He must have helped her to her bed, because when she finally woke, with a soggy feeling in her head and unease in her stomach, she had slept through chores and breakfast. Her aunt was sitting beside her bed with a cup of peppermint tea.
“How do you feel?” Annie asked.
“Like I drank too much tequila,” Lenora answered.
“Well, best to just take today as a sick day and lay in bed,” Annie said.
“Oh, Aunt Annie is she gone?”
“Yes, she left this morning after breakfast.”
“What did she want?”
“The same as always; a little money and a safe place to spend the night.” Annie said. “He used to go back to her. You know? She’d stay for a week or two and they’d seem pretty happy, but then something always made them fight, and she’d leave again. He’d be moody for a month and then get over it and try and date some girl from another town. He’s a good man, Lenora, but he has a past just like everyone does.”
Annie looked at her hands before meeting Lenora’s eyes; the expression in the older woman’s eyes reminded her of Maura, her mother. She wondered if her aunt was upset with the way she had acted last night, disappointed even. Lenora felt more embarrassed as she remembered her cold words to Clay. The drinking and singing had been fun, but her extreme reaction to Crystal’s arrival at the ranch was disturbing.
Lenora was silent as she sat up in bed and sipped the tea, her mind flitting from fear to fear like a bird trapped in a glass house. The last year seemed so long and heavy. How could she really go through anymore sadness? She had thought this would be a fun roll in the hay and a simple romance, but she was beginning to wonder if such a thing even existed. Who in this world did not have baggage and sadness and loss weighing them down? Not she, and apparently not Clay either, she realized.
“I just wish that he would have told me about the baby,” Lenora said. “And a little more about Crystal too. I mean, I was grieving Mom so hard. I could have understood his pain.”
“I don’t know what to say. He should have told you,” Annie said. “I think he’s just a product of his upbringing. Have you noticed how he always wants to take care of everything? How he’s always acting like he has it under control?”
“Yes,” Lenora said. “Even last night, when he was really pissed off at me he still helped me into the truck. He was even polite.”
Annie sighed. “Did you at least have a good time?”
“Yeah. I sang karaoke.”
“So I heard. Get some rest today,” Annie said. She gave Lenora a soft smile before closing the door.
Lenora slept until afternoon, and then crept downstairs and out the back door. She bridled Major and slipped out of the barnyard and into the hills. The day was cloudy; overhead gray shapes shifted and twisted moving steadily east. She let Major pick the direction, and he went east towards the crown of hills topped with a few pines. She let him climb steadily, his huge Arabian lungs filling with clean, mountain air. Bareback under her, she could feel the long dorsal muscles along his spin and the strength from his hindquarters. His velvety coat was warm through her jeans, and she leaned forward and buried her hands and face in his thick mane. They stopped at the top of the hill. Below them the ranch consisted of tiny dot buildings and outlines of fencing. She slid off Major and let him eat the thick, green grass underneath an old cedar tree. She sat on a stone and stared off to the north where the real peaks began, and felt the first hot gulp of sadness well up in her throat and then drip down her cheek. Alone, with only her horse as witness she sunk down into a deep pit of self-pity. Why so many bad things? Why so many lost people in her life, she wondered. She imagined telling her mom about Clay and last night; then she really cried.
***
When Lenora came in for the dinner, she found Clay’s place at the table empty
“Clay will be back by Monday,” Byron said. “He went on up to the North Pasture to check on the herd.”
“Ok, I understand,” Lenora said.
She ducked her head so that her eyes could not give away her hurt. How could he leave, when they needed to talk about what had happened last night, she wondered. She knew she should have gone to find him when she woke that morning, but she had needed some space to understand her own reaction. To have him leave the ranch and not talk to her seemed like a huge betrayal of trust.
“I actually go back east on Sunday. To, to go visit some friends from home,” she continued: “Just for a few days.”
The look of fear on her aunt’s face was clear, even her uncle looked surprised.
“But you’re coming back, right?” Annie said.
“Yes, of course.” Lenora said. “I’ve planned this trip for months. It has nothing to do with Clay.”
But she wondered how awkward it would be to see Clay every day, be close to him and for the memory of their shared nights to lie between them like unpicked fruit left to spoil. Why had she ever started a fling with a cowboy, she wondered, and a cowboy that worked for her aunt and uncle. What must they think of her, showing up here and getting swept off her feet and into Clay’s arms?
“Well, I’ll drive you to the airport,” Annie said.
After dinner, as Lenora helped clear the dishes Her uncle put his hand on her shoulder and spoke softly, “Come back to us, now you hear? You know we’ve all grown really fond of your blueberry crisp.” Byron winked and Lenora felt a little less restricted in her breathing. A trip back home would be good; perhaps it would even lend new perspective to her life in Montana.
***
On the car ride to the airport, the clear sky promised a beautiful day.
“I’m going to miss you. It’s really just a few days, right?” Annie said.
“Yes, I’m coming back,” Lenora answered.
She was resolute with her tone, but in the back of her mind she wondered if it would be easier to just stay in Chicago? She knew she could not run forever, she would have to face Clay again. Embarrassment and anger were a deadly mix, and both boiled in her stomach just thinking about Clay and his ex-wife standing on the porch. Why had she not known what to say at that awkward moment?
“I feel silly for falling for him, Aunt Annie,” Lenora said.
“Oh, Dear. Don’t. It will all work out. I’m sure you two just need to have some time to breath. It’s been quite hot and heavy between you two hasn’t it? Sometimes a little time away makes it easier to clear the head.”
“I should have never slept with your Ranch Foreman, though. I’m sorry. I feel so silly. Like a little girl. I just… I just hadn’t felt good in so long and he made me feel so alive.”
Lenora was gushing now, the words falling from her mouth with regret. These were things she would have told her mother. How life marched forward despite loss, death, love.
“Darling,” Annie said. She placed her hand on Lenora’s cheek even as she drove the truck down the winding, mountain highway. “I don’t think it’s just sex with you and Clay? Do you? I see something more in both of your faces, when you look at each other.”
Lenora was silent thinking this over and watching the mountains give way to city and the hustle and bustle, which she realized she did not miss. At the airport, before getting out of the truck, Lenora hugged Annie.
“I think that’s what I’m so scared of, Aunt Annie. I’m scared that there is more between Clay and me. I’m not ready for more. I feel like I’m raw from Mom. And from Mick, and I don’t know if I have any love left to give! I feel used up. By, by life I guess. I feel used up by life.”
“I know you do but you can’t give up because you’ve had a bad run. That’s not how life works.” Annie squeezed Lenora’s hand. “Be safe and come back to us.”
Lenora walked to her boarding gate, her mind whirling with a thousand emotions as she headed back to her old life.
***
It was afternoon when Lenora landed in Chicago. She gathered her bags and headed out into the rush of noise and traffic to look for her friend. Standing next to her car at the busy airport pick up terminal, Liz was a chic, Chicagoan with square bangs, wide rimmed, black glasses as well as designer leggings and heels.
“You’re here!” Welcome home,” Liz said.
The city no longer felt like home, but Lenora would not say so to her friend. Had the sky always been so close and gray? She watched the hurrying people around her with their tired faces. Her head felt thick and her movements slow and awkward as everyone rushed around her. Why were all these people in such a hurry, she wondered. Their movements seemed inefficient and the air smelled like exhaust fumes.
“Thank you so much for picking me up. It’s so nice to be back to see you,” Lenora said.
“Of course! I’ve seriously missed you. Plus, you keep hinting at some hottie who works for your aunt and uncle, and I really want to hear all about him,” Liz said. “The guys in this city just plain suck. Is he a cowboy? Can he, like, rope horses and ride wild mustangs and stuff?”
“His name is Clay. And I’m not sure we are going to work out. I’m still getting over my divorce and he’s got an ex-wife and all the baggage that comes with that,” Lenora said.
“Oh, I see. Well, at least you have a guy even if you aren’t quite ready for him. I swear every other guy I meet is a stockbroker. They have no imagination, and I really don’t want to hear how they single handedly are going to get our economic growth back to 10 percent!” Liz said. “Now, let’s get you out to the horse barn to see everyone, then a late lunch.”
It was good to see Liz, even if the city seemed rushed and dirty. They loaded her one suitcase into Liz’s hatchback and pulled onto the freeway heading towards the suburbs on the southwest side of Chicago.
The day slipped away, filled with seeing new horses at the barn where Lenora had boarded Major and all of her old riding friends. Oddly enough, the people and places of her previous life no longer felt as if they belonged to her. Something had changed, and all through the day Lenora tried to put her finger on it. Late in the evening, tucked into Liz’s spare room, she realized she had transformed into a different person than the girl who lost her mother and broke into a million pieces. Her mother’s death had been the beginning of a huge shift in her life. She thought back over the two years and realized that all she had been trying to do was to close the old doors in her life with grace and open the new ones with courage. Thinking of new doors, she wondered what Clay was doing? Had he made it safely back from the summer pasture? What would it be like at the ranch if the two of them had to avoid each other? Should she try and move into town when she went back west? She realized suddenly that no matter what happened with her and Clay, she would stay in Montana. The big sky and open space of that place had awakened more life in her than she had ever thought she could experience. Her home was no longer in Chicago. That was at least comforting to know where she belonged even if she did not yet know with whom. Maybe she was just fine by herself, and she knew that was the truth of the matter; she could be very happy and fulfilled all by herself. What she did need was the blossoming relationship with her Aunt and Uncle and Rosa. The thought of Rosa made her smile. She hoped her friend and her hunk of a husband had enjoyed some great makeup sex.
Her whole vacation would have been relaxing and wonderful except she ran into Mick. Or, she suspected, he came to find her. Who had told him she was back? Not Liz, one of the girls from the café where they had dinner, perhaps. She really had no idea but wished they had not meddled in her life.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?” Mick said.
He stood in the doorway to the tack room. Liz had dropped Lenora off at the horse barn so that she could ride and hang out with the barn manager, Francine. How typical of Mick, Lenora thought, to be angry about some perceived slight.
“I had no reason to tell you, Mick,” Lenora said.
She was trying her best not to look directly at him; he was dressed in tailored pants and had a heck of a tan. She knew most women found him to be a very attractive man. Once upon a time Lenora would have agreed.
The problem had always been that he was too good looking and very charming. He would come across as the nicest guy in the world really, and maybe he was, especially if you were a girl. Mick loved women; simply no way around that fact, she thought. Sometimes, as Lenora had learned, several at one time.
“Well, I assumed we were still friends,” Mick said.
He looked like some kind of GQ model with his stubble and cautiously, messy dark hair. Lenora found herself picturing Clay. He had mud on his boots, hair shaggy around his collar and his eyes so full of joy as he smiled at her on the first morning after they had made love.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Lenora said. “I can’t believe you would even come here.”
“Wait, wait,” he said. “I was hoping you would have dinner with me. I really owe you a nice meal and an apology.”
“We aren’t friends, Mick. And I have no desire to waste my time being around you, or listening to your excuses anymore,” Lenora said. “Now, go live your life, as I am doing just that for myself. I have no more time for you.”
Wow, that felt good, she thought and turned and walked into the barn, slipping into a stall with a large warmblood horse. She sighed; it had perhaps not been the best idea to picture Clay on that morning, not so very long ago, but it had given her strength. Damn, he had looked amazing, she thought. The perfect amount of skin showing through the V of his shirt had been alluring. His pure black hair still dripping from the icy mountain stream. And his eyes, she could only describe them as rich as the landscape and his own heritage in that wild place. They were so clear, so bright, a gift from God to remind him of his deep roots, surely? Clay had made her brave; the mountains had lent her confidence. Suddenly, after borrowing the gifts, she realized they were now hers. No longer would she give into her womanizing, ex-husband.
Lenora admired the people she was meeting in the west; they would not start trouble, but if they had to, they would finish it quickly and with the confidence that they were in the right. Oh, why was she here, she wondered, in Chicago. Suddenly, she was ready to be on the plane and headed west. She would take Major out on an early morning gallop and leave tracks in the frost blanketing the hills. Together they would greet the sunrise and feel the quiver of life as it pulsed through the world. She was ready to go home.
***
The next day as she hugged Liz goodbye she felt sad. Perhaps sensing this, Liz hugged tighter.
“I’ll try and come out to visit for Christmas,” Liz said. “I always have some time off for the holidays, and I’m sure the ranch is beautiful in winter.”
“Oh, please do!” Lenora said. She felt herself smile.
On the plane she sat next to a lovely lady who spoke of going to visit her granddaughters. As they landed in Denver, because nonstop flights to Montana from Chicago were not an option, a huge bolt of lightning touched down next to their plane. All the lights at the terminals flickered. The passengers were ordered briskly off the plane. Her flight to Montana was delayed, indefinitely. Using her cell phone, she called the ranch and left a message for her aunt, forewarning her to not come to the airport.
Lenora leaned against the window and watched lightning play across the sky. Of course, her mind was reliving a different storm, one where she was wrapped in the arms of the sexiest, kindest man she had ever known.
“He must be something special to have you looking so sad,” said a voice from behind her.
Lenora turned and found a small woman sitting on the ground beside the long row of windows. The woman was surrounded by bags made of brightly colored cloth. Her hair was white and very long, bordering her face which was the color of the inside of a walnut shell.
“Sit. Eat with me. You can tell me all about this young brave of yours,” she said.
Lenora sat down. She wondered how this woman had known she loved a Native American man. Did it matter? The old woman handed Lenora a Tupperware bowl with succotash in it; a mixture of beans, rice, corn, onions and tomatoes. With no fork appearing, Lenora dipped her fingers into the bowl. The food was amazing.
“What’s in this?” Lenora said. “I’m sorry. I’m tired and have no manners. I’m Lenora.”
“Susan,” the old woman said. “Sometimes they, my family, call me Black-Eyed Susan. Like the flowers. You know?”
“Yes. Yes, I do know,” Lenora said. “Where are you going from here?”
“New Mexico. Home,” Susan said. “You know all you have to do is take him back. If you want him, of course.”
Susan looked at Lenora and she realized the woman’s eyes were indeed black. A shiver ran down her spine. This perfect stranger looked at her as if she knew every thought in Lenora’s head and emotion in her heart.
“Go to the mountains, the desert, the lake. Go wherever you can to be alone, and then ask,” Susan said. “You ask La Que Saba, she is the one who knows all about women, and woman trouble. You ask her to help you. But make sure, Young One, that you want, really want what you ask for. Because she will give him to you. Is this man the one you want?”
“I, I don’t know. That’s the trouble. I’m so unsure of myself right now,” Lenora said. “My mother is dead.”
She had no idea why she was telling this strange old lady about her mother. Nor, why she was starting to cry. She set down the bowl of succotash and wiped at her face. The late hour, and being in an airport for so long must be making her crazy, she had never liked the harsh glare of the LED lights and long corridors of these places. Outside the storm raged on, lashing the terminal windows with rain and then lighting the runways, filled with grounded planes, in eerie brilliance.
“I’m embarrassed how I acted around his ex-wife,” Lenora said. “And by how I over-reacted with him. And, well with the whole situation really. I’m not sure why I’m so freaked out by everything.”
There, she had said it. Was it because of Mick and his cheating, betrayal of their marriage or the loss of her mother? No, it was more than that, she had lost trust in her own judgement, she doubted her mind, heart and gut and found herself adrift with no guide and so many worries. Lenora looked down at her hands.
Susan peeled the shiny wrapper from a thick, chocolate bar and smacked her lips as she broke off the first piece, popping it in her mouth. Lenora watched the old woman, irritated with herself for spilling so much of her heart into a conversation with a stranger. For all she knew Susan might be a homeless woman, or maybe mentally ill.
Breaking off a huge wedge of chocolate, Susan handed it over to Lenora, and kept offering the piece until she realized refusing was not only rude but futile. It really did taste amazing, nutty and richer than American chocolate. Lenora nibbled her wedge in silence, feeling more and more sorry for herself. Why did she pick the complicated guys, she wondered? Why did Clay have to be so damn nice to Crystal? Did he not see how insecure she had felt? Why could he not just cut ties with the past and only do things that would make her feel safe and loved? Wow, she stopped the litany in her head just long enough to realize her mind was speaking self-absorbed crazy talk.
“Maybe,” Lenora said. “I’m not quite ready for a man in my life?”
Susan looked up from her chocolate wedge, her lips and teeth stained brown.
“Ahh, so you do want him! You know. He knows. But you don’t want to scare him off with your needs, do you?” Susan said.
“I’m just not sure I’m ready to be in a relationship that’s so serious. My marriage ended just a little over a year ago. And then. And then, my mom died,” Lenora said.
“Sing her praises and marry the brave. Have ten little babies to commemorate your mother,” the old women said. She shrugged her shoulders and Lenora realized how tiny she was under her layers of shawls.
“You make everything so hard,” Susan said. “So many decisions. Go to the mountains, ask, listen, act. That’s it! Why so much thinking?”
She pointed to her head and then made circles with her finger to illustrate her theory that Lenora was thinking too much, all the time grinning with her chocolate colored teeth. Lenora smiled as well. Really, it was impossible not to like the crazy, old woman. Pulling her carry-on bag closer, she leaned against the wall of windows next to Susan.
The announcer was reading off her flight numbers. Lenora opened her eyes and was greeted by the harsh light of the terminal as well as the first silver, gray of dawn. Glancing out the windows, she realized the storm was over and the runways full of departing planes. Next to her the floor was empty, Susan was gone. Lenora rubbed her eyes amazed that she had fallen asleep in the crowded waiting area with so many sounds and lights. Where, she wondered, could the old lady have gone? Had she dreamt her? Lenora stood as passengers began to line up to board the plane. She looked everywhere. Maybe she had imagined the whole thing. As she fished in her purse for her boarding pass Lenora looked at her hand and realized it was stained with rich, dark chocolate.