Before he left, he bent down and gave the little girl a big hug. She hugged him back fiercely. Though he hated letting go, he finally did. He held her at arm’s length and looked at her. I may not deserve her, he thought, but I’m going to try to be worthy.
Connor’s last view of Lauren was of her waving wildly, surrounded by the other kids. Sarah’s arm was over her shoulder, and she, too, was waving—less wildly and with an uncertain smile on her face.
I can’t expect more than that, he thought.
CHAPTER 29
May 15 was a gorgeous spring day. Archer woke early and felt restless. The preparations for the service had been fairly simple. She had spoken to the Reverend Stone and explained her thoughts to him: some music that Annie liked, some daisy and mum bouquets on the altar, a few words of remembrance, and that was it.
The Reverend Stone checked the schedule and told Archer that the main sanctuary was available and the smaller chapel was also free. Archer chose the chapel—small, intimate, old, granite. There would be few people, and the gathering would look puny and sad in the vast main sanctuary with its vaulted ceiling. Archer had told her family, Annie’s old friend Sophie, and a few colleagues. She expected perhaps nine or ten people at most.
Archer dressed with much forethought. Annie had always liked red, so she wore a black sleeveless sheath with a red sweater. She began the drive into Hartford at about two o’clock, using the back roads instead of the highway.
She arrived at the church on Asylum Avenue at three twenty—too early for her nerves to cope with that much downtime. So she drove into West Hartford Center, where she was surprised to see so many restaurants, cafés, and boutiques. Much had changed in six years. She made a quick tour around the business block but avoided their old house.
Getting back to the church with a much more bearable five minutes to spare, she locked the Jeep and walked hurriedly to the side door that led directly into the front end of the chapel. There she pulled the door handle and stepped inside.
She felt weak at the sight. The chapel was nearly full. In the front two rows, she saw Sharon, Ted, Julie, David, Rachel Cohen, and nine or ten lawyers who were friends or colleagues. Behind them she saw not just Sophie but much, if not most, of Annie’s class—or what would have been her class. Sophie’s work.
Sophie smiled and waved, and Archer felt a lump in her throat. Tears formed as she looked at all the eighteen-year-olds, here to remember Annie, their bright faces serious and intense.
A quick scan also told her that Adam was not here. She bit down hard on her lip, surprised at how much she had counted on him to show up. Adam was the only person in the world who had loved Annie as intensely as she; it was the first time he had ever let her down.
Stepping to the front row, Archer sat down next to Sharon just as the first sweet notes of Enya’s “Wild Child” came wafting through, ethereal and angelic, the strings clear and delicate. From the time she was little, Annie had called Enya the “angel music.”
Sharon took Archer’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Julie wept silently against her mother. Archer knew that the child could have little independent memory of Annie, yet she understood her sadness. The harp’s notes were heartbreaking.
Just then, there was a stir at the back of the chapel. Archer turned, and there he was, herding two little boys into the back pew. Adam’s boys were in suits, their blond hair carefully combed into place. They looked awed by the music and solemnity.
A tall blond woman in a smart black suit—Allison, she presumed—followed Adam into the chapel. Stepping aside to let her into the pew ahead of him, he bent over to whisper something in her ear. She nodded, hesitantly at first, then more vigorously. Adam kissed her cheek and walked to the front of the chapel. He nodded to Archer and slipped into the front pew to stand beside her, tall and handsome.
Archer looked at him and smiled. “Adam . . . thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”
“Yes, Arch. I’m here. Wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Annie never let me down.” He took her hand, then added, “And you never did, either, Arch. Never. My two girls never let me down.” Archer looked down, eyes brimming, and then turned her attention to the service.
She listened to recollections of Annie’s friends—a few sad, but most funny. Sophie, now a student at Hartt School of Music in Hartford, was especially touching when she belted out, to organ accompaniment, “This Old Heart of Mine,” a Motown favorite of her and Annie. It was a surprising, light touch, the words suiting a situation for which they were never intended. Then Archer went up to the pulpit. She started.
“Sophie, thank you so much for the reminder that we are here for a celebration, not a dirge. Annie would have loved it.” She paused a second to wipe away a tear. “You know, an old friend once told me not just to grieve Annie, but to honor her. So today, on her eighteenth birthday, I want to honor her memory, rejoice in her life, and remember only the good and happy things about the past. To be sad would be so ungrateful, and I am nothing if not grateful for every moment I had Annie. As Hemingway said, ‘They are not dead, those whom we love . . .’”
From then on, it was easy. After all, she was talking about her favorite subject in the world. When Enya sang “Adios” at the end, Archer felt she had honored her only child as she deserved to be honored on this, her eighteenth birthday.
CHAPTER 30
Connor paused to gaze out the open barn door toward the horizon. The sunset shone in blue, pink, and orange fire. He shook his head, sighed, and hoisted the last bale of hay up to Felix in the loft.
“That’s it, boss. Can’t fit any more.”
“Well, that’s handy, because that’s the last bale,” replied Connor.
It was early June, hot, and the end of a rugged three months. After his detour to see Lauren, Connor had returned from the Berkshires to find the ranch plodding along in maintenance mode. Ordinarily, he would have been peeved that none of the big projects had advanced in his absence, but now he blessed the abundance of work. The last thing he wanted was time to think.
Shearing had to start as soon as he arrived, certainly before lambing took over. Without the bulk of the extra winter-grown fleece, lambing was easier on the ewes. With the ewes shorn, the barn was substantially roomier—and warmer, too, since their body heat was no longer held in by the wool. Nursing the newborns was easier, too, and the ewes could fit into smaller lambing pens.
For two months after his return, Connor and his crew sheared virtually around the clock—work that would determine the ranch revenues for the year. And the new lambs would guarantee the future. Most days, Connor got up before dawn and worked until dark, ate on the porch, and fell into bed for, at most, six hours of sleep.
He was heartbroken, but self-pity was not in his makeup. Although raised Catholic, he was a Calvinist through and through—work first, grieve later. Life would go on. As much as he understood that Archer’s rejection of him was not for lack of love, his pain was depthless. Still, one didn’t really die of a broken heart. More’s the pity, he thought.
Jordan Hayes, Connor’s pal and the ranch vet, had shown up shortly after his return, to tend to an ailing pregnant ewe. After giving her a shot and a friendly pat, Jordan smiled and said: “She’ll be fine.”
Connor nodded. “Thanks, Jordan. Felix, put Jezebel out with the rest, would you? Thanks a lot.” Felix, breathing easier for the first time since he had found the sheep bleating in distress this morning, herded her out the barn door.
Jordan Hayes was a big, freckled, red-headed man in his mid-forties. His uniform was black jeans, a blue striped shirt, and a flat tweed cap, even in the summer. Born and raised in small-town western Wyoming, he had married a local girl when he was twenty-three. Now he had four daughters, ranging from eight to twenty years old. He called them “the Hayes quartet.”
His wife, Lydia, was a tomboy who, often as not, could be found riding horses in the mountains with the older girls or playing hopscotch in the driveway wit
h the younger ones. Domesticity was “not her thing,” she had told Jordan straight out before they married. Jordan had just laughed. Most mornings, he threw in a load of laundry, ran the vacuum over the downstairs carpets, and set out lunches for the girls with no complaint before starting his rounds at the neighboring ranches. He was a good talker and an even better listener.
Jordan wiped his hands on a clean white cotton rag, then held out a callused hand to Connor, who responded with a strong shake and then a bear hug.
“I really missed you, Doc. It’s tough to find anyone in Massachusetts who knows what to do when the sheep stampede.”
“What can I say?” Jordan teased, returning the hug. “It’s a dying art. Good to have you back in town, old man. Thought you’d left us for good—the seductiveness of civilization, and all that. Heard you had courting on your mind.”
“Yeah, well, reports of my courting are greatly exaggerated,” replied Connor. He hesitated, then said, “It actually was a pretty painful stretch. I thought I really found someone who . . . well, I thought I really found someone. It was magical, but . . .”
Jordan waited. Connor led the way to his office in the back corner of the barn. Once there, he collapsed into his desk chair while Jordan sank heavily onto the green leather sofa.
“Archer—that’s her name—is complicated. Somehow it all worked, at least for a while, but I guess we couldn’t translate what we had up there in isolation into everyday living.” Connor gave a sad smile.
“Anything I can do, Mac? Much as I sometimes gripe about Lydia and the girls, they keep me centered, you know? It’s the best thing in the world to find a true partner for life—makes all this craziness seem like it’s worthwhile. How are you holding up?”
Connor shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, Jordan. I’m working hard, trying not to dwell on it. It was a blow, though. I never felt so helpless in my life, like I couldn’t go forward but couldn’t go backward, either. Mostly, I felt pretty sad—still do.”
“Sounds like depression to me. Seein’ anyone for that?”
“No, but if you vets have any remedies for a lovesick ram, let me know,” Connor joked. “Look, I’ll get over it. It takes some time. It’s just that I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and that affected everything I did. I smiled all the time, if you can believe that. I thanked people for selling me a newspaper, getting me a coffee. I loved grocery shopping, for God’s sake, because it meant dinner with her. And now, it’s just . . . well, real empty.”
“Jeez, Mac. I’m really sorry.” Jordan pushed back into the sofa. After a few moments of thought, he said, “Okay, here it is, best advice I can give you: don’t let a true love go without a fight. I don’t know how it ended between you and her, but the one doesn’t happen twice. Forget that ‘other fish in the sea’ crap. There’s the one, and when she crosses your path, you better grab on and hold her. Lydia’s family was dead set against our marriage, but we knew. We eloped and never looked back. If you know, don’t accept less—fight for it.”
Connor looked down, studying his hands.
“Yeah, well, it’s not that simple with Archer. She has issues.”
“All that means is she’s a woman. Hey, come to dinner tonight, why don’t you? I picked up some steaks in town this morning. Lydia’s looking at colleges in Montana with Karen. We can throw back a few and catch up.”
“Thanks, Jordan. Some other time.”
* * *
Felix and the hands noticed the change in their boss. He was quieter and often seemed lost in thought. On the few occasions they could convince him to join them after work at the Hangout, he spoke little, had just a beer or two, and excused himself early.
One of the waitresses, Charlotte, was sweet on him, and he used to joke with her regularly and raucously when she flirted. Pre-Archer, he had taken Charlotte to the movies a few times and, after a rather drunken New Year’s Eve party, had slept with her. Now he barely noticed her playful suggestions.
In their way, the hands were alarmed. They counted on Connor’s demanding perfectionism, and now he sometimes let things slide. They shook their heads and mumbled, confused. It was as if their exacting teacher now accepted mediocrity without a wince. And then that photograph showed up.
* * *
The envelope arrived in his big mailbox at the end of the half-mile driveway in late April. Connor had just finished a dinner of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, with Alice eating half the toast. In the off-season, he would have tacked up Millie and ridden out for the mail. In season, horse and man got more than enough saddle time, so he and Alice took the pickup for the mail.
The evening sky was deep cerulean blue with a scattering of puffy clouds. Connor stopped the truck at the driveway’s end and got out slowly, stiffly, to open the box. He expected the usual bills, advertisements, and bank statements, and the usual was there all right, but sticking out prominently was a large yellow envelope, stiff and unbending.
He pulled out the mail all at once, and the large envelope slipped from his grasp and hit the ground. Stooping to pick it up, he saw that it had been forwarded from his post office box in Lenox. He read the upper left-hand corner:
ROBERT BIONDI
Photography Studios
363 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 23464
Connor stared at the packet for a moment, then chuckled ruefully to himself. “Beautiful timing . . . just beautiful.”
Connor threw the mail on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat and drove back to the house. Dropping the bundle on the front hall table, he hung up his hat, then picked up the pile of mail again, pawing through it to remove any bills. Stepping over to the trash bin in the kitchen, he tossed the rest and climbed the stairs to bed, Alice following closely behind.
Connor’s alarm clock rang at 4:30 a. m. For the hundredth time he wished he had gotten one of those CD alarm clocks—at least then he could wake up to Ella Fitzgerald, Vivaldi, or Sinatra. He folded the blankets back and ruffled the curly fur on Alice’s thick neck.
“Come on, old girl,” he said. “Another day.”
He threw on his jeans, a warm turtleneck sweater, and a fleece jacket and headed down the stairs. Alice, not wanting to miss a thing, got up with a grunt and ambled down after him. In the kitchen, Connor opened the cupboard and took out his favorite mug, the ceramic one with a blue cow on it and “The End” written on the inside bottom, and filled it with coffee, thanking God for timers on coffeepots. Then he took his mug, grabbed a woolen throw for his shoulders, and went out to sit on the porch rocker. It was still dark outside and darn cold, but he took pleasure in looking out on his own land, which extended as far as he could see in every direction.
In an hour, it would be light enough to work. He rocked, sipped his coffee, and wondered what Archer was doing now. It was already almost seven at the cabin. Maybe she missed him. He had hoped she would call, maybe write. But nothing. Then he knew, it was over. At the end of his life, in a little compartment, would be his six months with Archer. No more, no less. Just six months, in a box all by itself.
Connor stood up and stalked back into the kitchen. He opened the cupboard under the sink, pulled the yellow envelope out of the trash bin, and brought it back out to the porch. He should at least look at the pictures. After all, the photographer had sent them as promised, much to his surprise.
He turned the packet over and peeled up the flap. It tore, and he ripped the top open. Inside was a small stack of photos.
“Alice, if you could only get my glasses for me,” he commented to the black, hairy hulk lying at his feet. Alice looked up at him and wagged her stump at the sound of her name.
He got up and went into the front hall to get his glasses, then came back out and sat down. The first set of photos was in color. There were three poses. The first showed him and Archer raising their glasses to the anniversary couple. God, she was beautiful!
Connor sighed and shuffled on to the next photo. It was simila
r to the first, but their smiles were wider, more vibrant, more full-faced.
He flipped to the third pose and stopped breathing for an instant. Jesus! Was he that transparent? In that view, Archer was still facing forward, looking at the elderly couple, but he was looking at her. His eyes were soft, bright, totally in love. No mistake. Did one person always love the other more in a relationship? Was it ever equal? He wondered. Talk about capturing a moment in time!
He flipped to the next set of photos: two poses in black and white. Both were full-front views, less candid, with both him and Archer aware of the camera and playing to it. They looked happy. He sighed. She was something.
Connor put the photos back in the envelope and let it rest in his lap. Did he need this memory? He leaned back in the rocker and closed his eyes. Maybe he should return east and pick up where he left off. But he had a business, with others depending on him. And even if he could get away, Archer was still haunted—nothing had changed. She would resent his interfering with her warped idea of penance, which would doom their love. It would be unbearable to have things turn ugly, to turn something beautiful, though fleeting, into something tortured and ugly. That he couldn’t survive.
Connor was never one to force a situation. But was Jordan right? Should he fight for her? No, he thought, you can’t make someone see things they don’t want to see. It’s doomed before it begins. It was all impossible, and it always would be.
Connor got up and took the package inside. He took one copy of the photo of him looking at Archer and returned the others to the envelope. My finest hour—hah! he thought. A toast to a feeling as old as civilization—being in love. A cliché. But when it happened to you, it didn’t feel like such a cliché anymore. It felt sacred, startling, and brand-spanking-new, all at once. And it also hurts, he thought, and I don’t have time for this. He went upstairs to shower and dress for another day of haying.
Tell Me When It Hurts Page 20
