Chapter 14 - The Future She Left Behind

Jackson resisted squirming under Katelyn’s steady stare. “I’m Ricky Mendoza’s son. You can’t be surprised.” His father had drunk a twelve-pack each night before bed, then risen at five a.m. for work. He’d been a high-functioning alcoholic who hadn’t seen the end coming until it was staring him in the face.

“You never drank around me.” She sat back down.

“Your old man would have decked me if I’d showed up at your house wasted.”

“How old were you when you began drinking?” Katelyn asked.

“I snuck my first beer when I was twelve.”

“Did you drink a lot with your friends in high school?” Katelyn asked.

He lifted his shoulders as if he could shrug off the weight of their conversation. “I didn’t have any friends.”

“What about that Craig guy that used to hang out at the garage when you worked?”

“Craig stopped in when he wanted me to buy beer for him and his buddies.” As soon as word got around that Jackson could charge beer to his father’s account at Lenny’s Liquorland in Pecos, he’d suddenly become everyone’s friend. And because his father had taken numerous gambling trips to New Mexico, Jackson had been willing to do anything to keep from going home to an empty house—even party with kids who’d ridiculed him behind his back.

“Have you made many friends since buying the garage?”

“Before I joined AA, I stopped drinking on my own a few times, but eventually I’d end up at a bar with a buddy, thinking I could quit after one beer. Or two. Or three.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Having friends and staying sober didn’t mix.”

She slipped her hand into his as if she didn’t trust him not to take off. “What made you finally give up alcohol?”

“Vern caught me the second time I ran into Missy at the bar.”

“The minister was in a bar?”

“Walter went to Vern and asked for help finding Missy after she’d been gone for two days. The pair of them split up looking for her.” Jackson stared into the distance, silently cursing himself for seeking out Katelyn. He’d thought they’d discuss her artwork, maybe her kids, his buying the garage, and then they’d wish each other a good life and go their separate ways. He hadn’t expected to discuss his drinking or sex life.

“So Vern found you two in a bar?”

“He drove Missy home, then suggested she and Walter try marriage counseling.”

“What kind of counseling did Vern recommend for you?”

“AA.” He looked away from their entwined hands and thought of the nights he’d battled the urge to get out of bed at two a.m., drive to a bar and buy a drink to satisfy his craving. Those nights rarely happened now, but when they did, he’d close his eyes and imagine Katelyn holding his hand like she was doing now, and then the gnawing hunger would subside.

A tiny line formed between her eyebrows. “Talk about being a shitty girlfriend. I didn’t even know my boyfriend was a drunk.”

“If you’d found out I went home at night and got wasted with my old man, you’d have wanted nothing to do with me.” He wished she’d quit staring at him with that wounded-puppy look on her face. “When I had a hangover, I skipped school the next day.”

He pressed the pad of his thumb against the corner of her eye and caught the tear that escaped. “I’d promised myself I’d cut back on my drinking after you’d left for college. But then I got your letter.” He released her hand and stood up. “I didn’t give a damn after that.”

“I should have called you or waited until I came home for a visit.”

“You wrote that you wanted to focus on your art.”

“I did.”

“Did you break up with me because you met Don?”

“No. Don was in my English comp class the first semester of college, but he hadn’t asked me out yet.”

“Did you love him?” His gaze dropped to her ring finger. She still wore her wedding band and he wasn’t sure what that meant.

“In the beginning, I did.” She blew out a noisy breath. “I knew he could give me the life a small-town girl could only dream of.”

And Jackson couldn’t.

“I grew up a latchkey kid,” she said, “watching my parents barely scrape by. I didn’t want to turn into my mother, working at the Buy & Bag for the rest of my life. Don’s family was wealthy. I knew we’d have their support if he and I fell on hard times.”

“What happened to the perfect life he gave you?”

“I never said it was perfect.” A whistle blast sounded and she scrambled to her feet and looked down the tracks. A locomotive’s headlight as bright as the afternoon sun headed their way.

Katelyn turned back to Jackson. “Don cheated on me.”

As much as it had hurt him to lose Katelyn, Jackson had always wanted her to be happy and he hated that her husband had been unfaithful. “Don’s a fool.”

She laughed, and the light returned to her eyes. In that instant she looked eighteen again. He stuffed his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her. It would be too easy to pretend they were still high school sweethearts.

The ground beneath their feet vibrated and Katelyn raised her voice to compete with the clackety-clack of the steel wheels grinding against the rails. “I’ve missed this.”

“Missed what?” he shouted.

“Counting the boxcars.”

Sixteen cars passed and then another whistle rent the air when the train crossed the bridge a quarter mile up the tracks. The rumbling sounds faded, leaving behind only the lingering scent of diesel.

She returned to their tree and sat. “Are you in a rush to leave?”

He shook his head and joined her on the ground, his shoulder bumping hers. “Have you ever been married?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Ever come close?”

He shook his head. Drinking had always been his mistress.

“Why didn’t you try to change my mind when I broke up with you?”

He’d driven as far as Fort Worth the day after he’d received the letter, but then he’d gotten cold feet and turned back. “Could I have changed your mind?”

She shook her head. “I would have picked Don eventually.”

She’d made the right choice at the time. Jackson’s drinking would have torn them apart.

“I’ll never regret my marriage, because I can’t imagine my life without Michael and Melissa.”

“I never remember you as a mother—only as the young girl who took her sketch pad everywhere she went.”

She patted his thigh. “Did any of your dreams come true?”

“Owning the garage is something I never pictured myself doing when I was younger.” Jackson was very careful about what he wished for. His drinking had set him up for failure more times than success. “I try not to think about the future too much.” It was safer living day to day.

Katelyn’s gaze slipped to Jackson’s mouth and he swore he heard her breath catch right before he brushed his lips across hers. He pulled away, but almost kissed her again when he read the disappointment in her eyes. “We needed to get that out of the way.”

She laughed.

“Have you kept up with your art all these years?” he asked.

“I doodle here and there, but I haven’t turned any of my sketches into paintings.”

“Why not?”

“I got bogged down with everyday life.” She leaned her head against the tree. “Those first baby years were tough. It was all I could do to find the energy to make it through the day, let alone find time to draw. When I finally caught my breath, Don began traveling more for work. The years flew by, and then, when the kids didn’t need as much supervision, Don’s father died and my mother-in-law moved in with us.” She blinked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a stranger.”

“Art was your passion. It’s what took you away from here.” Away from him. “The Katelyn I knew would never have set her sketch pad aside for that long.”

She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed.

“You used to talk about wanting to see your work hanging in art galleries,” he said.

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“So what are you waiting for? Start sketching while you’re visiting your mother.”

“Inspiration doesn’t flick on and off like a light switch. I can’t just sit down and decide to draw a picture of”—she pointed to the tracks—“a train.”

The wind kicked her hair off her shoulders, and Jackson tucked a strand behind her ear. “You’ve got a gift. You shouldn’t keep it from the world.”

She stood. “I’d better get home before my mother and Shirley start a brawl.”

They retraced their steps to the pickup. “What does your mother-in-law think about the divorce?” he asked once they buckled their seat belts.

“She wants Don and I to reconcile.”

His fingers tightened around the gearshift in protest. “Any chance you might?”

“No. My marriage is over.”

He glanced at her ring finger. “Good.”

“Good?”

He nodded. “You can do better than Don.”

And Katelyn could do better than him, too.

* * *

Jackson returned to the garage after dropping Katelyn off at Birdie’s house. Vern was sitting on the couch, waiting. His AA sponsor looked worried.

“How’d it go?”

“Fine.” Jackson wasn’t surprised that Vern knew he’d gone off with Katelyn, given the town residents’ gift for gossip.

“You’re not thinking of picking up where you two left off while she’s in town, are you?”

“We’re catching up on old times, that’s all.”

Vern popped off the couch and paced across the floor. “You should keep your distance from her.”

Maybe Vern was right. Today proved Jackson still cared about Katelyn, and that scared the crap out of him. He couldn’t afford to allow anyone or anything to upset the status quo, because this time if he took a drink, he wouldn’t lose only himself again—he’d also lose the garage.

It had taken Jackson a year of sobriety to accept that he alone was responsible for his drinking. He’d used alcohol not because Katelyn had dumped him, but because he couldn’t change who he was—the kid from the other side of the tracks. With Vern’s encouragement he’d returned to Little Springs to face his past and had carved out a niche for himself. So what if Katelyn’s visit to town reminded him that his niche was lonely?

Alone was safer.

“Slow down before you wear a path in the cement floor,” Jackson said. Something more than Jackson and Katelyn’s meeting was bothering the old man. “What’s wrong?”

Vern rubbed his hands over his face, then expelled a loud breath. “Abby says I should start dating.”

“Do people your age date?” Jackson grinned.

“I’m old, but I’m not a corpse.”

“Do you want to date?”

“Even if I did, there’s no one to ask out. Elaine was friends with all the women in town.”

Jackson glanced at the clock. “What do you say we forget about women and grab a burger at Marty’s up the road?”

“Sure.” Vern’s shoulders sagged.

The old man looked defeated. Jackson hated to see his sponsor so down, but better he focus on Vern’s and Abby’s problems than obsess over how good it had felt to sit with Katelyn beneath their oak tree, surrounded by her sweet scent and even sweeter memories.