Page 66 of Years in the Making

Kevin pees the second his feet touch the grass, and I am suddenly relieved that she stopped when she did because we seemed to have been on the doorstep of a disaster only a few hours away from home.

Nellie returns carrying two coffees and silently hands one to me. “I needed one so figured you might too.”

“Um, thank you,” I stammer. “I think I’m going to try and—”Try and what? Where are you going with this, you moron?

“Go for it,” Nellie says, saving me from myself and taking Kevin’s leash.

I pop the coffee in the truck and jog inside. I really don’t have to go, so I wander around the food court and into the little convenience store. They have a wall of candy, and I am immediately drawn to bags of Swedish Berries. She brought back coffee for me, so we can clearly treat each other to things, and unless she has completely changed, she probably still likes them. I grab a couple of bags and check out.

“You remembered?” she says in awe when I drop the bags on the center console. Of course I remember. I remember everything about her, about me when I was with her.

“Saw them, and it jogged a memory.” She’s probably thinking that I remembered the drive-in, but it was the intense fear I felt after I told her that it was always her I was thinking about.

I lost track of how often something jogged a memory of Nellie while I was gone. I left and thought I’d set her free from having to deal with my angry grieving heart. But it just so happened I’d left my heart with her.

TWENTY-SIX

NELLIE

I don’t know what it is about the smell of Swedish Berries, but I can feel myself relax a bit as soon as the bag is open. It relaxes me to the point where I think I can actually start a conversation with Teddy that is not based on Kevin, bathroom breaks, or destinations.

“Is it safe to ask where exactly you went?” I hate that I’m so curious about where he was instead of coming back to me.

“All over really,” he begins tentatively.

“I really am interested, unless you think it’s going to impact my driving?” I look over at him quickly.

“No, I can’t imagine it will cause an issue.” He smiles back. “I started in New Zealand. My boss here, from my summer job, got me in touch with a guy who he’d met when he was doing forestry work in BC. He’s high up in the New Zealand Ministry of Forestry.”

“Fancy.”

“His job may be, but I spent all of my time mostly doing what I’d done here, except I had to learn real quick how to get up in the trees myself.”

“Still afraid of heights?” I look over just in time to see a look of surprise, like he’s shocked I remembered.

“Would you believe me if I said no?”

“I might. Repeated exposure is a known way to get over a fear of something. It’s how I got over my issues with blood.”

I see him turn to me out of the corner of my eye. “How much blood were you seeing?”

“Story for another time. Is that where you’ve been this whole time? Seeing New Zealand without me?” Once upon a time, we had talked about nerding out in Hobbiton together.

“No, I was only there for three years.”

“Only three years,” I repeat as if three years is nothing.

“Yeah. Then I went to the Philippines.” I can’t help it as my grip tightens on the steering wheel “Is your sister still there?”

“Mm-hmm,” I grind out. My jaw locking as he continues.

“I wasn’t there long. I spent most of my time in El Nido. No forestry work there, but I did get my PADI certification. Scuba,” he adds quickly.

“I have mine,” I say, my voice clipped with unintentional annoyance. My father had insisted on getting certified on one of our family trips. “We do it together or not at all,” he’d proclaimed, and since Sylvia was desperate, we all did it.

“Of course. Anyway, after three months, I stopped to volunteer with an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, and then I went to the Czech Republic. The forestry community is pretty tight-knit, and I was able to land places through friends of friends. I bounced around Europe for a few years doing forestry stuff and getting involved with some dog rescues before settling for a bit in Newfoundland.” I tense again. He had been back in the country for years. “I was living in the middle of nowhere, basically a glorified ranger station. But it’s where I finally realized I needed to go home.”

“What about therest of your family?”

---