Nine
Cole drove his pickup along the dusty country road toward home.
He’d congratulated himself too quickly for shaking off the depression that the anniversary of Bridgette’s death always seemed to bring. A busy day at the clinic, with a harrowing but successful emergency surgery thrown in for good measure, had helped keep his mind off the dark memories that begged his attention. But now, with the day behind him, the dusk taking over the sky, and an empty house to go home to, the blanket of oppression settled over him again.
This was the fifth bleak anniversary he’d marked, and though none had been as bad as the first, he wondered how many years would pass before he could look at this day as any other. Ten years? Fifteen? What was the magic number?
He wondered if Daria Camfield celebrated such an anniversary. Celebrate was hardly the right word. But no, he remembered her telling him that she didn’t even know for sure when her husband had died. It was a blessing, Cole thought, not to have that number etched on her brain to torment her every time it turned up on the calendar. If she was anything like him, she wouldn’t want to be reminded, wouldn’t want to talk about the heartache of losing the love of her life. But then her husband’s death didn’t carry with it the stigma that Bridgette’s death always would.
He had come to Kansas, in part, to get away from the entire population of Sierra Lake, Colorado, who thought they knew all the ugly facts of his wife’s death. But it seemed Kansas wasn’t far enough, and the story had followed him here. He seethed with anger when he thought of the transformation the tale had undergone. Sometimes he thought it would be better just to come out and tell every detail himself so they would get it right. Trouble was, he wasn’t sure he knew the truth himself. Besides, he wouldn’t give the gossips the satisfaction. Let them talk. They would anyway. It was part of the “charm” of living in a small town. He’d lived in the big city, and he had to admit that most days the real charm of small-town life—the deep friendships, the community loyalty, the active compassion for the guy who was down-and-out—far outweighed the inconvenience of a little gossip here or a false rumor there.
He sensed that Daria would understand his feelings if only he could get up the courage to share them with her. He knew that a large part of his attraction to her was the shared tragedy in their lives. Not that she wasn’t the kind of woman who would have caught his eye anyway. She was sweet and kind—and beautiful, in a natural, down-to-earth way that appealed to him deeply. But it was something more profound that drew him to her, that caused her face to appear in a significant percentage of his dreams, both waking and sleeping. Common sense told him that mutual sorrow was not a good thing on which to base a relationship. Still, that hadn’t stopped him from asking her out a thousand times in his mind.
He wasn’t sure what was stopping him in real life. He had certainly done his share of flirting with her. Flirting. Man, he hated that word. He had never liked all the games men seemed to have to play with women. That was one of the things that had attracted him to Bridgette. He hadn’t had to flirt with her to get her attention. She was beautiful, and she didn’t know it. She was studious and intelligent. They’d first met at Colorado State in a philosophy class.
He’d liked her seriousness at first. He had just become a Christian, and, though she was a believer herself, she was loath to accept anything on faith alone. She constantly challenged him to defend his faith against her questions, and he was never one to turn down a challenge. Those solve-the-problems-of-the-world conversations had set the tone for their growing relationship. He hadn’t seen the dark side of her analytical nature until after they married. The depressions would come on her like a Seattle fog. He didn’t know who she was during those grey times, and she couldn’t tell him why they came or what he could do to make it better. They’d mostly just waited it out. And eventually time would lift the shroud of fog, and he’d have his wife back. Until that awful summer. Then time had lost its magic and by the time he realized it, it was too late.
Driving down the rutted back roads, buried in memories, Cole had become oblivious to his surroundings. Suddenly his driveway loomed in front of him, and he almost overshot the entrance to the shady lane that led to his old farmhouse.
He pulled up beside the mailbox and, as was his evening ritual, stopped for a moment and peered over the steering wheel, surveying the sixteen acres that spread out before him. Even on this day it heartened him to turn down this lane and realize that he owned a piece of God’s green earth. A small piece, to be sure, and one that could use some TLC, but in a couple years it would be his, free and clear, and that never failed to fill him with a quiet joy.
Sighing, he rolled down the window and opened the mailbox. Extracting a bundle of junk mail and a depressing number of bills, he slammed the metal door shut and roared on up the long drive toward the house, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
Rufus, his yellow Labrador retriever, met him and ran alongside the pickup for the last hundred yards, barking an enthusiastic greeting.
Cole parked the truck in the unattached garage and walked to the back door, talking to the panting dog as he went, “Hey, boy. How’s it goin’? Did you miss me? Huh, did you miss me, boy? How’s my big ol’ Rufus-boy?” He would have been embarrassed for anyone to overhear the affection in his voice for this dumb, slobbering dog. But Rufus was one of the best friends he had. Nobody listened like Rufus.
On the back porch, Cole pried off his work boots and unlocked the door, letting the dog in ahead of him.
He threw the mail on the kitchen table and went back to the mud room to fill Rufus’s dish from the forty-pound bag of dog food that sat in the corner by the back door. The dog nudged his jean-clad leg, panting impatiently, almost knocking him over.
“Hey, fella, give me a break. I’m working on it.”
Rufus moved in for the feast, crunching noisily.
Cole went back into the kitchen and searched the refrigerator until he found some bologna that hadn’t yet turned green.
He built a thick sandwich and threw it on a plate along with some corn chips. Then, pouring a glass of cold milk, he took his supper into the living room. The large L-shaped room wouldn’t win any interior design awards, but it was warm and inviting—and surprisingly clean for a house sans a woman, if he did say so himself.
Cole had remodeled the entire downstairs over the two years he’d lived there, and he was proud of the place. He had painted the walls throughout the house in various shades of tan and beige. The effect was masculine, and rather rustic, though anything but dark and dreary since the new oak-framed windows were left bare to take advantage of the sweeping prairie vistas that surrounded the farmhouse.
He switched on the television and plopped into the leather recliner positioned in front of it. He watched too much TV, especially since there was seldom anything on worth watching. But he liked the noise. It kept him company. And tonight he could use some company.