The Long Way Back

by JoAnn Ross

  “Thank you.” Nora took her own seat behind the desk and folded her hands atop the clipboard. “As I said, I don’t believe Jason’s injuries are going to turn out to be very severe. He is obviously a very lucky boy. Not only because it looks as if he’s going to survive what could have been a fatal fall, but because he has two parents who care for him—deeply.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Winters nodded. “I do,” they said together. It was Nora’s turn to nod. “Good. Now, even if he escapes this with nothing more than a lump on his head, the entire experience, which would be frightening for you or me, is bound to be terrifying for a four-year-old child.

  “And even if the CT scan shows no further injuries, I’ll want Jason to stay here for observation, which means that he’ll be spending the night in a strange place.

  “That being the case, your son will need your reassurance and support. He also needs to know that you don’t blame him for his accident. If there’s tension between you, he’s liable to think that it’s his fault.”

  She paused, allowing her words to sink in. “Believe me,” she said quietly, “I understand how you’re feeling.”

  Officer Winters shot her a withering look. “Don’t patronize us, Dr. Anderson. No one knows what I’m feeling.”

  “I do,” Nora argued. “Because I’ve been in your shoes.”

  She had never told the story to anyone before, and was shocked to hear the words coming from her lips. As she viewed their startled expressions, Nora decided that having finally captured their attention, she might as well continue.

  “I’m ashamed to say that I reacted with emotion rather than logic, which only succeeded in making an already horrific situation even worse,” she admitted, remembering how she’d railed at Caine and blamed him for the accident that had caused their son’s death.

  At the time, Caine hadn’t even tried to defend himself. And later, when she’d learned that the driver of the other car had been drunk and had crossed the centerline without giving Caine time to respond, she’d been too deeply immersed in her own pain to apologize.

  “So,” she said, “I would suggest that whatever your problems are, you manage to put them aside for now. For Jason’s sake.”

  She paused again. The couple exchanged another long glance. “If you can’t do that,” Nora said quietly but firmly, “I’m going to have to ask that you visit your son separately.”

  Jason’s father was looking down at the floor. His mother was dabbing ineffectually at her tears with the shredded, useless tissue. When the patrolman reached into a trouser pocket, took out a wide white handkerchief and began wiping at the moisture streaming down his wife’s cheeks, Nora knew they’d made their decision.

  She was also relieved when, caught up in their concern for their son, neither thought to ask her what the outcome of her own situation had been. Because as heartbreaking as Dylan’s death had been, the still-vivid memory of how coldly she’d treated Caine, who’d been hurting himself, left Nora feeling confused. And guilty.

  * * *

  While Nora struggled to sort out old and painful feelings, the object of all her discomfort was sitting at a table in a weather-beaten shack on the windswept Washington coast. In contrast to the sun that had been shining in Tribulation, the sky was low and gray, the rain streaking down the window matching Caine’s gloomy mood.

  The bar had been dubbed The No Name by locals after the sign had blown away during a typhoon more than two decades ago. The scent of fried food, spilled beer and mildew hung over the room like an oppressive cloud.

  A lone woman, wearing a rhinestone-studded T-shirt, a skin-tight denim miniskirt and black, over-the-knee suede boots, put some coins in the jukebox and pressed B7.

  As Garth Brooks began singing about the damn old rodeo, the woman sauntered over to Caine’s table. “Hiya, handsome. How about a little Texas two-step?” she asked, swaying enticingly to the beat.

  Caine signaled the bartender for another beer. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m just not in the mood for dancing today.”

  He nodded his thanks to the bartender who placed another can of beer on the table without stopping to take away the empties. “Maybe some other time.”

  “That’s okay. I can think of lots better things to do on a rainy afternoon.” She gave him a bold, suggestive smile. “My name’s Micki. What’s yours?”

  “Caine.” He opened the can and took a long drink.

  “I’ve always liked biblical names.” She sat down and crossed her long legs. “You know, Caine—” she leaned forward and placed her hand on his thigh “—perhaps if you stopped brooding over whoever or whatever it is that put that scowl on your face, you might find that you could have some fun, after all.”

  She had hit just a little too close to home for comfort. “You know, Micki, you may be on to something.”

  Caine tossed back the rest of the beer, tossed some bills on the table and with his arm around the woman’s waist, walked out of the dark bar into the slanting silver rain.

  A motel was conveniently located across the gravel parking lot. Caine wasn’t particularly surprised when the manager greeted the woman like an old friend. Neither was he surprised by the lecherous wink the guy gave him.

  They’d no sooner entered the room when she turned, twined her bare arms around his neck and kissed him. As she pressed her mouth against his, Caine waited, with a certain fatalistic curiosity, for his body to respond. He wanted to see if this woman’s scarlet lips could make him forget himself.

  They couldn’t.

  Undeterred by his lack of response, Micki plopped down on the bed. Outside the window, a steady stream of logging trucks passed, hissing wetly down the highway.

  “You know, Caine, I knew the minute you walked into The No Name that you were the kind of guy who knew how to have a good time,” she said, unzipping her high-heeled suede boots.

  She and Caine had gotten soaked in their dash across the parking lot and the T-shirt clung to her like a second skin. Shivering, she tugged it over her head. Her bra was black and sheer, revealing nipples that had pebbled from the chill. For some inexplicable reason, Caine found himself comparing that overtly sexy bra with a utilitarian white maternity one he remembered Nora wearing. Irritated that the seemingly safe memory made him hard, he lipped a cigarette from the pack he’d managed to keep dry.

  “Those things’ll kill you,” Micki said with a friendly smile.

  Caine shrugged. “We all gotta go some time.” He lighted the cigarette and inhaled the acrid smoke into his lungs.

  “True enough.”

  She was down to a pair of black bikini panties. Rising from the bed, she walked over to the window, drew the smoke-stained orange drapes, then stopped in front of him. Plucking the cigarette from his lips, she took a long drag.

  “But why do you want to waste time smoking when we could be setting that bed on fire?”

  Telling himself it was what he wanted, Caine jabbed the cigarette out in a nearby ceramic ashtray shaped like a fish and pulled her down onto the mattress.

  Micki was eager and talented, and everything a man could want in a bed partner.

  So why the hell did his mutinous body betray him?

  Caine’s erection had softened like a deflated balloon and no amount of feminine coaxing could achieve success.

  “That’s okay,” she assured him with what Caine considered inordinately good cheer a long time later. “It happens to everyone.”

  “Not to me.” Frustrated, Caine muttered a low, pungent curse.

  He told himself that it was the depressing diagnosis he’d received from that Seattle doctor Nora had referred him to that had him in such a funk. Or the fact that the baseball season was in full swing without him on the mound. The beer he’d drunk, perhaps. Or the dreary weather.

  Even as he made his way through the litany of possible excuses, Caine had a nagging feeling that the reason for his uncharacteristic inability to perform was that the woman stretched out so invitingly beside him on the bed w
asn’t his ex-wife.

  What the hell was Nora doing to his mind?

  CHAPTER 6

  For more than a week, Caine had avoided his family. Since he’d always thought of himself as the O’Halloran success story, the idea of returning home as a failure was anything but appealing.

  Finally, however, knowing it was time—past time—to face them, he drove to his parents’ house. He was almost relieved that no one was home. His next stop—the one he dreaded most—was his grandparents’ home.

  The old clapboard house was unchanged. The siding was still the faded grayish blue of a February sky, the porch railing as white as the snow that remained in patches beneath the dark green conifers surrounding the house.

  Caine’s grandfather, clad in a pair of dark blue overalls, a blue-and-black plaid shirt, a blue down-filled vest and a black watch cap, was sitting in a rocker on the porch, a pipestem jammed into the corner of his mouth.

  Appearing unsurprised by the sight of a sleek black sports car pulling up in front of his home, he pushed himself out of the chair and came to stand by the railing.

  Caine cut the engine and gazed through the tinted windows at his grandfather. When he was a boy, Caine had considered his grandfather the biggest, strongest man in the world. Even Paul Bunyan couldn’t have whipped his “Pap,” Caine remembered thinking.

  He remembered this man’s shoulders as being as straight and wide as an ax handle. And the sure, majestic way Devlin O’Halloran moved had reminded Caine of a ship coming into harbor.

  But now, taking in his grandfather’s stooped shoulders, Caine was forced, once again, to realize that the world hadn’t stopped turning just because Caine O’Halloran had gone away.

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and climbed out of the low-slung car.

  “Hi, Pappy.” Caine stood at the bottom of the porch steps.

  “’Bout time you decided to pay your old Pap a visit,” the deep, wonderfully familiar voice growled. “I was beginnin’ to think I was gonna have to keel over to get you to come home.”

  When Caine was five years old, he’d run to his grandfather, seeking sanctuary after breaking Mrs. Nelson’s front window with a ball that had gone higher and farther than any ball he’d ever hit before.

  As he climbed the front steps on this spring morning, he breathed in the familiar scents of Old Spice aftershave, cherry tobacco, hair tonic and the distant whiff of camphor his grandmother used to prevent moths from eating holes in her husband’s beloved wool shirts, and realized that once again, he’d come to his grandfather seeking refuge.

  “We heard you were back,” Devlin O’Halloran said. “Looks like the rumor mill was well greased this time. That car does kinda remind me of a Batmobile.”

  Devlin’s broad hands—hands capable of the delicate task of tying a fly to the end of a fishing line—took hold of Caine’s arms as he gave him a long look.

  “Also heard them Olson boys made mincemeat of your face.” His still-bright blue eyes searched Caine’s features. “Your grandmother’ll be happy to see that you don’t look near as bad as folks are sayin’.”

  “Bruises fade.”

  “That they do,” Devlin agreed. “So, how’d she look to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, boy. I was talking about your wife, the doctor.”

  “She’s my ex-wife.”

  “Bull.” Devlin brushed Caine’s words away as if they were a pesky fly. “Unless the Pope’s gone on the television this morning and changed the rules while I’ve been sittin’ here whittlin’, the Church still doesn’t cotton to divorce. So, the way I see it, the woman’s still your wife.”

  “The way the state of New York sees it, Tiffany’s my wife.”

  “From what I hear, not for long.”

  Although he’d yet to find anything humorous in his second wife’s defection, Caine threw back his head, looked up at the bright blue sky and laughed. “News travels fast.”

  “Always has, around here,” the older man agreed laconically. “And I’m sorry about you and that redheaded model, but I reckon that’s what you get for marryin’ a woman named after a jewelry store.”

  “I reckon you’re right, Pappy.”

  His grandfather had always been able to coax a smile from him, even when things looked darkest. Nearly always, Caine corrected, remembering a time when even this man hadn’t been able to lift the black cloud that had settled over him like a shroud.

  “Heard you were out to the cemetery. Matty Johnson was raking the leaves off his wife’s restin’ place when he saw you puttin’ flowers on Dylan’s grave. Said he was gettin’ ready to go over and welcome you back to town, when Nora showed up.”

  There was a question in the old man’s voice that Caine knew he could not ignore. “We hadn’t planned to meet. I guess my showing up unexpectedly triggered some old memories for her.”

  “That’s what your grandmother and I figured. So?”

  “So, what?”

  “So, you two gonna be seein’ each other regular?”

  “It’s a small town. We’re bound to run into each other. And I’ve got an appointment to have some stitches taken out.”

  “Let me see.”

  Caine bent his head.

  “She did a right fine job,” Devlin allowed with surprise. “I remember your mother trying to teach that girl how to quilt. Finally gave up when she kept stitchin’ her finger and bleedin’ all over the squares.”

  “I guess she got better.”

  “Seems she did,” Devlin agreed. “You eat breakfast?”

  “Not yet. I figured I’d stop by the Timberline for coffee and one of Ingrid’s Viking omelets after visiting you and Gram.”

  “And break your grandmother’s heart? She made flapjack batter this morning and there’s a jar of rhubarb sauce waitin’ on the table with your name on it.”

  Caine grinned. His grandfather might look older, but some things, blessedly, remained the same. “Suddenly, I’m starving.”

  Devlin put his arm around Caine’s shoulder and ushered him through the screen door into the kitchen.

  “Your grandmother must be taking a nap,” Devlin said.

  “So early?” Caine glanced up at the copper teakettle clock over the stove. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

  “She was up early. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and pull up a chair, Caine. I’ll go check on her.”

  Devlin was smiling, but Caine heard concern in his grandfather’s voice. “Is everything okay?”

  “Just dandy.” For the first time Caine could remember, his grandfather refused to look him in the eye. “Sit yourself down. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Caine poured a cup of coffee from the dented aluminum coffeepot on the stove and took a careful sip. It was hot and dark and strong with a just a hint of chicory that hearkened back to Maggie O’Halloran’s New Orleans roots.

  The table was covered with the oilcloth that dated back to a time before Caine was born. The kitchen radio—an ancient tube model—was tuned to a big-band station, adding to the feeling that his grandparents’ house had been frozen in time.

  “She just drifted off,” Devlin said, returning just as the Chattanooga choo-choo left Pennsylvania station. “I didn’t think you’d want me to wake her.”

  “Of course not. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  “Your grandmother’s not a young woman, Caine.

  She gets a mite more tired these days. Same as the rest of us old codgers.”

  “Maybe I’d better have those flapjacks some other time.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Devlin argued. “You stay put and I’ll rustle them up before you can say Jack Sprat.”

  He moved toward the stove with the deliberate shuffle of a man of enormous energy trapped in an aging, stiff body. Caine wasn’t about to sit by while a man nearly three times his age waited on him.

  “How about we team up?”

  “I reckon that’l
l be okay,” Devlin replied. “But don’t you dare tell your grandmother. She’d have my hide if she found out I put you to work the minute you walked in the door.”

  “Mum’s the word,” Caine agreed.

  They worked in companionable silence. Caine cooked the pancakes in an iron skillet in the center of the woodstove Maggie insisted cooked better than any gas or electric one, while Devlin fried bacon in the electric frying pan.

  In the background, Glenn Miller was “in the mood,” followed by Erskine Hawkins swinging in the Savoy Ballroom with “Tuxedo Junction.” The batter began bubbling around the edges of the silver-dollar-size cakes.

  “So what’re you gonna do about getting Nora back?”

  “What makes you think I want her back?” Caine flipped the pancakes.

  “If you don’t, you’re a damn fool.”

  “Still beating around the bush, aren’t you?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, boy, I’m gettin’ to be an old man. The way I figure it, I don’t have time to be subtle.”

  The pancakes were a golden brown. Caine piled them on a plate, put the plate in the warming oven, and began spooning more batter into the pan.

  “I’ve got too much to work out without trying to rekindle cold ashes from a failed marriage,” Caine muttered. Having his grandfather bring up his love life reminded him all too vividly of the other night’s humiliating sexual failure.

  The old man piled the bacon onto a platter, then shuffled over to the table and placed it in the middle of the oilcloth.

  “You and Nora started out kinda rocky,” Devlin allowed.

  Caine watched him struggling with the lid of the preserve jar and had to force himself not to rush in to help. “We ended that way, too,” Caine reminded him.

  Devlin shrugged. “Every marriage goes through a few rough patches. You gonna turn those or let ’em burn?”

  Caine flipped the round cakes just in time.

  He was relieved when his grandfather appeared willing to drop the subject while they shared a companionable breakfast.