by Ev Bishop
Some people he knew entered their parents’ home as if it was still their own; Brian and Callum always rang—which is exactly what Callum did now.
A moment later, four paws tap-danced to the door, and there was an excited snuffling sound. Callum could practically see the black button nose beneath the door—Trixie, his mom’s Sheltie. She was the only thing Callum had ever seen his mom be resolute about: I will always have my dog, Duncan. And she did. Trixie was her third that Callum had known. The first, “Sable,” who’d been elderly when Callum was born, had passed away when Callum was in grade one. Then there was Millicent, a.k.a. Millie. She’d enjoyed life to a ripe middle age in dog years before a nasty cancer claimed her. Trixie was five and totally living up to her name—still as full of tricks as when she was a pup. A dog’s love is a pure, devoted, uncomplicated affection and Callum understood his mother’s adamant stance. He hoped Trixie lived to be thirty.
“Is someone here, Trixie?” Callum’s mom, Caren, asked as if she addressed an equal. Trixie yipped, “Yes, yes.”
Callum grinned, but shook his head. Now even he was imagining the dog could talk. Caren cracked the door open a slit, saw Callum and opened it further, a smile warming her cornflower blue eyes and pale-as-milk skin.
“Callum—this is a nice surprise.” She held her arms out to him and he hugged her obediently, noticing as he always did, how small she was, how fragile feeling. It seemed impossible that this little woman bore three sons that all grew to be over six feet. She stepped back and looked him up and down. “You look well.”
A pang of guilt hit him—again, nothing new. It was a shame he saw her infrequently enough that she always commented on his appearance, seeing him with new eyes each visit instead of ones that were long familiar. And he would notice changes in her too—fluctuations in weight, in countenance, in how she was styling her hair.
Caren Archer was fifty-seven, had three adult sons born two years apart, now ranging thirty-three to thirty-seven, and a difficult husband—yet, physically at least, she always managed to look untouched by life and could pass for a woman, a pretty woman, twenty years younger.
“You look good too, Ma.” She was barefoot in jeans and an oversized man’s white business shirt, not his father’s though, not that oversized—her work uniform. “Are you busy painting? Should I come back?”
“Yes, and no. Your timing’s great. I was just taking a break.”
She led him to the kitchen, bypassing the great room, formal living room and dining room. “Would you like to chat here, or in the studio?” she asked, pouring two fat mugs of Earl Grey tea and doctoring them both with honey and lemon.
He shrugged. “Either works.” The cozy kitchen alcove, a jumble of house plants, mismatched garage sale furniture, unwashed mugs and cookie crumbs, and “the” studio, which was really her studio—off limits without an invitation—were the only spaces in the house that truly belonged to her. She claimed them, used them, and resisted the intrusion of others into them with the territorial passion of a teenager.
She nodded and padded off through the house once more. “The studio then.”
They entered the room and quick as a wink, she handed Callum her mug and turned a large canvas standing on an easel toward the wall before he could glimpse its surface. He frowned in question.
“Just something new, something silly. I’m not ready to show anyone yet. Sorry.”
Callum stepped back. That was something new. Caren was rarely shy about her paintings—dismissive, yes, or almost embarrassed it seemed, but not . . . covert.
“Is it an extra cutting-edge mountain range?” he asked—and immediately regretted the asshole question. What was he, his father?
Points of color flared on Caren’s cheekbones, and that was also a surprise. He was used to his mother being unflappable—almost to the point of being spacey.
“I’m sorry, Ma. I love your work. I didn’t mean anything. I’m just not used to you being private.”
Caren took her mug back, sipped her tea, but didn’t absolve Callum or acknowledge his apology. “My work,” she said with a bitter inflection he didn’t understand. “Good one.”
She settled into an ancient moss-green winged back chair, one leg curled under her, and called Trixie onto her lap. Callum cleared a stack of sketchbooks from a beaten up leather ottoman nearby and sat down.
“How’s Brian?” she asked.
“Good, I think.”
“And Cade?
“No idea. I hardly ever talk to him—or he hardly talks to me, more like it. You know that.”
She sighed.
“I didn’t come to small talk, actually,” he said. “I . . . I want your opinion on something.” She looked surprised and he hurried on. “I quit my job.”
“So I heard.” There was no humor in her voice and Callum could imagine how his dad had ranted.
“Do you think I did the right thing, or did I make a mistake?”
Caren sipped her tea again and seemed to focus on something behind Callum, out of his view. He was about repeat himself, when she said, “Why did you quit?”
He started to shrug, then realized he was being stupid. He’d come to her for advice and it seemed like she might actually give him some, so he should talk. “A lot of reasons,” he said, then proceeded to explain how he felt trapped and resentful working for Duncan, and had only just realized that was his fault, not Duncan’s. And he talked about Nina, as much as he didn’t want to.
“I just think . . . ” he finished, hardly even wanting to acknowledge the words aloud, “that maybe it wasn’t all Nina’s fault things were so bad between us. I always knew who she was. She was honest, at least. I started dating her because of who she wasn’t—”
“You’ve done that a lot—dated women you didn’t really care about because then if it ended, you wouldn’t feel the kind of pain you felt over Jo.”
Callum leaned forward, clenching his tea mug so tightly he worried it might break. He forced himself to loosen his grip. “You remember Jo?”
“I remember a lot of things,” Caren said dryly. “And your father’s been railing about her ever since you gave your notice. Thinks it’s her fault.”
“What do you think?”
She sighed heavily. “That I’m a terrible person to come to for advice. I’ve taught each of you, unintentional as it was, to live unhappily and to accept that as normal.”
To say that Callum was shocked by this observation and admission would be a gross understatement. “I don’t think—”
Caren waved his words away, silencing him. “Do you still love Jo?”
He nodded. “But I don’t have a chance with her.”
“So why else did you quit, if it wasn’t some attempt to get a girl?”
“Because being with her again made me realize, with her or no, I need more in my life. I want to do something I love, or at least try to. I want to create something I feel is important—even just to me.”
“Then you already know the answer to your own question, don’t you?”
Callum started to shake his head, but Caren reached out and stroked his cheek, stopping the motion. “I don’t know how you managed it, but good for you. I think, if you’ll forgive me for being so hypocritical, you should tell Nina what you just told me. It will be freeing. And don’t give up on Jo either.” She gently moved Trixie to the floor and got to her feet. Callum realized their visit was almost over and followed her lead.
“Thanks,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek.
She tousled his hair. “No, thank you, little dove.”
He laughed at the embarrassing nickname. “For what?”
Caren didn’t answer. Leaving the crowded workspace, Callum took in the myriad of canvases big and small that lined the walls and stood stacked here and there, all beautifully rendered flowers and landscapes that she had no trouble selling. He considered the large, hidden work in progress. “So are you going to show me that one or not?”
Caren glided
out of the room, Trixie at her heels, as if she hadn’t heard him—and then she spoke very clearly. “Or not.”
Chapter 26
Jo couldn’t believe how quickly Ray’s acreage sold. She’d been expecting it to stay on the market until spring at least. The turnaround was dizzying.
“It makes me a little bit sick,” Samantha said.
Finally, Jo thought, feeling a buzz of warmth and connection toward Samantha for the first time in weeks—at least until she said, “I knew we should’ve asked a hundred grand more.”
Jo held up her hand. “Don’t. I’m so not in the mood.” She shoved her first box of packed things onto the blue tarp that she’d lined the wet box of her pickup with.
Samantha perched a tiny container on the tailgate. “I have to confess something.”
“Umhm?” Jo asked, hefting a second box from the porch.
“I’m surprised by how cheerful you’re managing to be about all this.”
“Cheerful?” Jo rubbed her hands together to warm them. “I don’t know about that. Realistic maybe. The world’s not over. I have money in the bank—or will, right? You know me. I like to dream, sure, but deep down I’m practical. When something’s done, it’s done. . . .” Her voice trailed off. “But don’t kid yourself, I’m really sad. And when I think about Uncle Ray, I feel even worse. He’d be sad too—and pissed.” She leaned against the side of her truck, felt moisture from the cold metal seep through her jeans and pulled away again.
Sam didn’t dispute her words, and Jo sighed and heaved a garbage bag of clothing into the cab’s passenger seat. “You were right. Is that what you want to hear? I didn’t have enough money to pull it off, and yeah, maybe it is for the best. Maybe I can’t handle putting my heart into another for-the-love-of-it-operation. Maybe my next business will be something I don’t care about at all, something purely for money.”
“Seriously, Jo? No. . . .”
Jo shrugged. But then she scooped a tiny bit of the wet snow that lined the top of the bumper and threw it at Samantha. “Of course I’m not serious. Who do you think I am? You?”
“Ha ha,” Samantha said. “Good one.” She grabbed her own handful of snow and whipped it back at Jo. After a few minutes of play, they loaded the remainder of the boxes from the porch, and Samantha got into her SUV.
“I’ll meet you at your new place—though I still think you’re nuts to stay in town,” Sam said.
Jo shrugged. “No place else to go at the moment, and at least I have a job here.”
“Yeah, at a dirty little lure house—” Jo’s glare cut off whatever else Sam had been about to say about Jo’s place of employment. “Well, I figure I’ll stick around until January, keep you company for Christmas and New Year’s—but then it’s warmer places for me, baby, much warmer places.”
Jo nodded and pulled a crumpled piece of notepaper out her pocket, handing it to Sam. “Here’s my address and new landline. I needed an old school phone for the entry system.”
The moment Samantha’s SUV disappeared around the bend, Jo plunked herself down on the second stair of the porch. Her butt was already damp. What did a bit more water matter?
She wrapped her arm around one of the huge log poles that supported the porch’s roof, and leaned her cheek against its cold, smooth-as-satin surface. Years of rubbing, weather, and stress had polished the wood and only made it more beautiful. If only people were as lucky.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Ray.” Jo’s breath made white puffs in the air. “I’m really sorry.”
When her bum and fingers were numb and her nose started to drip, Jo finally got up, stiff with cold, and hobbled to her pickup. She couldn’t bring herself to say good-bye to the place. She just couldn’t.
Hoover whined when she climbed up and settled beside him in the cab. “I know, boy. I know.”
It hit her as she drove out of the property: she was making this bumpy trip for the last time. She and Samantha had hired movers for the furniture they were keeping. A local secondhand store had a van and an employee who would pick up the rest.
Jo wondered why she’d turned her sadness over letting the place go into a joke with Samantha, instead of sharing the depths of her disappointment.
But what was the point of making Samantha feel bad? It wasn’t her sister’s fault. And Jo would find a new dream. She would. Despite what she’d told Callum—and despite how she hated that he was right when he spoke so patronizingly of her to Nina—she was a dreamer. She knew how important it was to find a flame and keep fueling it so it burned bright. Hope gave you a reason to keep waking up everyday, a reason to work. And besides, she also (right again, stupid Callum) just couldn’t help herself. It was how her mind worked.
Chapter 27
Jo let Christmas and New Years come and go without a lot of fanfare, not her usual style at all. To Eddie’s delight, she willingly worked every day and any hour he could throw at her.
“I appreciate it,” he’d said gruffly. “Most normal people want days off this time of year.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been all that normal,” Jo had replied, making him laugh, though she was unsmilingly serious.
People who had attended her dinner party were kind and invited her and Samantha to various seasonal festivities. Dave continued to strive to be part of Jo’s life, and Jo considered attempting to pawn him off on Sam—until one last Dave episode made her realize Sam didn’t deserve him either.
In a moment of weakness, on New Year’s Day, wanting to do something that wasn’t centered on watching other people enjoy their big extended families, she’d agreed to go for a walk with Dave. When he met her at her apartment, he startled her by knocking right on her actual door.
“How’d you get in? You didn’t buzz for entry.”
He smiled easily. “Someone else was let in. I followed them.”
Living out at Ray’s had spoiled Jo. It had been so lovely and private that she’d forgotten how different town life was. Another loss and adjustment.
They got to-go drinks, a Mocha for her, a green tea for him, and headed toward the Millennium trail. Somehow the conversation turned to Callum as she’d hoped it would; she was a glutton for punishment, what could she say?
According to Dave, Callum had a quiet Christmas holed up with some friend of one of Brian’s “friends.”
“Doesn’t really sound like Callum,” was all she’d said, taking a big mouthful of whipping cream and chocolate—and almost gagging. Instead of rich and comforting, the drink was sickly sweet and cloying, like they’d doubled the syrup and forgotten the coffee.
“Oh, so it’s like that still, hey?” Dave asked.
“Like what?”
“You still like him.”
Jo stopped walking, set her cup on the ground, then pulled mittens out of her pocket and put them on. She picked her cup up again. “Maybe.”
“I don’t believe it,” Dave said wonderingly. “I just don’t believe it.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Jo snapped and resumed walking at a faster pace. Dave’s long-legged stride quickly ate up any distance she put between them.
“Well,” he said. “If you’re so set on having him, just tell him in plain language.”
“What the hell, Dave? What would that do?”
Dave shrugged. “Callum feels bad for you. He told me that—said that maybe if you’d stuck around and married him back in the day, maybe your life wouldn’t have been such a wash.”
“My. Life. Is. Not. A. Wash.”
Dave continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Besides he still has feelings for you. He thinks you’d do better with a steady man in your life, someone to take care of you. I think, if you asked, he’d date you again, maybe even marry you.”
“Out of pity? Are you kidding me?” Jo hurled her still-full drink at a garbage can they walked past. The lid burst on impact, the contents splattered, and the container disappeared into the rest of the garbage.
Dave sipped his tea. Shrugged again. “Na
h, he’s tired of being single too. Besides people get together for worse reasons.”
Jo said good-bye quickly. She was done pretending that Dave had any motive other than trying to poison her against Callum in the hopes of changing her feelings toward himself.
And so life went on. She passed through the remainder of January in a grief-dazed stupor. Without Ray’s house to focus on and conjure good memories—and to provide so much work that she didn’t really have time to think—she had more time to dwell on the loss of the closest thing she’d had to a father figure, and even more time to think about Callum. Always Callum. No matter what stupid Dave said.
A small-but-growing-larger part of her now worried that perhaps curiosity about what had become of Callum—or a long hidden, unacknowledged longing for what had been—had fueled her decision to return in the first place. And this worry made her realize that perhaps she wasn’t as committed to staying as she’d once thought. Yes, she wanted to live in Greenridge, to make a home there, but if she was going to, it needed to feel like a place of hope and possibility. These days, it felt too much like a memorial for things she’d lost.
Chapter 28
Callum walked the perimeter of the grounds, his boots squelching in particularly boggy parts, and went over every detail of his phone call to Jo. She’d sounded shocked to hear from him—but she’d agreed to meet. She’d agreed! He surveyed the heavy evergreens that sheltered the clearing around him and took in the moisture-beaded limbs of the cottonwoods and alder that stretched up into the misty sky. Even now, in February, the gloomiest, least promising part of the year, the place was perfect. Or it would be, so long as . . . so long as he could explain what he was hoping to Jo in a way that (a) made sense, (b) made her understand he wasn’t all the terrible things she believed about him, and (c) convinced her that he was worth one more scary risk.
