Desert Gift (38 page)

Baxter laughed. “It’s about time.”

Chapter 58

San Diego

Daisy crossed one leg over the other and swung it briskly. “Do you think he’s heard it yet?”

Jill eyed her mother across Viv’s kitchen table. “Mom, you’re perfectly capable of figuring out the time zone difference. If it’s ten o’clock Pacific time, it’s noon in Chicago.”

“Jillian, I know the program aired already. That is not my question.”

Jill bit her lip and looked through the patio door. Her father paced the sunny backyard, back and forth, back and forth, his ball cap pulled down low over his eyes.

Viv carried three glasses of iced tea over from the counter. “From everything I’ve heard about Sophie through the years, my bet is yes, Jack has heard Jill’s formal apology and expression of love.”

Daisy said, “So why hasn’t he called?”

“Because it’s two minutes past the hour.”

Jill said, “I don’t expect him to call.”

Daisy shook her head. “And you were always the optimistic one.”

Jill made an effort not to roll her eyes.

When Viv had told Skip and Daisy that Jack and Jill were officially split up, they drove over from Sweetwater to be there when she arrived. At first, Jill appreciated their loving gesture, but soon she realized that besides offering comfort, they were in need of it themselves. She felt depleted.

Daisy reached over and patted her arm. “You were always the chipper one too.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom. I need some time to rest.”

“By working with Vivian? I don’t call that rest. You should come home with us. Pops and I can wait on you, hand and foot.”

“I need to walk.”
Or pace.
Jill went out the sliding door and shut it. She spotted the stack of printed pages on the patio table. The top papers fluttered in the light breeze.

It was the transcript of her final show. She had given it to Viv, who read it and passed it on to their parents before she could stop her.

“Pops.”

Skip stopped his pacing, placed his hands on his hips, and waited for her to walk over to him. “You gave in, Jaws. You let him take your voice away.”

“I did not.”

“You quit the vocation that you were gifted to do.”

“I quit that particular show, that format, that eight-year focus on marital communication.”

“You were forced to, considering that your marriage went south.”

“I wasn’t forced, Pops. Not really. It wasn’t so much my marriage as the work that went south. It had taken on this nuance of rule keeping and manipulation and guarantees. Like, if you tell your husband twice a day that he is the most wonderful and smartest man who has ever walked the face of the earth, he will be fulfilled and contented and probably happy. Or if you greet him at the door wearing lipstick and little else, he will fall at your feet and give you whatever you want.”

Skip’s chin dipped and he squinted. “That last one has some merit.”

“It’s borderline prostitution.”

“What is wrong with you? No, don’t tell me. You and Jack have problems with—with . . . you know. I hear there’s medication and stuff.”

She held back a smile. He was endearing when he got flustered. She kept going. “The last time I tried that little lipstick-only enticement on Jack, he said he had a headache and he really was not interested in planning a trip to Italy to see Connor.”

“This is too much information.”

She grinned. “Pops, you need to calm down.”

“Oh, ha-ha. I think you’re the one who needs to calm down. Jaws, you just talk too much sometimes.”

“Listen to one more. Seriously. This is my favorite. If you go to church every week, tithe, pray together, and argue according to certain guidelines, then nothing can touch your marriage. You are set for life. Happily ever after.”

He pursed his lips and blinked.

Oh no.
He was going to cry.

“Jillie, that describes you and Jack. That was your way of life.”

“Yes, and I encouraged every married couple to live likewise. Obviously, they are good things. They enriched our relationship. But they are not the guarantee I sealed them with. We are flawed human beings, Pops. I never wanted to admit that before. I wouldn’t let Jack admit it either.”

He nodded. “All right. I get it.”

“So.” She tilted her head. “You want to know a secret?”

“No thanks. I’ve had my fill for the day.”

She smiled at his quick answer, but he was her dad, the only person who had ever handled her difficult side with compassion. “I was getting bored with the show.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t know. It was something else I refused to recognize. I was too scared. What would I do instead of the show? Who would I be instead?” She shrugged. “Now I’m back where I started, working with Viv, one of the Wagner sisters carting senior citizens around Southern California.”

“Jack will get his head screwed on right again. You two are going to be fine.”

“Let’s not count on it, Pops. I did the program to publicly apologize for the way I publicly dishonored him. I think he’ll appreciate it, but it’s not going to catapult us into a new marriage. We’ve been going separate directions for too long.”

“Don’t you want to go the same direction?”

She spread her arms. “Pops, what else can I do? He left me.”

“I said, don’t you want to go the same direction?”

She frowned. “Of course I do. But he doesn’t want to!”

“Then we keep on praying that he changes his mind.” Skip wrapped her in a hug in time to catch her first sob.

Chapter 59

Jill checked the side mirror and steered the twelve-passenger van into the left lane. No one honked at her freeway maneuver. “Hallelujah.”

“Hm?” Beside her in the passenger seat, Viv shut her cell phone.

“I said, how’s Dustin doing on his own with the bus?”

“Fine.”

“You shouldn’t keep texting him while he’s driving.”

“He shouldn’t keep texting back while he’s driving.”

Jill groaned to herself. Viv was a bundle of nerves over her bus in Dustin’s hands without her along to chaperone a trip to the Safari Park. It had been Viv’s own decision, though, a totally unnecessary one from Jill’s point of view.

But she did not tell her sister that. After several days of depending on Viv and Marty’s gracious hospitality, she was not about to judge the whys and wherefores of Viv’s tour planning.

Still, this day’s itineraries were skewed. Jill could have driven the van to the park with a handful of adventuresome seniors who planned to do the zip line. It could have been her first solo, an easy forty-five-minute drive.

Dustin could have driven the bus with the six Casitas Pack members now packed into the van. Viv—cast-free but not yet ready to drive a tour—could have gone with him to supervise his drive through busy Los Angeles—

“Oh no. I am so dense.” Jill was not being flippant. This was a fact. There had been several indicators in recent days of nonworking mental facilities. Disengaged from work and overly engaged with getting accustomed to life without Jack, her brain had gone into some limbo space.

Viv said, “What did you miss now?”

“Why you insisted I take this trip. We’re not going to the art museum, are we? We’re going to Grauman’s. You think I need to return to the handprint and then I’ll get over what happened there the last time.”

Viv turned toward her, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. “Yes, you are way dense if you just now figured that out.”

“Viv. I do not need this! I am doing fine.”

“Sorry.” She cocked her head toward the back. “We disagree. We think it’s time.”

Jill looked in the rearview mirror. Some of the ladies must have overheard. They smiled at her reflection.

How she missed Agnes! She might trust Agnes with this crazy idea. But—

Someone touched her shoulder. It was Cynthia, seated directly behind her. “God knows how much it hurts. But there is healing in going back and facing it. And we’ll all be with you.”

Jill kept her eyes on the freeway traffic. Go back to where she first prayed to love the world in a big way? to where she first met Jack, the man who encouraged her to pursue her dreams?

No way. Nohow. She did not need to be reminded of her failed plot to fix their marriage. Waking every morning in her sister’s house was reminder enough of that.

* * *

Jill figured she would drop the ladies off at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, park the van, and find a coffee shop. Agnes’s friends could shower all the love in the world on her, but she was not going to intentionally set foot in the place where her dreams were born and then crushed to smithereens.

But Viv didn’t exit with the ladies. She went with her to park the van, and then she pulled on Jill’s arm to get her to move down the crowded sidewalk, hissing in her ear.

They must look ridiculous.

“Jill, if you won’t do this for yourself, do it for me. I cannot stand your moping any longer. I can’t. I simply can’t.”

“Well, excuse me for being real with you. I’ll move to a hotel tomorrow. Tonight even.”

“You can’t live in a hotel.”

“I can’t live with Mom and Pops. But anyway, I’m not moping.”

“Of course you’re moping. The last you heard, Jack wants out. Why wouldn’t you be angry and heartbroken and mopey?”

“Why don’t you rub it in?” She was out of breath, trying to keep up with Viv’s long strides. “I am doing better though.”

Viv stopped and looked at her, hand still gripped on her elbow. “Yes, you are, Jill. And I think I am too. But it’s just so hard. We’re all hurting. Even Marty feels bad.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “So will you please, please give this a try? Go in there and put your hands in Shirley’s prints and remember how you wanted to have a heart like hers.”

“Vivvie, why are you making me do this?”

“Because this is where you get your dreams and it’s time for a new one.”

Jill wiped her blouse sleeve across her face. “You are the crummiest little sister.”

“You’re the crummiest big one.” Viv kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

For a moment Jill took in the scene before her. People milled around the forecourt, bending over, reading the famous names, touching the impressions of hands and feet and autographs, talking and laughing, calling out to one another. The red pagoda with its fierce dragons loomed skyward.

Maybe Viv was right. Maybe it was time for a new dream.

Jill walked the familiar route, over the names of actors famous when her grandparents were alive. Thinking of how many times she had visited and how it always thrilled her, she couldn’t help but smile. Other people had grand cathedrals or mountaintops or forests to speak to them. She had a silly tourist attraction.

At Shirley Temple’s slab of concrete, she paused.

Oh, well. Why not?

She knelt and placed her hands in the little-girl prints. She read the inscription:
Love to you all.

Lord, whatever is next, I just want to love You.

“They almost fit.”

Random moments from the past week suddenly joined together in a pattern. Viv’s quick phone hang-ups, Dustin’s uncharacteristic stammering and blushing, Viv and Marty’s secretive whispering, Marty’s quirky smile that morning, today’s illogical driver arrangements, the senior ladies’ effusiveness beyond their typical style.

Jill’s breath caught. She leaned back and looked up into the kindest eyes she had ever seen. The man’s smile finished her off, though. It was absolutely perfect with lips not too thin or too full, the corners of his mouth dimpling inward and upward just so.

Jack held out his hand. “Actually I think they fit perfectly for a woman who has loved the world in a big way.”

She placed her hand in his and he pulled her to her feet. Still trying to catch up to the moment, Jill felt dazed. Jack was there. What did he want? She had things to do. An apartment to find. A van to drive.

He smiled again. “Hi. I’m Jack Galloway.”

It was an echo from twenty-five years ago.

“Hi. Jill Wagner.”

“Hello, Jill. I’ve honestly never done this before, walked up to a complete stranger to ask her if she’d like to go to dinner.”

Jill smiled. “Are you asking me to dinner?”

“Yes, I am.”

“On what grounds?”

“You look like an angel.” He touched one of his own cheeks. “The Raphael-type cherub.”

“That’s enough?”

“It is for me.”

“It’s original anyway.” She heard her coy tone.

His smile diminished. “You’re in a relationship?”

She wanted to see the smile again on those wonderful lips. “Oh no, not at all. I have to tell my sister. We rode together.”

“All right.”

Jill glanced around and saw Viv, right where she had been that first time. She waved her over. “Viv, this guy wants to take me to dinner.”

Viv slipped out of character, burst into tears, and hurried away.

Jill said, “She’s no fun.”

“That’s okay. I forget what came next.”

“Viv said, ‘Take her to dinner? Only dinner? You can take her for good.’ And then you looked like you were having second thoughts.”

“I love you, Jill.”

“That’s not what you said.”

He stepped closer to her. “I’m having second thoughts about us. I don’t want to be separated from you. I don’t want to be divorced.”

Jill looked at his hazel eyes, the pronounced crow’s-feet around them, the laugh creases at his mouth. He had aged in the last few months. Something else had come with the deeper lines. He seemed more real. Solid. Wiser?

She had to ask. “Why now?”

“Well . . .” He paused and seemed to wrestle with his answer.

“Jack, I’m not taking notes. There’s no reason to hold back anymore.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I guess that’s the whole thing. In a nutshell, the truth finally sank in. I know I am loved and forgiven by you and God. Can you imagine the freedom in that? I don’t have to cross my t’s and dot my i’s in order to be accepted.”

She smiled at his echo of her words to him. “You didn’t know that before?”

“No. I mean, I did in my head, but not in my heart, not where it changes me and makes me new. Jill, I have so much to tell you.”