She was the only customer in the store, and she smiled at the gray-haired woman who was busy behind the counter. "Two brownies, please," she said.
"Be right with you, honey." The woman was arranging sugar cookies on a tray. Her hands were gnarled and painful-looking.
The alcove above the cash register was mirrored, and Rachel grimaced at her reflection. She tugged at her hair. She'd left San Antonio too quickly to get a perm, and her light brown hair hung uncertainly in that limbo between curly and straight.
The woman walked around the corner of the glass case toward the brownies.
"I noticed they changed the name of Huber Pond," Rachel said. "I haven't been here in a while."
The woman glanced up at her as she opened the rear of the case. "They changed it a long time ago," she said.
Something in her voice warned Rachel not to pursue the subject. She looked down at the brownies. "I used to buy these brownies all the time when I was a kid," she said. "They were sinful. I'm so glad to see you still make them."
The woman had picked up a sheet of tissue paper, but she stopped short of reaching into the case. Instead she cocked her head at her customer, eyes narrowed behind clear-framed glasses.
"Are you Rachel Huber?" she asked.
"Yes, I am," Rachel said, surprised.
The woman's features suddenly changed. Her nostrils widened, her lips paled and tightened. She started to reach for the brownies again, then seemed to change her mind. She set down the sheet of tissue paper, closed the door to the glass case, and walked quickly toward the rear of the little shop, where she disappeared behind a swinging door.
Rachel stared after her, perplexed. After standing there for a moment, she called out, "Excuse me?" but there was no response. She was about to leave when a young girl—a teenager—stepped through the swinging door.
"You wanted brownies?" The girl brushed a strand of blond hair from her eyes.
"Yes." Rachel pointed toward the case and noticed that her hand was trembling. "Two of them, please."
The girl extracted the brownies from their tray and slipped them into a bag, which she set on the countertop.
Rachel handed her a five-dollar bill. "Is she all right?" She nodded toward the swinging door and whatever room lay beyond it.
"She will be." The girl didn’t look at her as she rang up the sale. "Just got upset for a minute." She handed Rachel her change, then shrugged awkwardly, the lock of hair spilling into her eyes once more. "Maybe you shouldn't come in here again," she said. Then she turned on her heel and walked through the swinging door before Rachel had a chance to respond.
She left the bakery, her step now less light and unencumbered. She walked over to the pond, past the statue of her grandfather and onto the path that circled the water. The path dipped into the woods and then opened onto a small grassy area. Michael was sitting on a bench, and he stood when he saw her emerge from the woods.
She felt the grin spread across her face as she neared him. He had put on weight—not much, just enough that no one would think of him as scrawny any longer. His brown hair was touched with gray and receding slightly. The angles of his face were still clean and sharp, and even at a distance she thought she could see the warmth in his eyes behind his black, wire-rimmed glasses. He was wearing khaki shorts and a black T- shirt, and she suddenly felt silly for her hot and conservative attire.
They reached for each other as she neared him, and for more than a minute they stayed locked in a wordless embrace. Rachel didn’t want to let go. Her body shook with the effort of holding in tears, and she suddenly knew why her love for Phil had felt as if something were missing: her heart belonged to this man.
"Michel," she said, although she had not thought of him by that name since their days in French-speaking Rwanda.
His laughter was soft against her cheek. "No one's called me that in a while," he said.
When they finally pulled apart, Michael smiled as he brushed the tears from her cheeks with his fingertips. "Let's sit," he said.
She nodded, reaching into her purse for a tissue. "This bench didn't used to be here." She sat down, turning so she could look at him.
"No. They put it up a few years ago. I instigated it, because I love to sit here when I'm writing or reading. My office is right there"—he motioned toward the church on the other side of the pond—"so it's very convenient."
She pulled one of the brownies from the bag and handed it to him. "What do you write?" she asked.
He took the brownie from her, grinning. "Haven't seen one of these in a long time. Thanks." He took a bite, licked a crumb from his finger. "Sermons, mostly," he said.
Rachel shook her head. "I can't believe it, Michael. When my grandmother told me you'd become a minister, I thought she must have you mixed up with someone else." She slipped a piece of brownie into her mouth. It was abysmally rich, almost inedible.
"It was hard for me to believe at first, too."
"How did it happen? Whatever—"
"We can get to that in a minute," he interrupted her. "I want to hear about you first. Catch me up on everything. Are you teaching?"
She nodded. "High school. Special ed. And a little French."
"I'm glad to hear that." He looked relieved. "I worried you might have quit after…" He shook his head. "It would have been such a loss."
"No, I could never give it up. I love it." Teaching had become the strongest force in her life, her core. "I'm going to be one of those teachers who's still at it long after she should be."
"That's the spirit," he said.
A silence slipped between them. There was so much to say. She wasn't certain where to begin.
"I wish we hadn't lost touch after I left," she said finally. "I was desperate to talk to you after everything happened, but you were still in Rwanda, and I felt as though I shouldn't try to get in touch with you because of Katy. Because you'd gotten married. I didn't feel as though I had the right to…you know."
He nodded. "I wish you had gotten in touch with me. I tried to get your address from your parents and grandparents after you left, but your parents refused to tell anyone where you'd gone. They were extremely protective of you. And Helen and Peter didn't know."
She was surprised to hear him call her grandparents by their first names, as though he knew them well.
"I know you started writing to Helen at Christmas a few years ago," he continued. "She was really pleased by that. I thought once or twice of asking her for your address then, but I didn't want to stir up the past for you."
She nodded. He'd probably been right not to contact her. She slipped the rest of her brownie into the bag, and he followed suit.
"How did we ever eat these things when we were kids?" he asked with a smile. "We must have been indestructible."
Rachel cleaned the chocolate from her fingers with her tissue, her eyes on the still water of the pond. "So this isn't Huber Pond any longer," she said.
"It's been Spring Willow for a long time," Michael said. "The town council voted to change the name around the time you left."
He didn't say it. He didn't have to. Rachel knew she'd been the cause of that change. The name Huber, once so respected, had lost its positive association overnight.
She looked past him into the black-and-green mesh of the trees. "I love these woods," she said.
"Did Helen tell you about the Hostetters' plan to raze this piece of land?"
"Yes, and she said something about you trying to stop it."
He shook his head, mouth tight. "I'm trying, but I'm not too optimistic."
"It's the bat woman, right? Remember how afraid we were of her?"
He gave a short laugh. "Yeah, and we were right to be. We just didn't know what it was we had to fear." He looked at her with a question in his eyes. "Did you ever know why she was the way she was?"
Rachel shook her head.
"I don't think I found out till I moved back here, so you probably never heard the story. She was shot in the head
when she was four years old by her mother, who then turned the gun on herself."
"What? Oh, that's some kind of rumor."
"No, it's the truth. She suffered mild brain damage. She was raised by her father, who died when she was twenty or so, and she managed to live by herself until last year."
"Why would her mother have done that?"
"I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question."
Rachel felt a wave of sympathy for the woman she'd viewed with such disdain. "So now she and her nephews are planning to make some money off the land, huh?"
" 'Some money' doesn't begin to describe it. They will be quite wealthy." He looked up at the steeple on the other side of the pond. "My poor little church is going to be surrounded by office buildings."
Rachel followed his gaze to the church. "I can't imagine it," she said.
He suddenly smiled. "Remember the time you fell through the ice?"
Her eyes darted to the section of the pond near the gazebo. The boys had tricked her into skating there, knowing the ice was thin where the sun bathed it all day. She'd gone in. Gone under, actually. She could still remember looking up at the translucent ice above her head. She had not felt panic. She'd been mesmerized by the way the ice filtered and curved the light from above. Michael and Luke had panicked, though. She'd stayed under so long that by the time they'd pulled her out they were frantic and full of apologies.
"I got you guys back plenty of times."
"Yeah.You were a vengeful little thing."
They reminisced awhile, the thoughts flowing easily, about children who no longer existed. The fishing expeditions. Floating on inner tubes down the stream that cut through the woods. Riding their bikes out to the eerie, cavernous quarries. They'd been so young. So sure of the safety and predictability of their world.
"You know what was hardest for me?" Michael leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "The bond was always so strong between the three of us that I felt like we were one indivisible unit. A team. I knew you and Luke were destined to be more than buddies—I knew that from the start—but even when you guys started dating in earnest, you still included me in so much that I never felt left out. But when you finally got around to having sex, I was suddenly on the outside."
Rachel laughed. "Well, come on, Michael, what did you want?" She was relieved that she didn’t have to tiptoe around such delicate topics merely because he was now a man of the cloth. "We told you every graphic detail." And they had. She and Luke had only been fifteen at the time, and making love had seemed the logical evolution of their relationship. It was calculated, premeditated. They'd made love for the first time close to where she and Michael were sitting, in these woods behind the pond, and they had told him their plans. Afterward they described to him, in clinical terms and at great length, exactly how it felt. Like Masters and Johnson, educating their public.
"The three of us had a bizarre relationship," Michael said.
"I know, and I'm so glad. It was a wonderful way to grow up, having you two around all the time."
Neither of them spoke as a sparrow flitted across the surface of the lake, dusting the water lightly with its feathers. The reflection of the white church quivered in the ripples for a moment before coming into focus again.
She wondered how far, chronologically, they would take their reminiscence. How far was safe? "Is there anyone left in town from high school?" she asked.
"Let's see." Michael stretched out his long legs, his tennis shoes white against the grass. "Not many. Oh, you know who's still around? Becky Frank. She's a loan officer at the Starr and Lieber branch in Bird-in-Hand.You were good friends with her, weren't you?"
Rachel pictured the bubbly redhead instantly. "Fairly good," she said. "I'd like to see her. Is that still her name? Do you think she's in the phone book?"
"Let me call her and have her call you, all right?" Michael suggested quickly, and Rachel agreed, although it seemed like an unnecessary step in the process. "So, tell me about your son and your husband," he said.
So that was how they would handle the difficult years, she thought. Skip over them, at least for now. She was relieved, not quite ready to dive into that pain.
She told him about Phil, how he'd hired her when she arrived in San Antonio, what a fine, supportive husband he had been. Michael frowned as she talked about his long illness and his death.
"I miss him a lot," she spoke softly. "I wake up in the morning sometimes and forget that he's gone, and then reality suddenly whacks me on the head." She smiled. "I can't quite get used to the idea of being single again. Not an easy adjustment to make."
"No, I'm sure it's not." Michael shook his head. "You've been through more than your share of trauma, Rache."
"Oh, I've had plenty of good times, too." She didn't want to give him the impression her life had been filled with sorrow. She told him about the teaching awards she'd won, about the trips she and Phil had taken over the years. She told him about the bicycle race she and Chris had competed in the year before.
"Really?" He looked surprised. "I was in a race last year, too. Came in close to last, but I had a great time."
"You never were particularly competitive," she said.
"Or athletic." He laughed. "But I love cycling. Maybe we could go for a ride together someday."
"That'd be great. I have my bike with me."
"You said your son was in the race with you?"
"Uh-huh." She began talking about Chris, about his achievements and his good-heartedness, but her mounting concerns about her son quickly got in the way. She suddenly realized how much she missed being able to talk to Phil about Chris. It felt good to have a chance to air the problems.
She'd spoken to Chris on the phone that morning, listening to his enthusiastic recitation of everything the band was playing, feeling, thinking. She'd tried to listen patiently, but when he told her he was considering skipping school this coming year to play with the band instead, she lost her cool. They argued for several minutes without resolution until he told her not to worry about it; he hadn't made up his mind yet for sure. Later in their conversation she heard something in his voice she had never heard before. Concern. Was she okay, he asked her? Was she lonely? Her twenty-year-old son was worrying about her. She'd been touched. It made her miss him more than she already did.
"He looks like Luke, Michael," she said quietly. "He looks exactly like him. I was looking through my old wedding pictures last night. Luke was only twenty-one in them, and Chris is twenty, and God…" She shivered, blinking against the surprise of tears. "It really shocked me to see the resemblance."
"Do you have a picture of him?"
"At my grandmother's. I'll show you when you come over."
Michael talked about his own son, Jason—Jace, he called him—who was going into the seventh grade and loved computers. "You think you've got worries with Chris." He shook his head. "Jace is me, thirty years ago. Awkward, skinny, unpopular. The big difference is that I had you and Luke. You two really saved my life, you know that?"
"Oh, you would have eventually come into your own."
"I don't know about that. I hope you're right. I hope Jace will blossom one of these days. Poor kid is the product of two nerds." He laughed. "You don't know how many times I've lain awake at night wondering how I could conjure up a couple of friends like you two for him. I was very lucky." He took her hand, squeezing it lightly before letting go.
"All three of us were," she said.
"I need to spend more time with him." Michael wore a faraway look, the expression of a man who was not certain he was doing a good job with his son. "I work late a lot, and the Pelmans—our next-door neighbors—let him stay over there in the evening when I'm gone. They have a grown son who's into computers, and he and Jace have a great time together. Jace gets along extremely well with adults." Michael took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose before putting them on again. "I'm going on a church trip with him for a few days, starting tomorrow. It's
with one of the youth groups, and they'll be spending a week and a half in Philly helping to refurbish some low-income housing. Jace asked me to go with him, which I think is a pretty good indicator of how out of it he is socially. I can only stay the first couple of days, but I hope by then he'll be feeling more comfortable. He's never been away from home that long, and he seems very needy since Katy's been gone."
So Michael would be gone for a few days. Rachel swallowed her disappointment. "Tell me about Katy," she said.
He clasped his hands together and raised them above his head in a slow stretch. "Oh, boy," he said. "Katy. Where do I begin? In some ways, she's the best thing that ever happened to me. She's the reason I ended up here." He nodded toward the church. "As a minister, I mean."
Rachel drew her legs up onto the bench. "Tell me," she said.
"Well, after everything happened, with you and Luke and the children and…everything, I really fell apart. I felt as though I was to blame."
"You? How could you possibly have been to blame?"
"Because of the letter."
She sucked in her breath. She had completely forgotten. "But you married Katy before anything happened," she said.
"Yes, I did." He looked at her. "And you know why I married her, don't you?"
She could picture the black handwriting in that brief, terrible letter. "I know what you said in your letter, but—"
"No buts. I wrote that I married Katy to forget you, and that was the truth. I did love her, in a way, but I hadn't seen her during that entire first year in Rwanda. I was so down when you left, and suddenly she was there. She looked great. Seemed wonderful, and I needed her. There were so many things I'd wanted to express to you and couldn't, and suddenly Katy was there and it was safe to…love her, I guess. It was very impulsive of us, getting married. Her parents were furious." He smiled at some memory. "So anyhow," he continued, "she changed her plans and stayed with me until November. She skipped the beginning of medical school for me. Though I have to say, life in Katari didn't suit her too well." He laughed. "She didn't know how I felt about you, of course…Does this bother you? Me talking about this?"