The One Who Got Away: A Novel (7 page)

“There’s quite a woodpile of
treasures out there,” Henry said, motioning toward the back side of the house.
“Under that tarp. Old rocking chairs, a cradle. I’m trying to take the things I
think must have the most sentimental meaning and make those the most prominent.”

Olivine and Paul looked out into
the dark expanse beyond the railing, toward Grandpa’s woodpile.

“I’m so honored your grandfather
called me,” Henry said, looking at each of them in turn. “There’s something
very spiritual about a home’s front door…a place where you pass through, each
of the days of your life; a portal to whatever is inside or outside. A passing
through.” He paused. “I always feel like it’s such an privilege be asked to
make the front door of someone’s home. To be trusted with a project that so represents
a family.”

“Grandpa always did like you. For
saying stuff just like that,” Olivine said.

“Well…I always liked him.”

“I had no idea you and Grandpa had
stayed in touch.” She made her mouth form the words, breathing deeply and
smoothly, willing the emotion away from her face and into her center, where she
could conceal it. 

“We haven’t. At all. I got a call
from him, last week, out of the clear blue. He said your grandmother had
passed. I’m so sorry, Olivine. I know you were close.”

Olivine nodded and cast her eyes
down.

“And he said he didn’t want to
waste another moment. He said that I needed to come out and make this door.
While there was still time.”

“Time?” Paul asked.

“While he was still here to walk
through it, I imagine.” Olivine said.

Silence followed for a beat. And
then another.

“How fortunate that you could
come right away,” Paul said, his voice even and unrushed. Olivine recognized it
as his clinical tone. The one he used with patients.

“Strangest thing. I thought it
would be weeks before I could make it out here. But my schedule just sort of
opened up, shortly after your grandfather’s call. We’re waiting on some
material for a big job we’re doing in Aspen.”

“Who is
we
? You have a
partner?” Paul sounded eager.

“Yeah. the architect I work with.
I do some custom homes. Design-build work. Or I did. I’m mostly doing doors
now. They are in demand, and I like it. The slower pace.” Henry said.

 “Is your partner here, too?” Paul
wanted to know.

“No, she’s home. In Idaho.”
 

“And do you have a family? Are
you married?”

Henry was silent for a few
moments. And then he looked straight at Paul and said, low, “I do,” and “I am.”

Of course he was. Of course he
did. Olivine could imagine her. This woman. She clenched inside. A tightness
gripped the back of her throat. Of course he was.

Olivine took a breath, deep and
smooth, and as she breathed deeper and deeper, she nestled deeper and deeper
inside herself. Into the safe, center part where no one else was allowed to go.
This private Olivine, which was soft and pink and warm like a puppy’s underbelly.
She rested here sometimes.

She loved that things could
happen inside her that no one knew and that she could present whatever face she
wished to the world. Yarrow said this private part of her meant that other
people had a hard time getting in. And maybe this was true, but, for now, it
was the reason she could sit on the front porch and face the man she loved who
had married someone else.

And suddenly it was ten years
before, so sharp was the memory that swelled through her just then. It was the
last night she had seen him, before he disappeared. Henry had called her to tell
her he found a perfect place to rent. He had decided, finally, to stay, even
after the summer months, and he needed to get out of Carter’s house, and could
she come and meet him at this house he wanted to rent?

And when she arrived that evening
he said he hadn’t been able to contact the landlord but he wanted to show her
the house anyway, and so he jiggered open a window, gently, skillfully. “The landlord
is cool. She wouldn’t mind, and there’s no one living here,” he had said. And
they crawled inside, through the open window, on their bellies, though once he
was inside, he could have unlatched the door.

She had never broken into a house
before and her response back then, to doing things she knew she shouldn’t, was
a sort of soft, maniacal giggle. It bubbled out of her just then and when she
tried to swallow it, to avoid appearing insane, she guffawed and choked and
snorted.

“What’s going on back there?” he
asked, as he led her across the room to look for a light switch. She choked a
little on the unexpected warmth inside. The heat had been turned on, though it
was still late summer, and the home smelled like sweaty socks and pine sap.

“Don’t turn on the light,” Olivine
warned. “We’ll get busted.”

“Seriously, she wouldn’t mind,
Olivine.”

“Still,” she said, “Let’s keep it
dark.”

He showed her around, then, in
the shadows, and it was just like he had described. It was an unusual home, the
walls encased entirely in reclaimed wood. She ran her hand down the length of
the wall and felt the sharp and tiny stab of a splinter. She drew her hand
away.  

“So, instead of taking off the siding
and adding on to the home, they built the addition right on to the outside of
the house, so you have the old exterior siding and the old front door here. Inside.
With a new living room and kitchen built around it.”

She could see his eyes blazing,
twinkling, even in the dark. “It’s like a fort,” he said.

“How did they get a Certificate of
Occupancy for this?” Olivine asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t
have one. Maybe it’s not even legal. That’s not really my concern, as long as
the owner will rent it to me. But isn’t it sweet? I could live here forever. It
will be my tree house. And that’s what I’ll call it. The tree house.”

“Naturally.”

They lay down, flat on the floor
in the living room, side by side, and they looked up through the skylights that
covered most of the ceiling. The stars always appeared so close at their high
elevation, like you could reach out and grab a handful. And it was then that
Henry cracked open, finally, and let everything tumble out.

He started by asking, “Do you
ever think of yourself as a color?”

Olivine sat up, hugged her knees
to her chest and looked at him. “Yes, actually.”

“Well?”

“I’m orange. I’m not even sure I
like the color orange, but that is the color I am.”

He laughed. “You’re right. You
are
orange. And me?”

“Tell me what
you
think,
and then I’ll tell you what I think.”

“I would be the darkest eggplant
purple. Almost black.”

“Huh. Really? You would?”

“I would. But I haven’t always
been.”

“Oh?”

“Olivine, you know how you ask me
sometimes if there’s something that’s going on. Something you should know?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there is. And you should.”
He took a deep breath, and his voice was barely above a whisper, and he told
her about his father.

“I was working with him on a job,
right after college. At the beginning of the summer. I was living back at home
and working with my dad. The house we were working on was set high on the hill
and the framing was nearly complete. It was going to be a gorgeous home. All
the little details. I was so proud of him and of what he had built his business
into. I felt so lucky. Me and him. Working in the summertime. Together. And he
would teach me his trade and I would take it over one day…”

Henry lay flat on his back and
stared straight ahead, through the skylight. Olivine propped herself on one arm
and watched his lips move. “And so we were working one afternoon. And the rest
of the trades had gone home, and Dad realized he needed to cut a vent in the
soffit on the gable because somehow it had been missed, and a friend of mine
from high school called to see if I wanted to meet some buddies for happy hour.
And my dad said, ‘Go. Go. I’m almost done here.’ And so I left.”

Henry paused a moment, drew a
breath and exhaled. “And when I got home, hours later, Mom wanted to know where
Dad was, because she thought he was with me, and so we drove out to the jobsite
to see if his truck was still there, but by then it was two in the morning.”

Henry’s voice became, small,
tight, almost a whisper. “And his truck was there. And he was there. At the
base of the ladder. His neck was broken. And by then there was nothing we could
do.” Henry squeezed his eyes shut. “How long did he suffer? Because I wasn’t
there?” He pressed his palms hard against his eyes. “We have no idea. My dad
died because I was playing darts at a bar, Olivine.” He choked on the words. “I
left my dad to go play darts at a bar. And he died.”

Olivine didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t know what to say. And so she listened, as closely and as carefully
as she could, and as she listened, she opened herself up to take in his grief
and his pain. Just as she had taught herself to do when things on the outside
of her got to be too much, when the sting of the icy water in the stream got to
be too much; she imagined herself an empty vessel, and she let his pain move
into her like a surge of water. And then she imagined herself filling that
vessel with the brightest light she could imagine, and then she let it shine
through all of the pain he had shared with her. Not resisting it, just opening
up to it and shining light through it. Purifying it. And sending him kindness and
love and forgiveness through that light. Letting it wash over him: across his
back, along the nape of his neck. Flowing over him and through him and across
to the corners of the room.

“And my dad was so loved,” Henry
continued, “Everyone, all his friends, everyone in town…everyone shook my hand
at his wake but they looked at me with, with such…scorn. And I felt so ashamed.
I could no longer look at anyone. And then my mother. She couldn’t even look at
me. I love her so much. I needed her. And she couldn’t even look at me. And so
I told her I needed to leave town. To go far away and never come back, and
that’s when she lied to me. My own mother lied to me to get me to stay, and I
couldn’t bear the idea that she was trying to manipulate me. She told me I couldn’t
leave because she was sick, and I asked her ‘sick with what?’ and she said she had
cancer. And when I asked her what kind of cancer she refused to tell me, saying
that the doctor was always trying to tell her how she should be feeling and
what kind of treatments she should be trying and so she had stopped going. And
I felt so trapped. Amid all of these people who thought that I, that I….caused
the death of my father. Even my own mother. And I felt like I didn’t even know
her anymore. She was so desperate and, I don’t know, so
wounded
, because
of what I had done. That she would lie to me about something like that. My
world just ended. It just. Ended. And so I left. I came to this place…a place
I’ve always dreamed of living. We came here on a ski trip when I was a little
boy and I promised myself that someday, someday, I would come back here. To
live. So I came out. I just picked up and came out.”

He uncovered his face. He looked
at her, where she was sitting up over him. “And almost immediately, I met you.
And you let me forget, even if just for a moment. When I’m with you, Olivine, I
was the man I was…before. And then, when I remember again, all that happened, I
think of it as an accident. Not as my fault. But as something that
just…happened. A terrible accident. And the relief, it’s so sweeping, I can’t
describe... And yet. I can’t
feel.
Not in the way that I should. I
can’t
feel love
. And you are the most lovely… It’s too soon, maybe? Or maybe I’m
broken. But I
can’t feel
. And that’s not fair to you.”

Once again, Olivine did not know
what to say and she did not know what to do. Never had she been faced with such
pain, such grief. And in the decade that followed, Olivine would think about
what she did next hundreds of times. And what she did was this:

She said not a word, but she reached
out, and she placed a trembling finger to his lips, and then she swung one leg
over him, where he lay flat on the floor, and she sat astride him and she
stared into his eyes, not breaking his gaze. And then she placed her palms on
his chest and she tousled her long hair so it cascaded over the top of his head,
shrouding his face. Then she grazed his lips with hers, soft and full, and then
she kissed him with an exploring desperation, and then she drew away. And she
unbuttoned his shirt, a single button at a time, still sitting astride him and
staring into his eyes, and running her fingers along his chest, and when his
shirt was open, she kissed all the way down to the snap on his jeans. And when she
had slipped off his clothes, she explored his body with her lips and with her
tongue, every part of him, from the soft spot behind his ears to his abdomen,
taut under his skin, to the inside of his thigh. And when he leaned in, when he
tried to rise or to move his hands, she pushed him gently back. And then she
stripped for him, slowly and sensually, her eyes locked on his. She removed her
top, her bra, and she swung her hair so it dangled just above her nipples and
still she held his gaze. And then she sat astride him once again. And he had
tried, then, to move his hands to caress her, but she pinned his hands above
his head, tousling her hair just above his face, and in the glint of the
starlight, she saw the luster in his eyes that signaled his desire for her. And
she could see that he was feeling, once again. She was in control of it, of
him, of the way he felt in this world. And she would continue to make him
feel.
With her, he would feel. She would prove it. With her, his life would be
different. He would be accepted, safe, free.