The Road to You (48 page)

I didn’t say so, but that very thought had crossed my mind as well.

A few hours later, my mom motioned me into the kitchen while my dad was occupied watching the ten o’clock news. She looked fifteen years younger now that she knew Gideon was alive but, still, I could see she was worried about him. About whatever unforeseen hazard might befall him next.

“Do you think he’s really okay?” she asked me. “Your brother…out there on his own? He said he’d keep in touch with us in some way or another, but I just don’t know what to expect from him now. Everything’s changed.”

I agreed this was true. “I think he’s still figuring out for himself how he’s going to handle his next steps. It’ll probably be a lot easier for all of us once he does.”

Because, really, it was Gideon’s willingness to live in relationship limbo that I had the hardest time wrapping my head around. I understood his need for freedom, but not his
lack
of need for connection. I suspected he enjoyed the secrecy surrounding his life too much. His personal mythology of being some kind of rebel
with
a cause. A lone ranger on a motorcycle, riding west into the sunset, final destination unknown.

A
sunset ranger
? Perhaps that was it. With
one shield
—the windshield on his bike. A man on the open road who didn’t have to answer to anyone.

It had been such a huge cathartic moment seeing our mother getting to hold her son in her arms again. Her baby boy she’d thought she’d forever lost. But even being in the center of that, Gideon hadn’t fully realized the price we’d all paid for his choices—right or wrong.

I would always love and admire my brother, but I simply didn’t believe a man could fancy himself to be truly heroic while leaving the people he loved (and who loved him) in the dark. Not even if he thought it was for their own good.

“I hope that’s the case, Aurora,” my mom said. “With all my heart, I do.” Then she hugged me so tight I didn’t think she’d ever let me go.

But she did. And with a mother’s unwavering love in her eyes.

T
HE NEXT
morning, I went to visit Donovan at work.

“Heard you walked out on Old Man Geiger,” he said to me in the garage, wiping some grease off his fingers with a cloth and sending me one of his half grins.

I’d missed seeing Donovan. Missed being around him. It was so strange to have gone two and a half
days
without talking with him face to face after we’d spent almost every second together for weeks.

“Yeah, I’d had enough of the store.” I paused. “Um, can we talk for a few minutes? Alone?”

“Sure.” He motioned me into the back office and closed the door securely behind us. Then he winked at me and snapped the blinds shut, too. “What d’ya have in mind, Aurora?”

I felt myself blushing. “It’s not like that,” I said, just because I knew it’d remind him of the day I came here to show him the journal. Knew it would make him laugh a little.

He did, and then he pulled me into his arms and held me close for several minutes before either of us said another word. I could feel the comforting pulse of his heartbeat through his white t-shirt.

When we finally stepped apart, I asked him how he was doing, how his mom had taken the news, what his plans were for going back. I knew he’d be leaving soon. When we flew home from California, my parents had purchased a one-way plane fare for me back to Minnesota but, because Donovan’s car was still in San Bernardino, they’d gotten him an open-ended return ticket. It was just a matter of time before he used it.

“She handled it better than I thought,” he said. “But, you know, it was hard. Both of us wished the outcome had been different.”

I nodded and tried to push away the sadness. Jeremy had been like an extended family member to me—he’d been around so often. But I knew any pain I felt about his death paled in comparison to Donovan’s loss of his brother or their mother’s loss of her youngest son.

“I’m still glad we know, once and for all, what had happened to him, though. Your intuition steered us well. Often onto very dangerous roads,” he added with a smirk, “but they led to the right places.”

I bowed my head, acknowledging the truth of it. I may have guessed the correct path more than once, but I’d also been stubborn and reckless far too often. “You know I couldn’t have made it through any of this without you, Donovan.”

“Ah, I think you’d have been all right…but we made a good team,” he said. Then, “I’m leaving for California tomorrow morning. My mom’s not fond of long car rides, so she’s just gonna fly in and out of Albuquerque. I’m planning to fix my car in San Bernardino, drive out to meet her flight in New Mexico on Tuesday, then we’ll both go to see Billy Neville. And, later, Jeremy.”

He told me he’d spoken alone with Gideon about his brother. Had gotten some insight into Jeremy’s final days. Donovan said Gideon had even apologized for misleading him into thinking Jeremy might be alive when he was playing his “Andy Reggio” role. That he’d been so focused on helping Billy nail Sebastian and William James that he hadn’t realized the emotional wringer he’d put Donovan through.

“Anyway, I think saying goodbye at St. Christopher’s will help,” he said. “Then my mom can fly back here, and I can drive home.”

“Will you take Route 66?” I asked.

He shook his head. “That’d take too long. It’ll be I-25 North, I-80 East and I-35 North. But—” He smiled at me. “Although this drive is something I need to do alone, I’ll miss your company in my car on the way back. Maybe not your singing—”

I laughed and slugged him lightly on his chest. He let my hand linger there for a moment before covering my fingers with his and pressing them against his heart. I hoped this was a good sign, given what I was going to ask him next.

“You know, I’m going to apply to college after all,” I told him. “In Flagstaff. I really liked it.” I paused. “Even though we were only there a few days, it has a lot of happy memories for me.” And I held his gaze for a long time, making sure he understood that this was because of
him
. “It’s new and different. Feels like the right place for a fresh start. But what I’m really hoping is…that you’ll come with me. Will you, Donovan?”

I held my breath, waiting for his answer, my heartbeat on pause as he considered my question. My hand—still in his—rested hotly against his chest.

Finally, he pulled all of me close to him again and whispered, “No.”

Disappointment crackled through my body, and my spirit crumpled like a dried leaf. “Why not?” I managed to murmur.

He stroked my hair and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I will
always
be here for you, Aurora. But you should go to Arizona. You should try out college on your own. Be free for a while of everything and everyone. It’s something you need to do. I love you too much to want you to limit any part of your life because of me. And, for now, I still need to stay in Chameleon Lake.”

I wasn’t ready to give up on this.
He loved me!
That had to count for something. “For how long? When do you think you could leave?”

He shrugged, sadness sliding across his face. “I don’t know. A few months. A few years. I don’t have an answer to that yet, but I need to make sure my mom’s all right. And you need time to see if...if I’m really the man you want to be with.”

I drew an uneven breath and rubbed the gold band on my ruby ring to give me strength. Whenever I stayed calm and paid careful attention to my inner voice, I always felt things would somehow be okay. It was harder than usual for me to do that this time, but I was just going to have to trust in what I knew deep in my soul to be true.

“I still don’t regret a single thing that happened between us,” I told him, wiping away a tear that had escaped and slipped down my face. “I love you, too, Donovan McCafferty, and that’s not something that’s going to change just because of time and distance. I know you think it might, but I know my heart. I believe in us. I believe we were meant to be together. And I believe my instincts wouldn’t let me think so for a second if what we had wasn’t real.”

He tightened his grip on me and we kissed—long, slow and so completely—it was like we’d fused on a cellular level. Then we pulled apart and he said, “I’m never as certain about
anything
as you seem to be but, for the record, Aurora, I know my heart, too. And I hope your intuition is right on this one.”

“Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.”

~Marcel Proust

Pasadena, California ~ Sunday, July 1, 1979

F
ROM THE
shoreline I watched the sun, radiant in its shimmering cloak of orange, greet a rolling wave with a kiss and slowly sink into it. I could almost feel the ocean’s embrace. The passion of opposites—fire and water—finally becoming one.

It had been an interesting year. Challenging in so many ways. Moving to Arizona. Starting classes at NAU (I was leaning toward library science. Nobody was surprised by this.) Only coming home for Christmas and for a couple of weeks early in my summer vacation. Not seeing my parents for months on end. Or Donovan.

None of us saw Gideon either, although he did send a couple of very enigmatic postcards, hinting he was still trying to decide which ribbon of highway he should ride his motorcycle down next. I suspected he’d pop in and out of our lives like the bubbles in a champagne glass for decades to come. Always keeping us guessing about what he did professionally, where he might be living, why he required such an extreme form of freedom.

I sighed and wrapped my arms around myself, imagining my brother giving me the hug I needed. But the connection and touch I craved wasn’t so easy to satisfy, and the waves were crashing closer to my feet, splashing my toes with droplets of water that were too far away from the sun to be warm.

I jumped back, stumbling a little on the wet sand with all of its unevenness and stray seaweed. But then I heard the voice I’d been waiting for—hoping for—all year long.

“Hey, Birthday Girl. Watch your step.”

Donovan
.

I swiveled toward him and he caught me in an embrace so fierce it brought tears to my eyes. Or maybe it was because I was finally feeling his breath on my cheek again. Or hearing the deep strum of his vocal chords when he whispered my name. Or inhaling his scent as he pulled me even closer and kissed me. A union of salt water and body heat. Ocean and sun.

When I could gasp enough air to speak, I brushed away my tears and chided, “I’ve been waiting
forever
for you. I thought you’d never get here.”

He pointed toward the parking lot of the Pasadena beachside hotel that he’d chosen for us to meet at tonight. Even from this distance, I could spot the distinctive crimson gleam of his Firebird Trans Am. “It was a hell of a long drive from Chameleon Lake, Aurora.”

We both laughed at that. A journey far longer than the sum of its miles, that was for sure.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But I’m so glad you came.”

This, too, was an understatement of massive proportions. Our plan was to celebrate my nineteenth birthday on the Pacific Coast—just for a few days, so we could finally see the western end of Route 66 together—and then we were both heading to Flagstaff in Donovan’s car. To work at our summer jobs in the city. To start classes in the fall. My eager second year of college. His tentative first.