Second Chances

Everheart Books Edition

Copyright © 2013 Abbie Williams

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This edition is published by arrangement with Abbie Williams

everheartbooks.com

First electronic edition

Created and distributed by Everheart Books, a division of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

Second Chances

ISBN 978-1-771680-07-3

Published in Canada with international distribution.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design: Meghan Tobin-O'Drowsky

Cover Photography: Courtesy & Copyright CanStockPhoto & meinzahn and azarubaika

This book is dedicated to my girls: Jessica and Jacqueline, my nieces, and to Ashley, Ezri Rose, and Violet, my daughters.

Girls, you are incredible, you are courageous, and you are lovely. I have learned more from the five of you than you'll ever possibly know, and I love you.

Second Chances

They say you only fall in love
one time in your life.

Thank God that's not true.

I can only tell you what I know about it and that is this: love engraves both your mind and your body in countless irreversible ways. It happens most often when you least expect it. It pitches stars into your eyes so that everything, even ordinary, everyday things take on a luminescence you never noticed. At first it is indistinguishable from lust. Lust is the scent of the warm skin of your lover's neck, a look in his eyes that makes your belly weightless and your entire body tremble. It is a thousand and one murmured words and soft sighs and intertwined fingers. It is fascination and daydreams. It is hot and sudden as lightning on a humid July night, slick and swift as the endless rivers in your blood. It propels your sensibilities, sparkling, into the air. Love is getting up in the middle of the night through cobwebs of exhaustion because your child is crying. It is the responsibilities and details, both trivial and momentous, the memories of a shared lifetime. It is jagged as shattered glass and dense as lead. It is a thing of endless contradiction and infinite speculation. No one can explain it, including me.

But I will tell you this: it is not something that only happens once in your lifetime. That is one thing I know for certain.

August 2003 - Landon, MN

“Go after him?” Jillian repeated, disbelief raising
her voice about a half-octave.

I lifted my head, which had been leaning on her shoulder, and curled my arms defensively around my bent legs. I was wearing our grandmother's robe, my feet bare and chilly in the predawn damp, unwilling to be moved by my little sister's incredulous tone. Instead, resolute in my decision, I rested my chin on one knee and studied the smooth, inky surface of Flickertail Lake, bathed now in muted starlight. The eastern horizon bore a slim stripe of pale saffron, slowly brightening. Though not normally unwilling to voice his opinion, Justin Miller, seated on Jilly's far side, wisely held his tongue.

Finally Jilly could stand my stubborn silence no longer and prodded, “Joelle, what in the hell are you thinking? You can't possibly follow them to Oklahoma. You have to let him go, for now, anyway.”

At that I found my voice, ragged though it was from tears and exhaustion. “I won't.”

I sensed Jillian softening slightly; her next question came out more gently. “Jo, what did he say when you talked to him?”

It stung me to my core to repeat his words, but I did, saying, “He told me that he wasn't good for me, that there were things about him that I didn't know.” And then, realizing that they certainly had information I did not, I demanded, “What did Rich say earlier? You must have talked to him.”

Jillian shifted and raked her right hand through her short hair, creating a spiky mess. From the corner of my gaze, I saw Justin curve his own right hand around her left thigh and pat her twice, a calming gesture. For a moment I didn't think she was going to elaborate, and I dropped my feet to the dock and turned to implore her.

“Jilly, please tell me,” I whispered, studying her familiar profile.

My sister bit her bottom lip and then turned to face me, the blue of her eyes evident even in the meager light. She said, “Rich called about two hours after you'd gone to bed. Mom talked to him. He bailed out Blythe, and then told Mom he was taking Bly back to Oklahoma. No ifs, ands or buts. It was part of the condition anyway, since Blythe has to face charges there. Now, if Jackson decides to press any here, then Blythe'll be in extra trouble.”

I curled my hands together and pressed against the ache in my belly. Jackson could most certainly decide to take that option; Blythe had not only knocked him down twice, but Jackie was now also missing an incisor from his toothy grin. I closed my eyes for a moment, better to block out that image. Instead I saw Blythe's eyes, deep blue-gray and wounded, as he told me he loved me, but that he wasn't good for me. That there were things I didn't know about him. For a moment I struggled to draw a deep breath, my heart thumping almost painfully; I had been the one to end our relationship just a week ago, only to realize just how deeply I was in love with him.

Jilly had paused, and was studying my face now; I sensed more than saw her concern. She added, even more softly, “I think—and Jo, I'm only saying this because I love you and I am fucking worried about you—I think you should stay here. I don't think it will solve anything if you try to go there. What can you do?”

“Show him that I love him,” I whispered fiercely, not caring that Justin was hearing all of this too. To his credit, he didn't clear his throat and excuse himself, didn't so much as shuffle his feet. Instead he quietly studied the lake, keeping his hand wrapped gently around Jillian's leg.

Jilly asked, not unreasonably, “Wouldn't a phone call accomplish that?”

I shook my head, unable to respond through the emotion that swiftly encompassed my throat. I couldn't convey to Jillian just how much I needed to be there, to see Blythe, to see this through. He needed me, it was that simple. I finally whispered back, “I won't stay long. I'll be back before school starts.” Necessity would pull me back before long anyway, the necessity of motherhood. My heart constricted again with the certainty of what I knew I must do; I had to go after Blythe, even if it meant he would send me away for good. But I had to know.

“Jo, sleep on it, at least,” Justin finally ventured, his tone gentle.

“I will,” I whispered, again bending my knees and threading my hands together around them. I didn't tell them that it wouldn't change my mind.

The three of us made our way back up the shore a few minutes later, me in the lead, Jilly and Justin a few yards behind, walking with fingers loosely linked. I climbed the porch steps and then turned back to watch them amble along, so glad for my sister's happiness that I spent a moment soaking in it; Jillian had been widowed 12 years ago, and had only just recently begun seeing Justin Miller, a longtime friend of our family. They continued on past the porch, where I stood with my hips pressed lightly to the top rail, waving silently as Justin raised a hand in farewell. Jilly called over her shoulder, “Stay there, Jo, I'll be right back.”

I remained, obeying her, watching as sunlight began tinting the sky in amber hues. The birds were very much awake; the shore echoed with their lively chatter and conversational chirps. The lake itself was still cloaked in the last of the silvery dimness of night, level as a mirror with no wind to mar its surface. I studied the familiar sight in all its clear-morning beauty, thinking about what had happened in the last 12 hours.

Blythe was in trouble. I didn't know all of the details, but I vowed to find out. Just over a week earlier, I'd told him that we had no future together. Despite everything my heart was screaming to the contrary, I felt as though it was wrong to ask him to stay, to bind himself in any permanent way to a mother with three girls of her own, one of whom was expecting a baby in March. Again my belly seized with the realization of Camille's pregnancy. She was 17, my oldest, who had been conceived when her father and I skipped the last half of senior prom to have sex in his car. No protection, just heat and desire and crossed fingers; roughly nine months later we were legally wed, living nearly a thousand miles from our hometown of Landon, Minnesota, and in possession of a newborn. No matter that Jackson's mother had insisted we marry; we were in it for the long haul, I'd thought back then. And I had loved my husband dearly, when those damnable first-love stars had clouded my vision. It wasn't until over a decade and one gorgeous new assistant at my husband's law firm later that the foundation of my marriage had begun to crack and crumble. I had ignored it for years, purposely, and by the time I realized I better start paying attention the whole relationship, foundation to rafters, was in rubble around my ankles.

I'd come home just last May to Landon, a place steeped in memories, most centered upon my rambunctious, freewheeling childhood and high-flying teenage years. At 17, the thought of settling permanently in this one-horse town had been loathsome, despite its familiarity and the presence of the women who'd taught me everything I knew about life, love and the pursuit of independence. I came from independent women, who equated happiness with that very principle; no man had ever been in charge of our family business, the Shore Leave Café, since its founding in the late 1930s. My great-grandmother Myrtle Jean Davis had opened it after her father died and left her the lakeshore property. She'd built a business there from the ground up; nothing fancy, just a diner with a porch, a place for Landon locals and the droves of fishermen who flooded our town every year, serving beer by the mug and in the batter of her fried fish. Myrtle Jean had been married for a time, later divorced, and single-handedly raised my grandmother Louisa and her sister Minnie; in turn Gran had married young, given birth to my mother and my aunt Ellen, and then raised them solo after her husband's departure from Landon. It was a long-standing and distinctly bittersweet joke that our family of women had difficulties holding onto its menfolk. My mother carried on the tradition of producing two daughters close in age, though my father, Mick, had vanished from our history while Mom was pregnant with Jilly. The only men who'd ever been permanent fixtures at Shore Leave were Rich Mayes, who was Blythe's step-grandfather and who'd worked in the kitchen since before my birth, and Justin's dad Dodge Miller, who ran the filling station on the lake and stopped out for breakfast every morning. Dodge had been the one to pull our dock out of the water every fall, in preparation for winter, for as long as I could remember. And now Jilly was dating his son, after a lifetime of knowing one another from afar.

As though my thoughts had conjured her, Jilly came bounding back from the direction of the parking lot, where she'd spent a few minutes bidding farewell to Justin. I sank onto a chair at one of the porch tables, propping my bare feet on the seat opposite. Seconds later Jilly lifted my ankles and claimed the space; I settled my feet comfortably in her lap. She braced her elbows on the tabletop, chin on one fist, and regarded me with somber blue eyes.

“What?” I demanded. I didn't have to sigh.

“You might be able to placate Justin, but not me,” she said. “Sleep on it, my ass. You're set on your decision, I can see it in your eyes, Joelle.” She tipped her head slightly and then asked, “Do you want company? You know I'd go with you in a heartbeat.”

It was tempting, but in the end I knew it was something I had to do alone, and Jilly sensed it.

“Don't worry about the girls,” she reassured me. “They'll understand. And I'll keep them out of trouble.”

I shook my head. “It's not that,” I whispered. “I'm counting on you to explain why I have to do this.”

She was about to ask me why, to explain it to her too, but then she sensed the depth of what I was feeling, and asked, her voice very soft, “You really do love him, don't you?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, seeing Blythe, and then I reached across the table and gripped my sister's already outstretched hand. I squeezed it, and she returned the pressure.

“I guess so,” she said finally.

We sat for another few minutes in companionable silence, watching as the sun crested the treetops on the eastern horizon and spread its wings over the lake. The sky was powder blue in its wake, cloudless, and voices were traveling to meet our ears from the direction of the lake path, which wound back to our house and garage with its mother-in-law apartment Jillian shared with her son, Clint. My own girls were crammed quite literally into the upstairs loft in the house, the same house in which I'd lived my entire life in Landon, and of late they had begun to voice complaints about the situation; they would just have to live with it a little longer, until I found us a place to live in town.
One thing at a time, Joelle
, I reminded myself, scraping a hand through my tangled hair. Right now the first thing on my list was coffee, then a shower; at the moment I looked like a crackhead in Gran's robe.

Mom and Aunt Ellen were climbing the steps on the far side of the porch, Mom reaching behind herself as she walked to braid her long hair, its blonde length now liberally streaked with silver. Ellen had always worn her own curly yellow hair short, and it currently resembled a flower gone to seed: fluffy and errant despite her best efforts. Ellen was just a year older than Mom, and had never married, but I thought of her as a second mother. To be truthful, Ellen's stoic demeanor and ability to listen quietly had led me to her side more often than my own mother's over the years. She had been the first person besides Jackson to know about my prom-night pregnancy, and had coached me on how to break the news to Mom, all those years ago.

That thought was in my mind as I watched them, two slightly plump middle-aged women with freckled skin and wide hazel eyes, wearing jean shorts and Shore Leave t-shirts, Mom decked in hot-pink hoop earrings with circumference enough to be bracelets. They caught sight of Jilly and me at the same moment; Mom hesitated, but Ellen marched ahead and joined us unceremoniously at the table, setting down the large stainless steel bowl she'd been carrying against her stomach. It was loaded with a whisk, two clean towels and a pepper grinder.

“What're you powwowing about, girls?” she asked, no hint of teasing in her voice.

“Jo is going after Rich and Blythe,” Jilly told her without preamble, and I rolled my eyes in exasperation, though obviously they'd have to know sooner or later.

Ellen didn't respond, only turned her concerned gaze to my face; stubbornly, I kept my eyes on my hands, folded over each other on the tabletop. Mom overheard this, of course, and I sensed more than saw her lips purse in disapproval.

“Jo, Rich will take care of things, don't you worry,” Mom said, coming over but not sitting with us. Rich Mayes was Blythe's step-grandfather, and a kinder more sensible man I'd never known. I braced myself for the coming onslaught of guilt that Mom was so famous for dishing out. Like a helping of mashed potatoes that would sit, brick-like, in your stomach.

“Mom,” I began carefully, aching with tiredness but determined to speak my piece. I was not a teenager any longer, though Mom's expression was reminding me of what those years had been like. I squared my shoulders and continued, “I am going to Oklahoma and finding them. I need to do this.”

Ellen patted my hand, Jilly tipped her chair on its back legs, and Mom must have heard the conviction in my voice, because she low-balled, asking, “What are the girls going to think? What will Jackson think? He'll be back out here today, and you can bet he's not going to let this all slide.”

“Not after getting his ass handed to him,” Jilly said, laughing a little, her rich, deep laugh with its capacity to make everyone in hearing distance smile. I did, just slightly. Ellen, whose back was to Mom, winked at my sister and our mother frowned like a great-horned owl.

“Jillian, that is not funny,” she bitched, and I lifted both hands in defense, though I hadn't made the comment.

“Seriously, I have never seen Jackie lose a fight, and he used to get in them all the time,” Jilly continued. “But Blythe cleaned his clock. Jackie had it coming, even you have to admit, Mom.”