Chapter 27
Mary tossed and turned. The clock on the nightstand glowed 1:09 a.m., three minutes later than the last time she’d looked. The money Darbi had withdrawn for her sat in an envelope on the dresser. While Mary was grateful her cousin had helped her, she wondered if Darbi was trying to buy a clean conscience. Her behavior had been so weird.
A breeze blew through the open windows, rattling the hanger with Mary’s green sundress on the back of the closet door. She planned to wear the dress when she saw Dean because green was his favorite color. Despite Darbi’s warning that he wouldn’t know her, Mary felt that on some level he would, that the love they’d shared in the other version of her life was tattooed on his soul as it was on hers. At the very least, he would immediately feel comfortable with her, and they would strike up an easy conversation.
She drifted off to a fitful sleep and woke at six thirty. An hour later, she called into work sick again and jumped in an Uber for a ride to the RMV. Once her car was registered, she took another Uber to retrieve her car. At ten, she sat behind the steering wheel of her Corolla as she drove out of the tow yard. When she reached the highway, she kept a watchful eye on her speedometer, making sure she was driving under the speed limit. Finally, she came to her exit. Google Maps told her she was only six minutes from her destination. She had never been more excited to see Dean.
On the back streets of Boylston, she had to stop for a flock of wild turkeys blocking the road. As she waited for them to move, she heard a rooster crowing in the backyard of one of the neighboring houses. Over the years, she’d attended several dinners with Dean and his golf friends at Addison Heights, and once he and Kendra had brought her there for a Mother’s Day brunch. Still, she didn’t remember the town being so rural. The turkeys finally made it across the street, and Mary continued down the winding street for several miles. A large black pickup truck drove toward her. Mary steered to the side of the road and pumped the brakes, fearing the narrow street wasn’t wide enough for two vehicles. The other driver waved a thank-you as he passed. A sign for the golf course indicating she was a mile away came into view. She clenched and unclenched her fist. What if Darbi was right, and Dean didn’t recognize her? What would she say to him? She would figure it out. After all, it was just Dean she was going to see. She’d had thousands of conversations with him through the years and hadn’t planned out a single one.
At a four-way intersection, she brought the car to a stop to let a man on a bicycle pass. The cyclist smiled and raised his hand to thank her. For a fleeting second as he rode by, she’d caught a glimpse of his dark eyes. Brown eyes that she’d know anywhere. Eyes that she’d looked into for over half of her other life. It made no sense because her Dean didn’t like bike riding, but she was certain the man on the bike wearing tight spandex bike shorts, a green shirt, and a matching green helmet was Dean.
Her legs shook so violently that she feared moving her foot off the brake to the gas pedal. She waited for a car to pass and turned behind it in the same direction that Dean had been traveling. She could no longer see him because he had disappeared around a curve in the road. The car in front of her puttered along as if it were in bumper-to-bumper traffic. She thought about blowing by it but instead beeped, hoping the driver would speed up. The beep backfired. The driver hit his brakes and moved even slower. Finally, though, she wound around a bend in the road, and the bike came into view. As she drove closer, she studied Dean’s broad shoulders rounded over the handlebars and watched his powerful legs turn the pedals. A warmth spread through her. For the first time since she’d entered this do-over life of hers, she felt a sense of peace.
When she was a few feet behind him, she lowered the passenger window and leaned across the front seat toward it. “Dean.”
He kept pedaling as if he hadn’t heard her. She tapped her horn and inched her car toward him. Still, he didn’t react. She blew the horn and steered closer to him. He glanced over his shoulder and pedaled faster.
She turned toward him so that her front bumper was mere inches from his back tire.
He glowered at her over his shoulder and motioned with his arm for her to pass. His mouth moved. Although Mary had a hard time hearing his words, she was almost certain he’d screamed, “Lunatic!”
In front of him, a large tree limb had fallen across the road, most likely from the storm the other day, but Dean wasn’t looking at the road. He was looking at Mary’s car.
“Dean! Dean!” Mary blew her horn, trying to warn him. She hit her brakes, giving him room to maneuver around the branch.
He continued staring at her until his front wheel hit the limb. The back of his bike tilted upward as if he were popping a wheelie in reverse. He somersaulted over the handlebars and tumbled down the embankment as his bike crashed to the ground. Mary felt as if she were watching the accident in slow motion, powerless to stop it. Her stomach twisted and turned. No, no, no. Don’t let anything happen to him. Let him be okay. Please. Don’t be hurt. Don’t be hurt.
She stopped her car and sat frozen behind the steering wheel, afraid to turn her head and see what had happened to Dean. On shaky legs, she exited the car. There at the bottom of the hill lay Dean’s motionless body. She’d not only wiped Kendra off the face of the planet. She’d killed Dean too.
Mary sprinted down the embankment, jumping over boulders and ducking under tree limbs. Her open-toed sandals provided no traction on the steep incline, and she slipped, almost losing her balance several times on her way to Dean’s side.
He lay on his back, twisted like a pretzel. His helmet hung at an awkward angle on his head, the clasp somehow in his mouth. Blood ran down his left leg, and his right arm covered his eyes. Mary’s life with him flashed before her eyes, from the moment she’d spotted him eating cake at the bridal shower to the day he’d dropped her off to get her wisdom teeth removed. She saw the good days. There were many. She saw the bumpy moments. They really weren’t that bad. This couldn’t be the end, because the one thing she knew was that she wanted more time with him and Kendra.
His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. Mary gasped in relief. Oh, thank goodness. She knelt beside him, the rocky ground scraping her bare knees. “Dean. Dean. Are you okay?”
He moved his arm away from his face and blinked. “You.”
There was a softness in his voice that made Mary certain he recognized her. Her eyes welled up. “Yes, it’s me, Mary.” She pointed to herself. “I knew you’d remember me.”
Groaning, he propped himself up to a sitting position. A nasty red scrape zigzagged across his cheek. A red welt swelled under his right eye. Blood oozed out of a deep gash on his knee, and a bruise tattooed his forearm. “You almost killed me.” His words were measured, as if stating a fact that he expected her to disagree with.
“I-I,” she stammered. “I was excited to see you.”
“I don’t know who you are, but I want you to stay away from me.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
She leaned away from him, realizing his voice was soft and his words were measured because he was trying to control his temper. He had no idea who she was. All the love they shared in their other life didn’t matter here. It wasn’t powerful enough to break through to this alternate universe. Yet, for her, being here had taught her that their love was stronger than she had thought. She had to find a way to reach him, to make him understand how much they meant to one another.
Kendra had fallen off her bike when she was eleven and needed fourteen stitches: six in her elbow and eight above her ankle. If only Mary could remind Dean of how they had taken her to the ER together and then taken her to the pancake house after because she loved having breakfast food for dinner. The memory was so vivid that Mary could feel her daughter’s hand, sticky with syrup, in hers as they left the restaurant. How could Kendra not exist? How could Dean not feel Mary’s love for him?
He reached toward a tree behind him and used it for leverage to lift himself off the ground. A look of pain streaked across his face as he stood.
Mary stepped toward him. “Let me help.”
He raised his hand so that his palm faced her. It, too, was scraped and dotted with tiny pieces of gravel. “I’m all set.”
She sucked on her lower lip, trying to think of something to say. On the road above them, cars made whooshing sounds as they drove by.
Dean grimaced as he put his weight on his left leg and limped toward the hill.
“Please, let me help you,” Mary repeated.
Dean pointed above them to the street. “Just go.”
Ominous low dark clouds hung over them. “I can’t leave you in a ditch on the side of the road.” Thunder boomed. “Let me help you up the hill.” She slid an arm around his waist. Her touch caused an electric shock, and a spark lit up the air. He flinched but didn’t push her away like she’d expected. Instead, he leaned his shoulder into her, sighing as he rested some of his weight on her. He smelled like the same mixture of fresh-cut grass and suntan lotion that her Dean always smelled like. The familiar scent gave her hope that things would be all right.
Together, they climbed the steep incline, navigating around sticks, roots, and rocks. At the top of the hill, Dean pushed her away and limped toward his bike. The front wheel was folded in on itself.
“I can give you a ride.”
He shook his head. “You’ve done enough. I’ll call someone.”
Mary pointed to his phone at the side of the road, its screen shattered. She picked it up and handed it to him. “Let me take you someplace.”
“My bike won’t fit in your car. I can’t leave it here.” Rain spit down on them.
She reached into the passenger window of her Corolla, pulled out her phone, and extended it to him.
He stared at it for a few seconds as if he might get cooties by touching it. Finally, he took it from her and tapped on the screen. “Hey. Had an accident with the bike. The wheel’s tacoed. Can you come get me?” Thunder rumbled in the distance. Dean looked up at the sky. “Yeah, on Rocky Pond Road, about a half mile from the turnoff to the course.”
He handed the phone back to Mary. “I’m all set.” He shooed her away as if she were an annoying fly. “You can be on your way.”
The rain came down faster, soon turning into a soaking downpour. Mary pulled the passenger door open for him. “Wait in my car.”
He sighed as he removed his helmet before climbing in.
She raced around to the driver’s side and slid behind the steering wheel. For just a second, she considered driving off, holding him captive until he let her interview him. No, that definitely wouldn’t work. She glanced at his knee, saw the blood running down his shin. “You might need stitches.” She handed him a wad of tissues that were in the center console.
He took them without saying anything and used one to mop up the blood oozing from the cut. She closed her eyes and was back at the barbecue for Kendra, the day she’d decided to have her wisdom teeth removed. He’d tenderly held a facecloth wrapped in ice against her knee. He was being kind, taking care of her, as he always had. Why hadn’t she seen that?
They sat in silence, listening to the rain beat against the roof of the car. This was definitely not the time to ask him for an interview or even identify herself as a reporter. Her underarms felt damp with sweat. This was the worst introduction to Dean possible.
“It’s not my fault you ran into a tree limb,” she said.
He glanced at her without moving his head. “What were you doing driving on the side of the road like that?”
“Trying to warn you about debris in the road.”
“Bullshit.”
“Since when do you swear?”
He moved his hand to the door handle. “You watched me play golf on television, and you think you know me?”
She’d been wrong. There was no connection between them. The realization made her feel as if she had been rejected, as if the Mary she’d been in her other life wasn’t good enough for him here in this life. He’d achieved more without her than he had with her. A streak of lightning lit up the sky, and thunder boomed.
Dean filled his cheeks with air and slowly blew it out. “You’re much younger and a lot more aggressive than the usual deranged fans who chase after me.”
Fans chased after him? She laughed, picturing a mob of middle-aged women running behind him. “What do you think would happen if they caught you?”
Maybe they would smother him with kisses, leaving bright-pink lipstick smears all over his face. The image made her take a closer look at him, beyond the scrapes and bruises. He had sturdy shoulders, probably from hauling around his heavy golf bag. His biceps screamed that he lifted weights, and his thick thighs let her know biking was a regular occurrence in his life without her. He had the same strong chin and thick full lips she knew so well. His dimples were just as deep, but his dark hair was long enough to curl. Wide horizontal lines cut across his forehead, and his crow’s-feet were more pronounced than she remembered. Somehow, the wrinkles made him distinguished. She’d forgotten how handsome he was. Seeing him day after day for twenty-six years had made her not see him at all.
He rubbed his face, and she noticed a faint red line that zigzagged across his jawline. The scar hadn’t been there when he was her husband. She was about to ask him how he got it when an SUV pulled up behind them. Dean flung the door open and hobbled out of Mary’s car.
She reached for him, tugging at the back of his shirt, wanting to pull him back into the passenger seat. She wanted him—no, she needed him—to see her, the woman he had loved. After abandoning her other life for a career, she was finding it hard to love—or even like—herself.
He spun to look at her, his eyes blazing and his expression stern. His anger surprised her. She jerked away from him and slumped against the driver’s side door. She swallowed hard, trying not to be intimidated by the way he glared at her. “I’m so sorry about what happened. Let me pay for your bike repairs.”
“That’s not necessary.” He slammed the car door before she could say anything else.
His friend stepped out of the SUV and examined the bent bicycle on the side of the road. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“I’ll survive.” Dean pointed a thumb at Mary. The man glanced in her direction, and they made eye contact. Anthony. It was Anthony. Of course he’d called his brother. Anthony waved. Mary’s eyes grew wide. Did he recognize her? No, he was just waving to be friendly. Of course he would be friendly. She was young and pretty, just his type.
“That lunatic ran me off the road,” Dean said.
That lunatic. Never mind not loving her; he didn’t even like her. She didn’t blame him. No matter which life she was living, she was a selfish person.