Laura Miller - By Way of Accident

I swallow the growing lump in my throat. It’s hard to do, but I get it down. “It’s been a while.” It’s all I can think to say.

She smiles. “Yeah, it has.”

It’s quiet again. I think twice before I ask this next question, but her hands are in her pockets, and I have to know.

“Well, what’s new? Married? Kids?” I barely get the questions out, mostly because I’m scared to death of the answers.

She laughs as if it’s to herself. Then she shakes her head. “No. And no.”

“You?” she asks.

I chuckle, mostly because I’m just so dang happy I survived that. “No,” I say, eventually. “And no.”

She nods again, like she’s gnawing on my answer.

I don’t ask her if she’s got a boyfriend because I know she probably does. Hell, I might have already seen him — getting out of a truck in Memphis. But as long as she’s not married… That’s the best news I’ve heard in a really long time.

“What do you do now?” I ask.

“Speech pathology,” she says. “For schools…kids. I’m only an assistant right now, but I want to get my master’s someday.”

I’m nodding by the time she finishes. “Wow,” I say. “That’s pretty cool.” Why does hearing what she does make me want her more?

“You?” she asks.

“News. I write for the Courier . Obituaries mostly.” My own job sounds so trivial all of a sudden.

She gives me an off-centered smile. “A writer, huh?”

“Yeah,” is all I can think to say. Then it’s quiet again.

We stop at the edge of the river, and she looks out onto the water. It’s dark, but the lights from the town make it look as if it’s full of black diamonds.

“So, did the job bring you back to Missouri?” I ask.

She sort of hesitates, then nods. “It did. But I liked it here too.”

I look at her a little sideways. She seems to notice.

“I did,” she assures me, with a gorgeous smile.

I don’t ask her why. I think I don’t because I just want to believe that she liked it here because I was here. I really don’t want to hear anything different.

Then I just look at her. I look at her, and I realize that I’ve lost so much time with this girl. She’s grown up, and she’s beautiful — even more beautiful than what I remember, if that’s possible. But I have no idea who she is anymore. I only know who she was. Hell, I don’t even know if she has a boyfriend. My heart starts to flatline at the image of her with that other guy. And I still can’t see her hand. For all I know, she’s engaged.

“Brooke.” I decide I’m going to try anyway. “What are doing tomorrow?”

She looks up at me. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, and it kills me.

“Do you want to…?” I start but then stop. I hadn’t really thought about how I was going to end that question before I opened my big mouth.

She seems to study my face a little and then smiles. Then I watch her take her hands out of her pockets, and for the first time, I can see she’s not wearing a ring on her left hand. But she is wearing one on her right. She slides that ring off and then claims my hand. Her touch is soft and gentle, and it takes me back to another time. I watch her slide the ring halfway up my pinkie. And then she shoves her hands back into her pockets and stares off at the river in front of us again.

“Tomorrow, I have plans,” she says, looking back at me.

She smiles, and instantly, my heart speeds up.

“I’m collecting my ring back…from you,” she softly says.

For a moment, I’m stuck in her smoky, light eyes, while some kind of weird, nervous adrenaline is pumping through my veins. I look down at the ring on my finger and then back up into her eyes. “That sounds nice,” I say. “And I was just thinkin’ about how my finger could use a tiny ring.”

She lowers her gaze and laughs. “Yeah, well, don’t get too attached. It’s just for the night.”

When she looks back up, she’s got this soft but bold look in her eyes. It’s beautiful, like she’s just daring me to forget the fact that we’ve got nine lost years starin’ us both in the face. I swear there’s so much tension in the air between us. And I almost pull her close, press her body against mine and slowly kiss her soft lips right there. But I don’t. Damn it, I don’t. I should have known that the kind of feeling I once had for this girl is the kind of feeling that lasts longer than one short summer. It’s almost as if we could just pick up right where we left off.

Her stare falters, and she looks away. But when she angles her face back up at mine, she’s got a sweet smile hangin’ on her lips.

Nine. Long. Years. It’s been nine, damn long years. But then why does it feel as if just yesterday she was in my arms and lookin’ up at me with that same sweet smile on that same pretty face?

The next day I’m passing my parents’ house on my way to Detmold. I feel a little guilty even if Amy and I are just friends, but it’s not enough to stop me from driving out to see Brooke. The driving out is the part that’s got me confused though. Last night, she said she lived in town. I glance down at the little piece of paper one last time just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things this morning. Dry Fork Road . She scribbled her address onto the back of a receipt last night. I didn’t even bother looking at it until I got into my truck this morning. I was too much on a high to even think about it, and I guess I figured that even if it were a California address scribbled in her handwriting on this little piece of paper, I’d still be making my way out to her today. The highway written on the receipt is the same highway that leads to my old stomping grounds. A stupid thought comes to my mind, but I push it away.

“DFK-008.” I say the number out loud. What the hell? That’s not an address. That’s a damn ENS number. Why the hell would she give me an ENS number?

I turn off onto Dry Fork Road. I’ve traveled this two-lane highway probably a million times now, but I never once paid any attention to the damn ENS numbers.

I slow down to read a little black sign. In white block letters and numbers I read: DFK-014 . Damn, I don’t know if they’re going up or down.

I go another several hundred yards and spot another black sign at the end of a long driveway that looks as if it leads to nowhere. But I know it does lead to somewhere. It leads to the Cooper Dairy Farm. You just can’t see it from the road. They’ve got a mailbox in the shape of a Holstein, and next to it, the little black sign reads: DFK-009 . I guess the numbers are going down. And that would mean… I bring my truck to a rolling stop. There’s no one behind me and no one coming at me. My adrenaline is shooting through my veins. I’m shocked. I’m relieved. I feel kind of slighted but not mad. Most of all, I guess, I’m awestruck because I know once I turn that corner, the only house I’m gonna see is Mrs. Catcher’s old place. And on its little black ENS sign, I know it’s going to be the number that Brooke scribbled onto the back of this receipt.

Shit . It wasn’t her, was it? Surely she wasn’t the one I was bidding against.

Sure enough, I roll up to the narrow driveway and that damn For Sale sign is gone and on that little black ENS sign it reads: DFK-008 .

I slowly make my way down the graveled path, still in some state of awe or shock or something. And then when I get to the end of the driveway, I shut my truck off. Brooke is sitting on the porch swing. I can’t help but smile when I see her.

“Hi,” she says, as I get out of my truck. She gets up and starts making her way down those little concrete stairs that lead to the porch. But in the meantime, a black and brown coonhound runs around the corner of the house. And without warning, it jumps up and paws my arms.