Maggie and Sully essentially closed down the store, but they sat out on the porch in front. They watched over the grounds while the moon cast a glow over the lake. This was the perfect end to a perfect day, in Maggie’s mind. Even though Cal was in the house, even though she’d told him she’d be along soon, she felt no urgency, but a sense of comfort, of all being right in her world.
When she visited Sully’s while she was in med school or residency she might study all day but come evening, they’d eat a burger or barbecued chicken and sit on the porch after sunset. From here they could hear the conversations, children running and playing, clattering of dishes from the various campsites; they could see the small fires that dotted the landscape by tents and campers or at the edge of the beach. On some nights Sully would wander through the grounds to make sure everyone had safe fires, contained at all times of the year. A wildfire was a nightmare come to life in the Colorado mountains.
“Are you glad he came home?” Sully asked.
Maggie laughed softy. “This isn’t home for him, Dad. But yes, I’m glad he came back.”
“You were missing him,” Sully said.
“I was just about over him. I was building a new life in my head and it had nothing to do with him!” That brilliant Australian doctor, however, bore an uncanny resemblance to Cal. “I was a little worried sometimes,” she went on. “People can get lost, sick, hurt, have conflicts with unfriendly wildlife, have problems with unfriendly people! He was gone a long time. I assumed he had moved on. He admitted he’s been a wanderer.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. I think he’s looking for something, that’s all. He’s respectful. He won’t just take off without an explanation.”
“He did once,” she said.
“So far,” Sully said. “He said from the start he was planning a long hike once the weather warmed. You like him a lot, don’t you?”
“I think you know,” she said. “I might’ve been a little obvious when I saw him come down the road.”
“That’s okay, you know. You can like him. I admit, I got a little attached to him,” Sully said. “But we gotta talk. I don’t want him working like he did, for free and all.”
“Maybe he’s just visiting, Dad. Maybe he’s here for a few days and then will be on his way again.”
“You get that impression?” Sully asked.
Maggie was afraid to answer. No, she hadn’t thought, by anything he said or did, that he was dropping in to get laid and then would be moving on. “He wasn’t very specific about his plans, Dad.” However, he had said he was coming back to her.
“Well, I get the impression he could be hanging around,” Sully said. “That be okay by you?” he asked.
“Well, I guess. I’m hanging around. But my way isn’t as clear as when I got here. I was taking a break, yet I’m still here. I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to do next. More specifically, I’d better figure out who I am and where I belong.”
“Walter gave you some things to think about,” Sully said. “Good.”
“What did you and Walter talk about while I was walking down by the lake?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Weather. Broncos. How you’re a work in progress.”
“Is that so?” she asked somewhat indignantly.
“And pretty much on schedule. We used to call it a midlife crisis,” he said. “What do we call it now?”
“What are you talking about, Sully?”
“You know—the day you wake up and see that even though you been busy every second there’s a whole lot missing outta your life. I was about your age when I decided it was time to get married.” He shook his head. “I don’t regret it but I should’a thought that one through a little better.”
“Well, then there was me...”
“That’s why I have no regrets. Isn’t that just about what happened, Maggie? You wake up one morning and say to yourself, something’s gotta change here?”
“I don’t think it was quite that abrupt...”
“Everybody’s got a different bottom,” he said. “But a midlife crisis used to have a lot to do with seeing forty staring you in the eye and asking yourself some important questions about whether it’s time to get that old.”
Oh yeah. And for a woman it has a lot to do with her eggs.
It had seemed to Maggie that it had been more like a boulder rolling down a steep hill, picking up speed as it went, rather than a sudden explosion. But it must have seemed abrupt to everyone around her—the rush of emails, the call to her neighbor to keep an eye on her house, she never did call Sully, and calling Phoebe when she was on her way out of town, headed south, her car full of luggage. She heard her mother saying, “Have you lost your mind? What do you mean you’re taking an indefinite leave? You don’t study for twenty-five straight years and then just walk away!”