Memories of You (14 page)

“My God.” Vanessa stared at her, lips parted in astonishment. “And now you’re so—” She stopped abruptly, then looked down, running her fingers along the wooden handle of the spatula. “Do you ever talk about any of it?” she whispered. “The bad things that happened to you, I mean?”

Camilla shook her head. “I can’t. I know enough about psychology to understand it would be healing for me to talk about it to somebody, but I can’t seem to find the words. I’ve never spoken of it in any detail during all these years.”

“But your life is still a huge success. You’re not lost anymore.”

“Whatever I’ve managed to achieve has been because I…” Camilla paused and took a deep breath.
“I realized a long time ago that it was necessary to reach out somehow and get beyond my own misery. I decided to help people who were suffering the same way I had suffered. Now it’s become a major part of my life.”

“Helping people?”

“Yes.” Camilla took another sip of coffee.

“But where?” Vanessa asked. “Do you mean, helping your students at the college?”

“No, it’s something that has nothing to do with my work at school, just a chance to get involved and reach out to people who are going through terrible struggles. There’s nothing I’ve done that’s more meaningful.”

Vanessa was silent a long time, looking down at the table. Her dark hair fell like a curtain to shield her face. “And that makes you feel better?” she asked. “It takes away some of the hurt?”

“Yes,” Camilla said, touching the girl’s hand. “It takes away the hurt.”

Vanessa looked at her wistfully for a moment. Then her face set and she shook her head. “There’s no point in my trying something like that,” she said bitterly. “I’m so much like my mother, nobody would ever believe I wanted to help. They’d all think I was only pretending or making fun of them, and hate me for it.”

“Maybe you should give them a chance,” Camilla said. “Why don’t you reach out a bit and see how people respond? They might surprise you.”

“But don’t you see?” Vanessa whispered, her face twisting with pain.
“I’m
afraid they may be right.” Vanessa began to cry, lowering her head onto her folded arms. “I look so much like her,” she said in a muffled voice. “And I act just like her, too. I’m as bad as she is.”

“Oh, Vanessa.” Camilla reached out to put her arms around the girl’s heaving shoulders. “Vanessa, listen to me. People who are really, truly selfabsorbed never give their selfishness a second thought. It doesn’t even occur to them that they’re doing anything wrong. Do you understand? The fact that you worry about being selfish is absolute proof that you’re not.”

“I never thought of it like that,” Vanessa said. “So…if I were to…reach out to other kids who’ve been lonely and scared like me, where would I begin?”

“In your own home,” Camilla said quietly. “That’s always a good place to start.”

“You mean, the twins? But they have so many people to help them. And Steve’s really bitter about a lot of things that happened to us in our childhood. He’s never going to accept any help from me. I don’t know how I could…”

Vanessa looked up again at Camilla, who was watching her with a gentle smile.

“Enrique?” the girl asked. “Is that who you mean? I should try to help Enrique?”

“Well, I think there are some terrible things that
he definitely needs to talk about. And he doesn’t seem able to confide in any of the rest of us.”

“But…” Vanessa’s delicate face turned scarlet with embarrassment. “But Enrique must think I’m such a jerk. I’ve hardly said two words to him since he came to live with us.”

Camilla recalled the boy’s expression whenever he looked at Vanessa. “I don’t believe he thinks you’re a jerk,” she said.

A noisy clatter mounted the back steps. Camilla heard the twins’ high-pitched voices, followed by their father’s quiet reply. The children burst through the door demanding Camilla admire their baskets of eggs.

She smiled and braced herself to respond with casual warmth, trying to avoid looking at Jon who stood quietly just inside the door, watching her.

E
NRIQUE HAD NEVER
witnessed anything like the twins’ eighth birthday party. The whole dining room was decorated with balloons and streamers. There were dozens of guests in attendance and gifts were piled everywhere. All the ranch hands were at the party, and each had brought some small offering.

The cake was truly wonderful, designed to be a relief map of Alberta and Saskatchewan, showing mountains, plains and lakes, as well as the university at Calgary and the family’s two homes.

“Eddie and I worked on that cake for three days,” Margaret said, her broad freckled face glowing. “Eddie’s real good with maps.”

Caroline Kurtz, who ran the lunch counter in town, had also brought a mountain of food. She and Tom presided over a long table, serving up punch and salads, handing out stacks of sandwiches.

A rousing game of pin the tail on the donkey was in progress in one corner of the big room, supervised by Jon, who wrapped a kerchief around each cowboy’s head in turn and spun them in dizzying circles. The booted young men lumbered toward the mural of a donkey hung on the wall, hands stiffly extended, holding a horsehair tail suspended from a long pin, while onlookers shouted helpful suggestions.

“Not there, Sammy, you’re gonna hurt Caroline real bad! Hey, who put that rattlesnake inside the house? Sammy, if you run into that big china cabinet, Jon’s gonna fire you for sure!”

Enrique sat alone in a corner, watching and smiling. Laughter swelled around him, making him feel happier than he had felt in months. The noisy fun reminded him of the festivals back in his village, when everybody laid aside their problems for a while and celebrated the joyful things in life.

But that was before the horrors began to rip his country apart, and wipe out all the people he’d known and loved.

“More cake, Enrique? How about some punch?”

He looked up, barely able to believe his eyes. Vanessa Campbell stood next to him holding a dish and a glass. She wore a long white cotton dress, delicately embroidered around her slim shoulders and hanging almost to her feet.

“You look like an angel,” he said impulsively, then cringed in embarrassment.

What a ridiculous thing to say. Now her lip would curl in lofty contempt. She’d turn on her heel and walk away, convinced that he was a complete idiot.

But to his astonishment, none of those things happened. Instead, she settled in the chair next to him and put the cake and punch on a little table.

“I’m definitely not an angel, Enrique,” she said dryly. “Come on. You have to eat some of this. I brought it all the way over here just for you, and almost got run down a couple of times by that cowboy in the blindfold.”

Enrique took the dish of cake and began to eat obediently, though he was so dazed, he couldn’t tell if the food in his mouth was chocolate or vanilla.

“Have you ever been to a birthday party like this?” Vanessa asked, leaning closer.

Again he felt bewildered. It was so unlike Vanessa to approach him and start a conversation without being prodded by her father. But she was looking at him with interest, even friendliness.

Enrique’s shy, lonely heart was unable to resist. “A long time ago,” he mumbled over the last of the cake. “Back in my village, we used to have parties like this. When my little sister—”

He stopped abruptly, his heart pounding.

Vanessa smiled. “Do you have a little sister, Enrique?”

“She died. Her name was Maria. She was…nine years old.”

Vanessa touched his arm. “I’m sorry. What happened to her?”

“She was killed,” he muttered. “Just before I left my country.” Tears burned in his eyes. He brushed at them angrily, hating to have her see him like this.

But she was stroking his arm, touching his shoulder gently. “Do you think maybe you could tell me about it?” she whispered.

Enrique looked up at her, astounded. “You want to know about Maria?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “Let’s go onto the veranda and get away from all this noise, and you can tell me the whole story.”

“But I don’t…I have never talked about it to anybody.”

“Then it’s probably about time you did, don’t you think?”

He followed her, still feeling dazed, as she led the way through the busy kitchen and out onto the afternoon stillness of the big shady veranda, where she curled in the swing and indicated that he was to sit next to her.

Enrique settled himself timidly, overcome by her nearness and the way her white cotton skirt brushed his leg.

He was reluctant at first, but once he started talking, he couldn’t stop himself. Vanessa listened while he told the whole story about his parents and their little school, the accusations against them and the terrifying day when soldiers came bursting out of the jungle with their guns blazing.

By the time he finished, both of them were crying.

“You must have been…” She paused, sniffling, and dug in her pocket for a couple of tissues, handing one to him. “You must have been so lonely and terrified, Enrique. How did you manage to keep yourself alive until you got to the seacoast?”

“A person does what he has to. Most of it is a blur by now.”

“I feel so ashamed,” she muttered at last. “After I listen to what you’ve been through, I realize I’ve never had a problem in my whole life that’s even worth worrying about. I’m sorry for the way I’ve behaved, Enrique.”

“But you have been very kind, Vanessa. I feel so much better now.”

As he spoke, he realized in surprise that the words were true. Talking to her about those nightmares had somehow driven them away.

For the first time, he could think about Maria the way she used to be, laughing and pretty, instead of the horror of her lifeless small body in their yard after the massacre, lying next to his mother….

“Do you really?” she asked wistfully.

“Yes, very much. Thank you for listening.”

She gave him a timid smile and patted his arm. “I know I’m not nearly as smart as you are,” she said after an awkward silence. “But if there’s anything I can ever help you with, like in your schoolwork, I mean, I’d be glad to try.”

Enrique was fairly certain he’d died and gone to heaven, but he didn’t care. If heaven was a place
where Vanessa smiled and said kind things to him, then he fully intended to settle in and stay there forever.

W
HEN JON AND CAMILLA
left the ranch house and crossed the veranda, the two young people were still rocking together in the swing, laughing and talking with lively animation.

Jon looked over his shoulder at them in astonishment, then waved casually, took Camilla’s arm and hustled her down the steps.

“There’s definitely something magical about that swing,” he whispered in her ear.

She smiled and pulled away, trying not to let herself be drawn close to him again. It was so dangerous to be with this man….

“Where did you say you’re taking me?” she asked.

“Just over to the windmill. Tom’s still busy helping Caroline, so we’ll have to water the bulls.”

She grimaced. “I’m not sure I want to be anywhere near those animals. They’re so huge.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” He grinned at her, his eyes dancing. “I’ll protect you.”

Again she felt that treacherous flutter of warmth and looked away quickly as they walked toward a grove of cottonwood trees flaming with autumn colors. Jon led her down a path through the shady, rustling depths.

Beyond the trees a windmill rotated in the breeze, surrounded by a sturdy rail enclosure. The bulls jostied
and bellowed around a row of big wooden troughs on the other side of the fence.

While Camilla watched from the base of the windmill, Jon climbed the fence and moved among the animals. He took the flowing water pipe from one of the troughs and transferred it to another, ducking aside hastily as a black Angus bull lowered his head, rumbled menacingly and took a few steps forward, glaring with fury.

When the pipe was in place, Jon sprinted for the fence and leaped it again, landing neatly beside her.

“I don’t know how you can go in there,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid one of those bulls will kill you someday?”

“It’s like anything else.” He leaned against the fence with his arm draped over the top rail. “No real problem if you know what you’re doing. I’m a lot more scared of some of the guys on those city streets than I am of any animal on my ranch.”

Camilla thought of Zeke and Speedball, and Steven Campbell’s handsome, rebellious face.

“I suppose you’re right.” She traced the sunwarmed wood of the fence with her fingertips. “Even rattlesnakes give you a fair warning before they strike.”

“They sure do. And they won’t hurt you unless they feel cornered. These bulls are the same way. Only human predators indulge in senseless violence.”

Memories washed over her briefly, images of darkness and pain, the taste of blood and her own screams
of terror. She bit her lip and looked down at the ground.

“Camilla?” he asked, sensitive as always to her change of mood. “What is it?”

She shook away the memories. “Nothing important. What time will we be leaving tomorrow to go home?”

“After Thanksgiving dinner. Why?” he asked, touching her shoulder. “Are you anxious to go home?”

She thought about the youth hostel and felt a brief tug of worry. This was the first weekend she’d missed in almost two years. She wondered how Marty was doing, if Chase was out of the hospital and staying sober, if there was any more news about what Zeke was planning….

“Not really,” she said, forcing herself to smile at him. “Actually I love it here.” She looked up at the rustling trees overhead, then across the pasture to the endless sweep of prairie beyond the ranch buildings. “There’s something so peaceful about the landscape. It’s very soothing.”

He nodded in understanding and slipped an arm around her shoulders, standing next to her as they looked at the distant horizon.

“I know just what you mean. There’s an ageless feeling about this place. I’ve often thought I wouldn’t be surprised to see a family group of Blackfoot or Assiniboine come riding over the hill. They used to own this land, you know, and their spirit is still here.
When I was a boy, I used to believe I could actually see them when I was out on my horse.”