabins Jon had planned to prepare.
The day was unseasonably warm, and it remained humid and warm as evening approached. Lillie removed her socks and boots, rolled up her pant legs and waded into the lake to pull the canoe ashore.
The cool water felt delectable on her warm skin. After she beached the canoe and Jon jumped ashore, she reached down and scooped water over her face and down her arms.
“Taking a bath?” Jonathan asked.
“Actually, that sounds like a good idea,” she replied.
Jon climbed up the bank on his way to camp. “Do you want me to throw down your soap and shampoo? You can take a bath while I get a fire started and make some dinner.”
“That would be great. Go ahead and get the fire first. I’ll have a swim.”
“Okay,” he said as he turned. “I’ll be right back.”
When she was confident he’d gone, Lillie stepped onto the shore, removed her cargo pants and folded them into a neat pile before wading back into the water.
Jonathan had opted to return with her toiletries before starting the fire. He caught a glimpse of milky white skin through the leaves of the scrubs and low-lying bushes that crowded the shore of the island. He stayed quiet as she reached under her t-shirt to unhook her bra before pulling them both over her head.
He felt like a voyeur when he caught a glimpse of her breast as she turned to throw both of the garments on top of her pants on the shore. She walked slowly into the lake, the water covering her still shapely derriere and the curve of her hip as she steadily walked. When she flipped onto her back, her eyes closed and he could see a smile form on her face.
He backed up slowly, not wanting to intrude upon her private moment. In the meantime, Jonathan busied himself building the fire and opening a bottle of wine to breathe before pouring them both a glass. He stripped down to his boxers and headed to the lake to join her.
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