“More than I’ve ever wanted anyone.” I kissed her again. Then, with our eyes still locked on each other, I stood. “We’ll talk in the morning, Rachel. We’ll make plans in the morning.”
I didn’t just walk out of her room, I walked out of the suite. I took a brief walk around the property to cool myself off. I was pretty sure that I wanted her more than she wanted me. But I was also sure that I wanted her for more than just one night. And after her last meltdown, it was clear to me that her guilt was bigger than she could handle.
Later that night, as I lay in bed, the quote from Hamlet came to mind: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-Five
November 25, 1986
Dear Diary,
I’ve missed a few weeks of writing. I just didn’t feel like writing anything. I had nothing new. Thanksgiving is this Thursday. No one has said a word about it. I know Mrs. Churcher won’t do anything. Even though I’m tired, I told Mr. Churcher that I would be happy to make the Thanksgiving meal. He said that would be nice. I’ll take Jacob shopping with me tomorrow. I don’t know how to make pumpkin pie, but I think it will be easy. One pie will be enough for us. My mother is very good at baking pies. She’ll make apple, mincemeat, pumpkin, and cherry. There will be a big turkey. The whole family and Aunt Genielle and her two hundred children will be there. I miss my family. I wonder if they’ll talk about me at dinner and ask how I’m doing at school. My mom will say, Oh, you know Noel, she always gets good grades.
I don’t think anyone around here is very grateful for anything these days. If a meteor came down and landed on this house, everyone would probably be better off. Except Jacob. If a meteor came down, I would put my body over his and try to shield him. I would give my life for this little boy. What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? I’m thankful for him.
Noel
DECEMBER 19
I woke the next morning with a light hangover. I had slept in a little. It was almost nine. Hangover or not, a big smile crossed my face. I felt like I’d just won the lottery. Rachel wanted me too.
I pulled on some shorts and a T-shirt, then walked to her room. At first I slowly opened the door, trying not to let in too much light. To my surprise, the room was filled with light. The blinds were open and the room was empty.
“Rachel?”
She probably just went out for a walk, I thought. I walked into her bedroom. “Rachel.” I checked her bathroom. Her suitcase was gone. Everything was gone. She was gone.
I walked back out to the front of the suite. On the counter next to the door was a note.
Dear Jacob,
I woke in the middle of the night feeling dark and heartsick. Most of all, ashamed. What am I doing here, sharing a room with another man? What kind of woman sneaks off on a trip with another man, then tries to seduce him? I am so, so ashamed. I tried to tell myself that last night was an accident, that it was the wine, but I know the truth. I didn’t need to see your father. There’s nothing he could tell me that you couldn’t have relayed to me. The truth is, I wanted to go with you because I wanted to be with you. And that’s wrong. It’s wrong that I like that you get jealous of Brandon. It’s wrong that I’d rather be with you than him. Most of all, it’s wrong that after all of Brandon’s trust in me, I chose to cheat on him.
Last night you told me that you loved me because I was a really good person. Obviously, I’m not. I want to be. But I’m not. You deserve a good woman. You did the right thing last night. I didn’t. I’m not the woman I thought I was. Thank you for respecting me enough to not make my sin worse. Please forgive me. I will never stop thinking of you. With love always,
Rachel
P.S. Thank you for letting me read my mother’s journal. I wanted to take it with me, but it’s not mine. I realize that she belongs to you too.
I put the note back down on the counter, then kicked the cupboard door beneath it.
CHAPTER
Twenty-Six
November 27, 1986
Dear Diary,
Thanksgiving was actually nice. Even Mrs. Churcher came out for a little while. She had some turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes. She thanked me, then went back into her bedroom. Mr. Churcher was in pain. I could see it. After dinner I went to do the dishes, and he came in to help me. He was standing next to me, and I could see that he was crying. I put my arms around him, and he laid his head on my shoulder and cried hard. I suppose it would have looked very weird, but grief isn’t a beauty pageant. Jacob grabbed onto my leg. (I think he may have been jealous.) I’ve wondered where God has been in all this, but maybe I was supposed to come to this home at this time, because some days I feel like I’m the only thing holding it together. As I put Jacob to bed, he asked me why we had a Thanksgiving. I told him about the Pilgrims, then said, We do it so we can remember what we have to be thankful for. He asked me what thankful was. I said, Thankful is what we are glad we have. And he said, I’m thankful for you. I almost started crying. But then he said, And whipped cream. I kissed him and laughed.
On the pregnancy front, my baby dropped. And my boobs are getting big and heavy. I feel like someone has commandeered my body. Oh, wait, someone did.
Noel
It was time to go home. Not just back to Salt Lake, but really home. Back to Coeur d’Alene.
The traffic out of town was miserable. Actually the whole drive back to Salt Lake was miserable. Almost as bad as flying. In fact, worse, since I could sedate myself on a plane trip and driving lasted ten times longer. I was tempted to abandon my car in Phoenix and catch the next flight out to Salt Lake.
Driving the same route back that we’d come down on was like watching a rerun of a canceled show. I could practically hear Rachel’s voice the whole way. This is where Rachel said this. This is where Rachel laughed about that. It was miserable. And the most despairing part was that life wasn’t going to stop being miserable anytime soon. Because the woman I had fallen in love with was going to marry a manipulative little man out of guilt or duty or religious obligation and be miserable for the rest of her life. And I was going to think about her for the rest of my life and hurt for her.
My heart hadn’t hurt this badly for many years.
Laurie called as I was passing through Panguitch, a small town in southern Utah.
“Where are you?”
“I’m driving home,” I said.
“Home to Coeur d’Alene?”
“No. Salt Lake.”
“You don’t sound well.”
“What do I sound like?”
“You sound angry. Like you’re about to go on a shooting spree.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“So things didn’t go well with your father.”
“No, things went better than expected. But I lost Rachel.”
“Who’s Rachel?”
I hesitated. “She’s no one.”
Laurie knew better than to ask. “I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
“No. I just need space.”
“You got it. Just drive safe. Be safe. And let me know when you’re back in Coeur d’Alene. Otherwise you can call anytime. I’m here for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Bye. Kisses. Take care of yourself.”
“Bye.”
I drove fast. In fact, I made it back to the Grand America Hotel before nine p.m. It was cold and bleak in Salt Lake, which pretty much matched my temperament. I didn’t know what to do. Actually, I did. I needed to go back home, get good and drunk for a week, then get on with my life, hoping that the embers of my feelings for Rachel would soon grow cold.
In spite of my decision, I still had things to do in Salt Lake. I needed to sign papers with Brad so we could list the house. And then I was going to see my dream lady. I planned to do both as soon as possible, then retreat to my previous, lonely life.
As I got in bed I thought, At least there’s probably a book in this.
CHAPTER
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Twenty-Seven
December 3, 1986
Dear Diary,
This morning I helped Jacob write his Christmas list to Santa. He asked me what I was getting. I said, A baby. He said, That’s like Jesus. He was a Christmas present too. I don’t know how he came up with that. No one here talks about Jesus. Then he said, Jesus got golden franks for Christmas. What is your baby getting? It came out without thinking. I said, A new mother. Jacob asked me why I was crying.
Noel
DECEMBER 20
I woke at nine fifteen, just missing a phone call. I rolled over and checked my phone. It was Brad Campbell. I called him back.
“Churcher,” he said. “How are you?”
“Good.”
“I dropped by the house on Sunday but you weren’t there.”
“I was in Phoenix.”
“Lucky you. I could use a respite from this weather. Maybe I’ll find an excuse to fly to Phoenix. Or St. George.”
His mention of St. George brought Rachel to mind. And pain. “Do you have some papers for me?”
“Yes I do. I can bring them by your hotel if you like.”
“That would be great.”
“Do you have time for lunch? The Grand has a nice restaurant.”
“Sure,” I said. “A late lunch.”
“How late?”
I thought about it. “Two. I’m checking out today.”
“Two o’clock is good for me. Headed home, huh?”
“I’ve got just one more thing to do before I leave.”
“Well, it’s been nice having you here. I hope it was a memorable visit.”
“It was definitely that,” I said. “I’ll see you at two.”
I skipped working out and breakfast, opting instead for a protein bar, then took a shower. I sat on the floor of the shower and let the water cascade around me. What had I done wrong? I had tried to do the right thing. The hard thing. And it had blown up on me. Then again, maybe there was no way for things to work out. Had I not done the right thing, I couldn’t imagine how great her guilt would be.
I kept checking my phone, hoping that she had called, but she hadn’t. She wasn’t going to call.
I left my bags at the bell stand and met Brad at the hotel’s Garden Café. Shortly after our food arrived, Brad asked, “So what are your plans with the house?”
“I’m just going to sell it,” I said.
“Do you need a real estate agent? A local one?”
“That would help. Do you know a good one?”
“I know a few. They’ll take good care of you.” He lifted his leather portfolio. “I brought the documents.” He laid a stack of papers on the table next to my food. Each of the papers had various Post-it arrow flags directing me where to sign.
“I don’t have a pen,” I said.
“You can have mine.” He handed me a black resin pen inscribed with the name of his firm.
I signed all the documents, then handed the papers back to him.
“Thank you, sir. And that concludes our official business together. If you ever need a lawyer, you know where to find me.”
“It’s already in my phone,” I said, then lifted his pen. “And it’s right here.”
“Just don’t lose that pen,” he said.
I reached for the check, and he put his hand on it. “I’ve got it. Business expense.”
“Thank you for lunch. Actually, thank you for everything. Especially for taking care of my mother during her last days.”
He looked at me with a peculiarly satisfied smile. “You did get a lot done, didn’t you?”
We said good-bye and I drove my car up to the front doors and had the bell captain bring out my luggage. I opened the tailgate and he put my suitcase in the back. I unzipped the suitcase and took out the leather diary. Then I slammed the tailgate shut and handed the bell captain a ten-dollar tip. He thanked me. “Come back soon,” he said.
“Not likely,” I replied. “Have a good day.”
I climbed into my car, turned the radio on to Christmas music, then rolled out of the hotel’s circular drive and headed south to find Noel.
With a name like Noel King, she wasn’t hard to track down. There were only two Noel Kings in the United States, and only one in Utah.
She no longer lived in Provo. Since her marriage, she had moved nine miles south to a small town called Spanish Fork. It was fifty-two miles south on I-15 from downtown Salt Lake, less than an hour away. Ironically, Rachel and I had driven past the town on our way to Phoenix.
Spanish Fork is a small town of about thirty-five thousand people. It wasn’t difficult finding the King home. Besides living in my dreams for the last thirty-plus years, Noel King lived on a real street wonderfully called Wolf Hollow Drive, just south of the town’s Centennial Park, which was sandwiched between the town’s only cemetery and their only junior high.
The house was even smaller than my mother’s, a box-shaped tiled home with a steeply pitched roof and a long front porch.
There was as much snow on the ground here as there was in Salt Lake, but the driveway was shoveled clean and dry, as was the walkway and sidewalk in front of the house.
The house was decorated for Christmas with multicolored lights strung across the length of the house and, in the front yard, an almost life-sized nine-piece model of the nativity in faded plastic. There was Joseph and Mary kneeling next to a manger with baby Jesus. There were three Wise Men, a shepherd, and a camel and donkey. It was an ambitious display for such a small yard.
I was parked across the street and still admiring the crèche when a utility van pulled into the home’s driveway. The van was wrapped with a cartoon picture of a man wearing a crown and holding an orange pipe wrench like a scepter. To the side of the cartoon were the words
KEVIN KING PLUMBING
THE PLUMBER KING FOR YOUR CASTLE’S ROOTER AND PLUMBING NEEDS
A heavyset man in Levi’s and a striped denim shirt got out of the van and walked in the side door of the home.
“My angel’s married to the king of plumbing,” I said.
I grabbed the diary, got out of the car, and walked up the concrete path to the front door, which was adorned with a large pine-needle wreath with red ribbon and gold and blue baubles. There was a piece of electrical tape over the doorbell, so I knocked. A few minutes later the man I’d just seen enter the home opened the door. He was plump and red-faced with a five-o’clock shadow. There was a label sewn on his shirt that read kevin.
The first thing he said was, “That your Porsche parked across the street?”
I glanced furtively back at my car. “Yes.”
“One of them Porsche SUVs. I tell ya, they’ll make an SUV outta just about anything these days. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see a Rolls SUV. So what that set you back, fifty, sixty grand?”
“It’s the Turbo S, so it was about one sixty.”
I thought his jaw would drop off. “Holy Mother of . . . You must be made of money, sir. I’m clearly in the wrong business. What is it that you do?”
“I write books. Novels.”
“I’m gonna have to try my hand at writing books one of these days. I got stories, I tell ya. The things I seen in houses. Turn your skin blue. So what brings you by today?”
“I’m looking for Noel King. I’m guessing she’s your wife.”
“What you want with my wife? Never mind, you can have her. I’ll trade you straight up for the Porsche.” He laughed at himself. “No? I didn’t think so. I’ll call her.” He turned around. “No-el. Someone’s at the door for ya.” He turned back to me. “We don’t get many strangers coming around here, just your usual alarm or water purifier salesmen, but last few days we’re two for two. Got you today and a young woman last night.”
Rachel.
“A young woman came by yesterday?”
“Pretty gal. Just a little mixed up. I figured she was probably smokin’ some of that Colorado.”
“Why is that?”
&n
bsp; “Well, to begin with, she asked my wife if she had a child thirty years ago. I told her that she wasn’t even married back then. Noel felt bad for the young lady. She told her that she was sorry, but she must be mistaken.”
I recalled the warning my father had given me as I left his house. “What did the young woman do?”
“She got all teary-eyed and just looked at my wife for the longest time. It was kind of uncomfortable. Then she walked away. Funny thing, she actually did look a lot like my wife. At least the way she looked in her younger years. Almost could have been twins. Sure shook up the missus, though. She cried all night.”
“You’re sure she wasn’t her daughter?”
The man looked at me as if I were dumb as a brick. He crossed his arms at his chest. “Course I’m sure. I’ve been married to her for twenty-seven years. I think I would’ve known if I got her pregnant. Heck, Noel can’t even have children.”
“You don’t have children?”
“I just said that. She can’t have children. She’s barren.”
“She’s barren,” I said.
He grinned. “Well, I assure you, the plumbing’s all workin’ in this house. And I know plumbing.”
I hid my growing annoyance. “You are the king of plumbing.”
He laughed.
I heard approaching footsteps as a woman walked up behind the man. My chest froze. It was her. My dream woman in flesh and blood. She looked younger than I had expected. In fact, she was still recognizable from the photograph I’d found in the diary. She still looked pretty.
For years I had wondered what this moment, if it ever came, would be like. I had thought it might be like meeting a favorite actor or rock star. But it wasn’t like that at all. Sure, it was surreal in its own way. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. I guess it was because she didn’t seem like a stranger to me. How could she? She had been with me for all these years.
She looked at me with a peculiar expression, and I wondered if some part of her recognized me as well. Unfortunately, her husband didn’t leave but stood there like a curious child not wanting to be left out.