9

 

I rise the next morning before anyone else. The sun is out and the robins announce it’s daylight from my open window. Amanda and I have arranged to meet at the state park, take a short hike, and grab lunch at the Silver Diner to catch up on all of our news. Like her baby news and why on earth I’m still down in Florida when she needs me here. At least that’s what she told me when I called after my tea on the porch.

I’ve gotten so use to the warm mornings in Florida, the air chills my bones when I step outside. I run back inside for my light jacket, zipping it to my chin. One point for Florida.

Ten minutes later, I pull into the state park’s empty parking lot. A hazy gray mist hiding the earlier sunshine swirls around the swing sets. I can barely make out the rusty slide I use to climb as a young girl. The outhouses probably still show my initials where, one bold day, I’d used Robert’s new penknife and carved not only my initials, but my latest crush’s initials, too.

I slug a long drink from my water bottle. Amanda is typically late. I spend more time waiting for her than I do in any doctor’s office. I dig out my cell to prod her as a car pulls up next to mine. Finally. I shed my coat and open my car door, surprised to see a truck instead of Amanda’s red Nissan.

“Hey. Didn’t expect to see you here.” Dan walks toward me.

“Hey, Dan.” My stomach clenches. He hasn’t changed—looks as good as or better than before. My old flame wears black running shorts and a light windbreaker pulled over an orange T-shirt. When he smiles at me, I instinctively reach for the necklace I once wore against my chest. His look flashes to my neck and back again. Maybe I should have returned it.

“How’s Florida?” He steps around my car and comes closer. His heady cologne mixes with the morning dew from the trees. “When Robert said you planned to golf professionally, I about fell over.” A chuckle follows.

“That’s the plan. I heard you’re doing pretty well on tour. Good for you.” I can afford to be generous. It isn’t as though we’d parted after a fight or anything.

Dan was hardly ever in the area, and I wanted a boyfriend who could take me out now and then. And one who didn’t talk golf nonstop or watch boring movies.

“I’ve got a ways to go.” His eyes look weary, or is it my imagination? “It’s hard being on the road so much with Mom not feeling well. Did you hear her cancer came back?”

Of course. I’d forgotten about his mother. She’d been sick on and off for a long time. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Mom and I haven’t really had much of a chance to catch up yet.”

The sympathy in my voice encourages him because he moves closer and leans back against Mom’s car. He crosses his arms and gazes past me with a faraway look in his eyes. “They give her about six months.”

“Oh, Dan, I’m so sorry.” I never know what to say when someone tells me news like this. Not that I’ve heard it often, but it makes me uncomfortable. I take my cue from the way others have treated us after the accident. “Is there something I can do while I’m home?”

He shakes his head and studies the ground for a minute. “I like coming out here to run. Remember when we had our senior picnic here? You were so afraid of swimming in the creek because someone saw a snake.” A kind-of-cute smile forms at the corner of his mouth.

“And you and Robert ate so much watermelon, you threw up on the bus ride home.”

He laughs and I remember now why I’d originally fallen for him. I laugh along with him and our voices echo in the empty dawn around us. As abruptly as he’d brought up our past, he turns to the present.

He steps closer and looks down into my face. “I’ve missed you, Bobbi.”

My phone chooses that moment to announce Amanda’s incoming call with a ring tone I’d affectionately chosen for her.

“Sorry,” I say and pull my cell from my pocket.

“Bobbi, I’m so sorry I’m not there. I woke up puking and I feel horrid. Is this what pregnancy is going to do to my body? If it is, I’ll never live through it.” Normally, I would have listened to her tirade, but today with my heart racing wildly in my chest from Dan’s presence, I decide to cut in.

“Hey, it’s fine. I’m here with Dan. He showed up the same time I did. I’ll take a quick hike and drop by later, OK?”

“Dan? As in Dorky Dan? What on earth, Bobbi? Listen…wait, I need to go!” The call ends and I slide my phone back into my pocket, grateful he has stepped away. Had I really called him dorky? I study his strong shoulders and can’t help but compare them to Drew’s.

“Sounds like Amanda is sick. I’ll catch up with her later.”

His smile returns and he shrugs toward the path. “Want company?”

The last thing I need to do is open doors I can’t walk through. But I do. “I don’t run, I walk.”

“I can do that.” He holds out his hand.

If I take it, will I be able to let go again?

 

****

 

I climb the back porch steps and open the screen door. “Hi, Grandpa. Where’s Mom?”

Grandpa sits in his usual chair, enjoying the warmth from the sun that is already soaking into the floorboards. I drank two bottles of water on the hike, but hadn’t eaten any of the snacks I took. “I’m thinking of baking some cookies. How about it?”

“Chocolate chip. Your mother made peanut butter the last time and they didn’t sit well with me.” He snorts and coughs on his own spit.

“You got it.”

I find Robert camped out in front of the TV doing an exercise that is supposed to keep his legs from looking like a newborn colt’s.

He raises his eyes toward the ceiling. “In the attic. Said she had some sorting to do.”

I hand him another pillow for beneath his legs before turning to the stairs.

My mother’s favorite place to hole up has always been the attic, where she keeps everything as neat as though she’s going to throw a party there. All my old toys are assigned color-coded bins with my name marked plainly on the sides. Games that have seen better days have their own home on the shelves Dad built for her on the front end of the house. I like to run my fingers down the familiar names and wonder if my children will someday beg to play them as I had.

“It’s hot up here.” She has the wooden fan going, but my forehead complains with new sweat droplets.

I find her sitting on her knees in ‘the corner.’ We dubbed the space that because it is where she stores all of our youngest mementos. The ones she said she could never bear to part with until they send her to a nursing home. White baby shoes, soft yellow blankets, and a matching pair of pacifiers slightly molded from our gums.

“How was your hike?” She turns and pats the spot next to her. “Pull up a piece of floor. I’m going through your box now.”

Wood splinters come to mind, but I do as requested, sitting with my legs crossed in front of a blue plastic bin. I know from the dates that the treasures in this one will be before I started kindergarten.

“Amanda called off sick.”

“That’s too bad. Nausea?” She hands me a pile of old clothes. Why on earth does she need to keep my first pair of jeans?

“Yeah. Sounds like she might be in for it.”

“Then what did you do?”

I shrug, deciding it won’t hurt to tell her. “Dan showed up about the same time I did.”

My mother has this sense about her. I never have to tell her everything and she always knows what I’m thinking. She sets aside a pile of baby socks and faces me, cocking her head. “And what did you and Dan talk about?” I’m sure she remembers the night I broke it off with him. I’d run him down deeper than the river.

“He’s a friend, Mom.”

She turns back to her pile of treasures. “Somehow that wasn’t the impression you gave me.”

So I see him in a new light. I shrug. Even I’m not clear yet what it all means. He’d held my hand most of the way but hadn’t made any other moves other than help me up a particularly sharp incline. We’d stopped and admired the river winding peacefully below. I was sure he felt the sensations I did by the way he glanced at me every so often. When we returned to our cars, I hadn’t been sure how to say good-bye.

But Dan did.

“People change. He’s playing golf this winter down in Florida and I promised to see him when he gets there.”

Now I get my mother’s look. Eyes narrowed and a grim set to her lips. Honestly, why do I always blurt my private life to her?

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“Don’t worry, Mom. It won’t interfere with my plans. He’s a nice guy. That’s it.”

Her sigh about rolls off the rafters. She reaches for a blue silky piece of fabric and hands it to me. “Do you remember this?”

I unfurl the slippery cloth and a knot catches in my throat. “My cape.”

“I made it when you were four. You wore it to bed every night for almost a year. I should never have let you watch Superman.” A chuckle escapes through her lips and I warm to it and her memory about my hero worship.

“I wanted to save the world.” I hand her the cape, my fingers lingering on the soft fabric.

“You still do,” she whispers.