The Mountains Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Phoebe Alexander

  The street was nearly empty which reflected the fact that it was a weekday afternoon and most adults were at work and children were away at sitters’ and daycare. Her Toyota was crawling toward his property when she spotted a white Volkswagen Beetle parked in his driveway. Now added to her thundering heartbeat was a sensation of nausea oozing into her stomach and up into her throat. She was rolling forward slowly enough to catch a glimpse of a tall slender figure with blonde curls piled on top of her head push mowing the back lawn. The plates on the car were from Ohio.

  She gasped as the realization slammed into her thoughts: Maggie is already living at his house.

  ***

  She was unsure how she got home. Presumably, her Autopilot kicked in and safely steered her the eighteen miles between his house and hers. Sarah had no recollection between the time she processed that the tall blonde in his backyard was Maggie and when she pulled into her driveway right behind her mother’s car. She must have cried at some point during the trek, for she felt tear-stained tracks dried onto her cheeks.

  Kathy Lynde was in the backyard weeding in the garden. “Hey Mom...I didn’t know you were coming over today,” Sarah tried to sound normal as she approached her mother’s bent-over form. “It’s kind of hot to be doing that in the middle of the day isn’t it?”

  Kathy didn’t look up but straightened the wide brim of the straw hat she wore as she read her daughter’s mind. “You went to his house, didn’t you?”

  Sarah’s jaw dropped but words failed to erupt.

  Her mother slowly rose to a standing position, hands bracing her knees as she found her footing. “You’ve got to stop trying to be strong and mourn, Sarah. It’s okay for you to grieve. You lost something special and important to you.”

  “How did you know where I went?” Sarah stammered.

  “Abby said you looked upset when you left and that you gave some sort of vague itinerary.” Kathy’s lips spread into an empathetic smile. “Did you get some closure?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know, Mom.” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other while studying a fuzzy yellow dandelion waving against the blades of grass surrounding it. Is closure even possible? she pondered. “Maybe it’s more real to me now, that he’s gone and he’s not coming back to me.” She paused and raised her head, looking her mother in the eyes before revealing the true results of her mission: “She was there already.”

  Kathy nodded, unsurprised. “Maggie?”

  “She looked just like I thought she would,” Sarah murmured, her eyes squinting in the late afternoon sun.

  “You have to let him go, Sarah,” her mother advised. “There will always be a tiny piece of you that he retains, and you a piece of him. But the rest you needs to go on, find your new path. You’ll always have those tiny pieces of each other and all the precious memories you can hold tight to.”

  “I know you’re right,” Sarah agreed. “I just didn’t know it would hurt this bad for this long. And that makes me feel stupid for overestimating my powers of recovery,” she laughed, still able to see a glimmering thread of solace in the abyss.

  “It’s only been a couple of weeks!” Kathy laughed and shook her head, loving the resilience and strength her daughter exuded and realizing that her stubbornness was an apple that didn’t fall far from the proverbial tree. “You know, that’s what makes you so strong, honey, that you think you’re even stronger than you are. But a lot of times when you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, you don’t allow yourself the time you need to heal, to process, to grow. Feel sad! Feel angry! Feel hurt! Those are all well within your right.”

  She shook her head. “No, I can’t feel angry,” she protested.

  “Why not? He hurt you and he broke his promise to you not once, but twice. Once when he didn’t tell you about her in the first place and again when he said he’d wait until after his deployment to decide what he wanted,” her mother pointed out, her hands resting firmly on her hips. “Don’t make excuses for his bad behavior.”

  She had tried to reach within herself, grab onto the angry feelings and wrangle them to the surface, but she had never succeeded. Anger wasn’t an emotion Sarah was comfortable feeling. Instead, she often examined her own role in the situation and blamed herself for whatever shortcomings and failures she contributed. I let myself fall for him, she concluded. I laid in his arms knowing full well disaster lay ahead and yet I proceeded. “I had plenty of opportunity to walk away,” Sarah argued. “I kept coming back to him.”

  Kathy grasped her daughter’s hand in her own. “Just let yourself feel whatever your heart wants to feel. The road to recovery might be longer that way, but it will be more likely to take you where you need to go.”

  Sarah breathed deeply, internalizing her mother’s words. How can this woman always be so right?

  ***

  He thought about Sarah a lot. Maybe too much. He spent many workouts and runs searching the archive of vocabulary in his brain for the best words to say to her, his mind straining as hard as his heart and muscles. I don’t want to lose her, he thought. I want to salvage something...a friendship...whatever she might be agreeable to. But he wasn’t sure how to express that without making the wound deeper.

  Then he thought about the medium for his message. He could have emailed. He had finally gained reliable internet access and had already been instant messaging and Skyping with Maggie, who had happily settled into his house in Maryland. But for some reason good old fashioned pen and paper seemed the right way to establish contact with Sarah. He knew it would take a while, days or even weeks for her to receive a handwritten letter, but nevertheless he pulled out a pen and a pad of paper and began to pour out what had been on his mind:

  July 1, 2011

  Dear Sarah,

  I’m sorry I’m just now reaching out to you. It’s been a hectic few weeks for me, and I’m sure you’ve been busy with Rachel’s wedding as well. I wanted you to know I arrived safely and I’m acclimating to life in the desert again. I realize that I could have chosen a faster mode of communication but something about this feels more meaningful, so I hope you will accept it in the spirit in which it’s intended.

  Honestly it’s taken me this long to decide what I want to say to you. I did not want things to end the way they did. I really didn’t want to end things at all. I feel a strong connection with you and I don’t want you to feel otherwise. But I felt like it was unfair to have you waiting for me to make a decision when I know that what I really want is a family of my own. I always try to do what I think is right and I never wanted to hurt you in any way. You’re very special to me, Sarah, and I have learned a great deal from you about who I am and what it means to love.

  I hope that we can still be friends. I know that sounds trite, and might be too painful for you. I understand if you’re unable to, but it’s hard for me to imagine not having you in my life. Even though I haven’t known you for quite a year yet, you’ve made a huge impact on me and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I already miss you. I miss your passion, your intellect, your wit, your touch. All those things. Maybe you were right when you told me in Colorado that we are capable of loving more than one person. I wish that it was socially acceptable to do that openly.

  I hope this letter finds you well and that you will consider talking to me if I call you soon. I would love to hear your voice.

  Take care,

  James

  ***

  Chapter Two

  Casting

  Sarah’s hands began to tremble as soon as her fingers grazed the letter stuck in the middle of the stack of bills and advertisements. Her eyes misted at the sight of his name, Lt. James A. McAllister. She accidentally dropped the rest of the mail to the counter, a few pieces sliding off to the floor. Her heart pounding, she made her way to the table and eased herself into a chair as she ripped through the envelope with her fingernail.

  The letter was short and to the point, just as she would expect from James, but it sent a r
ush of heat through her body nonetheless. Visions of lying with him, his arm around her, limbs intertwined, her face buried in his chest hair danced behind her eyes. That feeling of hope she’d had standing at Rachel’s wedding in the Garden of the Gods was rekindled, a glowing ember searing through her veins as she digested his words. He misses me.

  It had been a month now since she had seen or talked to him, but he was safe in Afghanistan, still thinking of her, still wanting her in his life. He said he’s going to call me, she thought. He wants to hear my voice. She could hear his in her head, deep and smooth, resonating to her core. She felt awash in his memories, his touch, his smell, bombarded with sensations she’d desperately tried to avoid letting herself taste throughout the last month. And now she was drowning in them.

  “Mom?” came Abby’s voice from the doorway. “You okay?” Sarah’s teenage daughter veered from her path to the refrigerator and stopped a few feet from the table where her mother sat, still gripping the letter handwritten on yellow legal paper.

  When her mother didn’t respond, Abby glanced down at the envelope that lay on the table and realized instantly why she was shaken. “James,” she said with understanding: a statement, not a question.

  Sarah nodded and flicked away a tear that had emerged in the corner of her left eye, threatening to trickle down her cheek. I’m done crying over this man, she felt her resolve strengthen. He’s not worth it. I shouldn’t stay in contact with him. I was just beginning to heal. I had a setback when I drove to his house a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s been a month and the scabs are forming. Right now, I feel pierced and bleeding again. She folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope as if that sealed her determination. What kind of example am I setting for my daughter to let her see me so affected by a man?

  “What did he say?” Abby inquired, wondering if it was bad news. “Is he okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. He just wanted to say hello and that he may call soon,” Sarah responded, her voice calm and steady. “But I don’t think I’m going to talk to him,” as if telling Abby would hold her accountable.

  Abby looked confused. Sarah had never told either of her children that James ended their relationship before he left for Afghanistan. How do you tell your kids that you allowed your heart to get trampled upon, especially by someone they admired as much as James? They just assumed she was sad because he had left, not because he wasn’t going to be hers when he returned. “Why wouldn’t you talk to him?” Abby questioned.

  Sarah peered into her daughter’s curious blue-green eyes. How can I use this to help her learn? She couldn’t believe the incredible transformation she had seen in Abby in the last year. She flashed back to her daughter’s sixteenth birthday party a couple of months ago in May, which she only scarcely remembered due to the strong painkillers she took after the car accident that nearly claimed her life. A near death experience like that causes one to reassess everything in life: relationships, dreams, aspirations, past mistakes. It’s no wonder I’ve been a mess. I’m healing from two traumas at the same time. Nevertheless, Sarah was still angry at herself for letting her feelings for a man impact her choice to be on the roads so late at night. It was a reckless decision to leave when she was so tired and it was a spring weekend notorious for partying college students and prom-going high school students who could barely drive sober, let alone under the influence.

  She realized that Abby was now among that group. She was learning to drive; she would soon be cavorting about with her fellow teens, spreading her wings, learning what it means to be an adult. When does this happen? Sarah wondered. First your child is this tiny bundle you hold so close to your heart, protecting them from every possible harm. Then suddenly you must fling them out into a world of precarious dangers. I had sixteen years to make this transition, so why does it feel so abrupt?

  Sarah thought back to her own adolescence, high school proms and parties, college nights of being drunk or high. Or both. Her own mother philosophized, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and paired that with the mantra, “Everything that happens to you is a learning experience.” She stepped back and let Sarah make her own decisions, interjecting her own wisdom and guidance whenever she felt it prudent.

  Sarah was finding it much more challenging to let go of her own children, to release them into the wild. Unlike her mother, it was hard for her to trust that any pain they endured would shape them into the adults they were meant to be. This was, of course, despite the fact that she knew her few bad choices along the way had informed her growth more than the sum of all her good choices. And maybe James McAllister is on that list of bad choices. It doesn’t mean I didn’t gain something valuable from it.

  Added to her reticence to let go was the research she’d read on the phenomenon of fatherless children. As a sociologist, Sarah was always compelled to temper her intuitions with empirical evidence. It meant being torn between idealism and pragmatism much of the time, but that was a tightrope she was used to walking. She wondered how much of her failure to sustain relationships with suitable men was due to her having grown up without a male role model. No matter how independent and strong of an influence Kathy Lynde was, Sarah felt drawn to seek approval from males, which may have explained her attachments to Matt, Abby’s father, and later Daniel, Owen’s father. Did it explain her attachment to James as well? And if so, how could she keep her daughter from repeating the same mistakes?

  “Abby,” Sarah began, her voice laced with a cold, hard edge, detaching herself from all the emotion she’d cycled through in the past thirty some odd days, “James and I broke up before he left for Afghanistan.”

  Abby’s eyes grew wide. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, clearly trying to decide if she should take a seat or remain standing. She pulled her braided hair over her shoulder and began to twist the blunt ends around her finger. “That sucks,” she finally remarked, other words failing her.

  Sarah nodded. “I thought so too,” she admitted. “But, ultimately, it’s for the best. He is young; he wants a family of his own. He got engaged before he left.”

  Abby’s eyes began to glow as her braid fell back against her skin. “He did what?!” she shrieked. Her high pitch brought her eleven-year-old brother Owen into the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong?” Owen immediately questioned. He was sweaty from playing outside with the neighborhood kids but his hands were freshly scrubbed and Sarah could smell the soap on them as he redirected his path toward the table. He hated being left out of conversations.

  Sarah shook her head, “It’s okay, guys. Owen, I was just telling your sister that James and I broke up when he left for Afghanistan. He’s going to marry his high school sweetheart when he returns.”

  The color drained from Owen’s face as he pulled the chair out from the table next to his mother. He sunk into it and buried his head in his hands. “I don’t understand,” he finally said. He has such a sensitive soul, Sarah thought, observing that he had no ability to mask his reaction. He’s definitely a Lynde. Someday he will have to grow thick skin to protect himself from getting hurt like his grandmother and I have had to do. Even then, he will always be vulnerable, I suppose. Like I am.

  “I know you both really liked James,” Sarah consoled her offspring. “I did too, but I always believed our relationship would be short-term. I knew he’d be leaving for war and that he might not come back to me. It’s sad, and we’ll miss him, but when he does return, he’ll have a happy life and we can probably still keep in touch.”

  “But you just said you don’t want to talk to him,” Abby interjected.

  Sarah thought for a moment before replying. “I might need a bit more time before I can speak to him,” she explained. Owen patted her hand when her voice betrayed her ever so slightly with a crack on the word “time.”

  Sarah dug deep and conjured up a laugh, “I’m alright,” she promised. “I’m sure he and I will stay friends.” She wanted to show her children her strength. That
she was unshaken. Resilient.

  Abby smiled. “He’s a good guy,” she said. Owen nodded and gave his mother a hug.

  Sarah found it amazing that they had ascertained that James was a good man just from the few interactions they’d had with him. Sometimes kids and animals have much greater powers of discernment than adults. She remembered the four of them sitting around the coffee table playing a board game the night she introduced him. She remembered the banner and cards they’d given him at his going away party. She recalled Abby’s smirky smile and Owen’s adoring eyes traveling up to his.

  Maybe it’s a bad idea to fully close the door, she reconsidered. Kindred spirits don’t come into your life every day. And there was a lingering phantom of a thought: and someday in the future he could still change his mind about me.

  ***

  The video feed was shaky and the audio crackled a bit but James could make out the image of his future bride sitting at his desk peering into the webcam. “Turn on another light so I can see your beautiful face better,” he instructed. He watched her move across the room to the floor lamp and it switch on, framing her bent over form in a glowing orb for a fraction of a second before she jerkily appeared back at the desk chair.

  “I have good news!” she exclaimed, “And I don’t want to wait another moment to tell you!”

  James’s lips turned up into a smile. “You found a job?” he guessed.

  She jumped up and down excitedly, “Yes! And not just a job, THE job!” she clarified, clapping her hands and doing a little dance which looked like the camera jumping around erratically on James’ end.

  “Baltimore or DC?” he asked.

  “Neither,” she replied. “At the hospital right here in Laurel. It’s like 10 minutes from your house! I’m not going to have to fight the beltway traffic and it’s going to make it so much easier when we have kids. I’ll be close to home and their schools!”