Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
We're wasting time, Sam's fox told him impatiently. Our mate is back and we're here talking with these silly shifters.
Part of Sam thoroughly agreed. The other part of him—some decades older and wiser than he'd once been—knew the investments from these gentlemen could make or break Virtue's future as an independent shifter sanctuary town, not reliant on modern corporate development.
And the third part of him ( you don't have three parts, his fox said, still impatiently) was also confident Garius Beren and Conri Lyell would help fund anything Virtue needed without Sam himself glad-handing them and showing them around town. But still, he told his fox. This is how business is done.
Does it have to be done while Lola is here? his fox demanded.
Sometimes, yes. They'd explored most of the old train station by then, admiring its old bones, investigating the state of the tracks that had gone unused for years now. It was still a beautiful space, though it made Sam's heart ache: most of the time he'd spent here had been in desperate hope that Charlotte would return, even though he'd known she wouldn't.
"I understand the town is voting on whether to bring the rail back," Conri called from down on the tracks. "If they vote in favor, I know just the architect to redevelop this space. It's got such promise."
"It isn't just here, though," Sam was forced to say. "There are another four sites south of here, and three north, that have to be redeveloped if there's going to be any point in bringing the line back. There are connection points north of the border, but we've got to reopen the whole line."
"We can help invest in that, if it's what the town votes for," Garius said. He'd climbed up to the old office and leaned through a broken window to call down to the other two men. "Right now the train goes north-east from Saratoga Springs, right? And the old line came up through Virtue to the north-west?"
"Up to Ottawa," Sam agreed. "Brought a lot of trade, at least at the time. Less tourism, but things have changed. Virtue's got more to offer, now."
"We'll make it work." Garius came down the long way, via the stairs—as if Sam had doubted he was a bear, and not a great cat. "The whole township is the sanctuary?"
Sam nodded. "Biggest township in New York. The charter was granted in the sixteen hundreds, and we've been working to keep it as wild as possible ever since, but it doesn't matter how wild it is if the town can't sustain itself. The ironic thing is that as the town has reinvented itself, we've gotten more and more outside interest in really developing the area, and we're trying to balance between keeping ourselves alive and keeping our secret. Your investments would be…" He shrugged, not wanting to exaggerate, but meaning it: "Life-changing."
Conri bounced up onto the train platform with the ease and enthusiasm of youth. Sam briefly considered kicking him, but he'd probably lose his balance, fall, and break his hip.
His fox sounded offended. We would not!
No, Sam said fondly. You'd save me. The animal hadn't talked to him this much in years. He was surprised at how much he'd missed it, now that it was vocal again.
Conri, not knowing he'd been saved from a swift kick, grinned at Sam. "That's our goal. Life-changing without threatening the way of life. I think you've got somebody waiting for you," he said as his glance darted past Sam, "but your assistant has our contact information. Let us know as soon as you do about how the vote goes here. Or if you want any help in persuading the locals."
Garius said, "Conri," in a stern tone, and the wolf shifter looked a little guilty as Sam stared at him, genuinely shocked.
"No. They need to make their own decisions."
"Of course." Conri lifted his hands in apology. "Sorry. My family has a history of strong-arming people, and I've tried not to go that way, but sometimes what you grew up with rubs off." He glanced beyond Sam again, then smiled. "But we'll stay out of that aspect of it, and like I said, you've got someone waiting for you. It's been a pleasure, Mr Todd."
Sam made an agreeable sound, but turned to see what Conri was smiling at. Only as he turned and the wind gusted just the right way did he catch the scent Conri must have: Lola, somewhere nearby. He said, "Gentlemen," and left more abruptly than was polite, but he was suddenly desperate to see her again, as if he could make up for fifty years in one afternoon.
Lola was walking along Station Road, hands tucked into her pockets and chin tucked into her upturned collar so that she looked like a green cylinder in a bobbly hat, marching into the wind. With a few long loping steps, he caught up and fell into step beside her. He could almost hear her smile as she said, "There you are," as if he'd only been away a moment. As if they had last been walking together along this road a day, or an hour, ago.
"Here I am," he agreed. "If I'd known you were coming, I'd have brought flowers."
Lola laughed. "They would have frozen."
"Can't have that." Sam popped his elbow out, and although she didn't really appear to have looked at him, Lola slipped her hand through it, linking elbows, and walked step in step with him back toward town.
"How did your meeting go?"
"Very well, I think. Were you looking at the old house?" At Lola's nod, Sam took a breath, held it, and then, hesitantly, said, "It's still yours."
Lola stopped right there on the sidewalk, cold wind and all, and stared up at him with tiny curls blowing into her eyes despite her hat. "What?"
"When…" He shouldn't have started saying this, not this early in their reunion, but it was too late now. "When your mother became ill, she came to visit me and asked me to hold the property in escrow after her death, in case you ever came home. She didn't blame you for leaving," he said very gently to the sudden tears standing in Lola's eyes, "but she didn't ever stop hoping you might come back, either. So the property…well, there are legal things to fill out, but it's yours. Or Charlee's, if you want to pass it down to her."
"Good Lord." Lola blinked, tears spilling, though she brushed them away before Sam could. "Good Lord. I didn't see that coming. Good Lord," she said a third time. "Do you have any other terrible shocks for me, Sam?"
Sam, thinking of his fox, said, "I'm afraid so," rather guiltily.
To his surprise, Lola laughed. "After fifty years, I'd be more surprised if you didn't. That was the worst part, you know," she said quietly as she fell into step with him again. "You were dead, so leaving you wasn't the worst part. Leaving Mom and Dad was, but I didn't want anyone to know where I was and I knew it would get out if I let them know. I knew they'd died," she added, even more quietly, then, obviously a little reluctantly, chuckled. "I mean, I'm nearly seventy. It would have been more surprising if they hadn't. But I did pay attention, so I knew when they'd died, is what I meant. Not coming to their funerals was hard."
So many what ifs spilled out from those not-so-small confessions. What if she'd told her parents where she was going? Sam might have found her again decades ago. What if she'd come to the funerals? Sam had gone; they would have seen each other. Everything might have been different.
But of course, she'd said she'd gone on to marry. If she'd come home then, if she'd seen him then… Sam didn't see any way for that to have been a happy reunion, either, truthfully. Not if she had a husband to go home to. Not if he had to somehow let her go. No: she had made her choices, and they'd been brave and strong at the time, and he respected that, without wanting to try to change it. He couldn't anyway. And it wasn't as if the years had been wasted. They'd only been …different… from what he'd imagined, as a youth. "Would you like to visit their graves?"
Lola's eyebrows flew up, moving the brim of her knitted hat. "Oh. Do you know, I hadn't even thought of that? Yes, I think I would. Possibly tomorrow," she added. "My phone says it's supposed to warm up."
Sam laughed out loud, startling her. "I'm sorry," he said to her wide dark gaze. "It's just, can you imagine saying that, when we were kids? 'My phone says?'"
"Oh." Lola laughed, too, and shook her head. "No. No, sometimes I hear myself saying things like that and think, never mind the way slang changes so one generation can't understand the next. If teenage Lola heard old lady Lola?—"
Sam laughed again. "Hey!"
"We are old, Sam," Lola said fondly. "Just try to convince my knees otherwise."
"I do yoga," he confessed, and a giggle erupted from the woman at his side, just as she would have done in high school.
"I should , but I don't. Who knew that the most important thing you could tell your young self to do was stretch? Forget good investments: stretch ! But if young Lola could hear old Lola, she'd think I'd had a stroke, anyway. My phone says the weather will be better tomorrow, for heaven's sake. Use the phone to talk? Don't be silly, we use it to—oh, what did I read, how did they say it. 'Use it to send really fast tiny letters to each other.'"
"Although we've finally caught up to the Jetsons," Sam said happily. He hadn't been this happy in years, soul lighter and more complete with Lola at his side. "No flying cars, but we do have video phones."
"Vones," Lola said decisively. "That's what Charlee calls them. V ones." She pronounced the V carefully, making certain it sounded different from the ph it replaced.
"Oh, that's smart. Short for video phone, and then you don't have to remember if it's…" Sam waved a hand in the air, vaguely. "Snype or iScream or FaceCall or whatever 'app' it is these days. Remember when we called 'apps' 'programs?'"
"Okay, Boomer," Lola said peaceably, and Sam burst out laughing again.
"Is our generation even allowed to say that?"
"Well…" Lola glanced toward the sky, eyebrows lifted, then smiled at him. "I haven't been struck down with a bolt of lightning or anything, so I'd say so. Sam…"
They had walked back into town by then, past the school and up to the corner of the town square. Lola drew to a stop, gazing up at him, and finally, a little helplessly, said, "What happened ?"