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“I’m going to do my best to help him, Rick. I like Chandler. He’s got a lot of layers for being so young and I personally think he’s going to take the world by storm. I think my bigger job here, though, might be helping his dad let go a little.”
Rick glanced at me sideways and smiled sadly. “You’re not wrong.”
“First off, let’s forget the rest of the run and why don’t you show me a couple places around here that we might both find we want to come to now and then to remember who we really are?”
“I like that idea very much, and not just because I’m already exhausted. I swear,” he protested, laughing.
He took me to a little pond that was so still, it showed the trees that surrounded it like a mirror. There was a rock outcropping at the western edge that he led me to, and it was there we sat and stared into the pond below and I got to know Rick a little better.
“You know, when I was a kid, this pond was a lot bigger. This rock we’re on right now was in the center of it, and I’d have to swim out to sit on it and contemplate life.”
“The contemplation of youth. How serious everything felt, and, well, it was.”
“Yes. I came here when I met Chandler’s mom. She was the new kid in school, and she had eyes for me. I didn’t know how I felt, but I’d dated a few of the other girls. I dated her for something new, but the first time we went out and all we did was laugh, I knew she was special.”
It hurt my guts a little to hear him say it, and I had no right to be jealous. He was straight and was making it clear. At least, at first.
“You fell in love.”
“No, Kanan. I didn’t. I found her to be refreshing and fun. She listened and then taught me about the world. She’d come from a big city, Chicago, and I was fascinated. I wanted to hear everything about it, the people, the lifestyle. Not once did she get annoyed with my questions. We became best friends, Kanan. That is about the best foundation to a marriage of anything I can think of.”
I’d heard much the same from the newlyweds. Eli bragged how he and Noah were friends first. “When did you know you loved her?”
“I don’t know if there was ever a thunderbolt of recognition that I was in love. No, it was a gradual thing, where we knew we couldn’t stand not being around one another. She left for Chicago the summer before our senior year to stay with an aunt. I climbed the walls, even though I worked for my dad, you know, learning the business.”
His voice was low, but I heard the pain there. He had loved her, and still did. “Chandler missed a lot, it sounds like, not having her.”
“He did. He’s so much like her too. He never knew her, but he’ssolike her. The funny side of her, the part that feels things deeply. I lost her, my best friend, my first real love, and yet it feels like she’s still here.”
I didn’t know if it was appropriate or not, but I reached for his hand and took it in mine, holding it loosely. “I’m so sorry, Rick.”
“You know loss, Kanan. You know those holes in your soul that nothing can fill, at least until something fills it.”
“Chandler filled yours.”
“Yes, in many ways. Not in all ways, of course. The love of a child, no matter how like his mother he is, can’t fill all of it,” he said in a croak as he slowly turned his head to look at me.
The sun reflected off the smooth surface of the pond, shining on him to the point where his face glowed with it. He was a glowing beauty that showed me my heart could heal and feel again.
Possibly nothing would ever come of it, but that didn’t matter. His hand tightened in mine, and I saw that the stab wounds Jeffery’s betrayal left in my heart could heal and I could search again for something real.
“I wish I could take all that pain from you, Rick, and the boys.”
“No one can do that, Kanan. What happens is we choose to move on or fall into our own pits of depression. I’ve done both and I don’t recommend the latter.”
“Preaching to the choir. I’ve done both. Depression, then after I pulled out of that, I lived fine and met someone that I thought was my reward for the universe taking my parents from me. Now…I’m living it again and trying to move on as best I can.”
“You’ve moved to a whole new place, Kanan. You smile easily and you’re here, trying to counsel me. I think you’re doing better than you give yourself credit.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, ducking my head.
“Did you know that you turn this amazing shade of umber when you blush?”
I barked a laugh and looked to see that he was being completely serious. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t mean to offend, really. I think your skin is beautiful, but when you blush, you don’t turn a strange pink, like me with my skin. Yours turns this burnt umber. I know the color because my mother had ordered curtains in that color years ago.”
“I never knew that. It’s a…strange fact to know but appreciated.”
