Chapter Eleven – Fern

“Can I walk you home?” Theo asked. He was waiting for her as she left work, which was a great surprise, even if she would rather have had a chance to shower before seeing him. Her fingernails were dirty, and her hair was limp. Not to mention she had been working in the sun and had been sweating, a lot. Yuck.

“You can. Or at least to my car,” Fern replied, studying his face. She’d grown used to him always looking happy and relaxed, comfortable in his own skin. But not this afternoon. “You look twitchy.”

“Sorry.” He fell into step with her, and she risked another glance at him.

“Is your dad still doing well?” Fern asked, hoping the old man hadn’t had a relapse. Or maybe Theo’s news was about something else. “Are you leaving?”

He stopped, planting his feet hip-width apart. “Have you been talking to my sister?”

“Firstly, I don’t know your sister, and secondly, what has my question got to do with her?” Fern asked, although Theo’s mood unnerved her. She had developed an empathy for people’s moods, especially twitchy moods. Those were the worst, those were the most unpredictable.

“Sorry,” he said again. “My sister is in town, and she has decided that Dad is going to go and live with her in the city.”

“Oh.” Fern completely understood why Theo was so cranky. “Why? He loves the house and the bees. And I don’t know what Carter would do without Walt.”

“Well, that settles it, my dad has to stay in Bear Creek for the sake of Carter Eden.”

Fern shook her head, and smiled, which then turned into a giggle. Theo stared at her for five seconds before his shoulders began to shake and he began to laugh too. He reached out for Fern and pulled her into his arms, rocking her back and forth while his laughter bubbled up through his broad chest.

“Ah, that’s better. Damn, I had forgotten how much my sister winds me up.”

“I’m beginning to think it is a good thing she lives out of town,” Fern said, sad in a way because she had been looking forward to meeting Cathy and getting to know her.

“You are right. My sister has turned into a city girl through and through.” He sighed and broke their embrace, taking Fern’s hand in his as they began to walk to her car.

“So why did you let her get under your skin?” Fern asked. She knew only too well, there wasn’t always a reason, but from what little she knew of Theo, he seemed to be well adjusted and in control of his temper.

“She pressed my buttons in just the right order,” Theo said. “She played on my own guilt.”

“Guilt about Walt?”

“Yes. She said that he would be better off living with her, since I was likely to wander off on my next adventure anytime soon.”

“And are you?” Fern asked.

“No.” He tugged her toward him, and lifted his arm to encircle her shoulders. “I plan to stay here. Help my dad anyway I can. And spend time with you. Maybe start a family.”

He left his last sentence hanging in the air. What kind of a response was he expecting?

“I’m not in any rush.”

“For a family?” Theo asked.

“Yes.” Fern tried to put her words straight in her head. “It’s not something I’ve ever wanted. Children of my own.”

“We don’t have to rush into it,” Theo said gently. “I’m not putting pressure on you. I keep having to remind myself that you don’t feel what I feel.”

“And what if I never change my mind?” Fern asked.

“Is this because of your childhood?” Theo asked gently. Was she ready to share her secrets with him? Could she open up about her life? And if she did, would it help her get past her own fears about having children? How was she supposed to explain that she had sworn she would never have children, because she could not bear the thought of history repeating itself?

She wasn’t her mom, Fern knew that. Not yet… In the back of her mind, in the jumble of memories of her childhood, she did recall some good times. Times when she was very young, when it was just her and her mom, before he came into their lives and ruined it all. Her mom had changed, her priorities had changed. What if the same thing happened to Fern and her children suffered?

“My childhood was complicated.” It wasn’t really an answer, but it was a beginning.

They had reached her car, and she unlocked it and they got inside. Fern started the engine, or tried to start the engine. It took three attempts before it fired into life.

“You need a new car,” Theo stated.

“I like this one,” Fern replied.

“I hate to think of you getting stranded in this car. One day it won’t start.”

“And that is the day I get a new car,” Fern said.

He chuckled. “Seems you have some things in common with my sister.”

“You mean being stubborn?” Fern asked. “I appreciate your concern, but I like this car, it’s mine.”

“Bought and paid for it yourself?” Theo asked. She nodded. “I remember my first car.” He looked around the interior of the old Ford. “It wasn’t in much better condition than this, but it was mine, and I drove it to my first job interview.”

“Did you get the job?” Fern asked.

“Yes, it was at a local newspaper a couple of towns over. I drove that car there and back every day for six months. It was like a lucky talisman, until it broke down in the snow, and then it nearly became my tomb. But luckily I have a bear that is damn good in the snow.”

“Oh, so this is a moralistic story. If you aren’t a bear, you need a good car.”

“No.” He chuckled at her indignation. “It’s just a story. I still got that old car towed home and fixed her up. You hang onto it, until you are ready to let go.” He tapped the dashboard as he spoke, as if patting the family dog.

“Sounds like that advice would fit in with every part of my life,” Fern said.

“I can’t criticize, it’s what my Dad is doing with his house, holding onto it as tightly as possible. We form attachments. Healthy or not.”

They were a couple of minutes away from her house, and Fern cruised along slowly, not in any hurry. Theo was peeling away layers of the brown wrapping paper she had used to block out her childhood memories. It was terrifying and liberating at the same time.

“So you think it’s perfectly sane to form attachments to things?” She took a deep breath, fighting off the panic attack that was sitting on her chest, waiting to crush all the air out of her lungs. “What about people?”

“People? You are talking to a shifter who has found his mate. My attachment to you feels physical, as if we are linked.”

“Do you mean you have me on a leash?” Fern asked.

“The other way around, I think,” Theo said.

She parked the Ford outside her house and opened the door to get out. As she moved, she gathered all her stray thoughts and tried to shuffle them into order. If she was going to have a future with Theo, and she sincerely wanted that future to be her new reality, then she was going to have to tell him about her past.

Not because she wanted him to feel pity for her. However, it might give him some idea of why she had never wanted children, why becoming a mother was not a thing she craved.

“So this is where you live. Nice place,” Theo said.

“Thanks. It’s home. I love it. I love having my own space. When I was in foster care, I always had to share. Now I can do whatever I want.” She opened the door and let them both in.

“Did you tidy before you went out?” Theo asked, looking around.

“It’s always like this. One thing about being in foster care, is you learn to travel light. I have no stuff. No clutter.”

He turned to her and grinned. “We might have to negotiate that when we move in together.”

“Do you have a lot of stuff? I thought since you traveled a lot you wouldn’t have many things either.” Fern had not given much thought as to where Theo lived. He’d never mentioned his house, or apartment.

“I like collecting things from my travels. Right now, it’s in storage. There seemed little point keeping an apartment on while I was away.” He walked into the sitting room, which was Fern’s favorite room in the house. It looked out onto the mountain and she liked nothing better than to curl up on the second-hand sofa with a good book and a glass of wine on an evening and read, with the mountain watching over her. “I like this view.”

“It’s my favorite.” She crossed the room to stand next to him. “I’m so lucky. I could never have afforded this place when I first came to Bear Creek, but Carter offered to pay the rent for the first six months, to help get me on my feet.”

“Carter sure is a big part of people’s lives,” Theo said, trying not to sound unkind.

“He’s a huge part of my life,” Fern admitted. “In some ways, he is the reason I ended up in care.”

“And there was me thinking he was Santa Claus.” Theo bent his head and shook it once. “That was mean-spirited of me.”

“I think, for his sake, I should explain.”

“I’d rather you explained things to me for your sake, because you want to,” Theo told her gently.

Fern turned away. Her legs were shaky and she wanted to feel the squishy sofa under her, and wallow in its familiarity. “I do want to. But this is going to be hard. I’ve never told another person about it before. Not even the social workers. Not fully.”

“I feel privileged that you trust me enough to tell me,” Theo said, turning his back on the mountain and coming to sit beside her. “And whatever you tell me, I will keep to myself. You can trust me in all things, Fern.”

“That takes some getting used to,” Fern told him. “There are only a few people in this world I truly trust.”

“And Carter is one of them?” Theo asked.

“He is.”

“Then I suppose I have to let go of my animosity toward him over how he treated my dad.”

“What if I told you that animosity should be aimed at me?”

“You, how?” Theo leaned back, studying her. “Are you sure Carter hasn’t brainwashed you?”

Fern took hold of his hand and held it between hers. The warmth of his skin gave her confidence. “I was the reason he went up the mountain.”

Theo let the air out of his cheeks. “OK, I did not see that coming.”

“It’s true. And I’m going to try to put it in context. But sometimes it gets hard… to think of what happened.” She breathed in through her nose and let her breath out slowly through her mouth, staving off the panic growing inside her. The thoughts she needed to access were those she had tried to forget, but she had to be strong, for Theo. For herself.

“I was five when my mom moved in with Gary. Before that, it was just the two of us. I never knew my real dad.” She rocked backwards and forwards, forming the words in her head before speaking them slowly. “He was nice enough to start with, from what I remember. But then he lost his job. The drinking soon followed.”

Theo put his arm around her, and held her close as her teeth began to chatter. “It’s OK, I’m here.”

“My mom was working more to keep the bills paid, and so I spent a lot of time alone with Gary.” She pressed her lips together, not wanting to let the next words out, but she had to. “He was a miserable drunk. Ugly. Angry. And one day I spilled the milk. I came home from school hungry and all there was to eat was cereal. The carton was so heavy…”

“Shhh,” Theo crooned as she hiccuped.

“It started off as a slap here and there, usually when my mom was out at work. Then gradually it became a thump, or a kick.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “And then one day he hit me in front of my mom… And she just… She just did nothing.” Tears ran down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them away angrily.

“She should have protected you,” Theo assured her.

“I know. I know.” Her voice rose in pitch. “But she did nothing.”

It was a few minutes before she could talk again. “After that, I spent most of my time in my room, listening to music and watching movies.”

“This is where Carter comes into it?” Theo asked.

“It is.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I used to have a big poster of him on my wall. And when things got bad, I used to dream he would come and take me away from it all.” Her voice grew defensive. “I was a teenager, in need of escape, so I sent him a letter.”

“I’m sure he got a lot of fan mail,” Theo said.

“I’m sure he did, which is why the letter I got back wasn’t from him, it was from his assistant, as I found out afterward. If the assistant read my letter or not, I don’t know, but the reply led me to believe… Or maybe I simply wanted to believe, that he wanted to meet me.”

“Oh, honey.”

“I was so foolish, such a stupid girl.” Fern turned from him, but he didn’t let her.

“So? You are allowed to be stupid when you’re a kid. Damn it, I still do stupid things now, as an adult.”

Theo was so sweet, so kind, but he hadn’t heard the rest of her story. “I went to see him. I saved up my lunch money, and I got on a bus and went to the studio where he was filming. Then I snuck into the studio and found his trailer.”

“Oh, Fern.”

Her smile was weak, her tears rolling down her face as she struggled on. “Carter came in and freaked out. I don’t blame him, being caught with an underage girl in your trailer is enough to kill most careers. He called security, and I got kicked out.”

“That must have crushed you.”

“Not… as much… as my stepd…” She broke down and he held her tight against his chest until she could hardly breathe. His body shuddered as he fought his own emotions.

“It’s OK, I think I can piece the rest together.”

“I couldn’t face living that way anymore.” She buried herself in Theo, wanting to disappear, the hurt and shame of her actions were still as raw as they had been all those years ago. But she had found the strength to tell the one person who needed to know, so now she could bury it once more, and never let the memories see the light again.