by Aria Ford
“Mm.” I agreed. “Still the same place?”
“Sure!” He sounded optimistic. I thought it was rather optimistic—the pub he’d selected, the Green Mill, was famous for its outdoor area—but didn’t mention it.
“See you in a bit.”
“Awesome. See you then. Bye.”
I hung up and, stretching, went to get changed. The day had helped to clear my head and I was ready for anything. As I drove into town I found myself wondering whether my friend could shed any light on my troubles.
I walked into the bar to find him sitting at our usual table at the back. He looked up and grinned when he saw me.
“Hey! Long time since I saw you!” He stood and shook my hand. His weather beaten, lean face lit up and I found myself feeling much better now that I’d met up with someone so readily familiar.
“Hey,” I agreed, squeezing his hand. “It’s been too long.”
“Sure has,” he agreed, stretching. We sat in the back, him on the bench and me on the chair opposite. The outdoor area was empty, and the customers all packed into the space enclosed by walls. Outside, I could almost smell the rain, the way it soaked into the parched ground with that sweet, refreshing smell.
“What’re you up to?” I asked as I checked through the menu. I wasn’t particularly hungry but if we were going to drink I might like something to help with the extra alcohol. My poor head still swam uncertainly from last night.
“Oh, not a lot,” he said. “Catching up with work…the usual. How about you?”
I shrugged. Jackson was an accountant. He had been since before he joined and he’d originally been in logistics before deciding to see action. With his tanned, lined face and long black hair, he didn’t look like my imagination’s version of an accountant.
I frowned, wondering what Kelly did for a living. The thought made me smile and Jackson laughed.
“What’s up?” he asked. “You look like you’re having quite a thought.”
I felt my cheeks warm and abruptly shook my head. “Nothing, really.”
“Okay,” he shrugged. “Well, this beats adding up company tax returns,” he sighed as the waiter came around. We placed our orders.
Laughing, I nodded. “I can imagine. I’m glad I’m not the one who does that. Though,” I paused, thinking, “maybe you could do mine. When I get into production, that is.”
“You mean, with the ranch? How’s it looking?”
I shrugged. “Pretty much like a few hectares of dirt.”
He chuckled. “It’s not dirt, my friend. It’s possibility.”
“Ever the optimist,” I teased him. Our drinks arrived and I thanked the waiter, especially as he brought the platter of eats we’d ordered too.
“Well, why not?” he chuckled, taking some peanuts to chew. “I dunno that I’d want to do it myself, mind—but farming’s massive business.”
“It can be,” I agreed, taking a sip of my drink contemplatively. I decided I’d take it easy with the beers today. “Depends.”
“That’s what Skyler said,” he nodded. Skyler was his partner—he’d met her during leave in his last year of service and they’d moved in together shortly after he’d got back. I envied him that, though at the time I’d thought he was crazy to do it, imagining everyone as damaged as myself.
“She doesn’t like the idea of farming?” I frowned.
“Mm. She doesn’t much like the idea of risks generally.” He sighed. “Not that I blame her, mind. If I was thinking about babies and stuff, I’d want a stable future.”
I stared at him. “You’re thinking about babies and things?”
He blushed. “Well actually, yeah.”
“Jackson!” I grinned. “Man! That’s amazing.”
He blushed. “I think everyone knows now too,” he added, inclining his head toward the restaurant where a few heads turned to us. I waved a hand dismissively.
“Ach, don’t mind them. They’ll forget that in three seconds. Jackson! Hell.” I was surprised.
He was shaking his head now, laughing about my enthused response. “You’d think no one’d ever done it before. Make babies, I mean.” He laughed.
“I know,” I said, lowering my voice. I looked at my hands, considering it. “I guess I never thought about it. I mean…the possibility of someone starting a family after…that.”
He nodded. He studied the salt spilled by his beer mat, moving it about. He was clearly lost in thought too. I knew he got what I meant: after all that destruction, all those deaths, the likelihood of something simple and innocent and precious seemed locked out of one’s life.
“I guess I just decided it was possible,” he said after a while. “I mean, Skyler never thought it wasn’t, and she kinda convinced me it was. And now I have, like, this idea in my mind. Me, her, the kid…I want that stability.”
I let out my breath in a long sigh. It would be a place of stability. Enviable stability. It was a possibility I’d never even accepted as possible.
“I get that,” I replied.
My life had never been what I’d call stable—my childhood had been far from that, with my loveable but unreliable father, addicted to alcohol, and my stressed and silent mother. I think I’d left the home early just to get out of that. Army life was predictable. The only kind of stability I could believe in.
I coughed. “Well, that sounds like a great future,” I said awkwardly. It seemed like one to me. A stable, happy future, filled with love. I felt almost that I could envy that.
“I hope so,” he said with a small smile. “But hey! One day at a time, right? I’m excited to start.”
I chuckled. “You always were an optimist, Jackson.”
“Mm.” He took a sip of his beer. “Enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, this place would have gotten a new playlist. I know which song follows on from which by heart now. You?”
I paused, listening. Over the din of talk I could just hear “Best of the 80’s,” still playing. I nodded, laughing.
“Just now, Depeche Mode is going to come on.”
He hit the table, laughing. We both laughed until the other customers looked at us oddly. It felt good.
I enjoyed my afternoon with him. It was only when I was driving home again that I started to think about my future again.
What would it be like to be like him? To know that there was stability, and love, in your future?
I smiled. It was a future that was almost too good. I imagined what it might feel like to hold a child in my arms. My child. It was a possibility I had to admit I’d never considered before. When I imagined it, it was all hazy except for one thing. I had a sense of the ragged, raw and overpowering love I would feel for something as small and helpless, as precious, as my child.
I wonder if I’ll ever feel it?
I shook myself, harshly, trying to shake the feeling of wistfulness that overwhelmed me. I focused on the rain on the window, on the beat of the windshield wipers, on the road ahead.
I wasn’t going to wonder about that. I was living out here, on a ranch where no sensible person would want to live besides me. I had a plan to make money out of it; a plan I should focus on. Firmly shutting the door on that wistfulness, I turned on the radio and tried to tune out my mind.
It was Depeche Mode.
I swore and then laughed and let the soundtrack carry me back to the present and the gritty humor of life and away from the wounding and wonderful possibilities of anything else. I was not going to focus on that stuff. Not now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kelly
I sat down in the chair in the doctor’s office, feeling my legs go weak.
“Thank you for telling me,” I managed to say at last. Doctor Marsden looked at his hands.
“I wish I didn’t have to give you such serious news,” he said. “Though, we must be optimistic about it.”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
He was quiet for a long moment and then he cleared his throat. “Well, then. If you can go
through the papers and sign, we can proceed.”
I nodded numbly. Since Grandfather had come into the hospital, his condition had taken a turn for the worse. Even with the diuretics, the fluid on his chest wouldn’t drain. The doctor said they needed to operate if he had a chance of survival. I had to sign to agree to it, since Grandpa was unconscious right now.
I sat looking down at the paper for a long while. Of course I was going to sign it—there was no money in the world worth a human life. I signed.
“Thank you.” Doctor Marsden inclined his head. “Do you want to sit with him for a bit before he goes in? We’re still getting ready to operate.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Please.”
I went through to the ward behind him. Grandpa was on the bed, face pale, breathing labored. A drip went into his wrist and a catheter left his body, carrying away the fluid that would have slowly choked the life from him. I sat by his side.
“Grandpa,” I said quietly. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for what you told me last night, and for being such a great example to me. For showing me the meaning of real strength and care.” I could hear my voice wobble as I spoke and I ignored it. I didn’t care what anyone thought at this point. The nurses hovered somewhere at the edge of ICU and a monitor flashed blindly, recording markers of a life whose value it could never understand.
“Grandpa,” I whispered. “I know you’ll come through this. Of course you will. We’ll sit and laugh about this on the terrace one day, when you’re better…Grandpa? I love you.”
I looked at my hands, my words said. I drew in a big shuddery breath and stood.
“There,” I said to the nurse, who had come over, a worried smile on her face. “I said what I wanted to say to him,” I said softly. “I can go.”
She nodded. “We’ll inform you the moment he’s out of theater, Ms. Gowan.”
“Thanks.”
I nodded and walked out of the room, down the hallway that smelled of disinfectant and coldness and the impersonal smell of fresh laundry. I felt as if I was tearing something inside of myself as I walked through those doors and out into the hallway. I couldn’t see through eyes blinded with tears.
I nodded to the doctor and then walked out, heading for the front doors.
When I got to my car, I sat behind the wheel and just looked out. The town was wet with rain, the smell fresh and relaxing. But I felt numb.
I knew that Grandpa could survive this operation. I knew he probably would. But facing the possibility—however small it might be—that he wouldn’t was too hard.
I have never had to think about this before.
As I drove away, back to my hotel, I realized how many different ways people live with the idea of death. Most of us never think about it until moments like these when a loved one faces death. In the army, Reese had faced it every day. His own death. The death of his comrades.
I will never know what that feels like. This is different. It’s my grandfather.
In one way, it made it worse—he had been in my life since I was born, a mentor and caring presence all my life. In another way, I had always known, I guess, that he would predecease me. More horrible but less surprising. Whatever.
I got out at the hotel and walked upstairs to my room. I sat down on the chair, feeling no real desire to do anything. I felt hollow, as if all the mechanism that drove me to do things had temporarily become absent. I shook myself and stood. I would do something—doing things would make me forget.
“You should go to the farm.”
It was my last day here tomorrow. I should finish the things I needed to finish. I wanted to get the place clean for when Grandpa came out. I had to try and organize care for him, someone to get him home from the hospital when he came out. I wouldn’t be there.
The parson and his family?
Good, honest people, they seemed the sort I could trust. I knew Grandfather went to the Methodist church and I was fairly sure there was only one in this town. I would find the parson and get hold of him. That solves that problem. I did think of Reese, but decided it would be better not to involve him. Better someone that Grandpa knew and trusted—he wouldn’t feel comfortable with a stranger helping him.
“Right. What to do?”
I started packing my own suitcase, going through a mental checklist as I did so. Action kept me from thinking about the big hole that had opened inside me.
As I separated my clean laundry from the dirty, and repacked my suitcase accordingly, I fished out a box of Tampax. That made me frown. Heck. Wasn’t I supposed to start my period today?
I was usually regular, but so far there was no sign of it, not even the slight twinge in my abdomen that I still got that preceded it. I shook my head, impatient.
Probably the stress. Give it a few days. You’ve been traveling. It wouldn’t be the first time a trip had thrown my cycle out by a couple days. I stuffed the Tampax into my bag on the side and carried on my ruthless tidying up.
When I had tidied the room, I took my bigger suitcase down and put it in the car. Then I drove to the farm. My vision blurred and I blinked impatiently and kept going. Almost there.
I jumped out and went briskly up the path and into the kitchen. I looked around. The place was considerably tidier than when I’d arrived, the larder stocked with enough long-lasting produce to keep Grandpa going for a couple weeks. I went through to the bathroom and used up all my energy mercilessly cleaning it.
By the time I was done, I was hot and sweaty and mad.
“How many years ago was it that place was cleaned?” I said to myself. Getting angry was helping to raise my energy and I kept at it, taking out the carpet to beat it on the terrace outside. I coughed as the dust blew back into my face and, coughing and swearing, hauled it in.
I went to his bedroom and changed the sheets, carrying the dirty ones through to the kitchen and wrestling with the washing machine.
After a few hours, I made myself tea and assessed the situation. Every room looked clean. The window that was stuck I’d oiled and drawn shut. There was a new light bulb in the pantry. The only things I hadn’t fixed were things I couldn’t fix.
“Not bad.”
I sat and drank my tea and did my best not to think about anything. For that, a phone was a great distraction. I pulled mine out of my pocket and was surprised to see it was six o’ clock. Two messages waited for me.
One was from Miller, just checking I was okay. I replied quickly.
The other was Reese. I sighed. What could I say? I had more or less said my goodbye this morning. I would spend most of the day with Grandpa tomorrow if I could, and in getting my accounts and things paid and settled so I could leave. And I still need to get hold of the parson.
I didn’t have time for a visit—not time or energy, not now. I sighed.
I went to the window in the sitting room and looked out over the terrace to my right. I could just see the farmhouse next door.
“Goodbye,” I whispered.
Then, blinking back tears, I turned and went out of the room.
I cried all the way to the hotel.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Reese
When I hadn’t heard anything from Kelly by nine pm I started worrying. It was unlike her, I told myself, to say nothing.
What if something happened to her?
I shook my head, impatient. It was none of my business, after all. Who did I think I was, her policeman? She could come and go as she wanted.
All the same, as I made myself dinner and tried desperately to relax and forget about Kelly, I found myself pacing restlessly.
I caught myself on the third circuit of the kitchen and made myself sit down. For crying out…I really must just let this go. It was driving me crazy.
I finished cooking dinner and sat down at my place at the table. As I sat there, calmly peppering my stew—one of the few main courses I cook well—I found myself thinking about the fact that, a short while before, not even a day ago, she�
��d been here.
I recalled in detail what it felt like to look up and see her smiling at me across the table. How it felt to laugh with her and how it was to kiss her.
“This is ridiculous!”
The hole inside me was aching now and I stood, heading to the refrigerator, to find beer or something to dull the ache. I took it out and looked at it. Put it back.
Somehow, after last night’s excesses, the beer didn’t appeal. Besides, for all my loneliness, I did have friends. And I did have a future. I didn’t need to run away into forgetfulness. Not anymore.
I sat down and finished my dinner. Then, after I’d cleaned up meticulously, packed away dishes, I sat down in the sitting room with my phone in between my hands and stared at it. Lifted it automatically. Called her.
No answer.
I sighed. Maybe she was out for dinner. The possibility of her either chatting to, or actively being with, the Mysterious Boy from earlier was something I actively rejected. I was not going to imagine that. Was not going to think about him and her. He and she doing…the things we had done.
I let out a shudder of a breath and closed my eyes. Then I stood and went through to the bedroom. The bed was fortunately remade, so I didn’t have to look down at it and recall how it was to lie with her on those sheets. How it felt to hold her beside me.
I sat down on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to decide what to do. She wasn’t interested in talking to me, was she? She hadn’t answered my call or my messaging. So was there any point in trying to contact her now?
I don’t do half measures of anything.
I dialed the number and waited.
No answer.
I felt strangely hollow inside. I wasn’t used to this feeling. I set the phone down and went to go take a shower. It was ridiculously early to think about bed, but I was tired. I showered and slipped into bed, hoping that tomorrow everything would become clear.
My dreams were disturbed that night, a jumble of the haunting memories of the war and the strange uncertain worry that something bad had happened to Kelly. And in the mix was Jackson and a baby and a fleeting sense of joy, like the glimpse of a bluebird in khaki-green scrub.
