Find Wonder in All Things

chapter 15

Laurel was in the kitchen when she heard a knock at her front door. Before she could dry her hands and get to it, the door opened and a voice called out, “Hello, is anybody here?”

“Oh, hey, Ginny. I’m in the kitchen. Come on in.” Her sister appeared in the doorway. “What brings you here? You want something to drink?”

“Some water would be great.” Ginny accepted her glass with a smile of thanks. “I hope you don’t mind me just popping in like this. I haven’t seen the new kitchen, and I wanted to check out the place where my sister spends so much of her time.” She looked around. “I really like what you’ve done here. You’re so . . . artistic.”

Laurel rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the joke. “Well, I am an artist. But thanks.” She indicated a chair and sat down herself. “So, how’s it going with your houseguests?” Laurel asked, trying to sound disinterested.

“Well, we’re down by one.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, James is gone.”

Laurel swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t convey the strange combination of relief and disappointment she felt, but Virginia continued before she could come up with anything.

“Yeah. He rented a cabin over near his sister’s for the rest of his stay.”

“I thought he was only staying a couple of weeks.”

“He told me he likes it here. He likes being able to see his sister, and since he has no job to get back to, he’s talking about hanging around for the rest of summer.”

“Oh?” Laurel’s ambivalence instantly changed to apprehension. She was not looking forward to running into James Marshall all summer.

“Yes. And he’s invited his former business partners for a visit. They’re arriving next week.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The married one, Eric, he’s only staying for a couple of weeks, but the other one might stay a little longer.”

“That’s nice.”

“Laurel, can I ask you something?” Virginia sat down and fidgeted, turning her water glass in circles on Laurel’s tiny kitchen table.

“I suppose you can ask. Do I have to answer?”

Virginia smiled. “Not if you don’t want to, but after watching the two of you the other night at the cookout, I’m beginning to wonder what happened between you and James. I was gone that summer, but Stuart says you guys were always together. He thought James really had it bad for you. But then he just up and moves to Nashville the next winter and then to California a couple years after that, and Stu doesn’t hear from him for ages. And now, all of a sudden, he turns up again. Do you think he came back to see you?”

Laurel snorted. “No. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was the last person he wanted to see.”

Virginia looked at her and waited.

“We had a . . . relationship, I guess you’d call it. He wanted me to move with him to Nashville.”

Virginia’s eyebrows went up. “Wow, I had no idea it was that serious. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Laurel shrugged. “Like you said, you were gone, and after things with him ended, what would be the point in discussing it?”

“I don’t know — for a sister’s sympathy, maybe?”

“I guess I just didn’t want to talk about it much.”

“That sounds just like something you’d say. You’re so stoic, Laurel.” Virginia gave her sister a sad smile. “So, he asked you to go to Nashville . . . and you turned him down.”

“Well, not at first. I said I would, but a few months later, when I told him it was impossible, he was pretty upset with me. He thought I had led him on — and maybe I did, I don’t know. But mostly, I think I lied to myself more than him. Part of me wanted to go, but . . . ” She huffed, impatient with the tenacity of her feelings. “What did I know? I was eighteen years old and in the middle of my first year in college. He was so headstrong, so sure he was doing the right thing and everything would work out fine, but I wasn’t so convinced. I mean, he quit school and moved to a new city where he didn’t know anyone or anything. It just seemed so . . . reckless. I was afraid, I suppose, and then Mama said — ”

“You told Mama? What were you thinking?” Virginia’s eyes were round.

“Well I was planning to move away, so I had to tell them. Daddy was unhappy about it although he never really said that in so many words. But Mama, she didn’t hold back.”

“What did she say? I can’t imagine . . . ”

“The gist of it was that I was throwing myself away at eighteen, and if I left school I’d never go back and finish my degree. And that one day twenty years later, I’d be stuck on a mountain somewhere with five children and no prospects for anything better.”

Virginia winced. “Ouch. Did Dad hear that?”

“No, thank goodness.”

“I’ve never heard her speak that strong an opinion — about anything.”

“Me neither. That’s one of the reasons it worked. I listened to her instead of to James, and he never forgave me for it.”

“Now I feel guilty. I didn’t mean to make things awkward for you. I had no idea you two were that involved. Why didn’t you tell me all this when Stuart invited him to stay with us?”

“Well it was kind of late by the time I knew anything about it,” Laurel said with a sardonic smile. “Besides, he’s Stuart’s good friend. How could I deny you all a reunion with him? Just because of my mistake?” She fiddled with the box of tea bags.

Ginny reached over and covered her hand gently. “So it was a mistake? You loved him?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Laurel got up and walked over to the sink. “It doesn’t matter now. He probably hates me. He can barely stay in the same room with me. Not a very auspicious beginning for a reunion of two star-crossed lovers, is it?”

“Hate isn’t the opposite of love, Laurel,” Virginia said, using her quiet, big sister’s tone.

“It’s not?” Laurel replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“No, the opposite of love” — Virginia stood up and took her glass to the sink — “is indifference.”

Laurel leaned back against the counter, absorbing those words, remembering how he’d reacted to finding her on the roof of the houseboat. If indifference was the opposite of love, that episode certainly illustrated it. Virginia’s voice broke in on her thoughts.

“Well I best get back. Stuart will worry. He worries all the time now. It gets a bit annoying.”

Laurel grinned. Virginia was used to doing her own thing on her own schedule. A baby was undoubtedly going to change her life! “Yeah, I need to get some work done too. Gotta get ready for that Woodland Arts Festival this week.” She paused. “Virginia?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, I know. You’re always fine. I just wish you could be happy too.”

Laurel gave her a wistful smile but couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Virginia sighed. “Okay, I’ll mind my own business now.” She leaned over and kissed her quiet little sister’s cheek. “See you later, Sis.” Then she turned the opposite direction and headed out the front door.

Laurel sat down at the table and tried to concentrate on her art supply catalog, but restlessness overtook her. She tossed the catalog aside, and went out to her studio, getting out a lump of clay and dumping it on the potter’s wheel. As it turned and her hands worked the clay, she let her mind wander. Usually, pottery took her on a soothing journey, but reliving her history with James had left her unsettled, and instead, she traveled back in time to the conversation that had forged the direction of her life . . .

* * *

Laurel watched as her father stalked toward the front door of the house

“Where are you going, Walter?” Mrs. Elliot asked in agitation.

“To the marina.” His reply was terse, and he glared at Laurel as he went.

Once the door shut behind him, Mrs. Elliot turned on her daughter. “Now, look what you’ve done. You’ve upset your father.”

“I’m sorry he’s upset.”

“Well, I’m upset too.” Her mother went over to the sink and started on the breakfast dishes. “I knew it was a mistake letting that boy stay with you last winter. Your father should have run him off then, and we wouldn’t be dealing with this problem now.”

Laurel’s mouth gaped open. Her mother looked at her.

“Did you think we didn’t know? Did you think no one saw you shacking up with him at your grandparents’ cabin for three weeks? I told your father he should intervene, but he just said you had to sow your wild oats like any other young person. Now look where we are.” She rinsed a handful of silverware and dropped it in the dish drainer.

“Mama, I love James, and he loves me. We’ve been planning this for six months now. I finished out my first year, and I can transfer to a school around Nashville. He says — ”

“He says, he says . . . He’ll say a lot of things, Laurel. Young men are just like that.”

“He’s not like that.” Laurel’s voice was quiet but steady. She picked up a dishtowel and began drying the plates in the drainer. “I wish you’d get to know him before you said those kinds of things.”

“I know his type. He came to dinner that night, and I talked to him then.”

“One evening, Mother. You can’t get to know someone in one evening.”

Mrs. Elliot sighed and put down her dishrag. She took the towel from Laurel and dried her hands, then took her daughter’s hands in her own and led her to the kitchen table.

“I know you think you understand everything. You’ve basically raised yourself since you were seven years old. By the time you were twelve, I didn’t think I had anything left to teach you. But I know something about this, so please, please hear me out.”

Laurel said nothing, but she nodded reluctantly.

“I’ve been where you are now, Mountain Laurel. I met someone when I was eighteen years old. It was 1968. They called it the ‘summer of love’ . . . Well, it certainly was for me. I was waiting tables, planning to go to college in the fall. He had just graduated college and was staying here with his uncle and aunt for the summer. He was going to graduate school to be a professor. Almost every morning, he came in to the diner where I worked — got a cup of coffee and a stack of hotcakes and sausage.” Mrs. Elliot’s eyes were far away, remembering. “That man was everything I thought I wanted: handsome and friendly and smart. I was so shy and quiet; he seemed perfect for me. Lord, I was a fool for him. We had this incredible whirlwind romance. When the summer was over, I discovered I was pregnant.”

Laurel sat, shaking her head in disbelief. That smitten, naïve girl her mother described just couldn’t be the tired, haggard-looking woman sitting in front of her now.

“I didn’t know what to do, but he said we should get married. I asked him about his graduate school, and he said he’d go back after a couple of years. I was worried about my college, but he said when the baby got older, I could finish school.

“As you’ve probably already figured out, that man was your father. That baby was Virginia Bluebell. The years went by, and he never went back and neither did I, and it became pretty obvious that neither of us was going anywhere when I got pregnant with you. So I gave up on the idea, but your father was always dreaming about what he was going to do next. He read a hundred books, talked to dozens of people ‘in the know,’ made all sorts of plans and promises, but in the end, it all came to nothing. When his uncle died and left him this broken-down marina, he promised things would get better, but I’ve lived this hand-to-mouth existence ever since. So you see, what they say doesn’t mean anything, Laurel.

“Is this what you want? Look around you. Do you want to end up like me?”

“Is it so awful being you?”

Her mother held her gaze for what seemed like an eternity. “Yes,” she said simply. “Yes, it is.”

Laurel’s eyes filled with tears.

“Finish your education, Laurel. Don’t follow this boy on a crazy path to nowhere. You might think you love him, but you can’t live on love. The only person you can rely on is yourself.”

* * *

The pot toppled over on the wheel. Snorting in frustration, Laurel scooped up the clay and smashed it into a blob before throwing the whole mess away.

If only she had met James when she was a senior in college instead of a freshman. If only his parents hadn’t gotten a divorce and he had stayed in Dayton or kept in touch with Stu. If only she had been brave enough to defy her parents’ wishes. If only she had known he was planning to leave Tennessee. If only, if only, if only . . .

If only he had asked her — just one more time.

The sorrow of it made her sick to her stomach. It seemed as though their love was jinxed at every turn, and all the wrong things had happened at the worst times. Why couldn’t her life ever work out for the best? And why, when she’d managed to carve out a bearable existence for herself, did he have to show up in the middle of it and remind her of everything she lost?

She put on her day hikers and punched open the screen door. This desperate sadness inside her now was the reason she never told anyone about James, and a stab of resentment tore through her that Virginia’s questions had just made her relive it all. She chose a path that would take her through the woods. A nice long walk would help her get her head together. Then perhaps she could be productive for the rest of the afternoon.