“Whatever you say, Sierra.”
“I could get used to it, too,” she said. “I just don’t want to put a hex on it. I have rotten luck with men, you know.”
“So you say. But I can’t stop smiling. If that’s rotten luck, bring it on.”
Be willing to have it so; acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
—William James
Chapter 12
CONNIE BOYLE WAS in love. He’d been in love before, of course. But now, feeling the way he felt for Sierra, he was sure he’d just been going through the motions with Alyssa. Just following the steps—he started out thinking Alyssa was hot, that she turned him on and made him happy in bed and most other places, so they moved in together and began building the house and the idea of a family.
It was different with Sierra. She was different. She just wasn’t like other women. For one thing, she wasn’t the type who had been looking for a happily-ever-after and she was certainly the first woman like that he’d ever known. Including his mother!
“It’s probably my program,” she’d tried to explain. “It’s just about today for me—just this one day. Sometimes it’s very hard work, remembering to live in the moment, and other times it’s such a relief, such a blessing—there’s not very much pressure in it when I don’t have to try to live up to any grandiose expectations.”
“No big plans for the future, then?” he had asked.
“I’m trying to be careful about that. It’s such a dream come true just to feel secure today. Can we be good with that?”
“As long as I can be with you, I’m good,” he’d said. And he meant it. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep it to himself that he loved her. But, he believed he’d know the right time and place to tell her.
She was brilliant. It perplexed him that she didn’t have her degree after about six years of college. She explained that she always had to keep an almost full-time job to afford college, even though she had some scholarships along the way. And, she admitted, she partied too much. But she had studied so much on so many different subjects. She knew all about the solar system; she could explain nuclear fusion in a way he could understand. She’d found her niche in mathematics and for a while toyed with the notion of an advanced degree and teaching at the college level. But then she’d taken a fancy to philosophy. “Not that unusual,” she said. “Albert Einstein was a physicist and philosopher. Some of his writings probably influenced me.”
And like all the Jones children, she had a great appreciation for literature. He loved it when she told him about the stories she’d read, infused with the emotion she’d felt while reading them. In fact, he couldn’t believe the variety of things they talked about—books, religion, philosophy, politics, wars, even medicine. Connie knew quite a bit about medical intervention, being a paramedic. “If I was smart enough, I wouldn’t mind being a doctor,” he had told her.
“Hmm. Are you sure you’re not smart enough?”
“I’m pretty convinced, yeah,” he had said.
He and Alyssa had only talked about what their future would look like, how many kids they’d have, where they’d go for entertainment, their friends, work. It felt like they talked all the time but he was figuring out now they’d only talked about their schedules and plans. Oh, and there was gossip. Gossip had been pretty important to Alyssa. Who knew she’d become the subject?
“Don’t you have any gossip?” Connie had asked Sierra.
“Well, Cal’s mother-in-law is coming around a lot these days, helping Maggie with decorating things, shopping for her, because Maggie hates that stuff but she wants her house to be beautiful. And she drives Cal nuts. But she drives Maggie more nuts. It’s kind of fun to watch.”
“You don’t seem to like to talk trash too much,” he’d observed.
She had shrugged and said, “I don’t really have any dirt on anyone. And besides, I’m the trash that used to get talked about a lot. I’m willing to leave that behind and swear off gossip.”
So was Connie. For a while after Alyssa he had to quit Facebook and Twitter, there were so many disparaging and destructive opinions about him, her, the state of their relationship and their breakup. Even though he was the victim, the cheated upon, people were not shy with their opinions about what he must be lacking for his girl and his friend to hook up behind his back.
He couldn’t imagine ever being bored or irritated again in his life as long as Sierra was around. And she might shy away from proclamations of love and longing, but there was no disguising the healthy flush of her cheeks, her quick laughter, the soft way she unfolded when she was in his arms. He loved her with the greatest of care and the most practiced of skill, and she told him so. She was no docile lover herself—she met him more than halfway, driving him out of his mind with lust and drenching him in satisfaction. The deepest most penetrating satisfaction he’d ever felt. She brought out the best in him; he’d never made finer love in his life. And when they had those long, deep, intellectual discussions about things he knew so little about, he felt smart. Better than smart, he felt wise.
They hardly ever made real plans. Once he’d asked her if she’d like to go to an outdoor jazz concert in Aurora. Dogs were welcome if they could behave. Sierra had been the one to suggest they invite Maggie and Cal. The four of them packed a cooler, brought lawn chairs and plenty of dog treats. Molly was very well behaved and they all had a wonderful time. And though he often asked her if she wanted to come to his house, she usually just surprised him. A couple of times he’d knocked on her cabin door at night and had been admitted. Despite their lack of plans, they ended up sleeping together every night that Connie wasn’t at the fire station.
He was a simple man with simple needs. He enjoyed hard work and was filled with pride that he could serve as a firefighter and paramedic. He wanted a worthy woman to shower with love and he wanted to be a good woman’s strong arm. He believed he wanted the same things Sierra wanted—security, love, stability, trust. He wasn’t a man of mystery and Sierra didn’t seem to be a woman of mystery—she was incredibly straightforward and almost achingly honest. She might not want to admit how much she cared for him, but she had trouble disguising it.
There was only one thing that gave him pause. “I have some loose ends from my checkered past to tidy up, Connie. You’ll have to be patient with me.” she’d told him.
“Tell me if I can help,” he had said.
“I’m afraid it’s up to me.”
“I hope you can resolve whatever it is and I’ll wait as long as it takes. Just know I’m on your side, no matter what. You can trust me.”
* * *
Cal was watching the summer pass by the size of Maggie’s belly. By the end of July she was over seven months along with a little girl who was due to arrive in October. She’d taken to wearing constriction stockings while driving and working to keep the swelling in her ankles manageable. “Cankles,” she called them because there was no real definition between her calves and her ankles. Her back was bothering her and she was starting to have some heartburn. But aside from the generally accepted discomforts of pregnancy, she was feeling fine and in excellent humor. Except for the house and her mother.
Those two things were driving her crazy. Apparently the master bath was way more important to her than Cal ever supposed. The tub that had been installed was way too big, the base built around the tub was huge, leaving the space in the master bath small enough that they might have to shimmy around each other en route to the enormous walk-in closet or the shower.
“We’ll be crowded,” she said.
“Much too large,” Maggie’s mother, Phoebe, agreed.
“It’ll be fine,” Cal said. “When it’s done, you’ll love it.”
“It’s a fucking monument,” Maggie said. “I want it out!”
/> “Who are you and what have you done to my wife?” Cal asked.
And that was nothing to the fits the bathroom countertop was giving her. Or the quartz he’d chosen for the hearth. “What were you going for here?” she asked him. “Brutally ugly or just nauseating?”
“Hey, I tried, all right? I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Stop trying and ask me!”
Because of these developments, Sully was not getting much of Maggie’s help around the Crossing. Maggie was spending all her days off working with Phoebe and Phoebe’s decorator trying to either improve or replace some of Cal’s installations.
“I might be a little cranky,” Maggie admitted. “I want a whole house when the baby comes. And it’s my own fault—I didn’t get involved enough. Plus, I want this baby to have a name when she gets here.”
“How about Portland,” he said, joking.
“I told you, no geographical references.”
“What’s wrong with Aurora?”
“No Disney princesses! You have too much history there.”
“Not with Aurora,” he said with a grin. Cal had had a brief and enjoyable career with the big theme park where he got involved with one of the princesses, off duty of course, but was fired because of it. He still maintained it was both unfair and quite pleasing. “I should have sued them. You can’t fire people for engaging in adult activities on their own time.”
“We’ve been married almost a year,” Maggie said. “Isn’t it time you at least tell me which princess?”
“Never. If I told you, you’d never get that image out of your head. Too risky.”
Cal thought he had the perfect marriage but had lately stumbled on a few minor flaws while turning the barn into a house with Maggie. “I hate chaos,” he said. “I was getting along fine with Tom.”
“I work in regular chaos,” Maggie reminded him. “I’m a born crisis manager.”
“Can you manage Phoebe, then? She drives me crazy.”
“I tried to warn you,” Maggie said. “But, like it or not, she’s getting things done. Things I hate doing—like shopping.”
It was true. Phoebe, with her decorator Janet, gathered up things from dishes to rugs to paintings and brought them to the barn for Maggie’s approval. And if Cal was extremely diplomatic, he could weigh in. Not only did Cal find Phoebe irritating, the way Janet placated her and trotted after her like a faithful pup made him want to shake her.
Then Jaycee Kent, the OB and Maggie’s best friend said, “I think you might be doing too much, your blood pressure is up a little and I don’t want it to get higher. You need longer rest periods, shorter surgeries—you can’t stand in an operating room for nine hours anymore. You have to lie down and put your feet up a few times a day, cut out the salt, no heavy lifting and lower the stress.”
Cal agreed, Maggie had too much on her plate. She was fretting over the house, helping Sully every free minute she had and working in Denver three days a week.
Maggie agreed to cut her work hours slightly—she was seeing patients in the office more often, passing off the more complicated surgeries to one of her partners and she was no longer taking emergency room on call.
Cal talked to his sister. “You’ve been helping Sully a lot at the Crossing. I don’t want to overload you, too, but is there any more time in your schedule so you can spell Maggie out there? We can work out pay, of course. Sully doesn’t like to admit it but he needs help, especially in summer when he’s full of campers. He’s no kid.”
“Really, he does very well, but it’s been so busy,” Sierra said. “I can cut back on my hours at the diner. The high school girls are begging for more time. Let me see what I can do.”
“Just be sure you have plenty of time for your own life,” he said. “You have important stuff, too.”
Sierra laughed. “I work with friendly people a few hours a week, the Crossing is not only outdoor work and exercise, it’s fun and Sully is my new best friend. He looks out for me. Everyone looks out for me. I even have a nice boyfriend. Cal, my life has never been this good.”
“Really?” he asked, shocked and yet wondering why he was shocked.
“More time at the Crossing for the summer won’t hurt me even a little bit. And I think Molly would love it.”
“And Connie would like it,” Cal said.
“Connie is a busy guy. He has way more commitments than I have. He works a couple of twenty-four-hour shifts a week, goes out on search and rescue detail, trains, and then whenever there are fund-raisers or kids at the firehouse, he’s first in line. I like that about him.”
“Right now all I want to do is take a little pressure off Maggie so she doesn’t have to be such a bitch.”
“Cal!” she scolded in a laugh.
“Well, she’s very pregnant, her blood pressure is up, her mother is hanging around too much and I can tell she’s afraid of the house—afraid if she doesn’t throw herself into it and make good choices it’s going to look like Sully’s place.”
“Yeah, you don’t need to spend much to get that look,” Sierra said.
“Not that I have a problem with that,” Cal added, smiling. “So. You and Connie? Is this the real deal?”
“You know I can’t answer that,” she said. “For both of us, for right now, it’s real enough. He’s still coming off a bad relationship and I’m coming off something...something worse. By the way...”
“I haven’t heard anything yet. Okay, I haven’t pushed on it too hard. Want me to push harder?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose you should. But I don’t want to be in jail when the baby comes.”
He reached out and smoothed her hair back behind her ear. “I’m pretty sure you’re not going to jail. You didn’t do anything besides fail to investigate. It could’ve been a tree branch. Or an animal.”
“‘Pretty sure’ isn’t good enough,” she said quietly. “If something bad happened...”
What Cal didn’t admit was that he had been stalling. He took a cursory look at the public records, just enough to establish there had been no fatal accidents on or around the date she provided. When a victim dies days or even weeks after the incident, it’s upgraded to fatal. He was relieved enough to stop there, for the time being anyway. He didn’t want Sierra to need him while Maggie needed him. There was no easy way to balance that.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be okay. I have to say, Sierra, I was a little nervous about you coming here and now I’m glad you did. It’s been wonderful for us.”
“Wonderful for me, too,” she said.
* * *
Having at least two jobs, new friends, a dog and a boyfriend took a lot of time. Delightful time. She still made time for meetings here and there but she wasn’t seeing Moody for coffee quite as often. He was diligent in his role as a sponsor, acting like he wanted to keep the job.
“I think it’s time for a catch-up,” he said when he called her. “There’s an open meeting in Leadville with a good speaker—I’ve heard her before. Let’s have dinner in Leadville at five, then go to the seven o’clock meeting. Want to meet at the café where they have the heavenly hamburger? Bring your notebook.”
She was devotedly reading her big book, going to at least two meetings a week, when at one time while she was in rehab it was at least two meetings a day. She was writing in her journal and in her notebook, but there were times lately she just didn’t feel like it. There were times she wanted to forget that this was still a priority. Of course she didn’t dare, and even if she did dare, Moody would sternly remind her that her only chance was a green memory.
She went to the café early and, with a cup of coffee on the side, she opened up her notebook and did a little review. She wasn’t just a girl who partied too much. She got in trouble when she was drinking and had done some shameful thi
ngs, things that for her recovery, she shouldn’t forget. With as many mishaps and misdeeds as she’d had, she was going to be on step eight for a long time.
Alex D.—I’m sorry about the car. Sorry I took it without permission just because I wanted a ride. Sorry about the fender, too. And your sunglasses, which I sold.
Joel W.—I told your wife you were screwing around on her. I was drunk, of course, but I was also malicious. She didn’t deserve you! Of course, I didn’t deserve you even more but in my twisted mind, I thought I did.
I sexted and sexted and sexted. I hate that I did that. I could never do that without being drunk. Not to mention all the drunk dialing...
I can’t wait to throw away this notebook.
“Love to see someone hard at work,” Moody said, sliding into the booth across from her. She loved his aging hippie look; his gray hair pulled into a ponytail, his bushy gray eyebrows were a little crazy. He was wearing his T-shirt with the peace symbol on it. “You got room for the rest of your transgressions or should I buy you a new notebook?”
“This should do it,” she said. “Luckily, I have many memory failures.”
“That does come in handy. Did you order dinner?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But I’m ready for a hamburger. A big greasy burger. I don’t eat stuff like that with Sully. We’re minding his heart. Let’s order.”
“You read my mind. And a chocolate shake?”
“Shouldn’t you be watching your cholesterol?”
“Don’t be taking my temperature here,” he said.
The waitress, having seen him join Sierra, was at their table at once.
“You want a review of my transgressions?” Sierra asked after they’d placed their order.
“I’m sure it’s fascinating,” Moody said. “But what I’d rather hear about is what you’ve been doing with yourself these days. Word has it you cut back on your hours at the diner. And the word is also out—you’re Connie’s girl now.”