She’s Gone Country (15 page)

His shoulders shift carelessly. “Occupational hazard. Can’t complain.”

“But you never complain. You never have. Sometimes I think you should.”

His green eyes lazily examine my face. “And what would I complain about?”

“The things that have happened… things that have gone wrong. The end of your marriage. The loss of your child—”

“Matthew’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I loved that boy. Every day I had with him was a blessing.”

I think this is why I fell in love with Dane all those years ago, and this is why I still love him today.

He’s a big, tough man with a soft spot for children. He would have been a great father, a doting, protective father. My chest feels tight. I ache for a moment. “You’re a good man, Dane Kelly.”

“Not that good. Just ask your Brick and Blue. Cody would probably be alive if it weren’t for me.”

“You’re not responsible for Cody’s addictions, or his overdose.”

“But if he’d gotten the help he needed two years ago, he might have been saved. He might be clean and sober and alive today.”

The self-loathing in Dane’s voice takes my breath away, and for a moment I don’t know what to say.

Dane
hates
himself.

He blames himself. He honestly believes he should have been able to save both Cody and Matthew.

I exhale slowly, absorbing the realization that, yes, Dane’s wounded, but it isn’t his hip that’s the problem. It’s his heart.

“You’re not being fair to yourself,” I say, my voice husky, because of course he couldn’t save Matthew. Matthew had severe, special needs. And there’s no way he could have saved Cody, either. Cody refused to get professional treatment and medication for his depression, resorting to over-the-counter medicine and street drugs to soothe him when he was manic and lift him when he was depressed. “You’re punishing yourself for things that were beyond your control.”

“I know.” And then he smiles a small, mocking half smile. “But it keeps me honest.”

I know then that I will never stand a chance against him. I care too much, love him too much. Not that love solves everything. In fact, sometimes love is just one more problem.

When he leaves an hour later, I have a paper-wrapped bull rope for Cooper—a gift Dane picked up in Brazil for him—and the most ambivalent emotions.

I thought coming home would make things easier. Instead it’s complicated everything.

It takes me a long time to fall asleep that night, and when I do, I dream of Dane. The dream starts out happy. We’re together and talking and laughing as we drive around in his truck. But then the dream takes a strange turn and we get stuck on a train track and can’t move.

From nowhere a train appears, whistle blowing, and there’s no time to escape. For some reason Dane is hurt and can’t get out, but he yells at me to jump. I won’t leave him. He’s shouting. I’m crying and the train is bearing down on us, and then Dane throws open his door and tosses me out of the truck just before the train hits us, exploding the truck into a fireball.

I wake up shaking. I’m nauseated and cold, and adrenaline is pumping. The dream was so real. I could taste the fear, hear the impact of the train hitting the truck, and feel the heat of the fire. So crazy. So awful.

Why would I dream a dream like that? What does it mean?

I get up and go to the kitchen, where I eat a bowl of cereal and try to get the dream out of my mind. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Don’t want to analyze what it could mean.

When I do go back to bed, all I want is for morning to come.

Mama arrives mid-morning, right on schedule, and I go through the file folder with her, letting her know that Brick will be driving the boys to school and covering the activities the boys have planned, including the high school dance. We all go to dinner Saturday night, and then Sunday morning I’m out of the house before it’s even light in order to make my nine a.m. American Airlines flight from Dallas/ Fort Worth International to San Juan.

It’s a relatively quick drive this morning, no traffic to slow things down, and I reach the airport in less than ninety minutes, park, and get through security just as easily.

I stop at one of the airport Starbucks for coffee and a pumpkin scone. I use the hour before we board to sip my coffee and read up on historic San Juan. I’ll be staying at the Sheraton Old San Juan, which apparently sits in the heart of romantic Old San Juan, just steps from the wharf where the luxury cruise ships dock.

But everything sounds close in Old San Juan. San José Church, La Casa Blanca (the home of Ponce de León), Fort San Felipe del Morro, Fort San Cristóbal, the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista, plus several famous beaches and the El Yunque National Forest.

San Felipe del Morro (commonly known as El Morro) and El Yunque are both already familiar to me, as they’re two of the locations Neiman Marcus is using for their shoot.

I’m still poring over the guidebook when they begin boarding the flight. As my row is called, I feel a little thrill of anticipation.

I am excited. Going somewhere new, doing something different. This is exactly what I need. I’m not depressed, I realize. I just needed a break.

Forty minutes later, as the jet taxis down the runway, I remember something I’ve forgotten—not glasses or phone charger or camera, but something pertaining to the kids.

Halloween. Halloween is Sunday, the day after I return, yet I completely forgot it, and so did the boys.

This is the first year none of them have asked to carve pumpkins or buy costumes or go trick-or-treating.

The first year none wanted to decorate the house or make our traditional rollout cookies.

I would have thought Coop still wanted to go trick-or-treating, but he never mentioned it, or about getting a costume.

Rather wistfully, I think of the days when selecting the Halloween costume was the big topic around the dinner table. Ninjas and Jedis and Power Rangers. But no more. They’re getting too old.

The jet lifts off the ground, and I suck in a breath. I knew they were going to grow up, knew they couldn’t be babies forever. But it’s harder than I expected.

It’s a four-and-a-half-hour flight to San Juan, and I fall asleep an hour after takeoff and am out most of the flight. When I first began modeling, I couldn’t sleep on planes and showed up for jobs exhausted. Then I learned to take my own pillow, wear an eye mask, and put in earplugs. I don’t need any of the above today and wake up just as we’re making our final approach.

It’s a reasonably smooth landing, and I walk to baggage claim, where I discover the driver holding the sign with my name. Since I didn’t check a bag, we’re able to head straight for the town car. It’s warm outside, almost sultry, and I wish now I’d worn something other than gray slacks and a charcoal cashmere sweater.

Fortunately, he turns on the air-conditioning, and I fix my attention out the window, curious to get my first glimpse of Puerto Rico. It’s late afternoon, and the sun sits lower in the sky. Traffic snarls from the freeway.

“Lots of traffic for a Sunday,” I comment a few minutes later.

The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. “Everybody goes to the beach for the day. Makes bad traffic.”

“Are you from San Juan?”

“No, from Rincón.” He smiles, flashes white teeth. “Famous for surfing.”

I read about Rincón in the guidebook, wish I were here longer so I could explore properly, but vow to return with the boys. This would be a great place to come with them.

The next morning begins with a welcome orientation, followed by fittings to make sure there are no surprises with wardrobe.

They’re using six models for the shoot, four women and two men, and it’s a relief to discover that I am not the oldest model. Adriana is fifty-two and a gorgeous silver-haired model with a wonderful husky laugh and incredible skin. I am immediately drawn to her, as she reminds me of my friend Marta. During the morning fitting, we talk about our families back home.

Adriana was widowed last year and is the mother of twin boys and a daughter, none of whom live at home.

I tell her that I’m recently separated from my husband and I’ve moved my boys back to my hometown in Texas, but it’s been a difficult adjustment so far.

“Change is always hard,” Adriana sympathizes. The stylist finishes with us then, and we’re free for the next hour until we’re called into hair and makeup.

This morning, we’re shooting at the sixteenth-century fortress El Morro, built on the tip of the island overlooking the sea. The fortress boasts immense stone walls, lookouts, and fortified interior buildings, promising to be a dramatic backdrop for the designer skirts, blouses, dresses, and accessories.

Ellie, a stunning brunette and one of the thirty-year-old models, has been paired with one of the male models to pose as a couple. Adriana will be working with the other male model, a handsome man with unlined skin and a thick head of silver hair. Although Ellie gloats about being specially “selected” to work with Damon, I’m personally thrilled not to have been paired up for the shoot. There’s only one man I want to talk to and only one man I want to smile at, and he’s back home in Texas.

As the days pass, I fully expect to get a frantic call from home saying that Bo has run away or Hank’s been rude to my mother, but I receive no emotional calls during the week. In fact, I receive no calls at all, which prompts me to start phoning home just to make sure things are going all right. Apparently, they’re going so well that Mama tells me to stop calling and she’ll just see me Saturday night after I fly in and drive home.

That last conversation with my mother has me phoning Charlotte to check in with her. “Is everything really okay?” I ask. “Because Mama just told me not to call again.”

Char just laughs. “Mama’s in heaven. She’s making pralines and divinity. Quilting at the kitchen table. She loves being back in the house, taking care of boys, and being needed. Makes her feel like the queen bee.”

“Mama always did love her boys,” I say.

“And you do, too.”

On the last night of the shoot, we’re all treated to dinner at a small restaurant on the beach twelve miles outside San Juan. It takes forty minutes just to get across San Juan, and the moon is high and full by the time we arrive.

The hostess seats us outside at a long, linen-covered table on the deck overlooking the water. We’re far removed from the lights and noise of the city, and the only sound we hear on the deck is our own conversation and the crash of surf against the sand.

The shoot’s artistic director has handled the night’s menu, and within minutes of being seated we’re served icy cold mojitos. Mojitos, although a Cuban invention, are popular throughout the Caribbean, as rum is a Caribbean staple. Adriana and I clink glasses and then sit back to savor the tart, tangy cocktail.

“This has been lovely,” I say, tipping my head back to get a better look at the moon. “I needed this break. Makes me feel almost sane again.”

“Being a mom is the hardest job in the world,” she answers. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“I thought the toddler years were hard, but they’re nothing compared to the stuff I’m dealing with now.”

Adriana’s heard about my boys, knows their ages and stages, and smiles now. “I think that’s why kids become awful in their teen years. It forces parents to step back, loosen the ties a little. Otherwise I don’t think we’d ever let go.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when they’re gone,” I admit. “They give me a reason to work and wake up and get up every day.”

“But being a mother is only one aspect of a woman’s life. When the kids move out, we’re supposed to move on.”

“On to what? What can possibly fill our lives the same way?”

“I guess that’s the challenge we face in our forties, fifties, and beyond. We have to rediscover ourselves. We have to figure out what will make life meaningful without our babies and men.”

“It doesn’t sound easy, or fun.”

She sighs. “Oh, it’s not always fun. There are times I miss the kids and the chaos so much, times when I’m so damn lonely I don’t think I can get through the day. Dinnertime’s the worst, too. That’s when I wait for my husband to return from work and walk through the door.” Her voice is husky, and she plays with the moisture beading her cocktail glass. “But he doesn’t. And he won’t.”

Adriana looks up at me, dark eyes full of emotion. “And so I find ways to distract myself. I make it a game. I search out new activities and create new routines and plan for new adventures. Like coming here to model. And meeting you. And making new friends.”

“You’re brave,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “No, it’s just called being a woman. We’re all going to have to do it. It’s not a choice. It’s a matter of when.”

Later, as we wait for the taxis that will take us back to our hotel, I find myself standing next to Ellie. She taps a cigarette out of the pack and slides the pack back into her purse. “Damon told me you’re John Darcy’s wife.”

“Was,” I answer cautiously. “You know John?”

“I worked with him on several occasions,” she answers, digging in her purse for her lighter. “Brilliant photographer, but he definitely wasn’t straight.”