The Night We Met

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  That left the rest of the hours until dawn—or until Elizabeth reappeared—to sit and wait. Nate and I talked for a while. About the shelter. The state's regulations only al owed women to stay in government shelters for a limited period of time. Often it wasn't long enough to let them reshape their lives and make a clean start. I didn't have that rule and currently had two families who'd been there for more than two years. One of them was Maria's. In my work at the Boulder women's shelter, I knew I'd come full circle from my life at St. Catherine's as I spent my days serving those who were less fortunate than I was.

  And Nate talked about the resort. About how well Keith was doing. He was considering exchanging his CEO position with Keith's vice-presidential spot. My heart tripped a bit as he voiced the thought. I hated to see this sign that life was moving on yet again. But I'd known it was coming.

  Needed to come.

  We tried to watch television. To talk about the babies and their futures. And all the while my heart grew heavier, my stomach more knotted. It was four-o'clock in the morning. No good happened to sixteen-year-old girls out at that hour of the night.

  My mind played al sorts of scenarios for me. From dead on the side of the road, to deep in the woods someplace, the victim of a fiend who was doing God knows what.

  Please, God. Oh, please, keep her safe. Whatever she's done, please forgive her. Surround her with your angels. Protect her and bring her home to me.

  "Where is she?" I final y cried out, jumping from the end of the couch where I'd spent much of the night.

  "I can tell you where she's going to wish she was," Nate said, joining me at the window.

  He sounded fierce, but I knew he was just as worried.

  "None of the others have cal ed," I said. "So at least we can assume they're still together."

  And hope there was safety in numbers.

  At six o'clock, the phone rang. I fumbled it on the way to my ear.

  "Hello?"

  "Mom?" Elizabeth was crying.

  "Elizabeth? Where are you? What's wrong?"

  All I could think of was my baby girl raped. Bloody. In a hospital. But alive.

  Thank God, she was alive.

  "We're in Longmont." About fifteen miles away. "We went to an al -night concert in Fort Collins and it started to snow on the way home and the oil light in JoAnn's mom's car came on and we thought we could make it, but then the car started to smoke and then it just died."

  My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, we're fine. But... Nothing went like it was supposed to."

  "Where in Longmont are you?" I dealt with the first priority.

  She didn't know. On the side of the highway just past the Longmont exit. She was using JoAnn's mom's car phone.

  Nate, listening in, told her to stay put. He was on his way and would call her from his car.

  Again, I sat and waited.

  * * *

  Nate had pretty much let her have it by the time they pul ed into the driveway just before eight o'clock on Sunday morning. Kyle and Nathaniel, changed and dressed already, sat in their high chairs munching on Cheerios as Nate and Elizabeth came through the door. "Mom!" Elizabeth ran to me, clutching me tightly. And while I hugged her back, more thankful than she could probably imagine to have her home, I also maintained some distance.

  What Elizabeth had done this time was far more serious than mean words or pouting.

  "I made a breakfast casserole," I said, pulling the sausage, egg and cheese concoction from the oven. "Sit down and eat and then, after you've rested, we'll talk."

  A very docile sixteen-year-old quietly sat down at the table. She only picked at her breakfast but sat there until I excused her to go have a shower and a nap.

  She and her father didn't exchange a single word the entire time.

  Thankful y, the babies, unaware of the underlying tension, babbled on.

  Chapter 19

  "What's the one thing you told me you absolutely could not tolerate, no matter how much you loved me?" Elizabeth and I were at the kitchen table early that afternoon, while Nate tried to get the babies down for a nap.

  "Lying to me," I answered my recalcitrant daughter. My heart was heavy with grief and disappointment. Despite my gratitude for her safety, I couldn't relent, couldn't let her off that easily. All day long, the things that could've happened to those girls last night—even before they'd broken down

  —had run through my mind.

  "And I didn't," Elizabeth said. "Heck, Mom, lying to you would be like lying to God."

  My heart jolted. I wanted so badly to hug her and beg her to promise me she'd never, ever do anything like this again.

  "You deliberately deceived me."

  "I would've slept at JoAnn's if you said I could. I just wouldn't have got there until early this morning."

  I'd known that the way she'd asked had signified something remiss. Too bad I'd underestimated her determination and the lengths she'd go to get what she wanted.

  "I didn't say you out-and-out told a lie, I said you deliberately deceived me, which is essentially the same thing. You knew I'd think you were at JoAnn's all night, which you never intended to be.

  Furthermore—" I was on a roll now as all the panic, the worry and the pain of the past twenty-four hours, perhaps the past few years, came rushing back. "Last night, you hugged me goodnight, wanting me to believe you were going upstairs to your room for the rest of the night. You never intended to do that, either."

  "I know."

  Her acquiescence took me off guard. I pinned her with a stare meant to make her squirm.

  "Believe me, Mom, I know everything you want to say to me. I have your voice in my head everywhere I go."

  She had my voice in her head. That was the nicest thing the kid had ever said to me in her life. And she didn't even know it. Which made it that much nicer.

  "You don't need to say any of it," she muttered next.

  "Because your father's already said it al ?" I asked.

  "No, because I'd already figured it out for myself before we left town. At first, climbing out the window was kind of fun. An adventure. And I was mad 'cause the reason you wouldn't let me stay at JoAnn's was so lame." She stopped then, looked at me curiously. "Why wouldn't you?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I just had a feeling."

  Sighing, Elizabeth continued. "After I got out of the house and JoAnn started to pul away, I felt gross.

  All I could think of was you and Daddy back there, trusting me. And the babies and how cute they are. And, I don't know... I just wanted to be home."

  "Then why didn't you come back?"

  "What was I going to tell JoAnn? I'd look like a chicken. Or a little mama's girl."

  "Or a very smart young woman."

  "Believe me, I know." She sighed again. "I can't tel you how many times last night I would rather have looked like the biggest chicken ever. I kept trying to have fun with the rest of them, but I just couldn't."

  The pressure in my chest was dissipating rapidly.

  "You're going to be grounded. You know that, right?"

  She nodded. "Dad told me."

  "And you've lost any trust I had in letting you go places with JoAnn."

  Bowing her head, she said, "I'm not sure I'm going to hang out with her much, anyway," she said.

  I raised my head sharply. "Did she do things last night that she shouldn't have?"

  "Like drugs and drinking, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "Yeah, she did."

  "Did you?"

  "No." She was stil looking me straight in the eye.

  "Good. I'm glad to hear it." So glad, that if she weren't sitting there needing me to be stiff and stern, I'd have hauled her into my arms for the longest hug of our lives.

  "Can I ask you something?" Her gaze was curious. And sweet.

  "Yes."

  "How'd you know to look in my room last night?"

  Covering
her hand with mine, I told her, "I've looked in your room every night since the day you were born. And I'll continue to do so every night that we spend under the same roof."

  "Because of Sarah?"

  "Nope. Because of you."

  During her last two years of high school, Elizabeth was a model child. Not once after the night of the concert in Fort Col ins did she give us any cause for doubt. She dated some, but always brought the boy to meet us first, left us with numbers and was home by curfew. She made straight As and earned herself a scholarship to her brothers' alma mater.

  Nate had switched tides with Keith at the resort and worked shorter hours. He played the piano a lot in those days—the same disfigured piano we'd had al those years—and while I hated to leave him alone, I was only fifty-one and needed more stimulation than I could get sitting at home. The shelter was as busy as ever. We'd had an offer from the city to erect a sister project on the other side of town. I wouldn't own that one, but I'd agreed to be a consultant as long as they needed me.

  And then, the year I turned fifty-two, my baby girl left home to go to col ege. I'd thought I was fully prepared, but as August drew near and we were buying everything she'd need for her dorm room, I'd have moments when I couldn't move. When I just wanted to lie on the couch and let life pass me by.

  We'd made it through Y-2000 intact, and here I was, in the fall of 2001, falling apart.

  Nate found me one day during the first week in September, flat on my back in the living room with no television on, no book to read and no real desire to rest.

  "I was thinking about taking a cruise around the world," he said, lifting my feet and holding them on his lap as he sat down. "Want to come with me?"

  "Could we stop off in London?"

  The thought of that brought back a bit of the anticipation, the excitement, I'd had trouble finding.

  "Lori's expecting us the first of October."

  That got me up in a hurry. "You already have the trip booked?"

  He pul ed an envelope out of his back pocket and handed it to me. "I spoke to Maria. She's got things covered at the shelter and she'll e-mail Lori if there's anything urgent that needs your attention."

  I couldn't believe this. Mouth open, I stared at him, and then at the envelope. "How long are we going to be gone?"

  "Six weeks."

  "We'll be home in time for Thanksgiving?"

  "Of course."

  "Real y?"

  Nate stood beside me, leaning in to touch his lips to mine. "Real y."

  "When do we leave?"

  "Next week." He turned to go. "Which gives you five days to buy yourself some new negligees," he said. "I'm finally going to get my honeymoon."

  We didn't make the cruise that year. On September 11th, 2001, our country was attacked by terrorists, killing more than 3000 innocent people. Elizabeth came home. Keith and Jimmy and their families came home. There was nothing any of us could do except watch the television and pray.

  But we were together.

  We had to be.

  Nate and I took our cruise the following spring. Traveling was harder now, but the honeymoon part was worth it.

  The years seemed to go by like months after that. The winter Olympics were in Salt Lake in 2002 and Nate treated us al to an unforgettable week. We'd never traveled as a family, stayed in a hotel together, since the boys got married, and while we had to adjust to different routines, there wasn't one problem the entire trip.

  Nate and I traveled to California for an extended stay the next fall. My brother and sisters were all getting older, were al grandparents, and our time with them was dear to me. Alice introduced me to the pleasures of slot machines and as soon as I got home, I sought out the closest casino so I'd know where to get a fix if I needed one. So far, the most I'd won was six hundred dollars. The most I'd lost, half of that.

  I never had been a big spender.

  A new George Bush was president and in May of that year, he announced the end of combat in a new war, America's war against Iraq, begun shortly after 9/11.

  It didn't end though.

  On April 2,2005, Pope John Paul II died. More than four million people traveled to the Vatican to mourn him. I wasn't one of them. I'd been away from the Church for more years than I'd been a part of it.

  Yet, alone in the privacy of my bedroom, I wept.

  It was my month for crying. Elizabeth graduated a few weeks after the Pope's death and as I watched my baby walk across that stage with such purpose, take her diploma and wave at her father and me, I knew in my heart that an era had just ended.

  I didn't know about the surprise she had waiting for us after the ceremony.

  "Mom, Dad, this is Ronald," she said to us, pul ing a bespectacled, skinny man to her side. I didn't like the way she hugged his arm so familiarly to her breast.

  "Mrs. Grady, Mr. Grady," the young man said, shaking our hands with a firm grip. "It's good to final y meet you."

  I did like his direct gaze.

  "Ronald has one year left of a five-year premed program," she said.

  I found out later that night, over dinner, that he was also living with my daughter. And that they planned to continue the arrangement until he graduated from school, at which time they would marry.

  I smiled. Welcomed him to the family. And sobbed all the way back to Boulder, where Nate silently took me in his arms and held on tight.

  Two thousand six is not a year I remember well. In April, shortly after what turned out to be the last snowfall of the year, Nate went out for a hike to see how winter had left the trails we used for our summer camps. It was a hike he'd taken every year since we'd purchased the resort. He'd bring a saw and some water and head out, moving trees that had fallen across the paths, or sawing a walk through them. He'd make note of danger zones due to mudslides, embed stones where they were needed to make safer stepping places.

  The day had always been kind of sacred with him. An ending and a beginning.

  In 2006, Nate didn't come back. Dinnertime came and went. I cal ed Keith at the resort and he assumed his father had missed him after the hike, that he'd gone home.

  Jimmy met us at the house. Elizabeth and Ronald drove down from Fort Collins, and together with my children, I waited for word from the rescue teams that had been dispatched.

  He was found the next morning, just as the sun was rising, wandering around the edge of a field on the other side of the mountain. It was a smal mountain, close to the resort. One he'd climbed many times.

  But this particular time he hadn't been able to find his way back.

  Many trips to the doctor later, it was discovered that Nate had a rare condition called Pick's Disease

  —a relatively benign-sounding name that meant the frontal lobe of his brain was deteriorating. The long-term diagnosis was a dementia so debilitating he wouldn't even be able to get himself to the bathroom. He was only seventy- one years old.

  I found him sitting at the piano the night we found out. Just sitting.

  "Play something for me," I said, sliding down beside him, my hip pressing his.

  "I'm scared, Liza."

  Covering his hand where it lay on his lap, I held on tight. "I know. Me, too."

  "I can't bear the thought of you having to spend your days changing my pants."

  That sent panic racing through me. And a peculiar calm, as well. "I'll be honored to do it. You and I are one, Nate. Taking care of you is just taking care of me and as long as I have you—in any version

  —I'm blessed."

  "I won't al ow it." He'd been vacillating between anger and a frightening, helpless giving up al day.

  "I remember once a very smart man explaining to me that there are things we can't control in life, but that we still have to live. As I recall, he hauled me out of bed and forced me to clean strangers'

  bathrooms."

  "This is different."

  "Every single challenge we've ever met in this life has been different from all the others. But one thin
g remains the same and it's the one thing that sees us through every time."

  His eyes were moist with unshed tears as he turned to face me, the lines around his mouth, his eyes, more pronounced than I'd ever seen them. That night, for the first time, he looked old to me.

  "Our love," he final y said.

  I nodded, and swal owed the lump in my throat. "Please play for me."

  He started slowly, as though exploring the keys for the first time, running his fingers along the cracked edges, picking out a note, then two. Tears fell from my eyes as I watched him, knowing he was thinking about a time when he'd no longer remember how to make music.

  I couldn't think about what was to come. Doing that would prevent me from getting through the next days and months.

  Nate played for hours that night and I sat right beside him on that hard bench, wondering if he knew that he'd played "My Cup Runneth Over" four times.

  I spent every moment with Nate after that. He could live to be a hundred—his doctor said he still had the body of a much younger man—but I had no idea how long he'd be with me in the ways that mattered. The kids came home every weekend and we'd have big dinners and singalongs at the piano.

  And at night, after making love to me—sometimes desperately—Nate would talk about the future.

  And the past. About life. We'd cry some. Mostly I held him and told him I'd store everything in my mind for both of us. Even when he was no longer conscious of them, his memories would always be safe with me.

  In early 2007 Nate got a bladder infection. He was hospitalized due to a high fever, and two days later his doctor told me that Nate's body was shutting down. One by one, his organs were stopping.

  They said the infection had spread.

  They gave him a day, two at the most.

  I'd never heard of anyone dying of a bladder infection.

  Stunned, existing in a cocoon of disbelief, I called my children. And then I sat.

  At fifty-eight, I was not ready to face a future without him.

  * * *

  I'm sitting beside Nate's bed now, holding his hand. He's sleeping peacefully, or perhaps he's slipped into the coma that wil eventually take him. He hasn't opened his eyes in more than twenty-four hours. I haven't let go of his hand, either, except to go to the bathroom once in a while. When my eyes get too weary, I lean forward and lay my head on his stomach; while I drift into sleep, I can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing.