“She’s had a tough time for the last few weeks. I’m not postponing a visit from her again. You can take someone else to the benefits, if you need to. My mother needs to visit us more than once or twice a year. We see your parents all the time.” It was the first time he had objected to the imbalance between how often they saw her family versus his mother. And Laura didn’t like hearing it. She was furious when he told her he might not go to the benefits so he could spend time with his mother.
“I’ll try to make it work,” she said, visibly annoyed about it, and Ben shook his head as he stared at her. There was a steely determination in his eyes she had never seen before and didn’t like.
“No, Laura. Not this time. Don’t try to make it work. Just do it.” And with that he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
He called Deanna that night to tell her where their mother was, and that she was okay.
“She’s in Wyoming. She went to see Andy Wyatt and found out when she got there that he died two months ago.” He sounded somber when he said it.
“Is that what all this mystery has been about? Visiting an old boyfriend? She must be desperate. He was never suitable for her.”
“They loved each other,” Ben said simply.
“That tells you that she’s not all there mentally. Why would she go to see an old boyfriend from twenty years ago? What does she need with that now? Thank God she didn’t marry him, she’d have been buried out in Wyoming somewhere. That’s not her style.” As usual, Deanna was harsh and unsympathetic. Ben was as annoyed with her as he was with his wife. He was Maddie’s only ally.
“He was a good guy.” He was touched by Andy’s death and knew how Maddie must have felt when she heard about it.
“She’d have been miserable there,” Deanna said sharply. “She knew it too. She knew what she was doing when she left him.”
“Maybe she’s not desperate, but she’s lonely, Dee. I think that’s why she went to see him.”
“To exhume the past?”
“Maybe just to touch it again, before you put a geriatric alarm around her neck and kick her out of the house she loves.”
“You can’t blame it all on me. She’s getting old.”
“Not that old. Maybe she wants a man in her life. She’s not too old for that.”
“I was thinking more like a nurse.”
“I’m thinking like a boyfriend. Don’t be such a hard-ass.”
“She’ll have to face reality at some point.”
“Not yet. And hopefully not for a long time. We need to try harder now. I hardly ever see her. You never do either, or not enough, and you live in the same city. She never sees Milagra. And she never complains about any of it. What good is having three kids if you never see them?” He felt acutely guilty after following her Instagram for the last week. Her solitude shrieked from the images.
“We’re busy, and so is she.”
“We also have young kids and spouses. All she has now is her work. That’s not enough.”
“Well, thank God she didn’t go off with the cowboy again.”
“Why? What difference would it make to you? I’d rather know she’s happy. I don’t care who she’s with. That’s her business, not ours.”
“Don’t be such a romantic. She doesn’t need a boyfriend at her age.”
“Why not? Maybe she does. I hope she finds whatever she’s looking for.”
“I still think this trip was crazy, and maybe she’s getting senile. This could be the first sign.”
“That’s the furthest thing she is.”
He hung up a few minutes later, even more annoyed with her. Deanna was refusing to see their mother as a human being facing a hard time in life. It shocked him and made him sad for his mother that he was the only one who saw it and cared how she felt. His heart ached for her now.
* * *
—
Maddie wasn’t thinking of her daughter, or her son, as she checked out of the B and B. She was thinking of Andy, and Sean and his children. She was glad she had gone to visit them. She had a long drive ahead now to Big Sur, but she was looking forward to it.
She took more photographs of the mountains and the light before she drove out of town and found her way to the freeway. It was sunset by then, and she got some beautiful shots. They seemed to symbolize the end of the story, and Maddie wondered, as Ben had, if the trip to Andy’s ranch and beloved mountains had given her closure at last.
She felt quiet and peaceful as she drove south. She didn’t put the music on. She just wanted to drive for a while, thinking of him. She had put his photograph in her suitcase, wrapped in a sweater so the glass wouldn’t break. It had been the nicest gift Sean could give her.
She had driven three hundred miles when she stopped at one A.M. and checked in to a small motel in Nevada. The countryside around it looked barren, and there was a single slot machine in the lobby. She had another long drive ahead of her, about eleven or twelve hours, and so she left at six A.M. She stopped for coffee an hour later, and drove steadily through the day, only stopping when she had to.
She drove along the coast road once she got to Big Sur. The waves were crashing around the rocks. There was a wisp of fog over the ocean, and the sun was lowering slowly in the sky. She stopped and sat looking at it for a long time. The air was cool, and she loved the sound of the ocean. It had been the right place to come. Her mind was full of memories of Andy, the trip they had made there, other places they’d been, his visit to New York, the things they had said to each other, the promises they’d made. It all washed over her like the ocean, and then swept away like the tide.
She felt cleansed, and whole again. She wasn’t frightened of what lay ahead, no matter what Deanna said. Her threats seemed irrelevant now. She felt brave again, and her solitude didn’t scare her. She was used to it. Her life would be no different now than it had been for seventeen years without Andy. The only difference was that in the back of her mind she no longer clung to the thought that she could go back to him one day, if she wanted to. He was truly gone now, but she felt ready to face it. And whatever the future held, she would deal with it, alone, as she had for most of her life. The possibility of sharing a life with Andy in the end had been an illusion. She knew that now. She had her children and her work, and whatever life chose to put in her path. She was strong enough to deal with it, just as she always had been. She had found her strength again.
She started the car and drove to the hotel then. The hotel was as beautiful and peaceful as she had remembered it. She was shown to a room with a view of the Pacific. There was a path leading to other parts of the property and hiking trails in the area. She couldn’t hike on uneven terrain in her walking cast, but she could go for walks on terra firma, and sit and watch the ocean for hours.