When We Let Go, Delancey Stewart [early reader books .txt] 📗

The next morning I awoke no clearer, and a gnawing worry had begun to eat at me about Connor. We hadn’t been together, not really. But the sudden absence of the possibility of him in my life stung much more than I would have expected. There was a gaping hole within me suddenly, and I wasn’t sure how to make the ache subside.

Cam’s truck was still parked outside the lodge when I arrived, and without a real plan, I wandered toward it. When I rounded the back edge of the truck, I was surprised to find Cam leaning against the front bumper, staring ahead of himself with unseeing eyes.

“Hey you,” I said, surprised that my voice sounded normal and revealed none of the pain that was eating at my insides.

“Hey.”

“What’s going on?”

“I think we’ll be here another night or so. You wouldn’t think it, but long car rides can be really draining.”

I knew Cam wasn’t talking about himself. I wondered how much of Jess’s reluctance to leave was about being tired from the ride, and how much was about her insisting on staying until things were definitely resolved between Cam and me.

“I’m glad you’re staying,” I said. “It’s nice to see you. And to meet Jess.”

He cocked his head to the side, giving me a piercing look. For a minute I thought he was about to let loose, give me a dressing down for all the infractions over the years. I felt like I might just collapse under the weight of my regret if he did. After the words Connor had thrown at me, I didn’t know how much more I could take. But Cam didn’t say anything awful. Instead, he smiled. “It’s nice to see you again, too. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of smiling, but I managed it nonetheless. “What are you doing now?”

“Just giving Jess some quiet. She needs rest.”

I nodded. “You could come back to my place, if Jess didn’t mind.”

He shrugged and then smiled. “I’ll just let her know. Be right back.”

“Hey, give her this,” I said, handing him Connor’s signed book.

He looked at it in his hand for a moment, turning it over to stare at Connor’s serious portrait on the back, but said nothing. He jogged into the lodge and reappeared a few minutes later, climbing back into his truck. “Let’s go. I got to see the outside of it, but why don’t you show me around this trailer you’re so proud of?”

“Ha!”

“I want to get another look at the house, too.” Cam had worked with Chance and Sam many summers before, helping build some of the cabins around the meadow. I knew he was thinking about the house with his contractor mind now, when before he’d seen it only as my angry brother.

I got back into my car and Cam followed me through the village we had played in as children, up to the lot that once held only our beat-up station wagon and a couple tents, some folding chairs and the same old picnic table that I used now. A strange slow shame crept through me as he took time to look at the half-erected mansion that Jack had planned, wandering through the rooms. I walked at his side, silent.

“This is pretty ambitious,” he said, his voice low. He kept his tone neutral, and it occurred to me that he was trying to keep the newfound peace between us, just as I was.

“It’s too much,” I said, agreeing with the words he hadn’t spoken. “I haven’t had the funds to re-plan it and finish it.”

He gave me a direct look then, and I knew he understood being short of funds and was thinking of Dad. And of Jess.

I gave him the two-minute tour of the trailer and the house. He spent some time wandering the perimeter of the property, and I knew he was remembering the time we’d spent here as a family. I often did the same thing, but when Cam wandered through his memories he looked down, running the toe of his shoe through the soft mountain dirt. When I remembered, I always looked up. It was the trees that had always drawn me to this place.

After a bit, I joined him behind the frame of the house where he stood looking down the hill toward the trickle that was a river in springtime.

“What do you remember about that day you fell in?” he asked.

“Not much. How old was I? Four?”

“Maybe five.”

“I remember climbing the rocks along the edge of the river. I remember that the water looked deeper than normal.”

“And faster.” Cam’s voice was grim. “We shouldn’t have been down there. There’d been so much snow that year.” He looked up at me, his eyes narrow. “It had never been a real river before. It was usually more like a trickle. But that year it was big.” He shook his head slightly. “I should never have taken you down there.”

My heart swelled with hope. This. This was my big brother. He was back, at least in the memory of that day. “It wasn’t your fault, Cam.”

“What else do you remember? Do you remember the kid that pulled you out?”

“I don’t think so. Only in flashes, but I can’t see him, just a shadow above me. Do you remember who he was?”

Cam squinted, looking down the hill again, as if he was watching the older kid pulling me back up the hill to my dad. “He had this crazy dark red hair, and a little sister.”

My mouth might have fallen open just a bit as I turned to look at Cam. Something had just clicked in my mind, and my memory snapped into place. The shadow above me in my memory had red hair that caught the sun and blazed in shades of red and orange, I just hadn’t remembered that part until now. Connor. I swallowed hard, wondering if it could be true that Connor had saved my life as a child. If it was him, did he remember it?

We turned back and walked to the picnic table, both of us sliding into the same spots we’d always taken as children, leaving room for our parents at the other end without even thinking about it. But as soon as I was settled, I stood again. My mind was turning furious circles. “Beer?”

Cam nodded.

I returned and he started talking, holding the long bottle between his palms and rolling it back and forth. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you meet Jess earlier.”

I sat still, listening.

“We met in a grief group I attended when I was traveling for a film, out in Arizona. Everything was hot and dry there—it was a desert set—and there she was, bright and cool and bubbly.”

“She’s wonderful,” I agreed.

“Things happened really fast. She moved in with me, we got married. She doesn’t have family, so we went to the justice of the peace on a trip to Hawaii.” He tilted his head and stared at me for a second, but I knew he wasn’t seeing me. I waited for him to continue.

“She got sick last year. They gave her six months and she’s already lived twice that.”

“Cancer?” I asked. He nodded. He didn’t offer more, and I didn’t press. “I wish I could help.”

“I don’t know how long we have,” Cam said. “How about if I call Jack and see if I can persuade him to let go of that account?”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Maybe I can help you.” He stared at the tabletop. “You were right. What you said. About how you needed me, and how I just left you with him. I should never have let you marry him. I should never have walked away.”

“It wasn’t your call.” My voice was weak.

“You needed me. And I left you.” Cam’s voice broke and he looked away, taking a long pull from his beer.

“Well, if you can persuade him, you might have a future in law or sales. Maybe you can manage something my lawyer hasn’t been able to in a year.”

He nodded, a half smile turning up his lips. “Maybe. Jack’s such a pussy. What’d you ever see in that skirt-wearing douchebag?”

I shrugged.

“You know how to pick ‘em, sis. This guy, Connor…he’s been in the newspaper back home. Did you know that?” The words hurt, but Cam’s voice was soft and his eyes shone as he watched me.

I nodded, cringing as I thought about the picture Jack had stolen. My picture, and it was being used to help smear Connor’s name.

“Think it’s all true?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, though.” I didn’t know how to explain that despite everything I’d seen, I believed Connor. I believed his story about his sister, and I believed him about Amanda, too. “He wanted to buy this land, Cam. That was how I met him. But he changed his mind suddenly a while ago, and now I might understand part of the reason why.”

“I didn’t know you were trying to sell it.” Cam’s voice was steady, but he was looking at me with hard eyes.

“I wouldn’t have been able to—it means too much to me, to us. But he changed his mind before it came to that.”

“Why?” Cam asked.

“This