25 Years

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I have no idea.”

  “We’re sitting on twenty-seven acres of private land.”

  “Half an hour from the closest town.”

  The knock came a second time.

  “Should we get it?” Tina asked. Both women stood. Moved toward the door.

  “It’s probably someone from one of the neighboring properties, just checking to make sure we’re supposed to be here.”

  It had happened once or twice in the past. Jolene’s uncle Bruce was well liked in these parts. Locals kept an eye on his place. Still, Jolene had called her uncle and he’d told her he’d notify the locals that the place was going to be occupied.

  “We’re safer here than we are locked in our homes in the city,” Tina reminded them both.

  She grabbed a poker from the fireplace just in case as Jolene opened the door.

  “Steve!” her friend exclaimed.

  “Let me get one thing clear, Jolene Hamilton Chambers,” Jolene’s tall and handsome husband bellowed from the other side of the screen. “You and I are not getting divorced.”

  Tina dropped the poker.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DIVORCED?

  Jolene and Steve? The two most perfectly suited people she’d ever known?

  Did the world make no sense at all anymore?

  Even after a night to sleep on it, Tina was still stumbling with disbelief.

  “Another deer run.” Jolene’s voice was only slightly breathless the next morning as she led Tina up the wooded mountain to their most sacred place—a valley of leaves with a treetop roof nestled in the middle of the Colorado mountains.

  Tina glanced at the six-inch-wide trail of trampled ground, digging a fallen limb she was using as a walking stick into its loosened earth. She recognized the V-shaped indentations of fresh deer tracks. “It’s been used recently.”

  She, too, was slightly out of breath. The blanket and drinks in her backpack were making the climb a little harder than it would have otherwise been. Still, she’d been making this trek since she was about eight years old—always with provisions on her back—and she’d never been out of breath. Maybe she did need to leave the lab once in a while—to exercise.

  She’d finally convinced Steve to go home the night before, but only after the distraught man had stood outside the screen door for more than an hour trying to get Jolene to let him in—or to come back with him. Tina could hear his passionate confessions of undying love ringing in her ears.

  Had Thad loved her that much? Would he still have loved her that much if he’d lived and they’d had six more years of the drudgery of daily life, long hours at the lab, disagreeing about the kids?

  “Dammit, woman, get your ass out here and talk to me,” Steve had hollered at one point. In response Jolene had climbed under the covers and put her pillow over her head.

  That was when Tina had finally been able to talk him into giving it a rest for the night.

  “I’m going,” he’d said, “but only because I have to work in the morning. But I’ll be back. Tell her that.”

  She’d nodded, watched him drive away so fast the bottom of his car had scraped the dirt track, and then she’d softly shut the door.

  Jolene had pretended to be asleep.

  “How you doing?” she called to her friend now. Jolene still hadn’t taken that test. What if she was finally pregnant? And hurt herself climbing up in the hills? A branch cracked under Tina’s tennis shoe and she slid a couple of inches before climbing up the next little bluff.

  “Fine.” Jolene’s voice was muted by the dense trees.

  Jolene wasn’t fine. The haunted look in her eyes when she’d finally pulled the pillow away from her head the night before had scared Tina more than anything in the six years since her husband’s and son’s deaths. She’d been shocked by Jolene’s whispered “I can’t talk about it right now.” She and Jolene could talk about anything. Anytime.

  Tiny rays of sun peeked down through the branches, little spotlights on the carpet of last fall’s leaf remains mixed with green summer foliage.

  “Remember when we used to try to step only on patches of sunshine?” she called out. Jolene was at least six feet in front of her.

  “For good luck.” Jolene’s reply shot over her shoulder.

  If the way their lives had turned out was good luck, what would bad luck have brought? Tina wondered.

  With winds and snow and rainfall and wildlife taking their toll, a wild place never stayed completely the same, yet there was no doubt when they’d reached their destination. They’d been climbing for an hour. Tina spread out the blanket and Jolene dug in her pack for the peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches and Rice Krispie treats with chocolate and butterscotch topping they’d made that morning. Eleven-thirty, and she was starved, even after having eggs and toast for breakfast. Tina couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten before one or two in the afternoon.

  But then, food sustained life, and when she was with Jolene, life was worth sustaining.

  PATCHES OF BLUE and blinding brightness glinted through the ceiling of leaves far above her head. Lying on her back on the blanket beside Tina, roots poking into her backside, Jolene studied the moving patches, astonished that after twenty-five years, they still looked the same. She could count on the dancing movements to be there to play with her, to tease her with a game of hide-and-seek. Could she tell where the shining bright light would appear next?

  And what was her reward if she guessed right? One wish or three? Big wishes or little ones?

  “I just can’t do it anymore, Teen.”

  Tina turned her head, and Jolene looked in her direction. “Do what?”

  “Live with Steve.”

  “Why?” There was no judgment in the question. Just love and support and everything that defined their relationship—the earnings of twenty-five years of loyalty and trust.

  “Every time I think about the look in his eyes when he hears—again—that the attempt was unsuccessful, I feel so trapped I can’t breathe. And pretty soon I can’t even think straight. All I can do is feel—and what I feel isn’t good, Tina.”

  “What do you feel?”

  “Like I want to drive over a cliff.”

  “And when you picture life without Steve?”

  “Incredible sadness—but not trapped…not worthless.”

  Tina’s sigh was enough to tell Jolene she understood. “Have you talked to him any more about adoption?” she asked.

  Drawing up her knees, Jolene rested a hand on the waistband of her jeans. “We’ve talked about it, but since that conversation at Christmas, I know it won’t really solve anything. He’ll adopt, but he’ll still want us to try to get pregnant. Until the doctors say it’s impossible, which they aren’t going to, he won’t give up hope.”

  “What about the prohibitive costs? Hasn’t that become a factor to him?”

  She’d thought so. If the doctors wouldn’t rule out the possibility, surely their finances would. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she pinpointed the next spot where sunshine would be peeking through the leaves. And waited.

  “He doesn’t care about the costs,” she said, smiling when the sun hit its mark. “This is so much bigger to him than mere money.”

  “But there’s the practical reality of having to pay the bills. Once they aren’t paid, the doctors will refuse the procedure.”

  “He took a second job on weekends—back at that construction job he had in college—to build up enough savings so that won’t be an issue.” Just speaking the words tightened the imaginary cords around Jolene’s chest. Even up here, beneath the clouds and away from her normal daily life, she couldn’t find peace. “I hardly see him anymore,” she said, hating that she sounded like a shrewish selfish wife. The kind she secretly detested.

  She continued anyway. “The free time he does have is spent coaching a kids’ team—baseball right now, then it’ll be basketball. He’s also volunteering at a center for troubled teens.”

&n
bsp; “Where you work? So at least you see him then?”

  “Nope.” The ground was hard beneath her head. “A different one.”

  “Sounds like he’s avoiding you as much as you’re avoiding him.”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you asked him about it?”

  “Of course. He refuses to see it. Just makes excuses for—justifies—each incident, rather than looking at the big-picture results of his combined actions.”

  “So tell him you won’t have any more procedures. The man I heard last night would accept that in order to keep you.”

  “Ah, Tina, if only it was that simple.” She turned her head to look at her friend. “He’s waiting all the time—waiting and hoping to find out I’m pregnant. It’s not just the procedures. It’s every month. Not that he says anything, but it’s gotten to the point where I feel guilty putting a tampon wrapper in the trash because I know he’ll see it—and know that we’ve gone another month with no success.”

  “And let me guess,” Tina said, her gaze soft as she stared at Jolene. “He denies that he’s disappointed.”

  “You got it. To spare me, I’m sure.”

  “But it doesn’t, of course.”

  “No.” She sat up and again hugged her knees to her chest. “The worst part is, I don’t blame him. He can’t help wanting a child of his own. He can’t help having hope. He can’t help his own needs any more than I can help mine.”

  “And have you asked yourself recently what those are?”

  “Honestly?” She frowned at Tina, who was still lying down, but had her arm under her head, watching Jolene. Tina nodded.

  “I want to be finished with this. With going through procedures that leave me no dignity. With feeling like a failure every month. With feeling like I’m not good enough. I want to be someplace—in a situation, a relationship—where the abilities I do have are enough.”

  “Even if it means never having a child of your own?”

  “Even then.”

  “And that’ll be worth losing the love of your life?”

  She’d been considering that a lot lately.

  “What about me, alone in my lab?” Tina went on when she didn’t readily answer. “You think I should be with someone, yet for you the best decision is to walk away.”

  “I don’t want to live my life alone,” Jolene said slowly. “But I think it goes deeper than the love of my life.”

  Tina maneuvered herself into a sitting position. “How can anything be deeper than that?”

  Leaves rustled off to the right. Breezes often made their way through the hills. Jolene glanced toward the sound.

  “What about love of self?” she asked. “How can you love someone else when you can’t stand yourself? If you love him, and you know you’re not good for him, and you want what’s best for him, aren’t you obliged to remove yourself from the relationship?”

  “Maybe.” Tina glanced toward the right, as well. “Sometimes.”

  “I can’t stand me, Teen.” She admitted out loud something that choked her every time she thought of it. “I actually find myself wondering how anyone as good as Steve could possibly love me. I have to get out, get away. I have to find a life where I can like me again, just as I am.”

  Another rustle off to the right was the only sound during the next several minutes. Jolene shivered. She wasn’t really cold; her sweater was thick enough to withstand a crisp autumn day.

  This was a first. Being with Tina in the hills wasn’t enough. They weren’t invincible.

  “Maybe if you change your thinking…” Tina’s voice faded.

  “How?”

  “You’re blaming yourself for your inability to conceive, and while we both know this isn’t about blame, I understand how you feel. But couldn’t this just as easily be a genetic incompatibility? Didn’t your doctors suggest that? Meaning it’s as much because of Steve as it is because of you.”

  “Genetic incompatibility would be more likely to make me miscarry, not fail to conceive,” she said. “And that was only one possible explanation from one doctor a couple of years ago.” She laid her head on her knees, staring into the woods. She’d heard another rustle. A little closer.

  Was there a deer out there? Would they actually get to see it up close and in the wild?

  “Steve’s medical reports have all been glowing,” she said, subdued. “And I had those cysts in college, remember? They left scar tissue. My periods have been erratic ever since. It’s pretty clear the faulty body is mine, but because the evidence isn’t conclusive, the doctors aren’t going to point-blank say I can’t conceive.”

  “Does Steve agree with you on this?”

  She couldn’t answer for a moment. And when she did, the word caught in her throat. “Yes.”

  “He said so? That doesn’t sound like Steve.”

  “He was trying to ease my guilt,” Jolene said. “He was assuring me that it didn’t matter to him. He said we weren’t going to let a little scar tissue come between us. And he meant it.”

  She turned to meet Tina’s eyes again. “He doesn’t blame me. He simply concluded that our problem lies with the state of my ovaries.”

  The rustling came again.

  “That’s not just the wind,” Tina said.

  “It’s as if something was sliding.” Jolene’s heart pounded a little more heavily as she studied the trees.

  “Have you heard about any bears being spotted up here in the past couple of years?”

  “No.” But they were awfully far from home. She stood, began gathering up their things.

  “Of course, bears are more afraid of us than we are of them.” Tina repeated what they’d been told ad nauseum as children. She shoved the blanket, twigs and all, into her pack.

  “Look at us.” Jolene chuckled, but didn’t slow her step as they scurried down the hill. “We’ve been roaming these hills alone since we were eight years old. Back when we were kids, we would’ve been more apt to seek out a sound than run from it!”

  Right beside her, keeping up this time, Tina laughed, too. “We’ve become wimps, my friend.”

  But neither of them slowed down.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  STEVE WAS WAITING for them when they returned, sitting on an old wooden bench on the back stoop of the cabin. Tina barely had time to notice him in the distance before he was standing, approaching them as they crossed the bridge over the stream behind the property.

  What she noticed more were her friend’s faltering steps and sudden intake of breath.

  “We’ll get rid of him,” she said quietly, watching the man. It didn’t matter that she loved Steve like a brother. Her first instinct was to protect Jolene.

  “He can’t do this,” Jolene said, sounding close to tears. “This is our time away. He never interrupts or interferes with that.”

  “I know.” Not that she could blame him. He’d just learned that his life was unraveling at the seams. Had she not been hurting so badly for Jolene, Tina would be doing everything she could for him.

  “Steve…” she started as they crossed the bridge, since Jolene couldn’t seem to find words to say to her husband.

  “I know.” He held up a hand. “You don’t want me here. And I’ll go. I just have a question.”

  “What?” Jolene asked, arms wrapped around her middle as she half looked at him.

  “Where’s the pregnancy test kit that was in the back of the linen cupboard?”

  “In my suitcase.”

  He frowned. “You haven’t done it yet?”

  “No.”

  The hands that had been in his pockets fell to his sides. To Tina, it was obvious. He’d had himself geared up for an answer. He’d been certain Jolene knew, one way or the other, and had been prepared to deal with either possibility.

  Also obvious to Tina was the emotional energy he’d invested in the answer. What Jolene had been telling her earlier became much clearer. As much as Steve Chambers needed his wife, he needed a child.

  He
glanced at Tina. Asking her silently to leave him alone with his wife. She couldn’t do that. Not after receiving the plea directed at her from her best friend.

  “I won’t force my presence on you, Jo,” he finally said, turning his body away from Tina as though to shut her out. “I’ll leave just as soon as you take that test.”

  “No.”

  “I have a right to know if I’m going to be a father.”

  “Believe me, if that ever happened and I was the baby’s mother, you’d be the first person I’d tell.”

  Jolene’s tone was fraught with so much tension, Tina knew her usually calm and capable friend wouldn’t be able to handle much more.

  “When did you give up hope, Jo?” Steve’s voice grew softer.

  Tina stood behind her friend as Jolene’s shoulders sagged.

  “I didn’t knowingly give it up,” she replied. “I just woke up one day and it was gone.”

  Steve reached out, apparently to pull Jolene into his arms, but at her slight flinch, he ran the back of his fingers lightly down her cheek, instead.

  “This is the part where we’re supposed to be living happily ever after,” he told her, the softly uttered words filled with a sadness so real and so deep it touched Tina in ways she hadn’t felt since Thad died.

  It obviously had an emotional effect on Jolene, too. She crumpled to the ground, sitting there in a heap with sobs shaking every inch of her too-thin body.

  Steve turned and walked quietly away.

  THEY WERE GROWN NOW, his little blond girl-children. His angels. They’d been gone a long time. He’d been a bit angry with them for deserting him. But that was okay now they were back. More beautiful than ever.

  He could see their place from the first crest outside his cabin through the old binoculars he’d bought twenty-four years ago. It had taken him an entire week’s worth of hauling logs to pay for them, but they were worth it, obliterating the two-mile distance between him and the girls.

  With his tongue between his lips, he raised the glasses, anxious not to miss too much time with his angels. He didn’t know how long he’d have before they left. Or how he was going to stand letting them go again, now that he couldn’t count on seeing them regularly.