Escape (40 page)

Dad was the one searching for a comeback then. Not me. I didn’t have to say anything. When I reached out for James, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the bed. I lost my balance, which must have been what he wanted, because he was braced for it. He didn’t wince, just covered my mouth with his.

By the time we separated, my father was gone.

Chapter 25
 

We returned to Bell Valley Friday morning. Safe haven that it was—a tech-lite zone, so to speak—James could recuperate with relative impunity before having to deal with New York. We would go back, of course. He did have his job, and though he felt no urgency to tell the senior partners, he had decided to leave. To leave the city as well? We hadn’t thought that far. All he knew was that he wanted to wake up in the morning looking forward to the day. I was totally on board.

As recuperative centers went, the gardener’s shed was five-star, with breakfast from the Red Fox, lunch and dinner from The Grill, and silence enough for sleeping with the windows open and a solicitous wife, rather than a nurse, at his side. Vicki and Rob wanted us to take the one guest room with a Jacuzzi. But James liked sitting on the bench facing the woods in the mid-July warmth, wearing only his bandage and shorts. He liked challenging himself to walk four minutes up the path and back, then eight minutes, then ten. He gained strength every day, but still slept more than he liked, though it was anyone’s guess as to whether this was from his injury or retroactive to years of deprivation.

I used his downtime to wrap up things in Bell Valley, which mainly meant making sure Vicki had plenty of help so that she wasn’t on her feet more than the doctor allowed. When she overdid it, she
contracted, not a good thing if she wanted to carry this baby anywhere near to term, and I took the risk personally now. I was four weeks pregnant. My breasts had begun to swell and I was doing no better on an empty stomach, but the baby was fine. I did have a cosmopolitan health-care mentality, meaning that, despite my mom’s reassurances, I was feeling increasingly guilty not seeing a doctor. Hovering over Vicki was my rationale for the wait.

Lee was a godsend. In addition to managing the kitchen, she was overseeing the new housekeeping hires, and though she wasn’t computer literate, she was willing to learn. I think she would have done anything for Vicki. And for me. She was still cooking for James every chance she got, but it wasn’t until Sunday morning, when he insisted on dressing and coming to the parlor for brunch, that she caught me in the kitchen.

“I haven’t said it out loud,” she murmured, “but I need to thank you.”

“You do not,” I countered. The swath of hair that had hidden her for so long was behind her ear, so that I could see two hazel eyes, both brimming with heart. Just knowing how much better she was doing—how less vigilant she was, how she was even starting to talk more with guests—was thanks enough for me.

“I need to thank you,” she said, gesturing toward the parlor, “and him, but it’s hard knowing where to begin. No one has ever done anything like this for me.”

“Amelia’s been pretty darn good.”

“She has money. That’s different from risking your life.”

I smiled. “Well, we got something out of it, too.”

“What?”

I opened my mouth, stopped, tried again, then laughed and echoed her words. “It’s hard knowing where to begin. Let’s just say we’re even.”

She might have argued if the bell on the front desk hadn’t dinged. I made her do the checkout this time, even left her to do it unsupervised when another couple approached. I wanted to check on James,
though I needn’t have worried. He was comfortable talking with guests, any one of whom was happy to bring him refills of bacon and coffee.

Watching him from the door, I was gratified. No, we were absolutely
not
settling in Bell Valley. For one thing, Lee’s case notwithstanding, there was no work for litigators here. For another, long-term, we wanted a wider circle of friends and restaurants. But he hadn’t been this relaxed on our honeymoon, when anticipation of the move to New York and new jobs kept us both on edge. Major change was in store now, which was good reason for nerves, but we were calm. We had grown.

I wanted to see my coyote one last time before I left. I wasn’t sure if I’d be back before Vicki’s baby was due, which would be winter, and who knew where she and her family would be then, or whether I’d even be able to make the climb, with the snow deep and my belly large.

It was late afternoon when I set off, past the old wood gate, over the rotted post, through the ferns. The day had been warm, but the sky had grown dappled with clouds, and the air was starting to cool. I passed swirls of gnats, but they ignored me. Likewise mosquitoes. This was a first. The baby must make me smell different, which was actually no surprise, since my surroundings smelled different to me as well.

No. Not different. Just more intense. And nothing about it upset my stomach, for which reason alone I’d have continued the hike.

This walk along the stone wall toward the bubbling brook was like a pilgrimage for me. Once there, though, I had to wait. In a whimsical Bambi moment, I imagined birds, rabbits, and mice spreading the word.

In time, the forest richened with the coyotes’ approach. I sensed them, smelled them, even heard them, as the pups burst enthusiastically
through the foliage. The mom approached the bank and sat. Several of her pups, suddenly sobered, sat with her. All watched me.

And that’s what we did, just sat watching each other with water rushing downstream between us. I had to believe I would see them again—though whether this russet-and-gray mom with her cream-colored face and gentle eyes would be as trusting then, I didn’t know. She might be made more feral by something that would happen between now and then. She might be dead, up with my kitten that wobbled no more. She might simply have moved on.

I had a sudden urge to touch her—to wade through the water, to reach out just once and put my fingers in the tiered fur of her ruff.

But that would be crossing a line. Escapes could only go so far.

So I stayed on my bank until, losing interest, the pups wandered off. The mom was the last to go, committing me to memory as well, before turning and dissolving into the woods.

I stayed a while longer, letting the woodlands console me, but the come and go of the sun under those fast-traveling clouds suggested change. As I walked down the hill, I found myself hoping that wherever James and I landed, my coyote dreams would follow. If I yearned, I yearned for good things. The dreams would remind me of this. They would transport me back here in times of stress, and there would be those, regardless of how different our lives became.

For the first time, I could fully understand Jude’s attraction to the wild. It was us, tens of thousands of years earlier, a simpler time for sure.

As if thinking his name had brought him, I emerged from the woods to find Jude leaning against the trunk of my car. This was the first time I had seen him since the shooting, but I was feeling calm enough, sentimental enough, not to be bitter. There was just the same nostalgia I had felt up by the stream.

With his hair grown long enough to curl again, he looked more like he had ten years before. His T-shirt was black, his jeans worn. There was a rough edge to him now, again, as if he had given up trying
to look civilized. Add to that an aura of sadness around him, and my nostalgia increased.

He nodded toward the shed. “Is the old man asleep?”

I smiled. “Actually, the old man is at the Refuge. I was just going to pick him up. He’s not supposed to drive, we had a small fight about that.”

The Jude of four weeks ago would have picked up on the fight part, but this one must have finally accepted that I was married, because all he did was ask, “Why’s he there?”

“He likes it there. He says it’s peaceful.”

“A convert.”

I was shrugging when I noticed the battered green duffel at the edge of the grass. My eyes flew to his, which were still gold, if tarnished. “You’re leaving.”

He nodded, sniffing to make light of it.

“Amelia will be upset,” I said.

“I talked with her. She knows this is best.”

I couldn’t begin to imagine what the admission had cost her. Being pregnant hadn’t given me enough insight for that. “She’s giving up the dream?”

“Guess so.”

“What’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Dream?”

“Haven’t got a clue,” he said without smugness. “I’ll tell you when I find out.”

“Will you?” I asked. “Will you write?”

“You don’t really want that.”

“I do. You’re my friend.”

“Your
loser
of a friend.”

“No, Jude. My friend who needs to find himself. My friend who helped me find me.” When he looked doubtful, I said, “You showed me the side of life I was missing. The memory of it was here in Bell
Valley, waiting for me. Now I have to go home and blend the two—right brain, left brain—rational, intuitive.”

I wasn’t sure he understood, not because he didn’t have the capacity, but because his reality was poles apart from mine. He took pride in the scar on his jaw, though to me it was more a sign of daring than valor. There was a difference. But I’m not sure he would get that, either.

So, like Amelia, I gave up on that dream, and opened my arms. Hugging him, I closed my eyes, and for a split second, felt the old connection, a remembered thread of the best of what we’d had. I held the feeling a minute longer, before letting it slide back into storage. It would stay there—memories of Jude, memories of coyotes, both were a part of who I was.

I half expected James to be stretched out on a bench along one of the Refuge paths. When I found him, though, he was with the dogs again, this time inside the enclosure, resting on the ground with his back to a post. He must have been there a while, because the dogs had grown tired of him and were off by themselves. The only one that remained was the Aussie, which sat ten feet away, staring at him.

“He still has a ways to go,” James said, “but look at him. How can you not feel a tug?”

The dog was certainly beautiful, with its thick black body and those white markings on its chest and face. And while I didn’t feel the same tug James did, I understood. “It’s hard,” I said, thinking of my own attraction to cats. And to coyotes.

“I told the guy to call me when he’s ready to be placed.”

I looked at James. He looked at me.

Finally, blinking, he returned to the Aussie. “He won’t be ready for a while, and anyway, someone here may want him. That’s probably better. A dog like this needs room to run. And we may or may not have it.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue and extended
a hand. The dog didn’t move. “Those eyes. Even when the Refuge guy was here, they kept looking at me. I feel guilty leaving. I feel like he needs me. Like we have a personal connection.”

I smiled. “I feel that way about my coyote. Different from a dog, though. Not exactly attainable.”

“A dog is.”

“You really want a dog?”

“No,” James said. “I really want
this
dog.” Then he smiled and extended a hand for me to help pull him up. “A guy can dream, can’t he?”

Epilogue
 

I was wrong. We returned to Bell Valley often in the months to come. I had never before seen the town in September, when apples, beets, and corn were sold from carts on the green, or in October, when the leaves flamed crimson, orange, and gold. By November, much of local life had moved indoors, but the crafts bazaars at the church drew artisans for miles, remarkable for such a small town. And now December? What could I say? Bell Valley did define charm.

James and I wouldn’t change our minds. We still knew that, long-term, we needed more than charm. But I was working part-time for a former Lane Lavash lawyer who had struck out on her own and was grateful for the help, and though James was no longer fixated on billable hours, his days remained long. Bell Valley offered a weekend escape. He came to feel the same visceral
ahhhhh
I did each time we passed under the covered bridge and were welcomed by the town.