The Love We Keep

by Toni Blake

  Carefully, Zack began, “Mind if I ask you one more thing?”

  She did, actually. But wanted him to think she was better with this than she was. “Sure.”

  “How the hell did you end up being a florist after all that?”

  Despite herself, she laughed. At last, something she truly didn’t mind discussing. “I had just given my notice at the nursing home when Cal died. I’d been trying to figure out what I wanted to do next in nursing—but after that, I decided to try something entirely new.

  “I didn’t have a mom growing up,” she explained, “but I used to plant flowers with my grandma when I was little, and she taught me about flowers and trees. I always had a green thumb, always had a beautiful yard and flower gardens wherever I lived. So I decided to open a flower shop and spend my energy giving things life—rather than focusing on pain and death. I just wanted to bring more beauty into the world. It wasn’t the same sort of giving Cal was dedicated to, but... I needed to start nurturing my soul instead of everyone else’s.”

  It almost embarrassed her. I used to really help people—now I sell flowers. It felt like more than that, of course, when her fingers were in the soil, when a shoot broke through the dirt, when a bloom opened its petals. But in terms of helping humanity, it sounded pretty weak.

  “And that’s okay, you know,” Zack said.

  Her chest tightened slightly in surprise. Zack Sheppard, of all people, understood everything she was saying and feeling. Zack Sheppard, of all people, was absolving her. “Thank you.”

  “How’d you end up here, though?” he asked. “On Summer Island.”

  She let out a sigh. “Back home in Indy, it all just felt...too close. I heard from Cal’s colleagues all the time. They called to check on me, or invite me places, or they came in to buy flowers. Which was wonderful of them—but just a constant reminder that he...wasn’t...anymore. I guess I just wanted a new start someplace where people didn’t know about my baggage. Maybe I wanted to hibernate.”

  He offered a sardonic shrug. “If you want to hibernate in winter, you came to the right place.”

  Until my best friend’s ex moves in with a leg that doesn’t work anymore. She didn’t say that, of course. He was being...well, maybe the kindest he’d ever been to her. He’d set a pretty low bar, but still—this situation wasn’t his fault. When it had happened, after all, he’d been hibernating, too. Trying to get over Meg.

  That was when it hit her—she and Zack actually had something in common. They were both hibernators. She tried to ignore the irony that they were stuck together now, both on forced hiatus from their chosen hibernation.

  “How did you get to Summer Island?” she asked.

  “Dahlia,” he answered simply.

  “I already know that part.” She raised her eyebrows. “I was looking for more than the one-word version.”

  “There’s not one really,” he said. “Everybody’s gotta be somewhere. Dahlia moved here around the time I started fishing—it’s a good enough home base when I’m not on the water.”

  Then he stiffened, clearly remembering that he wouldn’t be on the water anymore, that everything had changed. Her heart broke a little for him all over again—since she’d just realized one more thing they had in common: knowing how it felt when the life you knew suddenly vanished.

  But rather than let him worry about an uncertain and surely challenging future, maybe it would be easier for him to focus on the past. “What about the rest of your family?” she asked.

  She knew from Meg that Zack’s childhood had been rough, but Meg had never learned more—because Zack wouldn’t tell her. She’d gleaned only that he’d named his boat after a little sister who had died. His unwillingness to open up had been another big ingredient in their breakup.

  “No other family,” he replied—but that quickly she could see it, an invisible little wall he’d tossed up. His face had changed, his countenance gone darker, his expression more blank.

  Yet Suzanne wasn’t asking him to open up—she was just trying to make conversation, get a few more facts about her patient. “Relax,” she said. “I wasn’t digging for your deep, dark secrets—I was just curious why Dahlia ended up with your ever-so-pleasant company. But you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  “Good, I won’t.”

  “Even if I just spilled my guts to you about my greatest loss and greatest challenges.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t exactly twist your arm.”

  “You asked, though. So I answered. I thought we were...becoming friends or something. But maybe I thought too soon,” she said, annoyed.

  At this, he tilted his head, appeared to be thinking through how to answer. Given that communicating with Zack often felt like a game of chess, she waited to see his next move.

  “Let’s just say I don’t like to talk about myself,” he informed her. Not exactly a newsflash.

  “But you expect other people to talk about themselves.”

  Another shrug. “Most people like to. Most people don’t notice if other people don’t.”

  Yes, she’d observed that, too. But explained, “For the record, I don’t especially like to. Since we’re stuck here in close quarters, however, I thought it might be nice if we learned more about each other. And...maybe I thought it was nice that you cared enough to ask.”

  Another quiet pause from him, clearly plotting that next move. “Well, I guess it’s nice that you asked, too—but my life story’s not that interesting. Not a lot to say.”

  She didn’t buy that for a second. She knew he’d left home at sixteen and had been on his own ever since. She knew that when he wasn’t busy hibernating here in winter, he was, in effect, hibernating on that fishing boat all summer. And he’d had that little sister who died. There were definitely stories there, and not boring ones. “Try me,” she said with a soft, daring grin.

  In response, the corners of his eyes crinkled and he let out a light laugh. Huh—turned out his eyes sparkled, too, just like Cal’s. She’d simply never seen him smile enough to witness it, and for some reason that unexpected sparkle hit her right in the solar plexus.

  “Nice try, Suzie Q,” he said, “but I’ll pass.”

  She let out a light hmmf. “Fine. See if I tell you anything else.”

  He pressed an over-dramatic hand to his heart, looking almost playful. “I’m shattered. Not sure how I’ll go on.”

  This earned him a sideways glance. “You’re a smart-ass, too.”

  He glanced toward the kitchen. “This smart-ass is wondering what’s for lunch.”

  Ah, the old change-the-subject chess move—she knew it well as she’d used it plenty of times herself. Airily, she replied, “Gruel. I’d been planning on hot ham and cheese hoagies with some soup, but now I’m thinking you’ve earned gruel.”

  Which earned her another laugh. “I’m not worried. Know why? You’re too dedicated to the nurse gig.” Then he narrowed his gaze on her. “When you’re not torturing me with your damn exercises, that is.”

  “Hmm—maybe I should keep adding new exercises until you get better at talking about yourself.”

  He lowered his chin. “Are you threatening me?”

  She pushed up from the chair and walked toward the kitchen, not bothering to look at him as she replied, “Threat, promise—whatev.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To make the gruel.”

  * * *

  DAHLIA LEANED BACK in her Adirondack chair and took in the splendor of a neon sunset. “So much orange in this one,” she observed to Giselle. “I’m not generally a great fan of the color, but in a sunset, it can be so electric. This is why I could never be an atheist.”

  Giselle drew her focus from the sunset to Dahlia. “Because of orange?”

  Dahlia laughed. “No—because the world is too marvelous f
or it to be an accident. This single sunset is too marvelous to be an accident.” Only now did she pull her eyes from swaths of orange, gold, and purple to look at her friend. “We’ve never discussed your belief system—and maybe I shouldn’t ask, but...” She held up the drink in her hand, a nearly empty rum runner. “Inhibitions are down, you know.”

  Giselle released a soft laugh. “I don’t mind. And I agree about sunsets and accidents being two very different things. I believe in God. And angels.”

  “Angels,” Dahlia repeated, tilting her head just slightly. “Now there’s a thought I like.”

  Encouraged, Giselle went on. “I believe they’re with us all the time.”

  “Well then,” Dahlia said with a sharp, short nod, “I think I shall start keeping an eye out for angels every day.” She lifted her drink again. “And if I keep imbibing these delicious cocktails, I might just start seeing some.”

  Giselle chuckled once more, sipping on her own drink. “What shall we do this evening? Board games?” They’d played a few recently. Dahlia had long meant to start hosting game nights for her friends and not gotten around to it, but had begun the habit with Giselle.

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “There’s some writing I’ve been wanting to do and I thought I might start tonight—but it can wait until tomorrow. Perhaps my thoughts will be smartly guided when looking out on a clear blue sky, listening to the caws of the seagulls.”

  “Board games it is then. Do you mind if I shower first and change into pajamas?”

  “Not at all. I’ll still be here.”

  “What are you going to write?” Giselle asked absently, pushing to her feet.

  “Some letters, sparked by old memories.”

  “I’ll admit I’m curious about your memories, your life before I knew you,” Giselle said, ponytail bouncing behind her.

  Dahlia let out a sly chuckle. “There are some good stories, I confess. Did you know I left home at sixteen? Zack and I have that in common.”

  She glanced up at her friend again, who’d gone wide-eyed. “I had no idea.”

  “It was quite different, of course. He ran away and got a job on a fishing boat. I headed west, hitchhiking—back before that was considered crazy—and ended up in a VW bus with a bunch of other kids.”

  “Wow. That sounds amazing. And...trippy,” Giselle said, appearing amused to find the perfect word for the hippie-dippie visions Dahlia had clearly just put in her head. “Maybe you’ll tell me about it as we play games.”

  “Gladly,” Dahlia promised, and as Giselle departed let out a contented sigh. “I’ll just soak up my sunset until you get back.”

  She’d found that with age, memories grew dimmer and less exact. They became, over time, more like images, flashes and blips, particular feelings—but that the words spoken and the details that went with them got lost in the busy synapses of an active brain.

  By the same token, however, she had lately discovered that the more she sat quietly, sinking into recollections, the more that came back to her. She’d always thought it seemed silly when a detective on a TV police drama said to someone, “Let us know if you remember anything else.” Because either you remember or you don’t. But memory, it turned out, was a lot more of an elastic thing than she’d understood: stretch it and it grows.

  * * *

  DAHLIA’S SUITCASE GREW heavier with every step along the pockmarked, sun-beaten road just west of Toledo on a hot July day. At the sound of a vehicle approaching behind her, she hiked her thumb upward but didn’t bother to look, assuming it would pass by like the last ten.

  When a pale green VW van sprinkled with flower decals pulled over in front of her, gravel crunched and her heartbeat quickened. The side door slid open, the lyrics to “Mrs. Robinson” spilling sloppily out, and she realized everyone inside was singing. A boy with dark, curly hair that hung to his shoulders said, “Where ya headed?”

  Simple question. The sort of question that should have an answer. But for the first time she realized, “I have no idea.”

  The boy laughed. “Well, if you think Montana might be on the way there, climb in.”

  Montana. It sounded a world away from Michigan. Like a romantic place with sweeping vistas and lots of room to...just be. Like a place with no yelling or slapping or locked doors. She answered by tossing her suitcase inside and taking the boy’s hand, letting him help her up into the van.

  “I’m Dobie,” he said, then pointed at the driver, a guy in the passenger seat, and two girls in back behind them. “That’s Mulligan, Pete, Linda, and Renata.”

  She held up a hand. “I’m Dahlia.”

  “Cool name,” Linda said. And Dahlia smiled. Her mother hadn’t given her much, but a cool name was at least something.

  “Mully’s aunt owns a horse ranch north of Bozeman,” Dobie said. “Her husband died and she needs help running the place. Room, board, and wages for anybody who wants it.”

  Dahlia let her eyes widen. “Oh, so you’re all going to work on the ranch?”

  “I am for sure,” the driver, Mulligan, said. He possessed a ruddy complexion and a fuzzy head of reddish-blond hair. “Dobie’s just biding his time, seeing which way the wind blows him when we get there. We’re from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.”

  The girl named Renata spoke up then. “I’m heading to Oregon—got a friend there. But I’m not in a hurry—if I find someplace I dig on the way, I might hang loose awhile. These guys picked me up near Pittsburgh.” She had slick black hair, heart-shaped sunglasses, and a cool confidence Dahlia immediately envied.

  Then Linda, a girl with long, straight, silky brown locks, chimed in, “I might try the ranch gig.” She shrugged, like she was deciding what to have for breakfast—as opposed to planning her immediate future. “Just needed a new scene.”

  Dahlia thought Pete, the cute guy in the passenger seat, would weigh in, but he stayed quiet, seeming disinterested. And meanwhile, Dahlia tried not to feel overwhelmed. This was only the second ride she’d gotten since leaving home early this morning—the first from a nice girl in her twenties in a purple Firebird just outside Saginaw going to visit her mother in Toledo. She’d seemed worried for Dahlia the whole while. This crowd was more easygoing, somehow making her feel at home and slightly nervous at the same time. They all seemed so...comfortable in their uncertainty. She would have to learn to be the same.

  “You seem young,” Dobie observed.

  She bit her lip—then tossed a wave of long blond hair over her shoulder, trying to mirror the confidence of Renata. “Is my age important?” They all looked a little older than her—eighteen or nineteen maybe.

  “Guess not—you seem groovy enough.” Then he reached in a cooler and held out a cold bottle of Coca-Cola. “Thirsty?”

  “Sure,” she said, still working to be hip, confident—but in fact, she’d been almost woozy from the heat by the time the van had stopped.

  She quickly learned the van lacked a working radio, hence the singing she’d heard when the door opened. Linda seemed to be the song leader—by virtue, perhaps, of being the only one who cared enough to orchestrate the music. “How about ‘Sweet Caroline’?” she suggested as the van headed west toward Indiana.

  As time passed, they sang “California Dreamin’,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Good Morning Starshine,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” and “Woodstock”—but the last one became a laughter-scattered drone of missed notes and lyrics no one really yet knew.

  Her travel companions were all friendly, sharing food and drinks—and pot. Dahlia had never had any before, but when Dobie passed her a joint that night as they crossed northern Indiana, she tried it. Because she wanted to be one of them. And she was curious. And on her own now, so she could make whatever decisions she wanted.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Pete said, turning all the way around from the front seat. It was the first time he’d acknowledged h
er since she’d climbed in the van hours earlier.

  “I know,” she said, still trying to be tough, cool. But then she looked at him. Her first impression had been right—he was cute. With dreamy blue Robert Redford eyes and thick, sandy John Denver hair.

  That was all it took. A handsome boy who expressed concern over her well-being when no one else ever really had. She passed the pot on to the next person and didn’t take it the next time it was offered. She had gone in the flash of an eye from wanting to fit in to wanting to impress the blue-eyed boy in the front seat by showing him she didn’t have to. And turned out that felt better anyway.

  Later that night, the van stopped along a desolate Illinois side road. Dobie played a guitar—badly—while the others roasted hot dogs over a small campfire. Pete told Dahlia he was from Pennsylvania and didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a steel mill alongside his father and brothers. “So I’m setting out, looking to see what else I can find. What’s your story, Starshine?” He’d been calling her that ever since they’d sung the song earlier.

  “Things are bad at home,” she said, keeping it simple. “So I want to see what else is out there for me, too.”

  “Maybe we’ll see together for a while,” he said, and as if to seal the deal, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips. Her first kiss. Because she’d led a life of fear up until this moment. Fear of her mother, who slapped her every time she “smarted off.” Fear of men, because so many of them had leered at her like she was a woman when she’d only been a little girl. Fear of the world, because the small bits she’d seen hadn’t looked too promising so far.

  Three months later, she married Pete in the company of new friends, on the Bar J ranch in Montana, with daisies in her hair. She wore a white cotton halter dress, carried wildflowers, and stood barefoot in the grass to connect with Mother Earth as she took her vows. With Pete, life was full of new hopes, new possibilities, new passions. It held so much more than she’d ever imagined back home in a dumpy little house with a violent mother and an angry sister.