Living and sleeping in the cabin in the woods was as restful and peaceful as anything Mel had known in almost a year. She woke in the early mornings, in time to see the sun slowly creeping over the tall pines, to hear the birds singing. She liked to get a cup of coffee and go out on that new, strong porch and enjoy the clean morning air, still cold on early spring mornings.
It wasn’t yet 6:00 a.m. when she opened her front door and there, before her, were at least a dozen deer, grazing contentedly on the grass, bushes and ferns at the edges of her clearing. She took note of the freckled fawns—it was spring and time for birthing of all sorts.
She went for her digital camera and snapped a few sneaky shots. Then she loaded the pictures onto her laptop and dialed up the Internet, which took forever, but there was nothing faster out here. After she had sent the pictures to Joey, she called her.
“Go online,” she told her sister. “I’ve sent you something amazing.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just hurry,” Mel said. “You’re going to love it.”
There was only a short wait as Joey could get online and download in seconds as opposed to the length of time it took Mel. She heard her sister gasp. “Deer!” she said.
“In my front yard,” Mel said. “Look at the babies. Aren’t they adorable?”
“Are they still there?”
“I’m looking out my kitchen window at them right now,” she said. “I’m not leaving the house until they’re done with breakfast. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen? Joey, I’m staying a little longer.”
“Oh, Mel—No! I want you to come here! Why are you staying?”
“Joey, I’m delivering another baby pretty soon. After that last one, I can’t resist. It just isn’t like in the hospital where everything’s so sterile and artificial and there’s a surgeon and anesthesiologist right down the hall. It’s just me and her, getting the job done. So pristine and wonderful and natural. So country—like Doc taking Mom’s twenty-year-old husband across the street to the bar for a shot of courage so he can be a less nervous assistant.”
“Oh, lovely,” Joey said sarcastically, causing Mel to laugh.
“It was fantastic,” Mel said. “There’s another pregnant woman in town and I’m thinking of staying for her, too. The cabin is just great—you saw the pictures.”
“I saw. Mel, are you dressed for the day?”
“Yeah…？”
“Look at your feet. Tell me what’s on your feet.”
She sighed. “My Cole Haan boots. I love these boots.”
“They cost over four hundred dollars!”
“And they’re starting to look like crap, too,” she said. “If you only knew where I’ve been…”
“Mel, you’re not one of them. Don’t get them depending on you. Come to Colorado. We can accommodate your shoe fetish and you can find a good job here—close to us.”
“I sleep so well here,” she said. “I was afraid I’d never sleep well again—it’s probably the air. It’s so unbelievable, it almost wears you out—by the end of the day the bed feels so good. The pace is slower. I’ve needed a slower pace.”
“Are you that busy? With patients?” Joey asked.
“Not that much. They’re very sparse, actually. We only make well-visit appointments on Wednesdays and the rest of the week they either wander in with one complaint or another, or Doc goes to them. I go along most of the time. Or people wander in to talk, or drop off a pie, or some fresh baked dinner rolls. But the women—the pregnant ones—are so relieved after one look at my hands, compared to Doc’s.”
“What do you do with yourself?”
“Well,” she said, laughing, “every day I walk down to the corner store to watch a soap with Connie and Joy, two middle-aged best friends who have been watching televised adultery on Riverside Falls for about fifteen years. The side comments are more interesting than the show.”
“Gawd,” she said.
“I go out to the Anderson ranch and hold the baby—Chloe. She’s thriving there, and so is Lilly. More and more I know that was the right thing to do, and it just fell in my lap. Sometimes I take some of our leftover food out to this bunch of bums in the forest—they look so thin and hungry, but Doc says they’ll probably bury us all. I stop by the bar to see if anyone’s playing cribbage. If I can reel him in, Doc and I play gin—but it’s hard to catch him in the mood. He taught me to play and now he can’t beat me. Penny a point—I’m funding my retirement.”
“So—when do you think you’re going to get over this break from sanity?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just let me think about it. I’ve only been here a couple of months—it’s not an eternity.”
“But I hate to think of you rotting away in some dinky town, watching the soaps and growing bad roots.”
“I could visit Dot in that garage where she does hair…”
“Ugh. Aren’t you lonely, honey?”
“Not so much. At the end of the day, if nothing’s going on, we go to the bar—Doc has his one whiskey of the day and I get a cold beer. There are always people around. We eat dinner—someone usually says, come over and sit with us. There’s great gossip, that’s the cool part about small towns where everyone knows everyone’s business. Except, apparently, who gave birth to little Chloe. I just count it lucky that no woman who suffered post-partum hemorrhage or infection turned up. And also—no word from social services.”
“I miss you so much. This is about the longest we’ve been apart in years… Why do you sound happy?”
“Do I? Maybe because everyone around me is happy. They let me know they’re glad I’m here, even if my presence isn’t medically saving this town.” She took a breath. “I still feel out of place a lot, but I think I’m more content than I’ve been in eleven months and three days. I might finally be detoxing from the adrenaline.”
“Promise me you’re not going to stay in that godforsaken place, alone, watching soaps and drinking beer.”
Mel’s voice became soft. “It’s not godforsaken, Joey. It’s…” She struggled for a word. “It’s breathtaking. Oh, the architecture leaves something to be desired—most of the houses and buildings are small and old and could use paint. But the countryside is wondrous. And I’m not lonely—I have a town. I’ve never had a town before.”
Ricky and Liz were going to the spring dance at the high school. Except they didn’t. It gave Rick a twinge of guilt because he knew in his heart that Connie and Ron trusted him. And probably they shouldn’t.
The thing about living in a small town in the midst of dozens of small towns separated by forests was there were a million secluded places to park and make out. He always had a condom in his pocket, one that he was determined not to have to use, but he had it just the same. He hadn’t even needed Jack to supply him—he was on top of that. He felt protective toward Liz; he didn’t want to get her into trouble. What they were doing was working, even if it was getting them pretty worked up.