A Notion of Love (7 page)

He breathed out in a shuddering rush, and then from the corner of my eye I saw him tip his forehead against his bent arms. It was a gesture that tore at my heart; it was the way a child hid his face when life was too much to handle. He remained utterly still. I turned and studied him fully, realizing I had never understood how sad total stillness could seem. Again I wanted so much to touch him, at least rest my hand on his back, but sensed deeply that would be the wrong move. It was like sitting near a wild animal: one wrong move and I may end up with teeth marks…at least, metaphorical ones. I laced my fingers together and remained quiet.

After a time he gathered himself enough to lift his face. He said, his voice low and with a note of despair that again clawed at my heart, “Jillian, I'm sorry. You don't deserve that. I'm acting like a monster. I look like a fucking monster so maybe it makes sense.”

“Dammit, you
do
not
,” I whispered, angry now too, but also terrified by the defeat in his voice. His lips pressed into a thin line and he shook his head.

He added, “No matter what you or anyone says it doesn't change the truth.”

“Justin,” I said firmly, facing him. “You
do not
. Please listen to me.”

He laughed, humorlessly. “Thanks for saying so, but I can see myself in the mirror. You think I couldn't see how disgusted she was by how I look?”

Fucking Aubrey
. I wanted to say that, but it would only feed the flames. Instead I sat in silence, knowing anything I said would be wrong. I wanted to know if it was true that she'd actually run off with a fisherman/tourist. But never in a million years would I have dared ask. Besides, it would only make me hate her even more than I already did, to the point where I might have to track her down and chop off her long hair, then maybe a couple of fingers.

“Look at me, Jillian,” he said, though unnecessarily, as I was already gazing directly at him.

He turned to fully face me, his eyes flat black in the darkness. Though part of him surely wanted me to look away first, prove his feelings justifiable, I stared back at him, unflinchingly, with a carefully blank expression.

“I'm a fucking freak show,” he whispered.

“Justin!” I bitched at him, no longer able to retain a calm voice. If he vented on me after this, maybe I was asking for it anyway. I sat up straighter and railed at him, “Stop it! Do you want to spend the rest of your life feeling sorry for yourself?”
So much for keeping my opinions to myself
. Shit, I was on a roll; the next thing I heard out of my mouth was, “She's a
fucking bitch
and always has been! Jesus Christ, you mean to tell me you
never noticed
in all of these years? Good riddance, seriously!”

Oh, Jillian. Holy shit.

I snapped my mouth shut.

Justin was staring at me in what appeared to be stun; his lips had actually dropped slightly open. I braced myself for the onslaught of defensive anger that was sure to follow, but it didn't come. Finally he blinked and then observed, “I have never heard you get so angry before.”

I breathed out in a semi-relieved rush. I contradicted, “You have so, when we were kids.”

“You really think my conceited, cheating wife is a fucking bitch?” he asked, and I actually detected what could possibly be a hint of humor in his tone, though dark and cuttingly cynical.

“Yes!” I practically yelled, and it felt fantastically refreshing to be so honest. “You know it's true! I know you do! Goddammit, Justin, I was trying to make you
feel better!
” I had no idea where all of this anger was flowing from. But my face was hot with its energy.

He studied me again in silence; his surprise hovered like a third presence on the dock.

At last he said, “I get that you're trying to make me feel better, tomboy, even if it's in a totally fucked up way. Thanks for that, truly.” And then he wondered aloud, “What's with the smile?”

“That name,” I told him. “You haven't called me that in years.”

“Old habit,” he said, and sighed deeply, resuming his defensive pose, forearms on knees, shoulders curled forward.

“Justin…” My anger suddenly arced away like an arrow I'd released. I stared into his dark, fierce eyes and wanted to say so many things.

“What?” he asked, seeming to soften just a little.

“Come have coffee again in the mornings,” I said, and because I couldn't resist touching him for just a moment, I put my hand on his upper arm. His muscle was like a curve of warm, solid stone under my palm, so very strong, and I almost shivered. I implored, “Please.”

And then I pushed myself to my feet and walked away, leaving him sitting alone in the darkness.

April, 2003

“Rich's grandson?” I asked Mom, leaning over
the counter.

Mom flung a bar towel over her shoulder and then clicked the start button on the coffee maker, saying over her shoulder, “His stepdaughter Christy's son. His name is Blythe, and he's looking for a job.”

“In Minnesota?” I pressed.

Mom turned to face me, bracing her palms on the counter just opposite me. “He's been in jail. Two years ago he apparently stole a car.”

“You're hiring a car thief? A jailbird?” I teased, “In the Old West he'd have been hung from the nearest tree!”

“When did you become so judgmental?” Mom commented wryly, though her golden-green eyes were amused. “Rich insists that he's a good kid. He must have had a good reason for stealing a car, and you know we can trust Rich.”

I twisted up my mouth in a skeptical knot but then agreed, “Yeah, that's true. But shit, Mom, promise me that if he seems in any way shady you'll send him packing for Oklahoma.”

Mom rolled her eyes at me. “Oh for the love, Jillian.”

Ellen came out of the bar and caught the tail end. As she headed into the kitchen she added, “Honey, your gran has already insisted that she have the final say. You know how she gets. We can all rest assured that Ma won't let any calamities befall the café.”

Mom snickered but I felt reassured; I had total trust in Gran. If Gran thought this ex-con grandson was all right, I would trust that.

“Does Joelle know?” I asked next, a little surge of anticipation moving through me at the thought of my sister coming home next month. And this time perhaps for good, now that Jackie had finally proven himself false.

“No, I haven't said a thing, not with what she's going through,” Mom said. “She's got enough on her plate right now.”

“Good riddance,” I said firmly, and watched as Mom's lips draw up as though she had just bitten into a lemon wedge.

“Jillian, that's a terrible, flippant thing to say,” she admonished. “Jo and Jackson need to work on their marriage, not throw it away.”

Oh, she'd throw it away if I had anything to do with it; it wasn't as though I was totally heartless…maybe just a little selfish, as I finally saw my chance to keep Jo here where she belonged, after all these years. Jackson had given her the perfect excuse, though I did hate the fact that she was so devastated. He was her first love, after all, not to mention the father of her girls. And shit, Mom would use all of that to work on convincing Jo to forgive the dog.

“Mom, you can't mean—” but I stopped mid-word as footsteps sounded on the porch, and I turned just as Justin came through the door.

“Morning, ladies,” he said. “It smells great in here.”

Mom beamed at him and said, “Caramel rolls will be done any second.”

Justin straddled the stool to my right and my heart seemed to find this an invitation to beat a little harder. This sort of thing had been happening to me lately whenever he appeared, and it rattled the hell out of me. To cover it, I moved around the counter and snagged the coffee decanter, as Mom disappeared into the kitchen in Ellen's wake.

“Thanks, Jills,” Justin said easily as I filled up his stainless travel mug.

From a few feet away I regarded him in the early morning light. He had such beautiful dark eyes, with long spiky lashes. It had been almost five years since his accident and more than two and a half since our midnight chat on the dock, after which he'd begun to rejoin Dodge for breakfast, to my considerable relief. I was so used to how his face looked that I didn't even notice his scarring anymore. Just his eyes, which had been flashing into my thoughts at odd moments.

“Why are you being weird?” he asked then, knowing me well enough to wonder why I was standing in silence, staring at him. He looked amused.

“I'm not,” I snapped, which of course just emphasized the fact that I was being weird. On sudden inspiration I added, “I was just thinking about how Mom and Ell are hiring Rich's grandson from Oklahoma.”

Justin set down his mug and stretched his torso for a moment, bending his elbows, fists near his ears. He did this with no regard to how his muscles bulged as his work shirt stretched across his powerful biceps and chest. Justin was a mechanic. I'd heard all of my adult life how he was good with his hands; it was common knowledge in Landon. And suddenly I wanted to know just how true this was. I watched, almost transfixed, but then snapped my gaze away as he resumed his earlier pose and picked up his coffee. He was saying, “Yeah, Dad mentioned something about that. The kid's been in jail, but Rich seems to think he's all right. When does he get here?”

“Um, this week,” I said, and cleared my throat.

Justin shot me another amused look.

Fine
, I admitted to myself. I was attracted to him. I was a lot attracted to him, and I had known this for a long time. Fat lot of good that did me.

Mom breezed out of the kitchen just then, carrying a tray of caramel rolls. She plunked these on the counter and Justin helped himself, eating one in two bites. He finished his coffee while I tried to appear preoccupied, stirring sugar into my own coffee.

“You trying to make the spoon stand straight up?” he asked. He rose to his full height; I had to lift my chin to keep looking at him. I suddenly wanted to ask if he still missed Aubrey the bitch, if he still longed for her. Justin tipped his head at me for a second, as though trying to determine my thoughts from my expression. My heart thumped almost painfully. At that moment Dodge clacked through the screen, and we looked instantly away from each other, as if guilty of something.

“Morning, kids!” Dodge said, and I moved to get him some coffee.

“Dad, I'm heading out. Have a good day, Jills,” Justin said over his shoulder. I found myself watching the back pockets of his jeans and swallowed.

I was edgy for the rest of the day.

That evening, sitting on the dock in the sunset light, I found myself in a contemplative mood. For awhile, I thought about years. Thirty-four years I had known Justin, from the time I was born. Twelve years since my husband had died. Five years since Justin's accident. Two years since his divorce was final. Long ago I remembered thinking that Dodge and my aunt Ellen liked each other perhaps more than prudent. It was just a suspicion, more so since Marjorie, Justin and Liz's mother, had divorced Dodge and moved back to her own hometown. I had never been given any reason to suspect they had acted on anything, but there was an undercurrent there. And now one had sprung up between Justin and me. Or maybe just me. Maybe he couldn't care less about me in that way; more likely, he still regarded me as the tomboy tag-along from his childhood. A little sister.

I thought back to our summers as kids. He'd called me ‘Jill the pill' when I was six, tormenting me endlessly. I had spent my eighth summer with an enormous crush on him, which, oddly, I'd never even confessed to Jo. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind that had always lingered. I pictured him as a skinny kid, growing tall in his early teens, lanky and darkly tanned. His easy way of making everything a joke. When he'd married Aubrey the year she and I had graduated high school, I remembered Gran, Dodge and Ellen discussing it, about a week after their July wedding. Dodge had been disapproving; he thought Justin had rushed into it.

Aubrey, the Homecoming Queen. I still hated her, still felt everything that I'd yelled about her to Justin that night on the boat landing dock. She hadn't been back to Landon since their divorce and he'd never mentioned her in my hearing since. I knew the past years hadn't been easy for him, though in the last year or so he'd seemed slightly more like his old, teasing self. And his old self was making me seriously crazy these days.

I called Joelle once the sun had set, excited for her to get here. A month now, as soon as Milla, Tish and Ruthie were done with school. I wanted to tell her about Rich's grandson and see what she thought, but my poor sister was so full of her own sorrow and stress that instead I let her talk. By the time we said good-night, I had forgotten all about what I had planned to tell her.

***

On Saturday
night we gathered on the porch to welcome Rich's grandson, who called at dusk to tell Rich he'd just driven through Landon. Rich was almost dancing with excitement as he immediately went out onto the porch. I followed him and hooked an arm though his. He winked down at me, my second surrogate father, patting my forearm. He was quite a bit older than Dodge, with fine white hair and, by contrast, bushy, caterpillar-like eyebrows. He'd aged markedly since his wife, Pamela's death, but this evening he looked positively giddy.

I smiled up at him and asked, “So, what's the kiddo's name again?”

Rich laughed and said, “Well, he's not exactly a kiddo,” and just then a black truck rumbled slowly into the lot. Mom, Ellen, Gran and Clinty were all piling outside in the next instant, our eyes fixed on the new arrival, curious as hell.

“Do you think he'll be all tattooed?” Clint asked in a stage whisper, and I giggled as Rich hurried down to hug his grandson.

And then I fell abruptly silent. The “boy” emerging from the truck and bear-hugging Rich was no boy at all, but a tall, broad-shouldered man with a long ponytail. I'd been expecting someone seedy, I admitted it, with greasy hair and grungy black clothes. I should have known better and trusted Rich, though he had failed to mention just one rather significant detail. Mom met my gaze and raised her eyebrows for a moment, as Rich led him up to the porch. Again, I felt a splash of surprise; no matter what we'd all been subconsciously picturing, it certainly wasn't the man before us at the moment.

Holy cow
, I thought.
Oh, my goodness.

He was outrageously good-looking. Even Gran appeared slightly stunned; if she were anyone else, her mouth would have been hanging open, as he smiled almost shyly and extended a hand to her.

“Blythe Tilson,” he said in a warm, deep voice. “You can call me Bly.”

Gran gathered herself together and shook his hand vigorously.

“Bend down,” she ordered, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep a smile at bay.
Only Gran
. She added, “I want to look in your eyes.”

Blythe tipped forward without hesitation while my gran glared at him for a long moment, then sat back with a satisfied air. “You'll do,” she affirmed, and another smile, perhaps tinged with relief, passed over his face.

“Bly, this is Louisa Davis, and her daughters Ellen and Joan,” Rich said and Blythe shook everyone's hand. Rich went on, “And this is Jillian Henriksen, Joan's youngest, and her son Clint.”

“Hi,” I smiled at him, couldn't help but smile. Blythe smiled back and shook my hand, and as he did I was fisted in the midsection with such a strong image of him and my sister, that for a moment my vision almost clouded.

He shook Clint's hand too, and my son said, “Hey, maybe you can help me hang up the basketball hoop on the garage.”

Blythe said, “Sure thing,” and Clint beamed.

“We'll have you start first thing tomorrow,” Mom said. “I'm sure you're hungry.”

“Famished,” he said easily.

“Well, you've come to the right place,” Rich said with a grin.

Joelle was still in my mind, plain as day. This boy—
this man
, I corrected myself—was somehow connected to her, before they even knew one another existed. I shook my head a little, peering in the front windows, still outside with Gran, as Blythe was seated at the counter and served a heaping plate of fried fish and boiled red potatoes. Though my son had already eaten, he felt free to take advantage of a second supper.

“Well,” said Gran, and I turned to see her grinning.

I almost giggled, saying, “You can say that again.”

An hour later we were still in the café. Mom had dragged out a pile of photo albums to show Blythe what Shore Leave had looked like over the years. Blythe wouldn't have known it, but this was a major set of points in his favor. The womenfolk liked him, and not just because he could have been a Greek god come to life. He exuded a sort of gentle kindness that was very appealing. At the moment he was laughing over a couple of photos from around 1975 or so, featuring Jo, Liz, Justin and me swimming in the lake.

“What a great place to grow up,” he kept saying.

I happened to be watching as he looked at one of Joelle from senior year, in which she was riding piggyback on Jackson, her head tipped back with laughter. He studied it hard for a moment before asking me, “This is your sister?”

“Yeah, that's Jo.”

“Does she live around here?” he asked, his voice casually offhand.

Good, that meant Rich hadn't told him much about Joelle's situation. I planned to tread very carefully here; I hadn't had such a strong Notion in a long time and the last thing Joelle needed was to get here and walk into a whole new set of complications.

“No, Chicago,” I told him.

“She'll be here in a few weeks though,” Clint supplied. And then, “Gran, can I have some more of that blackberry pie?”

“Sure, honey,” Gran said; Clint was the only person on the face of the earth to whom Gran was never, ever sarcastic.

Blythe perked up at Clint's statement about Joelle getting here soon, looking over at me as though for confirmation.

I said, “Yeah, she and her girls will be here.”

He nodded, not seeming to want to ask the obvious, but I supplied, “Jo brings her daughters up every summer.”

“That's her husband, Uncle Jackie,” Clint filled in, indicating the photo that Blythe still held, using his fork to point out Jackson.

Blythe nodded again, still studying my sister. I could almost hear his thoughts.

Mom said, “Clinty, it's getting late.”