In This Life

by Cora Brent

  “Ted Foster. The man who just left.”

  “Ah, that’s right. I’d forgotten his name.”

  “He’s one of the little league coaches. He wanted to know if he could count on our support to help sponsor the team in the fall league.”

  “What did you say?”

  Nash grinned. “That the team could count on the Ryan family just as they had for years. I even promised to attend some of the games. Heck, maybe in a few years Colin will be out there playing.”

  “It might be more than a few years,” I laughed. “Considering Colin isn’t crawling quite yet.”

  Betty Carter, long time employee at Hawk Valley Gifts, waved to me with a smile and then approached the two customers to see if they needed assistance.

  “What time are you leaving?” Nash asked.

  “About five. I’ll go pick up Emma as soon as I see my mother.”

  “You didn’t talk to her yet?”

  “No. Everything has happened so fast. But I need to tell her before I go.”

  Only three days ago I drove up to Nash’s house to find him in the middle of a strangely friendly conversation with Harrison Corbett. Harrison left it to Nash to explain why he had been so desperate to contact me. Nothing about the situation was what I’d thought. I felt some sorrow that some of the ugliness could have been avoided if I’d chosen to answer one of Harrison’s messages. I’d been afraid and I’d allowed that fear to rule me.

  But now that I knew there was precious little time to waste. Down in Phoenix a dying woman was eagerly waiting to meet her little granddaughter. Harrison himself had been downright congenial when I called him after speaking to Nash. He thanked me profusely and offered to make himself scarce during the visit if his presence made me uncomfortable. I told him that wasn’t necessary. I didn’t expect he’d try anything funny in front of his dying mother. These people were Emma’s family. If they were good people who would love her then I had no right to keep them out of her life.

  So tonight my daughter and I were leaving Hawk Valley for a little while. Emma was excited when I told her this morning we were going away overnight. She’d never been to Phoenix and asked if we could get a pet rattlesnake. The plan was to drive down there tonight, stay in a hotel and then tomorrow spend the day with Randall’s mother. We’d return home tomorrow night.

  But before we left I owed my mother an explanation. I owed her the whole story that I should have told her four years ago.

  “I wish you’d let me come with you to Phoenix,” Nash said and I loved him for wanting to be there. I loved him for a lot of things. I’d tell him. Soon. Even if he didn’t love me back I wouldn’t be sorry for telling him.

  “Emma and I will be just fine,” I said. “You have your hands full with that sweet baby.”

  Nash checked his watch. “I told Nancy I’d be picking him up early today. We’re planning a crazy night of eating pureed bananas and watching cartoons.”

  “I’m jealous.”

  I noticed one of the women was buying a painting. The other carried a basket full of carefully chosen souvenirs that I heard her say were ‘for the grandkids’.

  “I was going over the sales receipts from the last month,” I said. “Looks like business is really picking up.”

  “Just like you said it would in the summer,” Nash reminded me.

  I reached for his hand. We hadn’t yet discussed an official change in status but we weren’t keeping things under wraps any longer. “So I’ll call you when I get to the hotel tonight?”

  “You’d better. I’ll be waiting.”

  I kissed him. It was supposed to be a quick peck but Nash didn’t let me go and turned it into the kind of kiss that left me breathless. When we came up for air Betty and the two customers were staring at us.

  “Oh my,” one of the women said and cooled her flushed face with a Hawk Valley folding fan.

  That kiss left me feeling a bit woozy but I managed to stumble out the door with a smile that didn’t want to leave my face.

  An hour later I wasn’t smiling anymore. I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen, twisting my hands together as I awaited her reaction to the things I’d just told her.

  “Why?” she asked.

  I nervously tried to make a joke. “You sound like Emma.”

  My mother’s brows knitted together. “Why did you ever try to hide something so important?”

  I heaved a sigh and sorted through my memories to find the scared girl who’d come home four years ago with no prospects and carrying the child of a dead man in her belly.

  “It was bad enough that I’d dropped out of school and was having a baby at nineteen. The fact that Randall was the father just made the situation harder to deal with. I was in pain and so horribly disappointed in myself. I couldn’t handle the disappointment of others on top of that, especially yours.” I swallowed. “I was a coward.”

  “Kathleen Margaret.” My mother’s voice rose. “One thing you have never been is a coward.”

  A tear fell down my cheek. It seemed I wasn’t quite finished getting them all out yet.

  My mother gazed at me and I wondered what she thought of this person crying in her kitchen, her only child. Other than our auburn hair and our affection for black coffee we had little in common. She’d worked her fingers to the bone for thirty years at the post office before retiring last spring. I’d never seen her read a book or even pick up a newspaper. She was very outgoing with a long list of friends, always active in a variety of charities. But, like me, she understood heartbreak. She’d suffered her own trials in the love arena with three failed marriages and a succession of inadequate boyfriends.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I said, calling her a name I hadn’t called her since I was a little girl not much older than Emma. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”

  “Oh Kat.” Now her green eyes were watery. “I’d forgive you for anything.” She got out of her chair and collected me in her arms. “You’re my baby, Kathleen. The love of my life. Don’t you know that?”

  Crying in my mother’s arms while she stroked my hair felt childish and restorative at the same time. I was twenty-three with a child of my own but instantly I could recall being five and refusing to go back to sleep after a nightmare unless my mother stayed in my bed with me. And she did. She hummed a song that nowadays I sing to Emma and to Colin and that night she stayed with me long after I fell asleep.

  Once my therapeutic sob fest was finished, my mother questioned my plans to drive down to Phoenix.

  “Are you sure these people are trustworthy?” she asked. “I don’t think you and Emma should go alone. I can go with you.”

  “Nash already offered to be our personal escort,” I said. “But no thank you. I need to bring Emma down there by myself.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said and I could tell she was trying to weigh her words and avoid saying the wrong thing.

  “I’m sure.”

  She watched me. “I saw Nash yesterday. I was passing by the store and hadn’t been inside for a while so I took a look around. He was folding t-shirts. Folding them incorrectly I might add.”

  I grinned. “But I bet he looked great doing it.”

  She smirked. “I never said he wasn’t easy on the eyes.”

  “He’s a good guy, Mom. I swear.”

  She nodded. “All right. If you say so then I’m sure it’s true. I trust you, Kathleen.”

  As I left my mother’s house and went to go pick up my daughter I felt like a new chapter in my life was beginning. There was still one more big topic to sort out but it would have to wait. I was nervous because I didn’t know what the outcome would be. In the beginning I’d promised Nash Ryan friendship and no hassles, no complications.

  I couldn’t keep that promise anymore.

  I just didn’t know if he wanted the same things I did.

  I debated whether or not to bring Colin with me. I could have found someone to watch him for a few hours. But in the end I decided
to pack up the diaper bag and bring him along. Today’s journey belonged to him as much as it belonged to me. He had a right to be there.

  Car rides usually lulled Colin to sleep and sure enough he was knocked out less than ten minutes into the drive. I turned the radio down to low volume and piloted the mini van up the winding roads that led deep into the mountains.

  Years had passed since I’d been up here but I still knew the route by heart. Some of the hairpin turns were a little harrowing but there was no one else on the road. We were still a few miles away from the cabin when blackened vegetation began to appear on both sides of the road, a reminder of what had happened up here in the not too distant past.

  There was something eerie and unnatural about the giant charred trees flanking the asphalt. This pocket of the world had always been lush and green and would be again someday. But it would take awhile.

  I passed the turnoff to the small lake where my dad and I had spent our disastrous fishing excursions. I hoped it had been spared the devastation that rocketed through here on a night of high winds and brutal destiny.

  Here and there were private unpaved lanes that meandered off the main road and led to rustic mountain homes. There were people who lived up here year round but not many and none of them were in the zone where the fire swept through with such ferocity. There was only one tragic story from that night and I was about to confront it.

  My stomach clenched when I came to the turnoff. I pulled off to the side and idled at the mouth of the dirt road leading to the two bedroom cabin that had been in my family for fifty years. The tall pines that had once stood proudly along the half mile corridor leading to the cabin were now singed husks. I wondered if this had been a mistake. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to gain by coming up here.

  “In these parts you’ve always got to pay attention to the fire warnings, Nash. Take the No Burn days seriously and get the hell out of Dodge the minute you smell smoke.”

  Forest fires weren’t that unusual in the mountains. On average there’d be a notable one about once every four or five years. Fatalities were uncommon. Typically there was a warning with enough time to escape the fire.

  I turned up the road, unsure of what I’d find at the end of it. Kevin Reston had said the cabin was unsalvageable, just a burned out pile of logs. Steve Brown told me about some insurance on the place but I just told him to do what he needed to do and not bug me about it.

  The damage was worse around here. This must have been where the fire had reached its peak before the combined efforts of fire crews and full rain clouds put an end to its ferocity. I hated to think of the two of them in the middle of it, their final moments of terror, their agonized thoughts of the baby boy they were leaving behind.

  Someone had been here recently to pay their respects. A friend most likely. Chris and Heather Ryan had so many friends. There was a fresh floral arrangement in the middle of all the devastation, a spot of bright pink among the ruins. The cabin itself was unrecognizable. It looked like someone had taken a pile of Lincoln Logs, scorched them in a barbecue and haphazardly rearranged them in the dirt. My father’s truck had been towed out of here so there was no sign of where it had been parked but I would bet he’d parked in the same spot he always parked, a small clearing along the west side of the cabin. That’s where they’d been found, beside the truck.

  I opened the windows and cut the engine. There was absolute quiet but somehow it wasn’t horrible. I’d imagined it to be horrible, a thick silence full of death. But this was more peaceful than I’d expected.

  Now that we’d stopped moving, Colin stirred in his car seat. I hopped out and slid open the door to extract him, checking his diaper out of habit. My little brother blinked at the sunlight overhead as I settled him on my hip and grabbed the objects I’d brought along with me. I’d found them in the attic the other day when I was stowing some of the crap I’d brought from Oregon. At first I thought maybe I could used them sometime, when Colin was older. He might like to learn how to fish. But I decided the best idea would be to retire these poles and get new ones. These fishing poles had too much to do with my dad and me. Colin deserved one of his own.

  I set the poles down in the middle of the clearing. One full-sized pole, one child-sized. They looked a little plain there so I plucked one of the pink roses from the flower arrangement and carefully set it on top. I assumed whoever had placed the flowers there wouldn’t mind sharing.

  Colin uttered a few babbling consonants, something he’d been doing lately. I was aware of how much responsibility I had. There was so much to tell him. Of course some pieces of the story he’d never have to know. There were a few parts I would have done over again if I could.

  “Goodbye, Dad,” I whispered, staring down at the fishing poles I’d placed side by side.

  I still wondered about their reasons, why Chris and Heather had chosen me to take care of Colin if they couldn’t.

  “Because he knew you’d rise to the challenge, that you’d love and protect that baby boy. Chris and Heather never doubted you”

  That’s what Kat had said. I just didn’t understand why it was true. What the hell had I ever done to earn this kind of trust from them? I wished there was someone I could ask.

  If Kat were here she’d probably have some fitting words to say at an emotional moment like this. Kat was good at words. She was good at everything that mattered. But Kathleen Doyle’s best talent proved to be awakening my heart in a way that no one else ever had.

  I thought about her down there in Phoenix, bravely facing her own troubled past for the sake of her daughter. I was glad she’d decided to go. I’d be even more glad when she came back. There were things we needed to talk about.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Colin and kissed his cheek before carrying him back to the van.

  The scars on the land would fade but I doubted I’d come back to this particular spot again. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t return to the mountains. Despite what happened I was sure my father would want Colin to know the woods, to have the satisfaction of pulling a fat rainbow trout out of the lake and appreciating how much brighter the stars are in the wilderness. I could show him those things. Maybe Kat and Emma would want to come with us.

  Suddenly there was a plan in my head. Actually, it had been there for a while, right on the fringes. Now all the pieces were falling together and it was time to act. A new beginning could happen. All I needed was a little bit of help to get there.

  I felt far more relaxed on the drive back down the mountain. Even though there was probably some kind of rule in the baby books against it, I took Colin to an ice cream parlor and shared a vanilla cone with him. He freaking loved it, practically gobbled my hand right off while I was holding the thing.

  While we were sitting at the table closest to the window, I spotted my old nemesis Travis Hanson coming down the sidewalk. I’d heard how he’d been arrested last week. The story around town was that one of his employees had pressed assault charges against him. So it seemed that sometimes the wheels of justice turned just as they were supposed to.

  Travis must have sensed someone watching him because he suddenly stopped and raised his head. Our eyes locked and I waved to him on the other side of the glass. He scowled and stalked away. I chuckled to myself and polished off the rest of the ice cream cone.

  Unfortunately we couldn’t hang out and eat ice cream all day because there was too much to do. In the parking lot of the ice cream place I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and considered my options. Asking for help still wasn’t a thing I got excited about.

  I turned around and addressed Colin’s head in his rear facing car seat. “Let’s do this, little man.”

  He belched.

  I grinned. Then I called my aunt.

  “Jane,” I said. “You free today? I was wondering if I could get your help with a few things at the house. And if Kevin’s around it would be great if you could bring him along. Oh, and I don’t have the number for Kathleen’s
mother but if you could call her and ask her to meet us there at the house I’d appreciate it. Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Before I drove home I stopped at the store and bought some moving boxes. I didn’t know how many I’d need but I figured this stack was a good start.

  It was time to move forward. Things would happen. I was determined that from now on they would be only good things.

  “Why does that tree look funny?” Emma asked.

  I smiled when I realized she was pointing to a giant saguaro cactus. She’d never seen one before.

  “It’s a different kind of tree,” I told her. “It’s called a cactus. They only grow in the desert and instead of leaves they have needles.”

  “Is this the desert?”

  We passed a residential neighborhood full of beige houses with tiled roofs. “Yes, honey. Phoenix is part of the desert.”

  “And my second grandma is here?” Emma sounded doubtful.

  “Yes.” The handful of butterflies in my stomach had swollen to a swarm now that we were getting close. I’d texted Harrison before we left the hotel and let him know we were on our way. He said they were eagerly waiting and gave me the gate code for the community.

  I turned into the entrance and pulled up to the keypad to open the gates while feeling a brief stab of déjà vu. I’d been here a few times before, when I was with Harrison. The last time was a Thanksgiving holiday when I sat between Harrison and Randall, laughing at the way they playfully aggravated each other the way brothers did. Mrs. Corbett winked at me from across the table. Her husband had died the year before and I remembered feeling a little melancholy at the thought of her living alone in that big, elegant house.

  And there it was.

  The Corbett home was a sprawling Mediterranean-style building that blended into the upscale neighborhood. I spotted Harrison’s silver Mustang parked out front and felt a surge of anxiety. I hoped I was doing the right thing for Emma. I thought I was.

  They must have been watching through the window, waiting for us to drive up. I held onto Emma’s hand as we walked up the front path and saw the door open. Harrison was there, his arm around the shoulders of a slender woman who looked to be in her late twenties. Her dark skinned beauty was complemented by the bright blue dress she wore. She looked right into my eyes with a warm smile that couldn’t have been faked and I felt my misgivings disappear.