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This find-her-passion thing wasn’t working out quite the way she had hoped.
At intermission, Genevieve made the rounds, thanking the guests for coming and receiving their adulations. It should have all been wonderful, but every “way to go” and “great job” scraped like sharpened fingernails against her heart. Needing a few moments of escape, she stepped outside into the cool springtime night air.
A half dozen groups of people congregated under the lights of the theater marquee. Genevieve heard the chimes inside the theater signal the end of intermission, and people began to return inside.
Genevieve remained where she was, standing just beyond the reach of the lights in the shadows. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, wishing she had brought her jacket. Despite having lived in the Colorado Rockies for a year and a half, Genevieve had yet to shake all of her Texan ways. Dressing for cool nights didn’t come second nature to her yet.
“Here,” came a familiar deep voice. Noah slipped his suit coat around Genevieve’s shoulders, and warmth chased away the chill. “You and your daughter are just alike. Willow forgets her jacket more often than not.”
“Thank you. I should probably refuse it, but I won’t. I’m an old lady, and my skin is thin.”
“Oh, don’t give me that ‘old’ business. I know you recently signed up for a rock-climbing class at Lake in the Clouds Outdoors. That’s not the action of an old woman.”
“It is if she’s crazy, too. I don’t know what got into me, thinking that rock-climbing might become a passion of mine. Just thinking about doing it scares me, never mind actually tackling the activity. I let the guys at the outfitters shop talk me into it. They don’t understand that I’m a chicken.”
“Balderdash.”
Genevieve jerked a glance up at him in surprise. “You sound like my sister.”
“Where do you think I got the word? I love using it. It’s much more satisfying to say thanbullshit, which is the appropriate but impolite response to your statement. Willow has talked to me about her family. You have more courage than most people I know, Genevieve.”
Danged if her throat didn’t close and her eyes filled with tears at that. What was wrong with her tonight? Ten years ago, she could call herself hormonal. Well, that ship had sailed, hadn’t it? At least she was in the shadows, so Noah wasn’t witnessing her inexplicable meltdown. Again. All she needed was for him to tell Willow that her mother was crying on the street corner, and her daughter would launch into mothering mode.
She went on the offensive, hoping to deflect. “That’s sweet of you to say. So tell me, why is it that I discover you lolling about in the shadows at every party I throw? You’re missing the movie. Intermission is over.”
“I know. I’m heading back inside. I just needed to stretch this leg of mine for a bit. It’s better if I don’t sit for too long.”
“Oh, of course. You’ve made such huge strides in your recovery I forget you were injured. My bad.”
“Not at all. That’s the way I want it. Besides, it allowed me to play the gentleman and loan you my jacket. Are you ready to go in?”
“No, not yet.” Genevieve started to shrug out of his jacket, but he stopped her. “Keep it.”
A figure moved out from the deeper shadows. Gage Throckmorton said, “Give Noah back his jacket, Genevieve. I’ll give you mine.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Genevieve asked as she handed Noah his coat. “Why aren’t you inside watching the movie?”
Gage didn’t immediately respond but waited as Noah gave a little salute before disappearing into The Emily. Gage slipped his jacket around Genevieve’s shoulders. It smelled of the woodsy aftershave he wore, and she couldn’t stop herself from inhaling a deep breath.
“My kids got to talking about their mother at intermission, and I got a little emotional. Needed a few minutes to myself. So I sneaked out the back door and walked up on you and Noah chatting. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t exactly help it. So, what’s this passion talk all about?”
Genevieve didn’t want to talk about it. She was feeling emotional herself. So she couldn’t understand why she opened her mouth and spilled her guts to Gage. She explained about her conversation with Noah the night of Jake’s wedding and her hunt for something—a grand passion—to give the winter of her life meaning.
“Winter of your life? Hell, Genevieve. You must have been going to church over at First Community and listening to Reverend Mays’s sermons. He’s the most depressing minister I’ve ever known.”
“I’m not explaining it properly. Gage, I’m lost. Not all that long ago, I made huge changes in my life. I reinvented myself. I breathed new life into my life. But here it is less than two years later, and I’m… well… back in the same old rut. I need something to live for. I need a reason to keep getting out of bed every morning. For the majority of my lifetime, that reason has been my children. That life is over. It’s dead. I had the funeral for it.”
“Most spectacularly, I’m told.” Gage referred to the familydinner to which Genevieve had summoned her children for an old-fashioned tongue-lashing.
Genevieve continued. “I recognized that my old life was gone, and I attempted to move forward, to build something new here in Lake in the Clouds. I’ve tried to create a life with value and purpose, a life I’m passionate about. I’ve continued the charitable work I did in Texas, and that’s good, but it’s not filling the hole. I have my sister, thank God, but she has her own life and probably a new job soon because I cannot imagine she won’t win this election. All I have are colorful fish and naked-man drawings and impending lessons on how to climb up the side of a mountain when there’s a perfectly good road leading to the top. Why can’t I find something to do with my life that I’m as passionate about? Something that fulfills me the way raising my family did?”
“Hell, Genevieve, I understand the struggle. Truly, I do, especially with my recent history. But, I have to ask, why now? Why are you looking for the meaning of life tonight of all nights? Why aren’t you inside enjoying the fruits of your labors?”
Defensive, she fired back. “Why aren’t you?”
“I’m mourning my wife.”
“I’m mourning my life.”
