The sky remained no matter how long he was away. But people? Family? They kept moving forward without him, so that by the time he returned they had no use for him. He would lose Mauve, probably sooner than later. A woman like her didn’t stay single for long. He couldn’t expect her to wait for December to come again. There were eleven other months in the year, and she wanted a man who was around for all of them.
As much as he wished he were built for domesticity and small town life—he wasn’t. Maybe if he’d had a father or a mother who had lived past forty, he might have turned out differently. But the facts were the facts. They had made him who he was.
Which meant one thing. This game he was playing during the month of December was bound to hurt them both. He had afeeling, however, that he was the one who would suffer most in the end.
9
JASON
The next morning, he woke in the dark guest room at Roan’s. The house was still and quiet. Everyone had already left for whatever it was they were called to do that day. Except for him.
This house had sat empty for all the years he and Roan were in California. He wondered if the house had felt as lonely for Caroline Hayes as it had for him and Roan.
As he lay there, a thought occurred to him. He’d not come home for so long because he didn’t want to face the truth. His mother was not here. She would never be here again. The loss felt fresher in this house and town, as if no time had passed, even though his mother had been gone for sixteen years. He’d only had her for eighteen. Before long, he would be older than she had been when she died. It all seemed impossible.
He rolled to his side, staring at the wall, grief overcoming him. He spoke to her silently.Mom, I miss you so much. I’ve been running too long, though. This was once my home. Could it be again? Without you?
His eyes were damp as he sat up. He splayed his hands on his knees as the loss swept through him as if it were the day she died, not sixteen years later. He let himself cry. Actually sob. When he was all cried out, as his mother used to say, he rose tohis feet and went into the bathroom. He ran a shower, standing under the hot water until he was no longer chilled.
He dressed in jeans and a sweater and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. He set up his laptop at the kitchen table, telling himself he should use the quiet time to work on his lines. Some actors could memorize quickly, but he wasn’t one of them. He needed the words to implant themselves into his soul, which meant practice.
He flipped to the fourth scene in the film, a fight in an alley. His character was tracking the man he suspected of taking his wife. In this section, Jason’s character had trapped him on a back street in Karlín, a neighborhood in Prague. The scene was good, although violent. His mother would not have liked to see Jason beating the stuffing out of someone, even if it was pretend. After reading through it twice, he closed the document.
He sat looking at the desktop background—dolphins swimming in the sea— and tried to summon the excitement he’d first had when he looked at the script. He’d had the feeling that this was the role to take him to the next level. But today he felt numb, almost out of his body, like the script belonged to someone other than him. Ironic, since he’d fought hard to get the role in the first place. That was before Mauve. Before he understood what it was like to walk away from someone you loved.
How quickly the days were passing. Slipping away until all traces of magic were only flecks of gold in the cold Vermont wind.
He opened a new browser tab, and pulled up Expedia to look at flights from L.A. to Burlington. Direct flights from LAX were rare and expensive. Most required a connection through Boston or New York. Two stops, sometimes three. Eight to ten hours door to door. How would that work? Mauve would spend most ofa weekend traveling to and from. They’d have a window of about five hours to be together. It could not work.
He closed the tab, buried his face in his hands and just sat there at the table, with the clock ticking on the wall and his coffee growing cold, and let himself be miserable. Since he’d lost his mom, he’d run from his memories and his emotions, putting them all into his roles. But today he couldn’t run. They were everywhere in this house.
And he was stuck in the present. He couldn’t go back, and he didn’t want to go forward. What in the world was he supposed to do about that?
Jason headedup the stairs to Mauve’s office with his laptop tucked under one arm and a small, wrapped package under the other.
“What’s in the box?” Mauve said from the doorway of her therapy room.
“Apple cider doughnuts from Bean Counters. Tara sends her love. And wishes us good luck. I told her about our plan with Ollie.”
“She’s a doll,” Mauve said. “Ollie will love a doughnut after we finish.”
He set the box on her reception desk and crossed to her and kissed her quickly, knowing Sarah and Ollie would be there in a few minutes, but firmly enough that the unsettled feeling he’d been carrying all morning eased in his chest.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, hugging him tight.
“I am too. This is going to be epic.”
He placed his laptop on the small table in the therapy room, propping it on a stack of two picture books so the camera anglewas right for a kid sitting on the rug. Mauve plugged in her own phone speakers so the audio would be clear. She tested it to make sure it was all set up right. They were ready when the bell downstairs rang and Sarah came up with Ollie holding her hand.
Ollie had on a green sweater with a snowman on it. He saw Jason and signed J-actor before he’d even smiled his hello, hand brushing his chest with the J in proud, quick motion.
“Hey, buddy.” Jason crouched and bumped Ollie’s fist. “Ready to get your actor on?”
Ollie nodded, very serious.
“Mary’s excited to meet you. Are you nervous?”
A small nod.
