Heartland (37 page)
“This is real, I mean, you're not kidding me or anything.”
JayJay just kept spinning his hat.
“No. I mean. Of course. You're the straightest shooter I've ever met. How could you not be telling the truth?”
JayJay then related what the Riverside pastor, Floyd Cummins, had told him. About God having planted him there because a different kind of person was needed. Peter nodded in time to the words. “Makes all the sense in the world, in a bizarre kind of way. I mean, you haven't been around Hollywood much. What am I saying, I'm no expert on the place. Writers are semi-tolerated only because their work is required. But if Hollywood ever found a computer that could replace us, we'd have weights tied to our ankles and be dropped off Catalina.” He realized he was babbling but couldn't stop. So long as he talked he didn't need to try to get his mind around what he had just heard. Which was, basically, he was seated next to a flesh-and-blood rendition of a character from a TV show. One who had suddenly appeared out of a scene he himself, after weeks of outright desperation, had been unable to complete. “But there's no place in this world for people like you. I mean, the person you're supposed to be playing. No, that's not right, I mean the person you reallyâ”
“Mr. Caffrey?”
Peter was so caught up in what he was struggling to say that it took a moment to refocus on the guy in blue. “I'm Dr. Khandahar. We spoke earlier.”
Peter started to rise, but his legs suddenly refused to respond.
The doctor settled into the chair on Peter's other side. “Congratulations. You have two lovely baby girls. My guess is they are identical twins, but it's too early to know for certain.”
After babbling away before, he could hardly get his mouth to form the single word. “Cynthia?”
“She is in recovery. We had an unexpected complication and needed to fully sedate her, which is why the procedure took so long.” He was a slender olive-skinned gentleman with pianist's hands. His eyes were both deep and expressionless. As was his tone. A calm and softly accented voice that was made to deliver difficult news. “I wish I could wait before discussing this, Mr. Caffrey. But my experience has shown that women have a remarkable ability to sense these things long before they should perhaps be told.”
Peter felt JayJay's hand reach over and take his own. It was the first time he had held another man's hand except in prayer. But, then again, that was probably what JayJay was doing now. At least in his heart. Peter's mind was tumbling fast so he could process all these thoughts, while grabbing hold of nothing save the yawning void at the center of his being.
“I'm sorry to have to tell you that your wife will not be able to have any more children, Mr. Caffrey. In a couple of days the three of us can sit down and I will give you both the full details. Right now, what is important is that you need to be there for your wife. You must be strong. You must reassure her, and help her focus upon the fact that you are now parents of two lovely, wonderful little girls.”
When Peter could not speak, JayJay said softly, “Thank you, Doctor.”
The doctor seemed to find the words coming from someone else, a rawboned cowboy who gripped Peter's hand, totally natural. He rose from his chair. “I'll have the nurse take you back for a moment with your wife.”
JayJay watched Peter stumble into the back corridor. He had heard Cynthia talk about them both wanting a big family often enough to know this was not going to be easy. But Peter took the blow to their future hopes with the resilience of one who had to be strong for someone else. Going in to deal with a woman who would wake up soon and look into her husband's face and find what she needed to get through this. The love of a good man who was there for her.
When the doors closed behind the doctor and the husband, JayJay leaned back. He lifted his hat and set it down low over his eyes. Hiding as much of his face as he could from the outside world because he felt as hollow as a well gone dry.
He had seen it in the writer's face. How his tale was both impossible and yet probably true.
JayJay sifted through the tumbling thoughts, allowing one to come to the forefront. And not a thought but an image. Of a woman with hair the color of harvest leaves and a wisdom that came only from standing on solid ground and staring out at horizons as straight and full as heaven's meadow.
How was he supposed to be real for a woman like that? He winced from the ache of knowing Kelly's mother had been right to question him. Truth be told, he was
less
than the actors she detested without knowing them. At least they had a past. At least they could lay claim to a future beyond what somebody else wrote upon the page.
The pocket of his denims started chirping. JayJay realized he had forgotten to give back Peter's phone after calling Britt. He pulled it out and stared at it a moment. Knowing he had to answer. Dreading what he had to say.
Kelly said, “JayJay, I know I told you we'd wait to hear. But I thought, I don't know, maybe you'd heard and had need of somebody else being there for you.”
He felt the hot needles sear into the back of his eyeballs. He squeezed them shut. “Oh, Kelly.”
“Wait, honey. Just wait a second. Come over here, Claire. Take my hand. Okay, JayJay. I'm ready. Tell us what you know.”
Which was the problem. He didn't hardly know a thing
.
“Go on, darling.” Kelly's voice carried so much love he felt it crimp him up inside, balling him up like a little fist-size bundle of denim and flesh. “How are the babies?”
“Both fine. Two girls. The doctor thinks they might be identical twins.”
Her voice broke over the name. “Cynthia?”
“She's gonna be okay. She's got Peter. She's got her babies.”
“Wait just a second.” Kelly did not mask the phone as she related the news to the others. “Okay, JayJay. Now tell me what's gotten you so broken up.”
He sighed around a badly wounded heart. If only he could.
P
art of him wanted to just get in the truck and drive. Find a highway exit sign that read “Oblivion.” Hammer the pedal down so hard it welded to the floorboard. See how fast he could find the end of that road.
But the truck played like a good horse, holding steady to a modest speed, rumbling down the highway in the direction of home.
Home.
A word with meaning to every human being on earth except him.
JayJay caught a glance of his expression in the rearview mirror. His face was pinched up so tight he could not even see his own eyes. Like even the tiniest pinprick of light threatened to sear his brain.
The only thing that kept him aimed at the ranch was his promise to Britt. His vow to the people that had come to matter so much to him. People who
relied
on him to be there and give his best. Every time the raw wound started to reopen, JayJay pounded the wheel, doing his best to seal it shut. He would not let them down.
Before he pulled into the lot, Kelly had already bounded from the cabin and was racing across the dusty foreground. The sun followed her. A cloud moved aside, so the illumination could rest upon her flying hair. JayJay was frozen in place by her beauty. He could not even reach over and shut off his motor. Not even when he no longer saw her clearly. Just the light that followed her everywhere.
She tore open the door and grabbed him. Not willing even to give him time to climb down, if he could. She reached inside and fitted herself to him. Breathing for him.
Kelly cut off the engine and pulled him out of the truck, all without releasing her hold. She stood there in plain view of the entire company, molded to him. Finally she stepped away and said, “You just come on with me.”
She drew him to the corral, where Felicita had Skye and another dappled mare saddled and ready. Though the Mexican wrangler said nothing, her expression showed a remarkable ability to share pain. Kelly stood and made sure he could rise to the saddle. Then she hoisted herself up with a horsewoman's ease. “You want to lead out?”
JayJay took the cottonwood trail. The one he knew so well he could have tracked it blindfolded, backward, in driving hail. They wound by the spring and followed the path along the meandering stream. Along the valley floor, through a sweetly scented meadow and into the orchard beyond. The one he had played in as a child. An orchard he had inherited from his uncle and leased out to a neighbor.
All lies.
When they were surrounded by the carefully tended trees, Kelly said, “Let's hold up here.”
JayJay followed her lead. He slipped down from the saddle and tied Skye to a branch within easy reach of some grass. He slipped the bits from both horses' mouths. Kelly gripped his hand and led him back to the last band of cottonwoods. She said, “All right, JayJay. Now tell me what you couldn't manage over the phone.”
He had no power of resistance. Though it meant stirring up the whole mess a second time, he did as she ordered. Just started back in the bus and stumbled his way all the way up to the present.
She stood and watched him as he croaked out the last word and just stopped. Unable to move on his own strength.
When Kelly spoke, it was in the same calm voice she used every morning. “Let's say for the time being that all this is true. You've been drawn over from some parallel universe. Dropped into a reality that fits and doesn't fit.”
“I don't see how you can be so calm about it. This ain't your normal ordinary past we're talking about here.”
“No, it's not.”
“But you're not disturbed? Worried? Fretting over standing here with a man who can't exist?”
“But you
do
exist, JayJay. You're about the most real person I've ever met. And the rest of this, well, either I believe you or I don't. And to my knowledge, you have never, not once in all the time we've been together, given me anything but the absolute truth. You don't have any idea . . .”
The first sign of the tumult within her came in the way she wiped her eyes, angrily fisting one and then the other. “Never mind. This isn't about me or my own awful tales. JayJay, listen to me. I've got something to tell you, and I want to make sure you're paying full attention.”
“You're the only thing that's holding me together right now, and that's the honest truth.”
For some reason, what he said was enough for another quick swipe of each eye. “JayJay Parsons, John Junior, however you got here, whatever past you're carrying. Right here, right now, I love you. With all my heart. With every breath.”
“Kelly . . .” His feeble gesture toward her was halted by one upraised hand.
When she was certain he was staying where he was, she went on, “I never thought I would ever use those words again. I thought my ability to love had been cauterized by my own awful past. But here I am. And I'll tell you what I know. What I'm
certain
of. That whatever it is you have to face, I will be there with you. Long as you let me. I'm here for you. Because that is who
I
am.”
He felt the confession was going to tear the fabric of his throat. “I'm so scared.”
“I know you are.”
“What happens . . .” He swallowed, and the effort bunched him over.
He spoke to the dry leaves rustling around his feet. “What happens if we start down this road together, and whatever it is that brought me here takes me away again?”
“Then a part of me will wither and blow away.” Her voice cracked. She fought her own internal battle and managed to steady herself. “But life offers no lovers any assurance. It's just the way things are. We are together now. We do what the Good Book tells us. Live this one day. Be thankful for the gifts we have. Trust in the Lord for tomorrow and all the days beyond.”
She waited for him to object further. When he said nothing more, Kelly went on, “We have to be strong right now. We need to set aside all these concerns, because people are counting on us.”
“I know that.”
“Of course you do. That's who you are.” She moved in then, touched his arms, and lifted them until they were settled around her. When she was nestled in close, she said, “Now the next time you start to worry about how real you are, tell me what you're going to do.”
JayJay found the answer there in her gaze. “Reach for you.”
“Reach for me. Find what you need right here to reassure you. Whatever else might be happening.”
“This is a miracle, Kelly.”
“You got that right.” She smiled then, and came closer still. “And here's another.”
P
eter's days were not so much frantic as completely and utterly filled. Either he was with Cynthia or he worked with Britt on changes to the script. Pushing through the work at warp speed, because he was literally twelve hours ahead of the camera. He did some of his very best work seated at Cynthia's bedside, scribbling on a yellow legal pad while she slept or held the children.
Their children.
The words were so alien, just to think them meant he had to stop and look over. Drawn from one amazing world to another. Sharing time with this incredible woman who understood him so well his one look in the twins' direction was enough. Because she really was incredible. Able to take the demolishing of her lifelong dream and just set it aside for the moment. Mothering a large family was the first personal goal she had shared when they accepted that they were both in love and contemplating a life together. She wanted a houseful of children. She didn't care how politically incorrect it was, or behind the times, or anything. If she could have twelve children, she wanted them all. But now with everything that was pressing down on both their lives, Cynthia put the shattered dream to one side. Not suppressed it. Just packed it away for a while. Until this current craziness was over, and the kids were home, and she was stronger, and he could be there for her. Then there would be time for tears and prayer and searching for wisdom about tomorrow.
