Comfort and Joy Read online

  At that, he smiles, showing me a hint of flawless white dentures, and tugs at his ear, which—surprisingly—sports an earring that looks like a tiny diamond. “Talking is good.”

  The poor man is deaf as a post. If I weren’t freezing and desperate, I’d be polite. As it is, I say, “Yes, it is. Look. I’m using your phone. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “The mind is a delicate thing.”

  “That’s helpful. Thank you.” I reach for his phone. Every second, as I flip it open and punch in the numbers, I expect him to stop me, but he doesn’t. He simply goes back to his reading.

  The phone rings.

  And rings.

  At each bleating ring, I tense up a little more. Finally, the machine clicks on. It’s Stacey’s voice. Happy holidays. Stacey and Thom aren’t in right now, but if you’ll leave a message, we’ll call you back. Thanks!

  I’m momentarily nonplussed by the casual linking of their names. Staceyandthom. Thomandstacey. Now they’re one word, just like we used to be.

  “Uh . . . Hi, Stace. It’s Joy. I’m fine. You don’t need to worry. I’ll call you on Christmas Day.” It seems like I should have more to say, but nothing comes to me. “Bye.”

  I hang up and hand the phone back to the attendant. “Thanks.”

  He peers at me. “You can keep talking to her.”

  “No, thanks. I’m done.”

  Smiling, I grab my umbrella and leave the warm light of the gas station.

  It’s not until I’m back in the park, trudging through the now blinding rain that I think: I should have asked him for a ride home. This is Small Town, U.S.A. People do favors for each other here. I turn back, walk down the street. Thunder roars again; the rain hammers me.

  In the violence of the storm, I’m confused, though, disoriented; I can’t find the gas station again.

  I have always had a crappy sense of direction.

  With a sigh, I head for the park, and then find my way onto the old highway. My first thought is: this is the way home.

  Then I remember.

  My home sits on a pretty little street in a not-so-pretty section of Bakersfield, the same city where my pregnant sister and ex-husband now live together.

  Staceyandthom.

  What will I say to them?

  EIGHT

  Just when I think the weather can’t get any worse, it starts to snow.

  In an instant, this stormy landscape changes into a place of magical, impossible light. The clouds lift, a bright moon peers out from above and casts the road in silvery light. The driving rain transforms itself into a shower of tiny cotton balls, drifting lazily downward.

  Everything stills; the world holds its breath. The gurgling water in the ditch turns into a child’s laugh. I can smell the pine trees again, and the rich scent of wet earth.

  Unfortunately, the sudden beauty has a wicked bite.

  It’s cold.

  Inside my suddenly inadequate sweater, I shiver and try to keep warm. My breath clouds everything, makes me feel as if I’m walking through a deep fog.

  Once I start shivering, I can’t stop. I must look like an escaped mental patient, running from the electrical shock room, dancing along the crumbling edge of the road. I am so tired; all I want to do is stop, but I know that if I do, I’ll fall, and maybe I won’t get up. My eyelids are heavy, my fingers and toes sting with cold. My cheeks are so icy they feel hot; every snowflake burns my skin. Only a woman raised in California would have gone for a walk on a day like this.

  “Don’t th-think like that,” I say aloud, trying to sound stern and failing miserably. My teeth are chattering like an Evinrude. I need to focus on good thoughts.

  Like the lodge, dressed in its holiday finery, with Bobby and Daniel on the deck, waiting for me.

  Are they home? I wonder. Have they noticed that I am gone? Are they worried?

  How long has it been since someone waited at home for me, worried about me?

  Stacey.

  Even with all that has happened; all she has done, the truth is there, buried beneath the resentment: I miss her.

  She is the one I want to tell about my time in the rainforest, and the man and boy about whom I’ve come to care.

  I guess a plane crash and being lost in a snowstorm will show you things.

  I am caught so deeply in my own thoughts that it takes me a moment to hear the noise behind me.

  It is an engine. Seconds later, I see the twin beams of headlights come up behind me. In their glow, I see the snow falling all around me.

  I stop, turn.

  It is Daniel’s red pickup, chugging down the road. They are like something out of a dream, a blur of red in a snowy white world. I’m not entirely sure it’s real. Perhaps I’ve imagined my saviors.

  The truck pulls up beside me and stops. The blue passenger door creaks, then bangs open.

  Bobby is scooted all the way to the edge of the bench seat. His small face is scrunched with worry and too colorful somehow in this hazy world and half-light. “Joy?”

  I try to answer, to smile even, as if this is nothing, but all I hear is the sound of my own teeth chattering. Suddenly I’m crying like a baby. That’s when I realize how scared I was that I would be simply lost out here, all alone again. No wonder I thought of Stacey.

  “Help her, Dad!” Bobby cries out. “She’s freezing!”

  Daniel whips open his door and jumps out.

  “I’m . . . fine,” I say, sounding like a jackhammer on concrete. I grab the top of the truck door—the metal is so cold it burns me—and climb into the seat. I don’t want him to know how cold I am, how foolish I was. I could have died out here. “Th-thanks.”

  Standing by the side of the truck, Daniel looks worriedly through the cab at me. He’s probably never seen a woman with blue cheeks before. There’s a strange look in his eyes, one I can’t read. It’s more than just worry, though. I think he’s angry with me for being so stupid, for scaring his son. He climbs back into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut. “A person could die in this weather,” he says softly.

  “I’m fine. Really. I was just . . . trying to find a phone to call my sister. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

  “Daddy has a cell phone,” Bobby says accusingly. I can tell how upset he is. He thought I’d simply left without a word. Disappeared like his mother.

  I have no answer to that. My actions were stupid. Plain stupid.

  “We’ve been driving around for hours looking for you,” Bobby says. I can hear the panic in his voice. “I told him you were in trouble.”

  “I promised you Christmas morning,” I say quietly. “Remember? I just needed to make a phone call. Honest.”

  “Okay,” he says, still looking unconvinced.

  I dare to glance at Daniel. “Bobby invited me to spend Christmas morning with you.”

  “I told Daddy that you were staying for Christmas and then leaving.”

  Daniel still doesn’t look at me. Driving in snow takes all his concentration. Or, perhaps, he wants Christmas morning with only his son.

  Before, in my life, I would have been silent now, waited for him to invite me, to want me, but somewhere along the way of this adventure, I’ve grown bold. Life can be short. Planes can simply fall out of the sky; sisters can lose the chance they need. “What do you think of that, Daniel?”

  In the silence that follows my question, the windshield wipers seemed almost obscenely loud. He can hurt me now, ruin me with a look or a smile, but I take this risk. It’s what I want: Christmas with Bobby and Daniel. Then I’ll go back to Bakersfield. Every heartbeat that he doesn’t answer wounds me. It’s crazy, I know, and naïve, but I can’t help it.

  Bobby must sense the tension and feel for me. “Daddy?” he says when the quiet has gone on for almost a mile. “You want Joy to stay for Christmas, don’t you?”

  I draw in a sharp breath, but Daniel doesn’t turn to me. Quietly, he says, “Of course I do.”

  Of course.

  As if m
y question were unnecessary. The tension seeps out of me, leaving me strangely limp. I lean back into the seat.

  Daniel turns on the radio. “Jingle Bell Rock” blares from the speakers, making me smile. My mom loved this song.

  “What does your family do for Christmas morning?” Bobby asks me.

  “We go to church.”

  “That’s what me and Mommy used to do.”

  “I light a candle for my mom,” I add. “So she knows how much I still love her.”

  “Would you light one for my mommy?”

  “If you’ll come to church with me, I will.”

  A long moment passes, punctuated by the thunk of the wipers. Then, quietly, he says, “Okay.”

  I look down at him, feeling tears sting my eyes. The courage of this boy slays me. “We can pray for her together.”

  “Okay what?” Daniel says, frowning as if he’s missed something. He turns down the radio.

  “Joy’s gonna help me light a candle for Mommy on Christmas morning.”

  “In church?”

  Bobby nods.

  I can she how moved Daniel is by those few words. He doesn’t look at his son or me; I suspect if he did that his eyes would be moist. “I can see how Joy got her name.”

  Daniel’s voice is so soft and warm. It wraps around me like a blanket. Smiling, I rest my head against the cool window and close my eyes. All at once I’m exhausted.

  Daniel pulls into the lodge parking lot and shuts off the ignition. He immediately turns to Bobby. “Come here.”

  Bobby launches himself at his dad.

  “I’m so proud of you, boyo.”

  “But I don’t want Joy to leave.”

  “I know.”

  I sit up slowly. An ache blossoms in my chest at the sight of them. If ever I am inclined in the future to disbelieve in love, I will remember this moment.

  Daniel tightens his hold on his son. “You’re my whole world, Bobby. You know that, don’t you? We’re a team now. You and me.”

  “What if Joy comes back later? Can she be part of us?”

  Daniel smiles. He looks younger suddenly, unburdened.

  I catch my breath. It would be so easy to lose myself in Daniel’s eyes, and find myself in his world.

  “Maybe, boyo,” Daniel says, looking at me over Bobby’s head. “A thing like that comes down to . . . I don’t know.”

  “Fate.”

  We whisper the word at the same time, Daniel and I. It seems as soft as a love song in the cab, and as sturdy as one of these old trees.

  But Bobby wants something more concrete. “If she comes back, can she stay with us?”

  Daniel is frowning suddenly. I wonder if, like me, he’s come undone by the single word that somehow joins us, gives us a glimpse of maybe. “Sure.”

  “You promise?” Bobby says.

  “I promise,” Daniel answers, still gazing at me. I feel something waken in me, a longing that makes my heart speed up. “All she has to do is say, ‘Open the damn door, Daniel. It’s cold out here,’ and I’ll let her in.”

  Bobby laughs. It is the purest, clearest sound I’ve ever heard. “She doesn’t swear, Dad.”

  For the first time, Daniel and I laugh together.

  The best pieces of chocolate in the box are always the last ones. So it is with this second-to-last night I have at the Comfort Fishing Lodge. By the time we get home, the electricity is back on. In no time, the Christmas tree and mantel are pockets of glowing colored lights and there’s a roaring fire in the fireplace.

  Bobby and Daniel go to the kitchen for dinner; I go to my room and take a shower. I’m cold to the bone; food is the last thing on my mind.

  Rather, I think about tomorrow.

  Christmas Eve.

  It will be my last night here.

  Already I know that my vacation is over. When Stacey gets home—probably from Thom’s office party—she’ll listen to my message and immediately start looking for me. I’ll be “big news.” The authorities will clamor for answers to questions I don’t want voiced, let alone answered. I don’t believe any of them will understand why I chose to walk away from the crash.

  The few who will understand will be those who have been where I was in early December. People who have lost themselves in the dark woods of ordinary life, who have been betrayed by loved ones and forgotten how to be led by dreams.

  And Daniel.

  For no reason I can articulate, I am sure he will understand my bizarre choice. He is a man who knows about drifting, about betrayal and loss. I’m certain of it. It’s why he bought this place, those years ago when his family lived amid the red brick of Boston. Sometimes a change of scenery can be the answer. Or an answer, anyway.

  Stacey, too, will understand, and she will forgive me. The question is: can I forgive her? Even with all that I have learned, I don’t know the answer to that, and truthfully, I don’t want to think about it. I haven’t much time here at the Comfort Lodge. I need to soak up every second and fashion the time into memories. I will need them when I’m home again.

  It is the need for more that sends me in search of them again. I go out to the lobby, where Bobby and Daniel are watching Miracle on 34th Street.

  “Oh, good,” Bobby says at my arrival. “You didn’t miss anything.”

  He doesn’t yet know how many times we watch Christmas movies in our lives. I take a seat in the red leather chair by the fireplace.

  Together—like a family—we watch the movie.

  As I watch the scenes unfurl, I can’t help thinking of other Christmases, long ago.

  “My mommy loved this part,” Bobby says softly.

  Onscreen, a young Natalie Wood is running through her new house, finding the cane that proves a miracle.

  “Mine, too,” I say as the screen goes black and the credits roll.

  Bobby’s smile dips for a second, then returns. “You wanna play Chutes and Ladders?”

  “Of course,” I answer.

  Daniel laughs. “It’s better than watching the Grinch again.”

  Bobby laughs at that, and the sound of their braided laughter—Daniel’s throaty and full, his son’s high and childish—finds a soft spot in me.

  Bobby runs upstairs and is back in no time. Within minutes, the game is set up on the card table.

  Daniel sits on the hearth facing the game. The fire backlights him. It is impossible not to notice how handsome he is. “Well, boyo,” he says, rubbing his hands together, “you ready for a whoopin’?”

  Bobby giggles and sets out our pieces. I sit in the empty chair to Daniel’s left. Bobby sits across from me. “I get to move for everyone,” he says, trying to stack the cards on the place where they go.

  “Aye,” Daniel says. “You always do. Just like you open everyone’s presents.”

  For the next hour, Bobby leads us around the board. He picks all the cards and moves all the pieces and laughs whenever he pulls ahead. Daniel and I can hardly get a word in edgewise, but, in truth, we’re not trying very hard. I can tell that Daniel is captivated by his son’s smile, and I am mesmerized by the pair of them.

  Unlike me, Bobby will never know the nagging ache of an absent father; he will have the loss of his mother inside him, like a thin shadow on a bright day, standing close, but he won’t have that dragging sense that he was unloved, somehow, unworthy. For the whole of his life, he will go to sleep at night knowing his father loves him.

  “You sure are laughin’ a lot tonight, boyo.” Daniel’s voice pulls me back into the moment.

  “Joy keeps getting the worst cards,” he answers with a giggle.

  “It’s hardly my fault.” When I look up from the board, I catch Daniel’s gaze and wonder if he sees who we could be together. I try to come up with a gem of a remark—one that will make him want me the way I’m beginning to want him—but nothing comes to me, and the moment moves on.

  As the night darkens, and we go from Chutes and Ladders to Candy Land, I have to keep reminding myself that I’m a guest he
re. Otherwise, I’ll reach for Daniel. I’ll touch his arm and say something stupid like “Are you lonely, too?” or “Do you feel it, this spark?” It takes all my self-control to say nothing of importance. Each moment I’m silent, I know, is a moment lost, a second that brings me closer to good-bye.

  This night—and everything it represents—is the dream I’ve held onto all my life. A family held together by love, a child who needs me. A man who knows how to love. I want so desperately to belong here, to be invited to stay. I could start over here, maybe get a job at the local high school and help Daniel refurbish this place. I’d be good at it; I know I would. If only he’d ask me. If only I had the courage to say it first.

  “You have to go all the way back,” Bobby giggles, looking at my card. “Look, Dad, Mommy has to go back.”

  Suddenly the crackling of the fire is loud in the room, as is Daniel’s indrawn breath.

  “I mean Joy,” Bobby chirps happily, moving my man back.

  Daniel looks at Bobby; his face is pale, his lips tight. I don’t know him well enough to read his expression. Is it fear that Bobby has come to love me too much? Or regret that some things longed for can’t be had? Or is it grief for the woman who should be at this game table on this night? I don’t know. All I know is that I wish he’d looked at me, if even just for an instant, and smiled. Instead, I see how he avoids looking at me in this moment where I’ve been called Mommy for the first time in my life.

  “It’s your turn, Dad,” Bobby says, reaching for another card.

  And the game goes on. I try to forget that Bobby called me Mommy and that Daniel looked so hurt by it, but I can’t. It makes me want—that single word and all that it implies.

  Mommy.

  I learn something about myself this cold winter’s night. Something I should have known, perhaps; had I known it, I never would have walked away from the crash site.

  You can run away from your life and your past, but there’s no way to distance yourself from your own heart.

  At eight o’clock, Daniel ends our perfect evening.

  “I know a boy who needs to get ready for bed,” he says, standing up.

  “Aw, Dad,” Bobby whines, making a face. He is getting up from his chair when he smiles. “But Joy and me hafta wrap your present.”