Ransomed Dreams (39 page)

She looked back to Mercedes. At the bottom of the set of four steps where the girl stood, a stream flowed.

It was fed by a river gushing down the incline of what had been her street.

“Eliot!” She had to get home.

The water flowed freely, filling the width of the narrow streets, banking off of walls, racing across earth sunbaked for months and solid as concrete.

Sheridan didn’t have a choice of direction. She slogged her way to the nearest end of the elevated walkway, leaped up the steps, and hurried down to Mercedes. Javier and Padre Miguel now stood with her.

For a moment the four of them exchanged glances, the disturbing realization sinking in.

Mercedes said, “Who is with señor?”

Sheridan got down two steps before Padre Miguel and Javier grabbed her arms.

She struggled. “He’s alone! I have to get to him!” She had left him, rushed out into the rain without a word. She’d broken the cardinal rule the four standing with her had agreed upon months ago: Eliot would always be covered. One of them would be with him at all times.

There were few exceptions. If he was not well on a Sunday morning, Sheridan stayed home from church. If he was well and he promised to be very careful if he had to get out of his chair, then she went with Mercedes, after asking the neighbor to check in on him.

“Señora, it’s not possible to go.” Padre Miguel spoke in a soft voice. “But God is with him. He will be fine.”

“It’s not deep!” she cried. “I can make it.”

“But see how fast it moves. You would be washed up against a wall and be injured. No, no. You must stay here. Come, señora. We will wait together inside.”

Sheridan knew he was right and reluctantly went with them into Javier’s shop.

Lord, please take care of him. Please take care of him. Please take care of him.

What was it she had just been spouting off about to God a short while ago? That
she
took care of Eliot? Apparently that wasn’t true.

Mercedes prepared tea for all of them in the back of the shop, the area that served as Javier’s living quarters. Chairs from his courtyard had been brought indoors. While the others sat in them just inside the open door at the rear of the display room, Sheridan paced nervously.

How long would the flood last? Was Eliot all right? Would he remember which pills to take? And when? How could she have left him alone? How could she?

Because she couldn’t think straight. She had been so angry, she couldn’t think straight. Noelle’s behavior made absolute sense to her now.

His first wife would have felt that same level of anger. In essence she had found a lover because Eliot did not meet her needs. Noelle had thought she signed up for one lifestyle and then learned that the wife of a diplomat was not it. She had seen only the honor and special privileges, not the adjustments of living in a foreign land and being the face of America, sometimes welcome, often not. When Eliot refused to give Noelle a divorce, refused to let her go, was she so angry that she couldn’t think straight?

Sheridan shivered. The air was warm and humid but her thoughts frightened her. How close had she come to repeating Noelle’s scene?

Javier’s shop was sparse, furnished with only the necessities of a studio. There were a few shelves and tables to showcase his work, another artist’s silver and bead jewelry, and her own small paintings. He added new items almost daily, from wooden carvings to clay sculptures to pottery, in the form of flowers, animals, and tableware.

“Señora.” Javier looked up from the palm-size chunk of wood he was carving. “Señor Montgomery is fine. Relax.”

She stopped to listen. The artist’s low voice soothed better than the priest’s. He was handsome and quiet with dark, soul-searching eyes and a quick smile. No puzzle why Mercedes and female tour guides adored him or why visitors flocked to his wares.

Javier whittled as he spoke. “He will play chess against himself and know that you are safe with friends.”

“It’s true.” Mercedes handed her a mug too beautiful, in Sheridan’s opinion, for everyday use. The boy could be a wealthy man in some major city.

Sheridan sat beside Padre Miguel and leaned close to him.

He held up a hand. “Whatever you did, it is forgiven.”

“I left him all alone.”

“You know he is not alone.”

“He has memories.”

“Noelle.”

Her brows rose.

“Your husband shares freely.” He smiled. “You are not like her in any way. He told me. You are much more beautiful.”

“I left him angry and ran out into the rain.”

“Did you take the car keys?”

She sat back, dumbfounded. “No.”

Padre Miguel shrugged. “Sometimes we have to get out of the way so another may hear the Father’s voice better. Now rest, my child. Have some tea. It’s what you brought us from Chicago.” He raised his own mug and sipped.

* * *

Sheridan realized she had been stranded with the three most serene people she could ever hope to meet. Eventually she stopped checking the flowing river, sat still, and watched Javier work. The flick of his carving knife and the falling wood chips mesmerized her.

Other shopkeepers and their families came and went, those who lived on the same side of the square as Javier. Food was passed around, guitars strummed, games played. Two young girls asked Sheridan for English words. A sweet-faced three-year-old boy dozed on her lap. Time passed.

Javier handed her his carving. “A gift for you.”

“Thank you.” It was a tiny, fat bird. Unlike his others on the shelf, this one had smooth sides. “Javier, it doesn’t have any wings.”

His smile was as enigmatic as one of Luke’s. “They’re tucked away. You can’t see them. She’ll use them when it’s time.”

Sheridan clutched the figurine to her breast. Were her wings tucked away or clipped off for good?

“Señora, listen.” Mercedes’s eyes were wide, and she walked to the front door.

Sheridan followed her. “It’s the cowbell!”

They went outdoors. Rain still splatted on the walkway’s overhang, but the sound of the bell was loud and clear. The river still flowed, though not quite as deep as before.

The overhang, the trees, and a slight bend in the street hid her house a block uphill from view. She stepped gingerly down the set of stairs, Mercedes at her elbow. Clasping the girl’s hand, Sheridan stuck one sandaled foot into the stream. It covered her ankle. She plunged in the other one and looked up the hill.

Eliot was on the balcony, swinging the bell with all his might.

“Eliot!” She waved frantically.

He spotted her and stuck his thumb in the air.

Eliot Logan Montgomery III had never in his entire life given a thumbs-up sign.

Sheridan laughed.

Mercedes was next to her now. “He’s upstairs!”

“Yes. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“He shouldn’t climb the stairs by himself. Lord have mercy if he goes down them.”

“Oh, honey, you worry too much. He’s fine. He is just fine.”

Chapter 64

They talked nonstop.

Sheridan and Eliot’s conversation began when the rain ended, first from a distance without words. Then, when she was able to get back up the hill to their house, it continued with hugs and kisses. At last it moved to words.

“You really are all right?” she asked. “You’ve been alone for six hours!”

“I am absolutely fine.” His grin stretched from ear to ear. “You didn’t take the car keys.”

Their dialogue went on through dinner, a simple salad affair Sheridan threw together because Mercedes was busy helping other villagers return to their homes. It went on through the dispensing of Eliot’s medication and kitchen cleanup. It continued halfway up the staircase to the second floor.

They halted and stopped talking, side by side on the same step.

“Hm.” Eliot glanced about as if perplexed at his one hand on the rail, the other on a cane. “It seems I’ve taken a wrong turn.”

Smiling, she held her hand out to him.

“Or perhaps not?”

“I think not. It’s just another little detour from routine.”

“Sher.” He winced. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, I am.” She took the cane from him and entwined her arm with his. “Come on, Eliot. Sunrises are better from up here.”

* * *

Like everything about the small village tucked into the foothills of the Sierra Madres in west central Mexico, sunrise was a leisurely event.

Sheridan waited for it, tea mug in hand, shawl over her cotton nightgown, bare feet chilled against the tile floor of the second-story balcony. Alone, she listened in the dark to the squawk of roosters.

And she smiled.

There were no clouds. There was no rain in the middle of the rainy season. There was only a sunbeam winking at the top of a mountain and the soft tap of her husband’s cane against the tile.

She turned. “You’re awake! Good morning.”

“Good morning.” He crossed the balcony to her. “Yes, I am awake and actually moving about.” His glasses were askew, his curls mussed, his face in a half grimace. “I didn’t want to miss the sunrise.”

She stood on tiptoe, straightened his glasses, and met his kiss. “I was counting on that. I have your tea.”

They sat at the table and in silence watched the slow motion of dawn breaking over Topala.

He sighed and looked at her. “That was beautiful. Thank you.”

“This is your first at this house.”

“Yes.” His eyebrows went up and he smiled.

“I was talking about the sunrise.”

“Ah, the sunrise. That was beautiful too.”

She laughed. Evidently conversation after a flood could rekindle romance as well as dinner under the stars at a resort.

“Sher, I’ve been thinking about how you care so passionately for the work you’re not engaged in. It breaks my heart. It’s not right for me to keep you from living out that dream.”

“
You
don’t, Eliot. It’s the situation.”

“They’re one and the same.”

“It breaks my heart too that you can’t live out your dream either. I think how if I hadn’t worked on that center and if you hadn’t come . . .” She shook her head.

“We can’t waste energy trying to undo the past. It’s over. And you were right; it’s time to stop living from the center of the fear it created.” He paused. “It’s not only the fear of living in a big-city environment, Sher. It’s my fear of losing you that must end as well.”

“Eliot, I don’t know how else to communicate that I am not leaving. I may well lose it again as I did yesterday, but it’s a simple blowing off of frustration. It doesn’t mean I want to hightail it out of here.”

“But I’ve thrived on my fear for over a year. Whenever I sensed a restlessness in you, I was afraid you would leave. I was not consciously aware of it, but I welcomed the pain because it kept you close by.”

She stared at him in disbelief.

“I can see how I manipulated you. The pain is chronic and it is unbearable, but there were times I chose to make it my focus instead of you. Will you please forgive me?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“When you left with Traynor, I was more frightened than ever that once you got out there again, you’d stay. Then came the realization of what you might learn about your father and me. That nearly drove me insane. If not for Padre Miguel, I don’t know how or if I could have survived. And if not for your choosing to stay with me after everything I’d done . . .” He shook his head.

She laid her hand on his arm. “If not for God, I wouldn’t have.”

“Yes. It all comes down to Him, doesn’t it? Would you mind if I prayed right now?”

Talk about a detour from routine. She whispered, “Of course not.”

He smiled and placed his hand over hers. “I’m new at this vocal, unwritten version.”

“I think I know that.”

“Dear Lord.” He closed his eyes. “Thank You for my precious wife. I release her now to You. I gave her my dream to live overseas and work. I gave her my demented dream to live like a recluse. I humbly ask You, the Dream Maker, to fulfill the dreams You place in her heart.”

Tears seeped through Sheridan’s eyelashes. By the time he said amen, she couldn’t speak.

“Padre Miguel says there’s no right or wrong way to pray.”

She chuckled.

“All right, on to the business at hand. You said that Mazatlán scares you. Does Chicago? You told me how you fell in love with the city again, how you rode the el and visited familiar places. It sounded as if you would be able to go there and work again.”

She was back to staring in disbelief.

“Does it scare you?”

“A little.”

“Have you thought about it?”

She whispered, “Every single day since I got back here.”

“That settles it, then.”

She found her voice. “What settles what?”

“You can go to Chicago.”

“Are you coming?”

“No. I thought perhaps you could go for the school year. Spend holidays and summers here.”

“Whoa. Back up, mister. Didn’t you just ask God to give me my dream?”

“Yes, and—”

“Then why are you filling in the blanks?”

“Because I’m not going to hold you back any longer. Of course it will be a different lifestyle, but not that different. Aside from the past year, we are accustomed to going separate ways for long periods of time.”

She tuned out as he elaborated on details of their new arrangement.

Her husband had once again handed her dream life to her on a silver-plated platter. She thrilled to the image of herself in her home city, involved, in the thick of it like the old days. Excitement took hold of her.

She thought of the tiny carved bird on her dresser. Did her senses tingle because her wings were beginning to unfurl?

She watched Eliot speak, more animated than he’d been since the shooting. The pain was there, in the way he held himself, in his forehead creases. He was fighting it, but it would win again. And he would be lost to her for who knew how long. The beloved conversation and the sweetness of rediscovering intimacy would fade away, for days or weeks or more at a time.

But . . .

“Eliot.”

He stopped midsentence. “What?”

“I didn’t marry you because of what you offered me. You made me laugh again. You were heart-stopping handsome in a tuxedo. And whenever we talked, I heard music. I married you because I loved you.”