River's Winter

by Leanne Davis

  “More than you know. And thank you,” Jacob said, feeling humbled and grateful.

  Joey turned, “I could get several gallons of paint. Put a new coat over all of this and it might help erase any negative association. Just pick the color.”

  “You’d do that? For me? I mean, for Luna, but you’re asking to help me? That would be so amazing. Yes.”

  “Jacob, this… what happened here was unfathomable. I won’t ever forget it, and neither will anyone else. It rocked this entire family, the ranch, and the community to the core. So, hell yeah, I’ll be happy to help.”

  Jacob nodded. “A new coat of paint will be perfect.”

  An hour later, Finn walked in. Jacob should have expected him, and his pleasure at seeing him was real. He smiled and went straight to Brianna, so she could put him to work.

  They all met up at the café after their respective jobs ended the next night and the next one after that. One night, in walked his dad. He was all by himself, to Jacob’s relief, and Jacob was very glad his dad came. Brent stood back before he hugged Jacob. “You call me first when you decide to do anything like this again. Don’t you know what dads are for?”

  “I’ve never acted like one. But you always were a good dad to me, and I rejected your love for so long—”

  “I already told you that’s ancient history. We are no longer those two people. I want to start new, now, with the people we are today. We don’t really know each other yet and I want to fix that right away.”

  Again with the emotions. They hugged, shared genuine smiles, and then got to work.

  Everyone’s efforts started to pay off. The piecemeal donations of labor combined in a wonderful way to make it quite presentable. They all stood back together when they finished and stared at their handiwork. “It looks so similar to the way it did before.”

  “You mean, when it was good. She’s done a lot of work in here. I always wondered about her story, why someone so young would want to come here, or own this café. It’s so amazing,” Brent said to Jacob.

  Jacob recapped much of what he knew about Luna to his dad. They often discussed her during the many hours they spent restoring the restaurant. His conscience twanged sometimes when he claimed to Luna that he had to work overtime, so he couldn’t stay too long at her house. “Thank you for doing all of this with me. Each and every one of you.”

  “It’s nothing. We were glad to, Jacob,” Brianna replied. “When Luna’s ready… and please, don’t push her, but whenever she feels ready, everyone at the ranch is prepared to help her in any way we can. Whatever she needs. We’ll be there, and we’ll come back as her customers. We won’t let that bastard shut this great place down. We’re big enough, all of us ranch people, to keep her place open. Others will come in as soon as we do. I swear, we’ll make this happen.”

  “I can’t… I really can’t believe I gave up so much for a fucking, goddamn needle.”

  Startled, his mom turned from where she was hammering a nail to hang a new picture. Joey stopped painting the trim after spending hours on it.

  Brianna gaped at him in astonishment. Finn even turned to watch him after reading Brianna’s translation in ASL. A huge grin spread over her face. “Well, duh. It was a fucking stupid thing to do. We are so much better than that.”

  Jacob teared up. “Thank you, guys. I can’t ever begin to tell you how much I need you… and this… It’s been difficult to process, but focusing on this restoration has helped me substantially. I feel like I regained some control back.”

  “And by helping you do that, you made us feel like we can trust you now. Seeing you doing so much for someone else? Well, icing on the cake. I used to want you alive. Then selfishly, I’d prefer you were alive and sober, but alive, sober, and a hero who is putting your friend first? I feel like I won the lottery,” Hailey replied.

  His father slung an arm over his shoulder when Brianna grabbed her phone and snapped a picture of them. “I don’t… I mean, we don’t have any pictures of you. There is so much we still have to make up for.”

  “Starting now,” Dad said.

  Brianna parroted him. “Starting now. And for always.”

  New beginnings were happening for everyone. Jacob was squeezed with affectionate hugs, and his gaze drifted back to the little bay window across the street. New beginnings. Who would have thought that could happen? His parents, sister, and Finn, maybe not Joey perhaps, but he wasn’t so important, were prepared to start over with Jacob.

  But Silas? What about him? There was simply a beginning with Silas, because Silas didn’t have any old memories or regrets with him. Neither did Luna. He just had to convince Luna to come back to the café.

  ****

  “How can you say this will be okay? I just can’t do this. How can you?” Luna glared at the front door of her café with both crutches under her armpits, while Jacob’s hand rested on her left bicep. He stood closer, hovering with concern. She blinked tears of fright as she stared at the double doors that used to seem so welcoming. The cafe’s name was stenciled in white across the middle of the doors and a flippable, open/closed sign hung halfway down on the inside of the left door.

  For days, he’d been pressuring her. Begging her. Coaxing her. Bribing her. All but commanding her to come inside. Just to go through the front door of her own business and property. Her fucking albatross. He explained to her they both needed to do it, as a catharsis, to replace the bad memories with new ones.

  He’d abandoned her for the last few days. He only saw her for maybe an hour each night after claiming he had to work late, and then he said he was extra tired. Luna took a nosedive during his absence. She was alone all day and could find nothing of interest on the internet. She watched a bunch of movies and avoided the news. She did the minimum of chores, resting her leg and herself often. She tried to read, but her mind could not register any of it.

  Jacob returned to spending time with her, charming her with a smile and his engaging personality. He knew how to improve her mood with a balance of deep understanding and telling her funny stories that alleviated her anxiety and got her mind off it all.

  But when he started pressuring her by insisting they go inside the café, just one time, for clarity and closure, she froze. The baby steps were too much for her. She shuddered every time she imagined opening her eyes inside that place of carnage. In her mind’s eye, it would always be a horrific scene of human tissue and body fluids. Stains. She could not imagine how to begin to force those images from her brain. They were cemented inside her head.

  “I’m here and I’ll help you.”

  She peeked up at him. “Why? Why do you keep coming here?”

  “Because there’s nowhere else I want to be. Nowhere else I can be. I need to be with you, maybe more than you realize.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you have a life?”

  He flashed a grin. “I didn’t before actually. Spent too long messing it up. Been trying to right those wrongs. This changed my course, but only for now. We can do this, Luna.”

  “But the point is that you don’t have to. If I didn’t own the diner, I would never set foot on this street again. As the owner, however, I’m tempted to set it on fire to collect the insurance. You know what? Fuck all the money I spent. I’m ready to just hand the keys to anyone who’ll take them and walk away. Who would ever choose to come here? Who, Jacob? Only the sickos who want a glimpse of mayhem and madness. This place is dead. As dead as the victims. All the families grieved today despite insisting they were celebrating the lives of their lost loved ones. We all knew they were grieving. Pretty words and new ways of phrasing can’t change what the reason for today was all about. And we still have two more to go.” Her voice cracked. It was obvious she could hardly handle this.

  They attended another memorial. Most families responded to the media attention by having some variation of public gatherings to honor their loved ones. They allowed media access to all the townspeople and anyone else who wanted to
pay their respects. The memorials were staggered to avoid overwhelming the families and residents. But it never got any easier. It was grueling for all of them. Luna’s fragile state of mind seemed worse each time they attended one.

  But missing them wasn’t an option. When Jacob gently suggested that to Luna yesterday, she snapped. “If I can crawl toward a gunman with a broken foot, I can sit through a damn ceremony. It's… it’s the very least I can do.”

  Jacob agreed so they went to all of them. Clutching hands together, trying not to cry, they listened closely each and every time to the anecdotes of the loved ones. Always as before, they both had to wonder why they were still alive and the person they were honoring was not.

  “This whole town and this valley’s residents. That’s who will come back here. We will all help you.”

  Blood. Shoes. The stupid, brown shoes and khaki hem of the pants she saw in her line of view. Edgar’s blood. The pops and bangs, all those lethal noises that translated to instantaneous death. She suddenly felt as if she’d just been hit by one. She automatically turned toward Jacob who was right at her side and she bumped into his chest. He took her body against his and lifted her under her crutches, essentially knocking them out of the way. They clattered to the ground. He wrapped his arms tightly around her torso, clasping his hands behind her back. He took all of her weight as she wobbled on her strong leg. She ducked her head into the crook of his shoulder. Shutting her eyes to hold the tears back, she clutched his coat. Its puffiness worked as a pillow to cushion her face. “I can’t,” she mumbled, “I can’t go in there. I can’t face it again. I can’t… live with this.”

  His ski jacket was made of Gortex that scratched her cheeks. It was like she was being pushed against a huge, padded pillow, rather than his hard chest. But still, she clung to him and buried her head. His arms tightened when her whispered words broke up.

  “Okay. It’s still too soon. We’ll come back. That’s okay, Luna. It was a lot to deal with today. More than I expected anyway. We’ll do it another day.” He placed his face to the side of hers and his mouth was near her ear. He kissed her thick hair just above it. It was such a sweet, affectionate gesture of comfort, like a parent might do to a teenager or a brother to his sister. But shivers broke out all over her just the same.

  They stood in front of her café. The gray day was chilling. Luna wondered who could see them? It was probably a mistake to be huddled there together like this. They’d become so much more now than just victims-turned-heroes. But she still couldn’t find the wherewithal to even care. This was so much bigger than other people’s petty perceptions of it. Luna and Jacob were definitely not cuddling on the street corner for fun or warmth, much less flirting because of their youth.

  It was because of their shared trauma and flashbacks that threw Luna into this man’s arms. She cried and squeezed the front of his coat in her fist. “I can’t do this. But… but I know I have to. I have to do something. But what? This inertia and fear are incapacitating me.”

  “I don’t think that’s so unusual.”

  “You don’t feel that way.”

  “I do feel that way. When I go home, I’m all alone, so I pace and stare up at my ceiling all night. I think every footstep I hear outside is someone or something bad. I continually fantasize a killer will open my door or shoot out my window… or…”

  “You never feel safe either.”

  “Never.”

  “Neither do I. Except when I’m with you.”

  “Well, then maybe you can imagine how I use you to feel better. I go to your house instead of mine. I stay here too late to avoid being alone. Or I leave here and run home to my mom’s. So, if you think I’m doing better than you, it’s only because I’m leaning on you. You’re my crutch.”

  She brushed away the tears on her face and looked up at him, sniffling. The cold air stung her wet cheeks and lips. “I have to grow up eventually. This business… my employees need paychecks. I need one soon, too.”

  He gripped her arm and slowly turned her. “Maybe you can use me… and your staff. Maybe we can be your crutch,” he suggested softly.

  Confused, she flipped her head around before she pushed back from him. “What in the…?”

  A large crowd of people were walking her way as the snowflakes fluttered down. The sky hung in a dark and ominous gray. Yet a large group of people were approaching them in the parking lot of the café. Her gaze bounced around. She saw Hailey and Joey and Brianna up in front. Then she saw Jack, Ian, and Shane Rydell, along with their respective wives, Erin, Kailynn, and Allison. She even spotted Ben and his wife, Jocelyn. AJ and Kate were with their thirteen-year-old son that they fostered last year and were now adopting. All the people Luna saw were those that she knew. She not only socialized with and served them over the last few months at the café, she saw Ian and Jack five days a week for their power breakfast during which time they discussed ranch business. Shane and Ben sometimes joined them. She knew Hailey and Joey as Jacob’s mom and stepdad, but she remembered seating and serving them quite often in the café. They most likely ate at the ranch and resort now. She even asked Jack about that one day after hearing they had their own grill near the horse arena, for God’s sake. Jack just grinned and replied, “After coming here for fifty years, I’m good.”

  She also recognized a few of the ranch workers. They drank in the café in the evenings. Or ate dinner. Many of them flirted with her. She found it harmless and sweet from most of them. “What is this?”

  “I told my mom what we were doing today.”

  “She didn’t know I would break down and chicken out though.”

  “No, but it doesn’t take much to figure out how hard this would be. She also drummed up plenty of support.”

  Luna’s cheeks heated up. It embarrassed but also thrilled her. It was hard to believe anything like this could happen. People who barely knew her, for all of six months, were eagerly coming to her aide, hoping to rescue her in so many ways, and showing their collective support. Of course, it was all due to Jacob. The true hero of the moment. He still was. She glanced up at him. “You do realize that you did all this for me already? You saved me that day. Now that I see what is left of my café and my business, I know that you haven’t stopped.”

  “It was a lousy day. I reacted without thinking so I really wasn’t all that heroic. But I will take credit for having an amazing mom and sister. I guess they roused all their troops to your cause. Do you think now… with all of us here, you could face going back?”

  Luna nodded, and her lips trembled while fresh tears filled her eyes. She released a kind of beautiful cry from being so touched knowing they would come back here for Jacob, their family member and friend. The ranch community had assembled to benefit her. This sense of community was exactly why she moved here. Raised in large cities or suburban areas, her family moved around more often than she preferred. Restlessness and dissatisfaction made her parents move, although there was never any real reason for it. But even as an adult, Luna lived in the city. During all those years, Luna felt disconnected and alone, like a remote island in a vast sea. She had no experience living in a small town. It was odd at first. Seeing the same faces again and again. A very different culture emerged, one that pervaded the whole town like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She didn’t miss the undeniable difference.

  But to see a group of people going so far out of their way with the single purpose and intention of helping her, didn’t match the standards in which she grew up. It didn’t often go like that for her. Usually, no one ever cared what area she lived in. Her neighbors never counted on her and vice versa. But this? Supporting her in a time of crisis?

  “Hey, Luna. Thought maybe you could use some backing in reopening the place.” Jack Rydell spoke first. She eyed his craggy, but handsome face. Gray hair peppered the red at his temples, and his blue eyes were kind and full of understanding when he addressed her. She stared at him, then at the others and each person her gaze touched o
n had the same helpful expression of care and sympathy.

  “I found it hard to go back in there,” she said, her voice dropping lower as her cheeks started heating up.

  “Well, why wouldn’t you? It was… I have no words to describe the horror that you two lived through. Do whatever you need to do to get through it.”

  Luna stood on her good leg and straightened up. Jacob braced her arm. Brianna came over and grabbed the crutches, handing them to her with a warm smile. “If you ever need anything at all, I’m your girl. I love to help people out, so don’t hesitate to call me. My eagerness and gung-ho attitude kinda drive my brother nuts, but it comes in handy at times like this.”

  Jacob leaned forward and grabbed his sister and hugged her. Judging by her startled facial expression, she was shocked that her brother did so. “I gave you such shit. But it’s because I was being a shit.” Jacob turned to Luna. “But unlike most people, Brianna actually means it when she offers her help.”

  “I take it you weren’t very nice to your sister while growing up.”

  Brianna laughed and patted Jacob’s cheek with her gloved hand. “He had his moments. But I always adored him. I’m just so glad he’s back here to stay.”

  She smiled again, and she, along with her husband, followed the rest of the group. Luna stared at the line of people who were now entering her café. So familiar a scene, like any other afternoon when she’d been open for business, she’d see the families, big and small, entering her popular diner. Often, she’d see one person holding the door for a large crowd. She loved the energy of that and all the people she encountered.

  “No one can believe what happened here. This place has employed so many residents and been a dining spot for all. You won’t be left out in the cold. Pretty soon, everyone will come back. In full solidarity. In fact, you’ll probably get more customers than you did before. You don’t fuck with these people or their kin. And now, Luna, you are considered our kin. Even though I wasn’t born and raised here, the people just adopted me and made me theirs. So, believe me, you still have a thriving business to manage.”