He laughed, and she realized how ridiculous that must have sounded; he’d be in the water in a moment anyway. And then his laugh died and he gave her a long look. He wore black spandex shorts which clung to his thin, pale legs. It was a stark contrast to his naked upper half, the tanned muscles in his wide chest and shoulders slick with rainwater, like a bodybuilder’s. Her eyes met his then, and her mouth went dry.
A moment later she turned and ran back to the cabin, digging in the closet until she found an old slicker, gave it a shake—in case anything was lurking inside the sleeves—and slipped it on. He was already in the water when she made it back and untied the canoe and got in.
Then he was off, swimming toward the island in sure, easy strokes, beginning with an Australian crawl as the rain fell on the lake, a lovely sound all around them. She began paddling, always a few feet behind him, falling into a rhythm as the warm rain hit her face. She didn’t mind. There was something so beautiful about it, everything so quiet and still but for the patter of raindrops on the lake, the lapping of the paddle, and the small splashes each time Colin’s arms sliced through the water. It was as if they were the only two people in the world.
She wondered if they were someplace else, not in this magical place that often seemed apart from the real world, if she would have responded as she had last night. A moment after she heard herself whimper, lost in a wanting she hadn’t felt in years, he pulled away.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he’d said, as she sat there on his lap, both of them breathless.
She’d stood, turning away, suddenly uncomfortable. He took her hand and tugged, forcing her to look at him.
“It’s not that I didn’t mean it,” he whispered. “But you’re not free yet. I was trying to wait.” Then he smiled. “I guess I should have tried harder.”
Speechless, she’d wondered what it all meant. After a long moment, he let go.
“I should probably go pack,” she’d said, and left a few moments later.
Now, rowing beside him, she had to admit there’d been a growing attraction to Colin. How could there not be? He was extremely handsome in a rugged way that ironically was so at odds with his disability it often made her forget. He was unlike any man she’d ever met. It wasn’t just what he didn’t have—the use of his lower body—that made him different. Watching him now, unable to take her eyes off the beauty of his form, she knew that she’d never met anyone else with his determination. But he had another kind of strength; he was so open and honest and kind.
Was she looking to get into a relationship, though? And something this complicated?
He was right, too. She wasn’t free yet. She was healing, and picking up the pieces of her life, but she knew the trip to St. Augustine, facing the failure of her marriage, David’s betrayal, the end of them once and for all, would take a toll, no matter how well she seemed to be doing.
As Colin reached the shallow water near the island, he dove and turned, swimming toward shore in a backstroke. Awkwardly, she began turning the canoe, something she’d never quite gotten the hang of. His arms reached back now, his hands slicing into the water, his face turned to the sky with his eyes closed. Once he’d told her that when he was in the water, he felt just like anyone else. For those brief, passionate moments last night, she’d thought the same thing.
But he wasn’t, and never would be. And she never wanted to do anything to hurt this man.
Lost in thought, she didn’t see the woman standing on the dock until a moment later. She was waving frantically and Lucy realized she was calling for Colin. She paddled faster, veering over and tapping him on the back with a paddle. He stopped suddenly and looked up and she pointed, then rubbed the rain from her eyes, seeing that it was Jenny.
Before they were even out of the water, Jenny began yelling at him.
“I’ve been calling your phone for the past ninety minutes, you ass. Mom’s in the hospital and I don’t have time to come running over here to make sure you’re still alive because you’re too inconsiderate to live in town where we wouldn’t have to worry about you all the time.”
Ruth in the hospital? Lucy opened her mouth then closed it, watching Colin as he swam to the dock, instead of the water’s edge. He hoisted himself up, which took incredible strength, then sat there catching his breath. Jenny, too, was out of breath, and Lucy could see she’d been crying. She must have driven in a panic. He didn’t shout back, didn’t defend himself for not answering his phone, he simply said, “Is she all right?”
“No, she’s not, she’s got fluid around her heart. Just like Grandpa did.” Jenny began to cry again.
He looked at Lucy, but before his words came, she was already on her way for his chair and the bench under the tree. A moment later, Colin lifted himself in his chair and began pushing toward his house. “Let’s go,” he said, though Lucy wasn’t sure which one of them he was talking to.
Jenny turned to her. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I didn’t mean to flip out in front of you.”
“It’s all right, but I’m so worried about your mom.”
“She needs to get out of that store. That place is just wearing her down. I wish she’d be like other women her age and go to Florida or take up golf, maybe meet a nice guy. It’s like she’s hiding from the world in there.”
“That’s not true,” they heard, then turned. Colin was on his deck, sliding the door shut. He came down the ramp with a slicker on, the hood up to keep him dry. He was still wearing the wet shorts, and she knew why. It would take too long to change.
Jenny met him with her hands on her hips. “Maybe she’d have a life if she ever got out of that store.”
“Point of view is a funny thing, Jen. I think she sees the whole world from there.”
“Jesus, you’re just like her.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“She lives like a college kid, Colin, barely scraping by each month. And you know she won’t take a dime from any of us.”
“Let’s just go. The main thing right now is that she’s okay.”
“Colin,” Lucy said, as Jenny went to her car and she followed him to his, “won’t you get chilled? Shouldn’t you change?” He didn’t take his hot bath. She knew he couldn’t feel the cold.
“I’ll keep the heater on. The shorts’ll dry by the time I get there and I’ll slip sweatpants on over them.” He lifted himself into the car, reached for his chair, folded it, then lifted it in and tucked it behind him. “I’ll be fine. Good luck with your trip.”
Before she could say a word, he shut the door and drove away.
* * *
SHE WAITED AND WAITED. She called the hospital, but didn’t ask for Ruth, not knowing how serious it was. Instead she spoke with a nurse who told her—which she should have realized—that because of confidentiality guidelines, she couldn’t tell her anything.
Unable to distract herself with work, she thought about painting a few more cabinets since they were only half done, but passed on that. Pacing the cabin, she stopped in a far corner of the room at a big old bookshelf that was painted brown, but now chipping. She hadn’t really paid much attention to it before and decided that perhaps she should paint it the same creamy white as the cabinets.
Studying the shelves, she saw that they were filled with old games, carvings on tree branches, various colored rocks, and of course, a supply of old books. They ran the gamut from old mysteries by Agatha Christie, to dated romance novels by Kathleen Woodiwiss. There were paperbacks from James Bond thrillers to classics by Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and of course F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Her eyes stopped on a beautiful leather-bound book. She pulled it out. It was a poetry anthology. She carried it out to the porch, hoping to find some Walt Whitman, who’d wooed her in high school and then college, his seductive, romantic verses perfect for the blooming heart of a young girl. Sitting in the rocker, she looked out at the lake. It was afternoon already, and still no word from Colin. Everything was still tha
t platinum shade, the water, the sky, even the surrounding mountains and trees wrapped in gray gauze, like a moth’s cocoon.
She opened the anthology to search for Whitman, but the book separated. Nestled against the spine was a crumbling flower, a red rose that had faded to brown, dried and brittle, bits of leaf and petal in the crease where the pages met.
She stared, wondering at the mystery behind it, her writer’s imagination instantly taking off. The story of that rose, the lovers involved, and the hope that perhaps even today, that love was still alive. She loved old books for that reason, finding fossils of past readers, bits of their lives lost amidst the pages, artifacts of real stories.
How many times over the years had she gotten a book from the library, or even a used book bin, and found tiny pieces of other lives. A grocery list, a lock of hair, a card with someone’s handwritten note: Can’t wait to touch you, Stephen, which she’d never forgotten. And then there were the food smudges, the whiffs of something, perfume, rose lotion, or simply the smell of the old book, a scent she loved. All of it implying that the life of the book was part of the reader’s life and had journeyed along for days, or perhaps weeks, through whatever drama was unfolding as the reader held that book, read those words, and lost him or herself for precious hours. As she’d done throughout the years with Nancy Drew and The Secret Garden, progressing to Dickens and Mark Twain, then copies of her mother’s Ayn Rand books, and Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, then Melville, Thoreau and Emerson. All of those books somehow touching her life when they seemed most needed.
Rooting through those shelves inside was like digging for treasure. Paging through the anthology, she stopped at “Song of Myself” and read. Then she found “Intimations of Immortality,” and skimmed through the long stanzas until she found the one she wanted:
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
This poem never failed to bring her to tears, especially now as she thought of Ruth in the hospital, the crumbling rose, and her husband dead so long ago. Somehow, Lucy knew it had to be from him.
By late afternoon Colin still hadn’t called. It was then that Lucy called her attorney and postponed tomorrow’s divorce hearing, telling him a dear friend was ill. She e-mailed David the same message, then walked out with her purse and the book of poems.
35
AT SEVEN-THIRTY, WHEN VISITING HOURS WERE nearly over and she hoped the family gone, Lucy went to the hospital. As she walked into the room and Ruth turned to see who was coming, Lucy was struck by how pale she looked, which only made the deep circles under her eyes more dramatic. And those big brown eyes held none of their usual sparkle. Suddenly, Ruth looked her age. Lucy walked over and gave her a hug.
“How are you?” Lucy asked just as Ruth said, “What on earth are you doing here?”
They both laughed.
“I thought you were already in St. Augustine.”
“No, things were delayed a few days.” A white lie, but Lucy didn’t want Ruth to feel responsible, as she would have.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Ruth said with a small smile.
“No, it’s nothing like that. Now, how are you?”
Ruth looked out the window a moment, shaking her head. “Scared. Relieved. Mad at myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have mono,” she said, with a little laugh. “You know the kissing disease? Except I haven’t been kissed in about thirty years. How’s that for irony?”
“But I thought it was your heart?”
“Yes, I do have fluid around my heart, but it’s not congestive heart failure as I first feared. It’s caused by the mono, no doubt because I ignored it for so long. It can happen, apparently, from any kind of virus. I kept thinking I was so tired because,” she paused and gave another little laugh, “well, I am nearly sixty-five years old.”
Lucy smiled, relieved, too. “Don’t be mad at yourself. I think a lot of us keep pushing when we should probably slow down.”
“I have to get out of here, though. This is putting me into an even bigger financial mess.”
“Wait, slow down.”
“I have a horrible policy, with an outrageous deductible, and still the premiums are ridiculously high. But it was the best I could manage. I figured I never get sick, so why bother, right?”
And yet here she was.
“The doctor wants me to stay a few more days. Of course Jenny is pushing me, too. I had to swear that when I get out of here I won’t set foot in the store for weeks. I don’t know that I could if I wanted to. Now that I’ve stopped pushing myself, I’m totally exhausted. I feel like I have mono.”
“Ruth, listen, I used to run a gift shop in Florida. I was the manager for two years. Before that I was an accountant. Let me help you, okay? It’s the least I can do.”
“Oh, I don’t—”
There was a knock at her door and a moment later Lucy’s heart went still as Gloryanne walked in. She held out a to-go cup and straw to Ruth.
“A strawberry milkshake from Bellvale Farms,” she said with a smile. “Remember how we used to bring you one every time we went there for ice cream?” And then Gloryanne noticed her. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”
Ruth introduced them and Gloryanne gave her a little smile. She was truly beautiful, with porcelain skin, huge gray eyes, and that gorgeous red hair falling all around her shoulders.
“I was just about to leave,” Lucy said, feeling horribly uncomfortable, wondering if Gloryanne knew Colin had feelings for her. Afraid she might say something in front of Ruth.
“No, stay. I have to get to work downstairs. Anyway, enjoy your shake, Mrs. Hardaway. It was nice meeting you, Lucy.”
When the door closed, Lucy hesitated a moment, then said, “That was sweet of her. She’s Colin’s…girlfriend?”
Ruth pulled the straw from its sleeve. “She was. But that’s a tough question to answer. She works downstairs in the ER, which I’d forgotten, so we’ve had a few…talks since I got here. I think maybe we were all a little hard on her, you know? She’s ready, she says, to make a commitment to Colin.”
“Really?” Lucy felt a little jolt of alarm. “What does Colin think?”
“I don’t know. He’s a very private person with things like that. But maybe it would be the best thing for him. I don’t want him alone for the rest of his life. I know he’ll never be like other men, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to be loved. If it weren’t for his accident, they’d have been married by now.” She paused. “She thinks he’s punishing her.”
“Do you think that’s true?”
“No. That’s not something he would do. At least not intentionally.” And then she hesitated. “You two have become pretty close. Has he mentioned anything about her?”
“Oh…we don’t really talk about personal things, either.” That wasn’t the truth, but she didn’t feel comfortable telling Ruth about Colin, especially now, on the heels of Gloryanne’s visit, and what had happened last night. So she changed the subject.
“I almost forgot,” Lucy said, reaching into her bag. “I brought you something. I found it at the cabin and thought you might enjoy it.”
As she handed Ruth the book of poetry, her eyes widened and her face went white, looking, Lucy thought, just like the old cliché: as if she’d seen a ghost.
36
RUTH STARED AT THE BROWN LEATHER COVER IN DISBELIEF. How ironic to see this book again, today of all days, after she’d sat up most of the night thinking over the years of her life; how nothing ever quite turns out the way you expect it to.
She’d gazed out the window for hours at the town below, picturing herself going back and forth from her house to the store, day after day for the p
ast thirty years. Or years ago, driving the kids to school each morning. And even before that, leaving her parents’ farm on a school bus into town. Nearly her entire life had existed within a few miles’ radius of where she sat in this hospital.
And yet she’d never felt confined or deprived. The world came to her through her books, or the stories her customers brought to her of their lives and travels. She had her children and grandchildren so she’d never been lonely, really. Until lately. Because lately she’d had a taste of possibility—of a different kind of life she could have if only she dared.
Now, here in her hands was proof of why she shouldn’t. This book she’d once loved, a symbolic reminder of her failure as a woman, her guilt as a wife.
“Ruth, are you all right?”
She looked up. Lucy’s face was filled with concern.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. It’s such a beautiful book, and I thought Whitman might be a good diversion while you’re here. And I found—”
“No, it’s fine,” Ruth interrupted. “I love Whitman, too. And this book, well, I haven’t actually seen it in decades. It’s just such a surprise.” She pulled it to her nose and a mixture of scents rose up to her—rich leather, musty pages, the tang of old ink. “My mother gave me this book for my sixteenth birthday. I knew it was expensive by the soft leather and the gold leaf on the cover. She must have saved for it a long time. To me it was a treasure. It made me think of what it must’ve been like when books were a rare thing, and people cherished them. I imagined it would become an heirloom in my family one day.”
Lucy smiled. “I figured it had happy memories for you. Especially when I saw the rose pressed in the pages. I could almost see you all dressed up for the prom with a beautiful corsage pinned on your gown.”
“I never went to a prom. I never got asked.” She opened the cover and the pages parted to the crumbling flower. She remembered the moment she had pressed it so carefully into this book. Her two most precious possessions at the time. “Bill gave me this rose. It was one of our first dates. We were just going out to dinner for my birthday, but he was always so romantic.”
Book Lover, The Page 27
