“I can’t say I blame him for wanting to be near you. You’re hard to resist.” Henry’s shoulders relaxed, like he’d let go. “Raf came back. He helped me finish the building. And he found four of our kids—I got to see Karalyn, Brisa, César, and Daniela before I left. I gave Karalyn the baby doll and you would’ve thought it was dipped in gold.”
I tilted my head so I could see his smile. “I’m glad you saw them. You’ll find the others, too.” I rested against him again. “I met Aidia before they left for Utah. She’s adorable.”
“She’s a ring-tailed tooter,” he said. “John’s parents will spoil her rotten in Utah and she’ll love every minute of it.”
We sat for a while, just breathing and wishing.
“What’s the best thing you learned?” I whispered.
He scratched his beard, thinking hard. “That God alters one life at a time. One. I guess I thought it would be more of a tidal wave in a place as desperate as Nicaragua.”
“But a tidal wave would be too impersonal.”
“And messy.”
“Hey, Hen.”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Would you mind too much if I followed you to the University of Wyoming?”
He nearly pushed me off his lap, trying to see my face. “Tell me everything.”
THIRTY-SIX
henry
When I parked my truck in Meg’s driveway at four-thirty to pick up Mr. Kavanagh, I told myself this was just a fishing trip with a friend, not the father of the girl I intended to marry one day.
He’d suggested I teach him to fly fish, but I figured what he really wanted was to get inside my head a little. I’d do the same thing if Meg were my daughter and some nineteen-year-old had serious designs on her future. So, yeah, this trip was important and inevitable.
The single cottage-style front porch light came on, throwing out all the light it could with the forty-watt bulb someone had put in it. I stepped out of the truck and hopped a little trying to stay warm. I shifted tackle boxes, rods, and waders in the back of the truck, making room for the food Mrs. Kavanagh had promised to pack for us.
Meg’s dad opened the front door and gave me a soft whistle hello. I held my hand up in a silent wave and smiled through the case of nerves I’d decided to ignore. I kept one eye on Meg’s bedroom window, half-hoping I’d see her lamp come on or her sleepy face watching me through the glass.
“’Mornin’, Mr. Kavanagh,” I said when he got near enough. “Did we wake anyone?”
“No, I think I made it out without tripping any alarms,” he said. “Are you planning on calling me Mr. Kavanagh for good?”
I stood for a minute with a goofy grin on my face, trying to figure out the right answer.
“Yes?”
He chuckled. “I really wish you wouldn’t. I know it’s the way you were raised, but it’s a long name and, by the end of the day, it would save you about a hundred syllables if you’d just call me Jack.”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll do my best to forget my manners.”
We climbed in and I handed him the gas station coffee I’d picked up for him. We had about a two-hour drive to the Grey Reef section of the North Platte River outside of Casper. The place was thick with rainbow and brown trout, a sure thing for a first-time fly fisherman.
“Give me the basics,” Jack said. “I’ve only ever used a rod and reel.” He gave me a mock martial arts bow, with right fist in left palm and everything, saying, “Sensei.”
The thing about fly fishing was that anyone who does it, really does it, believes that it’s an experience, an art form, a tradition, while rod and reel fishing is a…give me a break. There was no comparison. I tried to sum up this thing that was Fly Fishing in a few neat phrases.
“First of all,” I said. “It’s completely basic and primal.”
Jack laughed. “Prehistoric man stuff?”
I smiled. “You laugh, but I promise that’s the way it feels. It’s you standing in the middle of a river for so long you actually become part of the rhythm of the water. And that rhythm becomes part of your casting arc.”
I stopped and concentrated on the road while I thought about how to explain the mechanics of a fly fishing cast. Jack stayed quiet, sipping his coffee and watching me.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “When other guys your age were building bonfires, tapping kegs, and chasing girls, you were getting up at the crack of dawn to do chores?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Yes, sir, and watching the sun go down while I was still doing chores.”
“You’re a good man, Henry,” he said, adjusting again to face forward in his seat. “I should have thanked you a long time ago for helping Meg through a hard time. I really think a lot of you.”
I glanced at him and nodded. “I’m grateful to be part of her life.”
The trip, from that point on, hit a comfortable and familiar rhythm. Jack wrestled himself into a pair of my dad’s booted waders and a fully stocked vest, then learned a nearly perfect “S” cast right off the bat, with an almost poetic dead drift, so I didn’t even mess with teaching him other casts. The guy was a natural, pulling out eight good-sized rainbow trout and five smaller brown within a couple of hours.
I called it after three hours. Our lips were blue and, since I’d been in the heat of Nicaragua for so long, I wasn’t used to the cold. I started the heater in the truck as we peeled off the wet waders, threw them in the back, and climbed in the cab to warm up. Jack split open the bags of food his wife had packed, then we tried to still our chattering teeth long enough to chew.
“That’s a buttermilk sky.” He dipped his head so he could see the sky through the front windshield. “Do you guys call it that here?”
“My grandmother used to talk about a buttermilk sky, but I never knew what she was talking about.”
He laughed and pointed. “That. She was talking about that right there.” He wrapped up his leftovers and stowed them in the small cooler between us. “Meg means everything to us, Henry.”
I nodded, adjusting to the shift in topics. “I know she does, Jack.”
He held his hands in front of a vent, warming them. “Since everything that happened in Pittsburgh and this move and Adele’s struggles and our slow turnaround,” he stumbled, pausing to clear his throat and line up his thoughts. “What I want for Meg is more than just happiness, you know? I want her to be surrounded with gentleness. Not that she can’t take what life throws out, because she can. But you can’t blame me for wanting to wrap her in eiderdown after what she’s been through.”
We both sat quietly for a minute, until I felt his eyes on me and I turned to face him.
“What I know about you, Henry,” he said. “Is that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.”
In his eyes, I read weariness, but also a clear-eyed honesty you rarely see in people anymore. I kept my mouth shut because this was wisdom and experience personified speaking to me.
“I think I know what Meg means to you and what you’ve got planned,” he said. “But I suppose I ought to hear it directly from you instead of making assumptions.” Leaning forward in his seat, he hung his elbow over bent knees and waited.
I spoke carefully, because this was it. This was a moment that we’d remember, he and I, when we stood together in a church one day waiting for a wedding to start or when I handed him his first grandchild to hold. I didn’t even feel too young. I felt respected by this man and that respect, man to man, gave me the latitude to say what needed to be said without fear of ridicule.
“I love your daughter more than my own life,” I said. “I think marriage is in our future.”
Jack swallowed hard but didn’t say a word.
“I won’t let you down. I won’t let her down. I’ll provide for my family and I’ll never leave.”
Jack nodded. “That sounds good, Henry. But I want her to go to college, get a degree, get more than one degree, work, travel, experience life. I want her to
backpack around Italy and stand on the shores of Lake Como. Can you promise me you won’t rush her through those things?”
“Yes, sir, I promise. I want her to have those things, too. I want those things for both of us.”
“Are you planning on moving her to Nicaragua some day? Is that kind of humanitarian work in your future?”
I sucked in a deep breath and held it, thinking about how, with everything that had happened this past year, no one had ever wondered aloud whether that kind of work was it for me. Either the idea seemed ridiculous to everyone or they all thought they knew the answer, one way or another. But what was their conclusion? I needed to know. What did people expect me to do about this?
“I think, because of what I’ve seen, my heart will be forever longing to go, to help in that way. I’ve got huge responsibilities here in Wyoming, though, that keep me tied to land. The ranch…it tugs at my heart, too.”
I racked my brain for the right answer. Not the one I thought he wanted to hear. But the right answer for me, given everything I knew now. “I think I’ll keep things going here so I’m able to support the people who can go,” I said. “But I can’t promise you we’ll never spend time with people who need us, here in America and around the world. I can’t just erase the marks Nicaragua etched on me. I don’t want to.”
I’d finally claimed the person I’d become. A person who wanted to put himself out for people who needed help. A person capable of making a life here that would matter. A guy who would work, hands in the earth, back grinding through the pain, to piece together the means to help. A man who would move mountains to see his wife and kids next to him in heaven. And a man who refused to see the world as big and anonymous anymore.
Jack smiled. “I understand. Just—no surprises, okay? Give us time to get used to things. We adjust slowly.”
“Yes, sir. No surprises.”
I put the truck in gear and, with aching muscles and tired eyes, I drove us home. When I finally turned into the Kavanagh’s drive, things were as dark and still as they’d been early this morning. This time, though, Meg sat on her porch in the cold night air with a book and a flashlight, a little black and white dog in her lap. She’d been waiting, wrapped in a turquoise and white quilt my grandmother had made. My mom must’ve given it to Meg at some point, a sure indication of Meg’s solid place in my family.
I had one of those moments where everything comes together and all my senses came alive at once. The ponderosa pines around the little yellow house scented the air and the crisp Wyoming breeze lifted my spirit. Meg’s green eyes watched me with interest, letting me know her heart was mine.
I was truly home. Right here with her.
Meg stood, wrapped the quilt around her shoulders, and walked toward me in her crazy fur-lined boots, letting her dad kiss her on the cheek as she passed him. She smiled at me and said, “You. Me. Alone. Now.”
“Music to my ears, Pittsburgh.” I grinned at her.
“Why are you smiling?” she said.
“Because I want to answer your questions.” I took her hand as we turned out of her driveway.
“What questions?”
“All of them.”
She tilted her head, studying me with her usual intensity. “What are your answers?”
I brought her hand to my lips. “Yes. Still yes. Always yes.”
She smiled and we walked. We walked headfirst into life. A life that forgave us what we’d missed and gave us what we already knew: that life is slippery and we all need a hand, that life has no margins, no top or bottom to it, no borders, just circles of people who do a heck of a lot better when they’re together.
Acknowledgments
My gratitude goes to those who helped me with this book—my editor, Rosanne Catalano, my agent, Amanda Luedeke, and my critique partner, Kathrese McKee.
My highest regard goes to Will Walker, who is the kind of guy that proves me right, and to Candace Bayles, whose deep spirit shines and makes her simply beautiful.
My appreciation goes to Jenny Livingston, who captured the image on the cover, and to Kevin and Tanner Slaten, who graciously loaned me the coolest truck in Texas, no questions asked. They don’t know how close I came to driving away in that truck.
Thank you Gail Goad and Joy Elizabeth Pulsifer, for patiently answering my questions about Nicaraguan orphanages. I know the details aren’t perfect, but I hope the heart of the story gets close.
My heart resides with Alan, who is the best story, and with Amelia and Anderson, who give me the details worth telling. Thank you Mom and Dad for everything.
My Playlist Fiction writing sisters—Stephanie Morrill, Jennifer Murgia, Rajdeep Paulus, and Laura L. Smith—this journey is more fun with you! Our Playlist Fiction Street Team—your kindness overwhelms me!
About the Author
Laura Anderson Kurk is one of those lucky souls who gets to live in a college town. In fact, it’s her college town—College Station, Texas—where she drove in under cover of darkness when she was way too young and proceeded to set the place on fire. (Actually, she stayed in the library stacks for the majority of her tenure as a student at Texas A&M University, but, in her imagination, she was stirring things up.)
She majored in English for the love of stories and due to a massive crush on F. Scott Fitzgerald. She continued on to receive an advanced degree in literature and literary criticism.
Laura writes contemporary books for young adults, a genre that gives her the freedom to be honest. Her debut novel Glass Girl is an unconventional and bittersweet love story, and its sequel Perfect Glass makes long-distance love look possible.
Laura blogs at Writing for Young Adults (laurakurk.com). On twitter, she’s @laurakurk.
About Playlist Fiction
Playlist Young Adult Fiction provides your YA fiction fix. With new ebooks and offers available every month from some of the best indie voices in contemporary teen fiction, there’s never been a better reason to download the drama.
Discover other great stories at www.PlaylistFiction.com!
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Sneak Peek
The Unlikely Debut of Ellie Sweet
Sequel to The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet
by Stephanie Morrill
Available from Playlist Fiction in November 2013!
Chapter One
I drove here specifically to buy this book, only now I’ve stood here for ten minutes asking myself if I should.
“Can I help you find something, miss?”
I turn to the smiling Barnes and Noble employee. “No, thank you.”
She shuffles on, and I return to staring at Fire Eyes by Bronte Harrington. I lift the book from the shelf and run my thumb over the texture of the title, of Bronte’s name. When I flip it over, Bronte smiles up at me. So different than the way she looked on that last morning of the writer’s conference, when she stormed out of the hotel lobby.
Someone is behind me again. I turn, prepared to dismiss yet another employee, only to find myself staring at Lucy Shears.
“Oh.” Bronte’s book makes a muted thunk when it falls to the ground. I clutch it to my chest and grapple for a more appropriate greeting for my former best friend. “Uh, hi. What are you doing here?”
Lucy smiles in a cautious way. “I’m visiting my aunt. She’s getting her hair done.”
“So you came to shop for books?” The only books Lucy has ever shown an interest in are her mother’s bodice-rippers.
Lucy shrugs, then nods at the book in my arms. “Is that one good?”
I glance at it. I bent the cover—great. Guess I’ll be buying this one. “Yeah, it is. Real good.”
Lucy pulls a copy off the shelf and examines the cover, then flips it over. Her skin is a richer tan and her hair longer, but otherwise she looks just like her old self.
I clear my throat. “Thank you for the letter you sent me. Back in the spring.”
Lucy arches a
well-defined brow at me. “You never responded.”
“No. I’ve been…busy.”
Lucy smirks, and I don’t blame her for doubting me. Surely she remembers me as Ellie Sweet, the girl with no life. The girl who finished all her weekend homework on Friday nights.
“That’s what I hear.” Lucy shelves Bronte’s book. “So I’m Lady Lucia?”
My ability for intelligent thought seems to vanish. When three silent months passed after the newspaper article came out about Invisibly Yours winning the Great Debut contest, I assumed the fact that I had written Lucy into my historical novel somehow hadn’t reached her in SoCal.
“I…” My heart stammers a fierce beat.
“Relax, El. I think it’s kinda cool, actually.” Lucy shrugs. “I mean, how many people get to be in a book?”
But she won’t think so when she reads it. My mind ticks through insulting scenes, like when Rafe calls Lucia an ice princess with a pig snout. And when Domenico refers to her as overrated, and tells Lady Gabrielle that Lucia could never be anything compared to her.
Lucy fusses with her long necklace. “Bianca seemed to take it as some sort of personal attack that you didn’t make her the main character. But what else would you expect from her?”
“Yeah, she wasn’t too pleased with me.” I wrap a curly strand around my finger. For a full week after Bianca and Marie chucked my stuff in Mill Creek, I swear my hair reeked of creek water.
“You doing anything now?” Lucy pulls her phone from her back pocket and checks the time. “Want to grab coffee?”
My stomach muscles tighten. Having known Lucy all my life, I shouldn’t feel so nervous about spending time together. “Sure, but…” I swallow. “James is down there.”
“Well in that case…” Lucy makes a show of withdrawing a tube of lip gloss from her purse as we head toward the coffee bar. “Although with him around, you won’t be able to give me the skinny on your boyfriends.” Lucy drags the S out like a hissing snake.
Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) Page 27
