Casting Shadows (The Ash Grove Chronicles)

by Amanda DeWees

  The dam always carried with it now the memory of the time he had taken Joy there. It was only their third meeting since his return to North Carolina. He had told himself at the time that he was seeking her out merely as a distraction, a way to forget his loathing for himself and the life he led, even if only for an hour or two. But by the time they left the dam behind he knew he was falling in love with her.

  For one thing, she actually listened to him. He had gotten used to people’s attention wandering when he spoke to them, assessing his body, appraising him as a commodity or an object of desire. The succubus too had tended to humor him rather than really paying attention to what he was saying. She’d listen enough to gauge his mood, and if he was unhappy, she’d seduce him into a better humor, sometimes literally. If he was angry, she’d go cool and dangerous. During his time with her he had learned to drop a veil over his thoughts and reflect only what she wanted to see—just as he showed the public only what they wanted to see. He’d become a fake.

  And he’d despised himself for that, as well as everything else.

  But Joy had believed in him. Even when he had shown her his true self—how superficial and cowardly a life he led—she felt that he was worth saving. Her belief had shed a warm glow over everything. He had never known what it was like for someone to have that kind of faith in him. And before he knew it he had come to love her so much that it scared him.

  So why couldn’t he be what she needed him to be?

  The lake was calm today, with no boats or jet-skiers to disturb the smooth and glinting surface. Beyond it the horizon was ringed with mountains, brownish grey at this time of year. Traveling the last two years, he had missed that sight. As eager as he had been to leave North Carolina, he found that flat foreign horizons looked strangely empty, leaving him feeling unmoored. Now that he was back, the presence of the mountains all around him was comfortable, even reassuring. It was like leaning back into one of those pillows with the arms—what did they call them? Husband pillows?

  Husband. The word brought him back to the very thoughts he’d wanted to escape: wrangling with Joy and Steven about the wedding. Thinking of how he had sidestepped her concerns made him ashamed. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to make her understand. He needed someone he could talk to about the whole thing. He started up his bike again and headed toward Bobby and Donna’s.

  Though surprised when he turned up on their doorstep, Donna welcomed him in. “I’ve got a batch of cookies I can’t leave at the moment,” she said, taking him in with a shrewd look. “But that should give you and Bobby a chance for some man-to-man talk.”

  There was no fooling Donna.

  Bobby was in his workshop, working over his table saw. Tanner didn’t try to hail him over the racket; instead he waited until Bobby finished and turned off the saw before making his presence known.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” said Bobby, slapping him on the back. “Did you need to change your work schedule? No, I guess you could have called if it was that. Something troubling you?”

  Tanner hopped up to sit on the hood of Bobby’s restored ’57 Chevy. “Kind of, yeah. Do you and Donna ever fight?”

  “Put a scratch in that paintjob and I’ll snatch you baldheaded,” said Bobby, securing the piece of wood he had just cut in a vise. He picked up a metal file and began smoothing the edges. “Fight? I reckon everyone does.”

  “But fighting means you’re having problems.”

  “Couples disagree. It’s gonna happen.” He kept his eyes on his work as he deftly worked the file. “But if you learn to do it right, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Donna and me have come up with some ground rules over the years.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Each of us gets a chance to say our piece. No name calling.” He grinned briefly. “And no quoting each other’s mother.”

  Tanner digested this. His parents had clearly had no such rules. Their fights were down and dirty, no holds barred.

  “What happens when you just can’t agree on something?” he asked. “If there isn’t any way to compromise?”

  “That’s when the work starts, I reckon,” said Bobby. “It can depend on a lot of things. Which of you will be affected more, say, or whether it’s reversible, or whatnot. But what it shouldn’t depend on is one of you having to win. You should be fighting on the same side, always. It’s not one of you against the other. It’s both of you in it together, trying to figure out what’s best for you as a couple.”

  “I like that,” said Tanner. “I never thought of it that way.” He considered this some more, and Bobby let him take his time; he released the piece of wood from the vise and slotted in another in the same shape, then began to file it down like the first. “What’s that going to be?”

  Bobby grinned. “None of your beeswax, young man. You’ll find out when it’s finished.”

  “Something for the wedding? For the baby. A cradle? Aw, Bobby, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Not doing it because I have to, son.”

  “Joy and her father want to make plans for the wedding,” Tanner said abruptly. He picked up a piece of scrap wood and turned it over in his hands. “I’ve been kind of putting it off.”

  This received a noncommittal nod. “What for?”

  “Part of it’s Steven. He’s got to be involved in everything, pushing his own agenda.”

  “Well, he probably just wants to see that his little girl gets the wedding he thinks she deserves. And it’s a big event for him, too, remember.”

  “I know. It just feels like I’m being edged out.”

  “Have you told Joy you feel that way?”

  “I don’t want to make her feel like she’s in the middle.” Even though she was. “And it just seems like such a lot of fuss over a stupid piece of paper.” He glanced covertly at Bobby to see if he’d call him on that.

  “That piece of paper is a big symbol. It’s telling the whole world that you and she are a team, and that she’s the highest priority in your life. It makes you accountable.” Bobby straightened up and gave Tan a shrewd look. “Maybe you don’t like that so much.”

  “It’s not that. I just don’t see why having some big expensive party with a preacher and bridesmaids will make any difference to how we feel about each other.”

  Donna had entered the garage unheard, and now stood leaning against the doorframe, wiping floury hands on a kitchen towel. “Tanner, honey, I think you’re confusing the wedding with marriage,” she said. “The ceremony part, that’s just a few minutes. The marriage will be all the rest of your lives.”

  He stopped to think about that. “Okay, I guess I did kind of mix them up. But still, I don’t see why being married is such a big deal. Joy knows I love her.”

  “Not wanting to get married doesn’t exactly look like it, though,” Donna pointed out. “She may be scared that you’re having second thoughts about wanting to be with her.”

  “Well… she has kind of said that.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Not like she thinks.”

  Bobby exchanged looks with his wife. “Getting married is scary,” he said. “Anyone who’s not a little nervous isn’t thinking. But you and Joy aren’t your parents. You don’t have to take that path.”

  That was certainly one of the fears that had been haunting him. The idea that what he shared with Joy could turn into something so full of spite and venom shook him to his bones. And he thought of Steven, always watching and judging him, reminding Tanner that he didn’t deserve Joy, that he was as worthless as his time with the succubus had led him to believe.

  “I don’t want to disappoint her,” he said. “But she believes so much of me that isn’t true.”

  Donna came to lean up against the Chevy next to him and squeezed him around the shoulders. “We aren’t any of us cast in bronze, shug. If you’re not the man you want to be, well, get off your butt and start working to become that man.”

  It cost him a huge effort to speak his next thought.
“I’m so afraid that if I try I’ll fail,” he said at last, very low.

  “The trying is what’s important,” said Bobby. “That’s all wedding vows are, really: a promise to try, for both your sakes.”

  “Anyway,” said Donna more briskly, “you don’t need to figure it all out right this minute. There are oatmeal shortbread cookies that need to be tested, so y’all take a break for a little.”

  Bobby wiped his hands with a clean rag and started after his wife, but Tanner hung back. “I’ll be along in a second,” he said. “I want to call Joy.”

  He polished a scuff mark off the Chevy’s hood as he waited for her to pick up. When she answered, the worry in her voice reproached him.

  “I wanted to let you know everything’s fine,” he said. “I’m over at Bobby and Donna’s.”

  “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.” There was a pause. He knew that she was holding back questions so that he wouldn’t feel like she was grilling him. Sweet Joy. She deserved so much better than he’d given her up to now.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, as inspiration struck him. “I need to take care of some stuff while I’m out, but hopefully I’ll be home in time for supper.”

  “Okay,” she said again, but her voice had brightened. “Be safe.”

  He realized as he broke the connection that he had said home without even thinking about it. The little house on the hill overlooking the river had come to be more of a home to him than any other place, except perhaps Bobby and Donna’s house, but the feeling was more than that. It was Joy. Being with her was home.

  Dusk was beginning to fall when he pulled up in front of the house. Joy was waiting on the front porch, wrapped in a tartan throw, and she made her way carefully down the steps as he switched off the engine and got out. He never stopped marveling at the sight of her, heavily pregnant with their child, so close to this huge unknown future and yet so unwavering in her love and her courage. He quickened his steps to close the distance between them.

  But for once she didn’t rush to meet him as fast as she could wobble. Her eyes were bewildered.

  “What’s this?” she asked, indicating the minivan he’d driven up in. It was used but had been well maintained; its buff paint job was still glossy, its tires almost new.

  “It’s ours,” he said, handing her the keys. “We needed something we could both ride in, with room for the baby and your dad too. The guy who sold it to me is a friend of Bobby’s, gave me a good trade-in price on the Ninja.”

  “You traded in your bike?” she exclaimed. “But I know what the Ninja meant to you.”

  Once it had meant independence, freedom. But then it had just become a way to avoid anything he didn’t want to deal with.

  “It was time for something else,” he said, putting his arms around her. “Think this’ll be okay? It’s got low mileage and a brand-new transmission. The guy said we can try it out for a few days, and if it doesn’t suit us we can swap it out for something else.”

  “No, it’s great.” She looked at him searchingly. “If you’re happy, I am.”

  “I’m happy,” he said, and gave her a kiss designed to convince her. “So,” he said at last, “when are we going to scare up that magistrate and get married?”

  “You mean you’re ready to set a date?” She sounded breathless, from either the kiss or his one-eighty, or both.

  “The sooner the better. I want the world to know what you mean to me.”

  She laid her head on his chest. “Well, if that’s all you want, I’m sure Standish Billups will be happy to let the wire services know.”

  “You know what I mean.” He tipped her face up so she could see he was serious. “I claim you as my wife, Joy Sumner, and as the one I love above all others on this earth.”

  The look that broke over her face then was the sweetest sight he had ever seen.

  “And I claim you as my love, my husband, and my dearest friend, Tanner Lindsey.” She stood on tiptoe to meet his kiss.

  After a very pleasant interval, he said, “There’s just one thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “After we’re married, I don’t want you to be Mrs. Lindsey.” He ruffled her hair, trying to find the words. Mrs. Lindsey was his mother, screaming curses at his father, torching his clothes on the backyard grill, haggling over the division of the DVD collection down to the individual discs in the Everybody Loves Raymond box sets. “I don’t like those associations. In fact”—and the rightness of the idea made him wonder why he hadn’t thought of it before—“in fact, I don’t want to be a Lindsey any more. I want to take your name.” When she didn’t respond at once, he asked, “Do you mind?”

  “Mind!” She hugged him around the waist. “It’s a beautiful idea. Are you sure, though?”

  “Positive.”

  “Tanner Sumner,” she said, testing it. “Well, it’s a little jingly. ‘Tan Sumner’ is good, though. What’s your middle name?”

  “Don’t have one.” Neither of his parents had cared enough to think of a second name for him, but he didn’t say that. “Maybe you can choose one for me. Pick one of your favorite literary heroes’ names.”

  Her dimples flashed. “Not Heathcliff, though.” She had called him that to tease him, that first night in the graveyard.

  “Not Heathcliff,” he agreed. “Do you think your dad will be okay with it?”

  “I’m sure he will, as long as you ask him yourself.”

  “Got it,” he said. “It’s not fair for you to have to fight all my battles for me.”

  It surprised him, though, how nervous he was when he knocked on the door of Steven’s combination bedroom and office. He had stared into the soulless eyes of a she-demon, but confronting his future father-in-law was almost more unnerving.

  “Come in,” said Steven’s voice from behind the door, and Tanner entered. Steven was sitting at his computer desk, with face-down books and scribbled-on notepads covering every surface. Several days’ worth of mugs and plates were also scattered around. Tanner would have expected Dr. Sumner to be more organized, and he wondered if there was something special about his current research that had him neglecting the usual niceties.

  The only other thing of note was a huge framed family portrait showing him with his wife and Joy as a toddler. It had been taken in the front yard, with the azalea bushes in full bloom behind them. The three of them looked so happy together that, in spite of his new resolve, Tanner felt a twinge of doubt. Would he be able to build that kind of family with Joy and Rose?

  “Did you want something?” Steven was holding his place in a book with one finger.

  Tanner pulled his thoughts together and took the plunge.

  “I hope you won’t be unhappy to hear it, sir, but I’ve just told Joy that I’m ready to set a date for our wedding,” he said. “I realize it may have looked like I was dragging my heels, but that’s all over with. I’m totally on board.”

  “Ah,” said Dr. Sumner. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed Tanner. “And you thought this would disappoint me because…”

  “Because I know you think I’m not good enough for Joy, and that I’m going to let her down some day. That it would be better for her if I weren’t in her life and she could find somebody more stable, someone she could really rely on.”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty accurate summation,” said Steven. “You disagree, of course.”

  “No, I agree,” said Tan frankly. “Joy deserves someone better than me. And all this time I kept thinking she’d wise up and realize what she was letting herself in for. But the thing is, Joy wants me. Not someone smarter, or less damaged, or better parenting material. I’m the one she thinks will make her happy.”

  “She believes better of people than they deserve,” said Dr. Sumner. “It’s part of why she’s so special.” His eyes were hard behind his glasses. “And it tears me to pieces to know that she’s deceiving herself about you.”

  Tanner pulled up a chair and sat straddling it. Stand
ing there in front of Steven made him feel like he was arguing his case in a court of law.

  “The thing is,” he said slowly, “if it’s a mistake, it’s hers to make. I’ve basically been acting like I have the right to tell her how to live her life.”

  “And you’re implying that I have too.” When he didn’t deny it, Steven sighed. “She did accuse me of trying to do her thinking for her. I just see it as trying to protect her.” His eyes went to the picture on the wall. “I’ve had no one’s judgment but my own to rely on since Anna died.”

  It sounded like he was weakening, and Tanner seized the advantage. “Think about it from my side,” he urged. “I can’t tell you what it means to have someone like Joy have so much faith in you. It’s—well, it saved my life. She’s given me this amazing gift by believing in me. And I’m not going to just throw that gift away. I want to be—I’m going to try to be—the husband she needs and the father Rose needs. I owe her that.”

  Steven was silent.

  “But I could really use some help,” said Tanner, when Steven showed no signs of speaking. “The only relationship experience I have is with, well, you know. So if you and I can agree on this one thing, that we both want to make Joy happy, and we’re both going to do our best to make that happen—does that sound like something you could do?”

  He was starting to lose hope again when, after what felt like an eternity, Steven reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s a bargain I can get behind. I’m glad you’re showing some sand, Tanner. You may yet prove me wrong.”

  That was the nicest thing Dr. Sumner had yet said to him, and Tanner couldn’t hide his grin. “I’ll do my damnedest, sir,” he said.

  Supper that night became a celebration. The three of them talked wedding plans as they boiled pasta and chopped vegetables, and Steven brought out a bottle of sparkling wine to fit the celebratory mood. “A toast,” he announced at the end of their meal. “To the happiness of my daughter and my new son. May you find together the beautiful partnership that Joy’s mother and I shared, but may yours be of much longer duration.”