Chapter 16

Landon

I only need a light jacket as the strength of the sun beats down on me. Spring has sprung. Green tree leaves are budding. Birds are chirping. All the garish fish houses littering the lake have been removed, lest they fall in among the crackling ice. It actually feels like an awakening today. I should be in a great mood.

I am so fucking not in a great mood.

Misery wraps itself around my neck like a scarf. The silence in the house deafens me to the point I’d welcome the incessant yapping back with open arms and heart. It’s been lonely the past few days without those little terrors. In this big empty house, I feel lost. The only thing I have to keep me company are my turbulent thoughts.

Thoughts of Brooke and how I ruined my chance to make things right between us. Thoughts of Grandma Nancy’s beloved dogs. I’m amazed that I actually miss them, even Chili.

I can’t help but think about how they used to bark and run for the door every time I walked into the house. Yes, they were annoying as hell, but for the first time ever I realize that they were actually good company. These days, my life doesn’t have a true sense of purpose. Even writing fails to fill the gaping hole inside me.

I sleep in a lot and take my precious time getting out of bed. I haven’t left this house since they were taken. What’s the point? I used to love my morning walks, but it’s just not the same without my little terrors pulling me in all directions.

I stand in the kitchen and make myself some coffee. I haven’t been in the mood for tea since things fell apart with Brooke. I look out of the window and see some children playing in the front yard across the street with a Saint Bernard.

I sip my coffee and fight back the raw emotion. Why am I a fucking basket case? Pull yourself together, Landon! I take a deep breath and walk away from the window.

Opening my laptop, my fingers fly across the keys. When I stop to review the words, I realize they’re drivel, and most won’t make it past my self-edit. I have another deadline coming up for my editor, but I just don’t feel much like writing. I push myself to be productive. After a little self-recrimination, I bang out a respectable five paragraphs. It isn’t my best work, but it’s better than nothing.

I browse YouTube and click on a video of a golden retriever stealing a T-bone steak off a man’s plate. I should laugh, it’s actually hilarious. But I pause it because my heart’s not in it. My memories of the Chihuahuas are to blame.

I stand up and decide that it’s time to bring the little terrors home. Even if I have to confront Mayor Briggs himself, I’ll do it. I grab my car keys and head outside. The sun caresses my skin. The kids across the street wave at me and smile. I wave back. Since I’ve made a decision, I feel better already.

In control.

I get in my car and drive to Guy Foster’s animal shelter. It’s Saturday so traffic doesn’t slow me down at all. I park and walk up to the building. All of a sudden, a big white van pulls up to the entrance.

Guy sits behind the steering wheel. “What do you want?”

“I want my dogs back.” I glare at him. I’m tempted to curse and shout, but I don’t think that will do any good. I’ll wait till Chili, Burrito, Fajita, and Taco are back in my arms to give this motherfucker a piece of my mind.

“That’s not how it works.”

When he finally looks my way, I say, “Why did you take my dogs away? Did Brooke have something to do with it?”

He looks immediately startled and begins to shake his head. But as I watch, he stops and grins. “Of course,” he says, but I know he’s lying, the ass. “No one loves dogs more than Brooke.”

My mind races. I thought for sure she had a hand in it. “You’re a fucking liar.”

His cheeks match the color of his crimson North Face jacket. “And you’re a dog abuser. That’s the lowest of the low in my book.”

“I’m not a…” I take a deep breath. Raising my voice won’t help this situation.

“Your behavior won’t be tolerated in Prior Lake, not on my watch. We don’t abuse animals here.”

“I want my dogs back now.”

He gets out of the car with a Doberman on a leash. The dog turns to me and growls as if he wants to take off a piece of my skin with his razor-sharp fangs. Guy makes his way to the door. “What? I can’t hear you!”

An easy grin touches my lips as I think about decking him. “I said I want my dogs back now.”

Guy stops and does an about-face. He stares at me for a moment as if he’s contemplating unleashing the dog on me. He spits on the ground. “You only have yourself to blame. There’s nothing I can do to help.”

The dog growls at me as they head inside. I take a deep breath. I wouldn’t put it past Guy to let the Doberman maul me to death right in the middle of the parking lot. I know I need another game plan if I ever want to see my little terrors again.

That’s right. Mine.

I head back home and pick up my cell phone. I know Brooke is the only one who can help me. It makes me feel slightly better knowing that she didn’t team up with Guy after all. I’m absolutely sure I don’t like the guy. In fact, I might even hate his guts. My heart throbs as I make the call. I wonder if she’ll bother to even pick up.

She answers and my formerly throbbing heart dances a little jig instead. “Landon?”

“Brooke, I’m sorry, I thought you had something to do with what happened with the dogs and–”

“I told you I didn’t. Why didn’t you believe me the first time?”

I gulp, swallowing the lump of regret lodged in my throat. “You’re right, I am a douchebag.”

“Landon, you’re not a…” She sighs, a long exhalation of air. “Listen, you know how I feel about what you did to Chili, but I never wanted to see those dogs taken away from you.” Her words flow over me, and I imagine those blue eyes beseeching me. They overflow with that seafoam shade that could sink me where I stand if I let them. And the next time I see her in the flesh, I just fucking might.

“I have to get them back. I went over to Guy’s shelter, and his exact words were, ‘There’s nothing I can do to help.’”

“Landon…”

I get emotional, my voice rising with the force of my desire. There’s a tenuous thread of connection remaining between Carla and me. I will not allow Guy Foster to cut it. “Those are Grandma Nancy’s dogs!”

Brooke’s voice rises with her own brand of emotion. “I know. I know how much she meant to you–”

“No, you don’t. Grandma Nancy raised my wife. Carla’s parents died in a bad boating accident on the lake. This very fucking lake that I’m looking at right fucking now. Do you understand?”

I hear Brooke release a breath right before she says in a soft voice, “I’m so sorry, you never told me anything about that.”

“I don’t like to talk about it.” I sink into a chair and drop my face in my hand. “There’s a lot of things I don’t like to talk about.”

“I can’t blame you, it’s totally understandable.”

I ignore her attempt to appease me. “Grandma Nancy was like Carla’s mother. She was nothing but nice to me all the years I knew her. She never treated me like an in-law, I always felt like family. The only thing she asked of me in her will was to look after her house and her dogs, and I…” My voice cracks.

“Landon?”

Tears stream down my face. I can’t stop them this time, I don’t even try. I’m not just crying about the dogs. I’m crying about Carla, Nancy, the death of my blackened soul. Most of all, I’m crying because the flesh and blood woman I want now thinks ill of me. “I messed up really bad. I’m always doing that.”

“You didn’t mess up, you made a mistake. You’re human.” She’s offering absolution I don’t deserve.

“No, you don’t understand.”

“What?”

“My wife is dead because of me.”

She pauses, and nothing travels through the phone line for what seems like hours. Pain hangs suspended in the distance between us. I can tell she probably thinks that I’m a monster who should be behind bars in an orange jumpsuit. Sometimes, I feel like being imprisoned in a cold, metal cell would be easier than being imprisoned by the iron claws of my own guilt. Living with what happened that fateful night with Carla envelops me in a way I don’t think I can ever shake. The burden’s too heavy to carry. I can’t keep doing it anymore.

I take a deep breath. I don’t know how Brooke will react to what I’m about to say. But I don’t care anymore. “I…I...”

“Landon?”

I don’t stop, I can’t stop. I don’t want her to know how much I still want to love someone. Someone like her. “Brooke, there’s something I never told you about my wife. I never really told anyone.”

“What?”

“She would still be alive today if I wasn’t such a… it was a rainy night. We were on our way home. I was looking forward to us having a little wine by the fireplace. It was like any other normal day, except for the rain.”

I closed my eyes and heard Brooke breathing on the other end of the line.

I went on. “There was a lot of it. We could hardly see. Carla was driving. She always insisted on driving because I was a speeder. I still speed sometimes, but not as much. Anyway, Carla saw a woman with a baby stranded on the side of the road. She wanted to pull over and help them, but I thought something was off about the situation. I mean, why would the woman have her baby in the rain instead of sitting in the car? I told her to keep driving. I feel bad admitting that, but it’s the truth.”

I paused, unsure if Brooke is still listening. She must have sensed my uncertainty because she says, “Go on.”

“You’d have to know her. Carla had such a good heart. I didn’t even deserve a woman like that. She pulled right over. I was calling for help when she jumped out of the car to talk to the woman. She…I…she…” I can see the lights again. The tires hissing on the wet road. The scream of metal on metal. Tears flood down my face, burning through my sinuses, causing my entire face to flame.

Brooke’s voice is so soft I barely hear her over the sounds I’m making. “Landon, you don’t have to–”

“No, I want you to know what happened.” I take a deep, fortifying breath. “A truck lost control because the roads were really slick and he…he hit Carla. She was gone in an instant.”

“Oh God…I’m so sorry.” Her voice trembles. I can tell she’s crying too. In the moment, I’m thankful that I can’t see her face. To witness her expression would destroy me.

“The woman and the baby survived. The damn trucker survived. But my beautiful wife…” I can’t hold back. I’m a puddle of anguish. “I wish to God it would’ve been me! It should’ve been me!”

“Landon–”

“Carla was an angel on earth. I loved that woman so much. I never knew exactly how much I loved her until she was gone. There are days when I don’t want to go on living. But when I met you, my desire to keep going increased. Little by little, I saw a future again.”

Her voice wobbles. “You’ve been carrying this on your own all this time?”

“How could I ever tell anybody about it?” I rasp out the rhetorical question. “I can’t believe I’m telling you. I don’t even know why.”

“Landon, I can’t imagine how hard it was to open up about what happened. But you can trust me.”

I wipe away my tears. “I hope so. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this.”

“You know what I think?”

Envisioning her with pity shining in her eyes, I wait for her to spill her thoughts on the train wreck that is my life. The soft ripples of the lake shine in the distance as I gaze out the window. “What?”

“This is a conversation that should be continued face-to-face.”

“You don’t want to see me right now.”

“Landon, are you at home?”

My heart swells as I imagine her rushing over so I can hold her in my arms and drink in her comfort. “Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Brooke, you don’t have to…” I press the heel of my hand into my eye. “Don’t just come over out of pity. I hate pity.”

She sighs, the sound sinking in bone deep. “I’m not coming over out of pity. I want to be there for you.”

“But why? I don’t deserve it. I’m always acting like a–”

“If you say douchebag one more time, I’m going to scream into the phone at such a level your ears will blister.”

I smile through my pain. “I wasn’t going to say douchebag. I was going to say crabby pants.”

She chuckles. “I’ll see you in a few, Landon.”

“Okay.”

I hang up the phone, not really believing that I trusted another human being enough to lay my burden down. Whenever I watch one of those self-improvement shows on TV, the shrink always carries on about how it makes people feel better if they talk about traumatic events. I always considered that philosophy a load of bull. But now, I’m starting to see there’s some truth to it.

For the first time in the longest time, I feel like maybe I can emerge from my twisted cocoon of pain and guilt. Up until now, I’ve been engulfed in my sadness. Even when I laughed or had good times, depression never really got chased away.

Could this be a new beginning? I’m not sure, but hope sneaks in, piercing my bubble of agony. And it has a lot to do with Brooke. There’s something about that woman that has rearranged my entire existence, and in my soul, I feel like that’s exactly what I need.