The Girl in the Window

by Douglas, Valerie

“Yeah,” Russ said.

  Josh did a quick self assessment.

  All his parts seemed to be working, except the leg, but pain medications might be hiding something he didn’t know.

  “How bad am I?”

  “Doctors say you’ll be laid up about six weeks,” Russ said. “Concussion, cracked ribs, and the leg.”

  Josh did the math, calculated the days.

  “So I’ll be good to go for the Hambletonian,” Josh said. For Fair.

  And there was still Adagio and Bella.

  Russ nodded. “With luck.”

  Josh’s eyes went to the sleeping girl at his side, remembering her fears, knowing what he knew about her.

  And he worried.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Something was different, but Josh couldn’t quite put his finger on it, he didn’t know what it was or how to define it. It just felt wrong. Beth felt wrong and she had ever since the accident. She always seemed little wired. She did everything right, she still hugged and kissed him, she had been a rock through his therapy, but there were times when she seemed pale and strained. He thought she’d lost weight, too. Every time he asked her about it, though, she assured him that nothing was wrong, she smiled and kissed him with all the love and passion he’d grown to love.

  It had been sheer torture to watch another driver take Fair out onto the racetrack but it was the only thing he could do if they had any hope of getting Fair into the Hambletonian in August. Will had Adagio in hand for the Little Brown Jug.

  His ribs were healing and with a little work he’d gotten into the jog cart even with a cast on his leg to take Fair around in practice and keep the rest of himself fit. His doctor would have had a fit if he knew. Josh still wanted to be the one who drove Fair across that finish line in the Meadowlands if he could. It would be tight and close. For six weeks his leg had been in the cast but that cast was gone now, and his therapy was almost over. He worked out daily, weight training on his arms, chest, shoulders, and his good leg.

  For him therapy was done, in this next race he would be the one taking Fair out.

  “So,” Russ said, eyeing him. “You sure you’ll be fit enough?”

  Josh grinned. “I’m fit enough. I can’t wait. Adagio will be the test. If I can’t take him around we’ll have Patrick take Fair if he’s still free.”

  They would be leaving later in the afternoon. That was what they’d been discussing, the race and everything they needed to do to prepare for it.

  “Bye, love,” Beth said, with a smile that seemed a little strained, giving him a quick kiss and Russ a wave before she headed out the door to go to work.

  She was putting in more hours lately. A lot more hours.

  Frowning, his heart twisting a little, Josh watched her go. A trickle of fear went through him. Somehow it felt as if he was losing her, but he didn’t know how or what to do about it. How to stop it from happening.

  Russ settled back against the counter in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hands, his eyes on Josh.

  “Did you know Beth was engaged before?” Russ said almost idly, his tone slow and careful, his eyes on the door, too.

  Turning, Josh looked at him. “No, I didn’t.”

  For some reason the thought made his blood run cold.

  It hadn’t come up, although he hadn’t mentioned his old girlfriends either. None of them had been Beth, and although he’d thought he’d loved one or two of them, he knew now that he hadn’t really known what love was until he met her.

  And she was slipping away from him. He could sense it.

  Russ’s eyes dropped to his coffee cup as he swirled the contents.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I was talking to Mary, Ty’s mother, the other day.”

  Surprised, Josh looked at him. “Were you?”

  “She’s a nice woman,” Russ said. “Hardworking. She’s had it a little tough, raising a boy all by herself.”

  Josh was astonished, it was the most his reticent trainer had ever told him about himself.

  “I’m a widower,” Russ said. “Lost my wife when I was about your age. To cancer. After... I never thought I’d love someone again. Didn’t want to, until I met Mary.”

  Ty’s mother.

  Russ shrugged. “I kept busy. That’s why I kept telling you not to put it off. You never know when you wouldn’t have any more time.”

  The older man’s eyes lifted to meet Josh’s.

  “I wished I had had more time to say the words to Carole that I never said. And then one day she was gone.”

  Russ paused, thoughfully.

  “Maybe I’ll do better this time,” Russ said. “I’m sure gonna try.”

  Russ took a breath, sighed. It wasn’t his nature to get into other people’s business, but he couldn’t avoid it now. This was important. Too important to stay silent.

  Choosing his next words carefully, he said, “You know how it is in towns this small, everyone knows what’s going on, even if they don’t know the people who are in it.”

  His eyes never shifted from his coffee cup once he started to talk.

  “Both of them, Beth and her fiancée, were at college. Everyone says they were devoted to each other. They had plans, dreams, they were going to open up a bed and breakfast. He died, hit by a car, the driver drunk. It killed him instantly. It was worse still for her, being there all alone, with no family of her own…but she held up they said. She held up. They all said how brave Beth was at the funeral, very brave. She scarcely shed a tear, but folks could tell how badly it had taken her.”

  Josh looked once more at the door, all too conscious of the brace on his leg.

  In his mind’s eye he could see the accident once again, but this time from Beth’s perspective.

  Suddenly he wanted to call her back, to hold her and promise that it would be all right.

  *****

  It was an effort to do it, but Beth kept her mind clear and empty, despite the fear that constantly chattered in the back of her mind like an angry squirrel. Some days it seemed as if she was never not afraid, her nerves constantly on fire, her stomach in knots. She went through whole days that she couldn’t remember, and yet somehow everything had gotten done.

  Her hands were locked tight around the steering wheel. So tight her fingers ached as she parked it.

  Wolf laid his big head in her lap.

  Releasing the wheel, she stroked him, finding solace in the gesture.

  She was so scared. So scared.

  She loved him, loved Josh, at times so fiercely it seemed she couldn’t contain it, and then she would picture the accident, the bikes and horses tumbling, the drivers disappearing in the melee as the legs of the horses kicked. Those that weren’t broken.

  The sound of the bolt thudding into Chord’s head made her wince at the memory.

  He’d been such a good horse. So beautiful, with such a great heart.

  Everyone kept saying how lucky it had been that no one had been killed, even while Josh lay in a hospital bed. And Chord? He wasn’t a person, he didn’t count.

  Except to her.

  No one would tell her what had been done with him.

  Her stomach was tied in knots.

  She pressed her fingers to her lips.

  Arriving at work was almost a relief. She threw herself into cooking, but couldn’t bear to go out into the common room and face the questions there.

  Tyler was off, and that was a relief, too, or she’d have to hear the endless chatter about the races of the other horses. She wasn’t certain she could endure that.

  Returning home that night, she pulled into the driveway past the paddock and up to the house.

  For a moment she sat in the car.

  She just wanted to go home. If only she knew where home was anymore. Once it had been in this house, with Josh, but now? She wasn’t sure anymore.

  It wasn’t something they’d ever really spoken about, her coming to live here, it had just happened.

  She hadn’t wanted to leav
e, and Josh hadn’t wanted her to go.

  So she hadn’t.

  Gradually more of her clothes had wound up here. One day Josh had mentioned that there were a couple of empty drawers in his dresser she could use if she wanted.

  She smiled at the memory even as she pressed a hand over her fluttering stomach.

  Russ and Will had pretty much taken over her house while she’d come to live in this one.

  She laid her forehead against the steering wheel and wished she could weep, but she couldn’t, the tears were locked inside her.

  The house was empty, Josh was still in the hospital, but she was used to coming home sometimes to an empty house if he was racing.

  In the morning Tony and the boys would show up to do the chores, feed and milk the cows, and watch the house.

  She forced herself to take a full breath, to fill her lungs, and then got out of the car.

  Their bedroom smelled like them, like Josh’s soap and her perfume.

  He’d made the bed before he left.

  It all looked neat.

  She hadn’t slept in it, sleeping instead on the couch, sometimes with the television on but the sound turned low.

  They would have arrived at the track by now, the horses would be in their stalls. She, Josh and the others would have been settled into their motel room, if things had been normal. But they weren’t.

  He might call.

  Just the thought sent a shaft of terror through her.

  Trying not to think about it, she turned her cell phone off. With all the electronic monitoring equipment at the home, she rarely had it on there, and frequently forgot to turn it back on. Josh would know that.

  Tonight she couldn’t bear talking to him, hearing the excitement about the upcoming race, his first since the accident, in his voice.

  Curling up on the couch, she wrapped her arms around his pillow, inhaling his scent. She cuddled into it, and fought the fear.

  Wolf jumped up beside her and whined softly, his head on her belly.

  Beth wept silently, alone in the night.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Josh pocketed his cell phone at the sound of Russ’s knock at the physical therapy room door, glancing out the window at the bright summer morning outside. It was early yet, but there was a lot of preparation to do before the race.

  He said nothing to Russ, but it ate at him that Beth hadn’t answered her phone.

  For the thousandth time he reminded himself how often she forgot to turn her phone back on when she was working. Somehow the thought didn’t reassure him. A thin thread of fear coursed through him.

  It worried him.

  For the first time he wasn’t certain Beth would be there when the runners went off.

  His first race since the accident.

  If Russ noticed anything, he said nothing.

  Not even about Beth’s absence.

  What was there to say?

  It had never occurred to Josh before now that she wouldn’t be there. He knew she loved him, knew she loved Fair, Bella and Adagio, but something was seriously wrong.

  Once more, he tried to call her as they arranged for a nurse to wheel him out of the hospital.

  Her cell phone rang and rang.

  Beth looked at her phone but couldn’t bring herself to answer it, even knowing it would worry Josh when she didn’t. She longed for the sound of his voice, but she feared it, too, feared not hearing it again.

  She started to drive, but not in the direction of the racetrack or the home. She was just driving.

  They’d be getting prepared, she knew, getting Bella and Fair groomed and ready, checking and rechecking their tack, the bike, doing all the things necessary before a race.

  It would be the first race where Josh would be the driver again, as it was his last day in physical therapy.

  The thought terrified her.

  Beth found that she didn’t know where she was going, it just seemed random until she suddenly found herself at the cemetery where Ruth and Matt were buried.

  It had been so strange to look across Matt’s grave to see Ruth’s not so far away.

  She brought the car to a stop outside the gates.

  For a moment she just looked out across it.

  Sunlight dappled grave markers both old and new. It looked lush, green, and peaceful, well-tended.

  Turning the car in, she drove until she was close to the first marker. Ruth’s. The first of those she’d loved.

  Her parents were here, too, but she didn’t know where their graves were as well as she knew Ruth’s and Matt’s.

  Getting out of the car, she snapped Wolf’s leash to his collar and started to walk.

  For once he didn’t charge off or tow her, instead he paced sedately at her side. She dropped her hand to his head, ruffled his ears.

  The marker wasn’t large, the words on it were simple, just a name, date of birth and death, and an engraved picture of lilies.

  It hadn’t been her choice, but that of Ruth’s children. She hadn’t been able to gainsay them, but it hadn’t been her place, not really.

  The cement bench nearby, though, had been.

  Tears spilled over, ran down her face.

  She sat and Wolf laid his big head in her lap.

  Lifting her gaze, she looked out across the rolling hills.

  Matt was buried here, too, she could see his grave from where she sat. It was just luck. There were only two cemeteries hereabouts.

  With a sigh, Beth curled her fingers into Wolf’s fur.

  Matt.

  “There’s no one else I can talk to,” she said softly to him. “There’s only you and Ruth.”

  Everyone else was part of the situation.

  Fear bubbled in her blood, her constant companion these days.

  “What do I do?” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”

  She only knew that she couldn’t live with the constant fear.

  All she could think about was horses’ legs thrashing and no sign of Chord or Josh among them, of the sound of the bolt striking Chord. Of knowing what it would be to lose him. To lose Josh.

  She was so scared.

  *****

  For the third or fourth time Josh folded up his cell phone, put it in his pocket, and tried not to worry.

  “She’ll come,” Russ said.

  Josh looked at him, the fear that she wouldn’t eating at him.

  “She loves you,” Russ answered simply. “She’ll come.”

  Looking up, Josh could see Mary in the stands. Tyler was with them helping out, especially with Beth gone.

  No one asked, but everyone noticed.

  Following Josh’s glance, Russ found Mary.

  That was a new thing for Russ, to have someone there for him. It felt good. He knew, too, how much Beth’s absence hurt Josh.

  But he had faith.

  Josh closed his hand around the cell phone in his pocket tightly.

  Looking at Russ, Josh wished he could be so sure.

  As much as he knew Beth loved him, he also understood how fragile she was, and how strong.

  Now that he knew what had happened, he understood what was going on inside her. He knew her fear. Knew it for what it was. He just didn’t know a way to resolve it.

  He loved racing, even loved the risk of it.

  If she couldn’t live with it, though…

  *****

  The sun beat down on Beth’s shoulders, already astonishingly warm. It would be hot later, but at that moment the sky was cloudless and blue. The forecast called for thundershowers late in the day.

  Beth’s throat went tight at the memory of the smell of hay.

  Sighing, she shook her head and looked at the headstone, thinking of the woman who’d been the closest thing to a real mother lying beneath it and looked across the hill to that other gravestone.

  Matt’s.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  For the first time in ages Matt’s face came to her as clear as a bell, and sh
e nearly wept.

  Matt, his familiar round face with his warm smile and bright dark eyes. She could almost feel him there, as if he sat beside her, looking at her. His hand covered hers, if only in her imagination. She just needed him so much. She was torn.

  You love him.

  Matt’s voice, Matt’s presence.

  Yes.

  It felt like a betrayal, thinking of him, but she did. She loved Josh as she’d loved Matt.

  Her heart twisted even as her throat tightened. I’m sorry.

  The chuckle rolled out of him even as he shook his head.

  Babe, it’s okay, he said, softly, I know you still love me. And I still love you. That will never change. I’m still in here, aren’t I?

  She almost see him lay his hand on the place over her heart.

  Yes, she said.

  Will I ever leave?

  Slowly Beth shook her head, seeing his face in memory. No.

  Ruth was there, too, half sitting on Matt’s headstone, looking at her with her wise eyes and shaking her head.

  Love doesn’t stop with dying, she said, with a glance at Matt for affirmation. You don’t stop loving the ones who go on. They stay with you forever.

  And it doesn’t mean you can’t love someone else, Matt added, gently. We all have room in our hearts for others.

  Beth ducked her head, looked out across the sunlit hills.

  Life is about risks, Ruth said. There’s only one path to go, Beth. Forward. The past is done, you can’t live there with us. We’re gone.

  “I’m know,” Beth whispered. “I’m afraid.”

  She hesitated, then gave voice to her fear.

  “I don’t want to lose him, too.”

  And then there was Matt, his voice soft. I know.

  Ruth nodded.

  “He could die,” Beth said.

  There are no guarantees in life, Ruth said. He might. We did.

  She could almost feel Matt brush her hair back over her shoulder as he used to do.

  It was an accident, Beth, he said, gently. My death was just a stupid accident. I was walking along the road. The driver was drunk. A random accident. Ruth died of cancer.

  We all die of something, Ruth said.

  It’s living that matters, Matt added. You can’t live our dream, but you can live your own, and his.