A Family for Jason
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Virginia McCullough
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Chapter One
RUBY DRISCOLL BLINKED back tears at the sight of Emma standing on her porch on this golden late September afternoon. Emma had warned her about what to expect, but the sight of her best friend bent over with her hands clutching a walker still put a lump in Ruby’s throat.
Ruby hurried up the porch stairs and gingerly wrapped her arms around Emma’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry about this.”
Emma smiled faintly and patted the walker. “No pity party for me. This contraption is only temporary until the op next week, Rubes.”
Rubes. Only a handful of people had ever been allowed to call her that, and they were all from deep in her past. Her dad. Emma, her first friend, and Mike, her first love.
Seeing pain pinching Emma’s face, images of a tall, spunky girl raced through Ruby’s mind like movie clips. This was Emma, who once did twenty perfect and unforgettable cartwheels in a row, beating her nearest competitor by eight. Emma, always the first to call out “Hey, Rubes, I dare you to swim all the way to the raft.” Then Emma would take off like a shot, leaving Ruby struggling to keep up.
Now Ruby couldn’t help but stare at her almost thirty-eight-year-old friend gripping the walker, her knuckles white. She’d exchanged slim-legged jeans for baggy drawstring pants. Her long, dark brown hair was gone, replaced with a no-fuss pixie.
“Come in,” Emma said. “Let’s get you settled.”
“I’ll get Miss Peach. She’s been cooped up in the car for hours. I’ll walk her around the yard before I bring her in.”
Emma rolled her big brown eyes. “Only you would end up with a dog named Miss Peach. You, who never wanted the bother of a house plant, let alone a pet.”
Ruby smiled and went back down the stairs to her car. “Things happen,” she replied, looking back over her shoulder. “But you’ll see. Peach has lovely manners.”
Adjusting to living in someone else’s house, even Emma’s, was part of the reality she’d signed up for. But it wasn’t Ruby’s fault Emma was a cat person. No one had pressed Ruby to rescue a cat. Peach—Ruby dropped the Miss part most of the time—was a lovely golden retriever who’d more or less shown up at her door. Ruby lifted the hatchback to let the dog jump to the ground. “Time for introductions, Peach. You need to be on your best behavior.”
Ruby clipped on the leash and wandered into the field of prairie flowers and grasses adjacent to the house. She lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes, needing a minute to settle the uneasy stirring in her belly. Arriving on Emma’s doorstep was mixed up with so much more than simply adjusting to sharing someone else’s space for a couple of months. Only two weeks ago, Emma had called and asked her to come back to Bluestone River to help her through a back surgery. The procedure was a step of last resort and with any luck it could resolve the damage caused by an old injury once and for all.
No need for Emma to point out the obvious: Ruby had nothing to lose by walking away from her life in Florida. In fact, Emma had been the first person Ruby called after the superintendent of the Morton School District told her to clean out her desk and leave the building. Only two years earlier, Ruby had embraced her job as the head of special programming for the school system with her whole heart, living and breathing her innovative antibullying program as if nothing else mattered. Now, her reason for staying in Florida had vanished with her job.
Ruby was brash in assuring her mom and her sister, Dee, that she’d quickly regroup and find a new, even better position where her efforts would be appreciated and fully supported. Maybe she’d even change fields. Wouldn’t that be something? In the meantime, Ruby feigned a breezy attitude during phone conversations with Emma, as if to say “don’t be silly, being unemployed was no big deal.” She had no regrets, she glibly claimed. Like she could fool Emma any more than she could fool herself.
Twenty years ago Ruby fled Bluestone River and vowed never to come back. Leaving was her choice, but that hadn’t prevented her from feeling driven out by a tragedy that exploded every dream she’d ever had. The idea of returning to Bluestone River for any reason had been unthinkable, at least until Emma called. Ruby never could say no to her best friend.
Now, the autumn breeze caressed her cheeks and fallen leaves swirled around Emma’s front yard and called up bittersweet memories of carefree days with Mike and Emma and all their friends.
Ruby called the dog back to her side. “I couldn’t leave you behind in Florida, no matter what.” At the moment, the retriever was far more interested in the smells on the unfamiliar ground than the sound of Ruby’s voice, but Peach didn’t resist being led back to the house. “Don’t worry, girl, you’ll grow on Emma, just like you grew on me.” Ruby gave Peach an affectionate pat before going back up the stairs and letting herself in the house.
“This place is fantastic, even better than the photos,” Ruby called out as she glanced around the great room and the open kitchen and dining room.
The log home sat on twenty-five acres on the edge of town and only a half mile or so from Bluestone River’s landmark covered bridge. Emma’s late husband had designed this grand house with its stone fireplace and large windows, but Neil died not long after he and Emma had moved in. Everything inside, from the simple lines of the modern teak dining-room table and chairs, to the vintage needlepoint pillows on the couch, reflected Emma’s flair for blending old and new and making it all look chic. And uniquely Emma. Ruby saw no sign that Neil had ever lived there. Not surprising.
Thinking about Neil always brought on a bout of sadness. She knew way too much about Neil and Emma’s unhappy years spent trying to make their marriage at least tolerable. They’d not let their private troubles seep out into the world, though. According to Emma, most people in town assumed she and Neil were happy high-school sweethearts, a lucky pair building their dream home. But Ruby was no outsider, so she knew the truth. Ruby pushed away those dark thoughts. None of it mattered now, anyway.
The air was filled with the aromas of chocolate and ginger, and a sweet yeasty scent, like baking bread. “Em, please, don’t tell me you’ve been baking.”
Emma flashed a pointed look. “Seriously? I can’t stand long enough to bake. That’s why I hired Brenda. She lost her job and needs a little income, so she does light cleaning and shopping, mostly for older people.” She smirked. “And people like me. She made a bakery run earlier. I don’t want us to run short on goodies.”
Emma stood at the counter, her walker set aside for the moment. She pointed to sliding doors that opened to the deck. “That’s the magic spot. The place I take most of the tons of pictures that turn up on your phone.”
“Almost daily,” Ruby said with a snicker. In the last couple of years, Emma’s emails and texts included shots of the deer regularly roaming the land, probably coming up from the direction of the river. Flocks of geese from the bird sanctuary visited the sloping field behind the house. About half of Emma’s acres were wooded. The rest was a field of prairie grasses and wildflowers whose shades of purples and reds and yellows were fading now.
“It’s an incredible place, Em. I see why you love it so.” Luckily, it was plenty big enough to offer a separate space for her and Peach. She looked down at the dog, who’d stretched out in front of the patio doors. “See? I told you the dog was quiet. She’s being a little shy now.”
Nodding to acknowledge Peach, Emma said, “Let me take you to your room before we have coffee. And yes, there’s lots of space for your cute retriever.” She shot Ruby a pointed look. “Okay, I admit, she’s a gorgeous dog. But I’m still surprised. Even as a kid you showed no interest in four-legged anything. No dogs or cats or gerbils. And you weren’t one of the horse girls.”
Ruby shrugged. What started as Ruby keeping the dog for a couple of days as a favor turned into taking in Peach for good. Even her mother and Dee thought it was another sign of Ruby never letting a crisis, hers or someone else’s, go unmarked. Naturally, Dee had quipped, Ruby would end up with a dog whose eighty-something-year-old owner died suddenly.
With Emma going down the short hallway at a snail’s pace, Ruby stayed well behind and timed her steps to the clunking of the walker hitting the hardwood floor. Once inside the room, though, Emma sat on a bench at an antique dressing table with a beveled oval mirror and inlaid designs in the wood.
Ruby took in the cheerful pale sage-and-white bedroom, larger than it looked in photos and even more inviting. The closet doors alone took up half of one wall. The small writing desk and reading chair were positioned next to another set of patio doors looking out on the field of flowers. Touched by the obvious attempt to make her comfortable, Ruby remarked, “You said this was really a suite that has everything. And it’s true. The closet has more room than I could possibly need for what few things I brought.”
Emma frowned. “On the phone the other day you said everything you own fit into your car. Is that really true?”
“Almost. That’s how I wanted it and I managed to make it work.” Leaving Florida had been the easy part of all that had happened. Determined to take only what she could jam into the trunk, Ruby had packed up her apartment right down to the coffeepot and dish towels. Volunteers from the women’s shelter arrived one morning with a truck and hauled away her things—sofa, bed, sheets, even the vacuum cleaner. Watching the practical items of her life disappear, Ruby almost convinced herself it was all for the best. She needed a change, anyway. Right?
She took a couple of steps to stand behind Emma and fluffed up the deep brown hair framing her face. “I love your short cut. And your hair is so shiny, like it always was. All you have to do is run your fingers through it and you’re done.” She smiled at Emma in the mirror. “But you could shave half of your head and you’d still be beautiful.”
Emma responded with an “oh, please” groan.
“Playing around with your hair brings back lots of memories. Remember how we used to put it all in giant rollers in useless attempts to make it curly?” Ruby laughed. “Now you’re lucky it’s straight and nice and thick.”
Emma responded with a quick nod. “Not having my hair hanging down my back took some getting used to, but don’t become too attached to this pixie look.” She stood and gripped her walker. “As soon as I’m mobile and active, like I used to be, I’m growing it back.”
Ruby drew her head back at the rise in Em’s voice as she spoke each word. “Yes, ma’am. You can do as you please.”
“I didn’t mean to sound harsh.” Emma let out a soft chuckle. “My mind wasn’t really on my hair. I was recalling Neil demanding to know why I insisted we put up the drywall and finish this room right away. And why such a pale sage? I told him it was the color of your bedroom growing up, and you’d chosen it yourself. It was like I knew one day you’d be back.” She paused. “Maybe even for good.”
Ruby’s throat closed. Not that it mattered, since she had no sarcastic comeback to Emma’s remark. She’d committed to staying for whatever amount of time Emma needed her. In some ways, it was a two-way street. As long as she and Peach stayed in this peaceful room in Emma’s house, Ruby could cut her expenses and make her savings last until she figured out where to go and what to do next. But long-term? Ruby couldn’t conjure up any circumstance that would keep her in Bluestone River.
“Rubes? Don’t go all silent on me. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Emma said in a low voice. “I was just talking off the top of my head. Like wishful thinking.”
“It’s okay.” Ruby gave her friend’s shoulder a friendly pat. “Maybe if I could stay in this room and never leave, it would be okay. But even if I found a job in the schools or with a crisis line, which is unlikely, I can’t get past the minefield of memories.” Ruby stared at the floor. “Sometimes, the sweetest of them are as unbearable as the worst.”
“I know, I know. You’ve said as much for twenty years now.”
Emma turned her walker to face the doorway. “But Ruby, not everyone in town remembers or, to be blunt, cares what happened to your family. Meanwhile, you’ve let a twenty-year-old tragedy rule your life.”
“Well, so sorry,” Ruby snapped, keeping her distance behind Emma, who’d started down the hall. “No lectures, please.”
“Up ’til now, I’ve always happily visited you wherever you happened to be,” Emma said, not breaking her pace until she reached the table and eased into a chair. “I accepted your refusal to visit me here. To be more precise, I preferred it. You know that. Taking off to see you was a good excuse to get away from Neil and our problems.”
“You and I had some great trips over the years,” Ruby said, hoping to steer the subject away from her family history.
“Didn’t we ever,” Emma said with exaggerated nostalgia. “Now that you’re back in town, though, I think you’ll finally get it, Ruby. Your memories are like ghosts that follow you around. You can’t run fast enough to get ahead of them.”
Ruby held her tongue and tried to cool the heat rising within her. The last thing she wanted was to lash out at Emma, but earlier, when she’d driven past the Welcome to Bluestone River sign on the way into town, every muscle had gone rigid. She’d gripped the wheel and forced herself to keep her foot on the accelerator and not the brake. She didn’t need Emma challenging her now. She leaned over and calmed herself by burying her hand in Peach’s fur and patting her back.
“Let’s not talk about this now, Em. Not any of it.” Unable to resist, she added, “I promise we can examine all my questionable choices another time.”
Emma nodded. “Okay, but consider this—nothing is as you left it. Sadly, this town not only isn’t growing, it’s shrinking. Our population is barely seven thousand. It was nearly ten thousand when we were kids.” Emma grimaced. “When we go down to River Street, you’ll see all the boarded-up businesses. And since Mike’s dad gave up the resort buildings and land at Hidden Lake, we attract fewer and fewer tourists.”
The immediate jolt in Ruby’s body threw her off balance. All it had taken was the out-of-the-blue mention of Mike. She managed a response. “At least a bird sanctuary is an actual Abbot family legacy.” When she’d looked him up online a couple of years ago, Ruby learned Mike worked for a law firm in Cincinnati. Apparently, his dad had followed him there and had since died. That was the extent of her knowledge of what had happened to Mike Abbot in the last two decades.
“Before long only a few people will even remember the town once had a resort on the lake,” Emma mused. “No member of the Abbot family has any ties to Bluestone River.”
Like me and my family. But she’d long wondered if Mike’s grown-up life had come close to matching their old high-school dreams. Hers sure hadn’t measured up, but maybe Mike had made better choices.
“At least you don’t have to worry about running into Mike,” Emma said. “Although wouldn’t it be good to finally...”
Ruby raised her hand. “Stop. I don’t want to talk about Mike. Let’s just stay out of the past, at least for now.” Ruby paused. “I just got here.”
Emma raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, if you say so.”
Yes, I say so. Ruby turned away and busied her hands pouring their coffee.
EVERY TIME MIKE ABBOT walked inside the Bluestone River Elementary School he was yanked back into his childhood with rocket speed. Maybe it was the familiar smells of paint and clay from the art room, or the aroma of butter cookies floating in the air through the halls that caused the memories to come rushing back. Even the buzz of little kids talking and laughing as they scurried out of their classrooms hadn’t changed. Only the sleek laptops replacing clunky monitors on the teachers’ desks marked the passage of time. When Mike learned one of his favorite teachers, Elaine Cermak, would be his son’s teacher now, the school seemed to fling open its doors to welcome him home.
He stood a few feet from the classroom door and watched the kids head down the hall, their minibackpacks bouncing. He spotted Jason holding a picture as he came through the door, the last child out.
“Hey, buddy,” Mike said, crouching down and ruffling his son’s curly brown hair, exactly like his own. “Can I see what you made?”
Jason responded with a solemn nod. The same way he responded to most questions, except when the answer was no and he shook his head.
Mike took the picture from Jason’s outstretched hand and smiled at the dots and slashes of orange and yellow on the trees and the ground. It looked like fall in the drawing and matched what Jason saw outside. He’d made small figures with round heads and curved lines. Geese flying across the sky, Mike thought, just like the birds that flew over the lake at their house. “Lots of geese, huh? And I like your leaves.”
As Mrs. Cermak approached him, she said, “Your boy is quite the artist, Mr. Abbot.”
Mike didn’t even try to muffle his self-conscious laugh. “Please, call me Mike.”
“I’m not supposed to.” Mrs. Cermak spoke with a conspiratorial lilt in her voice. “But I carry around a distinct memory of you sitting in the front row of my classroom for both second and third grades. You’ll always be just Mike to me.”
Shifting her gaze to Jason, she rested her hand lightly on his shoulder and led him back into the classroom. “Jason, why don’t you choose a book from the shelf and sit on the pillows with it for a few minutes. I need to talk with your dad. We won’t be long.”
Jason looked up at him as if questioning if that was okay. “Go ahead, Jason, I’ll be right here.” Mike watched his son obediently go to the bookshelf near the teacher’s desk and plop down on the cushion in front of the books.
“Has there been any change?” Mike asked when Jason was out of earshot. He stiffened his shoulders to brace himself for the answer. This was only the middle of Jason’s fourth week in school, after all. Change this soon was almost too much to hope for.
His former teacher offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mike, but no. I wish I had a better report. But he’s still completely silent.”
Mike looked at the drawing he held. “But he’s doing first-grade work. Right?”
“Absolutely. That’s why I wanted to talk with you.” Mrs. Cermak tapped her temple. “Your boy is smart, really sharp. When he’s ready to speak again, I’m sure he’ll easily transition into a regular classroom. He doesn’t need to be in a special-ed class because of any learning disability.” She tilted her head and smiled. “But you already knew that.”
True enough. But his six-year-old, a boy Mike had taken custody of only a few months ago, was held back in any classroom by what two different child psychologists in Cincinnati called mutism. His inability—more accurately, unwillingness—to talk was Jason’s response to the trauma of not only losing his mother, but also seeing her die in the same fire that left burns on his lower arms. Mike knew that kind of horrific, sudden loss too well. But he’d been eighteen, not six, when his mother had been killed in a car accident. It was hard for Mike to put into words, but he understood his son’s need to stay silent. At that same time, every morning Mike climbed out of bed hoping this would be the day he’d hear Jason’s voice again. He went to sleep at night with the words maybe tomorrow looping through his head.
Mike had attacked Jason’s problems head-on, first learning all he could about post-traumatic stress disorder. Fortunately, Jason’s situation wasn’t all bad news. Regular play therapy and the stability of living with Mike had dramatically eased some of the signs of Jason’s chronic anxiety, even with the move from Ohio to Illinois. Jason’s second move in less than six months. Still, the conclusion was the same: the six-year-old would eventually speak, but on his own schedule, and only when he decided it was time.
Mike nodded toward Jason, who was in his line of vision. He’d set aside his book and now stood at the nature table arranging wooden farm animals in a straight line. “At home, he’s been spending a lot of time outdoors, exploring, collecting leaves and sorting them into separate piles by color and size. Very orderly,” Mike said, smiling. He knew exactly where that trait had come from. “Living at the lake has been a novelty for him. I’ve told him we’re here to stay, but he probably doesn’t understand what that really means.”
“No, likely not, but keep talking to him, reading stories,” Mrs. Cermak said, “and let him draw all he wants.” She leaned in closer. “One piece of advice, Mike. Why don’t you start waiting for Jason outside the school? You don’t need to hover. He’s been here nearly four weeks now and Jason can make it to the front of the building on his own.”
Mike knew that...sort of. But his worries were stronger than the facts. “It’s just I’m afraid kids will make fun of the scars on his arms.” Fortunately, they’d faded and weren’t quite so obvious now. “I know they’ll heal more. But what about his silence? Even friendlier, outgoing children won’t get why he doesn’t talk—or laugh. Why would they? I’m afraid that someday, some little kid, even a well-meaning one, will try to goad him into speaking. Or a mean child will harass him.”
Mrs. Cermak stared at Jason, who was still playing at the nature table, before turning to Mike. “I’ll be honest. Every school has a few students who are mean to other kids, but it doesn’t go on in my classroom. You can probably guess that my students are particularly vulnerable. So I keep an eye out for any name calling or jeering, and protect the kids as best I can,” Mrs. Cermak said, gesturing around her. “Our teacher aides stand outside and watch for the first sign of trouble.”
Maybe because he’d grown up in the school himself, it bothered Mike to hear about any bullying problem. Nevertheless, he tried to find Elaine Cermak’s words reassuring.
The teacher formed a circle with her arms in front of her. “I keep my kids in a close-knit group as much as possible. Remember, these eighteen children all have some issues or they wouldn’t be in my classroom in the first place.”
Mike nodded, admitting to himself his first instinct was to be overprotective. He almost laughed out loud. That was a huge understatement.
“How’s it going with you, Mike?” Mrs. Cermak asked. “Have you found office space yet?”
Glad for the quick change of topic, Mike offered an update. “It took a long time to get my big old barn of a home aired out and cleaned after so many years of being shuttered like an old haunted house. I just started looking for a space on River Street. I’m working with a Realtor and finding I have lots of choices.” He shook his head. “Many more than I expected.”
Mike told Mrs. Cermak about hiring Heather Stevens, a woman who offered after-school day care for about half a dozen kids, including his Realtor’s little girl. “I need Jason to get used to being with a sitter. Better he adjust now than wait until my law practice gets going.” He snickered. “Assuming it ever does.”
“It will, Mike.” Mrs. Cermak tightened her mouth. “It hurts to say this, but you shouldn’t have any trouble getting a good deal on an office.”
“So I’ve seen.” At the beginning of the most beautiful season in north central Illinois, Bluestone River looked neglected. Forgotten. “It was kind of a shock to see so many empty storefronts.”
Mrs. Cermak agreed and then called to Jason to tell him his dad was ready to take him home. Always looking for positive signs, Mike was pleased with the shy smile Jason gave his teacher when she said she’d see him tomorrow. Mike held out his hand and Jason immediately took it. Even with all the challenges confronting him, Mike paid attention to how much he enjoyed the feel of Jason’s small, warm hand in his.
After the short—and silent—ride home, they split a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, something Mike enjoyed as much as Jason. Then Mike led the way down the front yard to the lake and pushed the rowboat across the short sandy beach to the water’s edge. He buckled Jason into his life jacket and lifted him onto the seat in the bow. “Whaddya say we go all the way around today?” he asked as he pushed off and climbed in himself.
Jason nodded. Enthusiastically, as Mike expected. From his first trip out on the lake, Jason seemed content to watch the ducks in the water and listen to the geese honking when they took flight from their nesting places in the marsh grasses. Mike wished a pair of swans would visit and nest, like they had done when he was a kid. So far, though, only ducks and geese hung around.
Mike stayed close to the shore and rowed at a leisurely pace. He had no place else to be. Since he’d been back in the house he grew up in, Mike had taken Jason out on the lake almost every day. He reminded himself of his own dad, who’d died a few years ago. When Mike was a little boy like Jason, he’d spent a lot of time on the lake with his father learning how to row and handle a boat. Mike planned to pass on those same skills to his son.
Today, though, Mike’s routine followed the guidelines that Gloria Vance, Jason’s therapist, and Mrs. Cermak encouraged in order to provide the stability and safety that would lead to Jason’s recovery. That need for consistency led him back to his home on the peaceful lake. From the minute he got the call telling him Zoe had died, it seemed inevitable that Mike would bring his son to a new life in Bluestone River.
He’d have to find a different routine when rainy fall days became days so cold the lake froze over. Soon enough he’d have to drag the boat into the storage building, a seasonal chore he grew up with. Mike spent his childhood on this small lake, swimming its length and hanging out on the raft that was tethered in the center. The resort had once been filled with guests and Mike and his gaggle of friends. Mike had spent many hours rowing around the egg-shaped lake as a teenager with Ruby by his side.
He was silent as he maneuvered toward the goose beach, as he’d started calling it for Jason’s sake, pausing only to wave at Millie Kress, the retired science teacher who ran the bird sanctuary now. The place drew a number of tourists in the summer and fall. Well, sort of. Since he’d been back, he’d never seen more than a couple of cars in the parking lot he passed before turning down the road to the house. Most days Millie’s SUV was the only vehicle parked there.
When his dad closed the resort over ten years ago, Bluestone River lost a major tourist hook. Deeding the land to the bird sanctuary was supposed to draw in different kinds of visitors. Even Mike thought it would attract the twentysomething crowd concerned about wildlife, or long-time residents who wanted to preserve several hundred acres of land. From what he could see, the sanctuary lacked any kind of PR program and only a few grade-school classes arranged visits.
“It’s just us and the birds, huh, Jason?” The birds mostly had the whole place to themselves. Mike suspected Millie liked it that way, but it didn’t bode well for the sanctuary’s future. He didn’t even know who paid Millie’s salary, supposedly more token than real. A gloomy thought.
Mike pulled himself back to the present and grinned at Jason. “When I was your age, Bluestone River was a much busier place. So was this lake.” He waved in the direction of the shore, where some boarded-up housekeeping cabins were barely visible through the trees. “My mom hired high-school kids to clean cabins on Saturday morning to get them ready for new people coming in that afternoon. I worked here, too, just like a regular employee.”
Mike had probably never worked harder than he had cleaning those cabins until everything looked fresh and they smelled like disinfectant and furniture polish. Reassuring smells in the not-so-fancy resort business, at least that’s what his mother liked to claim.
“Lots of my friends had summer jobs here—we liked working the snack bar best.”
Just talking about the past to Jason opened a floodgate of memories, especially of his mom hiring Ruby. She handled customer service, an overblown title for delivering extra towels and glasses to guests or rolling a crib into a cabin. “But we all got our turn to scoop ice cream.” Mike laughed. “I made hundreds of ice-cream cones every summer. Just like the kind I make you—sometimes two big scoops.”
Jason had been paying attention all along, but his eyes lit up at the mention of ice cream.
Mike often thought about how much fun he and Ruby had working the evening shift. She’d pile her long, dark red hair under the white baseball-style caps his mom made them wear. Then, when it was nearing dark, they’d check off every box in the closing-up routine and finally shutter the serving window. Ruby would wait until she was outside again to take off her cap and let her wavy hair tumble down her back.
Sometimes they rode their bikes out to the covered bridge to hang out with their friends. Other nights, especially when the sky was clear and the moon cast its light on the lake, they’d put one of the resort’s boats in the water and row out to the tiny cove, the same place he was taking Jason now. The first Abbot owners named it Hidden Lake because it was surrounded by woods and off an old farm road on the edge of town. He and Rubes had a running joke about wishing his great-grandparents had bought a lake with more protected coves or curves or trees on the shore to give them places to hide. As it was, no matter where they went, Mike’s mom and dad could always keep an eye on them.
His chest tightening at the emotion of each image, Mike pulled the oars inside the boat and let it drift in the light breeze while he turned his attention back to his son. “It’s quiet here, isn’t it? No motorboats allowed because it’s only forty-five acres. We used to have kayaks and a couple of little sailboats, though.”
With that, Mike ran out of things to say. He couldn’t talk to anyone about what really weighed on his mind. Ruby—not only his first love, but, as it turned out, also his only love. He’d never tried to describe to anyone what he’d felt for Ruby or the tragedy that separated them. Teenage love or puppy love, even first love, were all the wrong words when it came to labeling how he felt about Ruby. Not even close.
Distracting himself, Mike reached out and patted Jason’s knee. “I’m glad you like it here. We’ve got more places to explore along Bluestone River.” So far, he’d avoided the covered bridge, another place he’d hung out growing up. There was plenty of time for that. He studied his son’s face, a combination of himself and Zoe. Her dark blue-gray eyes, his curly brown hair. Mike could even identify the straight nose that reminded him of his mother.
Jason was five years old when Mike first heard his name. He hadn’t known Zoe was pregnant when she left Cincinnati to take a new position in a law firm closer to her hometown in Pennsylvania. Later, he overheard a couple of women at the firm talking about Zoe having a baby boy, and given the suspicious timing, Mike contacted her to find out if there was any possibility the baby was his. Their fling had been brief. And stupid for two lawyers in the same firm to think they could date without anyone noticing. Mike had regrets over that show of bad judgment, but that was nothing compared to his raw nerves when he called Zoe, knowing he had to find out if he had a child.
When Zoe assured him he wasn’t Jason’s dad, Mike had forgotten all about it. A late-night call a year or so ago changed everything. It turned out Jason’s presumed father began to have doubts and suddenly demanded a DNA test. When it ruled him out, that left Mike. Zoe delivered the news in stark terms, and more or less told him he didn’t have to get involved. She was fine with raising Jason alone.
Mike wasn’t fine. No way could he take a walk. This was a far cry from the way Mike imagined starting the family he’d always hoped for. So what? What he’d wanted was irrelevant. He’d resolved to be a real dad to a boy who’d never seen him or heard his name. No matter what it took to make it work. Mike started visiting and got to know Jason, at least as much as the miles between them allowed.
Then one night last June, Zoe’s father called to say she’d died in a fire in their family’s cabin. Jason had survived with burns on both hands and arms. As terrible as that was, Mike soon learned those physical injuries were the least of it. The emotional fallout hadn’t faded like the scars on his son’s skin. From the time Mike saw Jason in the hospital up to this moment rowing on the lake, Jason had not spoken a single word. Mike heard his son’s voice only when he cried out during one of his nightmares. At first those awful dreams happened almost every night and continued when Mike took Jason home to his apartment in Cincinnati, but since moving to the lake in Bluestone River, they’d gradually become less frequent, until now the agonizing cries occurred only once or twice a week.
Sometimes Mike found it hard to grasp how much he’d changed—almost overnight. Not just the circumstances of his life, but what he thought about and how felt inside his own skin. He’d gone from a guy who stopped for a beer and burger with his coworkers after hours to a dad who reminded himself to put Jason’s rain jacket in the car. He taught his boy to count out the money for his weekly lunch pass and, in the most dadlike of jobs, checked Jason’s pockets for crayons or puzzle pieces before throwing his jeans in the wash.
From the time he’d started at the firm in Cincinnati, he’d made good money and added to his retirement fund every month, paid off his student loans early and built up a respectable investment account. He’d never imagined he’d end up counting on what he’d put aside to support his child while he tried to make a brand-new law practice a success in a stagnating town.
“On warm sunny days like this, I’m glad we live out in the country and not in Cincinnati,” he said to Jason, really as a way to remind himself why he’d quit his job and moved to Bluestone River. Mike had tried to make life seamless in the city, but in the end he followed his gut and left his secure job behind. Overriding his jumbled mix of feelings, he’d brought Jason to the emotional shelter that was the Abbot family home on the lake. It still stood, rambling and neglected. Not knowing why, Mike had argued with his dad about holding on to the house and the lake in the deal that turned everything else over to the sanctuary. In the end, Mike won the argument, without really understanding why it was so important to him. He understood now. Thanks again, Dad, for letting me win that one.
He watched Jason stare at more noisy ducks paddling over for a look at the boat. Seeing his son’s faint, peaceful smile gave Mike the boost of confidence he needed about his decision to reconfigure his life, challenges and all.
“We’ve always had lots of ducks at the lake. My mom used to say the ducks were ubiquitous. U-bi-qui-tous,” he repeated slowly, with a laugh. “I remember when she used that word and then told me it meant the ducks were all over the place.”
Smiling to himself, he recalled how often his mom had used unusual words, as if slipping a vocabulary lesson into their everyday small talk. When he was young he’d groan whenever she did it, but by high school he laughed with his friends about the words that he could pull out for any occasion. A panoply of words, Mike thought, one of his mom’s favorites.
Enough of this. No more mulling over the past, not with Jason sitting in front of him. Like every other day, Mike had plenty to think about in the present. Like dinner. “Hey, buddy, how about we head home? I’ll fix us some mac ’n’ cheese for dinner. Then we’ll break out the ice cream—the kind with the chocolate and peanuts.”
Jason nodded eagerly, but he kept his eyes on the ducks, who paddled alongside the rowboat all the way back to the beach. What was Jason thinking? Mike asked himself that question dozens of times a day. In moments like this, he yearned to hear Jason’s voice. But there was nothing he could do to make that happen. Except be there with him. And wait.
