The Cowboy's Convenient Wife

by Joanna Bell

  ***

  It was dark when we got back to camp. Ask me now how we made it through the pitch black jungle without wandering off the path and getting lost forever and I wouldn't be able to tell you.

  I remember the seeing the bright lights through the trees as we got back, and then hearing the shouts from the doctor, running towards us with Maria at her side and leading us to the exam room where we left the unconscious Lucia and her exhausted, heartbroken husband.

  I remember standing outside the exam room as my fellow volunteers disappeared to find food and dry clothes after our journey. I stood there for a long time, not moving or thinking, too exhausted even to walk the short distance to my hut and fall asleep.

  Eventually, Ariane found me and thrust a chicken tamale into my hand.

  "Eat," she said. "Astrid, you have to eat. You just hiked through the jungle for 6 hours, you have to –"

  "Is she dead?"

  My co-worker looked down. "I don't know."

  "She is," I whispered. "I know she is."

  "You don't know. And that doesn't change the fact that you have to eat. Please. Come on, just take a bite."

  I lifted the tamale to my mouth and took a bite, chewing robotically before swallowing and taking another bite.

  "I don't want her to die," I said, turning towards Ariane and starting to cry again. "I don't want her to die. We went to get her, didn't we? We did what we were supposed to do! We brought her back here!"

  Instead of replying – because there was nothing to say, no comfort to offer – Ariane led me back to my hut and made sure I ate the rest of the tamale. When I did, she helped me into bed.

  "You did the right thing," she said before she left, standing in the doorway. "Sometimes you do the right thing and it doesn't matter, it still doesn't work out. And sometimes it does."

  I fell into the hardest, most necessary sleep of my life less than a minute after she left. I didn't know what it was to need sleep before my time in South America. To really need it, in the sense that you will physically collapse without it. I didn't know a lot of things before I went to Peru.

  ***

  In the morning, Maria came to my hut with a cup of coffee and a somber expression on her face. I rolled over in my narrow wooden cot and started to cry again.

  "Hey," she said gently, ducking her head down under the low doorway. "Hey, Astrid. Sit up. I brought you coffee. After you drink it, I'll take you to meet the baby."

  I never sat up so fast in my life.

  "What?!" I asked, wiping the tears off my cheeks. "Are you serious? Really? Is the baby alright?"

  "She's OK," Maria replied. "Mom's not out of the woods yet but the baby is OK. Dr. Alvarez delivered her by caesarian section last night. Lucia lost a lot of blood, but we had enough on hand to transfuse – and there's fresh supplies arriving this afternoon."

  ***

  Lucia Gomez lived. Her baby – a tiny, perfect little girl – also lived. Emilio left 2 days later, to return to their home village and care for their other children. Lucia and her baby stayed with us for 3 weeks. I stopped by a few times to run my finger down the sweet little curve of the baby's nose and marvel at the strength of her grip. Ariane was there sometimes, to translate Lucia's thanks and to then translate my insistence that I had nothing to do with it back to her, but the language barrier made it so I couldn't really say to Lucia what I wanted to say.

  What I wanted to convey, what I wanted the woman who was my age but whose life was so different to my own to know, was that I didn't save her. First of all, I didn't save her in the simple, practical sense. I didn't even want to go to the village to get her – I thought it was hopeless. I was the one who had to be convinced to even try to save her life. I had to be pushed into taking responsibility. Second of all, if I did save her in any sense, I wanted her to know that she saved me, too.

  Because she did save me. It took a few years for me to fully understand just how true that was, but I sensed it even back then, when I was still just a spoiled idiot from Miami trying on a few months of hardship in the jungle in order to get over a man.

  And do you want to hear the worst part? I didn't even get over him! I thought 'getting over' someone meant forgetting about them. I thought it meant no longer being tormented by memories, no longer waking up in the middle of the night missing them so much your body aches with it. But it didn't mean those things – not to me. I didn't forget my husband. Even when my dad texted that Cillian Devlin had signed the divorce papers and sent them back and everything was taken care of, I didn't forget him. I just realized there were other, bigger things out there than me and my own tiny grievances and losses. Even my own heartbreak became small when I saw the things other people were living through every day.

  It's just perspective. That's all it is.

  ***

  On the day Lucia left to take her baby home, we had a big farewell breakfast for her, our first patient. Emilio walked the 7 hours it took him to get back to our facility from their home village and joined us for the meal. It was a joyous occasion, full of laughter and good food and relief at Lucia and her baby's good health. And when it was over, just before they left, Lucia herself stood up and addressed us.

  Ariane translated, whispering into my ear as Lucia spoke. And then, at the end of her brief speech, when I was certain there wasn't a single dry eye left in the room, she turned to me.

  She thanked me again, and once again I protested, trying to explain in English that it wasn't my decision, that I was appointed as leader somehow, in Maria's absence, and that we as a group were collectively responsible.

  "She knows that," Maria herself said, sitting across from me at the big communal dining table. "She knows it was everyone. She's thanking you because you were in charge on the day."

  "But I wasn't." I replied. "Really! Tell her I wasn't!"

  Beside me, Ariane put her hand on mine and gave me a look. I turned to her, and then to Maria, and then to Lucia. And then I shut up.

  A few minutes later, after she had expressed her thanks fully, Lucia took a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me. I looked down at it, not sure what it was, and unfolded it slowly.

  "It's a birth certificate," Ariane said. "The baby's birth certificate."

  "Oh," I replied, smiling. "Oh, good."

  But everyone was waiting for something else. When I looked up all I saw around me were happy, expectant faces.

  When I failed to figure it out, Maria gave me a clue: "Look at the name."

  I looked down at the paper.

  Gabriela Astrid Gomez.

  Even then, as I stared at the letters on the page, it didn't quite sink in right away. When it did, all I could do was bring my hand up to my mouth to stifle the sob that came out and rush around the table to pull Lucia into my arms.

  "You shouldn't have done this," I told her, half-crying, half-laughing out of embarrassment and self-consciousness. "You didn't have to – you shouldn't have – Ariane, tell her she didn't have to do this."

  Ariane looked at me, smiling. "She knows, Astrid. She knows."

  And that's how a little Peruvian girl living in the depths of the Amazon rainforest came to share a name with an American heiress whose entire life would have been different had their paths not crossed.

  I meant it when I said Lucia saved me just as much as I saved her.

  She saved me because knowing her changed me. All of it changed me, my entire time in Peru. By the following spring, when I had been there for almost a year, I can honestly say I was a different person. I didn't care about the things I used to care about. When I read Ava's weekly email on a printout from the office printer, it was like reading another language. She was talking about her recent trip to Japan, the vegetable tempura she ate a temple in Kyoto, the shopping in Tokyo, the news that Julian was engaged again, to some woman whose name I didn't recognize.

  It wasn't Ava's fault I didn't care anymore. I just... didn't. I didn't look down on any of it, either. I wasn
't judging my friend negatively. She was living her life, just as I was living mine, just as we are all living ours. It just felt a million miles away. All around me at the now-functioning medical clinic in the jungle were women and babies and fathers and siblings and grand-parents, all coming to visit us at their most vulnerable and hopeful and scared. I couldn't see beyond it anymore. I couldn't make myself go back to how I was, to the time when the most important item on my agenda for any given month really was the location of my next vacation or whether to get the blue leather $3500 clutch purse or the red leather $3500 clutch purse – or both.

  It was around that time I told my mother, in one of our monthly – if we were lucky – phone calls, that I was thinking of staying in Peru on a longer-term basis. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't in favor of that idea. She thought I would regret it. But my mom didn't know how different things were for me by then. There hadn't been time to talk properly. She didn't understand – and I don't mean that in the adolescent way I used to mean it. That time, she really didn't understand.

  My parents give a lot of money to charity – and 'money' is the key word. They give a lot of money. They give some time, too, especially if that time involves $50,000-a-plate gala dinners. I'm not shaming them, the money is needed and necessary – I saw with my own eyes what money can get done.

  But the time had come when I finally had an experience under my belt that neither of my parents did. I loved them. I even loved my dad, in spite of what he did with the letter and the photos. But what I was going to do with the next few decades of my life was not up to them.

  I told my mother I was still just thinking about it and that I would let them know if I made any decisions. And then I hung up and made my way back to the main building to help unpack boxes of medical supplies flown in on the bush plane from Iquitos. I was a lot fitter then, able to haul heavy boxes like a pro. I trusted myself more, too. Finally, I could do something. Finally my presence was valuable beyond my family name and my parents' bank balance. It was a good feeling. It was freedom.

  I still thought about Cillian. Quite a lot, actually. I thought about what he was up to. I imagined, sometimes, that it would be nice to talk to him again, to tell him about my new life in Peru. Of course I knew deep down that could never happen. I knew I could never be 'friends' with Cillian Devlin. Even after so many months in the jungle I could still barely think of him without feeling a hard twinge of loneliness in my gut.

  I had something else by then, though. I no longer needed anyone else – not my parents and not a man – to validate my existence. All I needed was the work I was doing, because the work I was doing mattered in a way that nothing else did. It didn't mean I didn't miss Cillian. It just meant Peru actually did what I wanted it to do. It took me out of myself like nothing else ever did. And if I was going to spend the rest of my days missing my Montana cowboy, I thought at least I might finally be strong enough to handle it.

  ***

  And then, one afternoon as I was walking to the staging area to help unpack more freshly-arrived supplies, Maria came flying down the path from the office calling my name.

  I looked up, concerned.

  "What is it?"

  "There's a call for you! It's – I think it's important."

  It wasn't Sunday. That was the day I was sometimes allowed internet privileges to talk to my parents or friends back home.

  "Who is it?" I asked breathlessly, my head already filling with terrible scenarios. Had something happened to one of my parents? Or both of them? Was Ava in trouble? Had there been an accident?

  "I don't know," Maria replied. "He wouldn't say. He just says it's important. He says it's an emergency."

  My heart began to thump in my chest as I raced into the office and grabbed the heavy satellite phone.

  Please don't let anything be wrong. Please don't let anything be wrong.

  "Hello?" I said, swallowing a lump in my throat that just popped right back up again. "Hel–"

  "Astrid?"

  Oh my God. Oh my God. I closed my eyes and leaned against the table, suddenly dizzy.

  "Cillian?" I whispered, not sure if I was angry or sad or happy or just shocked.

  "Astrid," he croaked, his voice barely a whisper. "Astrid – I need you. I need you to come to California. Please..."

  Chapter 27: Cillian

  I was hungover when I got the call. It wasn't the kind of call you want to get when you're hungover. It wasn't the kind of call you ever want to get.

  At first, I thought it was my dad. It was his name that popped up on my phone. That was already weird, given the increasing distance between us.

  "Hey," I said, picking up. "What's up, dad?"

  But it wasn't my dad – it was Darcy.

  "It's me," she said, and right away I knew something was wrong. "It's Darcy."

  "OK. Where, uh – where's my dad?"

  "He's – he's here. He's right here."

  "What is it?" I asked, my sense of unease growing at the somber tone of my stepmother's voice. "Did something happen?"

  "Your dad is OK."

  "Are you at the ranch?"

  "No. We're in Los Angeles."

  My dad hardly ever traveled. He certainly didn't take spontaneous trips to Southern California. Something was definitely wrong.

  "What's going on?" I asked, my voice rising a little. "Why are you in California? Darcy – what the hell is happening? Tell me what –"

  "It's your brother. It's Jackson."

  I was at home when I took that call, standing in front of my kitchen counter reading the instructions on a frozen mac and cheese dinner. I don't remember how I got onto the floor. Don't remember if I fell or tripped or simply sat down. I do know that as I soon as I heard the word "Jackson" a wave of pure, abject terror washed over me.

  Jackson? Something was wrong with my brother?

  "No," I said. Or maybe I didn't say it. Maybe I just thought it. No. No, no, no, no, no, no.

  "Cillian?"

  "What's going on?" I repeated, my skin prickling with dread.

  "Your dad thinks you should fly out here."

  "What's wrong with Jackson?!" I demanded. "Darcy! Tell me what happened!"

  "I think it would be best if you got a flight out to –"

  "TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY BROTHER!" I bellowed.

  On the other end of the phone I could hear sounds.

  "Darcy!" I yelled. "Darcy! Tell me what the fuck –"

  "Cillian?"

  It was my dad, and I knew instantly that he had been crying. My dad. Crying. I never saw my dad cry. Not once. Never. Not even when my mom died. Maybe he did, but I never saw it. I only saw him raging.

  But that night, I heard the tell-tale thickness in Jack Devlin's voice. Panicked and aware I was about to be given horrific news, I rose to my feet and grabbed the first item I could – a rotating spice rack I never from a girl I couldn't remember – and threw it full-force at the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  It bounced off and crashed onto the floor, sending little jars of spices rolling everywhere.

  "Tell me," I panted, clenching my fists so tight the fingernails dug into my palms until they bled. "Dad. Tell me. Is he dead? Is he? Please just fuckin' –"

  "He's burned, son. He's burned real bad. They think – the doctors think he's not gonna make it."

  That was all I needed to hear. That information – that Jackson was alive but possibly not for long – was enough.

  "I'm coming," I said, my heart racing as I ran down the hall to the closet and yanked out my overnight bag. "I'm coming. I'm leaving now. I'll call you when I get there."

  ***

  I went to the ranch first. There was something there, a relic of a lost time stored in a box in the basement of the house where the Devlin boys grew up. I wanted to give it to my brother, if I got the chance. Then, after I had it tucked safely away in my bag, I drove to Billings like a bat out of hell.

  I spent the entire flight to LA curled up in a ball in my seat in first clas
s. I didn't look up once, even when the flight attendants stopped by to offer me a drink or ask if I was OK. I just curled up tight, my eyes shut, my head down, consumed by the special, hellish agony that is reserved for the man who has done someone he loves a deep wrong and knows he may have lost his chance to say sorry.

  And believe me, I was sorry. I knew long before I got that phone call that I was sorry.

  I didn't fully inhabit my remorse until that night, though. Not until it wrapped its clammy hands around my throat, looked me right in the eyes, and began to squeeze.

  Don't die, I begged silently as the plane carried me over the mountains and the foothills and the forests where my brothers and I spent our childhoods playing and fighting and building forts. Please, Jackson. Please don't die. There's something I have to tell you. It's important. Please don't go. Please don't leave me here alone.

  It's funny how easy those prayers came. You think they won't come easy. You think as someone who has spent his life hiding from emotion, and as the son of a man who has done the same, that it might take some time or effort for them to come. But it doesn't take any time or any effort at all. They come as easily as the morning, as easily as a flash flood after a summer storm. I hadn't been to church in years – and I had never told Jackson I loved him.

  I did, though. I loved my golden god of a brother – my example, my constant rival. I spent a lot of years hating Jackson so maybe it sounds weird to say I loved him too but I did. Anyone from a family as fucked up as mine knows how that goes.

  When the plane landed I went straight to the hospital. I stormed in through the front doors of the ER like a bull, almost eager for someone to try to stop me so I would have a target for the emotions boiling inside me.

  An older nurse spotted me at once, pulling me gently aside and asking me who I was there to see. Eventually, she figured out that I was there to see someone in a different location entirely and gave me instructions on how to get to the burn unit.

  At the burn unit, I was informed that I could not see my brother, that no one could see my brother, that no one had yet been allowed to see my brother and that no one knew when it would be possible to do so.