Survivor

by Mary Alford

  “I don’t drink…”

  “It’s only one glass of wine. I’m not trying to get you drunk. I’m sure you or the grandparents would never forgive me.”

  I took a sip. “It’s good.”

  Over dinner, and probably thanks to the wine, I found myself working up enough nerve to ask Aaron a little bit about his life. All I knew about him was what I’d read about his professional life and the few things he’d told me.

  “What would you like to know?” He didn’t volunteer anything. I had a feeling getting to know the real Aaron Severn would be a difficult task.

  “You don’t like answering questions about yourself, do you?” He was surprised. “It’s true, you don’t. Every single time I’ve asked you anything about your life you get that look in your eye and you turn all evasive. Why? What are you hiding? Have you got a wife locked in an attic somewhere?”

  I grinned at my joke, but there wasn’t any amusement in Aaron’s expression. “No, nothing as dark and dirty as I’m sure you’d like to believe about me. Just the usual childhood stories. But I guess what you’re looking for is something about my family, right?”

  I nodded completely captivated that he was actually sharing details of his life with me.

  “Believe it or not, I grew up in an average family with middle-class parents. Both my parents were professors at UV, but we weren’t wealthy. Just average. My father got me interested in business, and I guess my natural talent took over from there and made me want to be successful at whatever I tried, which ended up being the advertising field. I have the gift of gab, or so I’ve been told. I received a scholarship to Harvard, and after that I ended up in New York once I’d graduated. I worked for a firm that is no longer around. It wasn’t long before I decided I could do better on my own.”

  “When did your parents pass away?”

  “My freshman year. They were killed while on a trip oversees. It had been my parents’ lifelong dream to visit the Holy Land. It ended up costing them both their lives. After that I never went back home again. I just left the house to the real-estate agent to sell and never looked back. It was just too hard remembering them there.”

  “Oh, Aaron. I’m so sorry. You’re an only child?”

  “Yep, just like you. We’ve got more in common than you might think. I know you lost your mother when you were still young. What happened?”

  I regretted that I’d felt it necessary to ask Aaron any questions about his childhood because I knew what was coming. I couldn’t bring myself to answer him truthfully. Too many secrets about myself lay hidden in the answer.

  “She’d been sick for a long time, but I think after my father left she just stopped trying. It was hard to watch.”

  We were sitting in his living room talking over coffee, and as always, every time I thought about my mother, it was hard to control my emotions. Even harder to keep up the front that I didn’t miss her every single day of my life. But Aaron wasn’t fooled for a second.

  “I can only imagine how hard it must’ve been for a little girl to understand her parent’s absence from her life. At least I was pretty much on my own by the time I’d lost my folks. Losing a parent is hard, but having one desert you when you needed his support must have been difficult to get through. It still hurts, doesn’t it? Have you talked to your father at all since then?”

  “No. No, I haven’t. He tried a couple of times, but, well, I just couldn’t do it. I know it’s wrong not to forgive people when they’ve hurt you, but I just couldn’t do it. No matter how hard I try. It’s just not in me. In the end, he gave up trying to reach me. I don’t know where he is now. I haven’t heard anything about him in years. But I was lucky to have had my grandparents. They’ve been such a blessing. I don’t know how I would have gotten through my mother’s death or my life, for that matter, without them.”

  I couldn’t remember ever sharing so much about myself with anyone else except for Deb. She knew everything about my life and all the dark secrets I hadn’t intended to ever share with Aaron.

  “You don’t much like talking about yourself, either. What are you hiding?”

  His question sent me racing to come up with a believable answer. “I don’t know what you mean. My life’s an open book. There’s not much else to tell.”

  “I don’t believe you. If it were true, you wouldn’t be so determined to keep people at a distance like you do. You see, like it or not, you and I do have a lot more in common than you’d like to admit.”

  I got to my feet and started for the door. I wasn’t ready to talk about it with him, and if I stayed there he’d find a way to get it out of me.

  Frustration roughened his voice. “Grace, wait. Where are you going?” Aaron reached me before I reached the door. “Wait, don’t go. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Come sit down, we’ll talk about something else.”

  Aaron managed to coax me back to the sofa. I tucked my legs beneath me and waited for him to change the subject. He told me about some of his plans for the company.

  I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime while I sat listening to the soothing sound of his voice, I must have drifted off to sleep. I awoke to find him kneeling in front of me, shaking me gently.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead.” I opened my eyes and found him watching me. He was too close. Those blue eyes that saw too much focused on my expression, which I’m sure was revealing all of my uncertainties.

  “What time is it?”

  “Late. I’m sorry, I should have woken you but you were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to interrupt. Why don’t you spend the night here? In the guest room,” he added before I could voice my protest. “Come on. I’m sure I have something. A tee shirt, perhaps, will work for you to sleep in. We can go over to your apartment in the morning and get your things before we leave.”

  When I still didn’t move, Aaron picked me up in his arms and pretty much carried me upstairs, ignoring my indignant protests.

  He set me down in one of the bedrooms he’d shown me earlier and left me alone for a second.

  I was still standing in the same spot at a loss when he returned with a black tee shirt.

  “The restroom is through that door. Get some sleep, Grace. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  Once he’d left, I undressed and slipped under the covers. Even though I was exhausted, it was a long time before I found sleep that night, no matter how hard I tried. I was restless and couldn’t stop obsessing over Aaron. The man was starting to occupy way too much of my time lately.

  He was my boss and nothing more. Our relationship could never be more, because he was wrong for me in every possible way. Despite his earlier claims, we had absolutely nothing in common. I wouldn’t let myself think of him as anything other than my friend and my boss.

  When sleep finally came, it was filled with vivid, disturbing dreams I couldn’t recapture the next morning. I woke feeling anything but rested. Vague impressions filled my head and made me wonder what I couldn’t remember.

  It was late when I finally went downstairs to the smell of fresh brewed coffee. I found Aaron in the kitchen reading the paper.

  “I was about to come looking for you. Are you okay?” he asked when he got a good look at me.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? But I think I must have had some crazy dreams last night.”

  “I’ll say.” Aaron took another sip of coffee. I stopped pouring and stared at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t remember?” His slow maddening smile told me that whatever he was about to say, I didn’t want to hear.

  “Remember what, Aaron?” I persisted.

  “Oh, only that you woke me from a sound sleep screaming like someone might be killing you. Actually several times.”

  “That’s not true.” I automatically denied it, but some uneasy feeling told me it was.

  “Oh, I beg to differ with you. Trust me, it
’s true alright. I thought someone had broken in the house or something. The first time I opened the door you’d apparently fallen back to sleep. But the second—well, I was afraid you’d wake the whole neighborhood.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. You certainly gave me enough of a scare. Do you have those nightmares often?”

  I couldn’t speak. I rarely dreamed. I wasn’t the one to have dreams. I had no idea what had caused the elusive nightmares from last night.

  But I didn’t have time to consider their cause with Aaron looking at me with speculation in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. It must have been the wine.” I moved away before he could spot the unexpected tears that were close.

  I was turning into quite a sap as of late. I never cried. I couldn’t remember the last time I shed tears over something so foolish. I’d gotten good at holding my emotions inside through the years since my mother’s death.

  “It’s okay. You didn’t keep me awake. But I was worried about you.” I struggled to draw breath into my lungs. Aaron was standing too close. He turned me to face him and there was no denying my tears. “Don’t cry, I’m only teasing you. I was worried about you last night. That’s why I came to check on you, only you wouldn’t let me leave.”

  I think my heart actually stopped for a second or two. I moved away, because I needed to put as much distance as possible between me and the truth.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t remember?” All hint of amusement had gone from his eyes. “Grace, nothing happened, if that’s what you’re worried about. You were crying and you were obviously upset. I stayed with you until you fell back to sleep again. Nothing happened.”

  Aaron’s reassurances didn’t make me feel any better. He’d been with me last night, and I couldn’t remember a single thing about it. I decided then and there that I could never allow myself to be in such a situation again. Aaron was becoming much too dangerous to me.

  Chapter Ten

  “Do you think you should call your grandparents and let them know when we’ll be arriving?” Aaron glanced over at me, surprised by my laughter. “What’s so funny?”

  The idea that Grandma Ruth wouldn’t know already made me laugh. Poor Aaron had no idea what he was getting himself involved in. I decided I owed it to him to give him a clue.

  “Aaron, Gran will know.”

  “Oh and when exactly did you call her to tell her, because as I recall you were with me all night.” His grin told me he knew how those words were going to affect me, but I refused to let him draw me into another discussion about last night.

  “She knows. Trust me. My grandmother has her ways. She always knows what I’m up to. Not one single time while I was growing up did she not know exactly what I’d been doing. Gran’s good at what she does.”

  “Sort of like a psychic?”

  I cringed at the thought. “No, and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t call her such. Gran is not a psychic. Her gift comes from God. She can talk to you for five minutes and tell you what’s going to happen in your life next. Just wait and see. She definitely knows what time we’ll be arriving. She’ll have dinner waiting on us when we get there.”

  Aaron gave me a skeptical look. He didn’t believe a word of what I’d just told him.

  Driving along the familiar back roads leading to my grandparents’ small farm outside of Amarillo, Texas, the usual sense of coming home returned. No matter where I lived, for the rest of my life, this place would always be home to me. But there were painful memories mingled amongst all the happier times I’d shared growing up with my grandparents.

  No matter how hard I tried to shut it out, as always, my mother’s presence was with me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I was only thinking about all the times I’ve come back here in the past.”

  I think he knew I wasn’t telling him everything, but he’d picked up on my moods enough to know there were some things I wasn’t ready to share with him.

  “So where does your grandparents’ property actually begin?”

  “Right there. Right at the fence line.” Aaron pulled over along the side of the road just past the start of my grandparents’ property.

  My gaze scanned the horizon of the open pasture. I spotted my grandfather’s old tractor sitting off in the distance. It’d survived more overhauls than even I could remember. It had to be almost as old as Grandpa Harry himself.

  “There have been Becketts living on this piece of land for over a hundred years now,” I told him, shading my eyes against the late-afternoon glare.

  Through my mind, old memories played of childhood days spent racing along the same fence line while my grandfather plowed the earth. Still other times I’d been seated in front of him on the old sputtering tractor on a hot summer day. Too young to fully understand what he was doing wasn’t simply fun for him. This was how my grandfather made his living. Farming the land. Preaching the gospel was what Grandpa Harry loved. The small church he pastored couldn’t afford to pay him a salary, not that he minded. He loved telling others about God. Grandpa Harry said it was reward enough for any man.

  “What are you smiling about?” I turned as the sound of Aaron’s voice brought me back into the present. He was watching me again. The seriousness in his expression of his always threw me because I didn’t understand it.

  “Nothing. I was just wondering how many times I’ve counted those particular fence posts while waiting for the school bus.”

  “A child of the school bus, huh?” Aaron apparently wasn’t in any hurry to leave either. I’d loved that spot growing up because it always reminded me I was almost home.

  “Yes, every single day of my life until I was old enough to drive. What about you? Don’t tell me. They didn’t have school buses where you grew up.”

  “Oh, they had them alright. I was just lucky enough not to have to ride one. I heard stories though from the other kids who did. My parents insisted on driving me each day. I think they were worried I’d fall in with the wrong crowd on one of those bus trips.”

  “They should have been worried about all those other poor innocent children you were leading astray.”

  “You wound me, Grace.” He started the car once more. Then we were back on the two-lane road heading up to my grandparents’ cutoff.

  The second Aaron stopped the car in front of our little farmhouse, my grandparents were out the front door as if they’d been watching for us.

  “Told you.” I burst out laughing at his dumbfounded glance.

  My grandparents were down the two steps and coming toward us when I found myself starting to feel a little sorry for Aaron.

  “Get ready. They’re going to talk your ear off as well as work on you the whole time. I just thought you should know.”

  Poor Aaron didn’t have time to react to my warning, but he didn’t seem to mind either.

  He waited patiently while I gave my grandparents hugs and kisses. I was so happy to see them, it didn’t matter that I was crying in front of Aaron, breaking my promise to myself to be strong.

  “Grandpa, this is my boss, Aaron Severn,” I added, partly because I needed them to understand the extent of our relationship right from the start, and I guess I needed to remind myself of that fact as well. “Aaron, this is my grandfather, Harry Beckett, and my grandmother, Ruth.”

  Aaron shook their hands. I was feeling a little pleased with the way I’d handled the situation before Grandma Ruth winked at me. Her mind was working overtime.

  “Well come inside, you two, it’s cold out. Aaron, we made up a bed for you next to Grace’s room.” Grandma Ruth led the way up the porch steps inside the house. My anxiety level hit record peak.

  She knew Aaron was just my boss and only my boss. I’d certainly told her that enough times. Just as she knew where I stood on marriage and falling in love. So what was she thinking?

  “Grace, y
ou look like you’re skin and bones. Aren’t you taking care of yourself?” This sounded more like the grandmother I knew and understood. The woman who was always worrying over me.

  “I’m fine and I haven’t lost weight, so stop worrying.”

  “Uh-huh, and you forget I know you better than you know yourself most of the time. You and I will talk about that later. Why don’t you show Aaron which room is his and let me get supper on the table.”

  Plain and simple and to the point, as always, which was part of my grandmother’s charm. It didn’t matter who walked through those doors. Everyone was treated with the same kindness.

  I opened the door to the tiny bedroom across the hall from my own and stepped inside.

  “This is it.” Aaron followed me inside and dropped his bag on the hardwood floor. “Not what you were expecting, are they?”

  He looked at me. “No, I guess not. But then, I’m not sure what I was expecting. They seem nice.”

  “They are. They’re the best. You won’t find any better.” I opened the door again. “I’m right across from you. When you’re ready, come get me.”

  I could almost see Aaron’s surprise after we sat down at my grandparents’ kitchen table—the same one they’d used to entertain guests for years. I’d forgotten all the people who’d joined us at the table over Sunday dinner in the past. There had been people of influence within the community, as well as folks from the mission. Even a few people without any home at all. My grandparents never turned away anyone in need, and they never met a person who wasn’t a friend.

  As I glanced across the table at Aaron, who was still trying to take in all of my grandparents’ generosity, I wondered if he knew just how much in need of their love he truly was.

  “This is something of a family tradition for us.” Grandma Ruth grinned at me. “We started this, what? Ten years ago, was it? And it’s become our Thanksgiving Eve meal ever since that time.” She was referring to the one tradition we’d stumbled upon one year that had stuck. Having homemade chili the night before Thanksgiving.