“I bet. You’re the one who just served me a beer even though I told you I had a martini at work.”
“Is that why you want to get back? Your boss has better well drinks?”
“My boss doesn’t serve well drinks.”
“I forget. She’s a fancy lady.”
“She’s got a fancy house. She’s practically a cowgirl at heart. Kinda like your ex-wife, it sounds like.”
“Uh huh. Julio’ll get someone to drive you. Or I could drive you.”
Alone in the car with Caleb. The thought makes her head spin. Amazing how many times in her life she’s avoided being alone with him for more than ten or fifteen minutes. The effort became so commonplace when they were younger that it took Caleb leaving town for her to realize how much it had exhausted her.
“Belinda’s got a driver,” she says too quickly, like she’s trying to protect herself from the fact that Caleb is just being a good guy.
“Suit yourself,” he says.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“Sure thing,” he says.
“I’d give you a hug, but…”
“I’m behind the bar. Right. Don’t worry about it.”
She picks up her phone in one hand and gives him a weak wave with the other. A few paces from the bar, she turns. He hasn’t moved an inch. He’s staring at her with one hand resting on the counter next to the register.
“Where are you staying?” she asks.
“Old friend’s letting me crash with him for a while.”
“Where?”
“Denton.”
“Denton? That’s far!”
“Yeah, well, looks like I’ll be looking for a place closer in now. Closer to this place, anyway.”
“Keep me posted,” she says.
“Sure thing, sis.”
She steps through the entrance. On the sidewalk, she sucks in a deep, hungry breath of humid air.
She’s not drunk. But Caleb’s right. She shouldn’t drive. And she wonders now if the real reason he put that beer in front of her was because he didn’t want her to leave at all.
Then
Standing on the tip of the dock, Amber watches Caleb race up the cedar steps toward her dad. They’re about to smack into each other when her dad seizes Caleb by his shoulders, halting him mid-stride.
Maybe she was wrong about the sadness in her father’s voice a few seconds before.
Maybe he really is about to whoop Caleb within an inch of his life for giving her a kiss that made her forget her name. But violence isn’t her father’s style. At least not when she’s around. But it is her father’s style to pull the Band-Aid off in one swift motion. That’s why it takes him a few seconds to deliver the awful news.
After promising to stay sober thirty days, Caleb’s father snuck out to his local watering hole where his mom found him on his favorite barstool and literally dragged him out into the parking lot. The tussle that ensued might have ended uneventfully in any other environment, but on the side of a busy freeway it sent them both into the path of an eighteen-wheeler, killing them instantly.
She has never seen her father deliver news this terrible before. She’s got no sense of what he’s going to do now that the words are out.
A wail of pure anguish rips from Caleb, filled with more pain than any fifteen-year-old should be allowed to feel. Her father throws his arms around the boy, so tightly it looks as if he’s afraid the news will literally drive Caleb apart. In that moment, her love for her dad grows roots nothing will be able to dig up.
She joins them, holding up the right side of Caleb’s suddenly boneless body while her father holds up the left. The three of them struggle up the steps as Caleb’s sobs rend her soul. But a part of her knows the crying is good and healthy, even if the cause is horrible. Caleb’s releasing all the pain and anger he’s kept bottled up for years now, and Amber and her father are right there to help him through it.
“Get him to bed,” her dad whispers as soon as they’re inside.
In the guest room, Caleb collapses onto the mussed comforter, curls into a fetal position, and starts to cry harder when she curls up behind him and drapes one arm over his side. She keeps her own tears as quiet as possible. That only seems right.
In the living room her father makes a frantic-sounding series of phone calls. She can only make out every few words. He’s booking flights, it sounds like, or maybe he’s just breaking the news to people. She’s not sure.
Because they’re spooning, she doesn’t see him reach up to where her hand is resting against his chest. Instead, she feels his fingers close around hers and she returns his grip.
She has no words for him as powerful as simply being there with him, beside him in the dark. When staying silent becomes too much for her, she gently kisses the back of his neck. He gives her fingers a little squeeze in response.
The house is silent. She’s not sure how much time has passed.
Suddenly her dad’s silhouette blocks the light from the hallway. With careful steps he moves into the darkened bedroom. He sets a glass of water on Caleb’s nightstand, grips the boy’s shoulder, studies him through the shadows.
“Making arrangements to get you home, son,” her dad says. “I’m going to go with you, get you through everything you need to do, ’kay?”
“Yes, sir,” Caleb croaks.
“I need Amber for a minute. You going to be okay in here for a few?”
“Yes, sir.”
She follows her father downstairs to the living room.
On the muted television, Dave Letterman cracks a joke and a faraway audience of people laugh silently. The sight seems obscene given what’s happening, so she looks away from it quickly as if it’s burned her eyes.
In a hushed whisper, her father says, “My buddy Dale Parsons is at his place on the other side of the lake and he flew his Cessna up. He’ll fly us back to Dallas.”
She’s not surprised that her father is all business in this moment. Her mother has explained it to her countless times—this is how her father loves people. He organizes; he manages. She figures he’s avoiding eye contact because he doesn’t want her to see that he’s been crying.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Should I get my things?”
“No, you’re staying,” he says quickly, as if this were an obvious fact she’d simply overlooked. “I know you hate being here alone so Miss Lita, Dale’s wife, she’s coming over to stay with you. You remember her, right? You met her at Fourth of July last year. Remember?”
“I remember,” she says. But her own voice sounds far away suddenly. Something else is happening here, and she’s not sure what. “Who’s going to bring me back to Dallas?”
“I just spoke to your momma and she’s going to cut her visit to her sister short and take Southwest in tomorrow. She'll probably be here by the afternoon. I’ll leave the SUV up at the airport so y’all can drive it back to Dallas. No need for you to rush either. There’s gonna be a lot he and I are going to have to deal with as soon as we get back. A whole helluvalot.”
“Why can’t I just go with y’all?”
“I don’t think there’s room on the plane.”
She knows this isn’t true. Dale Parsons flies his whole family up sometimes and they’ve got three kids. And her dad’s choice of words is weird. I don’t think there’s room.
Why didn’t he ask if there was room?
“Daddy…”
Suddenly her father grips her shoulders tightly. He’s got an angry furrow to his brow. When he clears his throat, she realizes he’s about to say words he’s been practicing in his head for a few minutes now. “Amber, look. I know how you feel about the boy. I know what y’all were doing down there, but that needs to change now. You understand me? Caleb’s gonna be in our lives now, but not in the way you want. And that’s what’s best for him. So you need to take all those feelings you’re having for him and you need to change ’em. You need to turn ’em into something else. Something that’s better for him. Do you understand m
e, girl? Are you hearing me right now?”
Better for him. Such simple words, and he said them in such a measured tone. But she’s registered them the way she might register a slap to the face.
All her feelings for Caleb, all her dreams about him, all the longing looks she’s given him that summer, her father could sense all of it. And he’s judged her for it, judged her as bad. So bad, he thinks he has to put a stop to those feelings in the middle of this awful moment that will change their lives forever. He’s determined to keep her and Caleb apart at the very moment when Caleb is most vulnerable.
She’s always been a daddy’s girl. The title’s never bothered her in the slightest. Everyone agrees: her dad’s a success in life and he’s going to make her a success too. He’s saved enough money for her to go to a good college. He’s a war hero who will walk through fire for his fellow vets. Sure, he’s controlling and overbearing, but the way he controls things, it all usually works out in the end. Right now, though, she wants to bat his hands from her shoulders. She wants to scream in frustration, and holding in that scream is making her jaw quiver. She can feel it.
“Amber,” he says, an angry edge to his voice now. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I hear you, Daddy.”
“Good,” he whispers. Then he brings his hand to the side of her face, suddenly affectionate, suddenly relieved, like she’s agreed to take medicine he’s sure will save her life.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I know it’s not what you want. But it’s like I always say, sometimes the road rises up to beat you instead of meet you.” It’s one of his favorite sayings, one he claims to have invented, and one he only uses when some grand plan of his has been defeated despite his best efforts. Saying it now has clearly sent regret coursing through him given how Mister Tim and Miss Abby were killed. “God in heaven,” he whispers. “I’m gonna have to shelve that old saw after tonight.”
A few seconds later, Miss Lita knocks on the glass door. When her father slides it open, she steps into the living room quietly, her eyes glassy from a combination of drowsiness and shock. It’s clear she dressed in a hurry. Her thick ponytail is already coming free of its rubber band. When she sees the look on Amber’s face, she curves an arm around her shoulders and steers her into the kitchen.
The neighbor’s sudden tenderness frees the tears Amber’s been fighting. She turns her back to the living room so her father won’t see, but from the way the older woman is rubbing circles on her back, it’s clear to all of them what Amber’s doing.
“Where’s Caleb?” Lita asks.
“In the guest bedroom,” Amber whispers.
“Should we go sit with him?”
“No,” Amber says, her voice a tremble. “No, we shouldn’t.”
4
Now
“Married?” Amber’s mother says for the third time in three minutes.
“Yep,” Amber answers.
She’s been home for over an hour but she hasn’t moved an inch from where she collapsed on the sofa right after stumbling through the front door. Reaching for the portable phone and dialing her mother’s number took most of the energy she had left.
At some point, maybe a few hours from now, she’ll get around to taking her shoes off. Maybe.
She can’t remember a day in her life this exhausting that didn’t involve moving or a six-hour plane flight or a spin class. But her mood has improved dramatically since lunchtime. That’s for sure. Maybe it was coming home to discover Joel hadn’t done anything shitty to the house. Maybe it’s the familiar and comforting sound of her mother’s voice.
Or maybe it’s because Caleb’s back…
“For how long?” her mother asks.
“Couldn’t have been more than a year or two. He was only gone four and they’re already divorced.”
“Divorced or separated?”
“Not sure. He just said it was over. And there’s no ring. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you, at least.”
“Oh, I’m not. He never had the kind of connection to me that he had to your dad.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
“This business with Joel and the bar. You sure you don’t want me to come?”
“God, why? So he can torture you too?”
“I’m serious, sweetheart. Say the word and I’ll hop in the car.”
Her mother was being charitable, to say the least. For her a hop in the car meant a drive of several hours, at least.
Her mom’s life choices these past few years had given proof to her dad’s old saying. Try to make an ER nurse retire and she’ll end up treating the sunset.
Right after her husband’s death, she’d been invited to spend some time in the Texas Hill Country by her old friend Amanda Crawford, a woman whose personal wealth rivaled Belinda’s. Amanda’s ten-room mansion perched on a hill just outside the town of Chapel Springs was the perfect vantage point from which to take in the surrounding paradise of rolling green hills, orchards, and rushing creeks terminating in swimming holes full of crystal-clear water.
The two women were as close as sisters, thanks to a fateful night fifteen years before when Amber’s mom and some other nurses at Baylor Hospital saved the life of Amanda’s husband after his ER visit landed him in the care of an idiot doctor who misdiagnosed his chest pains as a panic attack. Years later, Amanda’s husband would succumb to the same heart condition Amber’s mother had discovered that night, but if it hadn’t been for her mother’s quick thinking, Amanda would have had to bury her husband ten years too soon.
When her mother fell in love with Chapel Springs right off the bat, Amber wasn’t the least bit surprised. But when she called a few days later to inform Amber she was moving there for good, Amber’s jaw hit the floor.
Amanda Crawford’s invite, it turned out, had been twofold.
The woman had just purchased an old ranch house she planned to transform into a luxury bed and breakfast and she’d invited the four nurses who had saved her husband’s life that long ago night to join her in the endeavor. And all of them had accepted. Including Amber’s mom. Never mind that The Haven Creek Inn wasn’t due to open for another year and a half.
Four years later, Haven Creek, as locals called it, was considered one of the premiere travel destinations in all of Texas. And it comforts Amber to think of her mother there now, safe, serene, surrounded by both beautiful country and the wonderful group of women who helped walk her through her grief over her husband’s death.
“Stay put, momma,” Amber says. “I think I’m gonna be okay.”
“Caleb’s got everything under control?”
“Something like that. Did you know all that stuff about the trust?”
“I knew your father and Caleb had a lot of conversations about it and they didn’t include me. Like I said, the connection between those two…it was special. I tried not to intrude.”
“And Joel?”
“What do you mean?” her mother asks.
“Did you have any doubts about him?”
“Amber, you have to stop doing this to yourself.”
“Doing what?”
“Beating yourself up like this. Marriage is a roll of the dice and you never know how it’s going to come out.”
“But you can’t win if you don’t play?”
“If you want to be sarcastic, that’s fine, I guess.”
“I figure I’m allowed.”
“Maybe for another few weeks.”
“Remember that expression Daddy used to always say?”
“Which one?”
“Sometimes the road rises up to beat you instead of meet you.”
“Oh, yeah. He stopped saying it after what happened to Caleb’s parents.”
“He only reserved it for the big things too. Not the everyday stuff. The big plans that went off the rails.”
“I remember.”
“Like a marriage. Think he’d use it now?”
“Well, he stopped using it altogether
after Tim and Abby were killed, so no, I don’t think he would. And this sounds suspiciously like you beating yourself up again so I’m not going to sign off on it.”
“What about this thing I do with the dartboard? I took Joel’s picture and I—”
“You told me about that already. That’s fine.”
“Okay. Good. Also, my boss is kinda sending me to a sex club,” Amber adds.
“Hold, please,” her mother says quietly.
“Uh huh,” Amber answers, steeling herself for what’s to come.
Her mother places one hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and politely asks whoever’s in the office with her to leave. Amber hears chair legs scrape wood floor, then her mother says, “A what?”
“A sex club. But it costs a lot of money. So I’m sure it’s real nice.”
“Your boss, Belinda Baxter, who has twice been on the cover of Texas Monthly, is sending you to a sex club?”
“I kinda had the same reaction when she said it.”
“But you’re going anyway.”
“Yes…” At least, she thinks she is.
When Freddy, Belinda’s driver, brought her home from Watson’s earlier that day, Belinda had departed for a day full of lunch, fitness classes, shopping, probably a few stops off at some places that served fine wine in a comforting environment, and then some more shopping.
A note had been waiting for her on Belinda’s desk. Stick to the light list for the rest of the day, it said, referring to the list of long-term household projects she was supposed to focus on in between managing Belinda’s social calendar and travel schedule. Will call you later tonight about TDE.
“I figure it’ll relax me,” Amber says.
“A weekend out here at The Haven Creek Inn will relax you. We have two massage therapists now.”
“It’s probably not the same.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s not the same, Amber. That’s my point. If relaxation’s what you’re after, it can be achieved in other ways.”
“Okay, fine! It’s not just what I’m after.”
“As long as you’re admitting to it.”
“Momma, it’s been a year since that man kissed me on the mouth. I tried everything to get things going in the bedroom again. Everything. And he treated me like I was some kind of desperate, needy freak. And the whole time, he was—”