by Fern Michaels; Marie Bostwick; Janna McMahan; Rosalind Noonan
“Hey, Mom?” I stepped into the room cautiously so I wouldn’t startle her.
“Mom?”
She slowly turned her vacant stare to me. A questioning expression made her thin lips quiver before recognition tickled her face. She lowered her hand and stood with both her arms limp at her sides. It took her a moment to find my name.
“Michelle.”
“Look, Mom. I brought you some flowers,” I said.
“You can’t eat flowers.”
“I’ll just put them in a vase for you. How about that?”
“They’re trying to poison me in here.”
That made me stop and look at her thin frame. Did she truly believe that they were trying to poison her? Had she stopped eating? I had been so absorbed in my love life and in selling her house that I hadn’t been thinking of her.
“Are you hungry?” I asked her.
They wouldn’t let her cook for herself. They had turned off her stove and taken away the microwave.
She turned back to the window and said, “No, dear, I’m not hungry at all. The food in here is really good.”
My shoulders fell in relief. She’d been having more frequent moments of slippage. I arranged the flowers and set them in the middle of her small dinette table.
“There,” I pronounced, realizing I was speaking to her as if she were a child. “Isn’t that pretty?”
Her mind had wandered back to wherever she had been when I came into the room. I settled back against a pillow on the sofa. She was at the window for the longest time, not moving at all. She gave no indication that she even knew I was in the room.
“Mom?” I said, but she didn’t respond. “Mom, I’ve got myself into a bad situation.”
No response.
“I’m in love with a guy. A guy who can’t love me back. He needs things out of life I can never give him.” I sighed and tears burned hot and aching against the inside of my eyes. I hung my head and let them fall.
“And Randy,” I continued. “He’s coming around again. Telling me he loves me. And I still love him. I do. But I’m not sure that I was ever in love with him. He’s just such a burden. In some ways. Not in all ways. I mean, he’s not bad. But when Bax breaks up with me then I’ll be all alone. I’ve never been alone. I’ve always had somebody.”
No response.
“I mean, the last two weeks with you in here, Mom, it’s the first time I’ve ever lived on my own. I went directly from living with you and Daddy to living with Randy to living with you again. I’m not even sure if I’m capable of being by myself.”
I put my face into my hands and openly sobbed.
My mother’s soft touch brought me out of my tearful trance.
“Mom.”
She sat down beside me on the couch and patted my hand much like she used to do when I was young.
“Are you in love?”
I sniffled and nodded.
“Which one is it?”
“Baxter.”
“Does he make you happy?”
I nodded again and tears trickled out.
“Does he love you?”
“I don’t know. I think he does, but he hasn’t said it. His actions say yes. But maybe we’re just too different and he knows it. Maybe he knows it can’t work out.”
“Why won’t it work out?”
“Because he wants a family and his parents want him to have a family and I’m not, well, I’m not as educated or cultured as his people. And…and…”
“Those are some big things,” my mother said and leaned back as if she were thinking the most deep thoughts.
Just when I thought I had lost her again she spoke.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“Of being alone?”
“Yes.”
Silence for a while, then she took a deep breath and said, “Pick love.”
“What?”
“Safety’s an illusion.” I looked directly into her worried eyes. “Don’t look back when you’re a little old lady and say you wished you’d gone after love.”
“But what if he doesn’t love me? The woman he really loved died in a car accident. How can I ever compete with that?”
“You can’t. Don’t try.”
I put my head in my mother’s lap and cried until I was exhausted.
Chapter 17
The new divorce papers that gave Randy the house were ready that next Wednesday and I’d left a message on his phone that I had them and wanted to talk. I didn’t want him served by some stranger again and I didn’t want to show up unannounced if I could help it. I truly believed he would eventually give in and be reasonable.
“I’ll take you,” Bax said. “I don’t want you going alone.”
“I don’t think so. It’ll only make him mad.”
“No. I’ll sit in the car if you like, but I’m taking you.”
So that was that.
The drive down to the Chattooga in South Carolina was what I imagined heaven must be. Instead of clouds, heaven for me would be mountaintops rolling into the distance, a glimpse of waterfall down a mountainside, forest so dense you couldn’t walk through it. But it was always a challenge to enjoy the beauty of the drive when one wrong move could send you off the thin winding road and over a cliff. So I was glad that Bax drove and I could pretend I was enjoying the view when really I was pressing down a big ball of dread in my throat. Instead of taking in the distant mountains, I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was on my way to serve divorce papers to my estranged husband while my new boyfriend waited in his little hybrid car.
We got off the artery road and cut through land with little human influence to an even smaller vein that led down to a wide creek where an outfitting company sprouted. The woods were a fierce green from all the rain, still dripping and muffled in that way that soaked up sound. I knew the river would be running high. Some of the braver boaters would be out today, but the outfitters wouldn’t take novices down on such a day. The outfitters’ headquarters was surrounded with random dusty vehicles with boat racks. The musty funk of a hundred sour life vests wafted at me as I went into the sparse plank cabin. I was right. No tourists were out today.
“Hey,” I said to Joe. I’d known Joe for almost as long as I’d known my husband.
“Shit,” he said.
“Where is he?”
“Bull Sluice.”
I got back in the car and we pulled silently away. Bax had said he would stay in the car if I wanted him to, but I knew how far away from the car I would have to walk to get to Bull Sluice. That meant if things did go wrong, Bax wouldn’t be around to help me. I gave directions when necessary and we didn’t speak otherwise. We parked and walked a narrow path through thick forest. At places we climbed down by roots as land fell away. And there he was, standing sentry on the edge of a boulder surveying the new lay of the water. The river was loud, snarling by, spray drifting downstream with the white churn.
I walked all the way up behind Randy. Like magic he sensed me and turned.
“Whoa,” he said.
“I called. I told you I was coming.” I had to speak loudly.
“I know.”
“So, let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“Man, do you have to do this here?” He looked at a couple of his friends who were crouched down on the boulders trying to act as though they were surveying the water and not watching us.
“Yeah. Apparently I do.”
“You brought him?”
“I gave you the house.”
“What?”
“The house. You can have it. It’s all in here. All you have to do is sign.”
“I don’t care about the house.”
“Randy, don’t do this. Just sign the papers and we can get on with it.”
He got right in my face and said, “No.”
“You’re just trying to torture me. Just sign it.”
Bax walked up behind me and Randy took a defensive stance.
> I would never have expected what happened next. Bax held up his hand in a gesture of peace, but Randy didn’t see it that way. So he punched him. Right in the face. Bax was stunned for a second, then he pulled me behind him and stepped up and belted Randy right in the stomach. Fists flew and the next thing I knew Randy was standing staring into the mist and Bax was gone.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” I ran toward the edge. Bax was nowhere. “Randy!” I grabbed him. “Randy, do something!”
Bax bobbed to the frothy water’s surface, but his face didn’t come up and he was sucked under the water churn again.
“Get him now!” I screamed.
Randy grabbed one of the rescue ropes that were always strewn about on the rocks. He waited, anticipating where and when Bax would boil to the top again.
Bax came up, face up and spewing water.
“Hey!” Randy yelled, but Bax was so disoriented that he failed to connect. He went under again.
“Randy! Do something! You have to save him!”
“He can do it,” Randy said calmly.
Bax emerged again and Randy and I shouted his name. Bax’s eyes fixed on us and Randy let the rope sail across the river, upriver about five feet and in less than a second the rope had washed into Bax’s hands. Randy made a motion of wrapping the rope around his arm and before Bax was sucked under I saw him emulate Randy’s movements.
He came up again and the rope was around his arm and Randy, who had already walked downstream, steadily began to pull him out of the water. Down along the bank Randy scrambled until the water petered out into flat swirling eddies forty feet beyond the falls. Randy pulled Bax close to shore and Bax stumbled out, literally quaking with exhaustion and disorientation.
“Damn,” he sat down on a log and hung his head.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Oh, man. I thought I was dead. Wow. Wow. That was a trip,” he said. He looked up at Randy. “Thanks, man. I mean it.”
“Yeah. Don’t mention it,” Randy said, but there was no sarcasm in his voice.
I looked at Randy and remembered when he’d saved me after I’d skidded off the snowy road. How he had snatched my mother from death on the highway in front of our house. And now he’d saved Bax.
And he loved me.
He was an all-right kind of guy. It was really too bad that he wasn’t going to be my husband after today.
I still had the papers clutched in my hand.
I shoved them toward him. He looked at them.
“Just tell me this,” Randy said. “Before I sign these I want you to tell me if you love him or not.”
I held my breath, hoping that Bax hadn’t heard, but I saw he was waiting for the answer as much as Randy.
“Well?” Randy said. “I’m waiting.”
I stalled, but I had no choice.
“I do. I love him.”
As if he were almost in pain, Randy slowly took the papers from my hand. He laid them on a flat rock, clicked the pen, and signed by the little yellow arrows.
Chapter 18
I gave myself three months to find another place. Randy didn’t push me. He didn’t even bother to check in to see where I was in the process. I took an inventory of what I wanted from our life together. I didn’t particularly want the country kitchen set or a recliner, so I quickly realized I didn’t have that much to move. I decided that maybe a condo would be a good thing for me, but the condos in Asheville were pricier than I’d anticipated and I spent months trying to find a place I could afford. Even the real estate agent got frustrated with me. Bax wasn’t at all helpful and one night when we were making dinner at his house I asked him if he had any suggestions.
“I mean, you know so much more about Asheville than I do. Don’t you have any ideas for me?”
“Yeah,” he said popping an olive in his mouth. “I have an idea. Why don’t you just move in here with me?”
I could barely force my own food down I was so surprised. I just stared at him.
He went on talking around his olive in a casual way. “I mean, I’ve been thinking on this and you’re having a hard time finding a place and…well…it’s not like I’m intending on seeing anybody else. Are you?”
“No,” I choked out around my mouthful of bread.
“So, anyway. What I mean to say is that I would very much like it if you moved in here with me.”
He still hadn’t told me that he loved me, even after my forced admission at the river that day. And now he was asking me to shack up with him. That was not the order in which I had hoped things would go.
“So,” I said. “Are you saying that we’re, you know, together?”
He laughed slightly. “We’ve been seeing each other for nearly a year. I think that’s long enough to know.”
To know what? Say it.
I wondered if I would regret it, but I said, “Okay.” I nodded and tried to sound as casual as he had.
“So you’ll move in with me?”
“Sure. Why not? I mean, if it doesn’t work out then I can just keep on looking.”
“Why wouldn’t it work out?” He looked perturbed.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m just saying. It’ll be a big transition for you is all. You’re so used to being by yourself.”
“I don’t like being by myself. I never have.”
So I moved into Bax’s perfect home, knowing that nothing I had would make an improvement. I would only be dragging my imperfections in, showing how much less taste and style I had than he did. I knew it was dangerous, showing myself to him in a way where I could no longer mask my flaws and bad habits. I also knew that I might be ruining a perfect romance for myself as well. Maybe I wouldn’t be so enamored of him if I was with him all the time. If I heard him in the bathroom in the mornings clearing his head and I smelled his dirty laundry. But I figured this was as close as I could ever expect to get to Baxter Brown. He and I both knew that I wasn’t marrying material for him. I wasn’t naive. I knew the day would come when I’d be on the condo search again, but until then, I could enjoy sharing his life.
So it was August when I finally got all my things moved in and set up the way I wanted. I had been careful not to bring too much, not to impose too quickly. But Bax had cleared out shelves and the medicine cabinet and linen closet. The house was so large that my things seemed to be absorbed and they didn’t stand out at all in the eclectic nature of his home.
Bax kept his clothes neatly aligned and evenly spaced in his walk-in closet. He moved his clothes all to one side and gave me the other side. We got into the habit of standing in the closet talking as we picked out what we were going to wear. We were getting ready to go to the Southern Highlands Artists Guild opening night gala when Bax reached over and pulled my black wrap dress from a hanger.
“Wear this,” he said. “I’ve always liked that dress and you never wear it.”
“Oh sure,” I said, happy for the attention.
Later at the show, Bax stood beside me as the director and curator read the winners. There were a number of purchase awards, which Bax explained to me meant that companies or collectors agreed in advance to pay a certain amount, say ten thousand dollars, for a piece of art from the show. After viewing the entire exhibition, these folks then selected a piece for their collection and the artist received the sale and a purchase prize ribbon.
Then there were the top awards for excellence and the last and most prestigious award was Best in Show. Bax didn’t seem all that surprised when his name was called for the top award. He stepped forward and received his check and ribbon and was informed that a large bank in town had purchased his wall sculpture for their lobby, so he received a purchase prize too. Overall, it was a spectacular night for him.
We milled around the crowd for a while, many people congratulating Bax and slapping him on the back. He was his usual affable public self, the compliments rolling off of him without effect.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said and pulled me toward the exit
.
We rode silently through the streets of downtown Asheville and then east up the mountain. I gasped as we turned in at a sign that read GROVE PARK INN.
“Oh, are we going to Grove Park?”
“I made us dinner reservations.”
“Really? Oh, I’ve always wanted to go here. Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald lived here?”
“Seems I remember hearing that.”
“He was apparently not the best boarder. Sort of a lush was what I read.”
Grove Park Inn rose against the blue mountains. The main building’s exterior was a mottled patchwork of large random granite stones. The entrance was surrounded by wide columns of the same smooth stones that gave the main building its rustic, irregular look. Bax told me that the Grove Park Inn was nearing its one-hundredth year.
“I love it here. You know how much I admire the Arts and Crafts style,” he said.
We stepped into the expansive lobby, a mountain lodge, but the furthest thing from rustic. Enormous granite fireplaces flanked the Great Hall and fires blazed even though it was the end of summer. Comfortable overstuffed chairs and leather sofas were grouped for conversation. Through the Great Hall we walked out to the Sunset Terrace where rocking chairs looked west upon the sunset and Asheville’s glimmering skyline was tucked between the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountain ranges.
“We have reservations in the Sunset Terrace Restaurant,” Bax said. Inside, each white tablecloth was topped with silver candleholders and more utensils than I had ever had to figure out before. Bax laughed when he saw my expression.
The maître d eased my chair up behind me, then unfolded my napkin and placed it on my lap. Our water glasses were filled by a waiter and the sommelier came around to ask if we would be having wine with our meal.
“Can I order?” Bax asked.
I nodded and he made a selection from the wine list. The sommelier said, “Very good, sir,” then zipped away.
The pianist in the corner played “Moonlight Sonata,” its sonorous sounds clearly recognizable in the quiet dining room. Other diners leaned forward around their own candle glow, whispering to each other, smiling, sipping wine.