"I'm assuming she's the one you were here about last week."
Julia nodded.
"I'll give you an antibiotic that you can put in her food."
The vet took Francis and tucked him under his chin, where he weakly began rooting around again before finally latching onto a piece of soft skin. "Stop worrying. This guy is going to do fine."
Julia took the road back to David's house that circled the lake. It was shorter and more scenic, but took as much time as the direct route because of twists and hairpin turns. She kept glancing at the empty blanket in the front seat next to her surprised at how consumed she was with the need to protect Pearl's puppy.
She rolled the thought over and over in her mind, a sharp rock in a riverbed filled with smooth stones.
Was it the puppy Julia so desperately wanted to protect.. .or was it Pearl? What would she think when Julia came back empty-handed? Would she be frantic, or would she accept the seeming loss and devote herself completely to the one puppy she had left?
Maybe Julia should stay away until it was time for Francis to come home. That way Pearl wouldn't have to—
What was wrong with her? Why had she stepped so willingly onto this slippery slope of worry? She must be suffering parenting withdrawal, or maybe she'd developed a compulsive impulse to nurture.
Or maybe it was a desire to be nurtured herself. She was worn down from the need to be strong for Shelly and Jason, from pretending she believed she could build a life worth living without Evan, and from getting up every morning knowing the fight was over and that she'd lost.
Or maybe it was meeting a man so like Evan they could have been brothers. David was an aching reminder of what she had lost and what she would live without the rest of her life.
She had wonderful friends and the absolute best family. She had children who loved and looked up to her, children she would sacrifice her life to protect. She had to believe that all this, over time, would ease the ache in her heart. To think otherwise was too painful to conceive.
She could tell herself that her life would get better, that time and distance would dull the pain, but it was like all lies, filled with holes and predestined for collapse. Meeting David had brought that home in a way nothing else could. She was lonely beyond imagining.
Abruptly overcome with a powerful longing for a man she hadn't seen in almost six years, a man she would never see again, Julia pulled to the side of the road, let out a strangled cry and covered her face with her hands. She sat behind the wheel, sobbing uncontrollably until she was spent.
Exhausted and reluctant to let David see her with blotchy skin and swollen eyes and face the questions that would undoubtedly follow when he made the obvious assumption something had happened to Pearl's puppy, she got out of the car and walked to the lake. She wandered along the shore until she found a log and sat there to watch trout rise to feed on the afternoon caddis hatch. A piece of bark crumbled beneath her hands, on its way to becoming part of the soil that would feed a new generation of trees.
In death there was life...and heartache...and renewal. It was the natural order of things.
On the island the grass parted and the pair of year-round geese she and David had seen earlier lowered themselves into the water. This time they were accompanied by half a dozen fuzzy yellow goslings. Julia gasped—in surprise and then delight. Where had they been hiding?
Had Julia's mother been sitting beside her, she would have insisted the moment was a sign. Or maybe it was a cosmic gift that she'd come here at precisely the right moment to witness something to lessen her pain, and bring a smile.
Julia had no idea how long she sat there and absorbed her tiny miracle, only that after a while, somehow, she seemed less sad.
"Enjoy them while you can," Julia called out as she put her hands on her knees, stood and stretched. Considering what she'd said, she laughed. "Just be careful that you don't turn into clingy, overbearing parents and drive those sweet babies away before their time." She waited another minute for the parade to pass before heading back to the car.
The futility of her sorrow hovered over her like a cloud that refused to drop its rain. If grief were a coin she could spend to change the world, she had enough to stop the famines in Africa and negotiate for peace in the Middle East. But beyond personal pain, it had no value.
She had to find another way to remember Evan. A way he would approve of.
For now, Pearl and her puppies, maybe even David needed her.
Maybe almost as much as she needed them.
One Year, Five Months, and Four Days missing
There's no way for you to know this, Evan, but I haven't written to you for a few months. Actually, it's been almost a year. I had a hard time coming back after we paid the second ransom and then received the letter that . said it wasn't enough. I was so sure our ordeal was over at last that I took Shelly and Jason to Bogota so they could fly home with us, something I swore I'd never do.
I've fallen in love with Colombia and the people who've opened their hearts and homes to me. But fear is a constant companion when I'm there. I won't ever expose our children to that kind of danger again.
I don't know what to do anymore, Evan. I've begged and pleaded and thrown temper tantrums with every official I can corner both here and at home. They've been incredibly tolerant and understanding, but in the end, as ineffectual as the rest of us.
I try to imagine what your life is like now, what you do every day, what you 're wearing, what you eat. I want to believe that the people who have you are misguided yet kind, that they recognize what a good man you are and treat you well. It's the way I survive day to day. It hurts too much to think of you being mistreated. If I picture you locked away somewhere and suffering, a weight descends on me that makes it almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning.
Your captors surely know you by now. They have
to recognize what a good man you are. I imagine you working with their children, telling them that you have children, too, showing them the pictures you carry in your wallet. Can't the men who have you understand how much your children miss you? How can it not matter to them?
How can they keep you away from us all this time? We've done what they asked, over and over again. Are they oblivious to the depth of their cruelty? What kind of people are they that they don't care?
I used to keep a calendar beside our bed, next to the rose you picked for me before you left. Every night I marked another day, counting how many you'd been gone. I don't do that anymore. I don't want to be reminded of all the days we'll never get back.
When I can't sleep at night, I tell you about my day. I imagine you hearing me and smiling over the details that make up my life now. I never tell you how defeated I feel at times, or how I work to hide it from everyone for fear they will see it as a reason to stop believing you are coming home to us.
And I couldn't tell you about the lump I found in my breast and how hard it was going through all the tests without you here to lean on. The lump was benign—the process reaching that diagnosis, utterly terrifying. I couldn't stop worrying about what would happen to Shelly and Jason if something happened to me.
We need you home.
I'm worn down with missing you.
I'm going to read this tomorrow and will probably tear it up or burn it in the fireplace. I don't want you to get the idea I ever doubted what I was doing to free you or thought the work a burden. I would gladly spend the rest of my life at it, even if, in the end, we only had one day together.
You are my life, Evan.
I will love you forever.
C H A P T E R 1 1
David plucked one of the larger chunks of meat out of the canned dog food and slipped an antibiotic capsule inside. They'd decided to start the pills in the morning after seeing how agitated Pearl was over her missing pup the night before. This was his third attempt. The first pill she'd managed to leave in the bottom of a bowl that she'd otherwise licked dishwasher clean.The second attempt he m
ade an hour later. He opened a capsule and mixed it into some canned food. She sniffed the offering, gave him a piercing look and walked outside to go to the bathroom.
"Okay," he said, placing the bowl with the hidden capsule at the closet door. "Third time's the charm."
Pearl peered around the closet door and waited until David had backed across the room, before coming out. She sniffed and tasted and ate;
David leaned his shoulder into the wall and grinned."I win," he announced. But the victory was short-lived. Pearl abruptly stopped eating, worked her tongue around her mouth for several seconds— and popped out the pill.
"Oh, you trust me enough to move in with me," David said, venting, "but not enough to know I wouldn't poison you?"
"You two have a problem?"Julia inquired from the bedroom doorway.
David caught his breath at the sight of her, not realizing until that moment that he'd been waiting for her to come and fill his morning. "Just how important is it that she take these pills?" he asked, working hard to tone down his happiness over Julia's arrival.
"Why?"
"The only way we're going to get them into her is to pin her between us and shove them down her throat. I can see getting away with that once, but not twice."
She held out her hand. "Let me try."
"Gladly." He handed her the bottle and watched her go into the kitchen, allowing himself a moment of guilty pleasure as he admired the shape and form and movement that he'd concluded made her one of the most beautiful women he'd ever known.
Julia came back and gave the wary dog a stern frown. "Okay, Miss Pearl. We're through messing around. You're going to swallow this pill and you're not going to give me any grief about it. Got it?"
Pearl tilted her head to one side and stared at Julia, holding her ground while Julia approached, but the dog was poised to flee.
David shook his head in wonder when Pearl made a whimpering sound and leaned into Julia. If he believed in such things, he would swear Pearl understood.
Julia put one hand over Pearl's muzzle and with the other separated her jaws and slipped the pill to the back of her tongue. Pearl swallowed, and it was done. "Good girl,"
Julia said, this time scratching Pearl's chin. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of leftover chicken she'd taken from the refrigerator. Pearl accepted^ e peace offering, tucked her nose under Julia's hand for one last scratch and went into the closet to check on her pup.
"That was impressive," David said.
"Eighteen years on a farm and you learn a thing or two about how to deal with stubborn animals." She walked past David on her way into the living room. He followed. 'I’m going into town to pick up a couple of things and check the mail. Is there anything you need?"
"Give me a minute and I'll go with you."
"Really?" Even as friendly as they'd become lately, she seemed surprised."I would have asked, but knew you worked in the morning."
"I'm done. I got up early."
She glanced at the couch. "Not comfortable?"
Nothing got by her. "I figured I'd let Pearl have a day or two to get used to sharing the house before I moved back into the bedroom."
"Keep this up and I'm going to think there's a tender heart beating under that grumpy exterior," she teased.
He felt an idiotic pleasure at both her opinion and the teasing. "I just don't want her to disappear and leave me with a puppy to raise."
"Uh-huh." She headed out the door. "Meet me at the car in fifteen minutes. I have a couple of phone calls I need to make first."
Instead of following the shoreline, the easier route back to her house, Julia went through the forest. She loved the snapping sounds the dry pine needles and fallen branches made with each footfall. And she loved the smell. The pine reminded her of Christmas. Flashes of memories from Christmases with Evan landed and melted like giant snowflakes drifting onto an upturned face. He'd loved Christmas, finally understanding the joy of the season when he joined her family, becoming a rabid participant when they started their own family. He was the one who took out the decorations and put up the lights and played the music. And he was the one who dragged them out of the house to walk hand in hand on frosty evenings through garishly over-decorated neighborhoods.
Knowing Evan would want her to, she'd tried to keep up their traditions for Shelly and Jason, but it wasn't the same without him.
There were boxes in her closet filled with handmade Christmas and birthday presents for Evan that would never be opened. One day, when Shelly and Jason had homes and families of their own, Julia would give them the gifts they had made for their father.
To think that they might not remember Evan the way he deserved to be remembered broke her heart. But how could she expect them to live in ftfe past and still embrace the future? As desperately as she missed their company in her loneliness, she loved her children too much to have them live with her in this world of constant sorrow.
Which, she reminded herself a dozen times a day, was why she was here now. Her struggle to find a way to let go of Evan and be the mother they needed was something she had to do for them and without them. It would have been easier without David as such a poignant, real reminder of what it had been like to have someone to share her day-to-day life with.
She was on the front porch when she heard the phone ring. It was Barbara. "I was just about to call you," she said.
"Great minds," Barbara replied.
"So, when are you coming for a visit?"
"How about this weekend?"
"Are you serious?" She squealed in delight. So much for calm and rational and convincing the family she was doing just fine without them. "That's great. I can't wait to see you. How long can you stay?"
"Until Monday. We have the day off for some administration thing."
With her old car on its last legs, Barbara had signed up to teach summer school to earn a down payment for a new one."I can't wait to see you," Julia repeated. "You'll love it here. It's so beautiful and peaceful. And there's a boat. We could go fishing."
"Fishing? Me? Are you insane?"
"Well, then we'll just row around the lake. There's this family of geese you have to see and there's—"
Barbara laughed. "You don't have to sell me, Julia. I'll be there. And, if it's okay, I'm bringing someone with me."
"Of course it's okay," she said, her words more generous than her feelings. She didn't want to have to share her sister. "Who is it?"
U A
"
A guy.
Julia's jaw dropped. She'd been so wrapped up in
herself she hadn't even known Barbara was seeing someone. "When did this happen?"
"A couple of months ago. Things are moving along pretty fast and I decided it was time you two met."
"Wow. This is great."Julia hoped she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. She wasn't sure she was ready to witness love in bloom, especially not with someone she counted on emotionally as much as Barbara.
God, could she really be that selfish?
"I can't wait to meet him," Julia said, this time meaning it.
"I realize this is hard for you, Julia," Barbara said. "But I also know it would have been harder if you'd found out later that I was dating a special guy and hadn't told you. I want you to be a part of this now."
"You're right. Of course. And I am happy for you." She could do this. She had to.
Barbara had been with her through every moment of every crisis for five and a half years. Her sister deserved this happiness. How could she know that the timing was so bad, that Julia had met a man who filled her with a renewed and desperate hunger for what she could no longer have?
"I can't wait for you to meet him. His name is Michael St. John and he's an English professor at Sacramento State. A teacher, Julia. How perfect is that?"
"That's wonderful," Julia managed to say. "But be forewarned, he's going to have to be really special in my eyes to be good enough for you."
Barbara laughed happily.
"I'm not the least bit worried. You're going to love him."
They talked a few minutes more, discussed what food Barbara should bring and the best time to arrive and said goodbye. Julia returned the receiver to its cradle and sat down at the kitchen table. She had planned to call her mother but had no idea how much she knew about Barbara's new man. If she said the wrong thing or nothing at all, she could wind up with both of them angry at her. Their family dynamics were like a pinball game, one loose ball and the whole board would light up.
"Are you in there?" David called through the screen door.
Julia glanced at the clock. A half hour had passed with her splashing around in a pond of self-pity over Barbara's wonderful news. Thank God no one had seen her. She jumped up and knocked over the chair. "Coming," she shouted.
Drawn by the noise, David appeared beside her. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, of course." Tears spilled down her cheeks. Damn, damn— damn it. She turned her back to him and righted the chair. "What makes you think I'm not?" She lost all credibility when she couldn't stifle the sob that came next.
In a move that took them both by surprise, David reached for her. "I'm not very good at this kind of thing," he said self-consciously. "And I'll deny it if you ever remind me I said something this cheesy, but you look like you could use a hug."
Instead of pushing him away, something she would have sworn she would have done, she buried her face in his shoulder, closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the man holding her. He was the same height as Evan and had the same build, but didn't hold her as close or as intimately as Evan would have. The way she desperately wanted to be held.
The moment should have been awkward. It should have felt wrong. But it was neither.
His arms still around her, David asked, "Have you had breakfast?"
She almost laughed at the question. It was so like the men she knew to look for a good exit line rather than just leave. Stepping from his arms, she wiped her eyes. "I usually don't—"
"Yeah, I figured. But I know this terrific place on the river that makes the best sourdough pancakes in town, and it's late enough you could call it lunch."
If I'd Never Known Your Love Page 13