| |
“WHY DO YOU DO WHAT you do?”
Jade looked up at Micah, surprised out of her vague thoughts by his sudden question. Surprised enough to give him an answer.
“I need the money,” she scoffed. “Why do you?” Wasn’t money everyone’s motivation?
“I feel a bond with the earth, with the mountain. It gives me comfort and solace.”
In an instant, she understood that Micah was not talking about his job, about security. Just like her, he’d be here even if he didn’t need to be.
“It’s like a friend that never dies.” He dropped his gaze from hers, looking down at the ground beneath his feet.
The raw loneliness in those simple words scraped at her, scoured open the place in her heart where her real answer hid.
She looked into the fire, only seeing the past.
“My dad used to bring me up here as his mining partner.” Jade had spoken before she realized it, but Micah’s undemanding silence made it easy to keep going. “I was always interested in what he did, even from a young age. I couldn’t wait to look at the cool rocks he brought home.
When I got older, summer was our time. He’d take me on short mining trips, and though it was hard work, it was the most fun I’ve had in my life. The digging, the nights around the campfire with s’mores and stories.
When the trip was over, we’d come home and my mom would be waiting for us. And even dirty and muddy and smelly, she’d give us the biggest hugs. And then we’d all sit around the kitchen table after we’d washed up and eaten, and show her all the cool things we’d found. Gardening was more her thing, but she would get excited over the gems too.”
Jade couldn’t speak for a minute until the squeeze in her throat and her chest loosened a bit.
“My dad died of a heart attack five years ago. And then my mother came down with Alzheimer’s a short time later, and it’s advanced enough now that she needs constant care.”
Losing her father had been a shock, but she’d passed from the actively hurting part of grief to the coping part relatively quickly. With her mother, the actively hurting part never seemed to end. Every time she regained some lucidity, only to lose it again, was crushing. She was losing her mom in excruciating increments, instead of all at once, like her dad.
She honestly couldn’t say which way was worse.
Jade looked from the fire up to the peak behind Micah, visible in the dark only because of its outline against the stars.
“Now the only thing left of my parents is this mountain.”
The mountain, and the memories. But now she couldn’t even trust that she’d get to keep those. Alzheimer’s had a genetic component. What if she lost every memory of her parents? Her childhood? Her identity? The thought gutted her, but the possibility confronted her every Saturday at Shady Oaks Nursing Home.
There was some comfort in knowing that, if nothing else, this mountain would remain long after they all were gone.
“If I lose my memories too, maybe the mountain will remember us all.” Jade half smiled as she looked up to see what Micah thought of her ridiculousness.
“Fire burns away,” Micah said, his somber gaze on hers, “Water flows away, air blows away. Earth stays.”
The flames reflecting in his eyes made them do that thing again where they flashed a glowing gold over the clear brown.
Earth stays.
It was a nicely poetic remark, but technically untrue if you factored in tectonic movement or erosion or any other number of things that made the earth move, but... she still felt like he understood. Somehow, he got it. “Yeah,” she said, smiling though her eyes were stinging.
All she knew was her mother needed care, and Jade needed the mountain to cooperate to make that happen.
“My mother’s health care is expensive. My teaching job doesn’t cover it. I need to hit a claim worth enough to make sure she’s cared for before school starts up again.”
“That is why you work so hard.”
Jade nodded. She would work herself to the bone if it meant another year of good care for her mom. Rubbing her hands on her thighs, she said, “But so far I haven’t been able to find anything of real value. I’m worried I won’t.” Admitting it out loud was hard, soul-crushing. There was still time, of course, but it felt less likely every day.
“Why do you not listen to your instincts?”
“What?” She looked up at Micah, the sudden change of topic confusing her.
“They are strong, but you ignore them. Or you would dig in a different spot.”
Jade bristled, no longer amused by his foolish comments about mining. Mining was science, not sorcery.
“Instincts are useless for finding gems. You look for identifiable geologic signs, and you follow those. Sometimes they lead to something, sometimes they fade to nothing. Intuition has nothing to do with success or failure.”
“Wrong. You have powerful instincts that would lead you to success if you only paid attention.”
She swallowed. Her dad had always said the same thing about her. Your instincts are very strong, Jade. He’d believed it, to the point that he would ask her input when she was as young as ten years old.
“Where should we dig today, Jade?”
“Over here Daddy, under this big rock.”
“Are you sure, Jadeite?” he’d asked, using the scientific name for the precious mineral she was named after.
“Yup,” she’d nod. Confident with no logical reason to be. And they’d always found something, hadn’t they?
But where had her instincts been when it came to her ex? She’d seen nary a red flag, never had a moment’s suspicion or hesitation toward Tony. Until the day she’d come back to their claim after taking some time off after her mother’s diagnosis and found the whole thing picked clean. She’d tried to call him right then. His phone had been disconnected, and she’d never seen or heard from him again. She’d lost four months of hard work, a year of income, and her naivete’.
“My instincts can’t be trusted,” she ground out. Instincts, hunches, whatever people called it. No one should trust it. Intuition was in the same realm as metaphysics; a bunch of emotional, mystical woo-woo with no scientific basis.
His grunt in reply was vague.
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look like the type of guy to give intuition much weight.”
He shrugged, eyes intent on hers. “Maybe not in all situations, but when the Earth speaks, I listen.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather it be the other way around.” Jade ran her fingers through her hair, weariness settling over her like a lead blanket.
Micah’s head tilted. “If the Earth listened, what would you say?”
She looked up at him, the stinging beginning again behind her eyes. Damn the tears, they were never far away these days. “I’d tell her thank you for all the great years with my parents, and I would beg it to be generous so I could care for my mother, who loved it, too.”
Her voice came out hoarse, and she ducked her head from Micah’s intensely clear gaze.
“You love the Earth?”
“Yes, I do.” Her eyes lifted to follow the line of the mountain against the stars again, the shadows of her past absent this time. She did love the Earth. She loved this mountain, loved rocks and minerals and the beautiful gems that seemed to be created simply to be discovered. Why else would all that beauty be hidden just within reach?
“Every amazing stone I pull from millennia-old dirt feels like a gift.” Other than being rich or a jeweler, mining was the only way a normal person got to hold fistfuls of gemstones. Sure they were rough, uncut. Some might think they were ugly, but she much preferred their natural shapes, the magical light that glowed from within the facets. She loved her job, even with all the hard labor and frustration. “I would still do it even if I didn’t need the money from it for my mother.” Just slower, on her own time. And the outcome wouldn’t matter nearly so much.
“So what about you?” Jade said, wiping her eyes dry.
Micah shut down right before her, jaw tightening and expression locking down tightly.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
His eyebrows went up in question.
“You’ve got me bleeding out words all over the place, talking about myself. And I know nothing about you. So it’s your turn. It’s only fair.” She added a sniffle for good measure, staring at him.
She knew a little more about him than she let on. Her livelihood depended on good observational skills, and she’d studied him too. Probably more than necessary if she was honest. But at least it had a purpose.
She knew that he was kind and polite, chivalrous even, always offering to help or assist her in his silent way. He took his job seriously, sometimes too seriously, though she was thankful for it. She felt safe with him watching her claim, guarding her camp. Leading her down the mountain in darkness. Him protecting her safety left her free to focus on the most important thing; the mining. And she was even more thankful for that.
But she also knew something haunted him.
No one stared silently into the distance as long he did without a ghost in their mind to keep them company. She knew he didn’t like to talk. They’d spent weeks together now, most of it in silence. Tonight, she just wanted to know him a little better.
“I’ll make it easy on you. Just tell me one thing I don’t know about you and I’ll be happy.”
He dropped his gaze and stayed silent. Disappointed, Jade sighed. Where did this sudden urge to get to know him come from, anyway?
She was about to stand and say good night when he finally spoke.
“I like to sing.”
Now it was Jade’s turn for her eyebrows to rise. “Singing?” Huh. Not only was it completely unexpected from a man that looked like him, but she’d never heard even a whisper of a song from him in the weeks since they’d met.
“Yes.” He smiled, an abashed smile. An adorable smile. A smile that turned him from fierce to endearing in an instant. “Russian chorale music.”
Her brain couldn’t seem to form words for a minute, and she had to swallow her heartbeat back down into her chest.
“Russian choral music. Huh. Really.” Russian church music, from a man who looked like a primitive island warrior. Just another way he was a remarkable contradiction. “Why Russian?”
He shrugged one big shoulder. “It seems to say things that I don’t have words for in my native language.”
“I see.” Curiosity was positively killing her. “May I hear you sing?”
“I’m not—I don’t sing in front of people.”
Disappointed, she nodded. If he was a clam, then she didn’t want to be a crowbar. She was pretty happy he’d shared anything at all.
“Thank you, Micah. For sharing.”
He nodded with a tiny uptick on one side of his lips. Not quite a full smile, but enough. Enough to make her stomach flutter, to make her chest warm. Enough to let her know it was time for her to go to bed. She was dangerously close to... liking him... and she didn’t mix mining and relationships. At all.
“Okay, well good night, Micah.” She gave him a small wave and stood up. Micah leaned back like he was surprised at her sudden departure. Oh well. She walked to her trailer door and opened it, but stopped there with her hand on it and her back to him.
“I hope someday you’ll let me hear you sing.”
He was silent, and she looked back at him. His smile was full-blown now, dangerous, alluring and heart-stopping.
“And I hope someday you’ll let me give you a hand up without an argument.”
Jade breathed out a laugh. She was stubborn and independent to a fault, and he’d noticed. Of course, he’d noticed. But he’d come out of his comfort zone a little for her, so maybe she could do the same...
“Someday,” she said with an answering smile, and went in her camper.