Chapter Five

Tim’s focus returned to the present when he saw his parents approaching and waving at him. He smiled, opened his door, and slid out of his truck, immediately finding himself wrapped in his father’s embrace.

“Welcome home, son, we’re so proud of you,” his father managed to whisper against his ear before his voice failed him.

Releasing him and stepping back, he looked Tim over, then cleared his throat and said, “You look good, kiddo. Let me get your bag.”

Tim pivoted in time to see his mother coming forward, arms open wide, and made his way over to her for another huge hug.

“Oh, my boy,” was all she could get out before she too burst into tears and sobbed into his chest.

“It’s all right, Mom. I’m fine, I promise,” he murmured as he patted her back.

So many others got handed so much worse, and some did not get to come home at all. I got lucky, he reminded himself, thinking once again of Dack, who had been walking beside him when all hell had broken loose.

I got so, so lucky…

To lighten the mood, he cocked his head toward his dad, and added, “And man, I am so glad you talked me out of buying a truck with a manual transmission like I wanted. I wouldn’t have been able to drive myself anywhere for a really long time.”

Tim felt his mom chuckle against his chest as his dad smiled, eyes still bright with emotion.

“Come on, kiddo, dinner is just about ready,” Paige managed as she finally turned him loose and wiped her eyes. “I made your favorite.”

***

When she left Jodie’s apartment, Sarah found herself in a melancholy state of mind. She poured a generous glass of wine and set both it and the bottle on her coffee table, then went into her room and retrieved an old shoebox from her closet.

Before she sat on the couch and opened the box, she queued up the playlist and put on her headphones. As the first song began, she took a deep breath, then a large drink of wine, and opened the only tangible thing in her current life that connected her to a painful past.

***

After dinner, Tim excused himself and went to his old room, citing exhaustion from the drive.

But it’s more than that, he realized. I kept looking at the chair next to me expecting to see Sarah.

Like it or not, he was strolling down memory lane.

He walked over to his dresser and retrieved a tiny velvet box from the top left drawer. Then he dug out his iPod and headphones and laid down on his bed.

Tim queued up Doug Stone’s “I Thought It Was You” and set it to repeat, then stared at Sarah’s engagement ring as the song that seemed to be written just for him played over and over.

Everything in this town reminds me of her, dammit, he admitted to himself. Everything. The school, the store, driving down Main Street, everything.

I should go see her parents, demand to know where she is, he thought. But then again, I haven’t heard a word from her since she left. Maybe she’s moved on. Maybe I need to give up. But I don’t want to.

Oh, Sarah…

***

Piece by piece, Sarah waded through the box of memories.

Picture after picture of them together, happy, always smiling in the Polaroid snapshots taken so long ago. A dried rose from the first bouquet he had ever bought her, a snippet of ribbon from that first high school homecoming mum she’d worn that still had both their names on it in sparkly gold letters. Handwritten notes to her, still safely tucked in their envelopes, from when he’d gone away to boot camp.

She managed to hold it together a bit longer this time, until the one item that always broke her surfaced. Their wedding invitation.

She did not have a copy of what she’d written to him that fateful night. But she didn’t need one. She still remembered word for word what the note she’d left behind for him said. They had been seared into her brain and heart for all eternity.

I think you meant to give this ring to someone else.

I hope you two are incredibly happy together.

The tears seemed to run down her face to the tempo of the song currently assaulting her senses – the very song she had chosen so long ago to have playing when she walked down the aisle toward him.

I don’t want to miss him anymore. Help me not love him anymore, God. Please.

When her third glass of wine was empty, Sarah rose from the couch, stumbled to her bedroom, and escaped into sleep.

***

Sarah yawned, stretched, and rubbed her eyes the next morning.

A little too much wine, for sure, she thought as she made her way to her kitchen for two aspirin and a glass of juice.

No wonder I have a raging headache.

She blinked rapidly, trying to rid herself of the tracers that were starting to blur her vision. “Please, oh please, don’t let this be another migraine coming on,” she muttered. “I have way too much to get done today.”

As she went back past the couch, she spied the open shoebox, with its contents still strewn about as she had left them the night before. With a heavy sigh, she carefully restored her box of memories, put it back in her closet, and headed for a hot shower to try to clear her fogged brain.

***

“I beg your pardon?” a shocked Paige said as she, Patrick, and Tim sat down to breakfast.

“I said, I’m not staying in Adrian,” Tim repeated firmly. “I only came home to visit for a few days, Mom. I’m not moving back here. I want to be an EMT. To do that, I have to attend specialized training, and it’s not available here. I’m leaving on Friday.”

“But… but…” Paige faltered, close to tears.

“Mom,” Tim said, the edge leaving his voice. “You and I both know there’s nothing here for me anymore.”

She sat silently with her head bowed for a long while. When she did finally make eye contact again, Tim could see his announcement had devastated her.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Paige murmured, and left the table.

Tim watched her leave the room, then looked at his father.

“Son, you have to do what’s best for you,” Patrick reminded him. “And you’re right. There’s nothing for you here. You need to make your own way. Don’t worry about your mom. She’ll be all right.”

On Friday morning Tim packed up his clothes, and his father helped him get it all put into his truck.

Paige, still in disbelief that her son hadn’t come home for good, opted to stay in the house and not watch her only child leave again.

Patrick hugged Tim tightly and said, “At least try to come back for Thanksgiving, all right? She’ll be over it by then. I think.”

Tim chuckled.

“Okay, Dad.”

***

Just before ten a.m. Saturday morning, Sarah walked into the library and approached the circulation desk.

“Hi. I’m here for the writers’ group?”

“Through there, hon. Meeting room B.”

“Thanks.”

She stepped inside the room and looked around, trying not to be overwhelmed by the fact she was surrounded by strangers.

“You can sit with me, if you like,” someone called out.

Turning her head to the right, Sarah made eye contact with the person who had greeted her.

“Thanks,” Sarah said, and pulled out a chair to sit down.

“First time with one of these?”

“Yep,” Sarah answered. “I’ve been meaning to come before now, but with school it’s been a little hectic.”

The petite blond laughed.

“I don’t miss those days. I’m Karli, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

“My name’s Sarah.”

***

“Hi, I’m Tim Fresco,” he said to the receptionist at the training facility in Irving, Texas. “I’d like to get registered for your program, please.”

“Which one?”

“EMT, and Advanced EMS after that.”

“Certainly,” the young lady responded with a warm smile. “Let me get you an enrollment packet, and let John know you’re here. He’s our program director.”

A few minutes later a tall, muscular man with closely cropped hair came into view, hand outstretched.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Fresco. I’m John Duncan. Right this way, please.”

John led the way back to his office.

“So, tell me about your situation,” John prompted once they sat down. “Why do you want to be an EMT?”

Tim cleared his throat.

“Well, sir, I was a medic in the Army, and I loved it. I’d like to pursue that path in civilian life.”

“Honorable discharge?”

“Yes sir, a medical separation. I was wounded in Afghanistan.”

John leaned back in his chair.

“It sounds to me like you weren’t happy about being discharged.”

“No, sir, I wasn’t. I’d planned to retire from the Army twenty years from now. But it is what it is.”

“I wasn’t either when it happened to me,” the program director confided. “I was in the Marines. And like you, I planned on being a career man. But small arms fire during Desert Storm altered my path.”