His Everlasting Love: 50 Loving States, Virginia

by Theodora Taylor

  Sawyer took the folder and dropped it on the nearest Victorian couch without so much as a glance.

  “Next time you can just email it to me. No need to come all the way out here.”

  “What is this I hear about you buying one of The Crazy Librarian’s girls a car?”

  So that was the real reason for his visit. He should’ve known Donny Sr. would go blabbing his mouth straight to his dad. Apparently the senior car salesman didn’t have near as much respect for his clients’ confidentiality as Willa.

  “She needed a car. And I don’t need that lawsuit you had going with her mother coming back to haunt me when I start my run. Plus, I was a dick to her in high school. So I bought her a car with my own money. Extra incentive to keep her mouth closed if any reporters come sniffing around wanting to know how she feels about me running for your old seat.”

  His father nodded, a thoughtful expression coming over his face. “Not a bad idea.”

  But lest Sawyer let four whole words of approval go straight to his head, in the next breath he asked, “Where’s your leg? I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t be seen without it from now on.”

  Which reminded him… “Actually, I’m about to get some physical therapy for the new one any minute now. So if you don’t mind clearing out, I’ll look over that copy later.”

  His father frowned. “Why do you need more physical therapy? You know, that won’t look good when your opponents start digging for things to use against you.”

  “Just six sessions and they’re off-the-record, Dad. I made sure. I’m even paying out of pocket for the therapist.”

  “Did you have this person sign a confidentiality agreement?”

  “Not yet, but I will.”

  And here it came again. The much more familiar look of disapproval tightened up his father’s entire face. “Will, should be already have. You know this, Son.”

  Seriously, his brother Josh had no idea how lucky he was. His father had decided early on that his oldest son didn’t have enough camera presence to be a politician. So Sawyer had been tapped to run for The Admiral’s old seat.

  And now it was Sawyer who was forced to listen as his father told him, “You have to be more careful with your reputation. The last thing this campaign needs—”

  A knock sounded on the door, interrupting what Sawyer was sure would have turned into a scathing lecture.

  “Let me get that, Dad,” Sawyer said, happy for the intrusion.

  It was his house now, his place to answer the door. But try telling The Admiral that. Before Sawyer could stop him, his father was at the door.

  And on the other side of it, he heard Willa’s surprised voice, saying, “Admiral Grant!”

  “Willa Harper,” his father returned, voice as tight as Willa’s was surprised.

  “I…ah…wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she said.

  “Nor I you. What are you doing here, if I might ask?”

  To her credit, Willa didn’t crack under his father’s intimidating squint as many would have. “Just visiting with Sawyer.”

  “Just visiting,” his father repeated, looking over his shoulder to pin Sawyer with a look that said it all: You’re about to run for Congress and you’ve got a black girl whose mother destroyed my chances of becoming President “just visiting” you?

  “She’s my new PT, Dad,” Sawyer said, letting Willa off the hook for having to answer what was sure to become a full out interrogation on his father’s part. “Now if you can just get going, I’ll have her sign the ND, and we’ll get started on my first session.”

  “Where’s your new car, young lady?” his father asked Willa.

  “I left it back at my place and walked over,” Willa answered. “Figured it would be better that way. No chance of anyone seeing me drive up here.”

  “That was a good instinct on your part, Ms. Harper.”

  He opened the door wider, standing aside to let Willa through with what looked like a folded massage table. “I’ll help you with that.”

  “No, thank you,” Willa answered. “It’s actually lighter than it looks. Really, the best thing you could do for your son right now is give him some privacy. Physical therapy isn’t meant to be witnessed by an audience.”

  “Oh, I see. In that case, I’ll leave you to it.” The Admiral gave her a stiff nod.

  Then he said to Sawyer, “Make sure...”

  “She signs the non-disclosure. Got it, Dad.” Sawyer went to stand by the still open door. “Call before you come over next time, okay?”

  Of course The Admiral didn’t even acknowledge that request. But he did leave. Stiff as a tin soldier as he walked out and closed the door behind him.

  Sawyer took a steadying breath, gathering himself before he turned to face her. He was surprised to find her in the same spot. Massage table at her feet, concern written all over her face. Like she knew what no one else did. How he really felt about the man he’d appeared with in several campaign ads to convince Virginians why Quentin Grant, a single father, widower, and veteran, should be their next representative.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Willa?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Drive over here next time.”

  “It’s seriously no big deal. It’s actually faster to come across the valley.”

  He could see her logic. But still… “I don’t care what he said. Or who sees you. I don’t want you tramping through the goddamn valley with a heavy massage table like me getting PT is some kind of special ops mission.”

  “Seriously, it’s not that heavy. And it’s only this once, really. I was planning to leave the table here.”

  “Drive,” he said. The word hard and succinct, like a bullet.

  "Okay," she finally agreed, voice quiet.

  Silence settled over them then, awkward and thick with sexual tension.

  Until she said, "Ready to get started?"

  "Yeah, sure," he mumbled.

  "So usually most of the real PT is done when you first get the leg and then only again if you fall into bad habits that need to be corrected."

  "Yeah, they mentioned something about me needing to maybe work on my posture."

  Her brow wrinkled. "How discreet do you want to keep this?" Then off his questioning look, she asked, "Like, would you be okay with me talking with your prosthetist? Because usually they're the ones who are supposed to make sure you're new prosthesis is working for you.

  He studied her, leaning in closer on his crutches. "So sounds like this isn’t your first amputee rodeo, Willa."

  Long pause as if she were running a few different responses through her head before she settled on, "No, it’s not. So are you okay with me talking with your prosthetist, just to make sure my therapy plan is sound?"

  "Nah, you don’t have to consult with that guy," he answered with a half smile. "You know your stuff, I can tell. I think you can handle me all on your lonesome."

  The look she threw him was pretty skeptical, but she didn't argue.

  Instead, she bent down and seemed to be addressing the missing part of his leg when she said, "Okay, this is the plan for today. We're going to put on the leg and run through all the regular PT exercises you should be doing daily. Then we'll take it back off and end with some stretching and a light massage."

  "You talking to me or my gimp leg?"

  Another ghost of a smile as she stood and answered, "Both. Obviously we've got some bad habits to undo if your leg's still bothering you six years later."

  A small alarm bell went off in the back of his head. How did she know when he got his first leg? His father managed to keep the fact that Sawyer lost his leg under wraps for a while, thanks to his old Navy contacts. And as far as Sawyer knew, she didn't have access to any of his medical records.

  But he supposed Greenlee was a small place. People gossip. Especially the servants—as his mother used to point out, sometimes with one of their maids in the room. And he knew Grace was friendly enough with The Crazy
Librarian.

  For all he knew Grace had told Ms. Marian, and then she’d told Willa all about it. Grace being one of the few people his father had told about Sawyer’s condition from the start. Still it didn’t seem like Grace to go around telling others about his personal details…

  “Sawyer?” Willa asked, crooking her head with concern after he’d stayed quiet too long. “Are you okay with that plan?”

  “I’m not lazy,” he pointed out, hauling himself back into the conversation. “I exercise every day.”

  “Obviously…” The sight of brown eyes moving over his ripped body sent a ripple of vain pleasure through him. Even if it was probably just a medical assessment on her part.

  “Which is probably why you don’t have back problems on top of your leg issues,” Willa said. “But lets start from the beginning anyhow. Make sure you’re doing everything right. Where’s your prosthesis now?”

  “I left it in the home gym. Figured you’d want to see me put it on.”

  “Okay, we’re going to go to the gym and put the prosthesis on now,” she said. And once again, she seemed to address his leg, not him. “But just for a little bit.”

  A little bit ended up feeling like a very long time. Willa hadn’t been kidding about starting from the beginning. But unlike the prosthetist he’d mostly talked with about sports during their handful of sessions, she really put him through his paces. Correcting his posture and eventually giving him a whole ‘nother set of leg and back exercises to do on top of his usual workout.

  By the time their forty-five minutes were up, he didn’t hesitate when she told him to get on the massage table. Hell, he felt like he deserved a massage after what she’d put him through.

  “We’re going to do a few stretches first…”

  However, his feeling of relief was short-lived. As soon as she touched his good leg, everything on his body came to life. And he did mean everything.

  There was going to be a problem when she asked him to turn over.

  “How’s that brother of yours?” he asked. Yeah, the one with the severe mental disability, who he’d sometimes see trailing around after his sisters in town. That was a guaranteed boner deflater. “What’s his name again? Trevor?”

  7

  Willa put a lot of effort into not reacting to his question.

  Her hands only stilled for a moment, before she answered, “Yes, Trevor. That’s his name. Did you ride any yesterday?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.

  “Yeah, I actually did. To and from work in Richmond. And maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seemed like my leg hurt a lot less when I took off the peg this time. So thanks for the advice.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So you work with a lot of gimps?”

  She wished he’d stop referring to himself in that manner. But she knew a few amputees who’d done this, and also knew it was useless to argue with them about it. Like trying to get a rapper to dump the N-word. Once an amputee appropriated a slur like “gimp,” there was often no convincing him to be politically correct.

  Still, she tried to guide him by example. “No, I don’t really work with amputees anymore. But I did for a time. For a while I was on track to become a physiatrist, which is kind of like a cross between a physical therapist and a really hands-on doctor who specializes in musculoskeletal problems.”

  “I know what a physiatrist is,” he said, his voice taking on a certain edge. “Had plenty of experience with them.”

  Yes, of course he did. Willa rushed on, “Anyway, I quit the program and now I’m just focusing on general physical therapy.”

  “Don’t know why you quit med school. Seems like you got a real talent for this kind of job. I bet you would have made a real fine doctor.”

  He meant it as a compliment. She knew he meant it as a compliment. But she found herself fighting off her stutter, as she said, “It’s better if we don’t talk while we do these stretches.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  She could tell she was making an already awkward situation even more so, but she couldn’t help it. The sense of déjà vu was nearly overwhelming as she remembered the first time they had this conversation…

  “SO YOUR SISTER RAN OFF. How’s that brother of yours doing? What was his name again? Trevor?”

  She’d agreed to meet Sawyer on the hospital roof the night after explaining to him that he was a ghost. Sawyer’s spirit couldn’t go beyond the hospital doors, and this was the only place they could meet where there wouldn’t be regular folks around to see what would appear to be the young American Physiatry Fellow talking to herself.

  The conversation actually hadn’t been going too bad before then. She could sort of see why Sawyer had been so popular back home. When he wasn’t being an asshole, he was actually sort of charming. Made good jokes and seemed to be listening with interest when she told him all about med school and how she’d come to be on fellowship in Germany.

  However, his question about her brother brought a sad cloud into the conversation.

  “Trevor…he died. Thel came home late and forgot to lock the door one night and he wandered out into the road while we were sleeping and got hit by a drunk driver. The crash ended up killing them both. That’s actually most of the reason Thel ran off. And a lot of the reason I decided to go to med school down in Alabama. I guess we’re all dealing with his passing in our own way. I just wish Thel would get back in contact. Let me know she’s alive. Marian says she’s fine, but…”

  She trailed off, too sad about the loss of both her brother and her Irish twin to finish.

  “Wow, I’m sorry,” he said, letting out a breath. He shook his head. “Hell of a time not to be corporeal. If I was, I’d be giving you a hug right now.”

  She threw him a rueful smile. “If you were, I might accept it.”

  “So that’s what brought you to Germany, because you wanted to work with amputees?”

  “Yes, I think I might have a special gift for it. Being able to see ghosts and what not makes me think I’ll be good with missing limbs. I guess it’s my way of using my creepy talents for good, without, you know, going crazy like my mama.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I don’t know. My father thought she was crazy until that first judge ruled in her favor. Now none of us Grants are so sure.”

  “No,” Willa said, shaking her head. “She’s definitely crazy, and not in the euphemistic way either. Remember that time at the mall?”

  It was a vague reference, and probably a lot of boys would have pretended to have forgotten. But to his credit, Sawyer said, “That time your sister tried to flirt a meal out of my friends and me? And I made them tell her no?”

  Willa could still remember the stomach-curdling humiliation, even if Thel refused to let it show as she walked back to their table empty-handed. “Yeah, that time.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Willa. Sorry for a lot of things I did back then.”

  She let that apology hang for a few seconds before saying, “Now.”

  “Yeah, now,” he admitted. “I wish it hadn’t taken me falling into a coma and meeting up with you again in this fucked up place to realize what an asshole I’d been, but sadly, that’s what it took.”

  “At least you’re honest about it,” she said, shrugging off the bitter resentment she’d been carrying around like it was an old coat that no longer fit.

  Because it didn’t. She had no idea how Sawyer would be when he woke up and found himself missing part of his leg, but now…now she was starting to get what all those girls back in Greenlee had seen in him.

  He hadn’t run away from this conversation like most guys would have, pretending they hadn’t been so bad or making excuses. Instead, he’d turned his handsome face to her and apologized so honestly, it struck her as noble.

  “You think I’m honest,” he said with a wry chuff. “I guess that’s one thing I got going for me.”

  “You’ve got a lot of things going for you. I wish you could see that.” She s
lid her eyes over to gauge his reaction to her words.

  But he just gave his head a little shake. “What were you going to say about that time at the mall?”

  Well, he was honest about some things, she guessed. With a mental sigh, she let him change the subject back to a safer topic. At least safer for him.

  “The reason my sister decided to flirt with you all that day was because we were truly hungry,” she told him plainly. “The problem with my mom is she doesn’t just see ghosts. She also talks to them and sometimes she gets visits from what she calls “future ghosts”—kind of like ghosts who aren’t quite ghosts yet. Sometimes they just tell her things, sometimes they want help with something they want to correct. That’s what she’s referring to when she says, ‘The spirits told me this or that.’ She says she and Trevor’s dad divorced because we he was unfaithful, but I think the fact that she has literally thousands of spirit friends didn’t help matters either. It certainly didn’t help when it came to providing for the three of us.”

  Willa shook her head with real bitterness remembering every single time Thel, Trevor, and she had to go without because her mother had gotten a request she refused to deny from one of her spirits.

  “Anyway, about five months after the settlement check came, Marian went out and spent every single dime of it, plus an advance on her next three paychecks, to buy a first edition copy of The Wizard of Oz which she then immediately donated to the Smithsonian. Because some curator spirit she’d just met told her he’d always regretted not being able to acquire it for their collection. ”

  The memory rolled Willa’s stomach with disgust. “She was always doing stuff like that. And the money she got from the settlement only made it worse. She eats like a bird, so it didn’t matter for her. But Thel and I had to feed Trevor, and you remember how big he was. So we went to the mall after giving him the last can of soup we had in the pantry. Usually Serena could flirt a meal out of one of the clerks. But that night, there wasn’t anybody but older managers working. And there were some lines even Thel wouldn’t cross—at least back then. And there wasn’t any other high schoolers hanging out—I guess because it was a Wednesday. Then you walked into the food court with your friends.”