Butterfly Weeds (14 page)

             
“J
ulia, is that you?”

             
I looked up from the teacher’s desk to see a short, bubbly woman standing in the classroom’s doorway. Before I could say a word, the figure spoke again.

             
“Well, how are ya? It’s been so long,” the woman exclaimed.

             
Then, I watched her scurry into the classroom and finally take a seat in one of the small, student desks in front of me.

             
“I heard that you were back in town, and I’ve been hoping that I’d run into you when I was over here sometime. What have you been up to these days?” the woman asked again before I even had a chance to answer her first question.

             
Will’s aunt, who was also the elementary school’s nurse, had always been a favorite of mine – mostly because of her inquisitive nature, which did some work in the town’s most illustrious industry – its rumor mill.

             
“I’ve been substituting, trying to stay busy,” I replied, happy to be in the presence of someone older than twelve for the first time that day.

             
“How has it been going?” she asked. A concerned look rose to her face, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. As far as I knew, every kid had made it through first hour. Though, I quickly remembered that it was just one of her two, usual expressions. There was either a smile or that same I’m-sorry-to-hear-that look. There were only two options. That’s all you got with her.

             
“Well, so far, no missing children, no injuries, thus far, knock on wood,” I said.

             
I knocked on a corner of the old wooden desk a couple of times.

             
“Good, Good. So, what are you working on there?” she asked, straining her neck slightly in my direction.

             
She was craftily skimming the rumor mill even as we spoke, but how could you fault her? She was a curious soul – like a fly just before it gets stuck in the butter.

             
“Oh, this?” I asked.

             
I looked down at my stack of papers.

             
“I’m looking for apartments,” I said. “It might be tough to find places to rent out there, so I figured I’d better get started now.”

             
“Out where?” the woman asked abruptly, displaying a puzzled look – one slightly more severe than the usual concerned look – on her rosy, round face.

             
I had just assumed that she had known about my leaving for school in the winter. I knew that
New Milford
had not grown that much in the four years that I had been gone. Perhaps there were exceptions to the small-town rumor mill after all. Was it possible that not everyone knew everyone else’s business and that Will’s aunt was living proof? The thought was surprisingly refreshing, though I refused to take it as fact. I knew better.

             
“I’m moving to
San Diego
,” I said. “I got accepted into a law school there.”

             
“
San Diego
?” she stated and asked at the same time. “That’s so far away.”

             
Her reaction seemed slightly somber, which wasn’t quite the expression that I was expecting. But before I could explain, the forty-something-year-old woman continued.

             
“Well, to be perfectly honest, I heard that you were coming back into town, and I had half-hoped that you and Will would get back together,” she elaborated. “But now that you’re leaving, I guess that’s out,” she said, smiling softly and turning her face to the tile floor in between her desk and mine. A sad disappointment lingered in her eyes.

             
Will’s aunt had a way with words. Her words weren’t always the ones that you wanted to hear, but they were always the ones you needed to hear. Though, I wasn’t quite convinced I needed to hear those particular words just now.

             
Her confession, though unsettling, brought it all together, however, and it was both flattering and heart-wrenching all at the same time. I loved Will’s family, and I hated to disappoint any one of them, but in the end, it was life. People separated. They moved on. Fairytales faded. New ones formed. Life kept going. And my life wasn’t the only one that had kept going. Will’s had too. I had learned through the ever-present grape vine that Will had went on, while I was in college, to pursue his dream he had first confessed to me that day in high school. He became a full-time, active duty firefighter about a year and a half ago and moved to
St. Louis
. Though he rented a place right outside of the big city, he also bought a house in
New Milford
. I had heard that he kept the house in our hometown so that he had a place that made him feel like he had never left – a place to fish and run around and to do whatever it was that small-town men do that never quite grow up, I guess. It sounded like him anyway.

             
“How is he, by the way,” I asked, smiling, continuing the conversation, yet still not exactly sure how to respond to the librarian’s confession.

             
“He’s doing well,” she said, nodding her head. “Although, he hasn’t quite seemed himself lately. In fact, he hasn’t quite seemed himself for a long time now, and we’re a little worried about him.”

             
She paused, and then as if an imaginary light bulb went off in her head, she dramatically continued.

             
“Hey, maybe you could talk to him while you’re here. He has a house outside of town next to
Cedar
Lake
, and he’ll be back there this weekend,” she explained.

             
I smiled and nodded my head. I suspected the seemingly spur-of-the-moment idea was not so spur-of-the-moment.

             
“I could try to do that,” I said, still smiling.

             
“Oh, I’d love it if you could. He’d love it,” the women said happily as she shot up from her desk and scurried back to the doorway – as if her great mission had just been accomplished, and now, she was off to solve the town’s other great impasses.

             
But just before she reached the door, she turned and faced me again. I watched her as she took a deep breath and then let it out before she spoke.

             
“Don’t count him out, Julia. He hasn’t given up on you,” she said resolutely and then quickly disappeared into the hallway
.

             
I
t was Saturday evening, and I had a nagging desire to see Will. His aunt didn’t have a bad idea. She might have had ulterior motives wrapped up in it, but it wasn’t a bad idea. And sure, I probably wouldn’t have attempted to make the visit on my own initiative, but now that a request had been made, I was slightly intrigued by the notion. And after all, it would be good to see him again, catch up and say goodbye before I left town. What could it hurt?

             
I threw on a jacket and searched the desk for my keys, bypassing the phone on my nightstand. I could call him first, but I was kind of in the mood for a sneak attack. Those were more fun anyway.

             
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.

             
In my jeep, I paused only to crack the window and to find a radio station playing anything that wasn’t the sound of an old man rambling about the price of soybeans.

             
In less than ten minutes, I pulled off of the only highway that meandered its way through town and drove a short distance to a small farm house at the end of a narrow gravel road. I had known it was this house when his aunt had described it the day before. I had passed by the little white, two-story building almost a million times in my lifetime, and I had no trouble finding it again today.