Page 48 of Rainshadow

She went for a long walk, through fields and meadows, past horse and cattle farms, and barely got back in time for checkout. She didn’t check out, though, she extended her stay by two nights and asked if anyone was looking for farm help.

That’s how she found the Richards. They owned cattle, with a recreational horse-riding dude ranch to supplement their farming income. Flora, if she wanted, was welcome to come carefor horses, lead trail rides, and work in the kitchen as needed. She would make a hundred a week and have a free place to live, a comfortable little room above the barn. She agreed instantly, and began work the next day.

The work was not easy, but it wasn’t complicated and the Richards, an older couple who struggled to keep up with the barn work, were appreciative. They invited her to join them for dinner the first night, applewood smoked pork chops, green beans, potatoes, and cherry pie. After that, she joined them every night, and the childless pair seemed to genuinely enjoy seeing her at their table at the end of the day.

Flora sold the Corvette and bought a small truck, old but reliable, and opened a bank account. She hung on to the jewelry, stashing it under her bed and only taking it out when it began to feel like her life before on Anderson Island had been a dream.

She knew it wasn’t a dream, though. She knew that Ethan was still there, at the house, and Sylvia was probably still alive, dragging herself to and from the barn, the arena. Flora would remember the chandeliers, the lavender, the rocky cliffside, and the magnificent horses, and she would ache with longing. Life at the Richards’s was a balm for her pain, but it was not a cure.

On the first day of spring season in May, when tourists first arrived, the sun rose on a farm so warm and golden, so beautiful, that Flora felt tears in her eyes as she looked down on it. It was the first time she felt the bitterness in her dissolve a little bit, like a crack in an iceberg, dropping shards into the sea. She still dreamed of Ethan, dreamed of Rainshadow, and woke up gasping with desire, with hatred for Sylvia, but she had to convince herself that she’d made the right choice.

She took a group of tourists out on the trail, riding a horse named Frenchy who wasn’t an elegant European dressage horse, but was steady, sure-footed, quick, and fun to ride. She took a group of six up a pleasant trail through meadows bright with spring flowers, toward a beautiful, rocky ridge with a view of the mountains.

“You’re so lucky to live here,” a man said. He was a retired dentist and had spent most of his life in a suburb of Los Angeles.

“Oh,” Flora said, “yeah. Thank you.” She looked out at the hazy mountains, at the distant fields dotted with sheep. It looked like a painting. Maybe she was lucky.

As the spring wore on and the air began to warm, the feeling that connected her to Ethan, the intense bond that she never thought would go away began to loosen, like a tight fishing line going slack. She wondered if he thought of her and, with her new clarity, began to consider that Sylvia had told her the truth, or some version of it. Had Sylvia been a liar, taking advantage of Ethan’s generosity? Or had she been trapped there, like she insisted? Maybe, Flora began to think, it was more complicated than she’d thought.

“We’ve been talking,” Marion Richards said, sitting on the porch on a Sunday evening after all the tourists left. They were all having tea, or whiskey, and gazing out at the bats as they emerged from their bat houses and swooped over the yard.

“What if we made you manager?” Joe Richards said. “And we stepped back a little more?”

“Oh,” said Flora, surprised.

Joe smiled. “You could work a few seasons with us and, if it all goes well, maybe you can buy the ranch.”

“I don’t know how I could ever afford it,” Flora said. Then, she remembered the money she had stashed away, the diamond necklace. Maybe she could make a downpayment, figure it out.

“We could work with you, darlin,” Marion said.

She looked out over the ranch, at the horses in the meadow, at the sunset. Could it really all be hers one day? She would have to work hard, which she wasn’t afraid of. She felt a sudden ache, mixed with strange bitterness. Sylvia had never had to work for anything.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Joe said. “Right now you just have to enjoy this beautiful sunset.”

It was beautiful.

It was so, so beautiful. She felt tears spring to her eyes. It was all so beautiful, but it wasn’t Rainshadow. Maybe, she’d started to think, that was ok.

That night was when she had the first dream.

She called it a dream because there was nothing else to call it, but it was like Ethan was in the bed beside her, calling her name, his hands running over her body, teasing her, beckoning her. She woke with a start, gasping, and for a moment felt compelled to run, to tear herself out of bed, to her car, drive it straight to the ferry dock, and go back to Anderson Island. She thought she could be there by late that night, or, at worst, early the next morning.

“No,” she said out loud, as if exorcising a demon. “It was only a dream. He’s probably forgotten me.”

Two nights later, she dreamed of him again.

“You’re not real,” she whispered, writhing. “You’re a dream.”

“I’m the most real thing you’ll ever know,” he said. “Everything else is like mist on the water. I am forever, and you could be with me if…”

If what?

Flora gasped, sat up in bed, felt a cold dew on her brow. Her sheets were damp.

“Not real,” she said, but she felt like she was going crazy.

After the third dream, she went downstairs and called Rainshadow. She knew the number by heart. The phone rang and rang. Flora counted five… six… She knew she should just hang up.

---