something. Our compass. You know-true north?'
He did know. He wanted to tell her how she and Sammi June had been that for him, all that and more-his anchor, his compass, the beacon light on the shore, his sword, his shield, his armor. But that seemed too big a burden of expectation to lay on one person.
'I guess there've been a lot of changes, though,' he said.
She threw him a smile. 'Yeah, there have. Mostly good ones. Lots of babies. There's a whole new crop of nieces and nephews for you to meet. Jimmy Joe and Mirabella-you remember Mirabella's little girl, Amy Jo? Jimmy Joe delivered her in the cab of his rig on a snowbound interstate in Texas on Christmas Day? Anyway, they have a little boy, now, too, and by the way, J.J.'s a senior in high school, if you can believe that. Then my brother Troy and his wife Charly, they have two little girls. And…let's see. Oh-oh my God, you'll never guess. You know my little brother, C.J.?'
'You mean, Calvin? The one that dropped out of high school, and everybody'd pretty much given up on?' How good it felt to talk like this, of ordinary, everyday things. Home…family.
'Excepting Momma, of course-Momma never gives up on any of her kids.' Laughter bubbled up, and he drank the happiness in that sound like water from a healing fountain. 'Yup, that's the one. Well, would you believe he's a lawyer now?'
'A lawyer? Good Lord.'
'I know, isn't it wild? He just passed the bar this last March. And guess what else? He's married. No babies yet, but he and his wife-her name's Caitlyn, she's from Iowa, and he met her when she hijacked his rig, and then she got shot and was blind for a while-oh, God, it's a long story-but anyway, they've adopted a little girl. Her name is Emma-she's a doll. And…let's see, who else?'
'What about your other brother-what was his name-Roy?' Tris prompted. 'Did he ever get married?'
Jessie sighed. 'Not yet. That makes him the last holdout in the marriage department. He's down in Florida, someplace. On the gulf. Captains a charter fishing boat.'
'Sounds like a tough life,' Tristan said dryly.
'Doesn't it, though. Okay, so who does that leave? Oh, yeah, my oldest sister, Tracy, of course-she's still married to Al, the cop, and they still live in Augusta and still have four kids. And then there's Joy Lynn-'
She broke off while he took her arm and guided her out of the path of a pair of joggers who were overtaking them on the pedestrian side of the pathway. And he thought how easily such a thing came back to him. Sometimes, in fact, it was hard for him to get his mind around how some things, small, everyday things that had been absent from his life for so long, slipped back into it almost as naturally as-well, smiles and laughter, which were two more things he'd been without for a long, long time. If only, he thought, everything could be that easy.
'Joy-how is she? She and her second husband-what was his name?-ever have any kids?'
Jess threw him a look, too quickly. He became conscious once again of the soft fabric of her sweater, warming beneath his fingers, and the tensed muscle of her arm under that. He let go of it and felt her body relax.
'Fred.' She bit off the word. 'She divorced him-with good reason, by the way. And she swears she's never getting married again. Given her lousy taste in men, it's probably just as well. Anyway, she lives in New York, now. She's working on a novel, but she has a job at a magazine publisher's to pay the bills.' She gave Tristan another side-long look. 'I was up there visiting her when I got the call. That's why I wasn't home-'
'I know,' he said softly. 'Your mom told me.' After a long moment he added, 'She said you're a nurse now.'
'Yeah,' she said, watching her feet, 'I got my degree four years ago. I work in the NICU-the Neonatal Intensive Care-'
'I remember. You always wanted to do that, after Sammi June. That's great.'
They walked on in silence, moving slowly, overcome all at once by the enormity of what had happened to their lives, the catastrophic changes of the past few days. The sun went down, and the air turned cooler. Tristan, who had sometimes doubted he'd ever be completely warm again, couldn't repress a shiver.
Jessie glanced at him but didn't ask if he wanted to turn back. Probably trying not to smother him, he thought, hating how weak he felt. He wondered if he'd ever have any stamina again.
After a while she said, 'Granny Calhoun passed away.'
He nodded his acceptance of that inevitability; the old lady, his mother-in-law's mother, had been at least ninety and frail as a twig last time he'd seen her, though still sharp as a tack mentally.
They paced another dozen quiet steps, and he was thinking he was going to have to turn around pretty soon, unless he wanted to humiliate himself by having to call somebody to come and get him and carry him back. Then he looked over and saw that she was crying. Soundlessly, with tears making glistening trails down her cheeks. Only when she felt his gaze did she lift her hand and try to stanch their flow with the sleeve of her sweater.
'Jess,' he said, his voice raspy with emotions long and deeply buried.
When she didn't reply he uncertainly touched her elbow. That was all it took to bring her to him, sobbing.
He stood and held her as close as he dared, staring over her head with eyes dry and face aching, hard little muscles clenching and unclenching in his jaws. Joggers and bicyclists hurried past, uncurious, their whirring wheels and labored pants making breathing rhythms in the dusk. A plump woman in a bright-blue coat, hurrying in the wake of an overweight poodle straining at its leash, gave them a glance, then politely averted her eyes.
Chapter 3
Why am I crying? Jessie wondered. Why now, of all times?
Not for Granny Calhoun, although there hadn't been a day in the years since her grandmother had passed on that Jessie didn't miss her. Granny had gone the way most everybody would like to, suddenly and peacefully at an advanced age, in her own home surrounded by her loved ones. Thinking about her brought Jessie only a warm and gentle sadness.
But this…Oh Lord, this grief had come up in her like a geyser, hot, violent, wrenching. This pain was searing… shocking, the pain of a loss so unjust, so unspeakable, it felt as though her entire body was turning itself inside out trying to reject it. These tears were unstoppable; like the grief and the pain, they'd been held back too long, buried beneath the serene, accepting surface of her everyday existence. They were Tristan's tears, she realized. The ones she'd never shed for him, not then, when she'd lost him, nor in all the years since.
Why hadn't she cried for him? Because she'd had to be strong, she'd told herself. For Sammi June, for Momma and the rest of her family and friends who were so worried about her. For Tristan's family and especially his military friends and colleagues, who'd expected her to keep a stiff upper lip, be brave. And for herself. Especially for herself.
'There was a memorial service,' she said, pulling back from him to mop at her streaming nose with her sleeve. She didn't mean Granny Calhoun, but she was sure, somehow, he'd know that. 'They gave me a flag…' She closed her eyes, once more helpless to stop the tears flooding down her cheeks.
She felt her husband's arms fold around her. She felt his bony, rock-hard chest deflate with a sigh. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered, as if he didn't know what else to say. He kept saying it, standing there in the growing chill of evening. 'I'm sorry…I'm sorry.'
'I'm glad I got that out of my system, aren't you?' Jessie said. But her laugh sounded phony, even to her own ears.
When Tristan didn't answer right away, she gathered her courage and looked up at him. But his face was a shadow against the pale sky, and his profile seemed stark and closed.
They were walking back toward the residence, more slowly now than when they'd left it, close together but not touching. It seemed to her that Tristan was leaning more heavily on his cane, and even without touching him she was aware of the tremors that seized him from time to time. She felt a squeezing sensation around her heart.
'I don't know where that came from,' she said, rushed and breathless with guilt, 'I really don't. I didn't mean-'
