About a week after her soldier son arrived home, back from the dead, Karen Lockhart had her husband pull a cardboard box down from the attic. Rick grumbled about it—the box was behind the Christmas decorations, he hit his head on a beam, and he noted that the insulation needed to be redone, which upset him because he didn’t like paying for things like that and he didn’t need any more chores—but he brought the box down and dropped it on the kitchen bar.
“Thanks, sweetie,” Karen said. She hadn’t called him sweetie in a while, but their relationship had been infused with a new vitality since Finn had come home.
Karen opened the box and withdrew her collection of crosses and praying hands. She’d put them away after they’d been told Finn had died in combat, convinced there was no God in her life. But then God had shown her a miracle, had brought her dead son back to her, and Karen’s faith was fervently renewed.
Reverend Duffy was very happy to see her return to the fold. He was disappointed Rick hadn’t returned with her, but Rick had promised Karen he would think about it, and she assured Reverend Duffy that he would be back very soon.
Karen had also rejoined the Women’s Circle of Caring, a group of churchwomen devoted to worship and charity work. She thought it would be a great place to reconnect with her old friends at church—until she learned they were working to help the Project Lifeline gala fund-raiser. Karen was all for the cause of helping the families of fallen and wounded soldiers, but she didn’t care much for Macy, not since she’d up and married Wyatt Clark. Not that Macy had just up and married him without
some
discussion, for she had come out to the house and told Karen and Rick she was considering marrying him.
They’d told her to go ahead, they sure had, because Karen was certain Finn would have wanted that. But
she
didn’t want that. She thought Macy ought to have mourned her son a little longer, thought she owed Finn that much.
And then Macy and Samantha Delaney had started Project Lifeline, a dumb name to Karen’s way of thinking. She would have come up with a good acronym and worked backwards. Something like…
Wishes. Women In Search of Happy EndingS
. This fund-raiser, “Life Under the Texas Stars” or something, sounded like a cheesy prom night to Karen, but it sure had the whole town talking. Seemed like folks were almost as excited about it as they were about the new Hill Country Resort and Spa. There were even rumors that Lyle Lovett was going to perform.
Karen had smiled through her first Circle of Caring meeting and tried to be enthusiastic about the fund-raiser. God had given her son back to her, and if that is what He wanted her to do, then she was going to do it.
As for her son…Karen wished Finn was a little happier. Oh, he was happy—he laughed and carried on with his brothers, watched baseball, rode Rick’s old horse. He said he just wanted to hang out and be with his family right now. He said he wasn’t comfortable talking to other people about his time in Afghanistan. That was like Finn. He’d always been the quiet one, the shy one. But there was something in his eyes Karen didn’t like, a veil over them that kept her from seeing the son she knew. It wasn’t that Karen was naïve and didn’t realize there would be a period of adjustment after what he’d been through, but she still expected him to be…different.
Really, he’d done nothing but drink since coming home, and it worried her. She’d told Major Sanderson that Finn wasn’t up to interviews just now. And a man from New York kept calling about a book and said he could wait until Finn was ready to talk. She’d finally made excuses to the mayor about the Fourth of July parade and had gone alone to watch it. Her boys wouldn’t go with her and stayed with Rick while he barbecued. So Karen went, and she imagined her son Finn riding the big float and got big tears in her eyes.
Oh, and Macy called that week.
Rick told Karen to be patient. Karen wanted to be patient, but Finn needed a guiding hand, and she was his mother. She had a responsibility to help him adjust to civilian life. She tried to talk to him about any issues he was having, or urge him to think about what sort of job he might want to get when he was ready. She tried to impress on him the importance of looking to God and Jesus for guidance.
But Finn rebuffed her; he would roll his eyes impatiently and go out with Brodie and Luke again. Last night, she hadn’t even heard him come in.
Karen picked up a decorative cross she’d bought the year the family had vacationed in Taos, New Mexico. It was made of clay and hand-painted in the colors of the desert. Finn really loved the mountains and the Indian culture around Taos, and Karen thought the cross would be a reminder of good times and God. Holding the cross, she walked down the narrow hall to his room.
She knocked, but there was no answer, so she opened the door just a bit. She could see Finn lying on his bed, one arm slung over his eyes. The covers came up to his waist and he was bare-chested. The room was dark—he’d pulled the shade down and closed the curtains.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon. With a frown, Karen made her way to the windows and drew back the drapes. When she lifted the shade, she heard him grunt. She pasted a bright smile on her face and turned around, still holding the cross. He’d rolled onto his side, his back to her, and her smile rapidly disappeared—his back was marked with purple welts and puckers of skin. Shrapnel wounds.
Karen instinctively touched one of the scars; Finn flinched and moved closer to the edge of the bed. “Stop, Mom. What do you want?”
Karen withdrew her hand. “Look what I found,” she said. When Finn didn’t roll over, she thumped her finger against his shoulder.
“Look.”
With another groan, Finn rolled onto his back and blinked up at the cross she held aloft. “What about it?”
“Finn! Don’t you remember? We got this in Taos. I was thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if maybe you took a little trip to Taos? Just a couple of weeks. The weather is so good this time of year, and you could camp out the way you like. You know, rejuvenate.”
Finn looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Mom. I’ve had enough living in the wilderness to last me a lifetime. The last thing I want to do is go sleep on the ground somewhere.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of it that way. He started to roll over again, but Karen said, “What are your plans for tonight? I thought I’d make a roast.”
“Mom, just let me sleep, okay?”
“It’s one o’clock, Finn.”
“So?” he asked sharply.
Karen bit her lip. She turned around and put the cross up on the dresser, balancing it against the wall. “Macy called again. She wants you to call her. I don’t know why she can’t let you settle in first.”
Finn grunted.
“Major Sanderson sure wants to talk to you. So does that book publisher. He thinks your story would make a great book. Think of that, Finn! Your story in a
book
!”
“Mom, please leave me alone.
Please,
” he implored her.
Karen knew she was irritating him, but in one last desperate attempt to engage her son, she asked, “Have you given any more thought about going to church with me?”
“Jesus
Christ,
” he said angrily, and suddenly threw back the covers and swung his legs off the bed.
“Finn!” Karen said sternly. “Don’t speak His name like that! I don’t understand you! You are a miracle, and you owe God your worship!”
Finn turned his head and looked at her with those darkly veiled eyes. “A
miracle
? Are you kidding me?”
Karen gasped. “Don’t you have any faith?” she demanded.
“I have faith, Mom. I have faith that I’m no damn miracle.”
“How can you say that?” she cried. “You came back from the
dead
, Finneus!”
“Do you honestly believe that, Mom?” he exclaimed incredulously as he pulled a green army T-shirt over his head. “Because if you do, let me assure you that I feel exactly like I did every day of the last three years sitting in a hellhole in Afghanistan. That’s no miracle.”
“But you escaped!”
“Yeah, I escaped,” he said angrily and stood up, towering over her. “But I don’t think God singled me out from a bunch of other men and women and said,
Okay, Finn, you are My chosen one. Go now and find your wife and your land and your animals scattered to the winds
. No, Mom! I was lucky.
Lucky!
Not blessed! The only reason I am alive today is because I—” He suddenly stopped and shoved both hands through his hair. “Jesus, I don’t need this right now,” he muttered.
“Because you what?” she pressed him.
“Nothing,” he said, and grabbed a towel that was hanging on the door of the closet. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“What about a prayer group?” Karen called after him. “Would you at least go to prayer group with me?”
Her answer was the sound of the hall bathroom door being firmly shut. With a sigh, Karen sank onto the end of the twin bed. There had to be a way to reach her son. God hadn’t brought him back so she could watch him wallow in his bed like an old drunk.
Finn knew he was causing his mother grief, but that wasn’t his intent. He’d never been much of a drinker, and he was privately a little surprised at how easily he’d taken to it, how much he seemed to need it. He supposed it had something to do with the stupid sense of despair that was weighing him down. It seemed odd to feel despair, because he was beyond thrilled to be free and home with his family. But disappointment about Macy and his ranch kept eating at him, like an infection growing from the inside out, and nothing seemed to take away that inflammation but booze. Not sleep, not food. Just booze.
The bitter disappointment had kept him from Macy, too. His anger at her for putting the ranch up for sale had been so strong he was afraid to go near her. But then the anger had subsided and hurt steamrolled in to take its place. And now? Now he supposed curiosity had him by the throat. He needed to know a few things.
Late that afternoon, he slipped out of the house when his mother went down to the barn to talk to his dad and took one of the old pickups they kept around for fieldwork. Finn would hear about it tomorrow, but Brodie and Luke were growing tired of carting him around from bar to bar. They didn’t drink like Finn found himself drinking, and moreover, Finn knew he was sorry company. His brothers wanted to talk, to know more of how he’d lived in Afghanistan. Finn didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to relive a moment of it. He didn’t want anything but to stay numb, to keep from feeling alone and lost, to keep from remembering that everything he’d clung to, everything that had kept him afloat the last three years, was gone.
Since Brodie had told Finn that Macy had sold the ranch, he hadn’t been able to drag himself out to the ranch to have a look. He didn’t think he could bear to see it. But that afternoon, he tried. He got as far as Cedar Creek Road, but in the end, he couldn’t turn onto the road to his place, and kept driving west until he ended up outside the gates of Laru Friedenberg’s house.
Finn parked outside Laru’s overdone wrought-iron gate and stared down the gravel road that led to the house. He’d stopped for a six-pack on the way over, and pulled out a beer and twisted off the cap. He sipped slowly as he considered his options. He could walk down there, knock on the door, and ask Macy why she’d decided to sell the family ranch he’d worked so hard to buy and to keep. What was the harm in her keeping it? Maybe Luke and Brodie could have come up with the money to buy it eventually. Whatever she had to say for herself, he’d listen quietly to her answer, and then he’d walk away, because nothing she could say could justify her actions.
Or, he could demand that she make everything right again, put back together the pieces of the life he’d entrusted her with when he’d left.
Better yet, he could climb up on the cliff behind Laru’s house with his beer and think about it some more, because he could feel his anger bubbling up inside him like heartburn.
The sound of a car coming down the road decided him. He put the truck in gear and ambled on to a public boat slip parking lot. Finn got out of the truck with his six-pack and went for a little walk.
Macy did not find the peace and thought-inspiring quiet at Laru’s as she’d hoped. She’d spent her week at Laru’s in front of the television, mindlessly flipping through channels, her mind skating haphazardly through memories and random thoughts.
No matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to think coherently. Just when she believed she knew what she had to do, something would remind her of Wyatt or Finn and she’d get confused all over again.
Fortunately, Laru didn’t push her. The first day, she’d sat cross-legged on the bed of the guest room while Macy unpacked, examining the things Macy had stuffed into the gym bag.
Laru had picked up a pinecone. “What is this?” she’d asked, squinting at it.
Macy had hardly spared it a glance. “A pinecone.”
“I can see it is a pinecone, but why did you bring it?”
“It’s a memento from my honeymoon with Finn in Lake Tahoe.” She remembered almost every moment of it. They’d stayed at a resort on the northern end of the lake and spent their afternoons sitting in big Adirondack chairs on the beach, talking about their future.
“How many kids should we have?” she’d asked him one afternoon while they sipped lattes.
“At least nine,” he’d said instantly.
“
Nine?
Do you want to kill me?”
“No, I need you! You’re part of the softball team I want to field. Picture it—the Lockharts take on every church league in Cedar County.”
Macy had laughed. It was so much fun, imagining their future together. And it had been a cleaver through her heart when she’d believed that future had been blown away by a suicide bomber.
Laru had gingerly put the pinecone down.
Macy frowned. “There’s a golf ball in there, too, from my honeymoon with Wyatt in Hawaii.” At Laru’s curious look, she’d shrugged indifferently. “It was all I could find.”
Somewhere, she had a lei from that honeymoon, too. She and Wyatt had stayed at a big, fancy, expensive resort. Wyatt had taken his golf clubs along on the trip and had managed to get in a round every morning. “Here,” he’d said one morning, handing her a credit card. “Go and shop.”
It was very generous, but Macy was not much of a shopper. She didn’t buy anything but a bathing suit cover-up. She’d been very surprised when a few nights later, Wyatt had presented her with a gold necklace, the pendant shaped like a tropical bird.
“What’s this for?”
“You didn’t buy much for yourself,” he’d said with a shrug.
“So what is up with these honeymoon mementos and this other stuff?” Laru had asked, stretching out on the bed and propping her arms behind her head.
Macy glanced at the pile of memories she’d so hastily gathered. “I don’t know. Just some stuff to help me think,” she’d said, and turned around, biting her lip to hold back the tears that suddenly seemed so quick to fall.
“Tell me what’s going on, sweetie.”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.”
“Can you maybe sketch it out somehow?”
“Sketch
what
out?” Macy had asked as she hung some things in the closet.
“You know. Pros and cons, that sort of thing. Something to help you make a decision.”
“If only it were that easy.” Nothing could be more complicated. “This is too hard and too important, and too…it’s too hard,” she repeated dumbly.
“I know it is, sweetie.” Laru stood up and kissed Macy’s cheek. “I’m here if you need me,” she’d said, and had left Macy alone the last week.
There were a couple of things that hampered Macy’s progress in divining her way through the mess of her life that week. First, the sights and sounds of Laru’s hale-and-hearty love affair were everywhere. “Don’t you ever leave?” Macy had demanded of Jesse just this morning, when he’d startled her by strolling out of the guest bath wearing a towel around his waist.
“Not if I can help it,” he’d said with a wink, grabbed an extra towel, and disappeared again.
And, naturally, there was Macy’s family, who could never leave anything well enough alone. Her sister Emma, who was trying to find a job in finance and having no luck, had made it her personal responsibility to visit Macy and report the town gossip. Wyatt was working long hours, which Macy knew, as he had called her every day. Caroline Spalding had been hanging out at his office, supposedly working on some land deal. Finn was drinking a lot; Emma said everyone in Cedar Springs had seen the Lockhart brothers out on the town night after night.
Perhaps that was why Finn hadn’t called her. She’d called him three times now, but never got farther than Karen, who would only say tersely, “He’s out.” Macy left messages, but Finn never called.
On the Fourth, Laru and Jesse went to town to watch the parade, and Emma came out to the house to keep Macy company. Wyatt had called, wanting Macy to come out on the boat.
“I can’t—I don’t feel very well,” she’d said, which was true. Nothing in particular; just a general malaise.
“Macy, it’s all going to be all right,” Wyatt had assured her. “Don’t get too worked up.”
That was easier said than done. She’d tried several times to speak to Finn, and had tried again the afternoon of the Fourth, but got Rick instead. “Sorry, Macy, he’s out with his brothers shooting at cans.”
“Shooting at cans? That’s what he’s doing instead of riding in the parade?”
“Guess he wasn’t up to the parade,” Rick said.
Emma seemed concerned about Finn’s drinking. “That’s not good,” she said. “You know what happens to a lot of these servicemen, Macy. They get post-traumatic stress and they never get over it.”
“Do you think Finn has PTSD?” Macy had asked, alarmed.
“I don’t know, but it seems worth a mention. I read this article in the
New York Times
about it—basically, the person who goes off to war is not the person who comes back from war.”
“The person left behind is not the same, either,” Macy had muttered, and helped herself to more tortilla chips.
And so it had gone.
Macy didn’t do as much work on the fund-raiser as she would have liked. She was aware that things were falling through the cracks, but she couldn’t seem to get motivated to do anything about it. One day, she remembered something that couldn’t wait and called Samantha.
“I just remembered something!” Macy said when she’d gotten Sam on the phone. “Hey Cupcake! is going to donate—”
“I know,” Sam said, cutting her off. “I’ve already talked to them.”
“Oh.” Macy had been taken aback by Sam’s abrupt manner, but figured she had it coming—she’d let things slide. “So how’s everything?” she’d asked brightly.
“Fine, Macy. Everything is under control.”
She detected a tone. “Great,” Macy had said. “Listen, Sam…I know I haven’t been much help lately. I really, really appreciate all that you’re doing. I’m just so messed up right now, it’s hard to think.”
“Yeah,” Sam said.
Sam was miffed. Macy vowed to do better. “You know what? I am going to get right back into the swing of things this week. First, I am going to get these envelopes stuffed so we can get them out the door. And then maybe we could have lunch and talk about what all needs to be done,” she suggested.
“Yeah, maybe. It would be great if you could get the envelopes stuffed.”
“I will—”
“I’m sorry, Macy, I have to go,” Sam said. “I’m at work.” She said good-bye and hung up.
Bewildered, Macy had hung up, too, and had gone in search of the envelopes and flyers.
Later that afternoon, as she was mindlessly stuffing envelopes with her thoughts a million miles away, Laru startled her with a bright “Hey!” as she walked into the dining room where Macy was working.
“Hey,” Macy said listlessly.
Laru paused and eyed her critically. “Weren’t you wearing that yesterday? And Friday?” Macy looked down; she hadn’t even noticed that she was still wearing the same shorts. Laru didn’t wait for an answer. “So when are you going to venture out into the world, kiddo?” she asked cheerfully as she pulled open the fridge and studied the contents.
“Why? Am I overstaying my welcome?” Macy asked anxiously, aware she’d been at Laru’s for a week now and had given no indication that she was leaving soon.
“Of course not!” Laru exclaimed as she pulled a yogurt from the fridge. “I just know you’ll want to get on with your life eventually, and I think you would figure that out sooner rather than later if you, you know…got out. Maybe you could clean up and go see how Finn is doing.”
Macy wanted to go, but she was a little scared and a little confused that he hadn’t returned her calls. “I’m not sure what’s going on with him,” she said. “I’ve called, and he doesn’t call back.”
“Well, I’d say of the three of you, Finn is probably having the hardest time adjusting. I bet he could use a friendly face. And think about it…What if you were stuck out on some spread with Karen Lockhart?”
Macy gave her aunt a lopsided grin. “Excellent point.”
“In the meantime, Wyatt called,” Laru said, patting Macy’s shoulder before moving on. She paused at the arched entry leading to the hall and licked her spoon. “He asked if he could come out. I told him to be here at six.”
“No!” Macy cried, her hands going to her hair. It was already a quarter past five.
Laru smiled and sauntered on. “You’ve got to deal, sweetie.”
If Macy had had the energy, she would have tackled Laru and given her what for. But she’d need all her energy to feed Milo and jump in the shower. She got up, filled the dog’s bowl, and put it out on the porch.
But Milo wasn’t on the porch where he usually lay waiting for Macy. She looked down to the river, figuring the dog had gone in for the umpteenth swim of the day. She stepped out onto the grass, walking down to the river to find her dog.