She tipped her head back and looked up at him. “I want to be with you tonight,” she said.
Matt said nothing for a few moments, his heart thrumming hard. He leaned in, kissed her, and then said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
She let go of him then, climbing the ladder to the dock, and turning to wait for him. They walked back to the house in their wet bathing suits, bare feet noiseless on the dew-damp grass. Inside, Matt led her to the bedroom just off the living room and closed the door behind them. The moonlight found its way in through the cracked wooden blinds. He put his arms around her and drew her close, kissing her with all the feeling inside him.
She pressed herself to him and kissed him back. They undressed each other, Becca unable to look at him at first, and then finally doing so with eyes full of love and appreciation.
He led her to the bed, and they lay down together, fully exploring one another for the first time, as if they needed this memory to carry with them over what they knew would be difficult months ahead.
They took their time. Matt wanted to be able to think back on this night as a vow to one another, a commitment from the heart. In that single moment when they were as close as it is possible for two human beings to be, he looked into her face and said, “I love you, Becca Miller.”
She looked back at him, eyes wide open. “I love you, Matt Griffith.”
And with those words, whispered with utter sincerity, Matt had every reason to believe they would spend the rest of their lives together. That they would get through the next year and figure out a way to be together for good.
Little did he know that when this night ended, eighteen years would pass before he ever saw her again.
47
Middle Ground
“Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”
- Epictetus
Now
From the kitchen, Martha heard Becca pull up at the front of the house, the engine of the old truck groaning a sigh of relief as it reluctantly settled into silence. She’d been listening for them for hours now, worry beginning its deep dance, until she could think of nothing beyond an image of the two of them stranded along a road somewhere.
She’d called the cell phone Becca carried with her a number of times but had only gotten the message system.
And so by the time she heard the truck’s familiar rattles on the gravel drive, she felt weak with gratitude. She walked to the front door as fast as her arthritic limbs would allow and then down the steps to the walkway where Becca helped Emmy slide out.
Martha stopped just short of them and said, “I was worried.”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Becca said. “I thought Emmy could use a change of scenery. We drove out to the lake.”
“Oh,” Martha said, in the next breath starting to chastise Becca for not calling and then stopping herself. “Did she enjoy it?”
Becca glanced up then, clearly surprised by the question. “I think so,” she said.
“Good,” Martha said, hearing the effort in her own voice. She took Emmy’s other arm, and together they led her into the house and up the stairs. In Emmy’s bedroom, they settled her in her favorite chair by the window, the two of them working in a quiet harmony that Martha could not remember feeling between them for many years.
It was only after they’d gotten her settled and walked back downstairs to the kitchen that Martha said, “What did Dr. Hayes say?”
Becca ran a hand around the back of her neck, fatigue etched in her face when she said, “He changed her medication again.”
Martha could tell by the look in her daughter’s eyes that there was more. “And what else?”
Becca didn’t answer for several moments, her voice cracking at the edges when she finally spoke. “He thinks we should consider another hospital program.”
Martha leaned against the counter behind her, one hand anchoring her against the sudden unsteadiness in her legs. “And what do you think?”
Becca shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. I just know she’s getting worse.”
Martha crossed the floor and sat down at the table, every inch of her body suddenly weighted with a tiredness that went to her very bones. She didn’t speak for several moments and when she did, weariness laced each word. “Do you think we should send her to another of those places?”
“I can’t bear the thought of it,” Becca said.
“Neither can I.”
Martha looked up then and met Becca’s gaze. There was a softness there, an empathy, that she had not seen directed at her in longer than she could remember. It made something in her heart simultaneously dip and soar. “So what do we do?” she asked, honestly hoping Becca had the answer.
“Trust that the new medicine will help her.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Becca stepped forward and put her hand on Martha’s shoulder. “Let’s not try to figure that out until we have to.”
Tears welled in Martha’s eyes. She wiped them away with the back of one hand, nodding in silence. They didn’t say anything else. It was nice, though, the way Becca didn’t move off right away, but remained where she was, her hand an anchor between them, steady, soothing.
48
Enough
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
- Washington Irving
Now
Becca sat at the table long after her mother went upstairs. Lethargy had attached itself to her limbs, and it seemed far easier to stay where she was than to try and figure out a direction from here.
Aaron walked up from the barn, wiping his forehead and the back of his neck with a blue bandana handkerchief before folding it and putting it away. He stopped when he saw Becca. “Where were you this afternoon?” he asked, reluctance in his voice, as if he didn’t really want to know and thought he had no choice but to ask.
“I took Emmy out to the lake,” she said.
He glanced off, then looked back at her again. “Just the two of you?”
Becca would not lie to him, painful as the admission was. “No,” she said.
He made a sound of disbelief. “What are you doing, Becca?”
“Aaron—”
“No,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I deserve an answer to this. Have you spent our entire marriage waiting for Matt Griffith to come back?”
She drew in a quick breath, feeling the sharp stab of the accusation. “That’s not fair—”
“Fair?” he said, the question marked with a short laugh. “You want to talk fair. How is it fair to marry someone you love, certain that if you just wait long enough, they will one day love you back, only to end up realizing you’ve been a fool? That there was never any possibility of that. Where’s the fairness in that?”
Becca tried to answer, but no words would come. Anything she said would sound trivial, unworthy of the questions he’d just thrown at her. Said out loud, the accusations made it sound as if her every action had been premeditated, Aaron’s hurt an inevitable thing. And yet, it hadn’t been that way. She’d never wanted to hurt him. She had thought when she married him that she could love him in a way that would be enough for them both.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that pretty much says it all.”
“Aaron—”
He backed away, raising a hand to stop her. “Don’t, Becca. Just don’t.” He stood there for several moments, and then without saying anything else, turned and walked away.
49
A Place to Hide
“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire
Now
Matt was sitting in the old green glider on his grandmother’s front porch when the white truck turned into the driveway.
It was after eleven, and he hadn’t yet considered the possibility of going to bed, his head too full with everything that had happened that
afternoon to even consider sleep. He instantly recognized the truck as Becca’s, even as he blinked hard to make sure it wasn’t his imagination. All evening, he’d been restless, pacing the kitchen and then the living room, with no interest whatsoever in sitting down at his laptop or picking up the novel he’d tried to start a half dozen times.
He wondered now if this was why. If he’d known on some level that she was coming. If what they’d started that afternoon couldn’t possibly be finished as they’d left it.
The headlights flashed across the porch and then eclipsed altogether. Matt stood and walked down the steps and along the brick path until he reached the door of the truck.
Her window was rolled down. She said nothing, just looked at him with something like defeat in her eyes. He could feel it in the air between them, too, a thick cord of submission, as if they’d both lost the will to fight any longer.
He opened the truck door and stuck out his hand. She took it and slipped down from the seat. He led her back up the walkway and onto the porch where he motioned for her to sit on the glider and then took the spot beside her, feeling a simple relief in the fact that she was here.
“Could I get you something to drink?” he said, conscious of the few inches that separated them, shoulder to hip.
She shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“What is it, Becca? What’s wrong?”
She started to speak, then pressed her lips together. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. She began to cry then, her shoulders shaking beneath the onslaught.
“Becca,” Matt said. “Don’t. Please.” He put his arm around her, tucked her into the curve of his shoulder and pressed his lips to her forehead, tenderness welling up and spilling over.
She cried as if it had been a very long time since she’d allowed herself the indulgence, grief lowering over her like a curtain of rain.
He wrapped his other arm around her, helpless to do anything other than hold her in silent consolation.
He didn’t know how long they sat this way, but when her sobs softened and then finally subsided altogether, he felt her wilt against him, her energy spent.
Around them, the night had come alive with the sounds of encroaching summer. Crickets chirped in harmony. A dog barked somewhere nearby. From the tennis courts, one street over came the whump of ball against racket.
“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” he said.
“It would take far less time to tell you what’s not.”
“We could start there,” he said.
She straightened then, slowly, one hand against his chest, her eyes locked with his. They drank each other in, as if this quenching of thirst had been too long denied.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said finally, sitting back to put distance between them. “I shouldn’t have come here like this.”
He brushed her face with the back of his knuckles. “If not here, then where?”
The truth of the question struck him with its stark clarity, as if the eighteen years they had lost were nothing more than a bridge between then and now. It seemed only right that he should be the one here for her. In fact, it seemed unimaginable that he could be anywhere else.
“Hey,” he said, “you remember that room I told you about when we were kids?”
“Your secret room,” she said.
“Wanna see it?”
She smiled then, a watery smile that brightened her eyes and collapsed something heavy inside him. He stood, took her hand and led her inside the house. He flipped on lights as they went, leading her to the back of the main staircase. He released her hand to slide aside a heavy walnut bookshelf.
A short door stood in the center of the wall. Matt opened it, then flipped a light switch just inside. He took Becca’s hand again and led her through a short hallway and then down a set of steps into an underground area. He also turned on lights here and pulled a few drop cloths off the backs of upholstered chairs.
“Incredible,” Becca said. “No one would ever know it was here.”
“It’s like its own little world. It must have come in handy during the Civil War days.”
Becca walked around the room, touching the furniture, brushing her fingers across the paintings on the walls, as if to confirm they were real. “The day you told me about this room, all I could think about was how amazing it would be to have a place where you could slip away and hide whenever you wanted.”
“I used it a lot,” he admitted.
“I love it,” she said.
He walked over to her, stopped just short of touching her. She looked up at him, the longing he felt inside himself reflected clearly in her eyes.
“Matt,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I know,” he said.
She moved closer while he refused to take his gaze from her, certain that if he blinked, he would wake up, and none of this would be real. He would be alone again, without her.
With a tentative hand, he slipped the white cap from her head, needing suddenly to see her hair as he remembered it, to know the feel of it against his fingers. He found the pins at the back of her neck, hesitated. “Is it okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
He pulled one pin loose and then another until her long, still-blonde hair fell in a curtain to the middle of her back. He leaned in and pressed his face to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her, remembering.
She slipped her arms around his neck, and they stood that way, holding each other as they had when they were young. Matt barely breathed, afraid to move for fear that if he did, she would pull away. In this moment, he could not bear the thought of it.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she finally leaned back and looked up at his face. She touched a hand to his jaw, curving her fingers against his cheek. “I don’t want this to be happening, Matt. But I don’t know how to stop it.”
He knew that she meant more than this moment, more than this night. For him, it was more as well. Since the day he’d returned to Ballard County, the present had begun a slow winding back to the past, until now it seemed that the two had merged, and all that he had once felt for Becca, he felt for her again. “All this time,” he said, his voice raspy. “And I remember this . . . I remember.”
He leaned in then and kissed her. A soft, gentle kiss, a reintroduction of souls. It was as if a match had been lit to something inside him long thought dead. He felt the instant flare of it and recognized it as hope.
They kissed until thought of anything else was lost.
Becca pulled back first with a sound that was half-gasp, half-sob. “Oh, Matt. I never thought it could still hurt this much.”
“I never stopped loving you,” he said.
“Don’t,” she said, stepping away from him. “We shouldn’t say these things.”
“I’m sorry, Becca,” he said. And he was. “But I can’t change what’s true.”
She moved behind one of the upholstered chairs, her hands anchored to the back of it, as if she needed both the barrier between them and the upright support. “Everything is so messed up. I don’t know if it’s because you came back, or if it was already that way, and I just hadn’t let myself see it.” She hesitated and said, “For my entire adult life, I’ve been able to be content with the way things are. I’ve had a good life. I have nothing to complain about.”
“I loved you, Becca,” he said. “And I thought you loved me.”
“I did,” she said, the words sounding as if they had been torn from her. She glanced away, clearly regretting them.
“Then why?”
“There is no single answer.”
“I’ll take one, if it will help me to understand.”
She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t,” she said. “Not now.”
“Okay,” he said, going to her, putting his hand to the back of her neck and pulling her to him. “Okay.”
“Would you just hold me?” she said. “Please.
Just hold me.”
He took her hand and led her to the sofa where they both sat. He pulled her close, and she rested her head on the center of his chest, one arm around his waist.
“What are we going to do?” she said.
“We’ll figure it out, Becca,” he said.
“There are so many people to hurt. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
He bent his head and kissed her hair, wishing he could tell her they didn’t have to. Wishing it could be true.
Minutes passed, one hour, then two while they stayed where they were, tucked away in the secret room, absorbing comfort from each other, as if this exchanged energy would fortify them for what lay ahead. As if they, in fact, could hold at bay a river that had long ago begun its flow.
50
Free
“Peace is always beautiful.”
― Walt Whitman
Now
I let myself out the screen door at the back of the house, allowing it to click quietly closed behind me.
The moon is high in the sky, fat and full, a summer moon that cuts a wide swath of light along my path to the barn. It is a night much like that last one with John, a night when I’d honestly thought we were at the very beginning of our lives. At fifteen years old, I guess there was really nothing else I could think. It’s true that when you’re that young, you don’t really believe your life can end. That it can be snuffed out before you’ve even thought to appreciate it.
I open the big sliding doors and step inside, my head instantly filled with the events of that hot August evening when everything changed forever. It all comes back to me, fresh in my memory as if it just happened.
I don’t expect that anyone will understand what I am about to do, but I feel lighter with the knowledge that I will finally be free of this body in which I have become little more than a prisoner. And with this freedom, I have something I have not had in all these years. Hope. For me. And also for those I love. Maybe that is the one thing I still have left to give.
Crossing Tinker's Knob Page 23
