Things I Want to Say (38 page)

“What is it?”

“I need to take more time for myself. I’ve spent so many years looking after you and the boys and the business, I’ve lost sight of who I really am. I have to do this if things are going to work between us.”

“I want us to make them work.”

“It won’t be easy,” she said.

“I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”

She smiled. “That’s one of the things I love about you.”

“It’s good to hear you say that.”

“I’ve been practicing.” She held the phone with both hands, wishing she were holding him instead. That plane from Denver couldn’t get here fast enough. “If I keep this up, I might actually get good at all this emotional stuff.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” he said. “I just felt…desperate. Like nothing I could do would get through to you how much I need you.”

“I know.” She sniffed and swiped tears from her eyes. “When I do get home, let’s plan a trip some where, just the two of us. We need to spend sometime together away from the business and the boys and everything else that gets in the way of just being together.”

“That sounds like a great idea.”

She cleared her throat, heart racing again at the thought of what she was about to propose. “And I want to take sometime just for me, too. Time when I don’t have to be the boys’ mother or the office manager or any of those other roles. I need to spend sometime finding out who I really am, down inside.”

“Do you have anything in particular in mind?”

“I was thinking…maybe a bird-watching trip. I know it’s a little crazy, but I’ve taken it up since I’ve been here and, well, all that time sitting outside, being still and looking at
nature—it’s very soothing. It gives me time to listen to the thoughts in my head, instead of drowning them out with all the to-do lists I’m used to keeping in there.”

“All right. That sounds fair. I was thinking, too—there’s a counselor in the next building over. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her. I mean, we might need some help if we’re really going to do things differently.”

“Yeah. That’s a good idea.” She sagged onto the bed, relief leaving her weak in the knees. That her stand-on-his-own-two-feet husband was willing to accept outside help told her how serious he was about fixing their problems.

“We can do this,” he said.

“We can.” She smiled into the phone. If she was going to start doing things differently, now was as good a time as any to begin. “Tom?”

“Yes?”

“I love you. I really do.” That wasn’t so hard. With practice, the words would probably roll off her tongue. But she would never take them for granted. Fate was still out there listening, and she had too much to lose if she screwed things up this time.

After she’d hung up the phone, she wandered out onto the front porch, Sadie at her heels. She wanted to escape the house for at least a little while. Pinecones and broken branches littered the front yard, which glistened wetly in the sunlight. Birdsong lent a tropical feel to the setting. She picked up her father’s binoculars from the table by the spot where she’d often settled his wheelchair. He would spend hours here, scanning the treetops, never tiring of studying the behavior and habits of the birds.

The binoculars were old, heavy metal with the black paint worn through to silver where his fingers had gripped them
so many hours. She fit her fingers over these worn places, and it was as if he was there with her, the way he was when she was small. He’d hold his hands over hers and show her how to bring the glasses to her eyes and adjust the focus.

A sharp cry, almost human, startled her, and she almost dropped the glasses. When she turned toward the sound, she found a crow, perched in the azalea bush beside the porch. It stared at her with one bright, intelligent eye, head tilted to one side, studying her. She held her breath, fascinated, until it spread its wings and jumped into the air. She watched it soar higher and higher.

She raised the glasses and followed it over the tops of the tall pines, feeling her own spirits lift. It was as if her father had given her one last gift—this assurance that she, too, would find what she needed to be whole. That she would discover her own way to soar.