Page 43 of The Bootlegger’s Bride

“I’ve been in touch with an archeology professor who’s running some digs nearby. A chance to lend a hand and learn a bit.”

“A career path?”

“Possibly. Or maybe I should study psychology, given that I’m such a head case.” He lifted his chin toward the lake. “I took a swim here yesterday. First time since I found Mom.”

Lana shook her head. “Of course. Never occurred to me.”

“Over the years I’ve learned bits and pieces about what led to her death and my father’s.

More connections than the obvious ones. It’s taken a long time for me to accept and embrace that history.

Part of who I am. The trick is not to let those two events define the rest of my life.

At last, I’ve been able to come home. Now again it signals peace and happiness, not death and decline. ”

Lana patted his hand. “That’s why I fell for you: You were the most determined boy I’d ever met. The strongest and most independent.”

A.J. shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice.

I saw that no one else was going to do it for me.

Me against the world and me versus myself.

Despite Aunt Helen and Uncle Raymond giving me a good home, I was still an orphan at heart, cut off from the continuity my parents would have provided.

But then you came along and humanized me.

Made me feel like I was part of things, like I belonged.

I was always afraid of losing you—an orphan’s lament, the fear of abandonment. I understand that now.”

She took a deep breath. Now was the time before he got in over his head.

“You’ll never lose my friendship, A.J.”

He turned to her. She held his gaze. They always could communicate with few if any words.

“Nor you mine,” he said. He looked away and took a deep breath. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

She stared off at the cottonwoods on the far bank. “A colleague. We’ve not set a date yet.”

The professor, his intuition told him. But it made no difference.

“I hope, Lana, this doesn’t sound too shallow or hedonistic or whatever. My anger didn’t start to peel away until we lay naked together. For me it was a communion with nature and humanity. I felt part of it all for the first time. Felt that I belonged in the cosmic scheme.”

“We all need to feel we belong somewhere. Even if it’s just a family of one, being comfortable in your own skin.”

Silence—except for the buzz of insects, a frog’s croak, and birdsong—held for a minute. A family of one. That nails it, doesn’t it?

“You remember the first words I ever said to you? When you asked after the game what you could do to make me smile?”

She nodded. “I’ll never forget: ‘Marry me and have my baby.’ Always thought it would be the other way around, baby first.”

A.J. smiled. “I worried about that too.” He looked off at the far lakeshore. “Felt sure I’d repeat those words to you someday.”

She laid her hand on his and gripped it tight as tears came. “You’ve always been a dreamer, A.J. Don’t chastise yourself. We all want love and certainty. You’ve lived through chaos.”

“Life does dish up disorder, doesn’t it? You kick it aside, keep in the moment, and focus on what’s within your power.” He made it sound easy.

“I’m sorry, A.J.”

“Thanks for coming to tell me face-to-face and not just sending a postcard. I know that would have been easier.”

“We were lovers and best friends for ten years. We’ve always been square with each other. No reason to stop.”

“Right. No reason.”

He walked her to her car. A final embrace—this one more emphatic—that left them both speechless. He watched her drive off. He stood stock-still, staring at the sycamores that lined the driveway.

Another door closing behind him, Lana on the other side.

And he was on his own again. The Buddha had it right: Desire leads to suffering.

But how much of it was destined love thwarted, how much jealousy, how much ego, how much lust?

He couldn’t imagine that she had the same visceral feeling with the old professor.

But then there are other things for a woman.

For a man, too. Which, for himself, he still needed to figure out.

§

He drove up the lake to his aunt and uncle’s place for supper. Whenever possible they spent the Fourth together, as they had twenty-three years earlier on the day Western Union came calling.

A somber and thoughtful occasion as usual.

Raymond had grilled lake fish and Aunt Helen had set the table on the screened porch, what had been A.J.

’s room. She said grace, thanking God for His bounty and praying for the soldiers once again at war.

A.J. stared at the purple gladiolas he had brought, now in a green glass vase on the table, flowers his father and he had planted one Mother’s Day near Lazy Lane’s vegetable garden.

After dinner Raymond carried a pail of iced beer to the dock, A.J.

following. The two men sat in sling chairs as the lake darkened, flat and unmoving, like black glass.

The still air hung warm and fragrant, smelling of the wheat fields across the lake.

The cicadas started in droning. When they momentarily quieted A.J. said:

“Saw Lana earlier. She came by to see the house for the first time. And the last.”

“How’s that? What happened?”

“She’s marrying one of her professors or colleagues. Funny. After all those years together today was the day I was gonna ask her to marry me.”

“Oh, hell. Sorry A.J.”

“Yep. A sorry situation. She sensed what I was up to and steered me straight before I drove off the cliff.” He drank from his bottle.

“A smart move for her, partnering up with someone who could advance her career and guide her. Someone who would share and understand her work. She has to deal with sick and dying kids. You need someone who appreciates the toll that takes.”

“Guess that figured into it.”

But more than that likely figured in, Raymond thought.

A.J. came from steelworker families on both sides, Lana the daughter of educated doctors, Europeans.

She wasn’t going to live her life in a coarse working-class community like Tank Town.

He had seen it before with young bourgeois women and men alike.

The sex could be great, but for them it’s just basic training before they go back to their own people.

You think they’re taking you seriously but they’re not really, not in their heart and soul.

Now, however, was not the time to get into that, the invisible walls.

Some people never really see them. But they’re still there.

“I never seem to make the smart move,” said A.J. “Always doing the impulsive thing, the risky thing.”

“Maybe for you that is the smart thing.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I was just telling Lana that I planned to go to college and study archeology or the like, something with fieldwork that would get me out of the classroom and library.

But maybe that was just to please her, not me.

Much as I like reading and ancient history I can’t see myself as a professor angling for research grants and sifting dirt for trinkets. ”

“Safe and peaceful. Not what you’re used to.”

“Not sure I could stand it. I need movement. Maybe I need danger and adrenaline too. I know I need the camaraderie and teamwork.”

“Being an archeologist sounds like lonely work. Maybe with colleagues who might be more competitors than teammates. But what does a factory worker know about it?”

“I don’t know much about it either.” A.J. took a pull on his beer. “Thought I could live a peaceful life here on the lake with Lana and kids and a dog. Not sure I’d want to do it alone.”

Raymond sipped his beer and again held his tongue.

A.J. felt raw tonight but would get over it and find someone else.

Or they would find him. Raymond imagined what it might be like for a chiseled twenty-seven-year-old with dark hair and a trust fund.

He loved Helen but wouldn’t mind changing places with his nephew for a bit.

“I’ll get us some more beer,” said Raymond.

He went back up to the house and filled Helen in on what had occurred. Raymond added more beer to the bucket and grabbed the bourbon bottle from the pantry.

“Don’t wait up for us. And fix his bed.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes. “Tell him he’s still my boy. Always.”