by Robyn Carr
“You’re right about the food,” he said with a hum and a napkin to his lips and beard.
“Hmm,” she agreed, letting her eyes fall closed as she enjoyed mashed potatoes so creamy and wonderful, they were like ambrosia.
Ian finished quickly, sitting back and giving his belly a satisfied rub. Marcie just gave up, pushing her plate toward Ian. “I’m done. Go ahead. Help yourself.”
His eyes widened. “You sure?”
“Wait,” she said suddenly. She dipped her fork into the mashed potatoes and lifted it to his lips. “Try this.”
He lifted his brows, then let her put the fork into his mouth. He savored it. Then he said, “I think you got better potatoes.” And he smiled.
“Help yourself, Ian. I’m going to explode if I eat any more,” she said.
“Maybe a bite,” he said, dipping his fork a couple of times before he, too, had to admit defeat. They sat in silence for a few appreciative moments, finishing their drinks, satisfied. Happy. It occurred to her—they were happy.
The contentment was interrupted abruptly. Mel came into the bar with a baby on her hip. Marcie knew she was pregnant, but had no idea there was also a baby under a year old. The baby was all stropped up in a snowsuit, encased from his head to his toes in blue bunting. The smile on her face was brilliant. “Jack! Everyone! It’s time. Tell Preach to turn off the stove and get Christopher and come on! Come on, don’t make us wait!”
Ian’s eyes narrowed as he quizzed Marcie wordlessly. “They’re going to light the tree,” she said. “I’d love to see it.”
“Whatever jingles your bells,” he said.
“You’re not coming?”
“I’m pretty comfortable right here.”
She leveled him with her gaze. “Suit yourself,” she finally said. And she got off her stool to follow the people in the bar as they headed outside.
There was a formidable gathering there—cars and trucks double-parked all up and down the street. People were murmuring, laughing, greeting each other. There were lots of excited children running around.
Marcie found herself at the back of the crowd, not out of shyness but because she wanted to see the entire height of the tree and get the full effect. She felt a longing to have Ian at her side, but his reluctance was easy to understand—nothing like the holidays to bring back dark memories of loved ones lost, families in unstable places, loneliness, bittersweet memories.
Mel was suddenly at her side, jiggling the baby.
“I thought you were expecting your first,” Marcie said with a bit of melancholy. There had been a time she’d seen a family in her future, but when Bobby was injured, everything went away—all the hopes and dreams and fantasies.
“This is David, my son. I wasn’t expecting to be expecting so soon again, but it is what it is. I’m knocked up.” She laughed. “You’d think a midwife would have a better handle on things.”
“I assume you’re happy about it?” Marcie asked boldly.
“It took a little getting used to, but the baby moves now. That seems to change even the most reluctant mommy. How’s it going? I see you got Ian into town. Did you finally speak with your sister?”
“I’m doing fine, and yes, I talked to Erin. She’s over-protective, but she can’t help it. She’s seven years older than me, nine years older than my little brother, and when we lost our parents, she took over. Since I was fifteen, she’s raised me. Got me through every rough patch of my life. Really, it kills me to defy her like this—but I’m not sorry I did this. Now that Bobby’s gone, she’d like me to snap out of it, sense the freedom, do all the things she feels were denied me—go back to school, get a career, marry one of her successful friends or something. She’s so conservative—I’m a little too crazy for her. This thing I’m doing—she thinks I’m nuts.”
“But do you think you’re nuts?” Mel asked.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But every day that passes, I learn more about myself. I don’t want to get all gooey, but this is a spiritual journey. I thought it was about Ian, but it might be that Ian is right where he should be and I’m the one who needs to face a few things about my life.”
“Aw, honey,” Mel said. “That’s not gooey. If we had time, I’d tell you about some of the crazy things I’ve done to try to get myself grounded.”
“That would be nice,” she said, reaching out to run a knuckle along David’s pink cheek.
“Oh, look! It’s going to happen,” Mel whispered. “David, look,” she said, turning the baby’s head. “Look at the tree!”
Marcie noticed that Jack was crouched behind the huge tree, a couple of extension cords in his hands. He connected them and the most amazing tree in the world came to life. It was adorned in red, white and blue streamers that ran from the top to the bottom; red, white and blue balls glittered amid white lights—a million white lights. And between them were the gold stars. And patches, visible only by the sparkling gold trim that illuminated them, representing hundreds of military units who stood the watch. But the thing that mesmerized Marcie was the star on top.
It wasn’t the typical gold star that often topped Christmas trees—it was a white beacon. And it was powerful. It actually cast a glow, as though it was a real star in the heavens. It created a path of light.
Her hand went to her throat to catch the tightness there. It was glorious. “That star,” she whispered in sheer awe.
“I know,” Mel said. “I had everyone in town looking for something like that. I hope it lights their way home.”
“All of them,” she whispered. “All of them.” And she thought of Bobby, finally home after his struggle. And Ian? Could it light Ian’s way home, too?
“How did you get all the unit patches?” Marcie asked.
“Jack and the boys contacted all their old friends. We made phone calls, wrote letters and faxed them. The tree was a sudden decision. Boys from around here have gone into the military—one very close to Jack and me not so long ago. And Vanni’s husband, lost to us in Baghdad…He was in Jack’s squad several years ago. This is for him, too. And his wife. This just couldn’t wait. We had to hurry to get it done, and we did. The whole town pitched in. Doc’s clinic was a disaster.” She laughed. “He groused, but I think it made him secretly happy.”
“It’s truly amazing.”
The oohs and ahhs subsided and people started to sing. The first carol was “Silent Night,” and then “Away in a Manger.” Marcie glanced toward the bar, missing Ian, wanting him to be with her to see the star. She smiled to see him standing on the porch of the bar, hands in his pants pockets, looking up to the top of the tree. And she thought—what will be will be. I promise, I won’t get in the way of it.
People started drifting away about a half hour later, having been through a repertoire of about ten well-known songs. Mel took her baby into the bar, and it wasn’t all that long before Marcie stood in the street with only a few people remaining, all of them looking closely at the tree as Ian continued to watch from the porch. He finally walked down the steps toward the tree and went right up to it, taking a close look at the ornaments and the unit badges. She knew what he would see—a remembrance. A tribute.
Ian didn’t poke around at the tree for too long, but he could see in a moment that these military unit patches came from everywhere and there might have been hundreds reaching up to the top of that enormous tree. It made him feel something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in a very long time. Pride.
His reverie was broken when he heard Marcie cough; it came out like a bark. He turned and went to her, taking her hand in his, leading her to the truck. “Did you bring your cough medicine with you?”
“No,” she said, coughing again. “Stupid, I know. But I was in a real hurry to get in your truck before you realized that I’d tricked you into letting me come—” She quickly jumped in the truck and when he was behind the wheel, she broke into another spasm. Then she said, “Sorry.”
“For what, exactly? For hacking all t
he way home or for forcing yourself on me all day long?”
She glanced at his profile. Without being able to see his eyes and with all that hair on his face, she couldn’t tell if he was amused or angry. “Both.”
“I don’t think you’re coughing on purpose. And I’m not annoyed about the day anymore. It was a good day.”
“Really?” she said. “Really? Did you have kind of a good time?”
“Kind of,” he relented. “My favorite part was when you told the librarian I was an idiot savant. You think on your feet.”
She smiled to herself.
“I think it turned out to be too much of a day for you,” he said. “You’ve been doing so much better, we both ignored the fact that you were real sick there for a few days. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
“I don’t have to rest or anything. But I am supposed to take that cough medicine a few times a day, and I let it go all day. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll be fine.” She coughed a little more. “I’ll take the medicine as soon as we get home. Ian—do you ever get lonely? Up on the mountain?”
The first thought that came to his mind was, I never used to. But what he said was, “It’s kind of strange how fast you can get used to something, like quiet. Like being alone. I didn’t think it would end up being this long.”
“Does that mean you planned to come back? Like to Chico? At least out of hiding?”
He turned and looked at her. “Marcie—I haven’t been hiding.” He looked a little surprised. He looked back to the road. “I mean, when I first got up this way, I didn’t tell anyone where I was headed because I didn’t know, and didn’t tell anyone where I ended up. But I haven’t been hiding. I have a driver’s license and a registered vehicle. I pay taxes on the property. I do business—even if it’s not very official. But I’m not that hard to find. You might have to get used to the idea that no one wanted to find me. No one was looking for me. But you.”
“But I checked—I’ve been to the police and everything. Someone checked to see if you had a registered vehicle, though they said they couldn’t give me any information about you if—”
“Did you check in Humboldt County? Because that cabin is over the line—it’s in Trinity.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh.” She coughed a little more; this is what happens when you’re fighting the last remnants of a bug, don’t take your medicine and get a little tired out. “Can I ask something?” she said carefully. “Why’d you come up here?”
“I remembered the place. I’d come up here fishing with my dad when I was a kid. Before my mom died; before he lost interest. I first came when I was young, then as a teenager. I just remembered it as a place you could hear yourself think. I needed something like that—something low stress. And you admitted yourself, it’s really beautiful.”
“And it just turned into over four years?”
“It just did,” he said. “Something I learned in the Marines—it works for me to challenge myself physically. Push myself. It gives me a look at who I am, what I can do. I was living off the land, roughing it. And I was starting to think clearly. I came up in late summer. I had a bedroll and backpack. Back then, I thought it might be best if I stayed away from people for the most part—thought some things through, tried to get a handle on the ways my life was changed since the Marine Corps. Then all of a sudden, it was snowing and I wasn’t quite ready to take the next step. There were options—the GI bill and school, a job, whatever. But I wasn’t ready, and the old man, Raleigh, kicked me back to life. Before I knew it, I’d lived with him for months—like two old bachelors going their own way, doing their own thing. Then I was taking care of him, then he was dead. By then, I had a routine and a lifestyle. It was working for me.”
“But you didn’t have friends…”
“Yeah, I didn’t seem to need people. I swore I’d never let that happen. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Huh?”
He didn’t respond for quite a long, drawn out moment. Finally he said, “My dad. When my mom died, I was twenty and had been in the service a couple of years. She’d been sick with cancer. She was only fifty-five, but she’d had a hard fight for about three years. She was ready, but my old man wasn’t. It really aged him and he was so pissed off. I mean more pissed off than he had been. He’s never been what you’d call happy. He isolated himself, lost interest in things he used to like, slowly left what few friends he had. Every time I came home on leave, he was a little worse. I kept thinking he’d snap out of it, but he didn’t. I swore that that would never happen to me, no matter what.”
“And it did?”
“Not the way you think. I’m not angry. Not very, anyway. I just turned into a loner because my life was mostly spent alone.”
“But don’t you ever want more? I mean, like friends? A shower? An indoor john? A full set of dishes?”
He turned and grinned at her. “I have given some thought to the idea of a shower—it’s a pain in the ass hauling water. But we mountain men, we don’t need a lot of baths.”
“Don’t you want a TV? A CD player? A computer?”
“See if you can understand this. I want trees that are three hundred feet tall, black bear that poke around my stuff, deer that eat out of my hand, and a view that almost brings me to my knees every morning. I want to work just hard enough to afford my life. I’m sorry I don’t have an indoor john and shower for you, especially while you’ve been sick, but I don’t really need one.”
She turned toward him and put a hand on his arm. “Aren’t you just a little worried you could turn out like that old guy you took care of? Alone on a mountain for fifty years?”
“I’ve thought about it a time or two,” he said. “I plan to keep going to the dentist at least once every other year—I’d like to go out with all my own teeth. Old Raleigh couldn’t eat much that wasn’t soft. But in all other ways, he didn’t have a bad life.”
“Okay, wouldn’t you rather have a better way to earn money than selling firewood?”
He shot her a surprised look. “I don’t sell wood because I’m poor and stupid—I sell wood because it’s good money. The trees are free. There’s no mark-up. I like cutting ’em down and chopping ’em up. I work at it year-round and make a lot of money when I sell the cut and split logs. I work for the furniture mover in spring and summer, while business is heavy for him. It lets me tend the garden and fish, not to mention get ahead on winter firewood—it has to be seasoned for six months. The river up here is pure and deep. The fish are fat and delicious. It’s incredible. Listen, if I needed anything more, I’d work more.”
“No regrets then?” she braved.
He snorted. “Marcie, I have lots of regrets. But not about how I live or what I do.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment. Then she coughed until it bent her at the waist.
“This truck is too cold for you,” he said. “We shouldn’t have gone to the bar—we should’ve gone home. You get straight to the couch when we’re home. Cough medicine and bed.”
She took a breath. “Do you regret leaving Shelly?”
He glared at her for a moment, putting her on notice that she was getting too close to that forbidden territory again. But to her surprise, he answered. “It didn’t go exactly that way. I’m not sure who left who.” And then he fixed his eyes ahead again and started up the mountain to his cabin.
“But she said—”
His head jerked back to her. “You talked to her?”
“I was trying to locate you,” she said weakly, like the wimp she’d suddenly become.
“Okay, this conversation will have to wait. No more.”
And that was that. Silence reigned in the truck the rest of the way up the hill and she was afraid she’d made him very angry. She wondered if this was the point at which he’d load her up in his truck—maybe first thing the next morning—and take her to town, to Mel at the clinic, turning her over. This could be the point at which he was through put
ting up with her and all her talk about what had happened four years ago.
When they made the top of the hill, they each took their turns in the outhouse before entering the cabin. She dutifully took her cough medicine, hacking the whole time, and he turned his back while she got down to just his shirt and her panties and planted herself on the couch. He fed the woodstove, prepared his coffeepot for morning, rolled out his pallet and heavy blanket for bed.
Then he came to the couch. He scooted her over with a brush of his hand and sat on the edge.
“While I was in Iraq, Shelly was planning our wedding. It was set to happen a few weeks after I got back, and while I was gone, it turned into a frickin’ coronation. My fault—I’d said, ‘Anything that makes you happy.’ But when I got back I told her I needed some time, that I was in no shape to be a husband. I was barely in shape to be a marine, which was supposed to be my life’s work. I asked her to postpone the wedding—but she was in full bride mode. There are things I barely remember about that talk—something about the dress being fitted, invitations out, deposits made. I tried to convince myself to just close my eyes, lock up my brain for a few weeks and get it done. But I knew I’d be letting her down, letting a lot of people down. I knew I was screwed up and needed to decompress. Also, I knew she had no earthly idea what was happening to me—how could she? I barely knew. She said a lot of things, but what I remember most was that she said if I didn’t let this wedding she’d worked so hard on happen, I could go straight to hell.”
Marcie’s eyes were wide, bright green. “Ian, I—”
“I don’t want to hear her version,” he said, holding up a hand. “I hope she’s happy. I hope I didn’t screw up her life too much. Believe me, if I’d married her then, it would have been worse for her. Now—you get some rest. I’ll be back early in the day tomorrow. Don’t do too much. Read one of your books. And take the medicine.”
“She’s married,” Marcie said softly. “Pregnant.”
“Good for her,” he said easily. “It all worked out, then. Now, tomorrow try to get a handle on the cough.”