Chapter 52
The bench was exactly where Beth remembered it. Someone had replaced a couple of the wooden slats since the last time she’d been there, and years of Montana weather had faded the small plaque on the back, but the view remained unchanged.
Flathead Lake stretched before her beneath the late afternoon sky, blue water reaching toward the mountains in the distance. Sunlight caught on the surface whenever the breeze moved across it, and somewhere below, small waves washed against the shore.
Beth sat and placed her jacket beside her. For a while, she did nothing except listen.
A bird called from one of the nearby trees. Leaves shifted overhead, their gentle rustle blending with the sound of the lake.
Jessie had loved this place.
When Kayla was young, the three of them used to come here with a picnic. Beth had always packed enough food for twice as many people, while Kayla spent hours collecting stones and Jessie tried to teach her how to skip them across the water.
He’d been terrible at it.
Beth smiled at the memory. She reached into her jacket pocket and took out the photograph she’d brought from home. It wasn’t their wedding picture or one of the family photos displayed around the house. This one had been taken here, beside the lake.
Jessie was wearing an old baseball cap and a faded gray T-shirt. He had one hand raised toward the camera because he’d realized Beth was taking his picture and was trying to stop her.
She’d taken it anyway.
Looking at his familiar grin brought an ache to her chest, but it was softer than it once would have been. Beth rested the photo on her lap.
“Hi, Jess.”
Talking to a photograph should have felt foolish. Somehow, here, it didn’t. She looked toward the lake. “I haven’t been here in ages. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is.”
The leaves stirred gently above her.
“There’s so much to tell you.” Beth smiled as she glanced down at his image. “Kayla’s married, but you probably know that by now.”
Her smile grew. “You would have loved the wedding. She looked beautiful, and Tyler cried when he saw her. Ryan walked her down the aisle with me. He was nervous, although he tried to pretend he wasn’t. He did a good job.”
A small wave broke against the shore. “We missed you.” The words carried sadness, but not the sharp, breath-stealing grief Beth remembered from the early years.
She ran a finger along the edge of the photo. “Kayla graduated, too. And she starts working for Chef Aldana on Monday. A real, full-time sous chef.”
Pride warmed her voice. “She’s terrified, although she’d probably object to me telling you that. She brought two pairs of work shoes home because she couldn’t decide which ones to wear.”
Beth shook her head. “She gets that from you. Remember the four-wheeler?”
She could almost hear Jessie’s protest. “You spent three weeks choosing one, Jessie. Three weeks. I’m not exaggerating.”
A laugh escaped her, but when she looked across the water again, her smile slowly faded. “I wish you’d seen her grow up.” That was harder to say. Beth swallowed and gave herself a moment.
Jessie had missed so much. Kayla leaving for college. Her graduation. Falling in love with Tyler. Her wedding. There would be more milestones in the years ahead. Perhaps grandchildren one day. New jobs and new homes and Christmases around crowded tables.
For a long time, Beth had thought of those occasions partly in terms of the man who should have been there to see them.
Today, sitting beneath the summer sky, she realized something else.
Jessie was part of them anyway.
He was part of Kayla. Part of Beth. His life hadn’t vanished simply because it had ended too soon.
A breeze swept in from the lake, lifting the hair from the back of Beth’s neck.
She looked at his photograph. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “I’ve met a man. His name is Dave. He’s a contractor. He’s been working at Finley Point, and he was in charge of the arts center remodel. He has a son, Mark, who means the world to him.”
She hesitated. “He’s a good person.”
The description was true, but nowhere near enough.
“He makes me laugh. He knows when I need help, but he also knows when to let me work something out for myself. He can be stubborn and annoying, and occasionally he thinks he’s funnier than he actually is.”
Beth smiled. “And I love him.”
The words drifted into the quiet afternoon. She looked down at Jessie’s face and waited for the guilt that had followed the thought so many times before.
It didn’t come.
Her eyes filled, but the tears felt different. There was sadness because Jessie wasn’t sitting beside her. There always would be, but she felt his presence, the calm steady wholeness of his spirit that always centered her.
Beth drew a slow breath. “I made a mess of things, Jessie. I told Dave I couldn’t see him anymore because I thought loving him meant I was letting go of you.”
Her voice wavered. “I couldn’t bear that.”
The branches moved overhead as another breeze came through the trees. Beth sat quietly, watching the shifting patterns of sunlight on the ground. “But I think I finally understand what I couldn’t see before.”
She looked at Jessie again. “I don’t have to let you go. You’ll always be with me.”
Her eyes blurred and Beth wiped away a tear. Nothing could take away the years she’d spent with Jessie. “I was so busy trying to protect what we had that I forgot that what we had doesn’t need protecting. We lived it.”
Her throat tightened. “We loved each other. We raised an amazing daughter. We had a good marriage and a good life. Not nearly enough of it, but what we had was ours. I’ll always love you, Jessie.”
She waited a moment before continuing. “But I love Dave, too.”
A stronger breeze came off the lake. It swept through the branches overhead, setting hundreds of leaves rustling at once. A strand of Beth’s hair blew across her cheek, and she closed her eyes.
For one fleeting moment, a memory came back with startling clarity.
Jessie reaching across the kitchen table to brush her hair away from her face. The warmth of his fingers against her skin. The teasing smile that usually followed.
Beth knew the breeze was only a breeze.
But surrounded by the lake Jessie had loved, the trees they’d once sat beneath, and a world that had continued turning through all the years since she’d lost him, she felt something inside her finally become still.
Perhaps acceptance didn’t arrive in words.
Perhaps she’d been carrying it with her all along and simply hadn’t been ready to recognize it.
Beth opened her eyes. She sat there a little longer, holding Jessie’s photograph while sunlight moved across the lake. Eventually, she looked down at Jessie’s smiling face. “Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for. Kayla. Their marriage. The years they’d shared. And maybe the woman she’d become during them. Perhaps she was simply thanking Jessie for being himself.
Beth slipped the photograph back into her pocket. For the first time, the action didn’t feel like putting him away, because Jessie wasn’t contained in a photograph.
He never had been.
She stood and turned toward Flathead Lake one last time. “I love you, Jess.” The words felt right. “And now I need to go tell Dave that I love him, too.”
Beth turned toward the path.
The breeze followed her through the trees, and the leaves stirred overhead as she walked away.