Miracles
July 2014
Tomorrow will sever the trajectory of our lives. I feel it like I feel the storm coming.
"Think she’ll stay this time?" Aiden's face shines innocent and optimistic. I flip on his Sheriff Woody night-light and tuck him into bed. He scoots to make room so I can sit.
"God willing," is all I can say. He always asks tough questions, ones I can’t answer.
His brows scrunch together. “When does our will get to matter?”
“We did our best, Buckaroo. That's all a person can do.” I know he’s in sore need of reassurance, but I have none to give.
He touches my arm. “Don't worry, Dad. Love never forgets.” He smiles that crooked grin of his, but doubt shadows his eyes.
His compassion is beyond his years, and I feel like a horrible father for the loss he’s endured. We’re both afraid to voice the other possibility, but it hangs in the silence between us like the worst possible verdict.
I hear a light knock and the screen door squeaks open and closes silently.
Aiden perks up. “Going for a ride tonight?”
The question hits me like a splash in the face. He knows about my late-night rides to The North Ridge. “Yeah, but Avery’s here in case you wake up.” I won’t be gone long. The ranch foreman’s teenage daughter has school tomorrow.
He smirks as if to say, aw, Dad. “I’m too big for a babysitter. I’m almost double digits now. ‘Sides, Uncle Isaac and Aunt Bella are just a holler away.”
“I know, but it makes me feel better.” I ruffle his hair. For the first time, I glimpse the young man he’ll become, and I’m blindsided by another wave of guilt. Am I condemning him to a life of loneliness and despair by wanting him to love this ranch as much as I do?
Uncertain who will be more disappointed tomorrow, him or me, if Samantha leaves again, I ease the door closed, greet the sitter, and slip out the front. My boots kick up a cloud of dust as I cross the gravel drive. It’s been so dry lately I could start a fire with the spark in my eye.
Lights are on in the big house. Isaac and Bella are still up.
In the barn, I pass the four-wheelers and snow machines, and Buck, my chestnut quarter horse, nickers and turns my way. He knows where we’re heading and stomps with anticipation. I think he loves these late-night rides as much as I do.
Beneath a dark Colorado sky, I head off across the meadow, my way softly lit by a half-moon, hanging like a busted lantern above the eastern horizon. I lean forward in the saddle to pat Buck’s neck, a small comfort to my anxious heart. We enter the pitch-black woods and he snorts. I can’t see squat but it doesn’t matter. It’s a path as familiar as the way to the barn. I nudge the horse forward.
The trail winds up and up, and minutes later we reach the top of the ridge. I dismount, wrap the reins around a branch, and look over the valley spread before me. Slivers of light outline the windows of the small cabin below, and my pulse quickens as hope floods in. She's reading the story she wrote, the story I have read a hundred times. Will she remember? Or will she read about her heroine’s lover and fall all over again? If only I could will it so.
My father used to tell me a happy man perseveres. He's not smarter, more gifted, or any luckier. The man simply tries harder, doesn't give up. He knows where his happiness lies and does whatever it takes to wrangle it.
My happiness lies in that old hunting cabin, right down there. She’s everything I ever wanted. Nothing makes sense without her, like waking up in the dark. And I’ve waited three years for her to return to my mountain.
It was divine providence that she wrote a story that summer—our story, her parting gift to me. And aside from that one afternoon beneath the cottonwood, she'd captured the essence and entirety of the man I am with her delicate prose.
Sometimes there’s a whole lot of truth in fiction.
I lie on the ground and relax against the log stretched sideways to the ridge, like we did four summers ago. Has it really been that long? I close my eyes and feel her warmth beside me, hear her gentle laughter. The way her eyes lit up when I shared the constellation story squeezes my heart. She didn’t say so, but I’m fairly certain that was the night she fell in love with me.
She’s forgotten everything about that summer, but it doesn’t matter, so long as she remembers the way I made her feel. At day’s end, that’s all that matters. That quiet ease that turns a friend into a lover.
I gaze at the stars, one of the few constants in my life—the vast sky, as desolate as my emptiness. The half-moon understands, hanging in the dark, yearning for its other half, that missing slice of light to complete the circle of its waning life.
A gentle breeze stirs in the woods, setting the pungent scents of aspen and pine swirling in the dry mountain air. It’s cool and eerily quiet as the wind whispers through the trees. Even the cicadas sound muted tonight, conserving their energy for another hot day tomorrow.
Like the wildlife, silent in the darkness, I rest against the log and try to convince myself I haven’t lost her yet. There’s still hope; she may come around.
The way she kissed me earlier this evening lingers on my lips like the start of an all-night-long, slow kiss. I am no longer a stranger to her, yet I ache for so much more: to hold her, to have her, in my life, my heart, my soul. The love we shared consumes me, shrouding me in a gut-wrenching fear that I’ll never feel that way again.
Hot tears sting my eyes as I rise to my knees, and I can barely make out the cabin below. I bow my head and pray for the one hope that has come to dominate my life—that she’ll remember what we’d found that summer and we will never part again. My voice catches on the ragged edges of my heart, and I suck in a breath as deep as the valley below.
A stick cracks in the woods, and I spring to my feet. In an instant, I’m at Buck’s side, drawing my rifle silently from its scabbard. The horse snorts and stomps. Each second ticks away a heartbeat. Silence stretches out, filling the space between us, the whole mountaintop. I smooth Buck’s neck for reassurance—his and mine. Probably a mule deer. No rain for weeks, the mountain’s as dry as a tinderbox. I don’t linger to find out. I mount and turn to the ridge for one last look at the cabin below, where thin strips of light outline the windows. My heart lifts. She’s still reading.
Maybe, just maybe, she’ll remember how she once loved me.