Chapter 17 #3
Rhode set his book on the nightstand and switched off the light. In the darkness, I heard sheets rustling and when the bed stopped moving he started talking.
“I had a friend in the Navy, Casper. All he talked about was when he got out he was moving his family here. He had the land, he had the house plans. Totally off-grid, mountain retreat for him, his wife, and two kids. Surprisingly his wife was on board. Not many women wanna move to the top of a mountain with crap cell reception and internet so slow it makes dial-up seem fast. But Lucy was all for it.”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like how this story ended considering I wasn’t too keen on any story starting with ‘I had a friend’—they typically indicated the friendship was no more.
“Casper never made it to Idaho. But he loved this place so much I wanted to give him his dream. I asked Lucy for the house plans and got to work. I needed a crane and a crew to build the structure but I worked alongside them. I hired a well digger, someone to put in the septic, and subbed out the plumbing but I did the rest. Took years to finish. I was still in the Navy, took every bit of leave I had to come up here and work. And every time I came I fell in love with the mountain. When I was here I felt different. I could breathe. Building this house was the most painful experience of my life until I found out about Remington. It was here, in this house, bone-tired from working all day I allowed myself to feel loss. Not only Casper but all the men I served with who didn’t make it home, the wives who lost their husbands, the moms and dads, children.
This was the only place I could allow it.
The rest of the time all those emotions had to be locked away.
I couldn’t let them encroach. I had a job to do that included more marks on my soul, more killing, more death, more loss.
“After I finished the house Lucy and the kids came up here to scatter Casper’s ashes on his mountain.
The place he’d intended to bring his family.
They stayed for two days. The day they were leaving Lucy asked me to take the kids down the mountain.
She wanted a few hours to be alone with her husband.
I hated leaving her up here alone to grieve but I knew this mountain had the power to heal and I was hoping she’d find what she needed to ease some of the pain. ”
Needing the connection I reached over Remy, felt around until my hand skimmed Rhode’s arm, then I found his hand and laced my fingers through his.
Rhode didn’t move, he didn’t curl in his fingers, he didn’t tighten his grip, he gave no acknowledgment I was holding his hand.
But that was okay. I was simply content to touch him.
I was honored he was sharing something deeply personal.
But that didn’t mean my heart didn’t hurt for him because it did.
I knew loss. I knew the pain that hit at the oddest of times.
Something mundane would trigger the reminder you were never going to see the person you loved again and fresh grief would consume you.
I lost two of the most important people in my life and I’d barely survived.
I couldn’t imagine Rhode going through that over and over.
“Before they left for the airport Lucy told me she left something for me up at the cabin. When I got back up here there were three envelopes. I opened the first.” Rhode paused and cleared his throat.
“A letter Casper wrote to Lucy that I’d never seen with his final wishes that I oversee the cabin being built.
He left her detailed instructions to give me.
The second letter was from Lucy explaining why she’d never told me what Casper wanted.
Lucy said she never needed to tell me because I’d done it on my own.
She went on to tell me she was giving me the land and the cabin—that Casper would want me on his mountain.
I opened the third envelope and it was the deed to the land and the house.
“So this place suits me because here is where my brother lives on. Here is where Lucy brings his children every year to spend time with their dad. Here is where I became whole. And here is where I want you and Remington.”
I’d never pictured myself living on top of a mountain, off-grid, up a scary road that in the winter would be death-defying to pass.
But suddenly I wanted Remington to grow up in this cabin.
I wanted to fill this house with happy memories to balance out the grief.
I wanted to give Rhode what he wanted and I wanted this for me, too.
“This mountain is magic,” I whispered.
“It is,” he confirmed.
Rhode didn’t need my praise. He didn’t need me to tell him he’d given his friend a beautiful gift. He knew what he’d given and in the process what he’d gained—not the house and land—peace, resolution, and hopefully he’d found grace.
“Sugar—”
“I want to tell Remy tomorrow.”
Rhode’s hand in mine spasmed then tightened.
“You sure?”
“Positive. No better place to tell him than up here on your mountain.”
Rhode muttered a whispered curse.
He wanted that. He wanted to tell his son the truth, I knew that, but it was more that he wanted the bond to begin up here in this cabin, on this mountain.
It took a while. I had a hundred different scenarios of how we were going to tell Remy playing out in my head but I finally found sleep.
Holding Rhode’s hand, in his big bed, in his beautiful cabin, with our son between us.
Dream come true.
The magic of the mountain.