SIXTEEN

 

It had seemed ridiculous to him at first, that Taylor could be unfaithful. Taylor had been a virgin, almost completely inexperienced when he had given himself to Dane, which meant that the whole thing was a big deal to Taylor. He wouldn’t give that away to just anyone.

But then, didn’t that make it worse, if it was true? Once it had occurred to Dane, it was like a horrible, nagging, catchy snatch of song that just wouldn’t stop playing through his head. If Taylor had met someone else, and he was cheating, then it wouldn’t be just for sex. Taylor didn’t behave that way. And wasn’t it possible that Taylor was just trying to figure out how to leave Dane for this hypothetical other person?

Paranoid, maybe, but it also seemed to make more sense than anything else he could think of. But Taylor wouldn’t do that to him, only Taylor had been acting so strange, and it went back and forth. Sometimes, people fell in love when they weren’t expecting to, even when they were outright opposed to it, and Taylor could have …

His mind went back and forth, gnawing away at the edges of his brain until he felt like he wasn’t thinking about anything else anymore. He had found, with his construction work, that he was able to get lost in the pure, physical rhythm of it, to not think about anything else, but even work couldn’t pull his mind away from Taylor.

Nothing could, it seemed, but he would give it time. Or so he thought until he woke up later than usual on a rare day off between projects. Normally he was gone by six, but it was seven o’clock before he opened his eyes and glanced out the window, only to see Taylor, with a huge bag on his back, heading for his car.

His first thought was that Taylor was running away, but it only took him a moment to dispel that notion. Dane may be questioning Taylor’s attachment to him, but he would never doubt how Taylor felt about Danica or his mother.

He was up and out of bed before he could even consider if he should be doing this. It was an invasion of Taylor’s privacy, but Dane would stay back and out of the way, and hopefully, he would get some answers. There was a sick twisting in his guts, a sort of excitement because something instinctive told him that he was going to find out today what was going on with Taylor.

It took him seconds to get dressed, and less time even than that to rush out the door to his truck. If he had known what he was going to see, maybe he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry. If he had lost Taylor in the light early morning traffic, things might have been different.

Then again, maybe not. He would have figured it out sooner or later. But it tore his world apart when he realized that Taylor had made such an important decision, and hadn’t even trusted Dane enough to tell him. And then to have had the nerve to tell Dane that he was the one who was running, when Taylor, Dane just realized, had been running from him from the moment they’d first met. Running as fast away from Dane as he possibly could.

It was time to let him go.

He went back to the place that had temporarily been his home, and then he waited. It took him less than five minutes to pack up his things. Because, in all of his years of travel, he had gotten used to having very little. He made a phone call, and he wrote a note, and then he pretty much just paced through the room.

Finally, after the slow crawl of hours which seemed to take days, Danica came bouncing into the house, followed by Rebecca, who looked tired, but happy. Dane had had so much time to prepare to this, and he had thought he was ready, but when he looked at them, when he gazed at the two females who had made him, he realized now, feel so much more welcome and at home than Taylor ever had, he knew that part of him could never be ready.

Rebecca knew the moment she laid eyes on him, and there was anguish in those eyes, so much like Taylor’s that it made Dane’s heart feel like it was being briskly wrung out by a cruel, firm hand. Taylor would never look at him like that, he knew, but then, maybe Taylor had never liked Dane as much as Rebecca did.

“Is it time, then?” she asked, and her voice was calm, but the way she put her arm around Danica made it pretty clear to him that she was only holding it together for her daughter’s sake. Adults could understand what was going to happen, but how was a six-year-old girl going to be able to?

“I’m afraid so,” Dane admitted and then looked at her more shrewdly. “You knew, didn’t you?”

Rebecca sighed and nodded, and the sorrow clear in her eyes was also seen in the tightening at the corners of her lips. But she didn’t look away from him, not for a second, which he appreciated.

“I knew. It was my idea. But he begged me not to tell you. Told me it would hurt you to know. I would have told you anyway, but he said he would tell you when the time came, and when you could handle it.”

Dane’s lips tightened, and he gave a terse little nod. He couldn’t even blame her, not for wanting her son to go to school, or for believing him when he said that he would tell Dane later. She looked so apologetic, so deeply regretful, but she wasn’t the one who had anything to regret.

“What’s going on?” Danica, not understanding the tones and undertones of the conversation, looked up at her mother, and then Dane, utterly bewildered. Dane took a deep breath because while Rebecca might understand, he wasn’t sure that Danica ever would.

“My old job wants me back,” Dane told her, as gently as he could, going down to one knee so that he could look directly into her face. He memorized her features or tried to, not sure if he would ever get to see her again. But at least he had gotten to see her kick cancer. At least he got to see her face less pale and pinched and skinny, got to see the wavy sandy brown hair which had grown back in, an adorable pixie cut mop now which she hated but which suited her nicely.

She would be okay. She was a fighter, and she would get past this. He should just be hoping that she wouldn’t someday have completely forgotten the wandering man who had briefly traipsed through her life. The thought of that was intensely depressing.

He supposed it would be no more than what he deserved, though.

“Oh? You mean next year when the fair comes back?” she asked, and for a moment, he thought that this was going to be harder than he thought. Until he saw the gleam in her eyes, suspiciously wet, and realized that she knew the truth. On some level, she knew this was goodbye.

“No,” Dane replied and then handed her the note that he had written for Taylor. He had struggled over that note, had agonized over it, but really, hadn’t he and Taylor said everything to each other that they needed to say? So he had kept it simple. “I have to go now, but I have a very important job for you.”

At first, she refused to take the note, a simple sheet of lined paper folded neatly in half. But he held it out to her, something telling him this would be easier on her if she felt like there was something she could do. Slowly, reluctance in every motion, she accepted it.

“You want me to give this to Taylor,” she whispered, and he couldn’t read her tone. Not really. It was a complicated mix of emotions, anger and fear and sadness. Impulsively, he swept her into his arms, and she resisted for just a moment before she buried her face in his shoulder and let the sobs wrack her small body.

Hell, his own eyes weren’t exactly dry, either.

“I’m gonna miss you, kiddo,” he admitted, and then Rebecca was on her knees, joining in the desperate embrace. Dane closed his treacherous eyes and clung to them both.

“You come back when you’re ready,” Rebecca whispered fiercely in his ear, too quietly even for Danica, who was right there, to hear. Dane sighed and shook his head just a little. He wasn’t the one who had to be ready, and they both knew that.

Slowly, they all disentangled themselves, and Dane rose to his feet. He took a deep, deep breath, right into the very pit of his stomach, trying to fortify himself for what he knew he had to do.

“I’ll miss you both,” he told them and meant it. They had given him something that he had thought utterly impossible for him. If not for the dissolving relationship between himself and Taylor, he wasn’t sure that he ever would have been able to leave them.

“You’ll have to come back and visit,” Rebecca said, and Dane could have cursed her when he saw the hope dawning in Danica’s sweet little face.

“Yeah!” she agreed emphatically, and from Rebecca’s small smirk, she’d done it on purpose. He found it hard to mind. It had been a long time since anyone had cared about him enough to care if they saw him again or not.

“We’ll see. Who knows, maybe the fair will come through town next year,” he temporized and then grabbed his bag, which he’d had nearby. He shouldered it, and for a moment, he felt like maybe he couldn’t even make himself leave. Not with identical sets of eyes the exact color of the autumn sky at noon looking at him.

Rebecca gave him one last hug and whispered once more in his ear.

“I hope you will come back if he’s ready. I love you.”

Dane turned to leave before anyone could see anything in his eyes. So this was what it was like to have a mother, someone who loved him unconditionally. He certainly hadn’t had that from his own biological mother, and it seemed a particularly cruel twist of fate that he should find this only to lose it again.

Rubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands, Dane tossed his bag onto the seat beside him as he swung himself up into the truck. He started it, and, in moments, he was headed out of town, past the waterfall and out onto the open road.

He had quit his job and said goodbye. He had no ties to this place anymore, nothing holding him anywhere. He had the whole country before him, no claim on him except for a job waiting whenever he got back to the fair. He had everything that he had once wanted, had once guarded jealously.

And it was good, he told himself firmly. Sure, he had had a taste of something else, but he had always known that it couldn’t work out. He was who he was, a wanderer, someone who cherished his freedom above all else.

So he told himself. And it was even true, but if that was the case, why didn’t it feel the same to be free as it had felt before?