When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

  Christy-Lynn struggled to keep her face neutral and to remind herself that ending things with Wade before they went any further had been the right thing to do. “Yes, it was amazing, but there’s nothing to spill. I told him I made a mistake, that I wasn’t ready for anything beyond friendship. And maybe not even that.”

  “Oh, Christy-Lynn, please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I had to. He wants more. And maybe I do too, but I don’t know how to be that.”

  “That being . . .”

  “A couple. Half of someone else.”

  Missy sighed. “You were married for eight years.”

  “That was different. I didn’t need Stephen in my pocket, and he certainly didn’t want me in his. In fact, there were times when he seemed to forget I was there at all. And I really didn’t mind. It worked for a while. And then obviously it stopped working. I don’t think I could bear that again. Not with Wade.”

  “Are you saying you want Wade in your pocket?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Talk to me, Christy-Lynn. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on. He’s a good man, a good friend, a good listener. He brings toys for Tolstoy and leaves spaghetti in my microwave because he thinks I need looking after.”

  Missy groaned, then drained her glass. “Tell me, please, how any of this is bad?”

  “It’s bad because I’m starting to depend on him more than I want to.”

  “You’re scared.”

  “Yes. And realistic.”

  “Doors,” Missy said, staring woefully at her empty margarita glass. “You get that, right? That you’re slamming doors on your chances for happiness?”

  Christy-Lynn nodded somberly as Marco approached with their nachos. “I do actually, though I prefer to think of them as loose ends. And tying them up is the only way I know to protect the people I care about.”

  Tolstoy came running as Christy-Lynn stepped through the door, squalling insistently as she went to the kitchen to fill his bowl, then rescued one of his catnip mice from under the fridge. She had just retrieved her purse from the counter when she spotted the note she’d left for Wade crumpled on the kitchen table. She picked it up and dropped it into the trash without rereading it.

  Slamming doors.

  Maybe Missy was right, but it was for the best. Wade had already been hurt by one woman who didn’t know how to love him. He didn’t need another one.

  And there was Rhetta. Tomorrow she was going to have to pick up the phone and make Rhetta understand that adopting Iris was impossible. She’d be only too happy to help place her with a good family and to provide whatever financial support was needed for them both, but that’s where it had to end. For her sake as well as Iris’s.

  She took a quick shower to scrub away the aroma of Taco Loco then brewed a cup of Dar’s valerian root tea. She needed sleep desperately, preferably the dreamless kind, but when she stepped into the bedroom, Wade’s manuscript was waiting for her on the nightstand—another loose end that needed tying up. She had promised to finish it, and she owed him that much. Whether he would bother reading her notes was another story, but at least her conscience would be clear.

  The light was still on, the comforter scattered with manuscript pages when her cell jarred her awake several hours later. She squinted at the clock as she fumbled for her phone. It was after midnight.

  “Hello?”

  “Christy-Lynn?”

  For a moment, she thought she must be dreaming. “Mama?”

  “I’m sorry it’s so late.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Look, I know I said I wasn’t going to call, and I really wasn’t. But then I found the card you left on the coffee table.” There was a pause, the sound of smoke being inhaled and then exhaled. “After you left, I got to thinking about . . . well, about everything, and I realized I never said I’m sorry. I may have said the words, I can’t remember, but if I did I meant I was sorry for me. It wasn’t about you—about how I hurt you—and it should have been. That’s why I’m calling.”

  Christy-Lynn sagged back against the pillows, wondering where this fresh wave of contrition was coming from—and where it might be going. A few hours ago, her mother had shown her the door. Now this. Had she changed her mind about the money after all?

  “It doesn’t matter now, Mama.”

  “Yes, it does. And there was more I should have said. So much more. I always swore that if I ever got the chance I’d make sure you knew how much I regretted it all, and then there you were, right in front of me with that necklace in your hand, and all I could think about was getting rid of you. That’s why I rushed you out the door—because I was ashamed. I could see what I’d done to you—then and now.”

  Christy-Lynn said nothing, letting the silence stretch.

  “Christy-Lynn?”

  “I’m here.”

  “The thing I should have said—the thing I need to say now—is that I hope you find a way to be happy. I’m sorry I never gave you the kind of life you deserved, sorry I broke my promise to you, sorry about all of it. But please, baby girl, don’t let that stop you from making a life of your own.”

  “Mama—”

  “I have to hang up now. I’m at the pay phone on the corner, and I don’t want Roger to wake up and find me gone.” There was a brief pause then a jagged breath. “I promised myself I’d never ask you for another thing, including forgiveness, but I’m breaking that promise now and asking you for one thing. Please, Christy-Lynn, let yourself be happy.”

  And then she was gone.

  Christy-Lynn stared at the blank phone screen, imagining Charlene Parker standing in her housedress at the corner pay phone, not to ask for money as she had initially suspected, but for forgiveness. And to wish her happiness.

  I could see what I’d done to you—then and now.

  The words seemed to echo in her head—and her heart. Was she such an open book? So glaringly transparent that her mother—a woman she hadn’t seen in twenty years—could see through all the careful layers of veneer to the emptiness beneath? It was a daunting thought, particularly when others seemed to be echoing similar sentiments.

  It was time to let herself be happy, to stop closing doors, to make a life of her own.

  It must look so easy from the outside.

  From the foot of the bed, Tolstoy eyed her quizzically, stretched out like a pasha amid the strewn manuscript pages. She’d managed to get through the last page before passing out. Now, as she began gathering them up, she realized she’d probably never know how the story ended—unless The End of Known Things wound up on a shelf in her store one day. She hoped it would. It was certainly good enough or had the potential to be.

  The house was still as she padded to the kitchen with her empty mug, the quiet like a shadow stalking her down the hall. On her way back to bed, she lingered in front of the closed door to the spare room, hand poised above the knob.

  All the things we won’t let ourselves have.

  The door seemed to open of its own volition. It hadn’t of course. Doors didn’t open on their own. You had to choose to open them, to consciously cross the threshold and glimpse what lay beyond. She flipped on the overhead light, sighing as she scanned the jumble of half-packed boxes and unused furniture she should have donated months ago. But then it wasn’t like she had a real use for the room. Maybe that’s why she’d been dragging her feet, because she didn’t like the idea of it sitting empty, like a great big glaring hole in her life.

  On impulse, she dropped to her knees and began picking through the nearest box. They were Carol’s things mostly, items hastily left behind when she moved to Florida: lamps, linens, chipped dishes. She’d held on to most of it—in case Carol changed her mind and wanted it sent. But she hadn’t. Maybe because she’d already taken the things that mattered.

  Conspicuously absent from the boxed-up castoffs was any trace of personal memorabilia, no scrapbooks,
photographs, or family keepsakes. Nothing that represented Carol Boyer’s real life. Those things she’d been careful to take.

  Now, as she thought back to the night she left Clear Harbor, it struck her that the only things she’d been careful to take were an old photograph and a tarnished necklace. That’s what she’d chosen to hold on to, reminders of pain and loss, because there were no happy memories to cherish. She hadn’t bothered making any. Instead, she’d built a careful life with nothing to look back on and even less to look forward to.

  The tears came then, like a dam giving way after a storm, as Wade’s words, Missy’s words, even her mother’s words, crowded in on her. It was a moment of terrible clarity, the kind that usually came at the start of the third act, while there was still time for the heroine to save herself. Sadly, that train had left the station. There was already a big hole in her life.

  But if she was being honest—and it was well past time for that—she had to acknowledge that the empty places in her life were of her own making. Not her mother’s. Not Stephen’s. Hers. She’d been living in a kind of bubble, playing it safe while the world went by, but somewhere along the way, that had stopped working. She wanted more. Was it too late to change, to salvage something after all the lost years? She honestly didn’t know. She only knew she wanted to try—and she knew exactly which door to open first.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Sweetwater, Virginia

  September 10, 2017

  Christy-Lynn dropped into the deck chair with her phone and her coffee mug, sipping as she checked her messages. So much had happened in the past couple of weeks, so many things she needed to share with Wade, though things on that front didn’t look particularly promising. They hadn’t spoken in weeks—since the morning she’d left him in her bed to drive to Walterboro—and he had completely stopped coming to the store.

  Not that she blamed him after the way she’d left it. She’d been very convincing when she said they’d made a mistake. In fact, she had almost convinced herself. But the truth was she missed him, his smile, his sometimes harsh but always well-meaning advice, his presence in her kitchen—and her life.

  She had tried his cell several times, but the calls always went straight to voice mail. Either he’d shut off his phone or he was purposely declining her calls. Finally, she’d sent him a text. Finished the manuscript. Was wondering how to get my notes to you.

  It had taken him two days to respond. His tone had been distant, even for a text. Out of town. Don’t know how long. I’ll let you know.

  She had replied immediately. I’ve made some decisions. Can we talk?

  He hadn’t bothered to respond.

  Now, as she sat watching Sweetwater Creek tumble smoothly past its bank, it occurred to her that some people might be meant to simply pass through a person’s life, to touch briefly and then move on. Perhaps that’s why she and Wade had crossed paths again after so many years. He had been her fresh set of eyes, a new lens through which to see herself, and perhaps rewrite her life. And now that she had, or was at least trying to, he had moved on.

  She stood, turning her back to the creek, and carried her mug inside to the sink. She had things to do, a final run of boxes to drop off at Goodwill, the borrowed ladder to return to Hank, the vintage lamp she was having rewired to pick up from the shop.

  Two hours later, Christy-Lynn’s errands were complete, and she was on her way home, eager to put the final touches on her first ever DIY project. Her heart skittered when she pulled into the driveway and saw Wade’s Jeep. He was sitting inside with the engine turned off, scribbling in one of the leather journals he always carried with him. He set the journal aside when he heard her approach but said nothing, his expression unreadable.

  “Hi.”

  He nodded curtly. “Hello.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you. I wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”

  “I went to see my mother for her birthday and decided to stay awhile. I needed to clear my head.”

  Christy-Lynn wasn’t sure she wanted to know what clearing his head might mean. “I have the notes on the rest of the manuscript.”

  “Yes. I got your text.”

  “I wasn’t sure you had. I didn’t hear back after the last one.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought it best. I wasn’t sure I was coming back, and I didn’t want to . . . confuse things.”

  The news that he’d even considered not coming back to Sweetwater made Christy-Lynn’s stomach knot. “But you did come back. You’re here.”

  He eyed her coolly, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “At some point, you have to stop running, don’t you? And you still have my manuscript.”

  “Right. It’s inside. Do you want to come in?”

  “I’ll wait out here.”

  His abrupt refusal stung. “All right. I’ll just be a minute.”

  Christy-Lynn was more than a little shaken as she unlocked the front door. She was hoping there would be a conversation, a chance to apologize, to explain, but he’d made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested in apologies or explanations.

  She hurried to retrieve the manuscript and notes from her nightstand, then started back down the hall, wanting him gone before she made a complete fool of herself. She wasn’t expecting to find him standing in the living room holding Tolstoy.

  “You left the door open,” he explained, setting the cat down on the arm of the love seat. “He was about to stage a prison break.”

  “Thanks.” She handed him the pages and stepped back, not trusting herself to stand too close. “I hope the notes help but feel free to ignore every word if you don’t agree. It has to be yours, or it won’t work.”

  He glanced briefly at the pages before tucking them under his arm. “Thank you. I’d be happy to pay you.”

  The chilly response felt like a slap. “I didn’t do it for money. I did it for you.”

  Wade shifted uncomfortably. “I better get going.”

  “Wait. Can I show you something? It’ll only take a minute.” His eyes slid to the door, and she saw that he was about to say no. “Please?”

  He nodded, turning to follow her down the hall. Paint fumes wafted out as Christy-Lynn threw open the door to the spare room. Wade stepped inside, pivoting in a slow circle.

  “It’s . . . pink.”

  “Yes.”

  She couldn’t help smiling as she surveyed her handiwork, the pink walls and white canopy bed, the delicate rosebuds stenciled in each of the four corners. It had taken her nearly two weeks to finish, far longer than it would have taken Hank, but it had been important that she decorate Iris’s room herself.

  He looked at her, clearly stunned. “You said yes?”

  “I did.”

  “I guess a lot’s changed in two weeks. Did this change of heart have anything to do with seeing your mother?”

  Christy-Lynn looked down at her hands, scraping at the specks of pink paint still clinging to her nails. “It had to do with a lot of things, but I think it’s been coming for a while. I started realizing how empty my life has been—and how much I stood to lose if I kept on playing it safe.”

  “It’s a big step.”

  “Yes,” she said gravely. “It is. But there are worse things than being afraid, like hurting people you care about. And being alone.”

  She stood there, waiting for some sign that Wade understood. Instead, he turned away, feigning interest in the wall stenciling. “So . . . when’s the big day?”

  “I don’t have an exact date. I had to hire an adoption lawyer to draw up the papers. It’s a little more complicated than setting up a trust, but they should be ready soon. And it took some doing, but I finally convinced Rhetta to move to an assisted-living facility Missy recommended here in town. I told her the only way I’d agree to take Iris was if she came too. I hated to resort to blackmail, but I really want her out of Riddlesville. She’s getting to the point where she’ll need looking after, and at Pine B
rook, she’ll have nursing care and still be able to see Iris whenever she wants.”

  “No trouble from Ray?”

  “None. It seems the good reverend has lost interest in his niece.”

  Wade smiled drily. “Surprise. Surprise.”

  “I have you to thank for that,” she said softly. “You knew he was going to be trouble.”

  “Journalistic instincts,” he said, running a hand over the freshly painted bookshelf near the window. “This is nice. Did you do it?”

  Christy-Lynn nodded, beaming just a little. “My first attempt at furniture refinishing. Picking the books was fun too. I loved books when I was a kid. I hope Iris will too.”

  Wade reshelved a copy of Green Eggs and Ham and forced a smile. “Well, it looks like it’s all going to work out. I’m happy for you. And for Iris.”

  She panicked as he turned to go. He was still so angry, and he had every right to be, but she couldn’t just let him walk out. “I was wondering . . .” The words seemed to stick in her throat. “I was hoping you’d come with me when I go pick up Iris.”

  He was scowling when he turned back. “I thought you said Ray had lost interest.”

  “It isn’t Ray. It’s . . .” She felt him stiffen when she touched his arm but held on until he had no choice but to look at her. “I don’t want to do this alone, Wade. I know what I said before, about being better off on my own, but I was wrong. I want you in my life.”

  Wade’s face went coolly and carefully blank. “I’m not interested in being your wingman anymore, Christy-Lynn. I tried that, and it didn’t end well.”

  She dropped her hand from his arm and moved to the window, peering out through the crisp eyelet curtains she had hung last night. She’d been rehearsing this moment for weeks, not sure she’d ever get a chance to say what was in her heart, and now that the moment had finally come, she found herself tongue-tied, on the brink of losing the man who, against all odds, had found his way into her heart. Why couldn’t she just say it? I want you . . . I love you . . .