Hazel felt herself smile. They shared a sweet and warm kiss. For a brief moment, the rest of the world vanished. Their problems were gone and all that remained was their love. However, nothing in life lasts.
“There has to be a way that I can stay with you,” Hazel whispered. She reached desperately for any idea that formed. “We talked about running away. We talked about that.”
“You’d want to?”
“I want you. I don’t want that other life.”
“What about your father? Would you really be happy living a life where you aren’t sure if he lived or died because he didn’t get treatment? Could you live with that?”
“Do you think being with Eugene for my father’s sake is the right thing to do? That living that lie is better than being with you?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Your father is your blood. You love him so much that you’ve agreed to give up your future just to save him. That love isn’t going anywhere. Who I am to ask you to leave all that behind? I can’t. It’s your call. I’ll understand if your family comes first. I will. I just don’t want you to wake up one day and hate the choice you made.”
Hazel closed her eyes. She imagined riding out of town with Carolyn’s arms around her waist, and then she imagined the death of her father. If they ran, Hazel would never say goodbye to her father. She would never know if he survived. She’d spend most of her days wondering if he died and how painful it was. Every time, she would blame herself. Murderer, her brain hissed. Murderer.
“Carolyn…” Hazel whispered as her throat closed.
She didn’t have to ask. “I told you, darlin. I understand.”
“I wish you could come with me,” Hazel said. She immediately paused. Suddenly, she had a plan. “Why not?”
“What?”
“Come with me to Boston. You’re incredible with machines. There’d be plenty of work for you there. We could find you a nice little place to live. I’d come see you every day. No one would have to know. We would be careful.”
“Didn’t you say you might come back here? What then?” Carolyn reminded her.
“Eugene said it’ll likely be awhile. We could think of something else by then.”
“What could we think of?”
“Something. We’d think of something. That vile excuse for a creature uses you as a punching bag. Just the other night, he did something unspeakable, and you think I could just let you stay in a place like this? Please, Carolyn. Come with me.”
Carolyn thought about it for a moment, yet her chin fell. “I can’t go.”
“What’s stopping you? Thompson? He’d never find you, all right? I can keep you safe.”
“It’s not that. I’m a farmer. It’s who I am and all I know. I can’t leave my cows or my chickens. The horse. I have to keep my horse. And the fields. I need fields and quiet.”
“You were thinking about leaving your farm behind before. Why not now?”
“We could have found somewhere wide open. We could have taken the horse with us. Figured something out for my other animals. They can’t go to a city. I can’t go either. I can’t take closed spaces and groups of people. Hell, I can’t stand a small church or barn party. I wouldn’t know what to do out there.”
“We could be together. Isn’t that what you want?”
“It’s what I want. I want you and me. But you can’t expect me to strip myself of everything that I am. I wouldn’t be myself in Boston, and you know that.”
“I’d do anything to be with you. Anything. And what are you doing? Picking a farm over me.”
“I’m not picking a farm over you. What you’re asking is selfish, Hazel. You’d do anything to be with me? Anything but leave your father. And I understand that. I understand why. You need to understand why I can’t go to a strange city. You need to understand that even though I love you and you love me, life doesn’t work out like one of my fairy tales.”
“Love is too powerful to fail. Our love.”
Hazel splayed her hands on Carolyn’s shoulders. Agonizingly, Carolyn peeled them off. “We can’t do this. You can’t be with me and be with Eugene. It’s not possible.”
“We’re together right now.”
“Because this is Nebraska.”
“Carolyn, don’t do this. Don’t let me go,” Hazel pleaded.
“You really think I’d be happy in the city?”
“Yes. We could find a quiet spot. Maybe a house on the outskirts of the city.”
“Hazel, I can’t. We can’t,” Carolyn firmly told her.
She searched Carolyn’s face for any glimmer of hope. It wasn’t there. She backed away from Carolyn. “So, this is it. This is goodbye.”
“I wish it didn’t have to be,” Carolyn replied.
“It didn’t have to be,” Hazel spat. “I have to go pack. Goodbye, Carolyn.”
Hazel spun on her heel and jogged towards her car. Carolyn took several steps after her. “I love you, Hazel.”
Briefly, Hazel stopped. She wanted to return the sentiment, but her trembling lungs wouldn’t allow it. Carolyn felt herself breaking in half when the car engine howled. Hazel hoped that Carolyn would run after the car, begging her to stop. Carolyn hoped that Hazel would stop the car and return for a final kiss. Both women were disappointed and entirely alone.
In the blink of an eye, it was done.
Thirty-three
When Hazel returned home, she went directly to one of her closets. All the empty moving boxes were stacked meticulously on the floor. Even so, she never thought she’d have to pack everything again. She never thought she would loathe the idea of being in Boston either. It was true. The city girl had fallen for Debarr, Nebraska.
She fell harder for Carolyn.
Furiously, she dragged the boxes into the living room with disdain. She began to toss anything that wasn’t weighed down into the boxes. Her body rocked with sobs, and it was difficult to see through her watery eyes. That didn’t stop her from throwing around nearly everything that she owned. Eventually, she knew she had to quit.
Shakily, she sat in her bathtub. She didn’t turn on the water. She merely lit cigarette after cigarette, sitting there with her knees drawn to her chest. Her gaze rested on the showerhead. Memories of being with Carolyn reverberated in her brain. She remembered the chills that shot across her skin.
Part of her believed running was still an option. However, her fantasies of leaving town with Carolyn ended the same way. They ended with a coffin. Her father’s cold corpse was lowered into the ground repeatedly, and even being with the love of her life couldn’t take away the grief—or the guilt. Visions of Eugene’s face couldn’t change anything either.
Given her young age and impulsiveness, she didn’t want to understand why Carolyn wouldn’t come with her. A portion of her knew that Carolyn wasn’t meant for the city, and she knew it was selfish to ask Carolyn to abandon everything to be a kept woman. Yet, Hazel’s love drowned any and all reason. She could only focus on how badly she wanted to stay with Carolyn and how Carolyn rebuffed her offer.
She had one regret after how things had ended. She wished she had returned Carolyn’s I love you. She hated that she’d instead stomped off like a pouting child. If she could go back to that moment, she would. She would tell Carolyn that the older woman had her heart. Perhaps she would even return for a kiss. Still, Carolyn didn’t try to follow her. That made Hazel believe they had shared a true and final goodbye.
Now, she had no choice but to abandon the world that she’d made. She wouldn’t finish her garden. She wouldn’t discuss books with Mrs. Deanwood. She wouldn’t greet Elmer with a smile or Rodger with a wave. And, she wouldn’t be under the clouds with her beautiful farmer. With all this gone, there was no powerful reason to linger.
She knew that she would visit Elmer in the morning. He would know how to get a train ticket.
*-*-*-*
Once again, Carolyn slipped out of her bedroom in the middle of the night while Thompson slept. She st
ood beside the fence with her horse at her side. The blanket of stars above her didn’t seem as brilliant. They seemed to be as dull as Carolyn’s heart. Her horse nuzzled her head, sensing the cracks forming within her.
“I knew it was a bad idea being with her, kid,” Carolyn whispered to the horse.
Bad idea or not, Carolyn loved Hazel with every cell in her body. On some level, she felt she should go to the city. However, her daydreams ended poorly every time. She couldn’t give up the night sky, the open field, and the affectionate horse. It would be like surrendering part of her very soul. Even being with the love of her life couldn’t fill that void.
She stayed by the fence until the horizon glowed. That morning was like every other morning, except for the emptiness. Things were back to the way that they were before Hazel Mayer had arrived. Carolyn detested it. Her system jittered from the pain.
At lunch, Carolyn decided to do some light cleaning in the house. It was a new distraction, she figured, given that every inch of the farm still held Hazel’s imprint. When she opened the pantry to get the mop, she saw the corner of a book. She’d squirreled away Pride and Prejudice in a place where she knew her husband would never find it. She picked up the book and flipped through the pages.
Many words were circled. In the margins, Hazel wrote the definitions. Carolyn admired how clean Hazel’s handwriting was. She liked how Hazel made sense of even the most confusing passages. She clutched the book to her chest.
Her mind strayed to Hazel’s living room. She’d held the frozen vegetables to her head as they blotted water from their faces. They’d talked about true love, she remembered. She’d posed the question to Hazel: “What do you think true love is?”
“I think that you can’t put true love into words. It’s in actions,” Hazel had said. She said many things about true love after that. Then, she’d asked. “What do you think true love is, Carolyn?”
“I think that you know when you feel it.”
“Have you ever felt it?”
Carolyn’s shoulders slumped. Not until I met you, Hazel, she soundlessly thought.
True love was in actions, according to Hazel. Carolyn pondered this for some time. Her fingers drummed on the cover of the book that Hazel gave her. Her mind turned and creaked like the gears of an engine. Sharply, the idea struck her.
“Hazel might want this book back…” she whispered to herself.
It was a perfect excuse to share a true goodbye. Carolyn hated the idea of leaving their relationship on such a negative note. Yet she wasn’t sure if she should see Hazel again. It could only make things worse, particularly because nothing had changed. She could merely be pouring salt into their wounds by appearing at Hazel’s door.
She paced through her entire house for an hour. To see Hazel or not to see Hazel? Her soul told her that she had to go. She wanted desperately to hear Hazel say those three precious words. And, Carolyn had to return the sentiment. She wanted to murmur against Hazel’s ear as she held her close. If Carolyn did not, she feared that Hazel wouldn’t understand just how much she meant to her.
What would that do, however? It wasn’t as if Carolyn’s words could make the pain stop. Seeing Hazel’s face would be a knife to the heart, and she wasn’t sure how Hazel could react. But, their love. Wasn’t it worth the pain? Wasn’t a final kiss worth it all?
The internal battle came to a close. Carolyn had to go. Promptly, she went to her truck. She set the book on the seat beside her and started the engine. Her mind rolled with a thousand scenarios. Perhaps Hazel wouldn’t come to her door. Perhaps Hazel hated her for refusing to go with her. Perhaps she would fly into Carolyn’s arms. Perhaps she would tell her that everything would be all right.
When she pulled up to Hazel’s house, Hazel’s car was gone. Carolyn left her truck and climbed the porch. She knocked several times, pausing to listen for any signs of life. When her knuckles struck the wood harder, the door opened slightly. Carolyn pushed it open to find that everything except the furniture was gone, including Hazel.
Had she was already gone back to Boston? Carolyn might never see her again. She couldn’t let that happen.
Frantically, Carolyn ran to her vehicle. Other than by car, there was only one way to leave Debarr. That was by train. Elmer would have a copy of the train schedule for certain. Carolyn hoped Hazel had asked for the schedule rather than taking her chances at the station. If she had dropped by Elmer’s store, Elmer could tell Carolyn when Hazel planned on leaving Nebraska all together.
“Elmer! Elmer!” Carolyn shouted as she burst through his door.
“Carolyn?” Elmer asked with concern.
“Hazel. Was she here?”
“Not twenty minutes ago,” Elmer answered.
Carolyn relaxed. There might be time. “She asked you about the trains. What did you tell her?”
“I gave her a copy of the schedule,” Elmer replied.
“Did she say what time she wanted to leave?” Carolyn pushed. He seemed somewhat hesitant to provide too much information. Carolyn didn’t care. “Please, Elmer.”
“She wanted to leave as soon as she could. The next train is in an hour. If you go now, you might be able to catch her.”
“Thank you.”
Carolyn rushed to the parking lot. She was determined to find Hazel. Elmer hoped that Carolyn could reach her. He had rooted for them from the start.
Thirty-four
Hazel was ready for her train. She had her ticket and her things stacked in the car. The car raised a good question, though. She didn’t have time to sell it, there would be no room on the train, and she surely wasn’t going to drive it to Boston. So, she figured that she’d just leave it at the station. If anybody wanted the old thing, they could have it.
She sat on the hood with a scowl and a cigarette. This was hardly the life she wanted. Her thoughts strayed to impossible dreams. She could see herself with Carolyn in a quaint house in the city. It would have a yard and a relatively sparse street. Hazel would spend several hours there every day. All she had to do was cook up a decent story, and everyone would buy it. Especially Eugene.
The still air was shattered by the sound of a tractor. Hazel watched as the tractor lazily rolled into the station, towing a trailer full of hay. She guessed that they’d load it onto the train when it arrived. The driver was smiling. It intrigued her that every man was smiling. They were so happy being country boys. It made Hazel think.
What would it be like for those boys to be in the big city? What would they do? Would they be as happy around tall buildings as barns? Or concrete instead of crops? She wondered. She wondered if they needed Nebraska to survive.
A darker side to Hazel’s fantasies began to surface. What about Carolyn? Hazel saw the love for Debarr in Carolyn’s face. She watched how happy Carolyn was when she rode her horse and milked her cows. Twenty years as a farmer. Longer than Hazel had been alive.
Hazel thought of Carolyn in Boston. She saw Carolyn slaving away in a metal shop or some such place, wishing that she could be out in the sun. Carolyn would go back to the little house and go to the backyard. That’s where Carolyn would stay. Carolyn would sleep outside just to feel like she was in the free air. This would be Carolyn’s life, save two or three hours with Hazel.
She asked if those few hours with Carolyn would be worth it. Her self-regarding side said that it would be. True love meant that lovers fought for each other no matter what. Despite it all, that sort of love always found its happy ending. Hazel didn’t want to give up on that.
However, she was starting to accept that Carolyn honestly could not go with her. The country was in Carolyn. It was as essential to her as the oxygen in her lungs. She couldn’t survive, at least happily, in a city. It wouldn’t be fair to her anyway, Hazel believed. Carolyn deserved more than life as a mistress. At least in Debarr she’d have her animals to keep her company.
Hazel felt foolish and angry with herself for acting like she did. She began to consider turning back. She wa
nted Carolyn to know how she was feeling. There had to be a last kiss, one more embrace, and final words. Hazel needed to say them.
There was one problem. The train was meant to arrive in a matter of minutes. There wouldn’t be another train until late that night. Given the letter, Eugene could almost be home—if he weren’t already there. She couldn’t waste much time. Yet, Carolyn wasn’t a waste of time. She wished that she could be in two places at once.
Down the road, Carolyn hadn’t given up. She kept her truck roaring along at its top speed. If the schedule were correct, she had ten minutes to find Hazel. The station was in sight, but it was still in the distance. She made a final push.
Hazel took boxes and her suitcase from her car. She piled them together on the ground, preparing for the miserable task of loading them onto the train. In such a friendly place, she knew that somebody would probably assist her. She wouldn’t care if she had to do it on her own, however. She just wanted it done quickly. It wouldn’t sting so much then.
Carolyn swerved dangerously into the parking lot at the train station. She whipped her truck into the first open space that she could find. Afterwards, she hopped onto the truck bed to get a better view of the lot. Sure enough, she spotted Hazel’s old car. Hazel was beside it.
Like a shot, Carolyn flew across the parking lot. When she drew nearer, Hazel saw a flash of blond hair in the corner of her eye. She originally ignored the sight. Then, she paused. She knew that shade of blond. Her eyes drifted upwards. Carolyn was running towards her.
Carolyn realized that Hazel saw her. She wasn’t sure what Hazel was going to do. At first, Hazel appeared locked in place. Carolyn worried that Hazel would move away from her. Instead, Hazel enthusiastically grinned. She ran into Carolyn’s arms.
“I’m so damn glad that I got here before you left,” Carolyn said.
Hazel squeezed Carolyn tightly. “I’m glad too. I wanted to see you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. If it wasn’t for the train, I’d have turned back. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run off like that. I didn’t even tell you that I love you.”
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