The midafternoon sun made everything golden, from jackets and hats that would have otherwise looked late-in-the-season shabby, to eager faces, to the hillside itself. Nearby, a long table held boxes of doughnuts, a barrel of sour pickles, and paper plates, napkins, and forks.
Micah had barely set down his buckets when he was surrounded by children, each holding a container of snow. Taking one at a time, he ladled hot syrup on the snow in a swirling design, handed the container back, and went on to the next. He didn’t have to watch to know what happened then. When the syrup hit the snow, it cooled instantly and became chewy enough to be picked up with fingers or a fork. “Maple wax” was its earliest name, but “sugar on snow” was prettier. Eaten alone, it was delicious. Eaten between bites of doughnut and pickle, it was the best.
Sugar on snow was one of a few happy childhood memories he had. Caught up in it, he found himself drizzling first-name initials with his ladle just to see the children smile. Star giggled when he put an elaborate “S” on her snow. When she produced a second dish and then shot a sudden, adorably questioning look back at Thea, who was waiting off at the side, he took pity and drew a swirling “T” with the sap. Star rewarded him with a big kiss.
When she started to run off, he caught the back of her jacket. “Where’s your sister?”
“I dunno.” Clearly, she didn’t care. She was in love with this person who was part of Heather.
Griffin, who was ladling syrup beside him, said, “She came by my pail with Rose Winslow’s daughters. They’re over on the hillside.”
Micah checked. Missy was sitting on the snow with Emma, Ruth, and a handful of other little girls. She was picking at the things on her plate, and seemed happy enough.
Relieved by that, he went back to work. Once the children had their fill, the adults came by, and then there were seconds until his buckets ran dry. He was thinking that he ought to go back inside when, far down the drive, a Lake Henry police cruiser appeared.
He set the buckets down. He told himself it would be Pete stopping by to see how things were going, but he felt a chill on the back of his neck—a premonition—much as he had that morning more than three weeks before. He figured it wasn’t just him, because around him the laughter seemed to fade and the crowd quieted.
He started forward. Cassie appeared in his periphery, but he kept walking. The cruiser slowed suddenly, though it was still a distance from the house. It had barely come to a halt when the passenger door opened.
Micah did stop then, but only until he saw Heather round the front of the car, pause for a single heart-stopping instant, then break into a run. Her coat flapped open; her hair flew to both sides. Even from the distance, he could see that she was crying, but her eyes were a sparkling silver, her face alive with happiness—and she was coming to him, running to him. Suddenly, he had no doubts. He didn’t know why he ever had. What he and Heather shared didn’t just go away. The mesh of their daily lives, the fit of their personalities, the passion—it hadn’t been one-sided, and it didn’t just go away.
He started to run, faster the closer she came, and then she was in his arms, sobbing his name, holding his neck so tightly that another man might have been strangled to death. Micah? After struggling with it for so many days, he could finally breathe.
“I love you,” she whispered. She drew back, hesitant at the last moment. “Can I come back? I want to come back.”
He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs and kissed herwith all his strength, all his passion. Then he crushed her to him, closed his eyes to enjoy the pleasure of it, lifted her right off the ground and around. He felt dizzy, but it was part of the transition—that life to this. Good things were going to happen. He could feel it.
When he set her down, he couldn’t stop smiling. Nor could she, with that badge-of-honor scar at the corner of her mouth, not even when she whispered that she wanted a shower, wanted to smell like herself, wanted shampoo and honeysuckle soap—and him. She touched his cheek in the gentle way she had, the way that said he meant more to her than anyone else in the world. Then she whispered, “I need to see my girls.”
Incredibly, her eyes held his, asking permission.
He glanced back at the crowd to see Star slipping through legs. She ran to Heather, who caught her up off the ground and hugged her nearly as hard as she had hugged Micah.
“Where’s Missy?” Heather asked Star, who looked back toward the crowd. Missy was there on its edge, looking as though she could as easily run, stay, or cry.
Come over here this minute, Micah wanted to scold, but caught himself. Those were his father’s words, first scolding, then demanding, finally punishing if his will wasn’t met. Micah had always wanted to be different from Dale. Heather had helped him.
She did it now. Passing Star to his arms, she crossed to where Missy stood. Micah didn’t know if she spoke, he was too far away to hear, but he saw her tip her head and stroke Missy’s hair.
Missy’s chin trembled. She shot a look at Micah, but couldn’t hold it there. When her eyes returned to Heather, they filled with tears. In a matter of seconds, her face crumbled and she went forward, slipping her arms around Heather’s waist, locking her hands behind.
Others closed in then, hugging Heather in turns, though Heather kept Missy pressed close through it all.
Pete put a hand on Micah’s shoulder. “We pulled strings to get her today. It was the least we could do. She’s a good woman. You two need to be together.”
Micah shook his hand. Still holding Star, but needing to be near Heather, he joined the crowd. As soon as he was close enough, Heatherslid an arm around him. It was the four of them then, standing on the land they owned, surrounded by the people they loved. Right then, if Micah had been offered a million dollars for the land, five million for the business, and a bonus of another ten just for kicks, he would have refused it. He had the richest life any man could want.
Taking a long, deep, easy breath, he looked up. There, standing distant and apart, respectful of Heather and Micah and the life they had, were the Andersons.
Feeling confident now, Micah took Heather’s hand. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” While he held Star, and Heather held Missy, he led her through the crowd. When they emerged on the sugarhouse side, Heather took in a sharp breath and stopped walking.
Micah tightened his hold of her hand.
Thea didn’t move. She looked terrified. It occurred to him that while he was frightened of losing Heather to this child, Thea was frightened that her birth mother wouldn’t even want to see her.
He gave Heather’s hand a little forward tug. Quietly, he said, “That’s her dad with her. They adore each other, and they have a good life. But she wants to meet you.”
Heather looked up at him. Her silver eyes were shimmering with tears again. And again—incredibly—she was asking permission.
She could have asked for anything just then, and he’d have given it, he was that in love with her.
She must have seen it in his eyes, because she drew in a shaky breath and seemed to calm some. Then, taking Missy along with her, she approached Thea.
* * *
After a long, full, emotional day, Poppy knew what she needed to do. She didn’t know whether it came from watching Micah and seeing growth, from watching Heather and seeing growth, or from watching Maida and seeing growth. All she knew was that she needed to grow, too.Remarkably, Micah let sugaring go for the day. He had never done that before—at least, not in anyone’s memory—but he wanted to be with Heather. That meant Poppy had Griffin with her now. He built a fire andmanned the phones, while she changed and went into the exercise room. Victoria followed her in but stayed close by the door. Poppy imagined she was making sure Poppy didn’t chicken out.
Poppy wasn’t about to do that. It was time.
She did an upper-body workout, then used the recumbent bike for a bit. When she felt that she was sufficiently warmed up, she went to the wall where the leg braces hung. She hate
d everything about them—hated the sight, the feel, the sound. But they were the means to an end, and that end was the means to a beginning.
With the braces on her lap, she wheeled back to the parallel bars. She looked at them for a final moment, took a breath, and called out for Griffin.
He came to the door smiling. When he saw what she held, his smile faded. His eyes found hers. She saw a question there. She imagined that she also saw hope. Buoyed by that, she held out the braces. “Strapping them on takes a little effort. Will you help?”
* * *
Four weeks later, she set off on her own. She didn’t say where she was going. She left Griffin writing the final pages of the Hayden biography, preoccupied enough to assume she was just running into town for a bit. She didn’t mind his preoccupation. She had been preoccupied in the last day or two herself.Driving off in the Blazer, she rolled down her window. April had come, bringing warm rains that turned every unpaved road in town to mud. Sugaring was done for the year. Buds were starting to pop on the trees. Despite the mess underfoot, the air was earthy and full of promise.
Ice-out had occurred at two o’clock the afternoon before. Poppy had watched it from her deck, calling Griffin at the last minute when the ice just seemed to dissolve. Nathaniel Roy won the town pool, coming within an hour of the day and time, and by dusk, Poppy had calls of two separate loon sightings. She had listened from her deck after that, but hadn’t heard a thing. She guessed that with only a handful of loons back, the territorial wars hadn’t yet begun.
She might have kept a watch out for loons now as she drove aroundthe lake, had her mind not been focused on another spot. Entering the center of town, she passed the town beach, the post office, the yellow Victorian that housed Lake News. Her palms were clammy on the steering wheel. As nervous as she was, she refused to turn back.
Turning into the parking lot at the very center of town, she went to the right of the church and started up the narrow cemetery road. It was paved, although only barely, and heavily puddled. Off the road, the snow was gone in all but the most shaded of spots, but the grass was still a winter brown, soggy at places, outright muddy at others.
She drove slowly on. She passed her father’s grave and kept going. She passed Gus Kipling’s grave and kept going. She crested the small rise that led to Perry’s grave, drove to a spot directly opposite, and parked.
Giving herself no time to think, she took the lift to the ground and reached back into the Blazer for her things. The left brace went on, then the right one. She was adept at it now, slowed only by nervous fingers. She might have been going out on her first date, taking her first jump on water skis, waking up from a week’s coma to learn that she was paralyzed. The apprehension was the same.
Perry was there, and she was here. The twenty yards separating them was a muddy chasm.
Quickly, lest she lose her nerve, she pulled her crutches from the Blazer and slid her forearms into place. Calculating the hardness of the ground, choosing her spots, she set the crutches, pulled herself forward in the wheelchair, took a deep breath, and levered herself up.
She had done this many times in the last month, practicing the motion and building her strength. In recent days, she had even done it without Griffin. But she had never done it outside the house. Moist earth alone was a challenge. Add to that the distance and the fact that if she fell, she was in trouble, and it was a very daunting challenge.
Determinedly, she shifted her weight onto her left leg, used her right hip to throw the right leg forward, shifted her weight onto that leg, drew the back leg forward, and let both share the weight. Taking a breath, she repeated the motion—shift onto the left, throw the right forward with the hip, drag the back leg up.
She did it again. And again. And again. She refused to look back, refusedto think of the distance she was from her wheelchair. Nor did she look at the gravestones on either side. She kept her eyes on the ground ahead, trying to measure its firmness and avoid the muddiest of spots, as she concentrated on the motion of her lower half.
She took one step at a time—punctuating each with a little puff of breath—one clichéd step at a time—but it worked. Slowly, doggedly, she crossed the graveyard. She faltered a time or two when her crutch sank more deeply into the mud than she’d expected, but she remained upright.
What had been a raised slab of snow in February was now a stone bench. That was her goal. When she felt herself tiring—shoulders trembling, arms aching, hips threatening to spasm—she steadied herself, took a breath or two, looked at the bench. Then she plodded on, putting her weight on one leg, throwing the other forward, dragging the rear one up. The farther she went, the harder she breathed, and she was sweating now. But close. She was close. The closer she got, the more determined she grew.
Once upon a time, she would have run for the center of the bench, jumped right over it, and sat down with a grin. Now, with painstaking slowness, she advanced to the left, where the ground looked more solid. Breathing fast and loud, she came abreast of the bench and might easily have settled herself there. But she didn’t want to be on the end. She wanted to be smack in the middle, facing Perry.
The last few steps were the hardest. She was tired—and increasingly emotional. As victorious as she felt in reaching this point, she also felt a keen sense of loss.
Nearly there, she took one hitching step, then a second. A third step took her to the center of the bench. Carefully, she turned. Using her crutches for leverage, she lowered herself to the bench and set them down. It was a minute before she recovered from the exertion and caught her breath.
Then, with a breath that shuddered for a whole other reason, she looked at the headstone. Perry Walker, it read. Beloved Son and Friend, Here Too Short a Time. Below were the dates of his birth and death.
As she stared at the inscription—read and reread it—her throat grewtight. When her eyes filled with tears that blurred the words, she imagined she saw Perry’s face in the granite. This was where she had needed to be for so long.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “I am so very sorry.” Tears came then, and she didn’t fight them. Grasping the edge of the bench, she cried for Perry and his family and all they had lost. She cried for her own family and all she had put them through. And she cried for herself—for the loss of her childhood and her athleticism, for the loss of a certain innocence and daring after that night twelve years before. She cried for things she knew she shouldn’t—self-pitying things, like mobility and speed and smoothness—but she didn’t fight the emotion either. It was a time for cleansing.
She cried until she ran out of tears. And still she sat with Perry. Without speaking aloud, she told him where she’d been and what she’d done since she had seen him last, knowing that he would hear somehow.
Finally, she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and recalled a prayer. She didn’t know where she had heard it—actually, didn’t know whether she had heard it at all or was simply making it up. It had to do with forgiveness.
A sound came. Eyes opening, she raised her head and listened. It was another minute before it came again, but the wait was worth it. She sat straighter and took a deep breath of the moist spring air. She did feel cleansed. Along with that feeling came a certain calm.
With a last look at Perry’s grave, she picked up the crutches and slid her forearms in. Turning on the bench to gauge the return walk, she glanced back at the Blazer.
Griffin stood beside it.
She should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. He was attuned to her needs. He must have known why she had wanted to walk. He had probably known why she had been preoccupied lately—and where she was headed today.
Seeing him there, she was struck by the rightness of it. He had been with her through this period of growth. More. He had been its catalyst, its inspiration in so many regards. Indeed, seeing him there in his jeans, sweater, and the same royal blue fleece jacket he had been wearing thefirst time they had met—a blue that picked up the blue in his
eyes and was a perfect foil for hair that, in the sun, looked redder—she was struck by the idea that this moment was destined.
Seeing him there, she was nearly as overcome with emotion as she had been facing Perry. For Perry, it had been sorrow she felt. For Griffin, it was love. Seeing him there, she was so full of joy that she thought her heart might burst.
He didn’t move. He didn’t rush forward to take her arm or pick her up or express concern, though she did see concern on his face. But he was telling her that he had faith in her. He knew she could do this. He knew she could do most anything she set her mind to. And in that instant, she thought he might be right.
Smiling, she began to walk forward. Her gait was as faltering as it had been on the way out, but the awkwardness was irrelevant now, because she wasn’t looking at a gravestone. She wasn’t looking at a memory. She wasn’t looking at the past. This time she was looking at the present and the future, and that was Griffin.
Only when she was under way did he begin to walk toward her, and then he did it slowly, matching his pace to hers in the most relaxed, most nonchalant of ways. She loved him more with every single uneven step she took.
He met her halfway. Then stood there, not touching her. “I am so in love with you I can’t stand it,” he said.
She started to laugh. He couldn’t have said anything better.
He grinned, but the concern lingered in his eyes. It struck her then that the concern didn’t have to do with whether she could walk through the mud on her own.
“I have something in my pocket,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t talking about a kiss.
“Can I see?” she asked, suddenly dying to see.
He stepped closer. “Reach in.”
Adjusting her crutches, she put a hand in his pocket. There was only one thing there. She caught her breath.
“Take it out,” he whispered.
An Accidental Woman Page 41
