She tells me where the game will be, and it’s at the same athletic complex that I used to play at when I was a boy.
“No promises, but I’ll see if I can get there,” I say quietly, already planning in my head how I can blend in. Maybe if I stand behind the bleachers no one will notice I’m there. Who am I kidding? Everyone will know I’m there. All of them. All of Melanie’s old friends from high school will be there. People we knew from work will be there. And his other grandparents will be there. The whole fucking town will be there. “I’ll try,” I tell her.
“I’ll see you there,” she says, her voice harsh. “If you don’t show up, I’m bringing him to the lake and I’m dropping him off. You’re going to see him one way or the other.” She hisses the words at me, finally losing her patience with my prevaricating.
“Mom, I don’t have a place for him here. I’m living in a tent.”
“Ethan, your dad and I took care of you in a tent every weekend. You loved it, and he will too. He won’t even know you live there. He’ll just think you’re taking him on a fun outing.”
“I’m not ready, Mom…”
“Then get ready, son,” she says. “Because it’s happening whether you want it to or not.” Then she hangs up the phone.
I lie back and stare up at the fabric ceiling of my tent. My son just called me, I spoke to him for the first time in five years, and it wasn’t a shit-show. Instead, it was nice. And what if my mom’s right? What if the townspeople don’t really care anymore about what happened all those years ago? What if they’re over it?
What’s bad is that I’m not over it, and I’m not sure if I ever will be. But he’s my son and he wants to see me. And I’m desperate to see him, even if I know it will be hard.
When he was smaller, my mom used to send me pictures of him every week. I’d put them up on the wall with tape, and then replace them as she sent more, putting the older ones in an empty box one of the guards found for me. When Mitchell got old enough, he’d write short letters or draw a picture for me. So I know that my mom kept me alive for him. But where does that leave me now? Will I do more harm than good by stepping back into his life?
I stare at the fabric ceiling and run through the scenarios in my head of every way it could go at the ballgame. Not one of them involves me being allowed to peacefully attend. But my son wants me to be there. I just need to figure out how to make it happen.
I look over at my duck, who likes to sleep on a pile of blankets next to my head, and say to him, “Wilbur, I’m going to a ball game.”
Wilbur doesn’t reply, mainly because Wilbur is a duck, but his soulful gaze is an exact reflection of how I feel inside. He’s probably as confused as I am about what’s going to happen. He just doesn’t know how to show it.
5
Abigail
“It feels like rain,” my grandmother says from the other end of the phone line. “My bones have been aching all afternoon.”
I look up at the clear blue sky, which doesn’t have a single cloud in it. But, then again, I am an hour away from her. “It’s clear here.”
“It’s coming your way,” she warns. I hear the ice tinkle in her glass of sweet tea as she lifts it to her lips and takes a drink.
“That better be unsweetened,” I chide playfully. My grandmother would sooner die than drink unsweetened tea. And artificially sweetened tea is “from the devil,” as she puts it.
Instead of responding to my taunt, she says, “Take my word for it. A storm is heading your way. Have you seen anybody up there yet? Or is the place pretty much cleared out for the season?”
“Cleared out,” I reply, and I take a sip of my own sweet tea. I made a whole pot right when I got here, since Gran had left supplies in the cupboard if they were things that would last through the winter. “The place is like a ghost town.”
“Have you seen Erik anywhere?” she asks, and she has a lilting, teasing sound to her voice.
I scratch my knee and knock a bug off my leg. “Who?”
“Mr. Jacobson Senior. The older gentleman with the firm backside and deprecating sense of humor.”
“Eww. I can’t believe you’re talking about the man’s backside.” I chuckle.
“Well, I happen to have explicit knowledge of his front side, too,” she replies.
“Gran!” I yell on top of a laugh. “Stop!” But I’m laughing so hard that I have to hold my sides.
“Oh, it’s not what you think,” she says, but I can hear the laughter in her voice. “I stumbled upon him skinny-dipping with his wife one night, back when we were all younger. I just happened to get a glimpse of his package. It was pretty impressive, I’m not going to lie.”
“So you and he never…” I let the words hang there in the air.
“Oh, God, no. He’s just a friend.”
“Is he the one you called when I said I was coming up here?” As the sun sets, lightning bugs begin to flicker on and off in the distance.
“Yes.”
I catch a flyaway piece of my hair that starts to tickle my nose and tuck it behind my ear. “Did you tell him what happened?”
“I reckon that’s your business,” she says, and she lets out an indelicate sniff. “But he was pretty interested in hearing the story. Always was a nosy old coot.”
“You could have told him,” I say. “It’s not like people knowing will change anything.”
“So, you’re not going back?” she asks.
My gran and I have always been tight. She has been my confidante when I couldn’t talk about things with my mother. When I was old enough, she’d taken me to get started on birth control. She has stood by me through more shit than anyone. “There’s nothing to go back to.” I play with a stray thread on the frayed hem of my shorts. “He moved me out, moved her in, and they’re probably planning a nursery right now.”
“Still a shitty thing to do,” she mutters. “He could have told you it was over and let you decide when you wanted to go.”
“That would have been way too civilized.”
“How long are you going to stay at the lake?”
“I figure a couple of weeks. Maybe more. Who knows.” I shrug even though I know she can’t see me. “As I said, there’s nothing to go back to. Except maybe finding another job.”
“You’ll have to start your paperwork soon.”
“What paperwork?” I ask. “Updating my resume?”
“Divorce paperwork, Abigail. You get half the equity in that house even if he did kick you out of it,” she reminds me. “Please tell me you took your grandpa’s keepsake box with you.” She sounds like she’s holding her breath all of a sudden.
I smile. “It’s the only thing I grabbed on the way out the door.” It was really the only thing that mattered.
“What I want to know is why you don’t sound like you’re broken up over the way things have gone.” She waits. Silent.
“I feel relieved, honestly,” I say after a moment. “I don’t know why I feel this way. But I’m not sad. I’m mad as hell about the cheating and the baby and everything, but I’m not sad.”
“Good,” she says firmly.
A roll of thunder shakes the sky just as we finish our talk. “How do you do that?” I whisper more to myself than to her.
“My old bones never lie,” she replies.
A flash of lightning streaks across the sky and it’s almost immediately followed by another clap of thunder that’s loud enough to shake the porch rail. “I’d better go,” I say.
“Love you, Abigail,” she says softly. And I know she’s not lying. “You’re going to get through this. You’re going to come out the other side and be happier for it.”
Tears sting my eyes and I blink hard to push them back. “Thanks, Gran. Love you too.”
She hangs up and I sit on the porch and watch as fat raindrops plunk around me.
I love the rain. I always have. I’ve never been bothered by thunder or lightning. I wouldn’t go stand on a golf course in the middle of
a storm, but I like to walk around in the rain, feel it on my skin. I like to let it wash over me. I like to jump in the puddles it leaves behind, just like when I was a kid.
So I walk out into the yard and start toward the dock. The even firmness of the boards under my feet is a comfort. I walk all the way to the end of the dock, and then I stretch my arms out to the sides as the skies open and the heavens empty right on top of me. The rain is harsh, blowing sideways in the beginning, and then falling more softly, a steady downpour. I close my eyes, lift my face toward the sky, and let the rain drench me.
“Have you lost your damn mind?” a voice suddenly bellows, and I hear heavy footsteps striking the dock boards behind me. I turn to face a furious man, the same one I saw in the lake earlier, as he runs toward me. “Abigail Marshall,” the man says, “I never took you for a dumbass.”
I stare at him hard now that he’s closer to me. His eyes are dark brown with little flecks of gold and green. I can see them in the flash of lightning that lights up the sky. “What?” My hair is plastered to my face, so I brush it back with an impatient swipe. “Who are you?” Then I freeze, because I know those eyes. “Ethan?”
He stands there being absolutely pelted by the rain, his clothes soaked. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks.
I point up. “It’s raining.”
He blows rainwater from his lips. “I see that.” Then he suddenly cracks a smile.
A grin tugs at my own lips and I don’t even try to bite it back.
“Both of you deserve to get electrocuted!” a voice yells from the end of the dock. I look around Ethan to see Mr. Jacobson sitting on his little red golf cart where the dock meets the grass, somewhat protected from the rain by the plastic canopy on top.
I look at Ethan and grin. He grins back. The water runs down his face in rivulets.
“Why are we standing in the rain?” he yells over the downpour.
I shrug. “I just felt like it.”
“Had enough yet?” He swipes his face with his palm, like a windshield wiper arm.
“Not yet.” I stand there and I let the rain wash over me. My clothes are stuck to me and my hair is one big damp mess, I’m sure. But I don’t care.
“When do you think you’ll be done?”
I shrug again and stare at him. “What are you even doing here?”
“I’m saving your life,” he says, and then he grabs my hand and starts to tug me toward Mr. Jacobson’s cart. I try to brace my feet to stop him, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead, he marches all the way to Mr. Jacobson’s cart, shoves me in the seat with a jolt, and motions for him to take me home. He hangs on the back of the cart like a bag of golf clubs as we dash through the rain.
Mr. Jacobson parks right in front of my steps and Ethan and I climb out. “I was fine, you know,” I say. I smooth my wet hair back from my forehead.
“You certainly looked fine,” Mr. Jacobson says. Then he shakes his head, gives Ethan a pointed glare that I don’t understand, and then he takes off in his little cart.
“I’m not ready to be done,” I say to Ethan. I stand there in the rain, since it’s still coming down steadily. He motions toward the front door and I shake my head.
“What’s wrong with you?” He stares at me hard, his gaze so penetrating that I’m afraid he can see into my soul.
“Nothing’s wrong with me. What’s wrong with you?”
Water cascades from the tip of his slightly crooked nose. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?” he asks, his voice a little gentler. “Is this a nervous breakdown?”
I shake my head, genuinely amused. “No, I’m fine, but thank you for offering.” I sit down on the top step level with the porch and rest my elbows on my knees. The rain continues its steady fall. He sits down next to me but says nothing. He just mirrors my pose and stares out over the compound.
A quack breaks the rustling sound of falling rain.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He grins. “That’s Wilbur.” He turns to look at me, a stupid grin on his face. “My duck.”
My jaw literally drops. I point to the little black and green waterfowl that has just waddled up near his feet. “That’s yours?”
He nods. “I left him in the tent, but he must have gotten out. He doesn’t like to be left all alone.”
“He thinks you’re his family? Really?” I look from him to the duck and back. Ethan looks at the duck so fondly that I can tell there’s a real relationship there.
“Apparently,” he says and shrugs. Then he falls silent. He just sits quietly in the rain with me as we both get soaked some more. The duck occasionally makes a noise, but he eventually goes and huddles under one of the boxwood bushes next to the steps.
When the rain finally slows, I stand up. “I’m going inside,” I say. “Unless you want to explain to me why you’re here.” With a duck.
He stands up too, and he shakes his head. “No desire to explain anything.”
That kind of takes me aback a little. “Well, it was good to see you,” I say. He doesn’t look the same, and yet he looks exactly the same as he did when we were thirteen. There’s just something so familiar about the way he holds his body, the way he looks at me, and the way he is just…Ethan. I honestly can’t believe I didn’t know who he was when I waved to him earlier from the dock. Must be the beard.
“It was good to see you too,” he replies simply, and then he leaves, his little duck waddling obediently behind him.
I watch them until they disappear around the bend, then let myself into the cabin, change into dry clothes and towel-dry my hair, and then I lie down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling. I lift my hands and I notice that I’m still wearing my wedding band on my ring finger.
I slowly pull it off, and I rub at the light indentation it has left behind. It doesn’t rub off. It’s there to stay, even though my marriage is over. And it is over. Nothing has ever been more over. I set the ring on the bedside table and roll over onto my side, pulling Gran’s handmade afghan over me as I roll.
6
Ethan
The next morning, I get up at dawn, just like normal. I make a cup of coffee over my little propane stovetop, and I walk down toward the dock with it in my hands. I like to watch the sun come up. It’s always peaceful in the morning. There are no cicadas warring to see who can be loudest, and even the birds aren’t awake yet. Well, except for Wilbur. He goes to paddle around in the shallow water.
“’Morning,” a voice says from behind me. Pop, to be as big as he is, is quiet as a mouse when he wants to be.
I turn and nod at him and then continue along my way.
He follows. “I thought I told you to stay away from that Marshall girl,” he says, his voice as stern as I remember it being in my youth.
“That was the plan.”
“Then she had to go and try to get herself killed by standing on the dock in the middle of a storm.” He walks closer to me, and I take a step to the side. “She okay?”
“Seemed fine when I left her.” And she had. She’d seemed odd in an I-want-to-stand-in-the-pouring-rain kind of way, but otherwise she was fine.
“Did she lose her marbles when she lost her husband?” he asks. He stares at me so hard that it’s disconcerting.
I cough into my fist to clear my throat. “I don’t know anything about her husband.”
“She didn’t bring him up?”
“No, sir.” I want to ask, but I figure it’s really not any of my business. But the question eats at me deep inside. Might explain her odd behavior. “Did he die?”
He shakes his head. “Pretty sure he’s still breathing. He’s just not hers anymore.”
He goes quiet for a long moment as we continue to walk. Then he suddenly blurts out, “Her grandmother was a looker, too.” His cheeks turn pink when I glance at him, surprised by his comment. “Well, she was,” he rushes on defensively. “She had those damn curls that blew all over the place. Always made me want to grab her by them and hold h
er hair still.”
The image makes me almost laugh. I’ve never wanted to hold Abigail’s hair still. I like that it flies all over the place, a riot of curls.
“She was a free spirit,” he goes on. “Got to admire somebody that can be that free.”
I nod without comment.
“So the Marshall girl was okay?” he asks again.
“She seemed fine. Wanted to sit in the rain.” I still don’t understand that part.
He suddenly stops, and out of politeness so do I. “Did she remember you?” He looks everywhere but at me, which helps to put me a little more at ease. “She did.” She’d said my name and everything. While she may have maintained the curly hair, the tall willowy body, and the startling brown eyes, she was very different from the girl I used to know. And I’m sure I’m different too. Hell, I haven’t even seen my face in years. My beard is inches thick. I’m really surprised she knew who I was at all.
“I believe I told you to stay away from her.”
“That’s my plan.” I watch as Wilbur ducks his head over and over, enjoying his bath.
“Well, if she needs saving again, you’ll probably feel obligated to rush to her rescue.”
I inwardly roll my eyes. I wouldn’t dare do it where he can see me; I’m afraid he’d jack my jaws. Mr. Jacobson used to be quick, and I’d wager that he still is. “Let’s hope she doesn’t need any more saving.”
He nods toward my duck. “Jake was telling me you found a motherless duck. This him?”
I nod. “A red fox raided a duck nest. I saw it carrying one of the parents away.”
He gives a satisfied grunt. “He imprinted on you.”
When I found the duck, I’d googled duck care and learned all about imprinting. For all intents and purposes, the duck considers me to be his parent. That’s why he sticks so close to me.
“That duck will be good for you. It’ll give you something to love,” he says. “And it’ll love you back.”
Feels like Rain (Lake Fisher Book 3) Page 4
