Blue Willow (69 page)
“I wanted to talk to myself, and to Stephen. And to Richard too. I feel as if I’m still inside a long tunnel, but there’s light at the end now.” She paused. “I’ve only begun to see that light in the past few months. You put it there.”
“I’m with you now, in the darkness, and I’ll be with you when you reach the other side.”
She stepped into his embrace. “I wish there was something I could say or do for Stephen that would make sense of everything,” she whispered, her throat tight. “A way to let go of the pain but keep the memories, without feeling that I’m forgetting him. I never came back here before because I was afraid it would kill me to … to imagine him being alone. I found this inside the mausoleum, sitting on the floor.” She slid a hand into her jacket pocket and removed a tiny brown teddy bear. Meeting Artemas’s shuttered gaze, she asked, “Did you bring this here?”
He nodded. “During all those years that you and I were growing up, separately, there were small gestures that kept the connection. They may seem simple, even maudlin, now, but—”
“No. They meant everything to me. They still do.”
“I can’t bring Stephen back for you, but I can tell you that his memory will always be welcome to me.”
She took his arm. Together they walked to the mausoleum. She opened the wrought-iron door, and they went inside. Lily sat the tiny bear back in its place on the floor, then touched her fingertips to her son’s name, carved on the stone plate next to Richard’s. “You are always with me,” she whispered.
She touched Richard’s name too. Artemas said nothing, but kissed her hair gently.
They went back outside, and she closed the gate. He pulled her to him and held her with comfort and sorrow and mute appreciation. After a while Lily looked up at him and smiled. It was time to go back to Blue Willow and start the new year.
Dawn light, rose-hued and clear, filled their bedroom. Artemas frowned at the empty space beside him and eased out of bed. He threw a robe around himself and went through their suite, looking for her. The air was cool and silent, the rooms empty.
He returned to the main one, stared at the bed as if she
might have reappeared during his search, and called her name. A soft, cool breeze scented with earth and sun touched his face.
One of the doors to the balcony stood slightly ajar. He walked outside. The sky was pink and blue, meeting the mountains at a misty line along their ridges. Eternity clung to moments like this, a brief halt in time, offering no answers.
He went to the balustrade and strained his eyes toward the forest and lake, wondering if she were gone on some mission she might never share with him.
“Good morning.” Her voice was a sweet and compelling bell. He glanced down quickly, to the wintry garden beneath the balcony, where she’d cleared a space and planted flowers last fall, in secret. She was kneeling there, barefoot and wrapped in a blanket.
In the middle of the garden she had added a blue willow. A strong little tree, and delicately beautiful.
Artemas caught his breath. She called, “Spring’ll be here soon. I’m going to plant the most incredible gardens around this house.”
Leaning against the balustrade’s sun-warmed stone, he smiled at her. “You picked the perfect place to begin, my love.”
“It’ll be happy here,” she answered, nodding toward the willow. “This is going to be the prettiest willow you’ve ever seen. We’ll enjoy watching this tree grow.”
“I’ll enjoy every day of it. Every year. Every decade. This is exactly where it belongs.”
She lifted her head and studied him solemnly. Then she got to her feet and ran up the balcony steps, and he held out his arms—graceful, gallant, causing her eyes to fill with devotion. “You’re not just talking about some little old tree,” she drawled, before she kissed him.
The promise of a blue willow was theirs.
About the Author
A former newspaper editor and multiple award-winner for her novels and contemporary romances, D
EBORAH
S
MITH
lives in the mountains of Georgia, where she is working on her next novel.
