You're Still the One (3 page)

Now he was back. Less than half an hour away, living here.

I wanted to hold that man, but it wouldn’t work. For many reasons, it wouldn’t work. I had done the unforgivable. Jace would not like me if he ever found out.

I stared at my dad’s urn. I could hardly believe it when the attorney my dad hired to handle his estate and cremation called me about his death. I was so angry.

So, so angry.

I ride my bike to get rid of some of that anger. I have a really cool bike. It was expensive. I have cool bike clothes, too, also expensive. I am not trying to show off; I’m trying to outride being poor and desperate. My mother bought me a pink bike with a basket, which I rode in Montana. I loved it. My dad wouldn’t allow me to bring it back to Oregon.

When I was twelve, I rode a used bike that a neighbor in the next-door trailer gave me. She had been in jail for ten years for a robbery she committed with an ex-boyfriend. Glenda was a very nice woman who told me she had been “as crazy as a cat in heat, and I made some crazy mistakes.”

That bike was crucial to me. I had to ride that bike to school and to the grocery store. I rode it when I could no longer stand another minute with my dad or when I thought of my mother. I rode hundreds of miles on that old bike, and when kids made fun of it, I literally tried to run them down. They shut up after that.

When that bike finally broke when I was a teenager, it made my life truly hard, until the teachers at my high school gave me another one. I loved it because it took me to school, then to my job.

Because I had a job, that meant I had money, which meant I could buy food.

Because I had a job, that meant I could save money and leave home at sixteen as an emancipated minor.

When I got my job after college, I saved every penny so I could buy my condo and feel like I had my own, safe home with a door lock, something that was mine that he couldn’t enter and ruin. After I had a savings account, which brought peace to my mind, I bought my first cool bike.

The racing bike I have now reminds me of who I was and who I am now. It reminds me that now I bike by choice, not because I’m desperate. The sleekness of my cool bike reminds me that when I bike to the store, it’s to buy blackberries or ice cream, not to buy noodles and sauce that will take all the money I have in my pocket, even with carefully saved coupons.

When I ride in the country, I ride because I love to see the leaves change, or flowers in spring, or geese flying overhead, or a sparkling lake. I’m not riding because I’m trying to escape my dad’s triggered temper.

My bike is an accomplishment to me. It lets me outride my pain until it’s behind me. My bike lets me be me—the new me, not the scared, trembling, deeply saddened, lonely girl I used to be.

 

 

Two days after I left the hospital and Jace, I drove to the store. In the curve of the road there was a huge steel goat that made me smile every time I passed it. It was an awesome piece of art. I’d heard that an artist lived in the house behind it.

A little way farther I saw a sign outside a red barn. It said
BARN DANCE
and gave the date and time.

That was sweet.

But I don’t dance anymore.

And who would I dance with anyhow?

 

 

My phone rang at ten o’ clock the next morning.

“Allie.”

I knew that voice so well. It rumbled through me—warm, soft, and strong.

“Hello, Jace.” I didn’t need to ask how he got my phone number. It was in my medical records.

I had been up for three hours. The horses on the farm, Leroy and Spunky Joy, did not seem to think that I needed rest. They liked their food on time, and they liked their servant, me, to bring it to them, no matter how mottled her thigh was from the menopausal horse’s attack. The rooster, Mr. Jezebel Rooster, cock-a-doodled appallingly early. I thought it was strange he had a witchly, female name. If I could I would eat him.

“How are you doing?” Jace asked.

“Fine. I’m doing well.” That was a lie. My heart felt like it had been stepped on by a gang of stampeding horses. I sank into a dusty blue chair in the corner. I didn’t like the chair. It reminded me of my dad. Old, uncomfortable, hard. I didn’t like the inside of his house, either. It was crowded with stuff; it was dreary and depressing. I simply hadn’t had the emotional energy to take care of it yet.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Bob jumped up and sat on me. Margaret squished in, too. I was covered by dog. I heard a long pause, and I knew Jace didn’t believe me.

“I don’t believe you.”

“What are you, psychic?”

He chuckled, and that chuckle zipped all around and through me.

“Not psychic, but I do know how much your leg must be hurting right now, Allie. Make sure you’re taking that medicine I prescribed. No sign of infection? Red lines? Good. I’m sorry it happened, but it was . . .”—he paused, and I heard a quick intake of breath—“I really liked seeing you.”

I closed my eyes, a flood of utter anguish seeping into every inch of my body. “It was good to see you, too.”

“Why did you leave? I wanted to check on you again.”

“I left because I have hungry animals at home who get annoyed when they’re not fed on time, and I had to pick apples.”

“For my apple pie that I’m getting soon?”

“Your apple pie?”
I’ve missed you. I’ve missed eating apple pies with you.

“I’d like to bring you lunch, then we can eat the pie together.”

“What?” I feigned outrage, though my hands started to shake as I petted the dogs. “You can’t see a patient outside of the hospital. It’s against the rules!”

“You’re not my patient anymore, and I like to break rules. Where are you?”

“I’m at . . . I’m at my dad’s home in the country.”

“Can I come over?”

“No.”
Oh yes. Please come over. I want to hug you. I want to be with you. I want to make love among the apple trees.

“Why not?” Jace was a forceful, take-charge sort of guy.

“Because, I think . . . I think it’s better that way.”

“Better for us not to see each other?”

“Yes. It’s . . . it’s too complicated . . .”

“It was a long time ago, Allie.”

“I know. But, but why . . . why see each other?”

“Because I’d like to see you again. How’s that for honesty?”

It had always been like this between us. Raw, amazing honesty. Unless it was about my childhood or my father. Those parts I hid. I held my head in my hands.

“It’s lunch, Allie—only lunch.”

“I can’t, Jace. I can’t do it.”

I heard that zinging silence.

“Are you seeing someone?”

“What? No. No, I’m not seeing anyone. Just because I’m saying no, it doesn’t mean that I’m seeing someone.” I paused. “Are you?”

“No, I’m not. If I was seeing someone, I would not be asking to bring you lunch. Or dinner. Or to walk through your apple orchard with you to pick apples for my pie.”

Loneliness radiated from my heart. Without sounding whiny and pathetic, that loneliness has been lodged there for so many years. “I would have thought you would be married by now.”

“I would have thought so, too. I wanted to be married with loud, rowdy kids running around, but it didn’t work out that way.”

I didn’t respond to that one; I couldn’t. My voice would have been all trembly and emotional and he would have known I was crying.

“I thought you would have married Zack, Allie.”

“Who?” Who was Zack?

“Zack.”

My mind raced. Oh my gosh.
That Zack.
“Uh. No. I didn’t marry him.”

“Why?”

“Uh . . . it’s a long story.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

“It’s boring, too.” I covered my mouth before a sob escaped, then I rushed to change the subject. “When did you move here, Jace?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“Why? Why here?” I actually patted my heart because it started to race.

“I like Oregon. I like the hiking, the fishing, the biking, the city. I got a great offer from the hospital.”

“Well, congratulations. You’ll like Oregon. Okay, Jace, I have to go.” I put my hand over the phone so he wouldn’t hear me make a fool of myself. I am not a quiet crier and I was beginning to sound like a drowning hippo.

“Why? Where are you going? Can’t we talk?”

I tried to get myself under control so I could answer him. I bit down hard on my lip. “No. No, Jace. No.”

“Allie—” His voice softened, so gentle.

I hung up. I felt terrible for hanging up. But he would persist, and I wanted to see him again; and that I shouldn’t do.

That I
couldn’t
do.

I thought the pain of seeing and leaving Jace was going to kill me again, and since I hate being pathetic, I decided to get something done around my dad’s house and keep my hands busy.

The walls and ceiling were painted white, which helped. The wood floors were solid but scuffed. The only thing new was his bed; everything else was old, and the place was cluttered.

The whole house had to be cleared out. I’d cleaned it some when I arrived, because I couldn’t stand to live in it as it was, but now I had to get rid of stuff. I would sell the home, and the sooner it was cleaned out the sooner a Realtor could list it—and the sooner I could put miles between Jace and me.

For the next three days, being careful not to bust my stitches, I packed up plastic bags full of my father’s clothes, shoes, pillows and bedspreads, sheets, old lamps, chipped dishes, and two worn-out rugs. I hauled out old furniture to clear up the space, then his hunting gear, then his fishing gear. I kept one fishing pole, the one I used when I was a kid to literally catch dinner for us. I don’t know why. Why keep a memento of poverty?

When I saw an old blue cardboard box in a closet, my hands started to shake and I pushed it back into a corner to deal with another day. Some things are best handled when you are not feeling like an emotional, ragged mop head.

I filled up my entire car with his stuff. I could hardly see around the junk in the back when I checked the rearview mirror as I drove to Goodwill. I dumped that load off, then took more stuff to Goodwill in two more trips. When I came back I threw out another eight bags of trash and arranged for them to be picked up, and the next day drove a separate load to a company that shreds paper. I passed the giant steel goat statue in the curve of the road. I liked that goat, and it gave me my only smile that day.

When I came back, I cleaned. As I cleaned, I cried.

I hadn’t seen my dad in years. He was a tall, beefy man with black hair, and my mom said he used to be handsome. They had met, ironically enough, when she was in college on spring break in Florida. He was a bartender. She said she was bowled over by his tough-guy demeanor. He had scars on his forehead, left cheek, and chin. He was also charming, which soon faded, and aggressive. My guess is that she was a young, impressionable, innocent girl having a wild spring break and became pregnant. She was from a conservative family, was humiliated and scared, and married him. Her parents were livid about the marriage.

My dad tried to contact me a few times in past years—sadly enough, on my birthday and my mom’s birthday—but I did not return his calls because I refused to be terrorized by him for one more day.

In the last six months, he called several times and left messages, asking me to call him. On one of the messages he said he loved me. It was the first time in my life that my dad told me he loved me. I did not return that call, either. The “I love you” part should have come years ago, minus the backhanded slaps to my face and the total neglect.

Now I was in his house, next to an apple orchard that he had bought with an inheritance from his wretched father, a man exactly like his son in personality and temperament. I remembered Grandpa Tad. He was hell on wheels, too.

I scrubbed the bathroom and thought of the tiny bathroom in our trailer, how it smelled of my dad: beer and alcohol and unwashed man.

I scrubbed the kitchen sink and thought of all the times I’d spent at the sink in our trailer, trying to cook with whatever we had in the refrigerator, which was usually next to nothing. He’d come home drunk and scathing when I didn’t have dinner ready. Without money, it was hard to buy food.

When I swept the floors I cried again. I could never sweep that trailer clean enough for him.

While I scrubbed the floors, I thought of how dirty the floor of our trailer would get each day, how he would yell if it wasn’t clean enough, but he always dragged in mud.

I washed the windows. I stripped all the droopy curtains and put them in trash bags. I dusted.

On the third day, when I was finally done, it was a whole new house, open, white, and clean. I left only a table and chairs, shelves, a couch and two chairs in the family room. Much better.

I found the red-and-white flowered quilt in a closet. It had been my mother’s. I remember being on that quilt with her while she read books to me. I took the quilt out of its zippered plastic bag, shocked that my dad still had it, fluffed it out outside, and laid it over the couch. I sat on the couch and shook.

Bob and Margaret climbed into my lap. Margaret whined at me until I found her stuffed pink bear, which was under the couch. The cat, Marvin, climbed on, too, and settled on the pillow next to mine. He meowed at me; I meowed back.

My dad’s urn was propping open a bedroom door.

I ran my hand over the quilt. So much had died with my mother.

I blamed him.

On Tuesday morning—well,
barely
morning—Mr. Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodle-doo’d again and I’d had it. I whipped on my black farm boots over my flannel pajama pants and stomped out toward that pesky rooster sitting on the top of a fence post screeching so proudly.

“I am not a country girl, you stupid rooster, and I don’t want to be up this early!” I knew that my annoyance was totally irrational and ridiculous. He tipped his head and stared at me as if I were beneath him. “Stop it! Stop your stupid cock-a-doodle-doodling!”

He was silent for a minute, then thrust his neck back and announced, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

“No.” I pointed my finger at him, stalking closer. “No!”

He was quiet again, but I could tell he had an attitude about it all.

It was dark outside, with blues, pinks, and yellows skittering across the sky, and still and silent except for my ranting.

I hardly knew what to do with this silence after living in the city for so long. I hardly knew what to do with the cooing of pigeons and the wind hugging the leaves of the apple trees. When Marvin the cat meowed behind me, I about jumped out of my skin.

I had always slept like a dead woman through this part of the morning. When I did get up, mornings were stressful for me, putting together some couture outfit so I could “look the part,” commuting to work, planning my day, all the relentlessness of work ahead of me. I was on full blast.

But this tranquility, the hills golden in the distance, the mountains purple to the west, a vineyard east of me—it was truly serene, like silk and a kaleidoscope mixed together. The country calmed me down. It made me see and hear things I had not seen and heard before.

I noticed that the lights were on in a Craftsman-style home with a huge deck on top of the hill. I’d seen a moving van up there a few weeks ago.

Mr. Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodle-doo’d again.

“Shush!” I hissed. “Oh, shush.”

When I was at my door, that rebel rooster cock-a-doodled again, and I finally laughed.

Yes indeed, I laughed.

But this I knew: You won’t win against roosters. Especially when they’re named Mr. Jezebel Rooster.

I went back to sleep, then later pulled on my boots and started hobbling around the property.

A red barn, in fairly good shape, squatted about a hundred yards from the house. I thought of it as Spunky Joy and Leroy’s home. I fed them their hay and grain, and gave them fresh water. They seemed excited to see me—they neighed, swung their heads, pranced about. A helpful neighbor, Rita Morgan, a retired FBI agent, had shown me how to saddle and how to ride and I rode them most days on a nearby horse trail, which they loved.

The barn had a hayloft and I climbed the adjacent ladder, about twelve steps, to peer into it. I had not yet done so, and I was curious.

This did not prove to be a good idea.

I heard the splintering, I heard the first crack, then the second, third, fourth, as all the rungs broke straight through and I tumbled right down, then through the air, my ankle twisting on the last remaining rung as I landed on my back.

“Oof,”
I said, then let fly a few bad words, crackling pain ripping through my body.

Spot the Cat, the cat with no spots, wandered over. My leg with the purple and green bruising and the stitches had been feeling much better. My left ankle was now killing me.

I groaned and pulled up my pant leg. There were splinters everywhere and my ankle was swelling rapidly.

“Help me, Spot the Cat,” I muttered.

I felt faint for a moment, that breathless feeling you get when pain makes you sick, then I lay back down in the hay, staring at the rafters. Two pigeons and Spot the Cat peered down at me. Hay from the hayloft drifted down. What on earth was I doing on a farm? Why was I on my back in a pile of hay? Mr. Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodled on his fence post. He gets his times messed up.

I shook off the pain and told myself to buck up and go to the hospital. I lay still for another fifteen minutes or so, Spot the Cat licking my face, sitting right by me like a true friend.

I half limped, half crawled back to the house, grabbed my purse and keys, and headed to my car. I told myself in my foggy haze of excruciating pain that Jace probably wasn’t even working. The last time I’d been there was six days ago. He worked twenty-four-hour shifts, then forty-eight hours off. It would be another shift of doctors, right? I couldn’t think.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot and sat panting in my car, hands to my spinning head, both legs throbbing. I gathered my bearings, caught my breath, shook my head again to clear the awful nausea, and carefully swayed back into the hospital.

The first person I saw . . .

Dr. Jace Rios.

When Jace saw me, he instantly smiled, gently, welcoming, and I was so touched my breath became stuck in my throat. I wanted to pirouette right into that man’s arms and rip off his white coat. I must have looked frightful, though, because his expression instantly turned to deep concern. He ran over to me.

“What happened?” His voice was sharp and he put an arm around my waist as I teetered like a drunken sailor, the floor rollicking.

I leaned heavily against him and shut my eyes against another swell of pain. “I can’t believe it. I was up on the ladder to get into the hayloft . . .”

“You were
what
?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Why were you on a
ladder
? You have stitches in your leg.”

“I wanted to see the hayloft, and the ladder broke—” I winced. “I believe that I won the fight with the ladder. The ladder is now destroyed.”

“And your leg?”

“Part of the battlefield. The bruises on my ankle will soon be as lovely as the bruises on my thigh. I’m looking forward to an exciting blend of colors.”

“You’ll match. Right and left legs, both in various shades of blue, purple, and green, with some red thrown in. Perhaps you should stay off ladders and away from horses.”

“Perhaps. Maybe I’ll take up knitting.”

“If you can keep the needles from poking you, it might work.” He shook his head at me, those intelligent, intense eyes looking deep. “Let’s go, Allie.”

I was in the hospital room a long time. Jace took out every one of the splinters imbedded in my leg. The X-ray showed that my ankle was not broken. It was badly bruised, swollen, and truly ugly.

The X-ray did not show anything about my heart because my heart didn’t get X-rayed. I am sure it would have shown it was broken, though, yes, I am. Even after all these years . . .

“Here’s your coffee. I poured whipped cream in.” Jace handed me a chipped coffee mug, then sat down about two feet away from me on my dad’s worn gray couch, my mother’s red-and-white flowered quilt beneath us. I made a note to buy myself mugs without chips.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiled, and I couldn’t move, those dark eyes straight on me, intense but cheerful, happy, as if he was glad to be here. Glad to be with me.

It was late morning; Jace had finished his shift at the hospital. He’d asked me, while holding my swollen ankle on his lap, plucking out splinters, if he could come over and check on me later in the day. I had resisted, then I’d melted. I needed him out of my life because our past was an alarming mess,
I
was a mess and my grief over my dad made me messier, and somehow my dad’s death was bringing up my mom’s death, making me a black cauldron of confusion and not a little anger.

But I wanted him. I wanted to talk to him. I knew it would get my heart even more bent out of shape, but I said yes. I told myself I would talk to him, this one time, and that would be that.

He had helped me out to my car at the hospital; I leaned on his arm, and he strapped me in. I had refused a taxi that he offered to pay for. When I got home I showered, washed my hair, and put on clean jeans, a pink push-up bra, a white lacy camisole, and a white sweater with a deep V. I put on silver hoop earrings, silver bracelets, and perfume that smelled like roses and vanilla. He had seen me, not once but twice, looking as if I’d rolled through hay and taken a dive into a pig’s trough. This time would be different.

Jace had arrived with flowers, a bag of coffee beans, and whipped cream. He looked so darn cute holding those flowers, I couldn’t stop smiling. Ah, Jace.

I smiled into the chipped blue ceramic coffee cup. “I’ll admit to being a tad embarrassed about drinking whipped cream in my coffee.”

“Why be embarrassed? You like whipped cream in your coffee. You like swimming in lakes at night, biking for hours, Jane Austen and crime thrillers—which you sometimes read concurrently—locating the constellations at night, and puzzles.”

I laughed, although I didn’t do puzzles anymore. That’s what Jace and I did together. Too painful to do on my own. “You remember.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And I remember that you also like swimming at night, biking for hours, and crime thrillers. Not so hot on Jane Austen. I remember that you like reading medical textbooks for fun, hiking, and photography—especially of wild animals in Yellowstone that you got too close to.”

He laughed, low and rumbly. “Remember that grizzly bear . . .”

And we were off and chatting, all about the summer we worked at Yellowstone. The animals, geysers, waterfalls, hiking trails, Mammoth Hot Springs, camping. Darn. Why was he so charming?

While we were talking he examined both my legs again, then made us scrambled eggs and toast. “Have you spent a lot of time outdoors in the last years?” he asked.

“No. Mainly I’ve worked. I do bike.” I could never give up biking. Biking leaves my problems in the dust, at least temporarily.

“That’s funny. It’s the one thing I do still, too.”

“It’s traveling on two wheels,” I said.

“A mini vacation.”

“The way to see details in nature. You can’t get that in a car.”

“The air smells better when you’re on a bike.”

I tried not to stare at him, but he was all man. Huggable shoulders, lean but not skinny, rangy and muscled. It was almost surreal that he was here. Before all of the other stuff happened, we never would have sat apart on a couch. We would have been together, close, soon naked. Loving and laughing. We would have been threading our fingers together. Kissing all the time, a roll here and there, Jace’s muscular arms picking me up and putting me exactly where he wanted.

I felt old all of a sudden. Old, as if joy had passed me by, love had passed me by, chance and luck had passed me by.

“So, this is your dad’s place.”

“Yes. I recently cleared out a houseful of junk.”

“What are your plans for the house, then?”

“I’ll sell it. But currently I have no job. I had a condo in the city, but my agent listed it, we had a cash offer, and everything went really fast. I sold the furniture to the new owners and packed up.” I hadn’t liked the furniture. It was cold, modern, and hard edged. I think I used it to hide behind, too, as I did with my fancy-schmancy clothes. The better the furniture, the farther I would be from our trailer.

“I thought I would come here until I get my life figured out, and get a new job. Plus, there are animals all over that I have apparently inherited. Two dogs, as you can see”—Bob and Margaret were at our feet, snoring—“two cats, two horses, and a rooster that is stubborn and fearless.”

“It’s beautiful out here.”

“It is. It’s serenity and peace, all mixed up between the hills and mountains. I even have a little stream out back that runs behind my apple orchard. I can hear birds. I can hear the horses neigh. I can hear the wind and the raindrops. I can hear silence.”

“It rests my brain.”

I laughed. “Yes, it rests my brain, too. You moved from New York, then?” I knew he had.

“Yes.”

“How do you like living here in Oregon?”