by Holly Hall
“Jenson. You can call me Jenson.” Jenson leans over and gives him a friendly handshake, and although Mike accepts it with a nod, his clenched jaw flexes. He gives Jenson the barest grunt of acknowledgement.
“Sheriff Mike Branson,” he says in a deeper voice than usual before turning to me. “Everything going okay, Raven?”
“Yeah. All good.”
“That’s great to hear. I’m sure you’re both wondering why the Sheriff of Heronwood is here on your porch.”
He doesn’t want me to call him sheriff, but it seems he wants to remind me of his title every chance he gets. Jenson just looks back and forth between us, a pleasant expression on his face. He must not detect the greasy vibe I get from Mike yet.
“A little. There’s not an escaped convict in my backyard, is there?”
The sheriff’s laugh is a little too loud and rushed to be genuine. “Ahh, no, but it’s funny you should say that. You’ve been here long enough—you know about my open-door policy—so I’m sure you’ve come to realize how tight-knit this community is. It’s easy to recognize something that’s out of place, so to speak.” He pauses for effect, and I nod to show him I’m having no trouble keeping up. “And it’s only in the best interest of the community I’ve sworn to protect that I check up on something that’s out of place.”
When my eyebrow raises, he juts a thumb over his shoulder toward Jenson’s tan Bronco. “Unfamiliar vehicle. Try as I might, I just couldn’t place it.”
So we’ve arrived at the reason for this visit: the sheriff hiking his leg on territory he thinks is his.
“That would be Jenson’s truck, Sheriff. My ex-husband. No need to be alarmed.”
The sheriff laughs again and shakes his head, scuffing his boot on the slats of my porch. “Oh, wow, do I feel foolish.”
“It’s an honest mistake,” Jenson says smoothly. He has a trustworthy face, but right now the sheriff can’t seem to take his eyes off all the tattoos. Mike regards him thoughtfully, stroking his chin.
“Come to think of it, you do look familiar. You on TV or something?”
“I play music,” Jenson answers. Despite everything, he is humble. He would never voluntarily admit to his success.
“Right, right. I think it’s the tattoos. Maybe the hair.” I sense the undercut, but Jenson just shrugs humbly, his hands back in the front pockets of his jeans. “You plannin’ on sticking around for long?”
“No, unfortunately. Just checking in on Raven.”
“Probably for the best—the whole town would have a riot. You’d be the talk of Heronwood for weeks instead of our new gal, here.”
Jenson glances at me. “Yeah, probably for the best. Duty calls. I’m sure you know how that is.”
“I do, I do. Speaking of, I’d better get going. You’d be surprised how little time it takes for shit to hit the fan around here.”
“Well, I trust you won’t let that happen, officer.” Jenson winks at him. Mike narrows his eyes at the dig, but he doesn’t correct him.
“Make no mistake, Jenson, we look after our own.” He looks pointedly at me. “If you need any more assistance with your legal matter, Raven, feel free to stop by my office again. Have a pleasant day, you two.”
“You as well,” Jenson calls at his back for the both of us. When the sheriff pulls out of the drive and hammers on the gas, I gesture for Jenson to come inside.
“Come on. I don’t think I can stand any more unannounced guests.” I close the door firmly behind him.
“So,” Jenson says when we reach the kitchen. “The sheriff.”
“He likes to check up on things.”
“Friendly, too.” His tone is teasing, but suggestive.
“I know where this is going, and no, I’m not screwing the sheriff. Nor do I plan to. No matter how hard I try to keep the people of this town out of my business, they find a way in. They’re like termites. Or cockroaches.”
Jenson sighs, gripping the countertop and looking around at my spare furnishings. “You sure you’re doing okay out here, Rae?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Why everyone insinuates I moved to a war zone instead of small-town Tennessee is beyond me. I don’t mention the fact that I’m kind of seeing a drug lord’s son.
“I’m fine. I’m good.”
His tone softens further. “I know you are,” he says.
“How did you find out where I lived, anyway?”
“You’re not a hard person to find.”
I set the glass I’m filling with lemonade down on the counter harder than I meant to. The clink echoes throughout the house. “I could’ve been almost anywhere. Come on, who told you?”
“Serena,” Jenson finally answers.
My face heats, an automated response when it comes to her. “Naturally.”
I consider calling her and reminding her for the millionth time to stay the hell out of my business. Being two years older, she always thought she knew what was best for me. I slide Jenson one of the glasses without asking whether he wants it. He takes a long sip before setting it back down, batting it between his hands on the counter.
“You always made the best lemonade,” he remarks.
“Like my granny did.” I take a sip of my own before his grim expression reminds me where we left our conversation. “Look, about what I said that day, about you ruining everything . . . I was upset then, and I didn’t mean that. We had our issues, but I never wanted our marriage to end, Jenson. And I probably won’t ever look back on it without being sad that it had to.”
“But you and me are like oil and water, baby. Pour us together and we can mingle, but never mix.” It’s a sad thought, but he says it with a wry grin and the twang I used to want to wrap myself around.
“I guess we were just too in love to see it in the beginning.” I sniff, redirecting my focus to the tartness of the lemons on my tongue.
His gaze seems to hone in on me. “I know that look. What’s on your mind? No harm in telling me now.”
I massage the place on my throat that’s aching from the tears I refuse to shed. Is it guilt I’m feeling? Regret? Sadness? I can’t separate one from the other.
“I . . .” God, this is so difficult to say. But I told Dane, so Jenson deserves to know, too. “I can’t help but wonder if I abandoned you when you needed me most. Marriage is supposed to endure sickness and health. Till death do us part, right? I made a vow to love you unconditionally, yet I was the one to place conditions on us. ‘Through sickness and health,’ unless one of our sicknesses is alcohol? ‘Till death do us part,’ until one of us makes a mistake? I just . . .” I can’t even finish. For one, I feel like I’m rambling. Months of unspoken fears fight tooth and nail to crawl up my throat and escape.
“Raven, I . . .” His mouth opens and closes, like what I’ve said is too unexpected to process. “If anything, I abandoned you. I chose alcohol all the times I was supposed to choose you instead. It was almost like cheating, in a way. I was worried you’d think I was weak if I told you what was going on inside my head, that I was struggling, so I turned to the bottle for company. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for losing you, but I do know I’ll always wonder what the outcome would’ve been if I’d done something different. But you leaving was like a billboard slapping me in the face, telling me to get my life on track, or else keep losing the people I love. I don’t think the decision you made was easy, but it had to be done. And you had the strength to do it. You might’ve even saved my life.”
His words hit me like a bucket of cold water. Icy truth. I won’t ever think of myself as a savior. Even now, what he’s saying is having a tough time penetrating the curtain I’ve drawn between me and him. But simple relief that he doesn’t harbor ill feelings toward me slips underneath it.
“I’m all right, Rae. Really. This has been the hardest year of my life, but I don’t regret feeling the things I felt for you. We were great, you and me. But we weren’t healthy. And I’m figuring out that that is what’s most
important.” He spins the ring on his thumb, an old habit of his. “Which reminds me that I didn’t come here only to talk about ‘Skyward’ and make you sad. I also wanted you to know that I’m taking a break from music for a while. I’m enrolling in a program to get myself back on track.”
I had almost forgotten about that detail in the midst of everything else. I make a sound in the back of my throat that could mean a variety of things. He seems sincere, but I learned a long time ago not to put too much hope in fickle promises.
“I know what you’re thinking. Hell, it’s the same thing everyone else is; my mom, my grandfather, my friends. They know the old me never could stick with anything but drinking.”
“They would be correct,” I say, but my voice falters.
“I know. And I never did anything to prove y’all wrong. But it’s time now. I can feel it. I’m more motivated to put this thing behind me than I’ve ever been.”
I can’t deny the sting that statement incites. It travels deep into my chest and injects hurt into my heart. I guess the prospect of having a child wasn’t enough of a motivator for him. I guess I wasn’t either.
“I have nothing, Rae. I destroyed everything good in my life. Maybe I was always meant to find my motivation, my drive, where there was nothing else: rock bottom.”
I swallow my bitterness. It’s not easy. “So is it one of those fancy resorts that packs your schedule with stargazing, and nature hikes and shit so you don’t even have time to miss the booze?”
“No. Nothing like that. It’s a local place out in the woods, but it’s more therapy-based. Peeling back the layers of the past to identify the psychological sources of the issue.”
I take a long drink to gather my thoughts. There’s no way to know what he’ll do once he discovers those sources, or if he’ll utilize the tools he learns from the program, but I suppose it’s unfair for me to assume he won’t. He has lost just about everything. He deserves to find it again.
“I’m glad to hear that. How did you find out about the place?”
What I mean to ask is who recommended it. The fire was a highly publicized event that partially tarnished his “good guy” reputation, although me subsequently filing for divorce offset some of that bad light. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that a publicist called him up to pitch the program as a way to scrub his image.
“It came highly recommended from a fellow artist I’ve run into a few times on the road. He had all but ruined his marriage with both drugs and alcohol, but he made a comeback on the scene, and as far as I know, he and his wife are doing great. We ended up talking about everything late one night while the crew was celebrating after a show, and he urged me to give them a try.”
I can see it in his eyes, and he can see it in mine: what if he’d “tried” that program sooner? But I have to forget that thought. Nobody can live off of what ifs. It’s not sustainable.
When he takes a sip of his drink, I notice an unfamiliar symbol on his right hand—black ink scrawled on the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger. “You got a new tattoo,” I say as an effort to curb my rising emotions.
“I got two.” He holds up his left hand, and I see there’s a similar one in the same exact place.
“What do they mean?”
He clenches his left fist atop the counter so the skin stretches. “The past.” Then he does the same to his right and says, “The future.”
Ah. If he got those during the divorce, I’m sure there’s an explanation that involves me ruining both.
“I carry my past with me like an old scar. Only, instead of a reminder of all the pain I went through to get it, it’s a reminder of the lessons I’ve learned on the journey; one of them being to keep my eyes trained ahead, in the right direction”—he wiggles the fingers on his right hand—“the future.”
“Of course,” I say. It’s almost poetic, and it’s one hundred percent Jenson King.
Pushing off from the bar, he goes to the sink to rinse out his glass. His back is to me when he says, “There’s something softer about you, you know.”
That gives me pause. “Softer?”
“Yeah.” He turns, resting his hip against the counter and studying me. “It’s only there for a moment, maybe when you’re not busy fighting it, but it’s there. It looks good on you.”
My cheeks warm. “Must be something in the water.”
“Do me a favor, will you? Even though you don’t owe me a damn thing?” I raise my eyebrows expectantly. “Don’t fight it.”
I blink at him. He knows me better than anyone, has witnessed countless downfalls and triumphs. Up till now, I’ve kept a protective barrier between me and the world following my stint as a hell-raising teenager. I gave my parents stress-induced anxiety and grief back then. They couldn’t know that the wall I put up was more for their sake than mine. Maybe now, softer isn’t the worst thing to be. I nod subtly, but it’s enough.
“I should go.” Though he says it gently, it’s abrupt, breaking up whatever nostalgic cloud I’ve allowed myself to get caught up in.
I nod again.
“Thank you for hearing me out. There was just no way for me to adequately express my apology over the phone.”
“I know. You’re Jenson King.”
One side of his mouth pulls up into a half smile. “And don’t give Serena too hard of a time. She thought it would be good for you to hear someone else admitting to their mistakes for once.”
That’s a surprise, though I wouldn’t be shocked if he made up that explanation for her benefit on the way over here. They always had a weird connection, the meddler and the artist. I just roll my eyes and walk him out, propping the door open with my hip.
Jenson walks to the doorway, but he doesn’t pass all the way through. Instead, he turns his mahogany gaze on me. “I don’t want to cross a line here, but I want you to know that I still love you, Raven. Maybe not in the ‘in love’ kind of way, but in the ‘I would still do anything for you if you needed me’ way. Nothing will change that.”
That statement sends relief flooding through my capillaries. I didn’t know how much I needed to hear it, to be verbally forgiven.
“I know, Jenson, and I hope you take care of yourself. You deserve it.”
Almost as easily as old times, but with an ocean of mistakes between us, he wraps me in his arms and I give in, conforming to all that is familiar in the middle of a place that is still so strange. Squeezing my hands before releasing them, he hops off my front porch, then he’s climbing into his monster of a vehicle and pulling off down the highway.
As the sound of his exhaust fades in the distance, I turn to go back inside. I almost miss the sense of peace that has settled over me so naturally it feels like I’ve slipped into a warm pool on a hot summer day. I didn’t expect that conversation to end like it did, with forgiveness I didn’t think I deserved and closure I never knew I needed. I thought my life was just fine without those things. But I’m learning that in life, like with any good book, it’s better to turn all the pages of a chapter before beginning a new one.
SEVENTEEN
Seeing Jenson has put me in a funk. Not necessarily a bad one, but I’m shaken up a bit. It reminded me why I fell so hard for him in the first place. He was this worldly soul, strikingly beautiful in his mystery, and he offered me a place to hide away for a while. I guess it was his career that stripped some of his ambiguity, exposed him and me for the world to scrutinize. We weren’t a safe little secret for long. In a way, the alcohol kind of makes sense now. If I were him, maybe I’d want to find something else to get lost in, too.
When the last dregs of Jenson wear off, I decide to get out of the house. There’s too much nervous energy wound up inside me to stay confined. Fortunately, Lynn needs my help with this weekend’s spring carnival. She tells me it’s an annual thing and that she always sponsors a booth of some sort to advertise her business. This year she’s chosen face painting, and she volunteered my services and notified me after the fact. Of cour
se, I agreed. It will be nice to focus on something other than the trials and tribulations of my relationships.
I take a half day on Friday, giving myself time to stop by Lynn’s to help her pack up her booth and all the other necessary supplies. When I arrive, I find her frazzled and sweaty, impatiently shoving things into the back of her truck.
“Hey, what pissed you off?” I joke, and when she turns to me, her face crumples. She wipes sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, leaning back against the truck and turning her face up toward the sky.
Huffing out a breath, she says, “I need to rethink my business strategy or go get a day job or something.” When my puzzled expression remains, she throws her hands up in the air. “I need to sell more shit! This good-for-nothing town is good for nothing! I swear. And I know it doesn’t help that I’m out here in the middle of nowhere, with no way for passersby to even catch wind of my little fucking barn of furniture.” She kicks her foot back and it bounces off the tire.
I’m not used to this side of Lynn, so I’m not sure how to approach this. Does she want empathy or a solution? I decide to go for both. “I get it. This place is a black hole for businesses. I don’t know how any of you do it. So, are you looking for a place closer to town to rent? Maybe off the square, for visibility?”
“I could never afford that. I’m doing okay, but not well enough, and Adam’s on the road enough as it is. We’re stretched to the limit already.”
“Okay, so we’ll do some advertising. Make up some new business cards, and maybe posters we can put up in the windows of businesses in nearby towns to route traffic here. It’s not hopeless. You’ve got some options.”
“I’m fucking pregnant,” she says, so matter-of-factly that I do a double take.
“Like, you’re ‘missed your period’ pregnant? Or ‘have a sonogram picture’ pregnant?” There’s a bold distinction between the two. A lot can happen between the pee-stick and the photos.