Steven looked around as if he’d just remembered she was there. “Well, don’t waste one on that account. Leave it for those of us who do. Liking beer’s not a requirement for living in this world.”
“That’s probably a very good thing,” she said, hoping to return him to the man she’d made love with in the woods only that morning.
Ever the peacemaker, Shadow said, “There’s an orange pop left. I’ll bring you that.”
“Fine.” She reached for Steven’s hand, resting on one of his crossed knees. Needed to touch him, reassure herself he was real and okay.
He squeezed her fingers gently. “Sorry. I’m sorry about all this.”
She shook her head, glanced at the row of medals glimmering in the firelight. “I'm glad. I mean, it was good for you to tell all that. Wasn't it? Steven?”
He inclined his head and the old grin came back.
“The medals? If you don’t want them, could I... I mean, would it be all right if I had them? Something to remember you by? I’d keep them safe, I promise. Until you want them back, that is.”
Eyes shining with moisture, he leaned toward her. “My God, Liz, I love you. Yeah, I’d like that. It’s the best place for them. With you. Maybe someday I’ll come get them.”
“Or I’ll bring them to you.”
Both were silent for a moment. She wondered if he, like herself, was contemplating possibilities that might never present themselves. Let the thought go when he scooped up the clusters of ribbons and gleaming medals and placed them in her outstretched hand. She closed her fingers around the only tangible thing she would take away from this place. And she wanted to shout with joy and weep with sorrow, all at the same time.
Liz passed among them, handing each a piece of paper with her name, address and telephone number written in her precise teacher penmanship.
“In case you ever get by this way again,” she said, almost shyly. “Now, I’m going to bed.”
Steven thought it was as if she sensed that the three of them needed to have a time of parting, though it had never been uttered aloud, this decision that they would go their separate ways.
Shadow somberly poured three cups of coffee and passed them around. “Wish we hadn’t lost the tape player, could listen to old Puff one last time, but it’s okay, we all know the words...the music.” He raised his cup. “To going home,” he said in his midnight voice.
Lefty cursed and threw the hot liquid on the ground. “You go where you want. I ain’t going nowhere near home.”
It was past time to try to soothe the angry man, and Steven raised his cup solemnly. “To going home,” he repeated, drank the bitter black stuff down, and stood. “It’s time, long past time, we done something besides this.”
They said no more. Each went to a separate place to lie down and try to sleep.
But sleep didn’t come quickly to Steven. He stared into the fire, thinking of the way he felt about Liz, and what a miracle it was to find such a wondrous thing in his worthless life. At last he truly understood that even if he never saw her again he would love and cherish her forever. And even better, she felt the same way. That was a thing of rare value.
He shifted on the hard ground and turned so he could make out her tent beyond the glow of coals in the fire bed. Odd how they had both agreed without words to sleep apart on this, their final night together. Both knowing, perhaps, that they might not be able to go their separate ways if they didn’t.
There were things he had to do, and no way around it. Telling the ghosts goodbye and forgiving himself were so important that he couldn’t risk letting his desire for Liz get in the way. It could ruin everything between them.
The short time with her had brought Steven Michael Llewellyn back. A man he’d thought lost forever. Going home would be a long and tough journey. One he had to travel alone. He dared not believe that he couldn’t go home again. For only there could he find what was lost and bid it a proper farewell. He’d forgotten to treasure too many things, and he wouldn’t make that mistake again. A newfound strength lay buried within him, and he had to take it home where it could be nurtured. Home was the only place he could come to a settling, for there he had abandoned the sweet memories, the part of himself that sustained life, that would sustain love. And maybe one day he and Liz...
He let that desire go unthought.
Tomorrow, they would all part. Liz, Lefty, Shadow, and himself. Each man would get on his bike and they would ride in separate directions, perhaps not looking back. It would be difficult, but not so hard as letting her go and facing up to his past.
A restlessness stirred within him. The bittersweet day had passed into memory, leaving him feeling melancholy but anxious to be on his way. To put behind him the farewells, the tears, the good wishes and the bad. These brief days had flown much like the last summer before he left home to go to college, where his life had taken its downward turn into hell.
He remembered how it began so clearly. Pale gray eyes shimmering, Mama had reached to straighten his tie, delicate fingers lingering along the soft drape of his graduation gown.
“We’ll have the summer,” she said and kissed his cheek.
In the dark warm night, the familiar lavender fragrance filled his nostrils again.
“We agreed, Mama, that I need to go to Durant to school, but I’ll stay if you want.”
She shook her head, and a lone tear slipped down her cheek. “No. I want you to go. You know I do. I’ll miss you so much, though.”
He was afraid for her. She would be so alone. She had never functioned quite the same after Papa’s death so many years earlier.
“Maybe you ought to go out, meet someone. You’re young yet, Mama.”
She patted at his chest with the flat of her hands, the gold band she’d never removed from her third finger gleaming in the sunlight. “You know I couldn’t do that. I’ll love your papa till the day I die. No use looking at another man when all I’d see would be his face.”
At the time he’d nodded but wasn’t sure he understood. Now he did. Understood completely.
He closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.
****
She dared not look back but clung to Steven as he rode the bike up to the meadow and across the sun-splashed grass. Shadow led the way, but Lefty hung back as if not wishing to be a party to this.
Resting her cheek against his back, she listened to the hammering of his heart. Would this be the last time they would have together? If so, she was glad the bike made too much noise for them to talk, for she wanted to think and remember and hold close his memory. Forever. Mere words could spoil that.
Tears leaked from under her eyelids, but she didn’t brush them away. Much too soon, he slowed to pass around the fallen tree to where her dusty little car waited. For a long moment, both sat on the motionless bike. Then she stirred, slipped off.
Wordless, he went to open her door. “Sure you don’t need the ice chest and other stuff?”
“No, Steven.” She looked up at him and saw he had tears standing in his eyes, but they were clear and bright and hopeful. “I don’t need the other stuff. Thank you... for everything.”
He nodded, swallowed, leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. “Take care, and if you need anything—”
“Yes, I will. You too.”
“I’ll lead you out.”
“Steven?”
He halted in his retreat toward the bike. Turned.
“When we get to the highway, don’t watch me go. Okay?”
“No, I won’t.”
“I love you.”
“Me too. I mean, I love you,” he said in a hoarse voice and kicked the bike to life.
She backed the Fairlane and turned around to follow him out of the wilderness, morning air blowing fresh and clean across her face, drying the tears on her cheeks.
Chapter Seventeen
Nearly two years later, Liz walked to the mailbox in a soft spring rain that smelled of lilacs and damp earth. The gn
arled old apple trees spread pink-tinged white blossoms skyward to drink in the nourishing drops. Walking in the rain reminded her of Steven and of lyrical magic dragons. She sang a few words of the song, but couldn’t get past the land of Hanna Lee. Her cheeks were wet, but not with tears, never with tears, for Steven’s was a wonderful, rich memory she would always hold dear.
Through the drifting mist she gazed at the rise that concealed the meadow where she’d found Reudell last spring, writhing on the ground, scaring up bees working blossoms in the thick clover. She buried him in the Chapel Hill burying grounds with Mama and Daddy and Levi. At the funeral, Levi’s youthful ghost cavorted across the fields and into the shadowy woods accompanied by a young girl she scarcely recognized. A beautiful child whose red hair flowed in the wind, whose cheeks flushed prettily, whose laughter rang with joy. And she wondered at seeing the ghost of herself. Not so surprising, though, for that young carefree Mary Beth Morgan had died along with Levi, leaving only a tattered remnant to struggle back to life. A staid, prudish, and bitter woman who might have remained so had it not been for a particular summer in the sun.
Remembering Steven, Liz had smiled right out in public at Reudell’s funeral. Those days seemed to have taken place in some mystical kingdom. Eventually she scolded herself out of those nostalgic longings for the past. It must remain merely a distant and recorded dream, experienced by another self in another time. Certainly not proper reveries for a middle-aged schoolteacher and grieving widow. Ah, but how wonderful it had been, all the same.
After the funeral, returning to the farm she’d called home for twenty-five years had been like going into a stranger’s house. She strolled from room to room, touching things that had been chosen by her husband, the practical but dull furniture, in browns and grays, even to the rugs on the floors. Nothing bright or pretty or decorative. All of Reudell’s days were tied up in the place, and he’d allowed her return there to save face. To show everyone he had a forgiving nature.
Though he never recovered from the changes in her, he ordered her return to the Chapel Hill Church. She refused, and spent Sunday mornings in the apple orchard reading and talking to a wondrous supreme being she hadn’t yet put a name to. Another part of herself, perhaps the finest part, knew well this God who cherished her, understood her, wished her the best she could achieve, and gave her the strength to achieve it.
After a while, Reudell gave up on reasoning with his naughty, misbehaving child and began to deal with this grown woman who had returned to him. It was a peace of sorts, though uneasy at best. He was never happy with it, but then he’d never been happy anyway, so she refused to feel guilty.
She started a poetry reading group, meeting on Tuesday evenings at the Chapel Hill Community building. At first only a few came, and they were young, but soon some of the older wives trickled in. When they saw she was not going away, they became cautiously friendly and curious about her adventure. That was not something she shared, smiling and nodding and allowing an expression of supreme satisfaction to mold her features.
Walking along the lane in the rain, sneakers squishing, she cast a quick glance over one shoulder at the house, nestled in its veil of fog. Felt no sadness that she would soon leave it. It’d always been his, this farm, the house, the orchards and fields and flowers. She didn’t care for any of it after he died. The farm had been sold, and she would move soon. Where, she didn’t yet know.
Climbing a slight rise to the mailbox, she halted. Down in the pit of her stomach grew a perception of something about to happen. The innocuous metal box wept drearily and felt cold under her fingers. Was she being silly? Or perhaps simply eager to get on with the remainder of her life. She’d long ago stopped hoping for word from Steven, even a postcard to let her know he was okay. Hadn’t ridden that bike off a cliff somewhere. For no word of any kind had ever come.
In the box would probably be a flyer from the local co-op, which insisted on sending the latest feed prices to its dead customer. Or perhaps she’d find one of Shadow’s terse notes telling her he was doing just fine.
His letters had been sporadic, filled with tales about the boys at the juvenile shelter in Detroit where he worked, and about a woman who, to his utter dismay, loved him.
Wonder of wonders, he’d write. Who would’ve thought it? he’d pen. And he wouldn’t mention Steven because he never did, not even to say he didn’t know where he was. Nor did he bring up that glorious summer when they’d all changed so drastically.
On a blistering September day, a little over a year after she returned home, Liz had found in this same mailbox a letter from the Arizona State Police. In terse, apologetic terms they explained how Lefty had been killed by a Greyhound bus while sleeping on an Interstate. They’d found her name and address scrawled on a piece of paper, folded and encased in plastic in his pocket. She’d given that address to all three men, but had supposed Lefty would have pitched his once out of sight. The fact that he hadn’t continued to amaze and confuse her. She thought about it a lot.
Poor Lefty. He’d waited for Steven to tell him what to do with the gift of life he’d given him, and when Steven found no answers, Lefty simply couldn’t reconcile himself. He must have felt valueless outside the range of Steven’s love, and she guessed he died in the only way he knew how.
She slid her hand over the dripping mailbox. There might be a letter from her best friend, Pam. She had showed up at Reudell’s funeral and brought with her a blind husband. For all Liz knew they were still hiding out from the law. Someone had thrown acid in her husband David’s face during one of their violent protests, and he and Pam had withdrawn permanently from that life. They lived in Delaware and raised cranberries.
After spending a night with her at the farm, Pam and David had gone home. The couple’s gentle unity of spirit lingered with Liz long after the clunking of the battered Volkswagen died away, making Liz feel brassy and unreal. A taste she often found on her tongue. Like something alien was growing inside her. A need, a promise, a portent. It was time to move on, to make herself count in some way.
She wasn’t sure exactly how, but the promise waited just beyond her reach, and she sensed it like a snake senses intruders in its territory. With Steven she had learned to deal with the secrets hidden within herself, but without him her expectations fell short of fulfillment.
Didn’t we all need love to be complete? And if so, wasn’t it possible that memory of love wasn’t enough? Someone had said, she’d read it somewhere, that unrequited love was the best kind because it never grew stale or monotonous, never disappointed us. It remained wondrous, romantic, and a bit ethereal. We could add or detract what we wanted, keeping the relationship ever so perfect. But she wanted more. She wanted the tremor of heartache to make her days of joy shine all the brighter. She wanted promises made, kept or broken. She wanted to experience delight when things went so perfectly it made her soul cry out with pleasure.
With those wishes in her heart, she turned her face into the cool mist until it ran down her cheeks, then wiped her eyes and flipped open the door. Inside rested one fat letter, its corners wrinkled as if it had been carried around a long while before being mailed.
For a moment she could do nothing but stare at it and try to swallow past the heartbeat clogging her throat. Hope drugged her, made her dizzy with an anticipatory joy. For an instant, she left it there, held her trembling hand over it. Could she bear the disappointment if it weren’t from Steven? Why would she even think it was?
The questions warring in her mind, she slipped the letter out and turned it over. No return address, the postmark blurred until it was impossible to read, the handwriting unfamiliar.
No matter. The letter was from Steven. Her heart and mind knew it. Cursing eyes that refused to read anything without reading glasses, she unstuck the damp flap. She had to touch the pages, gaze upon out-of-focus words intended for her alone. After all this time.
The resonant vibration of his gravelly voice emerged from the pages as if he
stood beside her, warming her cold hand in his.
Dearest Liz, he wrote, his dear voice resonating in her ear.
Covered with chill bumps and breathless with anticipation, she ran headlong down the lane, worn sneakers sloshing through the drenched grass. At the house, glasses fetched off the table inside, she sat in the porch swing sheltered from the rain, slipped them onto her nose, and began to read.
Dearest Liz,
It’s been a long two years and I couldn’t begin to tell you about the things I’ve done and the places I’ve been. Somewhere in the process I faced the reality of the present. Thought I’d never grow up, but then I never worried as much about that as I did leaving the past behind. For good and all. Those days became more and more nostalgic as they faded, and it was like I had to cling to them, even though some were hideous memories. It’s been hard for me to concede to the complete loss of my youth, admit I’m growing too old to be so destructively idealistic.
She closed her eyes for a moment, saw him as clearly as if he were on the porch with her. That ridiculous long braid down his back, cocking a hip at her. She hoped he hadn’t lost that insouciance. The letter went on.
I missed it all, Liz, by fighting in that blasted war. And when I got back I’d been sold out. And protestors were so busy fighting in the streets they neglected to pay attention to what was really going on where it counted.
I would have been right in there amongst them if I hadn’t been otherwise occupied with murder and mayhem. I just don’t want to hear anymore of this crap. This bragging about the peace movement. All it did was fuck up the American government. We may never recover from that or the drug culture that came out of such a crazy time.
Beliefs should count for something, though, Liz, and I do have hope. Not just for the country but for myself too. I’ve changed some. I’ve reached an inner peace, yet I’ll never totally resign myself to some of the shit that goes on. But you know me. One thing’s for sure. My life is worth something, thanks to you. It has become very important to tell you that, not only because you cared so much, but because the kind of love we shared is so special and rare.
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