Courage Tree (25 page)

J
anine was standing on the tarmac at the small airport, talking with the rental agent, as she waited for Lucas to arrive. She’d called Lucas at five-thirty that morning, when she’d made the decision to rent a helicopter, and asked him to meet her at the airport rather than the motel. It was barely 8:00 a.m. now, and she was early, but she simply could not stay cooped up in her motel room another moment.

She’d had to beg Joe to give her a ride to the airport, since she had no car with her, and she must have hit him at a weak moment, because he didn’t put up much of a fight before agreeing to drop her off. She’d also persuaded him to stop by the command post, so that she could leave Herbalina in the trailer’s small refrigerator and tell Valerie Boykin her plan. Valerie didn’t think a helicopter would do much good, given the dense cover in the area, but Janine could not tolerate another day of sitting and waiting. They wouldn’t let her in the woods to look for Sophie, but there was not much they could do about her being in the air.

“I think you’re amazing,” the rental agent said. His name was Tom. Janine figured he was probably in his forties,
although he looked considerably older with his long, gray ponytail.

“You do?” She smiled politely, as she walked around the helicopter. She was anxious to get inside it and up in the air.

“I think if my girl had gone missing, my wife would have buckled under, you know what I mean?” Tom said. “Just hid herself away until they found her. But here you are, out here, ready to fly a helicopter yourself to go lookin’ for her.”

“I can’t stand feeling helpless,” she said.

“Well, I think you’re something else,” Tom said. He offered her a salute and started walking back to the rental office. “You let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you,” he called over his shoulder.

“I will,” she said. “Thanks.”

Janine leaned against the side of the helicopter and watched the road for Lucas’s car. She’d hesitated before calling Lucas early that morning, still feeling unsure of him after his desertion of her the night before. She’d been relieved when he responded to her call with warmth and willingness, the concern in his voice making her feel foolish for thinking she might have misinterpreted his love for her and Sophie. Their relationship was only seven months old, but those months had been rich with a caring so deep she felt ashamed of herself for doubting it. Lucas was a giver. How could she have forgotten that?

After he’d helped her break into her house, Lucas had become a regular visitor to the cottage at Ayr Creek. At first, she was careful with him around Sophie, but she soon grew to believe that his interest in Sophie was honorable, tied to his feelings for his beloved niece. He treated Sophie almost as though she were an adult, asking her opinion on books and movies and what she’d like for dinner. He taught her riddles. He asked her about her hopes and dreams. A couple of times, he’d had both Sophie and Janine up to his tree house, that
world of awe and adventure, and Sophie had lit up at finding herself in the midst of the bare winter trees, able to see all the way to the Filene Center at Wolf Trap, and nearly to Ayr Creek in the opposite direction. Yes, Lucas was a giver, in every meaning of the word.

The true gift he’d given, though, was not to Sophie, but to Janine.

Early one morning, just before Christmas, and a month or so after Lucas had helped her break into the cottage, Janine was awakened before sunrise by a sound that always made her shiver. It was a low-pitched keening, spilling from the woods near the cottage, loud enough to pierce the windows of her bedroom. She’d heard the keening several times before, but only in the warmer months, and each time she heard it, she would lay frozen in her bed, imagining Orla as she traipsed through the forest in search of her daughter. This time, though, Janine felt a longing to know what was truly making that heartrending sound.

She got out of bed, pulling on a chenille robe over her flannel pajamas. Slipping into her sneakers, she walked quietly out the back door of the cottage to the porch. The sound stopped, as though Orla might have seen her emerge from the house and did not want to be discovered. Then she heard a noise from the side of the cottage. Walking around the path, she spotted Lucas carrying a bundled string of Christmas lights in his arms.

He started when he saw her. “You’re up early,” he said.

“Did you hear that sound?” she asked.

“What sound?”

“The wailing. Crying. Orla.”

He looked toward the woods. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “It is a bit creepy. But I think you were right when you said it was a possum or something.”

She shivered and pulled the robe tighter around herself. “I’ve never heard it in the winter before,” she said.

“Where’s Sophie?” Lucas asked. “Still in bed?”

“She’s at Joe’s for the weekend.”

“Ah,” Lucas said, adjusting the string of lights in his arms. “I’d like to meet Joe sometime.”

That surprised her. “Why?” she asked.

“Just ’cause he’s Sophie’s dad. And I’m supposing that, like your parents, he doesn’t trust me much. I’d like him to know I’m not an ogre.”

Or a pedophile,
Janine thought. She felt a strong need to keep her friendship with Lucas from her parents and Joe. His visits to her cottage were made on the sly. Neither of them spoke about it, but they both understood the need for discretion. Although she had absolute trust in him, she knew her family would have no faith in her judgment.

“I’m about to make some coffee,” she said. “Would you like to come in for a cup?”

“Sure, in a minute. I just want to add these lights to the spruce out front. It looked a little bare to me last night.”

Inside the cottage, she quickly changed into jeans and a sweater, then busied herself making the coffee. She felt as though she were about to do something illicit. Not just because her parents would strongly disapprove of her socializing with the gardener, but because this would be the first time she’d been with Lucas alone, without Sophie as a buffer between them. Without Sophie to keep her growing desire for him in check. There had been a few times when she’d felt that desire was mutual, when she’d felt his gaze resting on her as she braided Sophie’s hair or made supper for the three of them. She wondered, though, if she might be imagining his interest.

She opened a box of donuts and set them on the table just as Lucas walked in the back door.

They sat in the kitchen, sipping coffee, nibbling donuts and talking, and she wondered if he felt any attraction to her at all. She wished she’d taken a moment to comb her hair, still
tousled from sleep, and smoothed some cover-up under her eyes. While she felt the power of being alone with him in the cottage, he seemed intent on talking about Sophie, as he usually did.

“What will she be doing this weekend with Joe?” he asked.

“Not sure,” she said, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “Joe said that he and his friend, Paula, might take her to Bull Run tonight to see the Christmas lights. And he usually takes her to an afternoon movie when he has her.”

“You know,” Lucas said, reaching for a napkin from the holder on the table, “I heard this little blurb on the radio about a study just starting up, and I thought of Sophie. I don’t know for sure, but I think she might qualify. It was something to do with kids with end-stage renal disease.”

Janine shook her head. “If Sophie was a candidate, her doctor would have told me. He keeps up with all the research that’s going on.”

“Well, this was something about alternative medicine,” Lucas said. “I didn’t get all the details, but I did memorize the phone number, just in case it might apply to Sophie.”

“Her doc would never go the alternative route.”

“Wouldn’t it be worth looking into, though?” he asked. “At least checking it out to see what it’s all about?”

Janine felt tired. People were always telling her that Sophie should be doing this or doing that to get better. Join a prayer circle, drink water mixed with molasses, take some special, expensive supplement that had cured someone’s sister’s best friend’s father of shingles and tapeworm.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You’re worn out from all this, aren’t you?” Lucas looked sympathetic.

She nodded.

“Well, just to satisfy my own curiosity, would it be okay if I checked into it a little further? I’ll get the information and pass it on to you, and you can decide if it’s worth anything or
not. The study sounded legit and kind of exciting. Really, it did.”

“Sure,” she said. “Just please don’t give me any grief if I don’t want to pursue it. Okay?”

“It’s a deal,” he said.

Without any warning, and without really knowing why, she suddenly began to cry. She turned away from him, raising a tissue to her face, embarrassed by how little control she had over her emotions these days.

He didn’t budge from his side of the table.

“What’s that all about?” he asked her gently, when her tears began to subside.

For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Finally she blew her nose and turned to face him again. “I’m so frustrated,” she said. “We’ve tried so many different treatments, but her need for dialysis keeps increasing. And the medications she’s on keep making her sicker and sicker. You’ve seen it. You know what she’s going through. And you—and I—know how this is going to end. Maybe she’ll live another six months, maybe a year. It’s all I think about. How unfair this is. What did she do to deserve this? When am I going to lose her? How will I bear it?”

He reached across the table and took her hand. It was not the first time he had touched her, but it was the first time she’d felt more than friendship in that touch.

“Janine,” he said. “Right now, this weekend, what is Sophie doing?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, puzzled. “I told you, she’s with Joe.”

“And you said he’d probably take her to a movie and to see the Christmas lights.
Today
she’s alive.
Today
she’s having a good time with her dad. And when all you can focus on is what the future holds, you lose today, for both yourself and Sophie. If your life is tied up in worrying about the future, you never enjoy what’s possible right now.”

She sat back in her chair, the truth of his words washing over her. In the last three years, she’d been ruled by worry. She could not remember a single moment she’d enjoyed in and of itself, without it being tinged by the bittersweet realization that she was, in all likelihood, going to lose her daughter. It was not the first time she’d heard the advice to live for the moment, but it was the first time she felt her spirit rise at the thought.

“Embrace every day,” Lucas said.

“Do you do that?”

“I sure try to,” he said. “Some days with more success than others.”

“Did something happen to you that made you that way?” she asked. “I mean, unless someone’s faced adversity, how do they ever get to that realization?”

“Some lucky people get there without suffering, I guess. But yes, I’ve faced adversity.” He fell silent, looking at their hands instead of her face, and although she wanted to know more, she didn’t pry.

Instead, she felt a smile cross her face. Sophie was alive
now
, as Lucas had said, and this day was full of precious moments. No matter what tomorrow might bring, Sophie still had today.

“I feel so much better,” she said, surprised that such a simple thought could touch her so profoundly.

He raised his eyes to hers again, not speaking, his hand still holding hers. Morning light was beginning to slip into the room, and it seemed concentrated in the translucent gray of his eyes. A dusting of powdered sugar from his donut rested on his lips. Without thinking, she stood up, leaned across the corner of the table and bent down to kiss him.

He grinned at her. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Living for the moment,” she said with a smile. “Seizing the day, and all that.”

He stood up and drew her into his arms for another kiss, and she tasted the sugar on his lips, the coffee on his tongue. She thought of all the times she’d imagined making love with him. Without a moment’s hesitation, she took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom.

The bed was unmade, the down comforter piled in a heap on the sheet. She pulled off her sweater, then his, and he watched her as though intrigued by what she would do next.

She touched his splint.

“Can we take this off?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “but everything else is fair game.”

She lifted his undershirt over his head, then reached for the buckle on his belt. He made no move to stop her, but she found herself unable to continue undressing him when he slipped her bra from her shoulders and leaned down to stroke his tongue across her breast. Her legs instantly gave out from under her, and she let him take over, feeling as though she had no choice in the matter. She was going to be made love to by a man who knew how to make the most of every moment.

Afterward, she lay in his arms, awash in a sense of peace that felt alien and new. They had not had intercourse. That had been his call, since she was not taking the Pill, and she had both admired and been grateful for his self-control. Instead, he’d pleasured her with his hands and his mouth, and she’d done the same in return.