In the Stillness (38 page)

After cleaning my apartment top to bottom and inside out, baking for Max and Ollie, and doing all of my holiday shopping, I’ve made it to Christmas morning without much trouble. Sure, there have been moments—ironically, the quiet ones—where I’ve thought about cutting. Rather than avoid the thought altogether, I force myself to think it all the way through, every time. I ask myself how cutting would make the person, or situation I’m stressed about any better. The answer is
always
“it wouldn’t.” Ever. I try not to think about the day that the answer might be “it would help,” and focus on the given day or, sometimes, moment.

Max, Ollie, and I enjoy a very loud, very sugar-filled Christmas morning full of presents, video games, and books. Up until about a month ago, the first time the three of us read a new book, it would take me a few tries to get all the signs right. Now if I mess up, one of them will correct me. They laugh when I mess up, and I’m glad there’s laughter within that situation, now.

Excited as ever for their “second Christmas,” the boys race up the front steps of Eric’s new house before I’ve barely had time to put the car in park. He closed on the house at the beginning of the month, so it’s not my first time here; still, I take a deep breath, staring at the perfectly lit roof and front bushes.

“Merry Christmas, Daddy!” they shout as Eric opens the door with a broad grin.

“Merry Christmas to
you
kiddos!” he says and signs perfectly. They tumble inside where they’re greeted by Eric’s parents.

Eric tilts his head to the side and offers a sweet smile. “Merry Christmas, Natalie.”

“You too, Eric.” I hand him the boys’ duffel bags.

“Do you want to come in for a drink?”

The question is innocent enough, but the implications are anything but. Eric’s parents aren’t my biggest fans at the moment. They don’t badmouth me in front of the boys and, apparently, that’s all I can expect right now.

“No,” I shake my head, rubbing my hands together, “thank you, though. See you guys next week.”

“Bye.” Eric slides inside and shuts the door, where I can hear glee streaming from the boys’ mouths.

Things aren’t strained between Eric and I after our awkward exchange the day he moved in; but whenever I leave after dropping off the boys, he watches me through the door or window until I’m out of sight. Tonight’s no different as I back down the driveway. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks one day I’ll turn around, but maybe that’s just my guilt coming up for air.

The roads are empty, my car is quiet, and I’m starting to feel the beginnings of the loneliness I’ve been working to keep at bay. Realizing that Christmas night is not the best time to try to play “hero” with myself, I turn left at the intersection and head for South East St. to Bill Manning’s house.

Bill and I haven’t spoken since the night I had dinner with him and Ryker at his house, but I know I’m always welcome. Pulling into his driveway, I’m thankful to see his car parked and living room light on. I nervously wait a few seconds after I knock on the door.

Bill answers the door in jeans and a Christmas sweater. “Natalie? This is a pleasant surprise!”

“Merry Christmas, Bill, can I come in?”

“Of course, of course!”
 

Stepping into the always-cozy house, I’m surrounded by the sights and smells of Christmas. Fresh-baked cookies sit on a plate in the kitchen, a pine-scented candle is burning in the entryway, and the Christmas tree is fully decorated. Bill spent a lot of Christmases as a single father, so it’s no surprise that even as a sixty-year-old bachelor, he knows how to make his house feel homey.
 

“You didn’t have your boys today?” Concern fills Bill’s eyes as we sit on the couch next to the tree.

“I had them last night and this morning. I actually just dropped them off at Eric’s house . . . was feeling a little lonely, I guess.”

Bill gently grabs my knee. “I’m glad you came over.”

“Are you normally home on Christmas, with Ryker gone to Jackson Hole, and all?”

Bill shakes his head. “Ryker doesn’t usually go to Wyoming until mid-January.”

“Oh,” my face feels like it was just smacked with a wet towel, “he told me he goes for three months every year . . .”

“Oh, Natalie . . .” Bill seems to try to recover from some breech he’s created.

“No,” I put my hand up, “it’s okay. Ryker
did
tell me he needed a break . . . I just . . . it didn’t occur to me that he would need that
long
of a break if it was from me, you know?” Standing, I walk to the kitchen and help myself to water, thankful that I have always felt at home here.

“He’s scared, Natalie.” Bill follows me in with his hands in his pockets. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but what do I have to lose?” He laughs a little.

“Scared?” I grab a cookie off the plate and sit at the kitchen table. “He could just join the club. He didn’t have to fly to Wyoming.”

“The day he saw you at Atkins as he was unloading his truck . . . boy, it was like he’d seen a ghost.” Bill sits next to me with cookies for himself.

“Tell me about it,” I snort.

“Anyway, over the last few months he’s talked to me a hundred times about if he should ask you out to dinner, or what.”

Picturing strong, sure, Ryker asking his dad for advice about something like asking
me
to dinner makes me grin. “Your son’s a gentleman, Bill . . .”

“I know he is, Natalie. I told him to go for it because, you know, I love you to death. But,” Bill rolls his eyes with a grin, “that boy knows something I don’t.”

“What’s that?”

Bill rests his hand on mine. “You. He knew you were struggling, and he knows how struggle feels, and damn it if he didn’t want to help you, Nat, I swear. But, I don’t think he trusted himself to be around you a lot, you know? He didn’t want to make a mistake he’d regret later.”

“So he runs away to Wyoming for three months?” I spit out sarcastically.

“Men.” Bill shrugs.

Keeping Bill’s analysis of Ryker’s actions in the back of my mind, I move on and talk to Bill about the last few months. He seems happy that I’m working and listens with misty eyes as I tell him about George and Marion Frank and my time with them at the Soldiers’ Home. By the time I’ve rattled off everything under the sun, my loneliness is long gone and it’s approaching midnight.

“Geez, Bill, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so late.” On cue, I yawn, standing to stretch.

“Any time, Natalie. I mean that, okay?” I know that Bill probably knows all of my
issues
between discussions he’s had with Ryker and my dad, but I’m glad he doesn’t bring them up, just the same. “Before you go,” he reaches by me and grabs something off the island, “this is for you.”

“Bill, you didn’t have to—”

“I was going to mail it to you, then I ran out of time, and . . . well, let’s just call it good fortune
that you showed up here tonight.”

“Let’s.” Wrapping my arms around Bill, I feel a hint of Ryker resting in his broad shoulders. Those two men are built nearly identically.

Bill kisses my cheek before holding me at arm’s length. “Don’t open that until you get home, okay, Honey?”
 

“Sure thing. Night, Bill.”

Despite the spotty cell service Ryker told me he would have at the camp, I decide to send him a “Merry Christmas” text anyway. Before heading home, there’s one more stop I have to make.

Well after dark, and through five inches of snow, I find it.
 

Lucas J. Fisher
.

I whisper, because that’s how you speak in a cemetery. When you’re not yelling and crying, I suppose.

“I’m taking advantage of the fact that it’s Christmas night and no one would force someone from the grave of their friend on Christmas,” I snicker to the frozen marble.

The wind picks up and gets just under my scarf.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get on with it. So, I’m sorry that the only two times I’ve been here since your funeral I yelled and screamed at you. That was a little . . . misplaced. Anyway, I’m sure you already know this—or whatever—but Ryker and I have been spending a lot of time together. You know how crazy we were for each other—you saw our first kiss, for God’s sake.” I laugh. A light snow starts to fall, landing on my black peacoat and eyelashes.

“I love him, Lucas. It never really went away, and I don’t expect it ever will—no matter where we end up. But, I’ve been really sick. I’m working to get better, because what I’ve been doing for the last few years barely classifies as living. Ryker still doesn’t talk much to me about you, and I guess that’s okay. Just . . . I don’t know what kind of pull you have wherever you are, but somehow let him know that it’s okay for him to talk to me about you. Good and bad. Can you do that? I know that’s asking an awful lot since I’ve done nothing but yell at you since you died, but I’m trying.

“My point?” I kneel down and reach into my pocket, pulling out my old yellow ribbon. “I don’t need this anymore. You came home a long time ago, Ryker’s home now, and I’m working like hell to find my way back.” Setting the ribbon at the base of his headstone, I watch snowflakes make quick work of cradling it.

“I miss you, Buddy. Merry Christmas.” I kiss two fingertips and press them against his name, before hurrying back to the warmth of my car.
 

When I arrive back to my apartment, the interior is alive with anticipation as I hurry to the bedroom to open Bill’s gift. I don’t know why I feel I need to sit on the bed to open this, but knowing Bill Manning, sitting is best anyway.

A small gift tag on the front of the package simply reads:

Ryker’s sits on his dresser in his house. You need one, too. Love, Bill

With a racing heart, I tear open the package, gasping in my silent bedroom. I’m holding a framed picture—the same one Ryker had on his desk in his dad’s house. It’s the one Bill took the day Ryker left for Afghanistan, the picture that shows us saying goodbye. The picture where Ryker’s white knuckles beg,
don’t go.

Staring tearfully at this picture, I wish I could tell that girl everything I know. The good, the bad, and the ugly that lies ahead. The tears. The triumph. More than anything I want to tell her she’ll get to hold that boy like that again one day. But, that’s the one thing I can’t tell her. Because I don’t know.

Walking to my bookshelf, I set the picture front and center. I laugh, remembering how I thought that day was going to be the worst day of my life. As it turns out, it was one of the best—we promised we’d wait for each other.

My phone dings in the bedroom, indicating a text message. I open my phone to find a reply from Ryker.

Ry:
Merry Christmas, Nat. Talk to you soon.

I think I really hope so . . .

Chapter 46

“Have you talked to anyone about that letter?”
 

My visits with Dr. Green have decreased to every other week, and this is the first time I’ve seen her since my mom’s experiment in apology.

“No.”

“Not even Ryker?”

“Not even Ryker.”

“Why not?” She tilts her chin, almost knowingly.

“Well,” I sigh, “what’s the point? I don’t mean that sarcastically, either. I promise.” We chuckle in unison. “I’m at a point now, I think, where I don’t need to dump everything on everyone all the time. I mean, I don’t
feel
like my friends look at it as me dumping on them. I . . . just don’t need to right now.”

“Excellent, Natalie.” She smiles and takes a careful breath. “Have you spoken with your mother since you got the letter?”

“Yes.”

I tell Dr. Greene that my mother and I had a short, tear-filled conversation where I thanked her for not destroying the letter. She said that once she found out my and Bill were still talking, my dad clued her in on the last ten years, and what Ryker had been through. She said when she put that together with what I told her at the boys’ birthday party, she realized her short-sightedness.
 

“How did things end with you two on the phone?” Dr. Greene checks her watch, letting me know our time is almost up.

“Things are okay, they’ll be fine. I guess it’ll just take some time, like everything else.” With a smile and an appointment for three weeks from now, I leave the office and look forward to a quiet afternoon.

While I’ve learned to savor the quiet when it comes, I’m grateful that Tosh and Liz will be home from Hawaii at the end of the week. As I finish up a chapter of a book I’ve been getting lost in, my phone rings with a number I’m unfamiliar with. It’s our “413” area code, so I answer.

“Hello?”

“Natalie Collins?” a woman’s voice greets me.

“Yes, this is.”

“Hi, this is Karen Matthews, George and Marion Frank’s daughter.” Her tone tells me to sit.

“Oh, okay, hi.” I know I sound breathless, but can’t help it.

“Dad passed away last night.” She clears her throat as she finishes, allowing for a small sob to escape my throat unheard.

“I’m so sorry,” I make out between not-so-silent tears. I haven’t seen George since Christmas, and Marion the week before that. “What happened?”