Days Like This (28 page)

But it was too late for that. 
She’d made a commitment to Danny, the man whose ring she wore, the man she’d
loved since she was eighteen years old, and she was determined to give her
marriage one final try.  She’d already told him this was the last time.  If
they didn’t make it this time, there would be no more chances.  She was a
strong woman; she would simply put one foot in front of the other and march
forward. 

And everything would work out the
way it was meant to be.

Hands trembling, stomach roiling
with nausea, she had climbed the stairs to her apartment, let herself in, and
closed the door.  The place already felt empty without him.  Lifeless.  In the
silence, she took a long, shuddering breath.  Swiped at a damning tear.  Then
she, who never cried, sat down hard on the couch in that dreary March dusk and
wept into her clenched hands.

When she was done, when she’d
pulled herself together and had wiped her eyes and her nose, she’d marched
adamantly to the phone and called her father to tell him that she and Danny
would be coming to Maine on the weekend to look at houses.

Now, five years later, as she
paced her solitary kitchen on a blue and gold autumn afternoon, in the house
she and Danny had purchased on that long-ago weekend, with Rob a thousand miles
away on a creaky tour bus, the hard, unflinching truth struck her:  That kiss
on the beach hadn’t started anything.  It had merely opened a door and released
a flood of emotion that had been trapped inside her for years, buried beneath a
solid wall of denial.

It was astonishing to realize,
after two decades of friendship and fifteen months of marriage, that she was
madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with her husband, and that she had been for
years.  Even more astonishing to realize that on a raw March afternoon in
Boston five years earlier, letting him go had been the single worst decision of
her life.

How could she have been so
stupid?

Hands braced against the edge of
the kitchen counter, she took a hard breath.  Outside her window, that exquisite
slanted light that could only be found on an autumn afternoon painted the world
a burnished gold.  For some inexplicable reason, everything looked different. 
Colors were brighter, sharper.  Her own heartbeat seemed stronger, more
pronounced.  Her hands, pale and slender, their fingernails painted a soft pink,
seemed unfamiliar, the bones prominent, veins tracing pathways she’d never noticed
before.  Goosebumps lay along her arms, her legs, her breasts.  And inside her
chest burned something she’d never felt before, something so strong, so sweet,
so huge it nearly smothered her.

In the living room, the clock
struck six.  Somehow, she’d lost track of the afternoon, had let it slip away
from her.  Dusk would come soon.  It was time to send the boys home, time to
get ready for the weekly Saturday-night gathering.

When she shut off the stereo, the
warmth he’d created disappeared, and cold silence rushed in to fill the empty
space.  She picked up the CD case, studied the cover photo, light filtering
through a lush ceiling of green leaves and falling in dappled patterns on his
face.  Rattled, she dropped it, donned a jacket, and headed outside.

She heard the music before she
reached the barn, instantly recognized the song, but not the voice that sang
it.  She knew every note of that song, knew it intimately, knew it because she
and Rob had written it for Danny eight years ago, knew it because it had earned
them their second Grammy and had cemented their reputation as composers, knew
it because
Seasons of the Heart
 had become Danny’s signature song,
forever connected with his name. 

Casey opened the door and stepped
inside the studio.  The kids were so involved in what they were playing that
nobody even noticed her standing just inside the door, hands tucked into the
pockets of her jacket, gaping at the girl who held the microphone.  She sang
with eyes closed, face raised to the sky, all that tangled blond hair tossed
back over her shoulders.  How could this be possible?  This dark, smoky, Janis
Joplin voice couldn’t possibly be coming from that lanky kid.  It was a dark
song, a song about hard living and hard loving, about loss and grief and coming
out the other side still intact.  It wasn’t the kind of song a fifteen-year-old
girl should be singing. It wasn’t the kind of song a fifteen-year-old girl
should even understand.  Yet Paige MacKenzie not only sang it, but conquered it
and made it her own.

Stunned, Casey watched and
listened as her stepdaughter put her own fingerprints all over what was,
without question, the greatest song she and Rob had ever written.  The song
snaked and twisted, built and climbed with a visceral force, moving toward a
climactic moment when it would blow sky-high with a full-octave leap that few
singers could achieve.  Danny had done it without breaking a sweat, but he’d
had a range that was unequaled, and they’d written the song to take full
advantage of that range. 

There was no way Paige was going
to make it.  She was going to fall flat on her face.  Casey waited with
breathless anticipation as the song climbed higher and higher, twisting and
winding, until the girl reached that pivotal moment and, without any effort at
all, tilted back her head and took the leap. 

And nailed it. 

Clean and clear, without scooping,
without a single false step, she hit that sweet note and held it.  A thrill
shot through Casey’s body, and the hairs on her arms stood up, and the last
time she’d felt this way she’d been eighteen years old, standing in a smoky,
overcrowded bar in Boston’s Kenmore Square, and it had been Danny doing the
singing.

The last note faded, and Paige finally
noticed her.  A mix of emotions flickered across the kid’s face:  shock, embarrassment,
guilt.  And finally, defiance.  She raised her chin like a true MacKenzie,
squared her shoulders, crossed her arms.  In the silence, she just looked at
her stepmother.

From somewhere in the midst of
her astonishment, Casey managed to find her voice.  With a calm that belied her
true feelings, she said, “Paige, my sweet, I do believe there’s something you
forgot to tell us.”

When Mikey came into the kitchen,
all the adults greeted him, but it was his Aunt Casey he enveloped in a bear
hug.  Hugging him back, she reached up to ruffle his hair and said, “When did
you get to be so tall?”

“I was taller than you when I was
twelve.”

“Who are you trying to kid?  You
were taller than me when you were five.”

They all got a laugh out of
that.  Bill said, “Nice play today, kid.”

“Thanks.”  He moved to the
Crock-Pot on the kitchen counter and lifted the lid.  Amazing smells poured
out, permeating the kitchen.  He glanced over at Paige, leaning against the
counter, and said softly, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“This stuff any good?”

“Casey made it.  That should
answer your question.”

He took a paper bowl from the stack
on the table and spooned chili into it.  Rummaged in the drawer for a soup
spoon, then leaned back against the counter, next to her, and began eating. 
“Oh, man,” he said, “this is good stuff.”

“Everything she makes is good
stuff.”

He took another bite.  Said, “So
how’s the community service going?”

Her face turned twenty different
shades of red.  “Do we really have to talk about that?”

“You know what they say.  Don’t
do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

“That’s a low blow.”

Those dark eyes studied her face. 
He scooped another spoonful of chili into his mouth.  Chewed and swallowed. 
Said, “You’re your own worst enemy, you know.”

She squared her jaw.  “How’s
that, exactly?”

“You have this huge chip on your
shoulder.  It’s really unbecoming.”

“If it’s so unbecoming, then why
are you standing here, talking to me?”

The smile took her by surprise. 
How often had she seen Mikey Lindstrom smile?  He licked the spoon, dropped it
in the sink, and tossed the paper bowl in the trash.  “Maybe,” he said, “I like
to live dangerously.  You want to get out of here for a while?”

“I’m grounded.”

“I told you once before, you
underestimate my powers.  Wait here.  I’ll take care of it.”

She watched as he threaded his
way through the crowded kitchen to her stepmother.  Casey glanced up at Paige,
swung back around to her nephew, and said something.  Mikey nodded, and she
patted his arm. 

He returned, somber of face, but
there was something in those eyes of his that she couldn’t decipher.  “All
clear,” he said.  “Be home by ten.  Grab your jacket.”

Outside, she hoisted herself up
into the cab of his old pickup, settled into the seat, listened as the engine
roared to life.  He turned on the headlights, said, “Seat belt,” and Paige
reached to wrap it around her. 

“Where are we going?”

He backed the truck around,
changed direction, and pulled out of the driveway.  “You’ll see.”

They rode in a comfortable
silence, the truck rattling down the unpaved road.  She had no idea where they
were headed, for these back roads all looked the same to her, especially in the
dark.  Mikey took a series of turns, each turn gradually taking them higher
until, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, he took a left onto a road that was
little more than a grassy path through the woods.  The climb was steep, and
through the trees, she caught a glimpse of starlight.  Then, suddenly, they
reached the top, and came to a stop in the middle of a wide-open, grassy
field.  Above them, the night sky was huge, and dotted with stars.  “What’s this
place?” she said.  “What’s here?”

“Magic, if we’re lucky.  Zip up
your coat.  It’s chilly out there.”

He grabbed a folded blanket from
behind the seat and they walked side by side to the very top of the hill. 
While he spread the blanket on the ground, she stood, hands in her pockets, and
gazed down through the darkness to the lights twinkling in the valley a
half-mile below them.

They sat on the blanket together,
long legs stretched out in front of them.  She studied his feet in cracked
leather work boots with the laces undone.  “Are we here for a reason?”

“Don’t worry.  I’m not about to
molest you.”

In the darkness, she felt her
face flush.  “I never said that.”

“You were thinking it.  You warm
enough?”

She was a little chilly, but she
wasn’t about to admit it to him.  She didn’t want him thinking she was some
whiny, frou-frou hothouse flower.  “I’m fine.”

In the chill night air, his body heat
drifted over to her, warm and comforting.  He moved a little closer, close
enough that their elbows rubbed.  If he’d been any other boy, she would have
thought he was about to make a move on her.  But he wasn’t any other boy.  He
was Mikey, and she knew instinctively that she could trust him, that he was a
straight shooter, that he’d never do anything to hurt her. 

She cleared her throat.  “So,”
she said.  “What are we waiting for?”

“It might not happen.  There’s no
guarantee.  But the time of year and the atmospheric conditions are right,
and—”

Above their heads, a white light
flickered in the night sky.  “Look,” he said, as it grew brighter, licking and
darting like a flame. 

“What the—”

“Just watch.”

She leaned forward, hands clasped
together for warmth, and watched as the light turned red, then green.  Always
moving, never the same, shimmering like some giant bonfire in the heavens.  “It’s
beautiful,” she breathed.  “What is it?”

“Aurora borealis.”

“Northern lights?  But I thought
you could only see them from Canada.  Or the North Pole.  Or the second star to
the right.”

“When the conditions are just so,
and you get lucky, you can see them from here.”

Oblivious to the cold, she sat
mesmerized by the light show that Mother Nature was performing just for them. 
Softly, he said, “They say it may have something to do with sun flares, but I
can’t explain the connection.  I’m no scientist.”

“I don’t want to know the
scientific explanation.  I prefer the mystery.”

“Something like this,” he said, “makes
you realize how small you are.  And how infinite the universe is.”

“Wow,” she said.  “You’re pretty
deep, for a football player.  Who knew?”

He nudged her shoulder playfully
with his, then left it there, and they sat like that, warmth to warmth, for
what seemed like hours, until Mother Nature drew the curtain and the show
finally came to an end.  He folded up the blanket and they climbed back in the pickup
truck.  Suddenly freezing, she wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering,
while she waited for the truck to warm up.

The trip to her house was
curiously silent.  Something had changed between them.  They’d forged some kind
of psychic connection she couldn’t explain.  Mikey pulled the truck into her
driveway and killed the engine.  Breathless with anticipation, she waited in
the dark for something, some sign that she wasn’t the only one feeling it.

But all he did was open the door
and walk around to her side of the truck.  Ever the perfect gentleman, he held
the door for her, then walked her in silence to the house.

They stood awkwardly on the steps. 
Maybe she’d been wrong about the connection.  She would have sworn he felt it,
too, but maybe that was wishful thinking.  “Thanks,” she said.  “That was
amazing.”

Instead of speaking, he reached
out and touched her hair in an achingly intimate gesture.  While her heart beat
double-time, he wrapped a single golden curl around his index finger.  Paige
wet her lips.  Opened them and took a breath.

And he said, “I have to go.  See
you around, kid.”

In disbelief, she watched him turn
and walk back to his truck.  The driver’s door creaked a protest when he opened
it.  He stepped up onto the running board, slid into the driver’s seat, and
closed the door.  Started the engine.  And while she stood there watching, he
backed the truck around, headed down the driveway, and made his escape.