Song of Renewal (11 page)

Liza proceeded to style her pixyish blond hair with a little help from a curling iron. Not that she needed it. In the near hundred-degree humidity today, the natural curl would regenerate on its own. The process merely kept her occupied and away from Garrison.

She heard Garrison’s commotion and felt his annoyance as he pulled the shoes in question from his closet shelf, and she heard the bedsprings creak as he sat to slide his feet into them.

Even with walls separating them, his agitation pounced at her, snarling and snapping, but she didn’t bat a long, mascaraed eyelash. Nor did she look at him when he returned to snatch up his own nearby hairbrush and flick it through his thick, softly waved mahogany hair, which like her own would disarray itself in time.

No, she didn’t dare look or he might see the hunger in her eyes. Oh yeah. It was there. With anger’s adrenaline rush came sexual awareness, an earthy thing with a life all its own. Liza swore that, in their chemistry concoction, anger and desire were first cousins. Garrison’s maleness radiated, spontaneous and bold, awakening the beast she’d sent into hibernation.

It was especially difficult when she looked at him. He was classically handsome, with brooding, elegant features and body. The guy couldn’t help it. She sighed deeply, tamping down passion. He was something else. Even in his icy remoteness, his features were all exotically carved planes and angles of masculinity. Fighting with him was especially threatening because he was magnificent at making up.

The brain was traitorous in its vivid sensual recall.

Beastly dependable.

Eyes carefully averted, she heard him spin on his heel and stalk away, muttering under his breath. From the vanity mirror, her eyes stared back at her, inordinately sad, bereft of things vital – things once sacred and unquestioned.

She walked into the bedroom, knowing Garrison’s favorite fragrance, Givenchy’s Ysatis, swirled lightly about her, and she saw his head lift like a jungle beast sniffing a kill. It was the only choice light enough to wear around a respiratory-challenged Angel.

She inadvertently glimpsed his face and the predatory glint in his eye. She quickly looked away, but not before awareness slammed her like a Mack truck.

God, he’s gorgeous.
His anger gave him a look of danger that, perversely, whipped her senses into a dither. She didn’t dare gaze into those eyes, whose shade fluctuated from onyx to mahogany in a heartbeat, depending upon his mood. Once she did, she was lost.

It would be difficult, but she would numb out to him. True, a lot of their earlier passion had waned. Sadly. It happened in a lot of marriages, didn’t it? Time alone could erode romance’s sharp edge. But it didn’t kill the spark. And after all these years of their being one in body, soul and spirit, she wouldn’t bring about apathy overnight. It would take time.

She walked briskly ahead of him to the Jaguar, where he politely opened the door for her to slide in.

She ordered her heart to cease its pounding. Then she concentrated on distancing herself. For self-preservation. Yes, it would take time. But she’d gone this thing solo from the night of the accident, and knew she could go on with or without Garrison’s reassurance or comfort, relying on her own self-parenting and survival skills.

With the help of the good Lord, she would stop caring.

chapter seven

Sunlight and shadow dappled Garrison as he strode down the wooded slope into the forest oasis. His black Reebok walking shoes crunched over golden pine-needle carpet as solar rays warmed him and drove back the chill of sadness and despair that dogged each step he took.

He’d left Liza at the hospital, telling her that he needed to go to the office for a spell. Actually, he’d felt overwhelmed to the point of suffocation and needed some time alone. Needed to chill – level out, to become one with creation again. So he’d found himself driving here. Perhaps being here, in his and Liza’s corner of paradise, would somehow offset the stress of recent days and jar loose some positive, embedded recalls from his
remember when
canvas. He desperately needed something good to hang on to.

He lowered himself into the rustic wooden swing and began to push himself in a slow, lulling cadence. He inhaled nature’s scents, a lush blend of sun-warmed pine trees, foliage, and water. With each backward motion, he closed his eyes and turned loose of
now
. During forward thrusts, he opened his psyche to
then
.

His head lolled back lazily, stirring memories that burst free and surfaced. Two in particular leaped at him.

The first was the day his parents visited the newlyweds in their little rented bungalow and handed them a clear title-deed to half the Wakefields’ expansive rural properties. “We want you and Liza to have this. An added wedding gift.” His father cleared his throat, blinked moist eyes, and added, “We thought about it and decided it was the right thing to do. If you wish, you may sell off some plots to help finance building a house.” Garrison later did this.

“We’re retiring to Florida,” his mother gushed, overcome with emotion, realizing her lifelong dream of getting away from it all. The words had caused familiar hurt to well up, then churn, until Garrison reminded himself that, heck, he’d lived it all his life, that
pushed away
thing, interrupted by intermittent spells such as that day’s memory
.
If only he’d had a sibling – as Liza had had in Charlcy – to buffer the lonely shipwreck of his life. But that would have been doubly distressing for his parents, since Garrison himself had not been planned. So Garrison had – like the brave, strong young man that he was – developed the fine art of self-parenting and meeting his own needs.

That settled, he had willed the inner hardness to snap back into place.

The armadillo shell that protected him was more and more his friend and sanctuary.

He now recalled that, after his father’s presentation on that long ago day, exultation over the land gift had swept through him, transporting him from despair to a sunburst horizon. After all those years of jerked-around psyche, he’d become quite agile at springing back.

“We sold the other half to the Bailey family,” his father explained. “Good folks.”

“They plan to use it for a dairy farm,” his mother injected, still visibly buoyed by the turn of events. Garrison, even now, felt happiness for her, for his parents and their untethered lifestyle.

Today, sitting in the swing overlooking the lily pond, he almost laughed at that term. He rolled his eyes – his parents’ untethered lifestyle was not, after all, a startling new entity. At least not where Garrison fit into the equation. To their credit, they’d given him a relatively good upbringing and education. They certainly weren’t abusive. They just weren’t always
there.

But in recent years they’d mellowed and seemed to reach out to him more, to realize his significance in their earthly jaunt. People could, after all, change. He’d decided to be more forgiving and understanding, hadn’t he? Liza had helped him on that score. Her mercy was free and generous and, at times, it splashed over and into him. She swore Garrison’s parents loved him. Measured against her own early hellish parental experience, he agreed with her that bottom line, his folks weren’t so bad.

Liza’s constant reinforcement had been a soothing, validating balm. Sure, being the excluded one still stung at times. But its ferocity had ebbed with time. It passed over him, sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly, like water over a shifting oilcloth. At times it puddled and loitered, but eventually Garrison leveled his attitude and it drained away until the next tumult.

He stirred restlessly in the weathered wooden swing, hung by chains from a bold oak limb. He pushed away encroaching dark thoughts and beckoned the memory of that first walk.

That walk. Aah. The building site had been perfect for their dream home, as was the lay of the land for Garrison’s vision. But it was when he spanned the open field and entered the forest that first time that his heart nearly leaped from his chest.

The little pond lay in the bowl of the great forest, beneath a late afternoon sun that filtered through tall pines, oaks, maples, and poplars. In that heartbeat, Garrison’s artist mind saw it as it would be – expanded and covered with crimson and white lilies riding vibrant green pads. He saw that removing some of the trees canopied over the water would open up the sky. Sunlight would spill over the entire scene. Sun and water would become one in a glorious explosion of golden light, with the colorful bouquet dancing over its sparkling surface.

Garrison had drawn up the plans for The Oasis, as he and Liza eventually named it. Later, during the early stages of house groundbreaking, he’d arranged with his contractors to secretly clear out strategic forest trees and leave others until it was just right.

A covered shed was structured, one part for storage and the pavilion end open and available for dining or simply snoozing in the shade. A practical shelter, too, from sudden southern showers. Other picnic tables ambled over the golden forest floor, relaxed and welcoming.

The pond was enlarged and hardy water lilies added. The choice was low maintenance, one that thrived in the southern climate that segued from near tropical summer temperatures to mild winters that occasionally crisped to brief ice.

He opened his eyes today and saw it in its full beauty. Yet – his heart still sagged with heaviness, for what had been in those days and for what no longer was. He’d painstakingly hidden The Oasis from Liza all those months, wanting her discovery of it to be unforgettable. He’d wanted to blow her away with surprise and delight.

And he had. He squeezed his eyes shut, reliving the moment – the day of the picnic – when he’d allowed her to remove the blindfold after leading her down the forest slope.

“Open your eyes,” he’d whispered, and when she did, those extraordinary blue eyes had rounded like a child’s on Christmas morning discovering Santa’s treasures or seeing a fireworks display for the very first time.

“Oh…my…God.” The words conveyed and vibrated her sentiments all in one exhaled gush. Shock. Joy. Jubilation. Everything in her tone trickled along his soul’s strings and he was certain he’d never experienced a more fulfilling moment in his entire life. She’d hugged him fiercely, speechless with bliss, clinging like a June bug for endless rapturous moments before spinning away and dancing like a pixie all over The Oasis until, breathless, she’d plopped into the swing.

Then she’d watched him sprint back to the car to gather the basket and picnic paraphernalia they’d prepared earlier for what she’d thought would be a trip to Paris Mountain State Park.

Garrison would never forget the picnic – the lovely meal Liza had spread for them the day after they moved into their new house. Nearly five months pregnant, she remained lithe and light on her feet and breathtakingly beautiful after having weathered the first trimester’s siege of morning sickness.

Flapping open and covering the rustic table with a white tablecloth, and laying her best china and silver, Liza moved with a new sultry grace. Garrison drank in the sight of her, so serene and secure in her womanhood, breasts becomingly full, belly swelling with their child.
Theirs.
And his heart inflated till it nearly split his chest. He felt like a rooster crowing at the crack of dawn and not one whit ashamed of it.

That spring day, as they feasted on delicious southern fried chicken and Liza’s sublime cold, zesty dill-potato salad, Liza’s moist, bright gaze kept ambling back to the vibrant lily blossoms. At times, she wiped tears from her flushed rosy cheeks and shot him wide, wide smiles that plucked at his heartstrings.

He knew that, in a small way, this elaborate gift made up for his insistence upon penny pinching during those struggling days, ones that forced Liza to plunder consignment clothing shops and become a grocery coupon guru. Not that he was yet an exemplary provider, but he hoped that, soon, that would change.

Today, reality intruded and he opened his eyes.

He squelched thoughts of Angel’s mounting hospital costs.

Angel’s life did not have a price tag. He would live in a barn and subsist on bread and water if that would bring her back safely.

He blinked back the disheartening intrusion, frantically reconjuring and clinging tenaciously to memories of the picnic. He needed the surge of sustenance it gave him. It had been one of the highlight of his life. One so embedded in his memory that it would never fade. For long moments he engaged the euphoria of it, marinating in it until he felt a certain leveling out.

Garrison sighed deeply and reluctantly allowed the memory to ebb.

He gazed up into the tall pines and saw a squirrel soaring in glorious flight from one limb to another. He smiled. Spotting Garrison, the tiny creature froze in attack mode and let loose a screeching clatter of protest. Garrison’s smile grew.