Remembering You (24 page)

She rolled to her back again and thought instead about the video she’d just finished up and sent. For some reason, it didn’t seem as strong as the previous ones. Actually, the stories Grand-Paul and Grandpa Jack shared were interesting. She was sure viewers would be enthralled. It was her commentary that had bothered her. Looking at her captured image, she seemed older. It was clear that the trip was no vacation. It was also clear in the waver of her voice that she seemed more uncertain than she’d been at the beginning. The more she found out, the less she seemed to know—about her grandfather, about Dennis. About herself.

She was exhausted, but as the minutes ticked by, her mind didn’t stop. Ava tossed and turned, thinking about all her grandfather had told her about the camp. It was hard for him to tell those stories, but he at least told them. He hadn’t clammed up like he did every time Chenogne was mentioned. Which reminded her that she hadn’t gotten an e-mail with the scanned page from that book either.

Ava flipped to her back and stared at the ceiling, listening to her grandfather’s snores. Whatever happened in Chenogne must still weigh on his mind. On his heart. Did he ever forget? Did he ever have peace from the memories?

* * * * *

Muted sunlight broke through the clouds and shined down onto the car. Both her grandfather and Grand-Paul had mischievous looks on their faces, and when Dennis stepped out of the hotel with a big smile, she knew something was up.

“The surprise is that we aren’t going all the way to Linz—at least not this morning.” Dennis said, jingling the car keys in his hand.

“I don’t understand.” She held up the brochure. “Linz is supposed to be next on the trip.” The other veterans had been there nearly a week, and she was eager to meet up with them again. While she’d greatly enjoyed her grandfather and Grand-Paul’s stories, she also hoped to videotape some of the other guys. More than that, she wanted to find Angeline Pirard. Her heart beat faster, thinking she could be the one.

“We’ve made arrangements.” Grand-Paul stepped forward, pointing his cane at Ava. “There’s a glass museum in Passau Jack and I want to go to. We thought it would give you and Dennis a chance to spend some time together without us underfoot.”

“I was hoping we could spend the day together. Just you and me.” Dennis didn’t say it, but she could see the rest of the message in his eyes.
Our time is getting short.

After a three-hour drive from Bayreuth to Passau, they dropped off their grandpas at the museum and drove to St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

“Don’t worry. The guys promised to give you plenty of video footage tonight to make up for the day trip,” Dennis said as they got out.

“I don’t doubt that. It’ll be great. They seem to really pour out the stories when they know it’ll mean my having more time to spend with you.” She glanced around, trying to appreciate the sights of this medieval part of town. She didn’t feel whole without her grandfather at her side. It was as if she were missing an arm. How was she going to handle it when they all went their separate ways? Her heart ached just thinking about it.

“I really appreciate your planning this day. This place is so beautiful.” She paused and tucked her hands in her jeans pockets. Her fingers brushed her cell phone, and she thought about calling Jill to check to see if there was any news on Angeline. Then again, if Jill did have news, she would have called. She looked up at the baroque cathedral. There wasn’t anything in Seattle that compared. It was white with a green roof—bronze, she guessed, that had tarnished over time. Intricate carvings graced the arched window frames. Angel statues rose from the roofline like messengers prepared to fly to the heavens at a moment’s notice. If the exterior was this intricate, Ava couldn’t even imagine what the interior looked like. Cathedrals like this were designed to give illiterate people glimpses of a glorious God, and it amazed her how common men had displayed that glory.

It made her think about her own life. Was she really living it in a way that displayed God? She wasn’t sure. Especially lately. She had thought living a good life and doing the best with her talents was enough. Maybe it wasn’t.

Her cell phone buzzed, startling her. Maybe it was Jill with news of Angeline.

“Hey.” She held the phone up. “I need to get this.”

“Sure.” He turned his back, and she stepped several feet away. “Jill?”

“Guess again.”

Jay
.

Ava swallowed hard and then looked over her shoulder at Dennis. He eyed her curiously, and she quickly turned away. “Hi.”

“I got your e-mail.” His voice was tender and sweet, like it had always been. Hearing him, it was almost as if the breakup never happened.

He cleared his throat. “Is this a good time?”

Ava’s knees weakened. She hurried toward a bench where an older couple sat. She sat on the end, turning her back to them. “No, it’s actually not. I told you I’d call when I got back.”

“I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you I was stupid. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I’m half of the whole we used to be…”

She didn’t answer. It had been everything she’d wanted to hear before the trip. Now she was a different person. This trip had changed her. She’d laughed, she’d cried, she’d feared, she’d doubted, and…she might even be falling in love with someone else.

Tourists milled around her, taking photos of the structure and lining up near the entrance.

She looked at the sky, seeing that the sun was coming out, hot and bright. She unzipped her sweater and took it off. Her whole body felt hot. Her heart ached.

“I can’t talk about this now.”

“I have to know one thing. Do you care about me at all?”

She balled her free hand into a fist and lowered her head. “You called me in Europe to ask me that?”

“No, I called to tell you that these months without you have been empty. But I did call to ask that too. I have to know.”

“You hurt me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We should have been married by now.”

“I just need to know that I still hold a place in your heart.”

“Yes, of course.”

There was silence on his end of the line.

“We’ll talk more when you get back. Talk to you later, Av.”

“Yes, okay.” She hung up the phone, not quite sure what had happened. Her mind felt full of quicksand. A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped.

“Everything okay?”

She looked up at Dennis. “Of course. Just business matters in Seattle.” She rose and brushed her hair off her shoulders. “I’m ready now. Are we going to take in some sights?”

Dennis chuckled and adjusted the rim of his baseball hat lower over his eyes. “Personally, I thought it would be nice to walk around, enjoy the sunshine, talk.”

“You’re right. A walk sounds nice.”

They walked shoulder to shoulder toward a large river. The town around them was quaint, medieval. Small shops and cafés lined the streets.

“Are you hungry?” Dennis asked.

“Not really.” She didn’t tell him that her stomach was filled with a hundred butterflies. She’d wanted time to be with him and talk. Now that she had the chance, Jay had ruined everything.
Why did I tell him I still care? Stupid, stupid.

Yet even as they walked, her mind took her back to the three years she and Jay had dated. They’d gotten along great. They enjoyed the same things. They’d seemed like the perfect couple. And then there was Dennis. She glanced up at him. How could this guy, who was both handsome and kind, care for her after all these years?

Somewhere inside, she still felt as if something would happen and reality would prove her doubts about him to be right. What if she was just someone he’d hang out with because she was his best option at the time? After all, she hadn’t heard from him in fifteen years. Even back then, their relationship hadn’t been grounded in reality. He’d been in a make-believe world, thinking that they could jump into marriage and a life together. She’d been the realistic one, telling him she wanted to finish college. That had always been in her timeline—followed by the husband, house, a dog, and 2.5 kids.

But now it was different. They were mature. They could support themselves. They could probably make it together. Then again maybe this was a fluke. They were in Europe. She took in the river, the medieval-looking buildings. She felt at peace with Dennis walking by her side. Real life never could be this good, could it?

“Let’s walk along the trail by the Danube,” he suggested, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets.

“That’s the Danube?” She pointed to the wide, blue-green river ahead. “Like the song?”

“The one and only.”

“I never thought I’d really see the Danube.”

“What places do you
really
hope to travel to? Other than Paris, of course.”

“I live in Seattle, so anywhere with sun. Hawaii maybe. Or Arizona.”

“Is that the type of place you’d pick for your honeymoon?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“What do you mean?” She slowed her pace.

“You know, after a wedding. A honeymoon? Is that where you’d planned on going with your fiancé?”

Ava stopped and looked up at the large, arched walkway that led to an open-air market. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Dennis about her and Jay’s plans.

“Look at those cute shops.” She pointed to a narrow street and the small shops that looked like places Snow White’s dwarfs would tend. “I want to get my mom a souvenir before I return. Do you want to look?”

Dennis didn’t answer.

She looked at him, and his brow furrowed.

“Okay, since you don’t want to answer that question…does Mr. Mystery Man have a name?”

She released an exasperated sigh. “Yes, it was Jay.”

“
Was
? Is he dead?”

“No.” She rubbed her arms. They couldn’t stop their trembling.

“What happened?”

She ran her hands over her face. “I just got a note one day from Jay telling me that it wasn’t going to work. That the wedding was off. It was sudden—and painful.” A man and a woman walked toward them down the sidewalk, and Ava and Dennis stepped to the side. After the couple passed, she turned to him and rubbed her brow. “Do you want to know more?”

“Yes.” Dennis waved to a little girl in a stroller. The toddler waved back. “How long did you date?”

They walked through some sort of park. The shrubs were manicured, flowers were planted in neat rows, and even the German children seemed to play in an orderly and quiet way.

“Three years.” She shrugged. “Please let that be your last question.”

“Do you want me to tell you about some of my girlfriends?”

“I don’t think I want to hear.”

“The list is short. It won’t take long. There was Jane—a worship leader from my grandpa’s church. And then there was Lisa, an intern from my grandpa’s church. And finally Jennifer. She—”

“Let me guess, you met her at Grand-Paul’s church?”

“He’s quite the matchmaker. They were all pretty and nice and…they just didn’t seem right. The longest relationship lasted six months, and she finally broke it off because she said—” He paused.

“What?”

“She said that every time I looked at her, I wasn’t really looking at
her.
That it was as if I was seeing someone else, or at least wishing it was someone else. Those are her words, not mine.”

Ava wanted to ask more, but at the same time she was afraid to.

“Look at that.” Ava pointed to a hillside up ahead. A large castle looked like something from a fairy tale. Then again, she couldn’t picture a fairy tale like this. “Could you imagine what it would have been like to have lived there?”

“Cold, drafty, and rat-infested would be my guess.”

“Wow, so romantic.”

“You want romantic?” He reached down and took her hand. His hand felt warm, and she let him lead her. They reached the river and followed a paved trail. As they walked, Ava looked over at the water that was more gray than blue. There were sailboats, and in the distance she saw a steamboat chugging downstream.

“So, how did Jay end it? You said he left a note, but there has to be more to it than that.”

“It’s not the most fun story to tell.”

“I still want to hear it. I can’t know you—really know you, Ava—if I don’t know all of it—even that stuff that makes you cry.”

Dennis stopped by a grassy hill, stepped off the trail, hunkered down, and patted the ground. Ava nodded and they sat side by side. She released a long breath and stared at the water.

“I doubt I’ll cry, but what happened is that he—Jay was supposed to go to his tux fitting on Saturday. Friday night I got home from work to discover there was a large gift bag by my apartment door. I immediately knew who it was from. I’d given him the bag with his last birthday present inside and he’d saved it. There was a card on top of the bag—or what I thought was a card.

“I opened the envelope, and there were just five sentences. ‘Ava, I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work out. I’m sorry. Have a good life. I’ll be praying for you.’”

Her hands trembled, and she placed her fingers to her lips. “I haven’t told that to anyone before. Even my friends. I told them he sent me an e-mail, which would have been easier. Maybe he would have gone longer than five sentences.”

“What a jerk.” Dennis spat the words. “He didn’t even have the guts to tell you face to face and then to give you a gift—”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t a gift.”

“But you said—”

“I said it was a gift
bag
. Inside were just some of my things. My running shoes, which I’d forgotten at his house. Some CDs he’d borrowed. Some photographs of me that he’d taken and had framed. I—” She started and then lowered her head. Tears pooled in her eyes, which surprised her.

“You what?” His hand gently rubbed her back, and his touch made it even harder to hold the emotions in.

“Okay, you really want to know?” She lifted her face and wiped away a tear. “I couldn’t have felt more worthless if he’d rented a billboard and posted it on the I-5 that he was dumping me. In fact, that probably would have been better.” Her voice rose and others sitting near them turned, but she didn’t care.