My One and Only

Father Bruce jerked awake. “How long has it been since—oh, Harper, it’s you. Very funny.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, dear. But this time is reserved for those seeking the sacrament of reconciliation.”

“They’re not exactly lining up around the block, Father.”

He sighed. “You have a point. Can I do something for you, dear?”

“No, not really. I’ve just always wondered what you do in here.”

“I knit.”

“I figured.”

We sat there in silence for a minute. One thing about churches—they all smelled nice. All those candles, all that forgiveness.

“Is there something on your mind, my dear?” Father Bruce asked. I didn’t answer. “As your confessor, I’m bound by the same confidentiality you give your clients,” he added.

I looked at my hands. “Well, sure, in that case, yes, something’s on my mind. I’m about to see my ex-husband after twelve years.”

As Kim had done when she heard this news, Father Bruce sputtered. “You were married?”

“Briefly.”

“Go on.”

I shrugged. “It just didn’t work out. We were too young and immature, same old story, yawn. Now my sister’s marrying his brother. My stepsister, his half brother. Whatever.” Suddenly uncomfortable, I sat up. “Well, I should go. I have to pick up Dennis.”

“Does Dennis know?”

“Know what? That I was married? Sure. I told him last week.”

“And this was the first conversation you had on that topic?”

“It’s not really a topic. It’s more of a fact. Sort of like, ‘I had my tonsils out when I was nine, I got married a month after I graduated college, we were divorced before our first anniversary.’”

“And have you seen your husband since?”

“Ex-husband. Nope.”

“How telling.”

“You priests. Armchair psychologists, the whole lot of you.”

“You’re the one sitting in a confessional booth, seeking my wisdom under the guise of curiosity.”

I smiled. “Okay, you win this round. Sorry I can’t stick around so you can gloat, but I do have to go. Ferry leaves in an hour.” But I didn’t move.

Since my sister had called, there’d been a thrum of electricity running through me. Not a pleasant thrum, either. Sort of a sick feeling, as if I lived too near power lines and was about to be diagnosed with a horrible disease. As if opposing counsel just dropped a little bombshell about a secret bank account and a mistress in Vegas. For twelve years, memories of my marriage had been locked in a safe at the bottom of some murky lake of my soul. Now, through some whim of fate and through no desire or action of my own, I was going to see Nick Lowery once more.

“Here.” Father Bruce pulled something from his back pocket and then opened his side of the booth. I stood as well and opened mine, joining him in the church proper. “It’s my card. My cell number’s on it. Give me a ring, let me know how things are going.”

“I’ll be back on Monday,” I said. “I’ll buy you a drink instead.”

He winked. “Call me. Have fun. Tell your sister hello for me.”

“Will do.” I gave his shoulder a gentle punch and left, my heels tapping on the tile floor.

TWENTY-TWO HOURS LATER, I was ready to strangle Dennis with Coco’s leash and leave his body for the vultures or bald eagles or hyenas or whatever the hell else lived up here.

Yes, yes, I’d originally wanted him to come with me. One doesn’t face an ex-husband alone when one has a brawny firefighter boyfriend who looks like the love child of Gerard Butler and Jake Gyllenhaal. But the “and guest” idea had played out better in my imagination than in reality. Also, the thought kept popping up that this would’ve felt much better if Dennis been my fiancé instead of boyfriend, but that subject had not been broached since the night of the fateful phone call. Plus, I was about to murder him.

Let me explain. We’d been bickering since the moment I found him guzzling a beer and watching a rerun of the 2004 World Series instead of standing at the door with bag packed, as I’d requested. Granted, things had been a little off since my marriage proposal—and by off, I mean we hadn’t done it since then, which was causing all kinds of issues. But just because I was unsettled about Willa getting married didn’t mean I’d forgotten that Dennis had not exactly been thrilled with the thought of marrying me. Which meant, of course, that he wasn’t getting any. But we were still together, and when I asked if he’d come with me to Montana, he said yes. Eventually.

Unfortunately, Dennis, who was prone to back trouble, conveniently suffered a back spasm just before we left his grubby little apartment, which required me to wrangle all our luggage from our respective homes to my car to the ferry to the cab to the hotel, and then again to the cab to Logan, and then from Gate 4 to Gate 37 in Denver, and then from Ye Tiny Airport here in Montana to the rental car. Not just the luggage, but Coco (sulking in her crate with her bunny), my laptop, my purse and Dennis himself, who had a tendency to wander. Add to this that he’d charmed two flight attendants (a straight woman and a g*y man) into giving him the last seat of first class due to said back spasms, leaving me to sit wedged between an impressively overweight Floridian and a frat boy who drooled on my shoulder as he slept, oblivious to the sharp elbow I kept jamming into his side. And oh, yes, my sister was marrying a stranger, my father was apparently having marital problems and my ex-husband was at the end of this hellish journey.

I was a little tense.

Which brought us to now, standing in a parking lot outside the Kalispell City Airport, squabbling like third-graders.

“Dude, I’ll drive,” Dennis said. “Give me the keys.” He stretched and twisted so that his lower back cracked, making me wince.

“I’ll drive, Dennis.” Honestly, concentrating on driving would distract me from what (and who) lay ahead.

“Dude, come on!”

“Stop calling me that!” I snapped. “Please, Dennis! Don’t call me dude, okay? I’ll drive. You get lost between your house and mine, Dennis, on the island where you grew up—”

“Maybe I’m not really lost,” he interjected, uncharacteristically prickly.

“—and we have forty miles to go through grizzly-strewn wilderness,” I continued, my voice rising in volume, “so please. Please, Dennis. Can we please get going here?”

Unlike Dennis, Coco obeyed, leaping lightly into the driver’s seat. I’d been forced to bring her, as she’d feigned a hurt paw when she heard the word kennel and limped around until she saw her travel crate. The dog was an evil genius. She sat happily, sniffing the Montana air, which was strangely clear and pure, unlike the salty winds of Martha’s Vineyard, always redolent with the smell of garlic and fish or, in the morning, doughnuts.

Realizing that a spat was not going to advance my case, I took a cleansing breath and tried to unlock my jaw. “Honey? We don’t want to be late for dinner.”

“My back is killing me,” Dennis grumped. “Harp, can’t you give me a massage or something?”

Wondering briefly if Father Bruce had a patron saint of patience, I said, “Dennis, we’re standing in a parking lot. I’m sorry your back hurts, honey, and I will rub it later, but I can’t help you now. Maybe at the hotel, okay? Please, Dennis? Can you please get in the damn car?”

With another sulky (and yes, kind of hot) scowl, he got into the car, grumbling. I followed, and Coco jumped onto my lap. She loved to steer.

I glanced at Dennis, sighed and started the car. “I’m sorry. I’m a little…stressed, Den,” I said, adjusting the rearview mirror.

“I guess I would be if I had to see my ex, too,” he said with an understanding grin. Then he tipped his seat backward and closed his eyes.

It was, admittedly, stunning out here. Mountains rose around us, patchy with snow—or glaciers, I supposed, great expanses of gray rock and swathes of dense green pine. Already, the trees glowed with autumn color. Clouds stretched through the blue sky, which seemed much higher here, much more vast, for some reason. Big Sky country indeed. I’d never been west before…never really taken a proper vacation, to be honest, just a few days here and there, usually tacked onto conferences in big cities. This…this was different.

A sense of solemnity settled over me, and Coco, as well. Wildflowers bloomed on the side of the road as we quickly left the town of Kalispell behind. Dennis, too, seemed to be struck by the drama and size of the natural beauty, so different from our little island—or no, he was sleeping. Just as well.

Unexpectedly, my throat tightened as I saw the sign for Glacier National Park. I’d watched parts of the Ken Burns special on PBS, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the beauty around me…the craggy, sharp mountains, the fields of multicolored flowers, and that air, the sweet, pure air. God bless Teddy Roosevelt. I stopped at the entrance gate, and a park ranger opened her window. “Welcome to Glacier National Park, ma’am,” she said, adding “Hey there, cutie” when she saw Coco. I paid and thanked her, nodded dutifully at her warnings to watch out for wash-outs, as the last rainstorm had been fierce, and drove into the park.

The road wove through the forest, then came out into a more open space. My breath caught. To the left, the earth dropped steeply away into a field of long, golden grass twined with blue, red and pink wildflowers. It was breathtaking. After a while, I turned onto Going to the Sun Road…what a beautiful name! A vast, oblong glacier capped the bare and jagged ridge across the way.

Suddenly, my tires caught the edge of the road, and I jerked the wheel a little, adrenaline spurting. The rented Honda veered back onto the road. Coco’s tiny feet scrabbled on my lap. “Sorry, baby,” I muttered once we were straightened out. “Got a little caught up in the scenery.” Den slept on, undisturbed. I glanced at the dashboard clock…heck. Four o’clock already. I’d thought we’d be there by now. Stepping on the gas, I almost immediately caught up to a car in front of me.

A slow car, despite the fact that it was a classic red Mustang, built for speed and midlife crises. Or octogenarian females, I guessed, from the dedicated way the car stayed precisely on its own side of the road, never straying above thirty miles an hour. No more, no less. Great. Why buy a ’Stang if you were going to do the speed limit? Didn’t that defeat the purpose of the pointless effort to recapture one’s youth and laugh at the specter of death? I couldn’t see the driver, as the sun glared off the back window, but judging by the way we were inching along, Eeyore here was one hundred and three years old, blind in both eyes and had already cheated death. Many times.

Glancing at the clock again, I sighed. Everyone else should already be at the hotel…the lodge, I corrected silently. Lake McDonald Lodge, it was called, where Christopher used to work in his youth. Despite the last-minute nature of the nuptials, the happy couple was expecting a fair number of friends. According to BeverLee, Chris was still close to some of the staff at the lodge, strings had been pulled, rates were low as the tourist season was officially over. Willa, who collected people the way a black wool sweater collects lint, expected around thirty guests.

After three phone calls, it had dawned on my sister that perhaps I had some feelings about seeing my ex-husband again. “You’re okay with the Nick situation, right?” she said. “I mean, I know you guys were…intense.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said blithely. “That was eons ago. No, Wills, it’s just…honey, I just wonder why you’re rushing. You know, I see so many unhappy—”

But my sister was prepared. Sure, I knew her well…but she knew me, too. “Harper, I know you think you’re looking out for me. But maybe this time I’m right, did that ever occur to you? Have some faith in me. I’m not an idiot.”

And that was the argument that had me grinding my teeth in frustration. Willa wasn’t an idiot. Except…in a way…she was a dope. A sweet dope, but a dope. If I tried to remind her of the facts of her past marriages or drop statistics, she’d counter that she’d grown up since then. What could I say to that? No, you haven’t, you’re still as naive as a baby bunny?

“So you’re okay with Nick being there? Because he’s Chris’s best man, of course.”

Of course. “I’m fine.” So you’ve seen him? What does he look like? Did he ask about me? Is he still mad? How did he seem? Is he married? Any kids? Does he still live in the city? Still an architect? Is he fat? Bald? Please?

And by the way…how the hell did Willa meet Christopher, anyway? Was Nick involved? Willa said she’d “run into” Christopher in a city of eight million people and recognized him after twelve years.

Please. I wasn’t born yesterday.

Dennis grunted in his sleep, which Coco interpreted as an invitation. She jumped onto his lap, then licked his hand, and he smiled without opening his eyes and petted her. I smiled, too, almost reluctantly. Exhibit A, Your Honor. Not only is Dennis physically appealing, he’s kind to animals. I turned my attention back to the road. Crap!

I slammed on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the red car in front of me. “Jesus!” I blurted, leaning on the horn. The Mustang driver had stopped, right in the middle of the road.

“Everything okay?” Dennis asked blearily.

“Yes. Sorry, hon. Some idiot who shouldn’t be driving.” The woman had just stopped. Yes, the ranger had warned about wildlife on the road, but there was no elk, no moose, nothing to explain the delay.