Chapter Thirteen
Nick opened the refrigerator, lifted the orange juice carton and popped the top off, then took a swig. He glanced around his familiar kitchen; although nothing was out of place, it appeared skewed, as if someone had slanted the picture, placed something there that he couldn’t identify. All of this was real: his wife, his children, his job, the photos on the shelf, the mail on the counter. Yet simultaneously Amy and the truth, destiny and second chances, were even more genuine.
It all came down to this—to today; he would tell Amy what had really happened, where he’d really been. The air felt lighter on his skin, darkness of any kind lifted with the mere knowledge that she would hear the truth. He wanted all the misunderstanding and confusion that had blighted those years since he’d last seen her to clear as fog lifting after the rising sun. It wasn’t betrayal that kept her from him, it was absence of knowledge—all else faded in the bright light of this fact.
Eliza walked into the kitchen and looked him up and down. “What are you wearing?”
“Um . . . it looks like khaki shorts, a T-shirt and hiking boots. Is there a problem?” She wore silk pants with a floralsequinned pattern down the legs and a pale blue blouse. Her satin hair and lip liner were in place and he remembered—the party, the anniversary or birthday of someone important.
“Oh, God, Eliza. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“I reminded you last night and this morning on your voice mail.”
“I’ve been in the field all day—I didn’t . . . I’m so sorry.” He closed his eyes.
“Well, just go change. I’ll wait.”
“I can’t. I committed to go to . . . on-site.”
She groaned. “I told you it’s an early-evening dinner—I thought that’s why you were home—it’s a surprise party.”
“I’m already late, Eliza. I’m sorry. Please give my regrets to—who was it?”
“Oh, come on. This is Dick Foreman’s sixtieth birthday party at the Club. You cannot miss it.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you realize he is the CEO of Southern Timber? They were just bought out by—”
“I know who they were bought by. I keep up with all of it—trust me. I’m busy enough with my own job not to worry about somebody else’s.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Case in point: I have to go.”
“Can’t this wait—what project can’t wait?”
Nick grabbed his keys from the desk. “The Oystertip Island project.”
“Not the same one that Amy Reynolds works on, right?”
“One and the same.”
“Nick . . .” She turned away. “No.”
“This is about an island, not an old girlfriend.”
“Bullshit.”
He laughed at the unfamiliar sound of his wife’s prissy voice cursing.
“It’s not funny. You’re only doing this because of her.”
“Even you don’t believe that. This is what I do. How many projects like this have I worked on—or at least volunteered for?”
“That’s the point. Greenpeace, National Wildlife Federation, CARE, now some OWP thing. How about you support the Lowry family?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not supposed to mean anything, except I wish you’d go to this party and I wish you were home more.”
“I’m home all the time. What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Just don’t go today. This is just an excuse, isn’t it? Just an excuse to see her again.”
“Don’t get on my back about this now.”
“On your back? You’re headed out to some deserted island with your ex-girlfriend and I’m on your back?”
“I’m not getting in a fight with you today. I’m not. And I’m late.”
“If you go there and skip this party . . .”
“What?”
He knew what came next: something about everything she’d done for him, how he must go to this party with her. But the litany didn’t come; she just turned away. Instead of going after her, Nick turned and walked toward the door to the garage.
He’d almost made it out the door when he heard her. “I do everything for you and the kids. Everything. And you can’t skip this—this one thing.”
He knew if he turned to this tune, he’d be singing it for the next few hours when he wanted to be thinking of something else entirely, someone else entirely.
“Answer me. You can’t just walk away,” she said.
“Yes, I can,” he said without turning. Then he opened the door to the garage, hesitated as the other part of him—the part that lived in this house with this family—prodded him to turn. He looked over his shoulder.
“It’s a project, not a reflection of all you do for me. I’ll be home tonight.”
Her face looked swollen, out of proportion from holding back a temper tantrum or tears. “Isn’t it funny?”
“No, I really am not seeing humor here.”
“Funny how things come back around, making us pay again just when we thought they were completely paid for.” Her voice sounded robotic, and a shiver crawled through his gut.
“What am I paying for?”
“Oh, not you, Nick. Not you.”
This time she turned away, and her motions seemed as automatic as her voice. The picture of his life now slanted even more than a few moments ago. His curiosity about who was paying for what could not match the pull of finding out Amy’s reaction to what he had to tell her.
Amy plopped down on the marble bench that sank into the soft soil, slanted down on the left. She dropped her black leather teachers’ planner and notebook beside her. She’d brought class work with her to distract her from the true purpose in sitting on a marble bench in a deserted courtyard behind the college dorm where she would stay tonight. She’d come here a thousand other times to grade papers, enjoy the beauty of the Porter Hall courtyard and gardens, brainstorm about the best way to teach her students about Greek-revival architecture, or the influence of the English on Georgian-style homes—something, anything that would remove the slack-mouthed stares that accompanied her students’ boredom.
But as she fingered the top of her planner, no distraction lay within its pages. The facts and figures blurred and her mind wandered. Just as they had in her bed the last few weeks, her thoughts tossed and turned without logical sequence. The memories of times with Nick were just disjointed images; she couldn’t delve below the surface of vague to the depth of specific.
How could he have been living within hours of her, saving trees, land and animals without her knowledge of his existence? How could she not have felt or known or heard of him? Was this how buried she’d become in her own life, in the whitewashed preservation of her own existence, in the life she’d built, brick by board, friend by friend—that she hadn’t seen or known Nick was near? But she’d buried all thoughts of Nick Lowry, so that she hadn’t even known him when she saw him—until he spoke.
She leaned her head back on the bench and took a deep breath. Nick would like meeting the island project group.
Nick had once told her the land possessed a power that very few people were aware of; that it had the strength to create and bring to it what it needed. She’d nodded and believed and still did. Maybe it was not her that Nick was here for, but the land itself.
Someone touched her shoulder.
Her eyes snapped open as her head jerked up, and she knocked the back of her skull against the marble—an electric flash of pain shot down her neck. “Ow.”
Nick laughed, then sat down next to her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He rubbed the back of her neck and she allowed this, stunned again by his overpowering beauty.
“You’re early,” she said. “Did they give you a hard time at the front desk?”
“Nope. Told me exactly where you were.”
“Well, the OWP sure is excited to meet you. Seems you have quite the reputation.”
“Oh, well, what type of reputation would that be?”
“I hadn’t realized that you’d been around for quite a while, that you’d been”—she laughed—“saving things.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Not really. What exactly do you do?”
“Ah, what I do! I work for Sullivan Timber, advise them on land use—on the impact to the habitat and ecosystem, on the best way to develop the land without harming it more than they would otherwise.”
“Oh.”
“Not what you wanted to hear?”
“No. No, not at all. I just thought you’d wanted to do more research and education. I didn’t realize you worked with corporations.”
“Not impressed with the job?” He poked at her arm.
“That’s not what I meant. I just—”
“You just remembered what I said I’d do, right? What I meant to do.” He made a groaning noise in the back of his throat and she had to turn away from him, from the sound.
“That was a long time ago. Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t—” she said.
“No, it’s true. You’re right. I’m not doing what I said I would. But if it helps anything—I do a lot of volunteer work.”
“That’s how you know the Eco-Tours guy taking us out today?”
“You got it.”
She needed to stay on the subject—she couldn’t discuss broken plans, past promises. “I’m thrilled you’re able to help us. Seems you’ve showed up at the perfect time.”
Nick leaned in, placed his hand on her knee. She felt it as skin to skin although her jeans separated them.
“Amy, we have to talk at some point today. There are some things I need to tell you.”
“Well, right now the OWP is probably pacing the dock waiting for us and we’ll be on the island until tonight . . . maybe another time would be better.”
Despite how much she’d wanted to know what had happened to him, she now felt that what he had to say could wait—that it would ruin the calm joy of just having him around, just knowing he was here, alive, well.
He stood and reached out his hand. “Well, then, let’s go.”
She took his hand and stood, felt the ground sway as if the unseen moved beneath her.
“This island is beautiful. You’ll love it. And because of you, OWP now accepts me as a real part of their group, not just the housewife from Darby.”
“Ah, that’s because they didn’t know you before you were the housewife from Darby and the beach, well, did certain things to you.”
She felt a wide opening beneath her—the unseen now a gaping hole.
“Nick.”
He touched her face and she turned away.
“Come on. They’re waiting,” she said.