Around the Bend

by Shirley Jump

  “And you’re too far away.” He rolled over and hauled me into his arms, his lips landing first on my forehead, then the bridge of my nose, then my mouth, his kiss so known to me, I could have described it and yet never managed to find exactly the right words to capture how Nick managed to both ignite a fire in me and manage to make me feel—for the moments I spent in his arms—safe and content.

  I didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to ask him any questions. Right now, I didn’t even care about the answers. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to feel much like talking, either.

  He wrapped me tighter, tighter I think than he ever had before, and shifted, deepening his kiss. I twisted beneath him, running my hands down his back, slipping my fingers beneath the plain cotton edge of his boxers, something that on another man would be considered dull, but on Nick, who had the muscles and planes of a man who worked hard for a living, they seemed right, perfect. Sexy in their own way. I began to slide the fabric down, but he reached back and stopped me. “No. Tonight it’s all about you.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, you say that now, and then who always gets to ride the carousel first?”

  He chuckled. “Not tonight, Hilary.” He buried his face in my neck, his kisses heating up, one right after the other. His hands cupped my breasts through the cotton of my T-shirt, bunching the fabric in a fisted rose, sliding it up my thighs.

  I arched beneath him, knowing with the familiarity of an old lover how it would be, the anticipation sweet and aching. His erection pressed against my pelvis, already in concert with the quickening in my veins, the pooling want. Nick watched me, brown eyes glittering in the dark, moonlight reflecting in tiny stars.

  A long, breathless moment passed between us, filled with expectation. I knew what was coming next. Knew how good it would be. Simply being away from him had been foreplay enough, and I was ready to get down to business. A smile curved across my face, the smile Nick could read as easily as the morning news. He pressed a finger to my lips. “Patience, Hilary, is a virtue.”

  “Ah, but I don’t have any virtues.”

  He chuckled. “Which is half the reason I love you.”

  Even said in jest, the words took on new meaning, and I couldn’t return them, though the sound of them coming from him sent an odd new thrill through me. My mind savored them as my body savored his kiss, tasting the syllables, for the first time, holding them in a mental file that had never been opened before. The one in the back, kept under lock and key. What would it be like to tell him the same thing? To trust him with my heart?

  To think about a future beyond today?

  And then, all thoughts of love and futures left, as Nick’s finger trailed down along my jaw, my throat, the valley of my breasts, to the tail of my shirt, teasing along the hem, skirting my skin while he kissed me, his mouth sure and firm, as intimate with mine as two vines on one tree.

  He lifted my shirt high above my head, flinging it onto the floor. It landed with a soft plop in the darkness. Nick’s hands danced along my skin, warm, work-chafed palms and guitar-callused fingertips that set off a fiery trail he soon followed with his mouth.

  I did as he’d said and lay there, accepting the royal treatment, though every inch of me longed to give back as good as I was getting.

  It felt odd at first to be so passive, especially with a man who had enjoyed many healthy give-and-takes with me. In fact, the giving and the taking had been half the fun with Nick. But now…

  Just taking was…divine. Giving myself up entirely to him, to this no-responsibility, no decisions, just being sensation felt damned good.

  Nick spent time, considerable, sweet, amazing time, on my body, swirling his tongue around my nipples, sucking the tender tip into his mouth, until I thought I’d die, then releasing the first to do the same to the other one.

  “Nick,” I said, my hands in his hair, wanting to haul him back to my mouth, and at the same time wanting him to do that all over again.

  “Let go, Hilary,” he whispered. “Just let go.”

  “I’m doing that,” I said, half laughing, half…something else that nearly bordered on a moan.

  “Oh, yeah, then why are you still tense?”

  “You call this tense?” And I slid along his body, skin against skin, heat against heat.

  “What I mean isn’t about sex, it’s about in here,” he said, running his hand along my left breast, tracing where my heart beat. “Let me in.”

  I spread my legs, teasing him, smiling at him. “My door is open, Mr. Warner.”

  “Ah, Hilary,” he said my name on a sigh. “In your heart.”

  In answer, I reached down and slid off his boxers, raising my hips to meet his, bringing us together in the only way I knew how, the only way that kept my heart safe. Because that was the one door I had always kept shut and he knew it. The part of me that had envied Sally in Sandusky was always beaten down by the part that feared getting lost in a relationship that required giving all of yourself to another person.

  Nick gave up the battle for possession of carotid arteries and slid into me with a deep sigh. He made love to me, his strokes long, perfectly tuned to what I needed, bringing me to an orgasm that sent those stars into my eyes, circling my brain, erasing every thought for one amazing moment.

  It was good—with Nick, it was always good. But this time, our lovemaking had a different edge. Either because Nick had taken over the reins, or because I had missed him so much, I wasn’t sure.

  When we were done, Nick once again pulled me into his arms, sharing the heat from his body, the beat of his heart. I listened to those regular pulses, my head on his chest, my hand pressed to the rise and fall of that beat.

  “I really do want to marry you,” he said.

  I traced the curlicue of the thin, tiny hairs on his chest, like dark question marks. “Why?”

  “Because I love you. Because you’ve become the first thing I think about in the day, the last thing I think about at night. Because I can’t imagine spending a day of my life without you.”

  The words terrified me, and it felt like the walls were closing in, pressing down on my lungs. I had to fight the urge to run again. “But why marry me? We could try living together again. It works for Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Oprah, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Unlike them, I do need a piece of paper now, Hilary.” He tipped up my chin. “What am I supposed to tell the guys at the bar? I’m embarrassed. My girlfriend won’t make an honest man out of me.”

  I laughed at the joke. “You are not.”

  “Yeah, I am. You might not believe this, but even guys wonder what’s wrong with them when their girlfriends turn down a serious marriage proposal twice in one week.”

  I went back to studying the question marks on his chest. So many of them, like a mirror of my brain. “You know how I feel about marriage. You used to feel the same way.”

  “I don’t anymore. And I also know that you’re more committed to things than you think. You’ve worked at the same place for fifteen years. You’ve been with me for four. And you’re driving across the country with your mother. That’s enough to get you committed.”

  I let out a gust. What was with him? It was like he suddenly decided to get on the adult train. “That doesn’t mean I want a ring on my finger.”

  “Or does it mean you just don’t want a ring on your finger from me?” When I didn’t answer, he rolled away and out of the bed, pulling on his boxers, followed by his jeans. He flicked the button fly closed. “Maybe you should go sleep in your mom’s room. She’s got two doubles. That way, if something happens—”

  “Are you kicking me out of my own room?”

  He stood there, staring at me, and I could see in his eyes and the droop of his shoulders that I had disappointed him. Again. “Yeah.”

  I slid out of the bed, pulled on my T-shirt, not even caring that it was inside-out. “What did you think, Nick? That you would ride in on the big white horse—excuse me, big white airplane
—and I’d be so grateful that you showed up that I’d rush off to the nearest chapel? Believe me, I am grateful you are here. I couldn’t think of another person I would rather have by my side right now. But just because I want you here doesn’t mean I want to get married.”

  He shook his head. “You know, Hilary, I don’t get you. Every time you come close to having everything you want, you go and ruin it.”

  “Me? You’ve done it, too, Nick.” I threw up my hands. “You forget that our relationship has a track record. You haven’t been so perfect yourself.”

  “I’m here now, Hilary, and I’m serious this time. We’ve been together for four years. That has to count for something, and it also means it’s about damned time we moved forward.” He picked up his shirt, put it on, then grabbed his shoes off the floor and headed for the door. “I’m going down to the bar to get good and drunk and forget we had this conversation because if I don’t, I’m going to have a hell of a time getting in that van tomorrow morning.” He grasped the doorknob but didn’t open the door. Instead, he hung his head. My heart screamed at me to call him back, to undo this, to stop him from leaving, but my brain knew better, and kept my heart quiet. My hands fisted at my sides, and I sank onto the bed, letting him go.

  “I’ll go with you to California,” he said, his voice low and hurt, “but after we get back, I think we should end this. If you stand in stagnant water too long, you get sick.”

  Then he left.

  fourteen

  The Rocky Mountains took my breath away. For the first time on our trip, none of us, not even Reginald, made a sound for miles and miles. The mountains rose like stone castles, Nature’s warriors set up to show man there were still things in this world bigger than all of us put together. All three of us bonded in our oohs and aahs, pulling over several times just to gape and wonder over the majestic beauty surrounding us.

  For a long while, I could pretend that the conversation with Nick had never happened, but from time to time, I’d catch his eye, and a shade would drop between us. He’d turn away, point out some landmark to my mother, and another brick would go into the wall that hadn’t existed in our relationship. Either my mother didn’t notice or didn’t say anything.

  “Stop the car, Hilary,” Ma said. “I want this picture.”

  “Ma, we’ve taken a hundred.”

  “This is the one I want with your father.” She pointed out the window at a stone outcropping that curved like a finger and a thumb, then dropped into a small lake, framed by lush green pine trees. Before I even had the minivan fully stopped, she was already unbuckled and out of her seat, flinging open the side door, hauling my father down to the guardrail.

  “When your mother gets an idea, she gets an idea,” Nick said.

  “Stubborn, that’s what she is.” I sighed and grabbed the camera.

  “Gee, wonder who inherited that particular trait?” He grinned, but it was a tempered version of his regular smile, then got Reginald’s leash and clicked it onto the pig’s collar. “I’ll do pig duty while you get the picture.”

  “Thank you,” I said, laying a hand on his arm. Heat extended between us and his gaze locked with mine, each of us clearly wanting the other, despite everything. “You’re being awfully nice to me, taking over the pig like that.”

  After our argument, Nick had gone down to the hotel bar, but later that night, crawled into bed beside me and without a word, curved against my body. Nothing was said about our fight, about the unanswered marriage proposal, but it had hung in the air between us all morning.

  Even now, it still lingered in the teasing over Reginald, and in his smile. “Hey, I’m just trying to show you that I have good qualities,” Nick said. “Husband qualities.”

  I groaned. “You never give up, do you?”

  “I have a couple thousand miles left to show you that being married to me wouldn’t be such a bad idea. After that, yes, Hilary, I will give up.” Then he climbed out of the van, Reginald click-clacking behind him down the pavement. They ducked down the hill and disappeared behind some shrubbery.

  Putting physical distance between us, mirroring the emotional space.

  I left the subject of Nick and marriage alone. Plenty of time to deal with that after I was done with my mother and this road trip. I had enough on my mind, and enough to deal with, just with her.

  “Ma, why this picture?” I asked, already tired of raising and lowering the digital camera. The memory bank was full, so I had to load a new SD card. My mother had even bought three extras of those.

  When had she learned to plan ahead for technology? And why had she done all this?

  “I like this particular view,” Ma said. “It’s my favorite.”

  I put my fist on my hip, the camera banging against the bone, and winced. Something was up, had been up for hundreds of miles, that went beyond what had happened in the hospital. “What is going on with you? We have tons of pictures of pretty mountains and lakes and trees. And I agree, the Rocky Mountains are beautiful. But why this one with Dad? Why all these pictures with Dad in general?”

  She clutched the cardboard image of him and bit her lip, the sign that she was reaching into some well deep inside herself to dig up some more “dealing with Hilary” patience. “Just take the picture.”

  “No. Not until you tell me why.” She was hiding something and damned if I could figure it out. This whole plan about getting closer to her, bonding—if there was such a thing between myself and my mother—had gone so far off track, I wondered if it was possible to right the train again.

  A week ago, I would have given up, retreated into the same familiar frustration I knew with my mother, and allowed to serve as the cement in the wall between us. But ever since the hospital, since that awful time outside her door, when she’d needed me and I hadn’t been able to get inside, something had changed between us, or maybe only changed on my side, and I refused to let this train wreck get any worse.

  Demanding answers only led to derailment. I’d learned that lesson with my father—and so had she, I suspected. Hadn’t we already seen the door shut, a little at a time, until it was closed entirely? Somehow, I needed to keep the door open with her, and find a way to nudge it open more, to get closer to her.

  So I framed her image with my father’s in the camera, and a wobbly smile came to her lips. “Tell me what you like about this picture,” I asked again, softer.

  She paused, thought for a second. “It reminds me of him.”

  Click. I took the picture, and when the pixels filled the screen, I saw the love she still had for my dad, spread across the plasma. Hope rose in my chest. Could Nick and I have that someday? Make our feelings last over years, over the divide of death? Despite everything, she still loved him, and I wondered why. I raised the camera again. “Why?”

  “Because it’s hard and soft at the same time.”

  Click again, but I didn’t glance down at the result this time, because I heard in her voice what the picture would become. Tender, vulnerable. An inside peek into her heart. Curiosity bloomed in me, to know the woman who had been such an enigma, this half of my biology I barely knew. Finding the keys to her, I realized, would unlock the parts of me that I needed, too. And maybe, I thought, glancing toward where Nick had gone with Reginald, provide the answers I needed in that relationship, too. “Tell me more.”

  She turned, peering over her shoulder at the view for a long time, just staring at the splendid, larger-than-life, impossible-to-capture magnificence. “Your dad, he was strong, you know. He held us together, held everything together, but underneath—”

  I lowered the camera, no longer able to see what she saw. “Underneath he wasn’t what we saw or what he thought.”

  She pivoted back, a tear running down her face. “He was like that lake, wasn’t he? Deep, and dark, and full of secrets. And maybe if we had seen past the stones, we might have—”

  “Oh, my God, Louie, would you lookee here at that great big picture of that man! Ain’t that ’
bout the cutest thing you ever did see?” The high-pitched, grating Southern voice caused my finger to falter on the shutter release, adding one memorable photo of my mother’s shoes to the collection.

  I turned around to see Daisy Duke—or what Daisy Duke would look like, if she had five kids, let her body go, and stopped coloring her roots. “Uh, hi.”

  “Hi! Whatcha doing?”

  I cursed the interruption. Every time my mother and I took two steps forward, something caused us to slide back three steps.

  “Taking a picture, that’s all.” I held up the digital camera for proof. Where was my bodyguard boyfriend and Reginald? Granted, he wasn’t exactly a feral pig, nor did Nick make for a menacing presence, but these people were WEIRD, in capital letters, and I wanted some backup.

  “I meant, with the cardboard man,” Daisy Duke said. “If I had me one of those, why, I’d just love it. I could set him up in the living room, make him a real conversation piece, if you know what I mean.” She gave me a wink and a side-mouth “chuk-chuk,” like she was calling a horse.

  “I’m sure you would.” I turned back to Ma, reframed the picture, and clicked, this time getting it right. “All set, Ma.”

  “Is that your man?” Daisy Duke asked Ma. “Did he not want to come along on your trip to the Rockies? Or are you just framing him for blackmail purposes? I only ask because my neighbor Jolene did that and Lordy, she got a whole bunch of money from the divorce settlement for setting her man up in a compromisin’ position with a compromisin’ woman.” Daisy sighed. “’Course, she did have to pay it all back, once Jeremiah proved, with videotape, that she’d been compromisin’ with a little filly of her own, if you know what I mean. Seems videotape trumps photographs every time.”

  I didn’t know what Daisy Duke meant in that long-winded paragraph of a sentence and I wasn’t going to ask for an explanation. Some things, I figured, were better left unknown.