Mountains Between Us

by Jenny Proctor

Except, maybe it was a conversation he did need to have. That was the most terrifying thought of all.

  “Thanks for telling me,” Henry said, looking over at Eliza. Reflexively, he reached for her hand. Her skin was warm to his touch, and she looked up, surprise in her eyes. He felt his heart skip. Just as quickly as he had reached for her hand, he dropped it. How many times would he make the same mistake? She wasn’t his to touch. She would never be his.

  He stood. “I, uh, I should . . . I’ve got some stuff . . . some writing I was meaning to do. You —” He turned and looked at her. “You should probably go.”

  Eliza kept her eyes down as she walked to the door. With her hand on the knob, she turned and finally looked at him once more. “You can’t just keep running away, Henry.” And then she was gone.

  Somehow, he knew she was talking about more than just William Harrison.

  Chapter 26

  Eliza was fidgety as she and Flip drove up to the parkway on Saturday morning. If she wasn’t retying her tennis shoes, she was tugging at the drawstrings of her hoodie or fiddling with her hair. It was stupid, really. If she could just relax, she was sure she would have a good time. She wondered, though, if she even wanted to have a good time.

  “Are you all right?” Flip glanced over at her.

  She forced a smile. “I’m good. Where are we hiking?”

  “I thought we’d go to Graveyard Fields. Have you ever been there?”

  Eliza shook her head. “That’s where you picked those blueberries earlier in the summer, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, the blueberries are great in the summertime. There’s a nice hike down to this amazing waterfall too, with big boulders everywhere. I figured we’d hike down and eat lunch at the base of the falls.”

  “Sounds perfect.” And it did sound perfect. It shouldn’t be hard for her to enjoy herself.

  Relax, Eliza. Just try and relax.

  “I heard Amber’s going on excursion,” Flip said. “You think she can handle it?”

  “No,” Eliza said. “And that’s exactly why I think she needs to go. I’ve been too easy on her, I think. So far, Rockbridge hasn’t required enough of a sacrifice. If she could just get away from it all—away from her comfort zone, her friends, away from this boy Dawson . . .”

  “Who’s Dawson?”

  “The Peterson kid at church—tall, with the curly hair.”

  “Oh, right. I did see them talking last Sunday.”

  “And that’s just it. Rockbridge has such strict rules about things like that, but with her leaving campus every week, I feel like she’s treating this more like summer camp, albeit a really strict summer camp, but still. I hope excursion gives her the wake-up call she needs.”

  Once they started hiking, Eliza nearly forgot she was on an actual date with Flip and fell naturally into the old patterns of their friendship. They laughed and talked and enjoyed the crisp autumn air and sunshine. After lunch, Eliza sighed and leaned back on the smooth surface of the large rock where they spread their picnic.

  “How could anyone ever want to live anywhere but here?”

  “Every place has its charms,” Flip said. “But I agree. I’ve traveled to a lot of places, but these mountains are the most—” He stopped as if to find the right word.

  “Glorious,” Eliza said, finishing his sentence for him. “Simply glorious.”

  “You know, I used to wonder why they called them the Blue Ridge Mountains,” he said. “You only have to drive the parkway once on a clear day to figure it out.”

  Eliza agreed. “I noticed when we were driving up that even with the fall colors looking so bright, the distant mountains, the ones touching the horizon, still look blue.”

  When Flip didn’t say anything in response, Eliza began to grow uneasy.

  Flip was only quiet when he was preparing to say something important enough that it wouldn’t just roll off his tongue. Her heart quickened. She knew they couldn’t keep pretending like they weren’t on a date. He surely intended to do something, say something that would take things a bit further. As the silence stretched between them, Eliza felt with growing certainty that this was the moment. This was the moment she had to decide if she really wanted to be on a date with Flip in the first place. She’d been giving it her very best effort, but if she was honest with herself, she knew her heart wasn’t in it. She liked Flip too much to push him away completely but respected him too much to pretend she didn’t have reservations about getting more serious.

  So where did that leave things?

  “So,” Flip began. “How long have you been in love with Henry?”

  Eliza sat up quickly, her eyes wide with surprise. “I don’t . . . Why would . . . ? How did you even . . . ?” She couldn’t find the words to form a coherent sentence. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she struggled to respond. Flip moved beside her and put his arm reassuringly around her shoulders.

  Eliza took a deep breath. “How did you know?”

  “I only had my suspicions,” Flip said, “but you certainly just confirmed them with that reaction.”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  Flip laughed. “Eliza, you’ve been avoiding me for weeks, save today. You’re trying mighty hard not to look me in the eye, which means you’re hoping things don’t get too personal. And furthermore, every time I see you and Henry together, you can’t stop staring at him. I held on to a glimmer of hope when you agreed to go out with me today, but I’m not a fool. I can tell your heart is somewhere else.”

  “I don’t stare,” Eliza said. “I . . . Do I stare?”

  Flip laughed again. “I’m sure I only notice because I’m busy staring at you.”

  Eliza’s heart sank. “Flip, I’m so sorry. I haven’t meant to hurt you. I just . . . With Henry, it just sort of happened. I didn’t try to fall in love with him.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me,” Flip said. “I saw it coming. It’s not like I didn’t have time to get used to the idea.”

  “Thank you for understanding. It means a lot.”

  “Does Henry know?”

  Eliza was quiet for a moment. “He knows,” she finally said. “I mean, I’m not sure he knows how serious my feelings are, but I pretty much told him that I felt . . . something. He just keeps running away though. I don’t know what else to do but assume he doesn’t feel the same way.”

  “This is Henry we’re talking about. Perhaps he’s running because he does feel the same way. I like the man, even more now that we’ve been going to church together, but his life’s not exactly a sunny-day picnic. You, with your red hair and confident smile, you’ve probably got the man scared out of his wits.”

  “So now I’m scary? I don’t want him to be afraid of me.”

  “He’s not afraid of you,” Flip said. “He’s afraid of loving you.”

  “He told you as much, huh?” Eliza gave Flip a gentle nudge with her elbow.

  “Sure,” Flip said. “We had a cozy chat over the fire pit last weekend . . .”

  “You did no such thing,” Eliza said, her tone light and playful. “Henry would never say anything like that to you.”

  “True. But that doesn’t mean I’m not right.” He stood and started gathering the remains of their picnic. “You should talk to him again. Tell him to man up.”

  Eliza looked at the smooth surface of the rock between her feet. “Maybe,” she said. But she knew she never would. The pain she had suffered when he’d rejected her the first time was still fresh in her mind. She wouldn’t ever sign up for that again.

  Chapter 27

  For nearly a week, Henry mulled over Eliza’s suggestion. His initial reaction was to keep his mother out of it. But she was the only person who could give him any insight into what William Harrison—Bill, as Eliza had called him—was really like.

  Henry also wanted to talk to his dad. All this thinking about his biological father left him feeling a little deprived, a little disconnected from his adoptive father, and he found himself feeling an inte
nse desire to reconnect—to make sure the ties that bound the two men were still strongly secured.

  Friday afternoon, a week after Eliza told him of Bill’s call, he was in the car on his way to Winston-Salem just thirty minutes after his last afternoon class was finished. The momentum of his decision to go carried him all the way to his parents’ driveway, where he now sat wondering if he should have called ahead to let his parents know he was on his way.

  He could see they were home. His father’s truck was parked off to the side of the house, and his mother’s sedan sat in the open garage.

  Still, he didn’t go inside. There was a certain inevitability of going in that kept him glued to his seat, his hands resting on the steering wheel. He sat there staring straight ahead until a loud thump on the driver’s side door made him jump. He turned to see the shaggy blonde face of his parents’ golden retriever staring at him through the window of his car.

  Now he had to go inside. If the dog had found him out, it wouldn’t be long before his parents discovered him as well.

  “Hello?” Henry called as he opened the front door. “Mom?”

  His mother, Julie, appeared in the hallway, a dishcloth in her hands. “Henry! What are you doing here?” She hurried to him, reaching her arms up and around his neck. “What a wonderful surprise!”

  “Hi, Mom,” Henry said. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Where’s AJ?” she asked, finally releasing him from her embrace.

  “He’s with Allison,” Henry said. “I thought I’d come alone this trip.”

  Henry tried to drive AJ to Winston-Salem two or three times a year to see his grandparents. It wasn’t frequent enough, he knew, but it was difficult to get away from Rockbridge, and lately it seemed that more and more of AJ’s weekends were filling up with Robert-related activities.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Things are fine. Am I really only allowed to come see you if I bring your grandson?”

  “Of course not,” she said, smiling. “We just like it better when you do.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s out back trying to fix the lawn mower. Go say hello and tell him to come inside. I’m just about to get dinner out of the oven. Did you eat? There’s enough here we can share.”

  She turned to go into the kitchen, then paused and looked back at Henry. “You know, it’s funny,” she said. “I haven’t cooked a pot roast in months. What on earth made me buy one at the store this morning? ‘A pot roast,’ I said to myself. ‘Who cooks a pot roast on a boring old Friday night?’ I bought it anyway though, and now here you are to enjoy it with us. Suddenly, a pot roast seems perfectly appropriate.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Henry said. “Pot roast sounds wonderful.”

  After dinner, Henry did the dishes. He was slow and deliberate, knowing that as long as the dishes weren’t done, he didn’t have a reason to join his parents in the den, where he knew they’d want to know what had brought him all the way home.

  He’d dodged their questions pretty deftly at dinner, but it wasn’t a charade he wanted to keep up. As he dried his mother’s heavy roasting pot and returned it to its home next to the stove, he let out a weary sigh. It was time. He walked into the den and turned the large leather chair in the corner so it faced his mother, who was sitting on the couch reading a book.

  Julie must have noticed the seriousness of Henry’s actions. “Hey, Tom?” she called, closing her book. “Why don’t you come into the den? I think Henry needs to talk to us.”

  When his father finally joined them, Henry took a deep breath and sat down. “Two months ago, Bill Harrison showed up at Rockbridge.” He watched his parents stiffen.

  “I don’t understand,” his mom said. “He just showed up? How did he even know that’s where you work?”

  “My picture is on the website.” He kept his eyes down, afraid that if he looked his parents in the eye, they might see he wasn’t telling them the entire truth. “A simple Google search probably told him in a matter of minutes where I was working and how exactly to get there.”

  “Did you speak with him?” Tom asked.

  Henry took a deep breath and looked into his hands sitting open on his lap. “Only for a moment,” he said. “I was so surprised to see him, so taken aback, I told him I had no desire to see him, and then I fled.”

  “Oh, Henry,” Julie said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Henry gave his head a slight shake. “You know, I pretended for so long that he didn’t exist. I have a father.” He looked up at his dad. “I felt no need to make room in my life for this man I don’t even really remember. But then I saw him standing there, and I . . . I can’t decide if what I felt was just anger or confusion or, I don’t know, fear, maybe? But that just makes me mad to think about because I don’t want to feel anything. This man didn’t want me. Why does he deserve even a sliver of consideration from me?”

  “Henry, is that what you think? That he just didn’t want you?” Julie looked at him, her eyes wet with tears. “It’s time for you to let me tell you about Bill Harrison.”

  Chapter 28

  It felt like the perfect time for Eliza to be going out of town. The last excursion group had left the day before, which meant things at Rockbridge felt relatively quiet.

  “Who’s getting married, again?” Natalie asked. She was standing in the parking lot beside Eliza’s car.

  “It’s my old roommate, Lexie.” Eliza loaded the last of her bags into the back of her SUV. “We lived together for a couple of years when I was in Nashville.”

  “And you’ll be back when?”

  “I’ll leave Tennessee on Tuesday, just after lunch. I should be home by five or six.”

  “Don’t hurry. We’ll be fine until you get back.”

  “Thanks, Nat. And you have my cell number, right? You’ll call me if anything happens?”

  “Nothing is going to happen. But yes. I’ll call you.”

  Two hours later, Eliza was out of North Carolina and driving across the eastern portion of Tennessee. She was excited to see Lexie and was looking forward to spending Monday and Tuesday with her mom.

  Eliza had received an e-mail from Gina earlier in the week. She would call on Sunday afternoon when Eliza and Beverly were together. Eliza was excited to talk with her, to hear her voice. The updates she’d been getting from Gina’s therapy team were encouraging; she was making wonderful progress, had even started painting again. Eliza hoped it wasn’t too good to be true.

  Lexie was waiting in the lobby of the hotel when Eliza arrived.

  “What are you doing here?” Eliza gave her friend a hug. “Aren’t you busy?”

  “Are you kidding?” Lexie said. “My mother isn’t letting me lift a finger. She and the wedding planner have handled everything. I practically begged to come meet you just so I could feel useful.”

  “And you’re okay with that? With your mom running the show?”

  “Better her than me,” Lexie said. “Wedding stress gives me hives.”

  Eliza laughed. A bride willing to surrender her wedding plans to her mother? Lexie might be the first in history.

  Lexie picked up one of Eliza’s bags and slung it over her shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “Your room is just down the hall from mine.”

  Eliza had hesitated when Lexie had told her the entire bridal party was staying at the hotel in downtown Nashville, where the reception would be held. Her mom lived just a few minutes outside the city. Why spend money on a hotel room she didn’t really need? But Lexie—or Lexie’s mom, Eliza now realized—was persistent. Everything would be easier if everyone was staying together, and Eliza wasn’t expected to pay for her room. When Eliza saw the posh suite she’d be enjoying for the weekend, she was glad she’d finally caved and agreed to the plan.

  “It’s nice, huh?” Lexie motioned to the room around her. “I’ve got to admit Mom really knows how to do this kind of stuff right.”

  Eliza kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. �
��Yeah, I could get used to this.”

  “Of course, everything must feel luxurious after coming from the great outdoors.”

  “I don’t work in the great outdoors,” Eliza said. “I work in a perfectly comfortable air-conditioned office.”

  “That just happens to be in the middle of nowhere, in the great outdoors.”

  Eliza laughed. “I really love it. It’s everything I thought it would be and more.”

  “You sound like you belong on a travel brochure.”

  “I mean it though,” Eliza said. “I really do love it. I love my work. Being with these teenagers. It’s the most challenging, rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Your work completely inspires me,” Lexie said. “You know I mean that. Now spill the real goods. I need an update on the English teacher.”

  Eliza sighed. “Who, Henry? He’s good, I guess.”

  “How are the two of you? Just friends?”

  “Yeah,” Eliza said softly. “Just friends.”

  “Well, all the better,” Lexie said. “Jason has seven thousand old mission companions coming to the wedding. I’m sure a few still have to be single.”

  “Jason’s mission companions are probably all four, maybe even five years younger than me. He’s only been home, what, eight, nine months?”

  “A little longer than that,” Lexie said. “But still. Age hardly matters anymore. You’re going to look fabulous in your bridesmaid dress. You’ll turn heads everywhere you go.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Eliza said.

  “Trust me,” Lexie said. “You’ll be amazing.”

  “Isn’t that the kind of thing I’m supposed to say to you?”

  “Maybe, but your heart is broken, and I’m worried about you. I just want you to have a good time this weekend.”

  “Lexie, you’re too good to me—too good in general. I’ll be fine this weekend, and you are going to be amazing.”

  Lexie’s mother had wedding festivities scheduled back to back for the entire weekend. Through it all, Lexie was gracious and kind, making an extra effort to ensure Eliza was having a good time. Eliza appreciated her friend’s efforts, particularly through a weekend that was supposed to be all about Lexie. But Eliza was also happy to leave the busyness of the wedding behind. When she pulled into her mother’s driveway on Sunday evening, she was looking forward to a quiet couple of days with her mom.