“Absolutely,” Cheryl said. “Dear God and you.”
“Look at you,” Mel said in a breath.
“Thank you,” Cheryl said solemnly. “This is because of you.”
“No, it’s
you,
” Mel stressed. “All I did was make a few phone calls. You did the work. Have you come home?”
“No,” Cheryl said with a laugh, shaking her head. “This isn’t a good place for me. I have a job and a place with some roommates. Not exactly a group home, but close—we’re in recovery. Not much of a job, but I don’t need much of one right now.” Cheryl swallowed and looked down. “I doubt I’ll ever come back here,” she said. “There aren’t any meetings here or anything.” She looked up
bravely and gave a shrug. “I don’t think I’d be happy in a place where I used to be the town drunk. Not just an average town drunk, a below-average town drunk.”
“That wouldn’t matter, you know that. But the meetings—you need the meetings. Recovery without aftercare is like major surgery without stitches.”
Cheryl chuckled. “Yeah, you got that right.”
“How long has it been?” Mel asked.
“A hundred and twenty-seven days. I don’t think we can count the day you took me. I was blitzed. I don’t see a time I’ll be skipping those meetings, even though I really don’t want a drink today…. Mrs. Sheridan, what I have right now, I don’t want to give it up. I’m at meetings all the time, sometimes twice a day. If it’s forever, that’s okay.”
Mel almost said, “Call me Mel,” but caught herself. This was Cheryl’s show; she could do anything she wanted. “Good for you,” she said, smiling. “Wonderful.”
“I have to see my parents. I haven’t seen them since I left here that day with you.”
“I’m sure they’ll be so happy to see you….”
Cheryl laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. My mother thought the whole rehab thing was crazy and my dad thought we were doing pretty good the way he doled out the booze on his terms so he thought he had it under control. That might explain a few things. And they’re not well, either of them. I need to see them, but I can’t stay here. I wouldn’t come alone, though. My sponsor is with me.”
Mel leaned down a bit to peer into the truck. A silver-haired woman sat behind the wheel and gave Mel a brief wave and she thought, ah good. A mature woman, hopefully with years of sobriety under her belt. That would give Cheryl a good shot at success.
“And there are amends,” Cheryl said. “I’m not sure I can
cover the whole town, but I wanted to catch you and Doc, maybe Jack…”
Mel was temporarily shocked and for the first time realized she’d come onto the porch without a coat. She shivered. Tears gathered. “Cheryl, my God, I’m so sorry. Someone should’ve gotten word to you. I’m surprised your parents didn’t— Doc passed away suddenly last October. We don’t know why. His heart maybe. Or a fatal stroke. There was no autopsy….”
“Doc? Gone?” Cheryl asked.
“I’m sorry,” Mel said. Mel blinked and a tear escaped. “He was so happy you decided on treatment. He’d be so proud of you.”
“God,” she said. “Isn’t it amazing how fast things can just shift? He was always kind to me….” Cheryl shook herself. “Well. I can’t remember if I ever did anything terrible to you that I should make amends for, but—”
“You didn’t,” Mel said quickly, shaking her head. “In fact, you were nice to me. You offered to help me with babysitting a long time ago. You cleaned out that horrible cabin Hope McCrea gave me as my free housing.”
“I don’t remember about babysitting,” Cheryl said.
“Trust me. You were nice to me.”
“Thanks for that,” Cheryl said. “But Jack—I know I was a thorn in his butt. I wonder if I should go see him, tell him I’m sorry about that.”
“You should definitely see him, though I already know he’s not holding any grudge. But it would make Jack so happy to see you sober and well. It would be a good thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Cheryl.”
“That’s amends to you, too—I made a pass at Jack. I
mean, I want to tell him it was just booze. I’m not really insane.” Then she smiled. “Well, no more than the average drunk.”
Mel let go a small laugh. “That must have happened way before I found him—you have no amends to make to me. And I’ll bet Jack understands. Still, you can’t imagine how happy it would make him to know you’re in recovery. Cheryl—I never told him I took you to a treatment facility.”
“You didn’t?” she asked, shocked. “I thought the whole town knew!”
“Not from me or…Doc. We don’t talk about clinic business.”
“Wow. I didn’t expect that.”
“Well, now that you know, you can expect it. In fact, I never heard any talk around town. After all, it wasn’t the first time you slipped away for a while.” She grinned.
There was a quiet moment between them as they just looked into each other’s eyes. Then Cheryl said, “Thank you, Mrs. Sheridan. It was a real good thing you did for me.”
Mel felt her gut clench and tears threaten to flow. Those had been Doc’s exact words! How he would have enjoyed seeing her like this, so different, so attractive and talking so smart. Mel liked to think maybe Doc did see. “I’m so glad it worked out, I’m proud of you. Go. See Jack and your folks. Have a nice visit. Will you stop by sometimes? When you visit your parents? Tell us how you are?”
Cheryl nodded. “Sure. If you want.”
“I want,” Mel said. “That would be nice.”
When Mel went back inside the clinic, she went to Doc’s old office, which she now shared with Cam. There were no patients, the kids were napping, Cam was off on errands. She was alone—free and clear. She put her head down on her arms and cried. Cried happy tears for Cheryl
and special tears for missing Doc, knowing what it would mean to him to see one of his own coming out of such a dark time. God, to look at the woman was inspiring! To listen to her speak, so astounding! She was a whole new person. And she was young yet; she had a chance for a full and productive life.
Mel was consumed for at least a half hour. Then she heard the sound of a vehicle and thinking, again, it might be Bruce with mail, she wiped her eyes and walked out on the porch. This time it was Bruce. He handed her a packet of mail. “Any specimens?” he asked.
“Not today,” she said.
“Good. I get off early.”
As he jumped back in his truck, she looked at the front porch of Jack’s bar. He walked outside with an arm draped over Cheryl’s shoulders. They stopped, hugged, and Cheryl bounced down the steps to the waiting truck. The truck backed away.
Jack stood on his porch, looking at his wife. Even from across the street she could see the tenderness in his smile, the pride and gratitude. Cheryl had told him everything. He lifted his hand to Mel. And she lifted hers.
A
iden Riordan pulled up to Luke’s cabin and blew the horn before getting out of his car. Luke came out with a perplexed look on his haggard face.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“You haven’t answered the phone in ten days!” he said angrily. “You know, answering machines work just fine out here!”
“Phone’s out,” Luke said, turning to go back inside.
Aiden rolled his eyes, shook his head and followed. He walked into the house behind Luke and pulled off his leather gloves as he looked around. Luke sat on the sectional, staring at him from beneath angry, hooded brows. “Nice,” Aiden said. Then he walked over to the kitchen phone, looked at it and plugged it in.
“You’re going to be real sorry you did that,” Luke said.
“What’s the matter? Getting a lot of calls?”
“I would call them attempts at calls. I don’t want to talk. That includes you, by the way.”
“Yeah, well, you’re stuck with me,” Aiden said. He went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottled beer, popped the cap and went to the living room. He sat and
without even bothering to take his jacket off, he said, “So. She left you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the perfect nymphet, Shelby. She left you and you’re going down the shitter.” He took a drink of his beer.
Luke silently and meanly glared at his brother.
“She left you, you’re miserable and completely fucked up. I had to come all the way up here to make sure your ten-day-old dead body wasn’t in this house and you’re not being at all cooperative or hospitable.”
“No one asked you.”
“Well, Jesus, I
know
that! God forbid the firstborn ever show weakness or ask for anything. You’re the steel man, right? Give me a break, Luke. Look at you. You augured in. Crashed.”
“I’ve been working,” he said.
“Bullshit. The work’s done. Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Luke said. “It’s been kind of quiet around here. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. That’s all.”
Aiden looked down and shook his head with silent laughter. “Brother, you give me no credit. You think I took emergency leave to come up here and save your life without knowing anything? I called that bar—that sweet little bar you like so much? Where they haven’t seen you in a long time? I talked to Jack a while, got Walt Booth’s number and talked to him, too. Here’s what happened—Shelby went to Maui for a warm, sunny vacation before heading to San Francisco to get an apartment for school that’s not starting for
months.
She got out of town. Since we had this talk once already, I can guess why. You pushed her away. You wouldn’t tell her how you feel because you think it’s a mistake for
her.
And you’re still scared every
woman you meet is going to do you dirty. You’re still making decisions for other people without getting their opinion. Now she thinks you don’t care about her and so she took you up on the challenge and she left. Got as far away as she could. And now you’re in the shitter!”
Luke glared at Aiden for a moment before he said, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Aiden sat back in the chair and grinned. He took a slug of his beer. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”
“You called the
general?
About
me?
”
“Yup. And the bartender. But I got the call from Sean who got the call from Mom and you should just be glad Paddy and Colin aren’t stateside or they’d be in it. Now, why don’t you just answer the fucking phone and tell people you’re busy and can’t talk? What the hell are you doing?”
“Save my
life?
” Luke asked. “Emergency leave? Save my
life?
What the hell are you talking about?”
Aiden sat forward and grew serious. “Look, we’ve been here before. We were all young, true, and the circumstances were entirely different, but try to imagine what it’s like to see your big brother—the guy you most admire in the world—hit the skids and just about sink out of sight. Scared the shit out of everyone. That’s not going to happen again. No one is going to let it happen again.”
Luke took a breath. “Look, it’s not a big deal. Shelby was just following through with her plans. She wants to travel, go to school. I’m adjusting. Gimme a week. It’ll be fine.”
Aiden stared at him for a second. “Aw, bullshit,” he said.
Before Luke could respond, the phone rang.
“See? God
damnit!
Why’d you plug that thing in?” Luke roared.
Aiden went to the phone. He said hello. “Yes, Mom, I’m
here—he’s fine. Yes, fine. I took his pulse, he’s alive, he’ll be fine. Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom.
Mom!
I just got here! Would you let me— Yes, Mom. Goodbye. I love you, too.” Before he could get back to his chair, it rang again and Luke groaned very loudly. Aiden picked it up and said hello. “Jesus, I just got here! Will you give me ten minutes to find out what the hell’s going on? Yeah, he’s fine! I’ll call you back. Now leave us alone!”
Aiden went back to his chair, his beer.
“See?” Luke said.
“Yeah, but you obviously unplugged the phone after all the calls started. You never bothered to tell anyone you were fine. What if Shelby called to say she’d thought it over and decided to sit it out here until her classes started? What’s the deal?”
“She wasn’t going to call.”
“What if she did?”
“That wouldn’t be good for her.”
Aiden was stunned silent for a minute. His mind was whirring. Then he was slowly overcome by a sly grin. “Oh man,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to keep yourself from answering the phone if it rang, hoping it could be her, so you unplugged it.”
“You’re out of your mind…”
“You’d rather have her think you weren’t here. That a day or a week after she left you, you got it together and you were out looking for girls. Jesus, Luke.” He laughed. “What if she wanted some more time with you? Huh? What if she wanted to give you some more time with her to work out your issues?”
Luke shook his head helplessly. He got up from the sectional and went to the kitchen to get a beer. He went back to the living room. “That would be a bad decision.”
“Okay, now we’re on the same page. You’re looking out for her. You going to come clean with me, or do we have to have six more beers to get there? Because I don’t drink a lot anymore. On call all the time, you know…”
“I thought I explained this,” Luke said, sounding annoyed. “She’s a beautiful young girl. She might be a chronological twenty-five, but subtract a few years of her being tied to an invalid. She would be carded in most bars. I was almost her first flirt! She should do things! Experience things! She’s been patient and dedicated a long time—she has to get out there and…”
“And not take a chance on you and then realize in a couple years that she was hasty,” Aiden supplied.
“Aw, what the hell,” Luke said, standing up and running a hand across the back of his neck. “She’s not ready to make that kind of choice. She might think she is, but she’s not!”
“Because you weren’t?”
“She’s too young!”
“Because you were?”
Luke didn’t respond. He turned his back on his brother.
Aiden stood up and approached Luke’s back. He put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You weren’t too young when you married Felicia. You weren’t too naive or inexperienced when you were twenty-five. You had it all—you were sharp and loyal and you knew how you felt. You had enough passion and commitment to never change your mind. You got screwed up by someone who wasn’t your match. I’m sorry, buddy, but it wasn’t your fault. Jesus, will you ever let yourself off the hook for that? You didn’t cheat on her! She went out on you!”
“She wasn’t enough,” he said. Then he laughed ruefully and shook his head. “That’s what she said to me….”
“Felicia?”
Luke turned around. “Shelby. She said she knew she wasn’t enough….”
“Oh, Christ,” Aiden said in a breath. He thought for a second and said, “Okay, look, let’s not just get tanked and whimper. Let’s go out, get a decent meal, maybe have a conversation that doesn’t include yelling, and when I’m satisfied you’re all right and won’t unplug your phone anymore, I’ll get out of your hair.”
Luke answered with a weak nod.
“Want to go to that bar you like so much?” Aiden asked.
“No,” he said immediately. “I need a little more time on that. Let’s go over to Fortuna. There’s a fish place…”
Aiden drove Luke to the next big town over and they ate at a nice little restaurant near a wide river. They ordered the same thing, which happened a lot in their family. There were things Aiden wanted to understand, but knowing Luke it wouldn’t work to just come out and ask him. So Aiden got him talking about the town, the people, the cabins and what he thought he’d end up doing with the property.
The mission when he bought the house and cabins was to turn them for a profit as soon as it was reasonable to do so. Now Luke was thinking about taking a year to see what booking them as vacation rentals looked like. There wasn’t a motel or bed-and-breakfast in Virgin River and it could be a highly profitable venture and not too much to manage. If it worked itself into a decent income, he might try to buy out Sean and run it as the sole owner. It would be the most settled Luke had been in more than twenty years.
Luke was ready to put down roots. He was just scared
to death to ask anyone like Shelby to take that on. Because she might change her mind. And that would kill him.
So then Aiden got a little brazen and said, “There must have been something about this Shelby that really tripped you up. It’s not like you to get mixed up with some local girl, especially one with a general for an uncle.”
Luke chuckled. “Her looks. The first day I passed through town, I ran into her twice. I thought she was about eighteen and, brother, I knew better.”
“She was the only pretty girl in three counties?” Aiden asked.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Luke said. “I think I hit my head or something. I had a bad case of tunnel vision. I tried like hell to talk myself out of it, but it wasn’t long before all I could do was finish what I’d started. You’ve been there.”
“Been there,” Aiden agreed. After all, he’d
married
a woman because of tunnel vision. “And that’s when you started to lose interest?”
He was quiet for a second. “You don’t lose interest in someone like Shelby. No matter how hard you try.”
Aiden took a chance. “Been a while since you felt something like that, I guess.”
Luke leveled his gaze across the table at Aiden. “I know what you’re doing. I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about this. I don’t need the aggravation. What I need is time.”
“You fell hard,” Aiden said.
“It happens. Now, that’s enough.”
“I just want to be sure you’re going to be able to move on without…” His voice trailed off.
“Without going completely crazy? Listen, I think I learned a few things, Aiden. This is as bad as it’s going to get. Until it gets better. Leave it alone.”
“Damn shame you couldn’t just go with it, Luke. There’s at least a fifty-percent chance you’re all wrong about her, about yourself, about the way the whole thing could turn out. You might’ve been happy every day of your stupid life, and now you’re just working on getting over her.”
“There’s the thing, Aiden. Fifty-percent chance one of us is right. We just don’t know which one.”
After breakfast the next morning, Aiden threw his duffel in his car, shook his brother’s hand and said, “Go after her, Luke. Tell her the truth, that it scares you to death but you want her.”
Luke just smiled. “Thanks for coming, Aiden. I know you only want to help. Drive carefully.”
It was almost time for Shelby to leave Maui, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready and was considering another week before embarking on San Francisco. She didn’t know if the rest and sunshine was helping or if it would be better to take on a new challenge.
She’d packed everything at her uncle’s, loaded the Jeep and drove to San Francisco to fly to Hawaii so she wouldn’t have go back to Virgin River to pick up her car, her things. Her Jeep was in the long-term lot at the airport, waiting for her next step toward that new life, the one that didn’t interest her at all. The tall trees and mountains called her and the noisy din of the city didn’t sound appealing. Nothing could be as good as the quiet, the clear sky, the natural beauty that had surrounded her. She missed the horses. She missed so much…
She had chosen her vacation accommodations carefully—a hotel on the beach with a decent restaurant. She thought she’d do a little sightseeing around the island, but
hadn’t. Reading a lot was part of her plan, but for the first time in her memory, her mind wandered too much to escape into good fiction. Even when her mother had been at her worst, she had been able to read; it had brought her great comfort to fall into a good story. The hotel restaurant was exceptional, but she still yearned for some of Preacher’s food and a blazing hearth, the laughter of friends, the touch of a lover’s hand under the table. Except for breakfast, most of her meals were delivered to her by room service. She was very alone, hidden behind her dark glasses, which was the way she wanted it.
Every day she walked along the beach as far as she could go, sometimes for a couple of hours. She’d lounge on a chaise on the beach and soak up the sun, sometimes relax under a cabana, her eyes closed so she looked as if she was napping. Resting. But she was bleeding inside. If anyone looked closely, they’d catch the occasional tear rolling into the hair at her temples. The crying—it was so much more than she’d imagined it could be. She was so busy holding it together while she was around her uncle and cousin, she’d had no idea how much emotion she’d been struggling with. The crying started as soon as the plane’s landing gear came up and in spite of her best efforts, she sobbed half the way to Hawaii. Luck was on her side and she was seated next to a kindhearted older woman who put an arm around her and said, “Oh, darling, there’s no mistaking a broken heart.”
The best fiction in the history of the world had not adequately conveyed just how much a broken heart could hurt or how much crying was involved. It was a kind of death made worse by the fact that there hadn’t been a death at all, unless you accounted for the demise of perfect happiness.