The One Who Got Away: A Novel

by Bethany Bloom

  And now, Olivine turned into the driveway, which was cut just wide enough for a single car; a narrow path through towering Ponderosa pine, shrubby blue spruce, and patches of white-trunked aspens, the trees so dense she couldn’t see the house until she rounded the final curve at the end of the drive. As a child, she had dubbed it “The Hallway Forest” and, now, as she drove through, she found herself ducking her head as she always did, even inside the car, as she passed beneath the branches that dipped low.

  Driving down this alley, just a couple hundred yards to the house, she experienced that gentle, familiar fullness she always felt when she arrived at this place. This place where she could sit on the porch or on a log in the river and simply listen to the trees for a time. To take in their hushed musings and their gentle scent, as familiar and comforting to her as a fleece blanket, pulled high on her neck.

  The sun had long dipped behind the mountains, but the full moon cast a pale bluish light over the forest. As she rounded the corner at the top of the drive, she spotted a glint of silver through the trees by the house. Paul’s Audi.

  Paul was known to come here sometimes. In the summer, he came to fly fish in the river. On warm evenings, he would sit on the porch and listen to the silence of the deep forest, much as she did. In the winter, he would start a fire in the great room of the cabin, and he would pull the rocker up close and watch the flames consume the wood. Whatever the season, Paul could sit here, in a rocking chair on the porch or watching the fire, and not say a word. Sometimes for hours. His eyes would close and he would get a pensive look on his face as though the trees or the fire were telling him something and he must listen very closely.

  She wasn’t in the mood to see Paul. Not out here. Not tonight. She slowed to a stop and looked backward over her shoulder, hoping to pop the car in reverse before she was spotted. To go back, stealthily, the way she had come. That’s when she noticed another car. Parked farther up the drive. Nearly concealed, deep in the trees. Her chest lurched. Had Paul met someone here? What was he doing here? At night? Without her?

  Now she had to see. Instead of backing out of the driveway, she pulled the Jeep directly in front of the house. She flipped off the headlights, popped out, and strode toward the cabin, but an ice flow had formed just before the steps to the wraparound porch. Here, there wasn’t anything to grasp for balance, so she held her arms out to the side and set one foot carefully in front of the other.

  Just then, something small and white dashed off the porch and ran straight for her. Startled, Olivine leapt to the side just as a small dog, not more than nine inches off the ground, skidded toward her and slammed its black nose straight into her shin. Two low-toned voices drifted from the darkness of the porch, around the side where she couldn’t see.

  Whomever Paul was meeting with, it wasn’t a woman. What had she been thinking? Of course, it wasn’t a woman. She took a deep breath and considered climbing back into her car. Had he invited some buddies here? That would be unusual, too. What she needed was a good night’s sleep. She really was losing her mind.

  The dog was still jumping toward her and against her, slipping here and there on the ice, but, Olivine laughed, it was the warmest, most enthusiastic welcome she had experienced in a while. She bent to return the greeting and received three quick licks from the smallest Jack Russell Terrier she had ever seen. It was snow white except for two perfect brown spots, one on each eye, and a third spot the exact shape and size of a thumbprint, directly on top of its head. The dog’s legs were short and muscular, and its stubby tail wagged with vigor. She heard Paul’s chuckle from the porch and then his voice. “Are you alright out there? Do you need help?” Then silence.

  The dog stayed at Olivine’s heels as she made her way up the porch steps and across the front of the house, where the rockers sat, positioned to take in the view of the peaks. A window to the house had been left open and a faint scent wafted toward her. The scent of the cabin: Decades of coffee and freshly baked Swedish cardamom breads, combining with the musty scent of old cedar planks.

  The porch was lit by a series of can lights, set deep into the soffit, and forming distinct puddles of yellow light just beneath them. As she rounded the corner of the porch, she saw two figures, sitting on the wood floor. She blinked her eyes to help her pupils adjust.

  “Come on over, Olivine,” Paul said, motioning toward her, not standing up. “I want you to meet Henry.”

  Olivine’s stomach dropped. Her face flushed. As her eyes adjusted to the faded light, she could see Paul, sitting cross legged on the floor, which looked suddenly so odd for a man to do, though he always sat like that. And then, just across from him, sat Henry.

  His black hair was now flecked with silver at the temples, but the rest of his face was just the same. His eyebrows thick and arched and expressive. His eyes luminous. And when she saw the stubble on his face, she could suddenly feel the scratch of it on her bare neck. When she saw his lips, parted slightly, she could feel them whispering hot in her ear. Her breath caught.

  She had forgotten how beautiful he was. She met his eyes, without meaning to, and her face prickled. Heat coursed through her chest and her arms and her legs. And she stood there for a moment and let the memory of him ripple through her, and then it occurred to her that Paul was talking. His mouth was forming words that she hadn’t heard. She watched Paul’s mouth, to help her mind stop racing, to help her process what he was saying.

  “…should see the stuff this guy can do with wood. Grandpa hired Henry here to do up some doors for the cabin.”

  Olivine nodded, not sure of what would happen if she tried to speak.

  “Sit down, hon,” Paul said, patting a spot next to him on the wood. And so Olivine sank down, her knees bent in front of her.

  “But he surprised the hell out of me when I pulled in,” Paul went on. “I just dropped by to pick up my fly rod so I can take it in. Get the ferrules waxed, etcetera, before summer. I didn’t even know he was here at first.”

  “Sorry about that,” Henry said. His voice so familiar. Deep but gentle and the sound of it made the base of her belly tingle. For a moment, she felt dizzy. Had she been holding her breath? “I wanted to get off the road so I wouldn’t interfere with any plowing or any traffic to and from the house,” Henry was saying. “I live there, actually, in that bus, whenever I’m working on location…” she watched his lips move; those full, fleshy lips and she remembered kissing them, pulling and sucking on that bottom lip. “I took the road as far as the plow had gone. I hope I’m not in the way of the turnout.”

  Olivine turned to Paul. She fixed her eyes on him.

  “No, I’m sure it’s fine,” Paul was saying, “What is that, anyway? Your bus? Some kind of special carpenter’s vehicle?”

  Henry laughed and shook his head. “Something like that. I converted it from a school bus that I bought at auction. Took all the seats out and filled it with the stuff I need when I’m away from home. It’s pretty bare bones, but it suits me fine. It’s not great in the snow unless I put chains on it, but I’ll leave it parked for most of the time I’m here.”

  “We should be about finished with the snow. I’m jonesing to get on my bike. Put the skis away for awhile.”

  Jonesing? Paul didn’t talk like that.

  “How long will you be here? I mean, how long will this door take?” Paul asked.

  “It all depends on the kind of material I have to work with,” Henry said. “It shouldn’t take more than a few days. A week.”

  “Well, did you bring your skis?”

  “Of course. Skis. A bike. I’ve got all the toys with me. Truth is, they live in the bus with me. I never take them out.”

  “Sweet, man.”

  Sweet, man? Olivine laughed to herself. Henry had the same effect on Paul as he had on her grandfather. He was charming. She’d say that for the man. But that was all it was. She steeled herself. She was not going to fall victim to him or his charm again.

  When she had repeated thi
s fact to herself a number of times, she allowed herself to meet Henry’s eyes once more. And that was when their eyes locked, and neither could look away. His voice became small, apologetic, kind. “Hello, Olivine.”

  Paul looked from Henry to Olivine and back again.

  “Wait a second,” Paul said. “You two already know each other.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

  “We knew each other,” Olivine said. “Decades ago.”

  “We’re not that old.” Henry laughed, in that easy way of his, like the sounds just fell out of him. Tumbled forth. More shards of memory rushed through her. She lying on his stomach as he laughed. Her head bobbing up and down. The roughness of his fingertips on her bare skin, her waist, the inside of her thigh.

  “But yeah, a different lifetime,” he continued. They looked at one another steadily and Olivine could feel the oxygen squeezing from her lungs and, even knowing that Paul was staring at her and looking back and forth between them, she couldn’t look away until finally Henry broke his gaze and turned his attention to Paul.

  “I lived here for a summer, building custom homes,” Henry said. “Just after college, I guess it was. And that’s when we met.”

  “Yeah.” Olivine nodded.

  “Ah. Well,” Paul said, placing his hand on Olivine’s knee. “We’re getting married.”

  Henry popped his eyebrows. “Oh. To each other?”

  “Yes.” Paul laughed.

  “Congratulations.” Henry’s eyes swept toward Olivine and then snapped back to Paul.

  “So.” Paul paused for a moment, and then his words came out in a rush, “You do most of your work on location, huh? You build most of the doors on site?”

  “Not generally, no.” Henry replied. He paused and he looked down at the planks for a moment. And then he said, in a tone that was lower, quieter, “But I do travel quite a bit. Either finding doors to reclaim or doing installations. Most of the actual carpentry work I do is on-site in our yard in Idaho, but this was such a unique project, I’ll be doing everything here because that’s where the raw material is.”

  Paul turned to Olivine. “Apparently, Grandpa had this idea, “ Paul said, “to take wood from each of the things in the back. And to fashion them into a front door. Patchwork style.”

  “Yeah,” Olivine said, “He’s been talking about doing that himself for decades. I thought it was just an excuse to keep all that stuff around.” She turned to Henry. “Everybody teases him because he never throws anything away.” Her voice sounded too loud, too brassy. Not her own.

  “There’s quite a woodpile of treasures out there,” Henry said, motioning toward the back side of the house. “Under that tarp. Old rocking chairs, a cradle. I’m trying to take the things I think must have the most sentimental meaning and make those the most prominent.”

  Olivine and Paul looked out into the dark expanse beyond the railing, toward Grandpa’s woodpile.

  “I’m so honored your grandfather called me,” Henry said, looking at each of them in turn. “There’s something very spiritual about a home’s front door…a place where you pass through, each of the days of your life; a portal to whatever is inside or outside. A passing through.” He paused. “I always feel like it’s such an privilege be asked to make the front door of someone’s home. To be trusted with a project that so represents a family.”

  “Grandpa always did like you. For saying stuff just like that,” Olivine said.

  “Well…I always liked him.”

  “I had no idea you and Grandpa had stayed in touch.” She made her mouth form the words, breathing deeply and smoothly, willing the emotion away from her face and into her center, where she could conceal it.

  “We haven’t. At all. I got a call from him, last week, out of the clear blue. He said your grandmother had passed. I’m so sorry, Olivine. I know you were close.”

  Olivine nodded and cast her eyes down.

  “And he said he didn’t want to waste another moment. He said that I needed to come out and make this door. While there was still time.”

  “Time?” Paul asked.

  “While he was still here to walk through it, I imagine.” Olivine said.

  Silence followed for a beat. And then another.

  “How fortunate that you could come right away,” Paul said, his voice even and unrushed. Olivine recognized it as his clinical tone. The one he used with patients.

  “Strangest thing. I thought it would be weeks before I could make it out here. But my schedule just sort of opened up, shortly after your grandfather’s call. We’re waiting on some material for a big job we’re doing in Aspen.”

  “Who is we? You have a partner?” Paul sounded eager.

  “Yeah. the architect I work with. I do some custom homes. Design-build work. Or I did. I’m mostly doing doors now. They are in demand, and I like it. The slower pace.” Henry said.

  “Is your partner here, too?” Paul wanted to know.

  “No, she’s home. In Idaho.”

  “And do you have a family? Are you married?”

  Henry was silent for a few moments. And then he looked straight at Paul and said, low, “I do,” and “I am.”

  Of course he was. Of course he did. Olivine could imagine her. This woman. She clenched inside. A tightness gripped the back of her throat. Of course he was.

  Olivine took a breath, deep and smooth, and as she breathed deeper and deeper, she nestled deeper and deeper inside herself. Into the safe, center part where no one else was allowed to go. This private Olivine, which was soft and pink and warm like a puppy’s underbelly. She rested here sometimes.

  She loved that things could happen inside her that no one knew and that she could present whatever face she wished to the world. Yarrow said this private part of her meant that other people had a hard time getting in. And maybe this was true, but, for now, it was the reason she could sit on the front porch and face the man she loved who had married someone else.

  And suddenly it was ten years before, so sharp was the memory that swelled through her just then. It was the last night she had seen him, before he disappeared. Henry had called her to tell her he found a perfect place to rent. He had decided, finally, to stay, even after the summer months, and he needed to get out of Carter’s house, and could she come and meet him at this house he wanted to rent?

  And when she arrived that evening he said he hadn’t been able to contact the landlord but he wanted to show her the house anyway, and so he jiggered open a window, gently, skillfully. “The landlord is cool. She wouldn’t mind, and there’s no one living here,” he had said. And they crawled inside, through the open window, on their bellies, though once he was inside, he could have unlatched the door.

  She had never broken into a house before and her response back then, to doing things she knew she shouldn’t, was a sort of soft, maniacal giggle. It bubbled out of her just then and when she tried to swallow it, to avoid appearing insane, she guffawed and choked and snorted.

  “What’s going on back there?” he asked, as he led her across the room to look for a light switch. She choked a little on the unexpected warmth inside. The heat had been turned on, though it was still late summer, and the home smelled like sweaty socks and pine sap.

  “Don’t turn on the light,” Olivine warned. “We’ll get busted.”

  “Seriously, she wouldn’t mind, Olivine.”

  “Still,” she said, “Let’s keep it dark.”

  He showed her around, then, in the shadows, and it was just like he had described. It was an unusual home, the walls encased entirely in reclaimed wood. She ran her hand down the length of the wall and felt the sharp and tiny stab of a splinter. She drew her hand away.

  “So, instead of taking off the siding and adding on to the home, they built the addition right on to the outside of the house, so you have the old exterior siding and the old front door here. Inside. With a new living room and kitchen built around it.”

  She could see his eyes blazing, twinkling, even
in the dark. “It’s like a fort,” he said.

  “How did they get a Certificate of Occupancy for this?” Olivine asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have one. Maybe it’s not even legal. That’s not really my concern, as long as the owner will rent it to me. But isn’t it sweet? I could live here forever. It will be my tree house. And that’s what I’ll call it. The tree house.”

  “Naturally.”

  They lay down, flat on the floor in the living room, side by side, and they looked up through the skylights that covered most of the ceiling. The stars always appeared so close at their high elevation, like you could reach out and grab a handful. And it was then that Henry cracked open, finally, and let everything tumble out.

  He started by asking, “Do you ever think of yourself as a color?”

  Olivine sat up, hugged her knees to her chest and looked at him. “Yes, actually.”

  “Well?”

  “I’m orange. I’m not even sure I like the color orange, but that is the color I am.”

  He laughed. “You’re right. You are orange. And me?”

  “Tell me what you think, and then I’ll tell you what I think.”

  “I would be the darkest eggplant purple. Almost black.”

  “Huh. Really? You would?”

  “I would. But I haven’t always been.”

  “Oh?”

  “Olivine, you know how you ask me sometimes if there’s something that’s going on. Something you should know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there is. And you should.” He took a deep breath, and his voice was barely above a whisper, and he told her about his father.

  “I was working with him on a job, right after college. At the beginning of the summer. I was living back at home and working with my dad. The house we were working on was set high on the hill and the framing was nearly complete. It was going to be a gorgeous home. All the little details. I was so proud of him and of what he had built his business into. I felt so lucky. Me and him. Working in the summertime. Together. And he would teach me his trade and I would take it over one day…”