Wishing on Willows: A Novel (32 page)

Enough!

She clawed at her finger and pried off her ring. She gripped it in her hand, the metal indenting her palm with a circular welt. She was so sick of holding on, of watching others leave the wilderness while she remained stranded on the bank of the Jordan. She was tired of the waiting and the loneliness and the fear and the guilt and the half-empty closet in her bedroom. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want any of it. With a cry, she heaved the ring as hard as she could. It landed in the center of the small pond, broke through the crest of water with a glint of diamond, and disappeared, tiny ripples spreading to the shore.

Her breathing stopped.

Everything stopped.

What had she just done?

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for the feel of crisp linen sheets against her toes. Prayed she would open her eyes in bed and find that ring, her mother’s ring, in its proper place. But the willows brushed her cheek and her finger was naked and the heat in her lungs had turned cold and panicky.

She hurled herself from the cover of the willow, branches snarling against her face, catching against her hair, and ran into the pond. Like a mad woman, with water up to her thighs, she high-stepped through the pond, toward the disappearing ripples.

The date filled the bank sign across the street from Bernie’s Bed-and-Breakfast—significant numbers in flashing orange. Ian stood outside on Bernie’s front lawn, as still as her garden gnomes, staring at the numbers for at least thirty minutes, until his phone buzzed in his pocket.

The scrolling temperature pushed the date aside. Seventy-eight degrees. Sunny with a blanket of gray clouds escaping toward the horizon. He woke up to rain, and now he stood outside in the sun. Not even a trace of the cloying humidity remained. The brief morning shower had swept it away. If only he could say the same about the heaviness inside.

His cell phone buzzed again. Louder somehow. He surrendered to the inquisition and slipped the device from his pocket. “Good morning, Mom.”

“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to answer.”

He scuffed his shoe against the grass.

“I thought you’d be coming home this weekend. It is Father’s Day tomorrow, you know.”

Of course he knew. The holiday mocked him.

“It would probably cheer your dad up. He’s been a bit melancholy around here lately. I think it’s because he hasn’t seen you in a while.”

“He was here yesterday.”

“He was?”

“And he was pretty upset.”

Mom sighed into the receiver. “This is something your father can’t fix, love. He’s having a hard time with that.”

A bolt of anger flashed through him. At Mom and the cancer and this entire blasted day. “He said you were done fighting.”

“I didn’t say I was done fighting. I just said I was done fighting that way.”

“What other way is there?” Acupuncture? Herbs and spices?

“Oh, Ian.” Her voice sounded so soft. So far away. “You know.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. He wanted to tell her that prayer didn’t always work. It was something he knew firsthand. Despite all those nights he spent on his knees over his marriage, he still ended up divorced. He opened his eyes. The bank sign advertised high interest rates on CDs. A brown Mazda pulled out of the parking lot, splashing through a puddle, spraying up rainwater that landed at the grass by Ian’s shoes.

“Will you please come home?”

Home. That word no longer fit with Peoria. “I’ll think about it.”

“I guess I’ll take it.” She paused. “I love you.”

He returned the sentiment and powered off his phone, a deep weariness seeping into the marrow of his bones.

The date flashed in front of him. Big orange digits that screamed.

Two years.

Two years.

Two years.

The words repeated with every blink of the sign. Two years ago today, Cheryl had stolen Ian’s hopes and future. She hadn’t even given him a say in the matter. He came home after work, a small stuffed animal in his hand, as if the gift might erase her concerns. Instead, he found her curled up in bed. She couldn’t do it, she said. She wasn’t ready. So she made a choice she couldn’t take back. And she left him with a ghost for a child.

Ian had officially lost it. It was the only viable explanation for the fuzzy creature gnawing at his passenger side seat belt. He drove around a curve in the country road, green stalks of corn whizzing past his windows. What in the world had possessed him to buy a puppy?

“You better not pee on my leather,” he said.

The small black Lab let out a playful yip.

Ian tightened his grip on the steering wheel. His mind was like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to the next. Remember. Forget. Remember. Forget. Until he’d snapped, driven off to the nearest breeder, and purchased a three-hundred-dollar animal. His only reason? He grew up with a dog. Tucker had been his best friend in grade school. And it was something he might have done for his own kid if life had turned out different. If Cheryl hadn’t stolen his choice away.

There was just one small problem. One small flaw to his logic. What was he going to do with a ten-week-old puppy?

Robin’s feet squished inside her shoes, leaving a trail of footprints that led up to her café. Her wet pants swished between her thighs in a slow, whispered chant as she climbed the cement steps.

It’s gone … It’s gone … It’s gone …

Her ring was gone. She stepped inside, where Molly handed coffee to an unfamiliar man over the counter. When he turned around, his mouth fell open. No doubt at Robin’s appearance—her hair a mess, mud caked beneath her fingernails, clothes soaked. She stared back, unapologetic, and he hurried out the door.

Molly blinked.

“Where’s Caleb?” Robin needed to hug him. Ask his forgiveness—for leaving, for yelling, for making him stay at work on Saturday when Saturdays were forever and always one of their special days.

“You got your hand wet.”

She looked at the pond-soaked gauze wrapped around her finger. Somehow, losing the ring made her forget all about the injury.

“Do you need a fresh bandage?”

The only thing she needed was to find her son. She pulled the wet gauze off her finger. “Is he in the back?”

Molly nodded. “I put a movie in for him.”

Robin’s shoes squeaked against the tiled floor. She stopped in front of Molly, hurdled the shame heating her cheeks, and looked the young woman
in the eyes. “I’m sorry for leaving like that. It was inexcusable.” Robin’s brief lapse of sanity might lose her an employee. She wouldn’t blame the woman for quitting.

But Molly smiled—shy and hesitant. “Everybody has their breaking point. I know I’ve reached mine a few times before. You were bound to reach yours eventually.”

Some of Robin’s hollowness filled with warmth.

Molly wrapped her fingers around a cup sitting beneath the espresso machine and handed it to Robin. “I figured you might need this when you came back.”

Robin tipped the cup to her lips and closed her eyes as the foamy, coffee-flavored drink slid over her tongue. “Thanks, Molly.”

“You’re welcome.”

Robin’s shoes resumed their squeaking as she crept to the back door and cracked it open.

Her son’s small form sat on a stool in the middle of the room, sniffling, his head tilted back so he could see the television screen. His casted arm rested in his lap while the other wiped his face. Her heart tore down the seam. She closed the gap between them in two long strides, wrapped her arms tight around his small chest, and buried her face in his neck. “I’m so sorry, Caleb. Mommy’s so, so sorry.”

He turned into her arms. She scooped him up and hugged him so tight against her body that she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. “I shouldn’t have yelled or said that word. I shouldn’t have left. And I shouldn’t have made you stay here today. Can you forgive me?”

He released his vice grip around her neck and took a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Why are you all wet?”

A simple question with a not-so-simple answer. How could she explain to Caleb that she’d spent the last hour searching the pond, looking for her wedding ring? How could she explain the horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach? It was the ring Dad gave Mom and Micah gave her. And now it lay somewhere at the bottom of the pond.

“Did you go swimmin’?”

“Sort of.”

He held up his cast. “I wish I could go swimmin’.”

Her son, the fish, forced on land during the best swimming days of the year. She’d take him home. Fill up the plastic pool out back, wrap a bag around his cast, and let him splash around a little. Maybe that would make up for the rotten morning.

Molly poked her head into the kitchen. “Um, Robin?”

Robin’s head turned in tandem with Caleb’s.

“That guy’s out here. And he’s got something with him.”

That guy. Robin didn’t have to ask Molly who she meant. Caleb squirmed from her arms and rushed out the door. Robin ran a shaky hand over her tangled hair and actually pulled out a twig. She tried to smooth out her shirt, ruined from pond water, and looked longingly at the back door exit. But she’d already abandoned Caleb once today. She couldn’t do it again.

So she took a deep breath and followed her son out into the café. Caleb sat on his haunches, tears forgotten, laughing as a puppy attacked his cheeks with its tongue. Ian stood over them, hands in his pockets, a smile spread across his face. The puppy pounced with its front paws and licked Caleb’s nose. Robin cupped her hands over her mouth. Having the tiny fur ball inside her café had to break some sort of health code violation, but it was hard to care. Puppies were her kryptonite—draining her ability to do anything but pick them up and cuddle. She kept a wide berth from the Humane Society because otherwise, she’d bring everything home.

“Is this your little puppy?” Caleb’s voice came out in whispered awe as he came nose to nose with the man bent in front of him.

“Well … that depends.” Ian glanced at Robin and did a double take.

She tucked a wet lock of hair behind her ear, despising the heat that rushed to her cheeks.

“On what?” Caleb asked.

“On whether or not I can find a better home for him. I made a rather impulsive decision and now I’m not sure he’d get along too well with Bernie’s cat. Bill’s kind of ornery.”

Caleb’s eyes went wide. “Can I have that little puppy?”

Ian paused, his attention flitting to Robin, then back to her son. “I’m not sure, buddy. You’d have to talk to your mom about it first.”

Caleb let out a whoop and hugged Ian’s leg, a gesture he reserved for Evan or Gavin. Never ever a stranger. He ran to Robin. “Can we bring the doggie home, Mommy, please?”

Robin was a goner. Seriously, how could she resist her son
and
a puppy? She let Caleb tug her over and scratched the dog behind his ear. It let out a playful yip and nipped her knuckle. She laughed. “I don’t know. Do you think you’re ready to take care of a pet?”

Caleb bobbed his head. “Yes, I am. He can be my best friend.”

She grabbed the puppy’s face and kissed its wet nose. Was it weird to love puppy breath? When Robin looked over her son’s head, she found Ian staring, obviously puzzled by her disheveled appearance. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

Her stomach dipped. “Sure.”

He swept his arm toward the back room, an invitation for her to lead the way.

She slipped past Molly and through the door. When she turned around, Ian stood directly behind her. She took a step back and knocked into a pan on the counter. Molly had remembered to take out the cookies.

He looked around her kitchen. Pans of all shapes and sizes filled every surface. “You having some sort of baking extravaganza?”

“They’re for Carl’s wake.”

His line of vision moved from her toes, up her wet pants, paused over her dirty hands, and landed on her hair. The hair she’d pulled a twig out of a moment ago. “Did you get in a fight with some wet trees?”

“Sort of.” Her hand fluttered to the tangled mess. “You said you wanted to talk with me?”

“Are you sure you have the time to take care of a puppy with everything else going on? Because I can figure out something else. I only brought the dog over because I thought Caleb would like to meet him.” He took a step toward her. “You don’t have to take him.”