any kind of weather.
Just like my real porch rail, my visions are chipped and faded, and any possibility of having them come true is lost forever. I will never, no matter what, grow old with Jesse’s father and, with him, watch Jesse’s grandchildren at play.
And what else do I have to offer? How can I change my future? I have no money. And no training that would allow me to make money. I can run the farm by myself for now, but even I know I won’t always be able to do that.
My heart is empty. There is no joy. No excitement or anticipation. I’ve lived my best years and
Oh, God, what am I going to do?
Tears fell on the page, bringing Caroline out of that heartache and into the present. She held her breath, the sobs threatening to break free. She wasn’t going to lose control now. She just couldn’t.
She could turn the page. Travel to Frankfort, Kentucky. To the dedication of a building that had been designed by a Shelter Valley architect, and the political gathering that had been part of the proceedings. She could read what happened next.
Instead, Caroline hid the book in her glove compartment. It would be safe there. Safe from harm. And she would be safe from it.
Starting the truck, thanking it silently for cooperating on the first turn of the key, Caroline backed so slowly she barely kicked up any dust. She clunked the old vehicle into gear and drove toward Shelter Valley.
Before she could worry about starting college at the age of almost thirty-five, or coming face-to-face with a twin sister she’d never met, before she looked for a new home, or a bed to sleep in that night, she had something else to do.
Some news to deliver.
The town came into view. A streetlight glistened. Houses dotted the side of the road, growing more dense, and she saw her first Shelter Valley citizen, an older woman, carrying a plastic grocery bag, walking a dog without a leash. Her stomach fluttered with comfort. And then panic.
She thought she might throw up. She hadn’t thrown up in years.
She watched for Mojave Street. And promised herself that whatever lay ahead, whatever his response, she could accept it.
She pulled into the driveway. Knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again. And eventually returned to her truck. What did she do now? Every single time she’d imagined the beginning of her new life, this stop had been first—as though nothing else could happen until it was done.
It was stupid to sit there. He might not be home for days. Or maybe he’d be back in an hour.
The journal in her glove compartment drew her, as though the answer to her current dilemma lay in the revelations she’d decided to avoid.
Ignoring the impulse, she waited another half hour. Reached for the key in the ignition. And ended up at the glove compartment instead.
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
I read an article this morning and I can’t think of anything else. An architect from Shelter Valley is going to be in Frankfort this weekend to dedicate a building he designed. His name is John Strickland. I read in an old Shelter Valley newspaper last week that Will Parsons hired an architect named John Strickland to design the new classroom building at Montford University. Will’s the president of Montford. He hired Phyllis!
Oh, God, I know I’m crazy, but I have to go! This man might actually know my twin sister!
JOHN SHOT ONE HELL of a game of golf Saturday afternoon. Probably one of his best. Meredith would have teased him about his bragging. And later, she would’ve congratulated him with a kiss filled with pride—and a passion that never seemed to lose its urgency. He congratulated himself instead with a mug of beer at the bar, joining the other guys who didn’t have wives and children to hurry home to. There were three of them that afternoon. John and two men whose wives had taken their children to the zoo in Phoenix to do research on a school project involving apes.
Sometimes, as much as he loved the peace and sense of home he found in Shelter Valley, John hated the place.
Trying to concentrate on positive thoughts, he pulled his Cadillac into the driveway of his two-year-old ranch-style custom home to find someone there ahead of him. It was a testimony to the state of his mind—of his life—that the surprise visitor brought a tinge of anticipation. For the next few moments, anyway, he wasn’t going to be home alone trying to find ways to entertain himself during the remaining hours until the world once again became a workplace full of challenging issues and busy people. People demanding the kind of interaction he was capable of delivering…
A particularly telling testimony, considering the fact that the vehicle in his driveway probably belonged to the new yard guy. He’d never seen the old and rusty pickup before.
Parking to the side of the truck in the double driveway, he got out and approached just as the driver’s window was lowering.
“Can I help y—”
The last word stuck in his throat. The driver wasn’t his landscaper. It wasn’t even a guy.
The woman stepped down from her truck. She was wearing jeans, a blue turtleneck, a worn-looking thickly knitted beige cardigan and the same brown leather boots she’d had on the first time he met her. She held out a hand with freshly polished nails. “John? I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Caroline Prater.”
He remembered.
“Caroline, hi.” Fresh from the golf course, he wanted to shower and change out of the golf slacks and slightly sticky sweater he was wearing. The sun was shining as brightly as usual from clear blue skies. And although the temperature was only about sixty degrees, it had been hot out on the golf course.
“You don’t seem pleased to see me, and I don’t blame—”
“No!” He cut her off. Took her hand. It was as rough as he remembered. Working hands, she’d said. Something about that had touched him. “I’m just surprised. Kentucky’s a long way off.”
“And Shelter Valley is a very small town,” she added with a nervous smile. He remembered that about her, too. Her air of uncertainty. As though she wasn’t quite sure she was worth the space she took up but was going to occupy it anyway.
Neither of them spoke after that.
“Uh…do you want to come in?” he asked a moment later. Why was she there? Surely not to see him. He’d never given her any indication that he’d expected to see her again.
Of course, with the way she’d vanished while he’d still been sleeping off the bottle of wine he’d bought them at dinner and then drunk most of himself, she hadn’t given him a chance to actually say as much.
Though he rarely used the front entrance himself, he walked her up to the door and unlocked it.
“So what brings you to Shelter Valley?” He hoped the question wasn’t as bald as it felt scraping past his throat. She’d passed him in the hall, leaving a brief lily-of-the-valley scent in her wake. Her shampoo, if he remembered correctly.
“I’ve been accepted at Montford,” she told him with a hesitant grin. “I start school in another week.”
Oh.
