Page 21 of The Calendar of New Beginnings (Dare Valley #9)

“And it wouldn’t have been your fault if your mom had been diagnosed with cancer. And I know I’ve said this to you before, but if my right eye doesn’t recover, that won’t be your fault either. You’re just another actor in this big stage of life, Andy Hale.”

“You’ve gotten way more philosophical in your old age,” he mused, his dark eyes weary.

“I used to struggle against all the injustices I saw. I got pretty worked up. Like ulcer-in-my-stomach worked up. But I met a relief worker in Congo who helped me see things in a new way. His name was Davy, a quirky little British guy, and he’d been in some of the worst hotspots imaginable.

Like Rwanda in April of 1994. He was one of the few doctors who didn’t evacuate the country when the genocide broke.

He chose to stay and help anyone who managed to live through the attacks.

You know there were hardly any guns used, right?

One million people were killed with machetes and knives. Right up front and personal.”

This time he was the one who shuddered. “God. I didn’t know that.”

“Anyway, Davy said we all have a part to play, and since there are often forces bigger than us at work, our only choice is how we play our part. He told me to play mine well. I’ve never forgotten him.”

“You met a lot of people like Davy, haven’t you?” Andy asked, leaning back on his elbow.

“Yes,” she said fondly. “They made everything worthwhile. I never knew when the next miracle would occur.” Or the next nightmare. But she had learned they were as inextricably linked as a Janus coin.

“You know, I always wondered if we’d grow apart,” Andy confessed. “The farther away you went, the more I worried. But it never happened. Not even when I married Kim.”

She’d wondered the same thing, especially with the very different paths they’d chosen. “No, it never happened. I hope it never will.”

A smile lifted his face for a moment. “Me too.”

Her mind sized up the subject before her like she was taking a photo.

Andy was sitting on her over-the-top bed and gazing at her with a familiarity she’d rarely experienced in her travels.

This…this was a moment she wanted to capture.

“I’d like to try and take a picture of you. Right as you are now. Is that okay?”

Her palms broke out in a sweat when he studied her for a long moment before nodding. Pushing off the bed, she retrieved her smart phone from her purse in the parlor. When she returned, he was sitting up as stiff as an over-starched puppet.

“You’ve tensed up,” she chided, trying to calm her own nerves. “Lean back on your elbow like you were before.”

He let out a tortured sigh. “I’m no good at this, Luce.”

Her hands were shaking as she brought up the camera function and positioned the frame on him. “Please. I need to try to take pictures when I have the urge. Even though I’m scared I can’t capture what I see anymore.”

Leaning back on his elbow again, he watched her with compassion. She took a few steps to the right and the left, judging the angle and the light, closing her right eye. Her weird vision pissed her off, and the phone still felt unfamiliar in her hands. She missed the feel of her Leica.

“I want you to think about me,” she told him, determined to proceed. “How you and I have weathered a lot of years and a lot of miles together to stay friends.”

Even though he was still embarrassed, a reluctant smile crossed his face. “That we have.”

“And I want you to think about how you play your part every day by being the best dad in the world to Danny, a son to your mom, and a brother to your siblings.” She started taking photos, missing the feel of her finger pressing the shutter.

With the Leica, she had all the precision of a sniper taking a shot. The touch screen wasn’t the same.

“Andy,” she said softly. “Think about Kim and how you were the best husband she could ever have imagined.”

His face contorted, but he didn’t shift out of his pose. His eyes flickered down, but she knew she’d captured the depth of his love. The depth of his loss. She lowered her phone to her side.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her diaphragm tight.

His chest rose on a tortured breath. “You don’t pull any punches as a photographer.”

“A great picture doesn’t just capture a moment in time, it captures emotion. You have a lot of emotion inside you, Andy Hale.”

Although he rolled his eyes, he made no move to get off the bed. “Well… Are you going to show them to me or what?”

“Huh?” she asked.

“The pictures you took? I want to see them.”

Her hand curled around the phone. “They’re not… It’s only a camera phone. I don’t… Shit. I don’t want to show them to you.” Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see the flaws in her work.

He patted the bed beside him this time. “Come over here, Lucy Lu. We’ll struggle through them together.”

He was right. Where was her courage? She prided herself on doing things no one else would. Besides, how was she going to improve if she wasn’t willing to study the flaws in her work? She hopped up beside him on the bed and opened the photo album in the phone’s directory.

She clicked on the first photo of him. He made an agonized sound in his throat.

“Delete,” he begged.

A reluctant laugh emerged. “You look cross-eyed. Must be thinking about our friendship. Besides, the composition is all wrong. And the light…terrible.”

“The composition?” he asked dryly. “My name is Andy.”

“No, silly,” she said, pointing to the next photo. “The composition is?—”

“Lucy, I know what composition means,” he informed her, nudging her in the shoulder. “I was trying to get you to lighten up. You’re all tense.”

“I’m allowed.”

They clicked through the rest of the photos, and her insides shriveled at the poor quality. Sure, she’d managed to capture some heartfelt emotion, but the photos didn’t have the clarity or crispness she was used to with her Leica.

“These are really great, Lucy,” he said softly when they reached the end. “Do I really look like that when people mention Kim to me?”

“Yes,” she said, handing him the phone so he could take a better look. “You loved her, and now she’s gone. How did you expect you’d look?”

He gave her back the phone like he couldn’t bear a further viewing. “I don’t know. I guess I hoped I’d look peaceful. I don’t… God, I don’t want Danny to see me like that. He’s only a kid.”

“But he lost his mother too,” she said, putting her arm around him this time. “He probably doesn’t have many memories of her. Am I right?”

He was silent for a long time. “No, and it breaks my heart. I tell him stories and keep her picture around…”

“I expect he’s more aware that he doesn’t have a mom like the other kids since he’s in school. Do moms still bring in cakes and cookies for class?”

“Yeah.” He cracked his neck. “It’s the bane of my existence. And PTA meetings are pure torture. It’s usually just me and the mommies, although some of the other dads show up. Weird doesn’t begin to describe it.”

She hadn’t thought about those ongoing aspects of being a single parent. “Is your courage flagging, Hale?”

Just like she’d hoped, it was enough to add some steel to his posture. “Never. He’s my kid.”

“A bunch of mommies aren’t going to intimidate you,” she added, dropping the phone onto the bed and putting her hands on her hips, mimicking a tough guy.

“Usually,” he said with a sardonic twist to the mouth. “ But I maintain the right to be terrified by the mommies who want to set me up with their single or divorced friends or the divorced mommies who have a kid in Danny’s class.”

He’d told her about the agreement he’d made with Natalie, but he obviously wasn’t ready to date yet.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be on your own after what happened,” she said.

“If you ask me, the world would be a lot happier if love found people instead of people chasing it down by trolling bars or the Internet.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “You’ve never mentioned anyone special in all these years. I’ve wondered…”

“What?” she asked, feeling her familiar defensiveness rise. “If I’m a lesbian?”

“No!” he answered, clearly horrified. “Not that it would be a problem, but…”

“How about that I have commitment issues?” she continued, her mouth flattening.

“I’ve heard them all. I’ve dated a string of men over the course of my time overseas.

Most of the relationships were short given the nature of our work.

There were a few who had longterm potential, but we all had our individual careers.

Once we left the country, things fizzled. ”

She’d tried to meet up with a few of the guys she’d liked in places like Rome or London between assignments, but that hadn’t worked out well either. The honest truth was she hadn’t cared enough about any of her past flings to change her schedule for them.

“There was another guy—an agricultural specialist I met in northern Uganda. He wanted me to give up my work and settle down with him on a ranch in Idaho.”

“And you’d never settle down,” Andy said, his tone deeper than usual.

They shared a look. She went for the truth after all these years. “It’s why I never let things get romantic with you in high school. I didn’t want to stay here, and we both knew it.”

“So you had thought about us back then,” he said, softly. “I always wondered.”

Her throat thickened. “I guess we both did. You know, it’s not that I don’t want to have someone in my life. If I met a man who understood how much traveling is a part of me, I would consider marriage.”

He looked away. “Marriage might work with your job, but kids wouldn’t.”