In the Stillness (29 page)

By the time Saturday morning actually gets around to getting here, I’m thoroughly nervous. Ryker and I have already seen each other three times, but this feels different. It’s like I’ve been stripped naked in front of him. I need to see him on a day I’m feeling good and relatively put together.
 

“What are you going to say?” Tosha asks as we find a parking space.

“I’ll start with hi, I suppose.”

“You’re such a bitch,” she laughs.

“Well, Jesus, Tosh, we kind of put everything out there the last time we saw each other, and we used to sleep together. There’s not a load of mystery left between us.”

“True. All right, do you want me to, like, stand with you, or just pretend to be browsing herbs nearby?”

I think for a moment. “Herbs nearby.”

“Fine.” She rolls her eyes.

Walking amongst the stands on the common, I spot Ryker immediately. The thought of turning around is tempting. Very tempting. What if he said all he’d needed to say the last time we were together? What if I’m just going to cause more problems? I’m about ten steps from his tent and he spots me. His eyes light up and I can’t help but smile.

“Hey you!” Walking around the side of a table, he pulls me into a tight hug. I let out a breath I think I’ve been holding for ten years.
 

He smells the same. Every time, he smells the same.

“Hey yourself.” I smile and gesture toward his produce. “You look like you’re doing really well here. That’s great!”

Ryker shrugs, trying to be modest, but I can tell he’s really proud. And, I’m happy for him.
 

“I was wondering if I’d see you here.” His eyes catch mine and I feel a twinge in the center of my chest.

“Yeah, well, the last few weeks have been busy. I moved out—”

“Sorry, Nat . . .” He places his hand on my shoulder and leaves it there a beat longer than I think he might.

“No, don’t worry about it. It was long overdue. Anyway, I’m also starting to teach some anthro classes at Mt. Holyoke, and I’ll start some at Smith in the fall, as well.”

As if his smile could get any bigger. “I’m
really
happy for you, that’s awesome. How’s Oliver?”

His question catches me slightly off guard. It still seems weird to be discussing children of mine with Ryker Manning.

“Um . . . he’s fine, but his hearing really seems to be fading fast. Any free time I have is spent studying ASL and I’m starting to use it a bit with him. It’s only been a month since his diagnosis, but I can tell he’s struggling . . .”

“You should bring the boys to the farm sometime, I’m sure they’d love it.”

I smile at his thoughtfulness. They
would
freaking love it. “Sure, that sounds fun. It’s a bit nerve-wracking taking Oliver places right now—since his hearing kind of fades in and out, I can’t trust that if he’s about to get hurt and I shout his name that he’ll hear me. He kind of needs to be shadowed all the time.”
 

Ryker excuses himself to help a customer while I study the produce in the baskets around my feet. He did this. All of this came from Ryker . . .
Ryker.
It starts to choke me up, when he comes back.

“Sorry about that.”

“No worries,” I smile, “you’re busy, that’s good. Listen, I actually came specifically to talk to you about something. I’d like to see your dad.”

Ryker swallows hard as he nods. “He’d really like that. You didn’t have to ask me first, you know.”

“I did, because I was wondering if you’d go with me . . .” I cast my eyes downward for a moment before I remember strict instructions from Dr. Greene to practice looking people in the eyes again. I have nothing to be ashamed of.

Nothing to be ashamed of . . . deep breath.

The only problem is, when I look Ryker in the eyes, my insides scramble. He’s the only person I’ve ever loved like
that,
and the only person who made me feel a loss I never thought I’d recover from. The bookends of every extreme emotion I’ve ever experienced sit right in those gorgeous, endless, blue eyes. The last bit of blue that remains in the sky before day bows to sunset—that’s where I’m staring.

“Of course I’ll go with you. Want to meet me there for dinner? Say, six?”

 
“Tonight? Okay, that sounds good. See you then.”

Chapter 34

With a long sigh and a fresh batch of butterflies clogging up my insides, I turn into Bill Manning’s driveway. I force myself to think of the good times I had here before the bad times creep in like a low, chilly fog. Okay, yeah, right there—
right there
—is where Ryker pushed me, and I fell. But, over
there
is where he swept me, literally, off my feet when he first came home, and we kissed like no one was watching.

I’m purposely a few minutes after six to ensure Ryker would already be here. I’m not really sure why; Bill and I spent loads of time alone together, even after Ryker came home. And, frankly, even when he was in the same room. All the same, I’ve only seen him once in ten years, and it was when I was eight months pregnant . . . and he told me Ryker was married.
 

Ryker raps his knuckle against my window, alerting me to the fact that I’ve been in a daze for a minute, or more.
 

“Ya comin’?” he asks as if this were twelve years ago. He’s smiling, but his eyes always give him away—he’s a bit nervous, too.
 

Returning a nervous smile, I get out and we walk up the stone walkway to the front door. My brain is greeted with an overload of sensory memories as soon as I step over the threshold into the entryway. Sitting on the floor in front of the door crying with Ryker, eating many Sunday dinners in the kitchen, and having sex up in Ryker’s bedroom swirl through my senses.

Wow.

A few blinks later I focus on a well-built silver-haired man with his back to me in the kitchen. As he turns around, my heart fills with so much joy I think it might burst. Bill greets me with the glorious smile he passed down to his son, and I stride confidently toward him.

“Natalie!” Bill claps once and meets me on the side of the island, pulling me into a bear hug.

“Hi Bill.” I squeeze as tight as I can and am surprised by the tears suddenly spilling down my face.

“God, it’s good to see you, Kid.” He holds me at arm’s length as I wipe my tears.

Dinner’s ready and we settle into our old chairs and enjoy a meal together.

After dinner, Ryker and I are cleaning up the dishes while Bill lights a fire in the fire pit outside. Ryker nudges my side.

“Go ahead outside and talk with him, I’ll finish up in here.” Honestly, I want to stand here and listen to Ryker’s voice all night. It’s sweet. It’s calm. And, I realize, it’s starting to sound like his father’s.
 

I shoulder up next to Bill at the fire pit. “Thank you for dinner, Bill. It was delicious as always.”

“Any time, Nat.” He smiles.

Focusing on getting to the point, with the encouragement of Dr. Greene playing in my head, I continue, staring into the fire. “Why’d you tell me he was married, Bill?”

Bill lets out a low chuckle, “Ah, Natalie . . . I guess . . . Ryker had just come back from Jackson Hole, and things were finally looking okay for him, but I was still scared, you know? I just figured that the chances of you two running into each other were pretty slim and I wanted to let you know he was really doing okay.” He sighs and continues, “I don’t know, you looked so happy, Kid, I just figured we better leave well enough alone” He shakes his head and looks to the trees.

It occurs to me, sickeningly so, that Bill has been carrying around guilt of his own.

“None of that was your fault, you know . . .” Instinctively I place my hand on his shoulder. He reaches up and grabs hold of it.

“I know. I just wish I’d been more prepared to help him somehow.”

A chuckle escapes me. “No shit. You and me both.”

Bill brings three chairs around the fire pit. As I sit, it’s clear Ryker is taking his time in the kitchen to give his dad and me more time to talk.

“I really want to thank you,” Bill says as he settles into his chair. “And I don’t just mean for all the stuff that happened at the end, I mean all the stuff before that. You were good to my son, Natalie, and that’s the most I could have asked for. You were tough. He needed that. I did too, I guess.”

Pushing back my cuticles with my index finger, I can’t bear to look him in the eyes right now. “I loved him, Bill.”
 

His tone darkens slightly. “For a lot of people that’s not enough, you know.”

“For me, back then, it was everything . . .”
 

It’s been so easy to focus on the mechanics of Ryker and me—the good, the bad, the worse—that I’ve forced myself to forget the intensity of the love I felt for him. It swallowed me completely, which is why I carry around this ten-ton bag of remorse over leaving him. I was still in love with him when I left.

“Ryker told me a little about the fight you two got in while he was still on probation.” My morbid curiosity takes over.

“Yeah,” Bill scratches his head for a few seconds before his eyes—absolutely identical to Ryker’s—fade a little, “I was afraid I was going to lose him, Natalie. He got lucky when he crashed my car. He’d only been on the road about two minutes and didn’t get much speed. I knew he needed to just get the hell out of here for a while, you know?”

“I really do.” I nod.

“Anyway, the fight itself wasn’t that bad. He screamed at me about a lot of things, said I made up lies to you about him so you’d leave him . . . all kinds of things.”

“Jesus.” I close my eyes, almost wishing I hadn’t asked. But, just because I don’t ask doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Seeming to sense a need for change in direction, Bill leans forward a bit in his chair. “How are you doing, Natalie, really?”
 

“Well,” I lean back, crossing my arms and legs, “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Things are just a little rough right now, you know?”

“I’m sorry to hear about the divorce. I don’t know the details, but it’s always a tough choice.”

Clearly Ryker’s talked a bit about me with his dad. Okay, then . . .

 
I think Bill and Ryker’s mom, Julie, divorced when Ryker was about my boys’ age. From what Ryker told me, Julie was incredibly depressed and just up and left one day. It shattered Bill to pieces. Maybe that’s why I never really felt like I meshed with her back then—I didn’t understand how someone could just . . . go. Today, we could probably share a bottle of wine and compare notes.

“Thanks, yeah, it was a tough one. Luckily it seems fairly amicable, for now. We filed the official paperwork on June first, so . . . now we just wait a while, I guess.”

As Ryker finishes up and walks outside, Bill continues our heart-to-heart.

“Sorry to hear about your boy, Oliver.”
 

My boy.
 

Bill regards the simple name of my child with the same fatherly care he showed me long ago.
 

“Thanks. It’s going to be a long road but he’s tough, so is Max.”

I take a few minutes to explain Oliver’s condition to Bill, and to talk to both of them about his therapies. Max joins his brother for all sessions, is picking up sign language quite quickly, and is learning the basics of his new life with his twin. He has to be sure that Oliver is looking at him when he speaks, and needs to look out for him whenever possible—like on a busy playground. Any time I’ve peeked in their bedroom while they’re playing, or during “quiet time,” it seems business as usual. Just boys being boys and brothers being brothers.

“Sounds like you’re getting things under control the best you can.” Bill leans forward and focuses on my face.

I shrug. “Nothing else you can do but roll up your sleeves and dig in, I guess.”

Run away. You could always run away. But, remember, you’re better than that.

“Dad, I told Natalie she should bring her boys by the farm sometime. Don’t you think they’d like that?”
 

I watch as Bill’s carefully chosen words form in his mouth. “You’re right, son. They’re boys. It’s dirt. What’s not to like?”

We all laugh and enjoy the rest of the sunset.

By the time the mosquitoes are in full force, I stand to excuse myself for the evening.

“Thanks again for dinner, Bill.” Extending my arms, he comes in for a hug.

“Anytime, Natalie. I mean that. Let’s not go another ten years, eh?” Bill kisses my cheek and gives my shoulder a firm pat before making eye contact with Ryker behind me.

“I’ll walk you to your car, Nat.” Ryker tugs my pinky finger once before heading around the side of the house.

Walking to my car, I suddenly feel a hundred pounds lighter. Closure seems to be introducing itself to my bleeding heart a little at a time.

“Thanks for having me over, Ryker. I’m glad I got a chance to talk to your dad.” I lean against my door.

“No problem, I know he’s really missed you and . . .you guys went through a lot together.” A flash of uneasiness passes through his eyes, and I wish I could grab his face and kiss him, telling him it’s
really
okay. But, the thing about guilt is, no one can take it away for you; you have to unpack it yourself. And, I probably shouldn’t kiss him.