Saving Tess

by J. Lynn Bailey

  And finally, we chose one family.

  At last, I am free.

  And when my tears of freedom finally settle, I say, “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I tell them the story of how a little boy and little girl fell in love.

  It is an unconventional love that started with daisies and cow pastures and bull rides. It was a love that went unrecognized for years until one day, they both made a choice that changed the trajectory of their futures—a choice that would stay with them for years to come, along with the feelings of wrong. And little did she—I—know, the story would come full circle.

  When I’m done with the story, my parents are on the floor with me, crying.

  On this day, I know our relationship has changed forever. We not only have the common bond of family, but now, we are also able to see both sides of the coin. And what a freedom it is to know that.

  Until it’s late, we talk and hug and remember.

  I tell them about Casey.

  Ultimately, I tell them I need to go.

  My mom takes me into her chest, just like I’m four again. “We’ve lost one child. We can’t afford to lose another,” she says through stiff lips.

  I’m unsure of what that wholly means, although I have some understanding, which is, Whatever it is that makes you happy, it makes us happy.

  “Besides,” my mom says, “we’ve always known you two were just one letter away from falling in love. Guess you finally got the right letter.”

  The truth is, moms always know.

  I say my good-byes and drive home.

  Casey is already inside, and it’s late, but he has a plate of dinner ready for me on the kitchen counter.

  “How’d it go?” he whispers from the kitchen counter.

  “How much time to do you have?” I ask.

  “All the time in the world, baby.” He kisses my head.

  I pull away and look into his eyes, and I realize if I had never been adopted, I never would have moved to Dillon Creek. I never would have met Casey Atwood, and we wouldn’t have had the experiences we’ve had.

  “I love you,” is all I say.

  I sit down and eat, and I begin to tell him the story of Elizabeth Walters and me.

  When I’m done, I expect the unease to go away on his face, but it doesn’t.

  “What’s wrong, Case?”

  He sighs. “I met our son, Tess. His name is Mr. Austin.”

  40

  Casey

  “I couldn’t, Tess. I couldn’t not know who he was.” My voice quivers.

  Tess is silent, in shock, staring down at her plate in disbelief.

  “I went back to Oregon months back. Said that I wanted a make a little boy’s day. Explained I was a bull rider. I didn’t ask the adoption agency to give me information about the parents, but I provided tickets for that weekend. I just … I wanted to hold his hand.” I choke back tears now at the memory of his firm little handshake. “He has your eyes,” I say to Tess.

  And this makes her whole body shake.

  I reach for her.

  “No.” She finally looks up from her plate, her stare sharp. “How could you? How could you reach out to our son and not tell me about it?” she barely whispers.

  “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know if I’d ever have the chance to meet him again.”

  Still, she’s silent.

  I can see that she’s tired. She doesn’t have the fight or tears or anything left in her.

  My timing was real shitty.

  “Tess …”

  I reach for her again, but she slowly shakes her head.

  “We need to sell the house in Ketchikan and part ways. It’s for the best.”

  “What?” Doubt stains my tone. “Tess, come on. This is a little much, don’t you think?”

  Slowly, she brings her eyes to mine. “Good-bye, Casey. You can let yourself out.”

  And with that, she stands, leaving her plate at the table, and quietly walks to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  I sit down at the table, place my head in my hands, and try to figure out how to make this right.

  From my pocket, I pull out a little white box with the diamond ring in it. There are rose petals and candles lit in Tess’s room.

  I should have told her sooner about Austin. Maybe I should have told her before I made the move to bring him to the event. I was ready though, and she wasn’t. I knew she wasn’t. But maybe I should have waited until she was.

  Instead, I walk to the counter, grab a piece of paper and a pen, and begin to write.

  Dear Tess,

  I’m sorry.

  I’m going to make mistakes. I’m human and imperfect in every way a person can be. But one thing is for sure: I’m in love with you, and I have been since I met you when we were barely out of diapers.

  I won’t get it right all the time, but know that in my meeting Austin, my intentions were true, and all I wanted was to see him. Maybe that was wrong or right, but I know it was hard.

  If you never want to hear from me again, I’ll understand. I’ll have to.

  But if you find it in your heart to come back to me, bring this ring with you because it’s a symbol of my commitment to you forever.

  You’re my night sky.

  My bright, sunny day.

  My refuge from a fight.

  My soft place to land.

  My clearing on a dark day.

  You’re my home and my whole heart.

  I love you, Tess Elizabeth Morgan.

  And I’ll wait for you for forever, no matter what it takes.

  I’m not walking away this time.

  Love,

  Casey

  I set the note next to the ring box on the kitchen counter, so she sees it. Then, I put Saran Wrap over the plate of food and put it in the refrigerator.

  Before I leave, I walk down the hallway to the bedroom, and through the door, I say, “Tess, don’t forget to blow out the candles before you go to bed. I love you.”

  When I get home, Cash is the only one awake.

  “How’d it go?” he asks. Only one black eye has started to form.

  I told my family about Austin before they had to read something else in the media.

  “It didn’t.” My words are short, clipped, as I walk to my old bedroom and quietly shut the door.

  I need to get my own place, I think to myself as I fall on my old twin-size bed.

  “Hey.” I hear Cash say through the door. “If Tess isn’t going to the finals with you, I’ll go with you.”

  That’s it, and then footfalls go down the hallway and back to the living room.

  Let her go, I hear Conroy’s voice in my head. The same advice he gave me when I was fifteen when Abrams Locke asked Tess out. She’ll figure it out, Casey. She’ll either find a way back or she won’t. And either way, you’ll have to accept it.

  I roll onto my side and try to allow the night to take me to sleep.

  “You’re quieter than usual. Not as loud. Or drunk,” I say to Cash, who’s sitting in the seat next to me, sunglasses on to cover up the full black eye I gave him.

  First class gives us more leg room, so those are the tickets I asked the PBR to book.

  Cash pushes his backpack underneath the seat.

  He doesn’t say anything, except, “Did you tell Tess you were leaving?”

  I shake my head. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to know.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Three women about our age approach us and are fit to be tied.

  “What are the odds we have the number one bullfighter and a bull riding champion together—and brothers at that—on the same flight as us?!” one says, and they all squeal.

  One of them thrusts a picture of me on Ridiculous about five years ago and a black pen. “Will you sign this, Casey, please?”

  Another one pushes a picture of Cash toward him.

  “Are you guys headed to Vegas for the finals?” the chatty one says.
/>   “Yes, ma’am,” we say in unison.

  And they fan themselves with the pictures we just returned.

  “Ladies, if you could please make your way back to your seats, the captain is ready for departure,” the stewardess says, gently guiding the women back to their seats.

  Cash barely smiles.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” I ask, trying to ward off my own troubles, trying to get my mind right for this weekend, trying not to die, trying to pray, trying to get centered. “You would have taken one—or all three—in the restroom and joined the Mile-High Club.”

  Cash rubs his good eye with a balled fist, sighs, and then proceeds with caution. “Bullfighter One asked me—no, told me that I’m on leave for at least six months. Get my life back on track,” Cash finally says.

  A few moments pass before I say, “What’s the problem?”

  He shrugs and stares out the window, searching for something he’s not really looking for. “They said I drink too much. That I’m becoming a liability for the brand.”

  “Yeah”—I nod—“I can see that.”

  Cash continues to stare out the window, pretending to ignore me. A smile starts across his face.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You’re the only one who can say shit like that and get away with it.”

  “Because you know it’s the truth.” I push my backpack underneath my seat.

  “Probably right,” he sighs.

  “After the six months, then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The stewardess comes over the loudspeaker. “Please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen, and buckle your seat belts. Welcome aboard flight 223.”

  Cash wads up his jacket and makes a pillow against the window. “Wake me up when we get there.”

  “I don’t know how you can just fall asleep anywhere.”

  Cash looks at me and pulls his head up from his makeshift pillow. “Why? It’s easy. Close your goddamn eyes.”

  I shake my head and pull out my phone. My screen saver is of Tess and me. A picture we took down by the Tongass Narrows.

  “You sure as hell aren’t gonna win her back by staring at her picture,” Cash says.

  “Are you offering relationship advice? I thought you were sleeping.”

  He laughs. “Whatever, man. Wake me up in Vegas.”

  The words let her go keep playing in my head. Maybe time is the only thing that will fix this. Maybe then she’ll see my side of things. I didn’t do it to hurt her. Did I do it for selfish reasons? Yeah, probably. But we weren’t even together at the time. Hell, I didn’t know if she was coming back to me. But either way, she’s hurt. That’s what she’s running on—heartbreak—and time is the only thing that will help heal those wounds. Maybe my timing could have been better. It felt like the honest and good thing to do at the time, but now, I’m not so sure.

  In the picture, the back of her head rests against my chest. Loose strands of her dark hair dance across her face and are captured in one single moment. The smile she wears reminds me of a different time—when we were younger, carefree, and full of life and dirt and love. When we didn’t know what sarcasm was or sex, grief, or real sadness. We were innocent, and our biggest burdens were chores and finishing our entire plate of food at dinner.

  Time has passed, yet I catch glimpses of her from all those years ago, and I see contentment.

  I appreciate in this moment that saving Tess isn’t my job; it’s her journey to save herself. She’ll get right with God and her heart. But for now, it’s her time to hurt because that’s what life is all about.

  It’s beautiful.

  And then it’s sad and hard.

  And then it’s right again, somewhat boring. Routine. Scheduled.

  But then something happens, and then it’s beautiful again.

  And what we realize is that we know only a little about life.

  One day, when our lives have come to a close and we’re ready for the stairway to heaven, I think we’ll realize that the highs and lows were all worth it, that life was worth it—the heartbreak, the sadness, the beauty, the hard, the good, the brilliant—that our life is a journey to begin with, a story.

  Whether Tess and I end up together or not, whether our story has a happy ending or an ending we don’t foresee, we’re better people for having experienced all of it.

  I love this woman with all my heart, and if she sees that, then she’ll come back, but if she doesn’t, well then, I’ll have to accept this piece of our lives as part of the broken journey of life.

  41

  The Ladybugs

  Erla washes her face and brushes her teeth.

  Some days, Erla barely remembers her own name. Some days, she does, but those things are easier to hide when you live alone.

  No one to call your bluff or pull your cover, she thinks as she blends Mother Ann’s cold cream into her skin.

  Erla thinks of calling her granddaughter to tell her good night. Erla looks at her wristwatch. She could, she supposes, as it’s only a quarter to nine. She does. But the call goes to voice mail, so she leaves a message.

  “Hello, Scarlet. I just wanted to tell you how much I love you and how proud of you I am. I wanted to say good night, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Erla feels a little sad, like she wishes she had been able to speak to Scarlet. The pain in her chest returns, but it’s sharper this time, and it stops her in her walk back to the bedroom. The shortness of breath seems to quickly follow when this happens, so she waits for it all to pass.

  When it does, she carefully makes her way to the bedroom, to her side of the bed. Sits down. Says her prayers and thinks about tomorrow.

  She’ll drive down to the Garberville tomorrow evening. Erla kept the rope and cement blocks in the car after paying the neighbor kid, Meyers, to put them in there for her. Now, how she’ll get the cement blocks out of the car once she is down by the river she hasn’t quite figured out yet, but it will come to her.

  She updated her will so that Scarlet will be the executor, and she’ll leave everything to her and Devon.

  With these chest pains and shortness of breath she is experiencing, Erla can’t stand the thought of someone finding her body. She doesn’t want them to live with the lasting memory. It makes her sad to think about. So, if there is no body, nobody will be traumatized, and those who loved her can just remember her as an old woman with a full life, who just fell off the planet, and not the way they found her.

  Erla can trust in that. Her well-thought-out plans, except for the cement blocks from the car to the water’s edge tomorrow night, which she’ll figure out.

  And with this lasting thought, she closes her eyes for the last time and dreams of Don.

  “It’s well past nine,” Mabe says to Clyda on the phone. “Erla hasn’t slept since Don passed away. Something’s wrong. I’m going over there. Are you coming with?”

  “I’ll meet you there,” Clyda says.

  Once at Erla’s house, they slowly open the door.

  “Erla?” Clyda calls behind Mabe. “You here?”

  As they make their way inside, they see sticky notes everywhere.

  On the coat rack: Don’t forget your coat.

  On the front door: Don’t forget to shut the door.

  On the floor: Don’t forget to take off your shoes.

  On the wall in the entryway: Don’t forget to close the garage.

  On the walls: Don’t forget to pay the water bill and the gas bill and Don’t forget to get creamer.

  Every surface, everyplace, there is a sticky note.

  “Oh my good word, what the hell happened here?” Clyda says. “Looks like a damn flowchart threw up in here.”

  Mabe, too, is speechless. The last time she came over to Erla’s, the sticky notes just lived in the kitchen. Her heart seizes when she sees all the notes.

  Erla never would have let this happen to me, she thinks. She would have checked on me. Called me out. Told me to get he
lp, like she did.

  They make their way around the house and finally to the bedroom.

  And there, in bed, on her back, is their old friend, eyes closed, fingers intertwined across her stomach.

  Clyda and Mabe are flooded with relief.

  “Goodness’ sake, scared the daylights out of me,” Clyda says as they both walk over to their friend.

  “Erla, wake up.” Mabe sits down next to Erla.

  But she doesn’t stir.

  “Erla, honey, it’s time to wake up,” Clyda says.

  Mabe touches Erla’s hand, and she grows dizzy when Erla’s hand is awful cold.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” is all Mabe says.

  Clyda touches her old friend’s skin. “Oh, dear God.”

  Mabe freezes into a panic, and Clyda moves her fingers to Erla’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. Quickly, she moves to her neck, praying to find something that signifies life.

  Mabe is already on the phone with Dr. Cain.

  And the rest is chaos.

  Mabe remembers the legal notepad between the chairs in the living room before the coroner takes the body of their old friend. But when she peeks between the chairs, the notepad is gone.

  But the truth is, Erla did not succeed in taking her own life. Although she thought she had her best-laid plans, God had better ones. For He brought Erla home because it was her time and she was tired. She died with dignity and grace and with a broken heart. But it wasn’t a bad heart that brought Erla home; it was the loss of her own true love.

  Erla Brockmeyer died of a broken heart.

  42

  Tess

  It’s the day of the finals, and I’m nervous and sick. I regret the way Casey and I left things. Fixed emotions sit in my heart and stagger the beats, leaving me empty and hollow and numb.

  Mary Jo calls on my phone. At first thought, I don’t want to answer it, but I need to. If we want to sell—I’m not sure I want any memories of Ketchikan at all anymore—we should act quickly.

  I’ve watched the video with Casey and our son, Austin, and I haven’t been able to do it without crying.

  The beautiful moments inside the forty-second clip have now changed my insides.