A Rocker and a Hard Place (8 page)

I watche
d him bound toward the door, an endless supply of energy that made me envious.

“Good night, Tyler.”

Emma gave me a long look, clearly contemplating something deep and meaningful. She winced as if her thoughts physically hurt. But rather than tell me what was running through her brain, she clenched her jaw and turned away.

“Good night, Emma.”

Emma

I lay in bed for a long time that night, staring blankly at the ceiling. The day had been quite a head trip. Sitting next to Tyler at the game, watching T.J
.– our son– pretending that it was a perfectly normal activity for us to do.  Then later, at the ice cream parlor, observing them as they ate their cones in weirdly synchronized fashion. Any outside observer would have taken one look and immediately recognized the family resemblance.

When Tyler offered to play catch with T.J., I almost broke down right there at the table. For so many years, I had been certain that I was doing the right thing by keeping them apart. But
I had been so horribly wrong. Wrong to deprive T.J. of years of father-son bonding, simple things like catch and guitar lessons. But bigger things, too. Not having a father to attend boy scouts meetings and coach teams. Not having a man in the house to depend on and love.

I had thought about those things often over the years, but I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how I had been depriving Tyler, too. I felt like
a monster for all the moments that Tyler had missed and would never get a chance to experience- the first time T.J. kicked in my belly, his birth, the sleepless nights, first words, first steps, first everything. It was wrong to ever expect Tyler to forgive me. But I still hoped that eventually he would.

I managed to doze off for about an hour, waking again when the sun began to rise. Tyler called early in the morning to give some hints about our outing. All I knew was that we shouldn’t wear anything nice, and we should plan to be gone until dark.

T.J. woke with even more energy than usual, flitting around the house like a trapped fly. Eventually, I sent him outside where he started throwing a tennis ball against the garage door, earnestly practicing fielding ground balls.

Tyler’s fancy car didn’t make any noise when he arrived, and I was only aware of his presence when I heard a deep male voice respond to T.J.’s high-pitched questioning. Then the front door flew open and T.J. raced upstairs.

Tyler came into the kitchen wearing an old t-shirt and a fade pair of blue jeans- an outfit nearly identical to mine. The laid back style looked good on him, really good.

“Good morning,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound tight. I was still waiting for the coffee to kick in. “Coffee?”

“Please.” He moved next to me, leaning against the counter while I filled his mug.

My hand shook a little as I handed it to him.
Leaning next to him, our arms brushed and I could feel my cheeks flush.

“T.J. is really excited about today,” I said, concentrating on blowing steam from my coffee. “Any hints about what we are going to do?”

“We’re going to have fun.” Tyler moved a fraction of an inch closer, his arm pressing more firmly against mine. “What more do you need to know?”

T.J.’s footsteps pounded down the stairs. “Mom! I need to get in the garage to find my fishing pole.”

“Fishing?” I looked at Tyler for confirmation.

He shrugged. “What’s more romantic than worms and fish?”

“This is not a date,” I reminded him as T.J. skipped into the room. “Also, we are not taking your pretty-boy car for a fishing trip. That’s just embarrassing.”

“Mom’s right.” T.J. nodded sagely. “You’ll get your nice car muddy.”

“It’s really fun when the two of you gang up on me,” Tyler said with a frown.

I hid a smile. “You better get used to it.”

“Is that a promise?” His eyes were hopeful.

I turned away and put my empty mug in the sink. “I’ll get your fishing rod T.J.”

The boys went outside to move gear from T.J’s car into my truck. I watched them from the window, still awed by the mere simplicity of seeing the two of them together finally. I wondered if I would ever get used to it, if it would ever stop seeming like a miracle.

When I joined them outside, I handed Tyler the keys. “Please, be good to her. She’s not pretty like your car, but she’s a good girl.”

“I do remember how to drive a truck, Em.” Tyler frowned, annoyed.

“We’ll see.” I opened the passenger door and T.J. climbed into the back. Tyler waited for me to slide in and then shut the door.

He leaned in the open window and said, “I thought you were going to start trusting me?”

“I gave you the keys, didn’t I?”

T.J. couldn’t stop bouncing in his seat as we road toward the edge of town. Frankly, with my responsibilities at the store, we didn’t get out of town a lot. It had never really bothered me, but I had to admit that it was nice to do something different for a change. Charlie had my cell number and he would call if anything came up back at the shop. I settled against my seatback and tried to relax.

Tyler took the highway out of town. Despite being gone for so long, he still seemed to remember his way around.
It wasn’t until he turned onto the dirt road that I realized where he was taking us.

The road led to a secluded part of a quiet
pond. Only the locals even knew that it existed, and most of the pond was surrounded by private property. Tyler had found the spot while working on his uncle’s farm in high school, and we had spent our summers out here, splashing in the water and soaking up the sun. I hadn’t been back to this spot since our senior year.

“It looks exactly the same,” I said, more than a little surprised. It was shocking that no one had discovered this land and ruined it, the way everything natural and good seems to get destroyed.

“I wasn’t sure if the road would still be there,” Tyler admitted. “This is a relief. I didn’t have a backup plan.”

“Let’s go,” T.J. said, pounding on the seat.

After letting him loose, T.J. ran to the water’s edge while Tyler and I unloaded the gear. In addition to a tackle box and fishing rods, Tyler had also packed a picnic basket.

A narrow section
of land jutted out into the pond, creating a perfect dock for setting up. I spread out blankets while Tyler helped T.J. bait his hook. Fishing wasn’t really my thing- I didn’t like messing with the worms. I rolled up my jeans and stuck my legs in the water. The water was cool, but not unbearably so. With the summer sun beating down, it was a near perfect day.

Tyler and T.J. fished all morning, keeping only a couple of their prizes and setting the others free. They had really grown comfortable with each other and T.J. was more outgoing than I had ever seen him. They stopped around noon for some lunch, an assortment of sandwiches and baked goods from Glenn’s wife. I still wasn’t sure how Tyler had been able to charm her into making entire meals for him.

After lunch, we all splashed in the pond, not caring that we were fully clothed. Then Tyler and T.J. started tossing a baseball around while I lay in the back of the truck, letting the sun dry my clothes. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so relaxed.

T.J. went back into the
pond where he tried to catch fish with his hands and Tyler joined me in the truck. He pulled out a guitar I had somehow not noticed earlier and started strumming softly.

“Play me something,” I said, sitting up.

“Any requests?”

“Just something of yours.”

“Anything?” Tyler looked surprised.

I admitted shyly, “I don’t know any of your music. I never listened to it.”

“Never?” He seemed surprised, but not upset.

“I couldn’t. I wanted to at first, but… just hearing your voice would wreck me for hours. And then later, I was afraid. Not about what it would do to me, but I was afraid to
hear the lyrics. The only time I ever heard you perform was graduation night.” I had feared that after that night, Tyler might sing about me, about us.

“Fair enough.” Tyler thought for a minute. “I’ve got it.”

He strummed a few chords, making it look ridiculously easy. “This is an old one called
By the Fire
.”

After a few lines, my fears were confirmed. Tyler had written about us, but it wasn’t ugly or invasive. It was beautiful. His voice was smooth and gritty at the same time, his playing passionate. I was swept away by the music. In a second, I was there with him, by the fire. That night, his favorite night ever, with just the two of us.

He finished that song, then moved on to another. Five songs later, it was clear that every song he’d ever written had been about us. The ones about love, and the ones about loss.
He didn’t stop playing until I reached over and grabbed his arm.

Tyler looked down at my hand on his arm, then stared directly at me with his piercing blue eyes. “It’s always been you,
Em. Always.”

“You’re pretty good,” T.J. said, appearing suddenly. His clothes were dripping wet, his hair a tangled mess.

“I learned from the best,” Tyler said. “You should hear your mom sing.”

“Really?” T.J.’s eyes widened. “She never sings.”

Tyler looked at me in surprise. “She has a beautiful voice.”

I couldn’t tell him that I hadn’t felt like singing since those days when we would play together for hours. Music was something we had shared and without Tyler, it felt meaningless.

“Play something!” T.J. climbed into the truck bed, settling across from us.

Tyler started playing again, this time a song that I knew well. It was the first one we had written after we started dating. Somehow, even after all the years since then, I still remembered every word.

It took a few lines before we found our rhythm, but soon our voices blended smoothly. Tyler’s voice had grown deeper over the years, and it was richer, too. Mine was as light as it had always been, but somehow sounded better now. As weird as it was to sing with him, especially a song we had written about falling in love, it also felt wonderful to sing again. I didn’t realize how much I had missed this part of my life.

T.J. clapped loudly at the end, but his nose wrinkled distastefully.

“What’s wrong?” I knew that look well- it was the same one he gave when I made him finish his broccoli.

“Nothing. You sounded good.”

“Then what’s with the sour face?”

T.J. sighed. “That was a love song.”

“So?” Tyler clearly didn’t remember what it was like to be a ten-year-old boy.

“Love is gross.” T.J. jumped to his feet. “Can we play catch again?”

Tyler laughed and handed me the guitar. “Sure. I wouldn’t want to gross you out anymore.”

The guitar was heavy in my lap. I looked at it for a long time before shifting it to a playing position. The first few chords came out rusty and hesitant.
My callouses were long gone and the strings burned my fingertips, but now that I had started I couldn’t stop.

As natural as it felt to be playing again, I couldn’t remember any songs. Bits and pieces came back to me, and I strung together random parts until I exhausted them.
By the time I put the guitar back in its case, my fingers felt raw.

T.J. was the one to end our outing, declaring himself starved. Tyler drove us back to his place where he insisted on cooking dinner. He gutted and cleaned the fish they had caught earlier and tossed them on the grill with some fresh vegetables
from Glenn’s garden. With a full stomach and a day’s worth of fresh air, T.J. fell asleep on the old leather couch. Tyler covered him with a blanket and we took iced teas onto the new front porch.

Only the floor was finished. The railing and ceiling would come next. But we were able to sit on the new wooden stairs and sip our teas. The sun was starting a slow descent in the sky.

“Today was nice,” I said. “T.J. had a great time.”

“And you?” Tyler asked.

“I enjoyed our time together also.” I didn’t know what was causing me to be so reluctant to admit that it had been a perfect day. Maybe it was because I was afraid that saying it out loud might jinx things.

“You got some sun,” he said, running his fingertips over my pink shoulder.

His hands were cold from holding the iced tea, but that wasn’t why I shivered. He kept his hand there, brushing his fingers softly down my arm.

“Tyler…”
My brain said that I should protest, that I should stop him. But my body didn’t want him to stop.

“When does T.J. leave for camp?”

“Monday morning.”

“Are you busy at the store on Monday?” Tyler’s hand was still moving, up and down.

“The store is closed on Mondays.” My voice came out breathlessly.

Tyler’s hand stopped moving and he took my hand. “Spend the day with me?”

“Doing what?”

That devilish grin returned. “Whatever you want.”

I’m not sure which of us moved first, but slowly we gravitated toward each other, closer and closer until our lips just nearly touched.

“The porch looks great!”

We both turned out heads in time to see Glenn wave while his wife, Wanda, slapped his arm. They were taking their traditional evening stroll through the neighborhood. Tyler returned Glenn’s wave.

“Thanks, Glenn.”

Glenn tried to stop for a lengthier conversation but Wanda pulled him forward. “You want me to stop by on Monday to help with the railing?”