25 Years

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “TINA?”

  Spinning around, Tina saw Tom Hunter standing in the doorway of an office at the other end of the station. He’d changed shirts. Beneath his sleeve his left arm was bulky, probably from bandaging. His arm was in a sling.

  “You’re back!” She was about to return to the interrogation room from a trip to the vending machine to get Jolene the diet soda she was craving. They were almost through in there. “What did the doctor say?”

  “That three stitches wasn’t much for a gunshot wound.” Tom’s half grin made Tina smile. “Thanks to you, the bullet barely grazed me.”

  She wondered if she should apologize for breaking his rules and coming closer to the yard. “I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  “I have my life because you were.”

  Well, good, then. She didn’t know what to say, felt stupid standing there grinning, even stupider because she wanted to stand there grinning. And talking to him.

  “I have to get back,” she said, holding up the can of soda. “Jolene’s having a caffeine attack.”

  It was more a case of Tina doing everything in her power, as quickly as possible, to reintroduce Jolene to all the normal and loved things of her life.

  Tom nodded. Turned, as if to go back to the office from which he’d come, stopped. “You leaving soon?”

  “My flight back to Roanoke isn’t until next Monday.”

  “How about dinner one night before you go?”

  She backed up, trying to keep her smile intact. “I’d like to, but…really…I don’t have any idea what’s going on with them, what we’ll be doing. But…I’ll let you know.”

  Tom nodded, said something she couldn’t quite hear as she fled. He’d accepted her prevarication kindly. So why wasn’t she relieved about that? Why did she almost wish he’d pushed?

  Jolene was standing as Tina pushed through the door. All thought of Tom Hunter fled. Her best friend was back. And based on the facts they’d heard so far about Jolene’s experience, based on the shadows lurking in her friend’s exhausted eyes, that was where Tina’s heart needed to be.

  IT WAS ONLY THREE IN the afternoon by the time Steve pulled up to the cabin, with his wife beside him and Tina in the back. Seemed like days had passed since just before dawn that morning, when the small place had been crowded with searchers gathered to receive instructions. Of course, he was going on almost no sleep in close to forty-eight hours. Not that he felt ready for sleep. Not yet, anyway.

  “You hungry?” Tina asked Jolene as the three of them walked into the cabin.

  Jolene dropped onto a kitchen chair, subdued but not devastated. After doing a mental check of her color and the dilation of her pupils, as explained by the doctor who’d climbed the mountain and been waiting in the woods not far from O’Reilly’s place to tend to Jolene, Steve sat down beside her. He couldn’t relax yet. Wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to completely relax again.

  “I could use something,” he said now. “You got any of that casserole from the other night?” His gaze never left Jolene.

  “Sure.” Tina hurried to the refrigerator, busying herself with preparations.

  Jolene hadn’t answered. She hadn’t said much of anything, other than one- or two-word answers to questions since they’d driven from the station.

  “You okay, hon?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. Nodded. “Just feel…odd,” she said. “Like I don’t know who I am or where I belong.”

  “Disorientation,” Tina said, her voice strong, matter-of-fact. Reassuring. “It’s to be expected.”

  Jolene smiled at her friend. “I guess we should have a toast, huh?” she asked. “To my safe return. I brought a bottle of champagne up with me.” She made to rise from the table.

  “Stay put,” Tina told her. “I’ll get you some soda. I don’t think champagne’s such a good idea.”

  Steve wasn’t so sure about that. He’d welcome some help relaxing and imagined his wife could use the same. Soon…

  “Jo?” he began. “I suspect now isn’t the best time—and yet maybe, so you know where you’re heading, there’s no better time….”

  “What?” He hated the fear in her eyes. Especially now.

  Steve glanced at Tina, saw her nod, and continued.

  “I’ve learned some things during the past forty-eight hours.” Dishes rattled on the counter. Water ran. The oven opened and closed. Jolene’s eyes were weary, guarded as she watched him.

  “I thought we were in the baby thing together,” he told her. “That your disappointment and mine were the same, that we shared it equally.” How did a man go about undoing this kind of damage?

  “I had no idea that my disappointment was putting pressure on you.”

  There was no change in her expression as she stared at him. His entire future depended on these moments. The thought that he might be too late weighed heavily.

  Taking Jolene’s hand, Steve leaned against the table. “I love you, Jo. Even if I spend the rest of my life completely alone, I’ll still have had all the family I’ll ever need in having shared a home, a life, with you.”

  She blinked. Nodded. Swallowed. He waited, but that was all there was.

  “I want a baby, but only because I want a part of you and me joined together, a blood tie between the two of us. If we can’t, then that’s our tie, the loss of something we both want. That’s what we’d share. And it’ll bring us every bit as close as raising a baby together would have done.”

  “When Tina and I were about nine we became blood sisters.” Jolene’s words seemed to come from deep inside her. She was speaking slowly, almost as though she was in a trance, yet her eyes seemed to focus on him completely.

  Tina had stopped moving. She was looking at Jolene, her eyes moist.

  “We pricked our fingers and smeared them together until neither of us could tell whose blood was whose. I swore I could feel when her blood entered my body.”

  Tina turned back to the sink.

  “Do you understand?” Jolene asked him.

  God, he hoped so. “What you and Tina shared, even back then, was thicker than blood,” he said, her gorgeous brown eyes guiding him. “The ritual was a promise made, but it was the love you have for each other that gave the promise life.”

  Jolene nodded. And watched him.

  “You married me,” he told her. “That was our ritual.”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t need a baby, or a prick of the finger, to bring us any closer. To make us more than we already are.”

  “Yes.”

  Steve took a long breath, let it out. Did it again, and with the exhalation released a tension he seemed to have been holding most of his life.

  “God, I love you,” he said when he could.

  “Oh, Steve…” Jolene tumbled from her chair into his lap, burying her face against him. The sobs that tore through her were painful to hear, filled with an anguish he suspected he was only just beginning to understand. She’d have to talk about it all eventually—the past years living with the pressure of feeling she wasn’t enough, and the past days locked in a grave with a madman. And Steve would have to listen to it all, let his love show her how precious she was.

  And he’d have help. Glancing toward the sink and the woman who’d not only saved lives that morning, but who’d just saved his, he frowned. Tina was gone.

  “TINA GORDON RANDOLPH, come out here right now!” Jolene wasn’t sure how long she’d cried in her husband’s arms, she only knew, when the sobs finally subsided, she felt better than she had in years. Until she noticed that her friend had disappeared.

  “Tina!” she called again when there was no movement in the cabin.

  “Tina!” Steve added his voice to her own.

  “What!?” Her voice raw with fear, Tina came racing around the corner from the bathroom wearing clean jeans and a white blouse, with a towel draped over her shoulders absorbing the drips from her wet hair.

  Jolene grinned. “Nothing,” she said, f
eeling a bit stupid. “I just didn’t know where you’d gone. I didn’t want you to think you weren’t welcome.”

  “Hey, we’re blood, remember?” Tina said, grinning back. “You two have had a rough time, and I needed a shower,” she said, joining them at the table. “So, all better now?”

  Jolene looked at Steve and then back at Tina. “Better than it’s ever been, I think,” she said, including both of her best friends in her smile. “You know,” she said, growing serious as the effect of the past days and weeks pressed on her heart, “bad as the last forty-eight hours have been, they taught me just how rich I am. I could easily have gone crazy sitting in that hole, unable to see or even hear anything outside my own breathing. Instead, I thought of the two of you constantly.” She wasn’t going to cry again. She just wasn’t. “And I found a sense of humor, Teen, just like you always have through even the worst times. I could hear you making jokes about the hole, telling me I’d do anything for some time off. And Steve, I could hear you telling me that we could make it through anything. I heard you both telling me over and over again how much you loved me. And you know what else?” Still perched on Steve’s lap she glanced from one to the other.

  “What?” they chorused.

  “I had so many memories of times spent with the two of you that I was never alone, never without a story in my head to keep me focused on life rather than death….”

  Tina leaned forward, looping her arms around their necks. “I love you, guys,” she said. Three foreheads touching, they were silent for a moment—a perfect moment.

  And then Tina kissed each of them on the forehead, stood and headed back to the bathroom.

  DINNER WAS a time of laughter as Jolene and Tina sat at the table, regaling Steve with stories from their illustrious past, all things that Jolene had relived in the past two days.

  “Sing him the song, Jo,” Tina said, fork in hand.

  “Only if you sing it with me,” Jolene said, tired but not wanting the evening to end.

  “We must! We must!” They were screaming more than singing and barely heard the knock at the door.

  Jolene glanced at Tina, then at the door. It couldn’t be Steve. But they didn’t have to worry, either. The two of them sat at the table, still smiling while Steve went to the door.

  “The bakery in town told me this was on order for delivery here today….”

  Jolene raised her head, startled, when Sheriff Tom Hunter came into the kitchen carrying the twenty-fifth anniversary cake she’d ordered for her and Tina. She’d forgotten all about it.

  But why would the sheriff be delivering it?

  Jolene didn’t have to wonder long. When she looked at Tina, to tell her about the cake, her friend was staring at the handsome officer.

  “I was afraid to wait for you to let me know,” he was saying to Tina, “in case you didn’t.”

  “I…”

  “So what do you say, Tina Randolph? Will you have dinner with me before you go back to Roanoke?”

  Tom Hunter was asking Tina for a date? And Tina wasn’t immediately shutting him down?

  Jolene sat back, grinning again. Was it possible that more good than she’d even known, a real-live miracle, had taken place as a result of her ordeal?

  “I don’t think I’ll be going back to Roanoke,” Tina said slowly. The surprises just kept adding up. “At least not permanently. After almost losing Jo…” The smile she sent Jolene was warm and tremulous. “I realized that no job is worth being so far away from the land and home and people I love.”

  “Does this mean you’ll go out to dinner with me?” Her heart jumping with joy at the news she’d just heard, Jolene still had focus enough to hand it to the sheriff. He was persistent. And exactly what Tina needed.

  “I think so,” Tina said, but her smile was a lot more definite than her words.

  “This calls for a toast,” Steve said, standing behind Tom Hunter. “Jo, where’d you say that bottle was?”

  “Wait!” Tina stood up, crossed to Steve, took his hand and then grabbed Jo’s. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, just as she had before.

  There was such an odd look on her friend’s face, Jolene frowned. What was wrong?

  “The day Jolene disappeared, she took a test,” Tina said quickly. “Neither of you have asked about the result.”

  “Teen?” Jolene looked up at her friend and burst into tears.

  “Congratulations, my friends,” Tina said, tears in her eyes, as she raised their hands to her lips. “It was positive.”

  WADE IN THE WATER

  Margot Early

  Dear Reader,

  I loved working on the twenty-fifth anniversary project in part because I am the same age as the heroine. It has been fun to look back and remember what was happening twenty-five years ago. For instance, I love making Ryan a Star Wars fan. Also, age forty (or so) is a notoriously tumultuous time of life. Parents may be sick or dying, the relationship between husband and wife may change. Equally, the teenage years are harrowing. I would not be fifteen again for any amount of money.

  This is the first of my stories to come into print since the death of my father. In the past, as soon as an author copy of my latest book arrived at my parents’ house, my father, then my mother, read it immediately. Both of them always encouraged me and praised my writing. My belief is that my father still watches my career, observing, enjoying and cheering me on, through a power stronger than death. This novella is dedicated to him and to my mother with great love.

  Sincerely,

  Margot Early

  To Julie, a very much belated best wishes.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Santa Barbara, California

  WHEN SHE WAS UPSET, Lily Moran took her mind off whatever had upset her by trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis. Someday, perhaps, she would solve this or another great unsolved math problem, but she didn’t expect to. She simply preferred to put her mind to things that made sense to her. Math made sense. It was predictable.

  Her ex-fiancé, Drake Norms, who had just left her an appalling phone message on the subject of her “inflexible” and “controlling” personality, had proven unpredictable, which was the main reason she’d broken their engagement. Regrettably, his sour grapes attitude was all too predictable, and when the phone rang again, she spent a moment debating whether to stay inside and listen to the message or go out onto her balcony and watch the waves strike the offshore oil rigs. Since a second message from him would no doubt provide further evidence that they shouldn’t marry, she stayed inside to hear what other insults he had to direct toward her via the highly controllable medium of her answering machine.

  But the number caller ID announced was not Drake’s local 805 number. Rather, it began 218—northern Minnesota.

  Her parents.

  She stepped toward the phone, not because they were easier to get on with than her ex-fiancé—they weren’t—but because she was a good daughter and owed them attentiveness and caring, having caused them the most painful experience any parent can know. She owed them a debt that could never be repaid. Not even a debt. Beyond that. Because of what had happened long ago on Swan Lake in Minnesota’s north woods, where her parents still chose to live, she always answered the phone when they called. Those long-ago events had mapped her life; she was in her parents’ thrall and stayed that way. Willingly.

  It was the least she could do.

  It was all she could do.

  Though she declined to live with them. Or visit them at the lake. Minnesota had fifteen thousand lakes, but Lily only knew one, and it was the lake.

  “Hello?”

  “Lily?”

  Her mother’s voice first, then her father’s. They asked her about school, if final exams were through, if her grades were in. The questions spun a web of control around her, and within it she grew irritable. She was forty years old, and they still checked up on her, not to applaud her but because they expected her to fail. Philosophy, differential equations and
number theory meant little or nothing to them. But if they knew she taught the wildly popular class “Death and Philosophy,” that would mean something to them, all the wrong things, which was why she’d never told them. She taught at the community college on the mesa overlooking the Santa Barbara Channel. The salary earned her enough to afford rent on this tiny—very tiny—studio half a mile from campus.

  “How are you?” Lily asked them. “Ready for the summer season?” Her parents, when they’d decided to live at Swan Lake year round, had bought up property on the western shore of the lake and built several small cabins, which they rented to vacationers from the cities.

  “Oh, sure,” her father said. “Glad you asked, though.”

  Why wouldn’t she?

  “Yes, Lily.” Marie Moran paused, and Lily held her breath and wondered why she should feel so apprehensive. “We’re really hoping you’ll come out this summer—”

  “Oh, I—”

  “—because we’re going to scatter Ryan’s ashes in the lake.”

  She just stopped herself from exclaiming, You mean you haven’t done it yet?

  But of course they hadn’t. They would’ve told her. She used to ask about it, back when she was in high school and once in college. Eventually she’d stopped asking.

  This was a parental request she could not refuse. Oh, her therapist would tell her that she could indeed refuse it, just as she often pointed out that Lily could choose not to answer when her parents phoned. But Lily’s own sense of decency, of minimum things due, would not allow her to deny her parents this one thing.

  After all, it was her selfishness that had lost them their only son.

  FOR THE NEXT WEEK, the first week of June, she puzzled over how to arrange her life so she could spend as little time as possible at Camp Death—as she tended to caption the place they’d named Camp Boreal. This process, figuring out how to flit in and out of Minnesota without mortally offending her parents, involved many hours trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis. In other words, wishing the other problem, the more difficult life problem, would go away. Lily could say she’d be teaching the summer quarter, but this year that wasn’t true. She was editing a textbook. Number Theory.