Chapter 14 #2
She resolved to bring him here every summer, hoping Auntie would be here long enough for him to have a memory of her. While Lucinda wasn’t a blood relative, she was well-loved by Ana, and that was more than enough.
Brie’s phone buzzed. She read the text and smiled.
“Martin?”
“Yeah. Telling me he loves me and wants us to have fun.”
“He’s so sweet.”
“Someone should marry him,” Brie said, smile growing.
“I love that we’ve grown up together, and we’re still sharing our lives.” Emotion squeezed her throat, tears at the ready. Turning away, she looked out the window.
And froze.
A shiny new pickup was parked on the side of the road, right in front of the town common.
The trolley came to a halt at a stop, and passengers got off.
Ana looked out the window at the truck’s driver, a huge, muscular man wearing a navy blue t-shirt, the cotton tight against his well-sculpted chest, his sandy hair neatly clipped.
His face was in shadow so she couldn’t get a full look, but something in her pinged.
“Dennis?” she whispered as a new group of people climbed on, suddenly blocking her view.
“What?” Brie asked.
Ana pointed. “I swear I just saw… no.”
“Who?”
“Dennis.”
“Who’s Dennis?”
Ana sighed, shaking her head. “I’m being silly.”
“You mean that guy you met? At the hotel in Boston?”
“Yeah.” By the time the new passengers settled down, the man was gone. Ana searched the streets and the common. No luck.
“You think he’s here? Of all places?”
“I know. Like I said, I’m being silly.”
“I mean, that would be a seventy-four-million-to-one chance!”
“Did you calculate that based on specific data?” Ana asked, laughing, but the flush of hope wouldn’t leave her chest. Heart pounding, skin suddenly blazing, she remembered how it felt to touch him, her hands on his strong body, how he moved with her, against her.
In her.
“Based on absolutely nothing in particular,” Brie said breezily.
“I think I’m conjuring him.”
“Where was he?”
The trolley jerked as it began to move.
“In front of that truck. Why?”
“We could leave a note on the windshield.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To contact him.”
“I have his number. Remember? I ghosted on him.”
Brie’s demeanor changed when she realized Ana was in emotional pain. “Oh, Ana. Go ahead and text him right now!”
“I’ve ignored him for nearly five months!”
“So?”
“It would be rude.”
“It could be a great way to open things up again. ‘Hey, I know I never replied, but I’m in Luview, Maine and I swear I just saw you on the street’ is one hell of a line.”
“He’s moved on.”
“How do you know?” Brie’s eyebrows shot up as she looked Ana over. “It’s clear you haven’t. Why assume he has?”
“A guy like Dennis? Big and powerful and smart and cunning?”
“You seem to know a lot about his cunning skills.” Brie winked.
Ana turned to pure fire.
“Stop that!” she hissed as they came to yet another trolley stop, this time in front of the famous Luview hot springs. A merchandise stand with beautiful hand towels came into Ana’s gaze and she wished for one.
Because suddenly, she was sweating.
And wet elsewhere, too.
As Brie cackled, Ana tried to tame her hormones.
And failed.
Rushes of sexual desire were confined to her dreams these days, as she focused more on work, life, and the baby.
Getting her fourteen patients situated and ready for her maternity leave was turning out to be trickier than she thought, and never before had she been so grateful for her trust fund.
Years of massive guilt over it had turned to deep gratitude.
Her father was providing for his daughter and grandchild, years after his death.
“How perfect,” Ana said with a sigh as she watched happy groups of people walk toward the rising steam, the water piping hot, the air a temperate sixty degrees.
“We can swim later.”
“I’d love that, as long as it’s not too hot.” She rubbed her belly.
“You can always just stand in it. They say you’ll fall in love like that–” Brie snapped her fingers, “–if you touch the water at the same time as your true love.”
“You know that’s just a silly legend to make tourists come here and spend money,” Ana said kindly. Nothing about Love You, Maine bothered her. Cheesy and over the top, it all made her smile, even if it was fake.
“And it worked!”
Brie’s words sounded like a declaration of victory, so Ana let her win. Yet another person in a heart costume boarded, and soon Ana was catching candy, delighting in the sweet goodness once more.
She needed to go to Love You Chocolate and buy a five-pound bag of these red foil hearts.
And eat them all, one at a time, while binge-watching Abbott Elementary.
“Mmmmm, I love it here,” Brie said as the trolley began moving, their final stop bringing them right back where they’d started. For the next few minutes, Ana let herself relax, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths.
That man.
That man by the truck.
While she didn’t get a good look at his face, he felt like Dennis, and that stirred so much inside her. Would she ever get past their single night together?
So many times since January, she’d been tempted to answer his text. So, so many. But after finding out she was pregnant, she’d felt such shame at the thought of replying and trying to–what? Have a relationship with a man she’d slept with one time, all while incubating another man’s child?
Too much.
Even for a well-educated, emotionally regulated, professional woman, this was churning too much shame in the waters.
Now, though, she was more settled. The baby was growing. Harris was long gone. Whatever Rick had done, they hadn’t heard a peep out of what Brie called “the baby daddy from hell.” And Ana had spent plenty of time with her own therapist processing what Harris had done to her.
No matter what, the little boy she carried was very, very loved.
Regardless of what his sperm donor had done.
The trolley slowed in front of a crowd assembled at the stop. Shuffling out, Ana and Brie made their way into the sunshine, Ana’s denim jacket doing its job on the cool spring day.
“Off to Auntie’s,” Brie said, unlocking the car.
“Not a moment too soon,” Ana murmured.
As Brie laughed, her phone buzzed.
“Oh, there she is!”
“She texts? Wasn’t she born during the Depression?”
“She does, in fact, text. Boyce got her an emergency phone with huge numbers. This one says, ‘Dear Brie, Please meet me at the store. Sincerely, Lucinda.’”
“So formal!”
“Every text is like this. All of them.”
“That’s adorable.”
“I hope when I’m her age, I’m making some big technological faux pas and my grandniece and her friend think it’s adorable.”
“We’ll be adorable in our nineties.”
“We’ll be pains in the ass in our nineties.”
Ana squeezed Brie’s arm and grinned.
“I can’t wait.”
“By the time we’re in our nineties, we’ll have VR chips in our brains.
No one will know the difference between dementia and virtual reality,” Ana went on as Brie backed out of the parking spot and headed for the road.
Although Love You Chocolate was just a few blocks away, they had their luggage and five big scrapbooks full of wedding ideas Brie insisted on bringing.
“Will the VR affect our taste buds?” Brie asked, looking worried at the thought.
“Good question. I have no idea. We need to consult a VR developer. If only we knew one…”
Brie grinned. Her brother Cam worked as one.
“Can you imagine being an old lady now? When Lucinda was born, she didn’t even have a radio in her home. They were too poor,” Brie said. “Television hadn’t been invented. No Internet. No cell phones.”
“Right,” Ana mused. “And then they lived down at Sabbathday Lake at the Shaker community.”
“I know. Such a sad story. Her father died and left her mother with three children, and the Shakers took them in. Does she ever go back and visit? Or do they shun her?” Ana knew the basics, but had never wondered about whether Lucinda visited her old home.
“Well, the Shakers aren’t like other religious communities.
Children living there decide whether to stay or go when they turn eighteen.
Auntie fell in love with Uncle Donald and left the Shakers forever.
” Brie sighed, then continued, “She hates the touristy aspect of the farm now. I think she visits when it’s quiet. There are only a few Shakers left.”
“For obvious reasons,” Ana said, pointing to her belly. “This doesn’t happen there.”
“Right. Celibacy is required. Part of their religious teachings. Auntie was so sad to have to leave, but she fell in love with Uncle Donald and that was that.”
“I think she did just fine.” Brie pulled the car into the Love You Chocolate back parking lot, as instructed by Lucinda, and parked in an “Employees Only” spot. They walked up to the back door and rang a bell.
One minute later, Lucinda appeared, all smiles and hugs.
“My dears! How wonderful!” When she kissed Brie, she sniffed. “You have been eating my chocolate–where?”
Ana gaped. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I can smell a Love You Chocolate heart from a thousand feet away.”
“Really? You’ve tested this?” Brie teased, and Auntie laughed in Ana’s arms.
“Oh, Brie. Let us go!”
“Go where?” Ana asked.
Lucinda was carrying a small red purse, and she wore a white blouse under a red cardigan, white slacks, sensible white leather shoes, and a white sun hat with a red ribbon.
“We’re off to the common, of course. A lovely festival. Plus, the store has a booth there, and I need to make certain the teenage workers are behaving.”
“Doesn’t Boyce run the store now? You retired.”
“I let Boyce think he runs the store,” Lucinda declared, striding toward the sidewalk as Ana and Brie hustled to keep up. “How was your drive?”