Page 31 of Spring Showers

“Your name. Is there a story there?” Grant turned her chin towards his face.

“Yes.”

“That’s all I get?” he whined.

She shrugged and played coy, but couldn’t resist his pathetic pouting for long. “I was named after my grandmother, Thandeka. She was the only person in the family who supported my parents being a mixed-race couple. She passed away and my parents fled from South Africa shortly before I was born.”

“That sounds like a whole other story.”

“And maybe you’ll get to hear it someday.” She batted her lashes in a slightly too smug sort of way. “The kids in school called me Thandie for short, and it just stuck. I like it. It’s a good conversation starter.”

Grant grunted his agreement. “I appreciate you telling me. And now that I’ve gotten my one answer, you should probably check on the others. I’ve stolen enough of your time.”

Thandie stood and brushed off the small bits of gravel that had stuck into her palms. “Get to stacking.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said and grinned, his eyes wrinkled above his cheeks. “Thanks for sitting with me for a moment.”

“Anytime,” she said and turned around quickly to walk away.Anytime?What was she thinking? Although crossing a professional line with Grant was not going to happen, she was having a difficult time remembering that she was an employee at the retreat, and he was a guest. Their little conversations and stolen moments felt like little dates. The best dates she had ever been on.

Perhaps the clear line, the one she was not going to cross, took some of the pressure off of talking with him. And she did enjoy talking with him. She enjoyed looking at him, too. His rugged stubble, strong jaw, and bright eyes were more attractive the more she saw him. She liked the skintight tees he wore under unbuttoned plaid shirts every day. And his cargo khakis hugged his bum in all the right places. She wondered if admiring his form was a sin, because it felt so naughty.

Thandie shook the raw image from her head. She really needed to stop thinking of Grant in such a familiar way. She bent down and placed a square stone on a flat one in honor of the thing she needed to let go of. There was no reason to have hope that she and Grant could be anything more than what they were in the vacuum of their situation.

“What are you stacking for?” the man with the baritone voice asked from down the way, though he was the closest guest to where she had stopped.

“William, right?”

He nodded and asked his question again.

Thandie wagged her finger over her tiny tower. “You know I can’t tell you that. Do you need help with yours?”

William leaned to one side on his mat and revealed his rather large tower.

“That’s impressive,” she said as she counted the stones in his stack. There were easily a dozen stones to his cairn. Her curiosity was piqued, and she really wanted to know what all of his layers represented, though she dared not ask. “Did you know you were such a natural at this?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know if I should be happy at this, or depressed at all the things that I need to let go of.”

“Well, this is an exercise on introspection, and I suspect you’ve already begun to let go of some of those things, whether you realize it yet or not.”

“You want to know?” William tapped his fingers along the edge of each stone causing the tower to waggle, though it didn’t tip over.

Thandie waved her hands. “Oh, no. This is for you.” But her grin gave her away, and he called her over.

“You know the woman who I’m here with? Clara? We were engaged once. A long time ago. Every one of these stones represents a time that I decided not to call her. A time that I drove by her house and didn’t stop. A time when I should have apologized and didn’t. A time when I could have been a better man for her.”

“You’re here trying to rekindle your?—”

“Trying to heal. Yes,” he said. “And I think this is a good start.”

“I do too,” Clara’s voice stole William and Thandie’s attention from behind them. She pointed at her stack of equal height. “I had the same idea.”

Thandie, realizing this was now a very private moment between two people in need of each other, backed away. The couple embraced as though they had each thought of the moment for a hundred years. It was sweet, and real, and beautiful. Thandie quietly wished them well and moved further down the way towards the other guests.

Margret was quick to wave Thandie over and present her stack for approval. With a wide grin and Vanna White hands, she said, “Well, what do you think?” The stack was made up of two towers, each four stones tall. A skinny, flat rock bridged the towers with three more placed on top at the center. One final round stone balanced at the apex like a head about to roll off a tiny body.

“What is it?” Thandie asked, genuinely curious.

“It’s Anne. Don’t you see the likeness?”

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