A Virgin River Christmas (21 page)

Mel leaned toward Erin. “I’m kind of an expert at struggling to move on. It’s not easy and it’s almost never a clear path. But I can tell you this much—I believe it’s necessary to blaze your own trail. And I’m sure Marcie’s safe. I don’t know if Marcie will work it all out, but I don’t recommend getting in the way of a woman trying to settle her life into some kind of order. There are things she wants to understand. We’ll try to look out for her, as well.”

Erin sipped her coffee slowly. “I know there’s a message here, and I appreciate you being so candid, but with Marcie—”

“Yes, Erin—the message is—whatever she feels she has to do to get to that next stage might not make sense, might not work out, might not be practical or wise, but it’s what she thinks she has to do. I know you’re hurting, too—losing your brother-in-law, having Marcie out of reach right now—I’m so sorry. I remember my sister suffering so much when my husband died—she loved him like a brother. But at the end of the day, Marcie has to feel like she did what she had to do. For whatever reason, working something out with Ian seems to be it. Apparently it’s necessary for her. She’s been incredibly determined.”

“That’s true enough,” Erin said.

“I wouldn’t be having this talk with you if I thought there was any chance Marcie was even slightly at risk. Believe me, I serve the women of this town. I look out for them. Marcie hasn’t been real specific, but you and I both know what she’s after. She needs to understand why the man who saved her husband’s life would run away. Abandon him. Abandon
her.
”

“But what if he’s only going to do that to her again?” Erin asked, a very sad and concerned look crossing her features.

“That’s what she came to find out,” Mel said, and she reached across the bar and squeezed Erin’s hand. “Let her get to the last page on this story, sweetheart. It’s what she’s been needing, or she wouldn’t have gone through so much.”

“But—”

“We don’t have to agree or understand,” Mel said, shaking her head. “We just have to respect her wishes.” Then, very softly she said, “You have to go home. Let her finish what she came to do. You aren’t going to lose her.”

Erin blinked and a fat tear ran down her cheek. Erin never got choked up. “Do you think she knows how much I care about her? Love her?”

“She absolutely knows,” Mel said with a nod. “And you know what? When I see her next, which I’m sure will be soon, I’ll remind her.”

Back at the cabin Ian paced for nearly an hour. He hadn’t been nice to the sister and he regretted that. He could have tried harder with her, reassured her a little so she’d feel okay about Marcie being here. Instead he’d pushed them away.

He shouldn’t have let her stay in the first place, Ian thought. He should have told Mel it would be best to take Marcie back to town, to Doc’s. Damned little freckle-faced midget. There were a dozen things he didn’t like being reminded of. Like, he wasn’t a hermit—he was lonely. But he didn’t fit in most places, so he kept it to himself. Still, he hated not singing in church when singing felt so good. He didn’t like sitting alone in a bar, far in the corner, mute and unfriendly, trying to remain unapproachable. And he hadn’t had a good belly laugh in a long, long time. Until Marcie.

For the first time since he hit this county, he wanted things. Like soup bowls instead of mugs and cans to eat soup out of. Things he thought he didn’t need, like a few creature comforts. A radio. She was right—a person who loved music should hear some from time to time.

And he wanted someone to care enough about him to try to find him. He wanted someone to love him. It had been so long since anyone had loved him.

But the worst thing she’d made him realize was that this skinny little redhead had held up through Bobby’s devastating demise better than he had. And she’d had to work through it every day, every damn day, while he’d merely run away from it. I’m the weak one, he thought dismally, and she’s the one with the strength of a thousand soldiers.

He went to his trunk, dug deep, and brought out the stack of letters. He put them on the table under the light. Then he went to the cupboard, reached far into the back and located a bottle of Canadian Mist that had barely been tapped, putting it on the table with the letters. He found a glass, poured himself a shot and threw it back.

And then, without warning, the door to his cabin opened and she walked right in as if she owned the place. She toted all her gear: sleeping bag, duffel, backpack and purse, dropping it all where it had been previously stowed, at the foot of that sagging couch. He hoped all the hair on his face hid the elation that he could feel glow there. “I could’ve been naked,” he said.

She smiled and walked over to the table, pulled out the chair and sat down opposite him. “Ah yes—that would be the thrill of my life, right? We drinking tonight?”

“I decided it was cold enough for a shot.”

“Can I join you?”

“Your sister waiting outside?” he asked, getting up to find another glass. He turned up a plastic tumbler and gave it to her.

Marcie poured herself a little splash of the whiskey. “Nah. I sent her home. I had to promise to call every couple of days and get home by Christmas, so I guess I could be some trouble for you. I mean, some more trouble. Sorry.”

“What’s your mission here? Exactly? You think you’re going to straighten me out, clean me up presentable, do some kind of good deed?”

“Oh brother, are you ever feeling sorry for yourself. You probably shouldn’t drink if you’re that screwed up—this stuff is a depressant, you know.” He stiffened abruptly. “My mission, as you call it, is pretty simple. There are these stupid baseball cards. Bobby told me in letters that you were a collector, too—I brought them. Bobby’s cards.”

She went to her duffel, dug around and brought out an album in which Bobby’s collection was carefully preserved. She put it on the table.

“This is difficult to explain. For some reason, the idea of the two of you talking about these baseball cards in the middle of a war, in a desert, staying alert for bombs and snipers was something I never got over.” She took a breath. “I want you to understand—they’re hard to let go of, only because they were his. He thought they were awesome. He’d want you to have them.”

Ian didn’t touch the album. “Why didn’t you just give them to me right away?”

She sighed. “Because I was sick. And you didn’t want to talk about
it.
”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think I could.” He stared down at the table for a moment, then lifted his eyes. “That’s it, then? The baseball cards?”

“There was a time, way back, when we wrote, kind of leaned on each other because Bobby got hurt. Then you dropped out of sight. Went missing. So, I came to meet you, or re-meet you, to thank you, make sure you were all right, tell you about your father. And, as it turns out, you seem to be fine. In some ways, better off than me. You live exactly as you like, talk to people when you want and seek solitude when it feels good, have a relationship with nature and aren’t burdened with worries or things. You don’t carry much of a load, on the outside at least—you have only what you need. And I don’t think you need cleaning up presentable. You look just fine.”

“You said I looked like a wild man.”

“You do.” She grinned at him. “I’m used to it now.”

“What were you going to thank me for?” he asked, replenishing his glass.

“You’re kidding, right? Come on! For saving Bobby’s life!”

“You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t even
think
that. I have a lot of regrets, kid, but that’s at the top of the list.”

“Saving him? Look, we’re all sorry he was so badly hurt, that he was a helpless invalid. Beyond anyone’s control…”

“You think so? Because I think maybe I knew,” he said. “I lifted him and he was limp and heavy. There was a split second when I faced a choice. There was no muscle tension in his body—he was nothing but dead weight. I could’ve put him down right where he was, covered his body with mine to keep him from getting hit worse and waited it out—the end. And then you wouldn’t have been saddled with the burden and pain you’ve had to carry for three years and he’d have been free. God, you were just a kid. And I knew Bobby didn’t want that life—men in combat talk about things like that. But I was selfish. I was thinking about myself—I acted the way I was trained to react, and I just couldn’t face letting him go. I was acting like I wanted to be a goddamn hero.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Holy Jesus,” she finally said. “Is that how you think it was? That it was up to
you?
And that your actions made my life a nightmare?” She shook her head. “That’s not how it was. You should’ve just read the damn letters!”

He stared down at the pile in front of him. Then he lifted his eyes to hers. So, she’d been into his stuff, found them, knew they’d never been opened.

“Here’s how it was—”

“Marcie,” he said, his eyes darkening in regret. Pain. “Don’t, okay?”

“God, I thought I was the one who needed to understand,” she said, taking a delicate sip of the liquor. She made a face and pursed her lips, then said, “You’re gonna listen now. We lost our mom when Drew was only two, I was four, and Erin was eleven. Our dad raised us, but when I was fifteen he died suddenly—it was a coronary during a routine knee surgery. Very unusual, very rare. Erin was a recent college graduate, headed for law school, so she stepped in, became the parent, and we all stayed in the house that Dad raised us in and, of course, when Bobby went to Iraq, I lived there with Erin and Drew while he was gone. When we brought him home, that’s where we brought him. That’s where we were when you visited us—and we weren’t very good at that whole thing. We—all of us—were so new to caregiving, it must have looked to you like we weren’t going to survive it. It must have looked terrible…”

He remembered; there were days he’d had trouble putting it out of his mind. The house was a disaster, Marcie was skinny and pale and alone, she looked about thirteen. The hospital bed dominated the dining room so it was the first thing you saw when you walked in the house, leaving the family nowhere to have a meal. There was other medical equipment standing around the place—a fancy wheelchair with a head brace, hydraulic lifts, weights for counterbalance when moving that dead weight, a suction machine, oxygen tanks, basins, linens.

“We had to bring him home or leave him in a long-term care facility in another state. After a couple of months we got him into a civilian nursing home—an excellent place, with the military picking up the tab through CHAMPUS. I can thank Erin for that—she wouldn’t give up. Bobby had a large family—he was the youngest of seven—and we were all in it together, God bless them. They’ve been such a wonderful help—family to me in every way.”

“CHAMPUS?” Ian heard himself ask.

“It doesn’t always work out so good. A lot of wounded soldiers who need long-term care are assigned to military hospitals wherever there’s space, and it has nothing to do with where the family lives. I faced leaving Bobby in D.C. or the East Coast or Texas, but…We were very lucky. He had the best. And Ian—he might’ve looked pathetic, but there was no indication he was in any pain or stress. We pampered him, kept him totally comfortable at all times, and there were so many of us to do that. Bobby’s whole family—his mom and dad, six brothers and sisters and their spouses, nieces and nephews, me, Drew, and yes, even Erin got right in there. He was massaged, read to, kissed and hugged. He was almost never alone. We had a visiting schedule—he was always checked on and covered. Ian—it wasn’t torture for me. Losing him hurt, of course, but really, I lost him so long ago that by the time he passed…”

“Relief?” Ian asked reflexively.

“For him,” she said. “For me, the end of a long journey. You should’ve read the damn letters!”

He just shook his head. “I didn’t want to know he was dead. Didn’t want to know he was still alive.”

“He was alive, comfortable, cared for and loved.” She nodded toward the letters. “I wrote you about him, but also about me—it was really hard at first, grieving Bobby as though he’d already gone—but then my life became almost normal. I got out with friends quite a bit. I took a couple of vacations—Bobby’s parents insisted on it. I wrote you all about them, don’t ask me why. Hell, I wrote you
everything.
Every stupid thing. Like you were
my
best friend, not Bobby’s.”

“But you were still tied to a—”

“No, I wasn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I loved Bobby. We knew he wasn’t going to recover. Bobby’s family tried to get me out, introduce me to people—sometimes male people. If I’d wanted freedom from him, from those obligations, no one in my family or his would have tried to talk me out of it. In fact, there were lots of discussions about things like that—like breaking me loose through divorce so I could pursue another relationship, about pulling the feeding tube so he would just die, but—”

“Why didn’t you just do that, Marcie? Why?”

“Because, Ian. Feeding him was part of keeping him comfortable.”

“But what if he was thinking in there?” Ian said, a note of pained desperation in his voice. “What if it was torture for him, thinking how much he hated living like that, not being able to move or communicate?”

She smiled gently. “If he was able to think of things like that, then he was also thinking about the legions of loved ones dedicating themselves to keeping him safe and cared for until he could make the last part of his journey.”

A long piece of silence separated them. “And none of them was me,” he said softly.

“You had your own issues,” she said easily, sipping her drink. “Bobby’s injuries were physical—yours were emotional. Everyone is entitled to have space to recover. Besides, you gave me the one thing I needed most, and for that I’ll be grateful forever. I had a chance to say goodbye. He was real important to me, Ian. Even though he wasn’t himself, I really needed to hold him in my arms, tell him I loved him so much, and that it was all right for him to move on—that I’d be fine. Do you have any idea how much that meant to me?”

“Even though you had so much to—”