Leigh Greenwood - Married By High Noon

Dana stepped into a room at least twice the size of Danny’s bedroom in her apartment. Gabe had furnished it with a bed, a chair and table, two chests of drawers, an armoire and two boxes spilling over with toys. Danny wiggled past her.

“Where did all of these toys come from?” Dana asked.

“All over. Everybody wanted to help when they heard Danny was coming home.”

Danny bypassed the boxes of toys for a hobbyhorse in the corner. Dana didn’t think anybody had such a toy anymore. She instinctively knew Gabe had made it.

“Horsey,” Danny said, pointing at the hobbyhorse.

“Do you want to ride?” Gabe asked.

“Yes.”

“Say please,” Dana added without thinking.

“Pease,” Danny said.

Gabe moved to lift Danny onto the horse, but Danny ran to Dana. “Want Danie,” he said.

Danny still loved her, wanted her, trusted her. Right now that meant more than anything in the world.

If you marry Gabe, you can have Danny with you forever.

The voice lied. They’d both demand a divorce the moment Gabe got permanent custody of Danny.

“He’s still nervous about all the changes and new people,” Dana said as she lifted Danny onto the hobbyhorse.

“That’s understandable.”

Dana could tell Danny’s reaction hurt Gabe. But if his family was so important to him, he shouldn’t have let his father close Mattie out of their lives.

If you marry Gabe, neither of you has to be hurt.

Before the voice had the chance to drive her mad, they heard footsteps downstairs.

“Gabe, are you here?” a voice called out.

“Up here, Ma. We’re in Danny’s room.”

In less than a minute a tall, matronly woman with iron-gray hair, glasses and a busy print dress that nearly gave Dana hives entered the room. Mrs. Purvis looked extremely nervous about finding herself face-to-face with Dana.

“I was sorry to hear about your husband,” Dana said.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Purvis responded. An awkward silence followed. “Thank you for bringing Danny,” she finally said. She waited, looking even more uncomfortable. “And for taking care of Mattie. We…Gabe and I…”

“She was my best friend,” Dana said. “I would have done anything for her.” She still couldn’t understand how any mother could allow herself to be cut off from her child.

She sensed Mrs. Purvis had suffered terribly, suffered still. The older woman smiled sadly, as though accepting the implied guilt, but when she turned her gaze to Danny her entire countenance was transformed.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” she demanded of Gabe, planting a kiss on Danny’s head and rocking the hobbyhorse so vigorously Dana was afraid Danny might fall off.

“Because I knew you’d take him away the minute you saw him,” Gabe said, smiling fondly at his mother, “just as you’re doing now.”

Mother and son bent over the child, making over him like doting parents. Dana stifled an urge to elbow them aside.

“We need to think about dinner,” she said. She’d planned to eat at a restaurant or up at the hotel.

“You’re eating at my house,” Mrs. Purvis said.

“She’s been planning what to cook for days,” Gabe said. “She’s changed her mind three times already. We can’t stay too late,” he warned. “Danny needs to get to bed early.”

“I don’t think he ought to sleep in this room tonight,” Mrs. Purvis said.

“Why not?”

“It’s too new, and he’s too far away from you.”

“He could sleep in my room.”

They were talking as if she wasn’t there, as if she didn’t matter.

“You don’t have to worry about Danny being alone,” Dana said. “He’s staying with me.”

“I don’t want him staying at the hotel,” Gabe protested.

“He won’t be,” Dana replied. “We’ll be staying at my grandmother’s farmhouse.”

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Dana said to Gabe. “I still remember the way.”

“Nobody goes to that house anymore. No telling what you’ll find there.”

Dana appreciated his company. The farm lay ten miles out of town.

“Nothing more intimidating than a fox or two,” she said.

“More likely a raccoon or an opossum.”

Dana didn’t like the sound of that. She should have thought before she left New York to call the real estate agent and have her check over the house. But trying to figure out how to keep from losing Danny had filled her mind to the exclusion of everything else.

“Do you want me to drive?” Gabe asked.

“Why?” The road curved abruptly as it wound its way through the hills.

“You’re not used to driving in the mountains.”

Dana laughed. “I spend at least a month each summer in the Adirondacks. Sometimes, after driving a particularly mountainous stretch of highway, I feel as though I never want to go back to flat roads. The sense of freedom is intoxicating.”

But that’s not how she felt about these mountains. They gave her an empty feeling. She couldn’t understand why Mattie had insisted her son be raised in the very place Mattie had been determined to leave behind. There was nothing for anybody to do here except work, talk and take naps. Dana didn’t understand why such a handsome, intelligent man as Gabe hadn’t left years ago. Surely he had some ambition.

“It shows,” Gabe said.

“What?” His voice scattered her thoughts.

“Your experience driving in the mountains. You drove that section like you’ve been doing it all your life.”

It was a rather insignificant compliment, but Dana found herself quivering with pleasure. She told herself not to be silly, that she was no longer a little girl desperate for the approval of a handsome older boy.

As they neared the entrance to the lane leading to her grandmother’s house, Dana caught sight of the little red barn mailbox. She felt a lump in her throat. She used to beg her grandmother to let her get the mail just so she could open the sliding door.

“I need to get someone to paint that mailbox,” Dana said, noticing the colors had faded badly.

“Why? There’s nobody here to get mail.”

That wasn’t important. What mattered was that the mailbox look the way it always had. She couldn’t explain that to Gabe because she couldn’t explain it to herself. She had thought she hated Iron Springs, never wanted to see the farmhouse again. Yet one look brought a wealth of memories surging to the surface, good memories she had forgotten.

The mailbox didn’t bother her as much as the neglected appearance of the driveway. Grass and great clumps of weeds grew through the loose gravel. A bank of tall weeds and bushy shrubs leaned into the driveway, seeming to block the entrance to the farm, telling people to stay out. Dana didn’t remember the trees being so tall. Their outflung branches would soon meet overhead.

“It looks deserted,” she said.

“It is deserted. No one’s lived on the place since your grandmother died.”

Her grandmother had died of a heart attack during Dana’s senior year in high school. Dana’s mother had wanted to bring her to New York for burial, but Grandmother Ebberling’s will had been very specific. She was to be buried in the Iron Springs Cemetery alongside her husband.

“I thought someone rented the land.”

“They used to, but it’s hardly worth the effort to farm these days. They wanted to fence the fields and turn them into pastures, but your lawyer wouldn’t authorize the money. Nobody’s used the place for five years.”

Dana had left all arrangements to the family lawyer. “It was supposed to be kept in order,” she said.

“Not according to your rental agent, Sue. She keeps asking for permission to make changes so it can be rented out again, but your attorney refuses to authorize any expenditures beyond making sure the roof doesn’t leak.”