The One Who Got Away: A Novel (14 page)

“You know Karen is up there,
smiling and laughing at me, knowing that her friends just can’t seem to leave
me alone.”  

“You know she is.” Olivine’s
throat closed for a moment. Grandpa was sitting still, and his chest shook
under his brown flannel shirt. After a moment, he looked up at her, and he smiled.

“I miss her, Ollie.”

“I know, Grandpa. I miss her,
too.” She put her hand on his. And they sat for a moment, not saying anything,
each looking at a different spot on the moss-colored tablecloth.

When he moved his hand from
beneath hers, she asked, “Is Mom coming today?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure she told
me, but I can’t remember. But I’m sure glad to see you, Olivine. How is your
nursing school going?” He hadn’t mentioned the engagement, so she assumed
Christine hadn’t told him.

“It’s going well.”

“Good. Are you enjoying it?”

“Well, no. Not terribly. But they
are just prerequisites.”

“Well, if you don’t like the
prerequisites, are you just a little bit worried? About the rest of it?”

“Nah. I’ll get through. We all
have to do things we don’t like. Right?”

“I suppose so. But it’s much more
fun to do things we
do
like.”

She thought back to Paul’s
princess comment. “Did you
always
love being a carpenter?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Always?”

“Well, I suppose there were days
I would rather be doing something else. Fishing or the like. But every day,
putting on my tool belt, the leather that fit just so, and opening my little
black toolbox. Why, even the smell of it. The smell of sawdust and of possibility
and of a good honest living. That always got me in the mood. I would work for a
time. And when I was finished, I would have something that didn’t exist when I
began. There’s something a mite bit magical about that.”

She nodded and took a tiny bite
of her cinnamon roll. 

“Speaking of carpenters,” Grandpa
said, “I found a right good one to do some work at the cabin.” He held his fork
near his mouth and watched her. “Doors. He specializes in doors. Has he started
yet, by chance?”

“He has, in fact,” she replied, trying
to keep her breathing even. “So, Grandpa, how did you come to find this
particular carpenter?”

“Grandma googled him. Months ago.”

She laughed. “Grandma
googled
him?
Of all the phrases I never imagined coming out of your mouth…How long have you
and Grandma been google-ing?”

“We took a class in it, actually.
A class in internet research, at the senior center.”

Olivine grinned at him.

“What? You don’t think people in
their eighties can Google?” He laughed.

“Well, did you know that
this
carpenter and I used to date. We used to be together? A long time ago.”

“Did you, now?” he asked, patting
her hand as it lay on the table.

“We did.”

“Huh. Well, all I know is that
the doors this man creates are magnificent. A little piece of history. I want
this door built for our home. Think of it as my legacy,” he said. “It’s a
carpenter thing.” He winked again.

“Alright, Grandpa.”

“And Olivine?”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“A favor. It’s very important.”

“Okay.”

“I need you to personally oversee
the project. Personally. For me. Okay?”

“Anything you say, Grandpa.” She
patted his hand again, and he gave her a barely upturned smile. She felt a
leaping in her belly.

*****

Olivine stayed in Grandpa’s
apartment, playing game after game of cribbage, until just after lunch when
Christine arrived and said Grandpa might need a rest. She kissed her
grandfather goodbye and drove slowly back toward home, arriving too late to
make it to class, but too early for Paul to be home.

The house was quiet and dark. She
sat down at the kitchen table and thumbed through the brochures. Then she stood.
She had a restless feeling in her arms and in her legs. She needed a run.
Another one. She unfolded a new set of running clothes from her
lavender-scented drawers. It seemed that, lately, the only time she was able to
think was when her legs were moving. Fast.

She would run out to the cabin
and back again. It was roughly a six-mile round trip. Ten kilometers. Perfect. She
would quickly check on Henry’s progress, so she could report back to Grandpa,
but because she was in the middle of a run, she wouldn’t be able to stay.

The evening was cool and she
could smell spring in the air. Fuzzy pods clung to the limbs of aspen trees.
The sun had begun to set along the ridge to the west, its slant drawing out the
shadows and making hers appear long and lean, as tall as the road itself. Her
feet struck the road, the gravel, the soil with a rhythm that was familiar,
comforting, like the sound of her own heartbeat and the steady puffs of her
breath. This time, she willed her mind to stay clear, allowing thoughts to roll
across her awareness like clouds on a windy day.

As she approached the driveway to
the cabin, she slowed her pace and her breathing. She rounded the bend at the
top in a slow jog, and there he was. Standing tall at a cut table on the front
porch. A carpenter’s pencil tucked behind his ear.

She hopped up the porch steps, looked
at her watch and checked her pulse, mostly so he could see that she was timing
herself. So he could see she wouldn’t be staying.  

“Olivine.” His voice was soft;
his face blank, relaxed. He held out his hand, palm up, and she placed her hand
in his. He regarded it for a moment, gave it a squeeze, and released it. “I
don’t think you gave me much of a chance the other day. Before you ran off.”

“Sorry about that.” Olivine vowed
to soften toward him. Grandpa would want her to let the man speak.

“I just want you to know that I’m
not here to hurt you or to mess up your life. After the other night, I…”

She held up her palm. “I’m just
checking on the door. Because Grandpa asked me to.” As soon as she said the
words, his face retracted, and she wished she could take them back.

“Oh.” He gestured toward the cut
table. “Well. What do you think?”

“I guess I don’t know what I’m
looking at.” It was a series of wood pieces, squeezed together with orange
metal clamps. It didn’t look like much of anything, if she was being honest.
She chewed on the inside of her lip.

“I guess you’ll have to come back
when it’s closer to being finished.” He bent his head and kept working.

“Yep. Okay” she bounced on her
calves, checked her watch and turned.

“No. Wait,” Henry said, “I was
just about to stop for the night.
And
I was just thinking that there are
two things every person needs in this life.”

“Two things?”

“Yep.”

“Love and security?” she answered,
reflexively, and then she felt awkward, so she laughed.

He smiled back at her. “A strong
cup of tea and a chair. I have two of each. Join me?”

What was wrong with joining him
for a moment? She was committed to Paul. One hundred percent. Besides, she was
dying to know how Henry’s dinner had gone with her parents. Maybe it was important,
as Christine had said, to close that chapter. To close it once and for all. She
wished now that she had worn her engagement ring.

“Sure.” Olivine smiled. “But I
might need to start with a glass of water.”

He nodded and opened a low-slung
canvas camp chair for her on the porch, positioning it so she was looking out
on the driveway, at the towering spruce and spindly aspens, their empty
branches rocking in the breeze. Then he jogged toward the bus, where he
disappeared for a moment. She sank into the chair, thinking she should probably
stretch first. She crossed her legs and folded her hands over her belly.

Henry returned with a plastic
tumbler of water—no ice—and two empty mugs. He handed her the water and poured
tea from the green Stanley Thermos near his work table.

“Goodness,” he said, “I remember
your legs.”

She wrinkled her nose. “What?” Her
stomach dropped.

“After all this time, just the
sight of your legs. They bring back memories. Isn’t that funny? Hiking in the
woods. Their strength and their ability. To just run up mountains. So long, so
strong. Holding you up in the world.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond,
so she took a sip of water. It tasted so good that she kept drinking, downing
the entire glass in moments. A splash burbled out of her lip and down her
shirt. She wiped it away, looking down. Then she raised the empty water glass
toward him and set it down on the porch near her chair, and he handed her a mug
of tea, the steam scattering in the fading light. She settled back into the
canvas of the chair and extended her legs in front of her, crossing them at the
ankles.  

She took a sip of the tea, and
she closed her eyes and she shook her hair out of the elastic that bound it.
She felt it cascade around her face.

She was aware that he was
watching her, from his own chair, set facing her, and when she opened her eyes,
she held his gaze even after her mind told her to look away.  

“Do you remember that last night
together?” Henry said, his voice soft and deep. “Lying there on the floor of
that apartment I was going to rent? And I asked you if you ever thought of
yourself as a color? And you said you were orange. I’ve never forgotten that.
How you sat up when I asked you the question and you hugged your knees against
your chest; how you were able to fold yourself into a tight roll, all this leg
and arm. And your blouse, it was white and open at the top and your skin was
tan and there was a sprinkling of freckles right across your collarbone, just
like the ones across your nose.” He paused, still looking at her. “I can take
myself back there. When I want to.”  

“Do you want to?” she asked,
without meaning to.

He was quiet for a moment,
staring into his mug of tea.

“Take yourself back there?” she
prodded.

“All the time. Every day of my
life. That’s why I’m here, Olivine.”

Silence followed. Wind whispered through
the empty branches and she felt the leaping once more in the deepest part of
her.

“Then why did you go?” she asked,
her voice small.

He rubbed his fingertips back and
forth along his forearm. First in a circular pattern, now in a figure eight.
The veins on his arms ran thick like routes on a highway map.

He looked up at her finally, and
she struggled to keep her face blank, fighting the urge to jump in and speak. To
answer for him. To let him off the hook. This was her chance, finally, to close
that chapter.

 “I went because I
had
to.
I had to go. I did, Olivine. But I always knew that, when the time was right,
we would find one another again. And, look. We did.”

“Sure, we found one another again,”
she replied. “But the time is not right.”

“No?”

“No,” she scoffed.

“Why?”

“Because you are married. And I’m
about to be.”

“But you’re not married
yet.
And
my wife is in love with someone else.”

She considered his words, and she
thought of Paul. Beautiful, kind Paul. “I might as well be married,” she said.
“I’m committed to Paul. When I commit to someone, I take it very seriously.”

“I would expect nothing less from
you, Olivine.”

“Then what is this all about?”

“I had to come back. I just had
to.
We were so perfect for each other. Hand in glove. Peas in pod. Stars
and moon. All the other cliché things you could say about two people belonging
with one another for the rest of eternity.”

“So I am supposed to wait for you
for ten years. With nothing. No call. No nothing. That’s pretty arrogant.”

“Don’t you believe in the one
true love?”

“Please.”

“Please, what? You can’t tell me
that what we had wasn’t amazing. Something unlike you’ve ever experienced
before. And when something like that happens, it has to be right. It has to
happen, even if it takes a few years to come about.”

“It wasn’t a few years, Henry. It
was ten. Ten years.”

“Even if it takes ten years. Even
if it takes a lifetime. The truth is, I wasn’t ready for you. For this. Until
right now. And I don’t think you were either. If I had come back three or four
years ago, even six months ago, things would have fallen apart. And then we’d
have had to wait even longer. The fact that we are here, right now, despite all
of the reasons for us to
not
be here, together, sharing a cup of tea. Now
that speaks for something.”

“So much time has passed, Henry.”

“What is time? What difference
does it make?”

“It makes a lot of difference. A
hell of a lot.”