Thunder Snow (Thunder On The Mountain Series) Page 15

  Hello, my friend. PLEASE call. I didn’t care if I sounded desperate, I wasn’t sure I could survive if he was gone, but I couldn’t possibly think that way. Surely he couldn’t leave like that, could he? Fortunately, there was so much to do that it was a diversion.

  I’ll be heading home tonight. If you’re around, please, Jack, please, let’s talk

  As I headed back to Nederland, panic started to set in. How would I be able to walk in there? Maybe he would be waiting for me. That thought was encouraging. Maybe I was totally wrong, and the fire would be lit and Jack would have a meal ready.

  The lights were out and the house was cold. I didn’t know how I was going to open the front door. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to make it. I flipped on a few lights, and everything was as it had been. The chess set sat on the dining table. I let out a sob.

  As I went to get firewood, I passed the stairs to Callie’s Eyrie. I remembered the day I came home when he had it finished. There was not a square inch here that he didn’t inhabit. Please, God, let me be wrong. Let him be coming back.

  I brought as much warmth as I could in the stillness. I fixed some eggs because I had to have something to eat, not because I was hungry. Were I not pregnant, I would have gone days without eating. I sat on the bed and opened my computer.

  Dear Jack. You have to know what you’re doing to me. It’s so hard to even breathe. It’s like you took the breath from my body when you walked out. Please. There is no part of me that understands this. Even if you need time, don’t you think I need an explanation?

  Dear Jack ~ I don’t know where you are, but you never leave me. My thoughts are so jumbled, and I keep writing, trying to make sense of it all. I’m home now, but I’m not alone. You are in every part of this house. There is not one place I look and don’t see you standing there, laughing at me, holding your arms open for me, kissing me. And somehow, I keep breathing. I’m not sure how, but I'm always surprised by it.

  I lay down on the bed where we had spent so many memorable nights and mornings. My tears were making

  the pillow wet, but I wasn’t even aware I was crying. I didn’t know how to stop. Sleep, blessed sleep, finally overtook me. I knew my body was weary, but I couldn’t shut my brain off. As much as I was able, I knew sleep was the best thing for me. Not only did the baby need it, but my sanity needed it. It was such a relief.

  Neither Sam nor Sunni had seen him nor heard from him, and I knew both of them were concerned for me. Somehow, I made it through the day. I was becoming fearful of the nights. In the middle of the night when I woke up, I forgot for just a minute where I was, that Jack had been gone for three days. When I realized, the pain was so intense I cried out. I opened my computer and my fingers flew over the keyboard.

  Oh, Jack. How can I bear this?

  You were a lightning bolt

  Out of a clear sky

  How did I get here?

  I was so content

  I wasn’t looking for this

  But there you were

  We were immediately intense

  Hostile, Playful, Flirtatious

  Immediate sexual desire

  Sexual need – Dear God

  There was so much attraction

  So much affection

  So many words

  We shared caring and friendship and love

  There were embers, flaring at times

  But the intensity of friendship

  Outweighed it all

  We would meet and climb the clawing, needing desire

  The flames

  Would take us back to gentle friendship

  Only to flare again

  ‘We’ll be friends forever, little one’ – just words

  I miss you so much

  I’m so tired of crying

  You would touch so often – text, emails, calls

  So many words

  Always words, always loving, touches

  We were so far past you going to ground

  You gave me love

  You promised me honesty

  You broke your promises

  Was it all a lie?

  ‘We’ll be friends forever, little one’ – just words

  I miss you so much

  I’m so tired of crying

  But you chose differently

  Silence – painful deafening heart-piercing silence

  No more words

  Such intense pain

  Such total loss

  Is this best? Dear God, how can it be?

  Does this mean you are stronger than I?

  Or does this mean you never truly cared?

  Where was the truth?

  Where was the lie?

  So much loss

  So much emptiness

  I just want to hide

  I want to cry

  I can’t stop my heart from bleeding

  But more than any of that, I want to heal

  How could you?

  How can you?

  How can you turn it off just like that?

  How can we be so intense and then

  The only intensity I have

  is gut wrenching silence?

  How can you scream so loudly into my heart

  And breathe so tenderly into my soul

  For so long – so often

  And just not care anymore?

  ‘We’ll be friends forever, little one’ – just words

  I miss you so much

  I’m so tired of crying

  Was it a lie? Were the words not real?

  How could I have been so wrong?

  Were we not past this?

  How could you? – Don’t stop – stop

  Just words

  How could you so easily let go?

  Be gone?

  Be such a coward?

  I thought I knew you

  All right – let me go if you think it’s best

  But where is our honesty?

  Where are the words?

  Was I so deceived?

  How can I know in this silence?

  Don’t lie – I need the truth

  Silence has become your lie

  It is breaking me

  You KNOW me – why are you hiding?

  Why are you cheating us?

  Where is our core? Our friendship? Our caring?

  ‘We’ll be friends forever, little one’ – just words

  I miss you so much

  I’m so tired of crying

  At every corner I search for my best friend

  His shoulder to ease my pain

  Friends don’t stab fatally

  Without caring, do they?

  I know the wrenching ache will fade

  Dear God, please tell me it has to

  The tears, the blood will dry

  I’ll be normal again, yes?

  I wait constantly for relief

  ‘We’ll be friends forever, little one’ – just words

  I miss you so much

  I’m so tired of crying

  Dear God . . .

  I fell into a fitful sleep, and the sun was shining when I woke up. I had gotten some rest. Surely I would feel better now. For a while I was fine. For a while I was able to do things around the house, fix a meal, clean the kitchen. But there was no way to shut off my brain. I just wanted to talk to him.

  Dear Jack. Do you remember the movie with Richard Gere and Diana Lane called Unfaithful? While I have actually never seen it, I have heard about the ending so many times, and I have thought about it many times recently in different contexts.

  Specifically, how much of our life do we chose where we never consider the consequences? She is a bored housewife, he a businessman. They are set in their ways, living life with no passion. She has never thought of being unfaithful until she meets a dynamic young Frenchman who has a passion for life . . . a total passion.

  They literally run into each other on the streets of NY, and he invites her up to his apartment to help her out. She watches
the taxi go by, and decides to take him up on his offer. They begin an affair. Her husband finds out about it and goes to see the young man. When he sees a snow globe that is in the young man’s apartment that the husband had given to his wife, in a fit of rage, he hits the young Frenchman with the globe, killing him. Everyone’s life is ruined.

  The movie is set in flashbacks, and she relives the scene where she meets him again. She imagines, “What if I had said ‘no’? What if I had gotten into the taxi and driven away?”

  So often over the past few days I have thought of that. Would I have changed walking into the Amber Rose? Would I have found some other little hamlet to escape to where there was no Jack Franklin? Would I have rather avoided what we had to be able live with what I have now? At what point would I have changed things? What different path would I have chosen?

  And I keep coming back to the same place. I hate thinking of making different decisions because the decisions we’ve made make us who we are. They have brought us where we are today, with all of the inherent joy of how we got here, and the amazing, life altering pain I am now feeling. Would I trade being pregnant? Never, but I wonder how you can be so indifferent. Soon, I know I will have to get on with my life. But now I have to learn how to put one step in front of the other again to be able to do that.

  Would I have been better for not having known you? I can’t ever believe that is possible. But right now, I can’t believe it’s possible I will ever be normal again, even though I have to trust that I will be. One day soon I will have to find the answer to my question; the wondering if I continue down the path of waiting for you, or will there come a time soon where I will have to make new decisions that will cause a change in life’s trajectory? I can’t fathom that today. I can’t face the possibility.

  So I continue to wait. I wonder how I survive when you have taken every vital part of me. Please, Jack, please. I need so desperately to hear from you.

  It wasn’t even noon yet, but I was so tired. Tired of crying, tired of thinking, tired of being awake. I crawled under the covers and fell asleep . . . welcome, blissful sleep.

  It was late afternoon, and I knew I couldn’t stay where I was. I didn’t want to leave the house, so maybe I could go up to Callie’s Eyrie and take some pictures. As I rounded the last turn on the staircase, I remembered clearly looking up and seeing Jack standing there. I remembered feeling that life was complete, and believing I would always be as happy as I was in that moment. What a fool. And I was a fool for thinking I could go up and take pictures. I turned and headed back to the living room.

  Seeing the chess set sitting on the table, my first notion was to pick it up and throw it piece by piece, destroying it as I was being destroyed. But I couldn’t do it. When I picked up the first piece, no matter my pain, I knew I could never destroy something that was almost lifelike. I cried as I picked up the first piece and ran my thumb over her carved robe. I cried at the thought of the heart that had made it, conceived it. I opened the box and reset the pieces one by one. Even the workmanship of the box was so clever, and I could see so clearly in my mind’s eye the joy of playing chess with Jack.

  Please, let me believe I would be able to touch those memories one day without the exquisite pain involved. But not today. I began to rush through the task, just wanting them out of my sight. I thought about the Amber Rose, but I didn’t want to face anyone. Warring emotions, puffy face, incredible heartache. I just couldn’t do it. I finally settled on a book that I found on the shelf. It was a bestseller, surely it would occupy some time.

  But I didn’t care. I didn’t see the words on the page, just kept reliving the last time I saw Jack. It was almost 9:00 pm. It would be okay to go to sleep now, right? Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Saw him in the bed next to me. Saw him in the kitchen. Saw him with Sam. I couldn’t drink alcohol because of the baby, but I craved the sweet oblivion. Amazingly, I slept until morning.

  If my days were going to be like this, how was I going to make it? There is no way I would survive. Jack was too much a part of this place now. I wasn’t sure I could ever be content here again. After a day of virtually not moving, I called Marge. I knew what street Jack lived on up here, but I didn’t know the exact address. I would ask Marge to find it for me. I don’t know what I was going to do with it. I couldn't imagine he was there, but I needed to know.

  I mentally chided myself that I was going to be able to understand and appreciate the mentality of a stalker before this was over. I could feel that desperation, the insanity of needing to know where he was. Was he hurting like I was, was he with someone else, how could he have just walked away, no contact? I didn’t know what to think, all I knew was I wanted the pain to end.

  When she called me back, I knew it didn’t bode well when her first words were, “Are you sitting down?”

  “What is it, Marge? Just tell me, dammit.”

  Marge had been as gentle as possible, but there hadn't been any way to cushion the blow. “Oh, honey, he owns that house—and several other houses—with his wife.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The phone fell to the floor as the numbness permeated my body. I could hear that Marge was still talking, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. My greatest fear was what was going to happen to me when the numbness wore off?

  Was it possible to feel nothing, absolutely nothing at all? I put on my coat and stepped outside. The snow was starting to fall, and the ground looked like fairy dust, but I didn't care. I didn't notice when my hands started to freeze, and I didn't notice when people called to me to hurry home, or offered me a ride, or asked if I was okay. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

  Jack has a wife, I am going to have his baby. Jack has a wife, I am going to have his baby. It was all I could grasp. I continued on mindlessly, not wanting to think, certainly not wanting to feel. Somewhere along the way I realized I was the only one now who would be there for our baby, no MY baby. Just the thought brought me up short. I became aware of my surroundings and didn't have a clue where I was. The sun was setting and the snow was falling hard. There was another life I had to take care of now. I had to pull myself together no matter how much pain I was in.

  I hurriedly retraced my footprints in the snow, hoping to catch their trail to a familiar path before the snow covered them completely. The cold in my hands and feet was suddenly unbearable. I slipped once or twice, cut my hand on a jutting rock, all the while realizing I had to get home, had to get in out of the cold.

  I crested the hill and saw the lights and the smoke from the chimneys below. I knew where I was and hurried to get inside, to get warm. Maybe Jack would be waiting for me. NO! He was gone. He'd never be waiting again. How was I going to make it? How could he have lied to me so completely? How could Sam and my father have let it happen? Was it possible I was truly that blind? Was I blind because I had wanted to be?

  Cold, numb, bruised, I hurried to the sanctuary of my bath, purposefully avoiding noticing my surroundings. There wasn't an inch of this place that Jack hadn't permeated. But I wouldn't think of that right now, I had to get warm. I struggled to remove my boots with my frozen hands. I seemed to be in slow motion as I tried to remove my clothes. Finally, blessedly, I slipped under the warm water— and started sobbing.

  The sobs drowned out the sound of the running water. I was warm but I was numb. I didn’t want to think, but I remembered that first morning Jack had walked into the room while I was in the tub. Please, no, I didn’t want to feel. I just wanted oblivion.

  In the morning I awoke in my bed. I don’t remember how or when I got there. The phone was ringing, but it didn't matter who it was, I didn't want to speak to anyone. I stayed under the covers and watched the snowfall, turned the ringer off, and slept some more. The sun was setting the next time I woke. I figured it was the growling in my stomach that had awakened me, and knew I would have to get something to eat.

  The pounding wouldn’t stop. What WAS that noise? Pl
ease, just go away. But the pounding continued. I threw the covers off and opened the door. Sam was wagging his finger at me.

  “Ya been holed up here long enough. Why ain’t ya answering yer phone? Yer pa is worried sick about ya. Good God almighty, young ‘un. What's the matter with ya? Ya sick?! Ya look like hell.”

  “Nothing, Sam. Please, just leave me in peace.”

  “When was the last time ya had a decent meal in ya?”

  “I have no idea. Thank you for checking on me. I’m fine, now go.”

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. If ya lock this door I’m gonna pound it down. Ya gonna eat if I have ta spoon feed ya like a baby."

  True to his word, he came back with a plate piled high. Just the thought of it made me nauseated, but Sam insisted I have some of it. When I had eaten all that I could, he packed the rest away and put it in the refrigerator.

  “Ya get hungry, ya just pull that out. It’ll be good fer the next few days.”

  “Thank you, Sam. I don’t want to be mean, but please just leave me alone.”

  “Ya’ll know I ken be here in two minutes flat. All ya gotta do is ask.”

  “I know, thank you.”

  As he was walking out the door, I said, “Sam, why didn’t you tell me that Jack was married?”

  “WHAT?!!!” he asked. “Who told ya that?”

  “My secretary found out that Jack’s house here, and his other houses all over the State, are owned by he and his wife. Why didn’t you and Daddy ever tell me? Did you not understand how close Jack and I were?”

  “Oh, sweet child, ya got it all wrong.”

  “Just go, Sam. I can’t take any more right now,” I said as I closed and locked the door.

  Two hours later, there was a pounding on the door again.

  “Sweet Jesus, can’t you people just leave me in peace?” I shouted as I opened the door. It was my father, who pushed right past me and came into the living room. “Sam’s right, you DO look like hell.”

  “Sam needs to mind his own business.”

  “Sam’s concerned about you, and rightly so. Oh, honey, you got it all wrong. We need to talk.”

  I headed into the kitchen to get some food, suddenly hungry. “Have you eaten yet?” I asked. “Sam brought some food up earlier. I'll fix it for both of us.