Tom ran. He ran like a madman, making his way out of the city, up the road to Sugar Loaf Mountain. It was a reasonably good road with a wide enough shoulder to run, but the incline up to the mountain made it a steep and demanding run. It was a beautiful day, with the sun whispering on newly-formed baby yellow-green leaves. There was an occasional leftover snow drift alongside the road in the shadowy spots. His muscles burned with the effort of the run, but he didn’t feel the pain. The agony in his legs and back were nothing compared to the hurt he had felt when she’d said it was over. It had been all he could do to harness his manhood and not break down before her feet.
How in the hell was he supposed to go on without her? There had to be something he could do or say to get her to stay. But he knew she had to be there for her grandma. It wasn’t unreasonable to go for the summer. But why wouldn’t she come back when things were settled with her family? She’d said she knew he would leave when she told him her secret. How had she known how he would react? Then again, she knew him so well that she knew he’d fly off the handle and get too angry. She didn’t want a hothead. Maybe she didn’t want him at all. And she was constantly thinking things had to be “square” between them, as if some accountant on her shoulder were keeping track.
Didn’t she know that she was everything to him? She was like the air he breathed, absolutely vital to his life and well-being. Maybe she didn’t. He hadn’t ever been a man who was good at expressing himself with words, only with actions. And God knew he’d done everything he knew of to show her how he felt. What could he do to get her to come back to him when the summer was over? He’d need to show her that what they had was worth fighting for. He would let her go to Iowa. He’d go to Isle Royale and do his summer program. He would find a way, find the words to get her back. If that didn’t work, then he’d go to Iowa and bring her back. He’d chase her to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took.
He stopped in the middle of the road, hands on his knees. Now he was a man on a mission. The initial anger that had flared like a rocket in him was gone, replaced by a tremendous ache in his knee and a resolve in his soul. He’d go back to her and talk to her one last time before she left. He’d talk her into coming back to him. Otherwise, he was afraid he’d become her own personal shadow.
* * *
Peggy stood in the driveway leaning on the passenger side of Etta’s small car, talking to Izzy. Etta had picked her up at the bus station only an hour before, then came back to get the last of the things she’d loaded up to drop off at her father’s before heading to Iowa. God she was tired and it was just the start of a long, long trip. But they needed one last pit stop before hitting the road. They had already decided Peggy would go all the way with her to help drive and get things set up for her grandmother’s return home.
It was still early, so Etta was surprised that Izzy had made it out of bed to see her off, though she was still in her PJs and slippers, curlers in her hair. She saw Tom pull up as she was walking out the front door with the last box and a cooler with soft-drinks and snacks. Izzy had called him. Peggy came up to Etta and took the box and cooler from her. “I’ll load these up. You two go ahead and have some time together.” Peggy and Izzy went to the car and worked on manipulating the load to fit in the new things Etta had brought down.
Tom strolled over to Etta, took her hand and pulled her to the side of the house. He pushed her against the side of the house, grabbed her head in his hands. Before she could speak his mouth was hot and hungry on hers. She let the kiss spin wondrously in her head and her heart. He pulled back to look in her deep, softened eyes. “You listen to me, Etta. You’re mine. I love you and I’m not letting you go forever. Do you hear me?”
She lifted her arm to put her hand on his chest. “Tom …”
“Don’t ‘Tom’ me. You’re going to be mine. I’ll come get you. When I’m done on Isle Royale, I’m coming for you. Wherever you go, whatever you decide to do, I’ll go and get you.”
“I love you, Tom.”
“You can’t just walk away from me and never …. What did you say?”
“I love you. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have, but you asked me once and I never answered. I can’t hold it back anymore. I do love you, but I can’t come back here.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he’s coming here. Owen’s got a job working in Marquette and he’s coming back and I don’t know why. I think he’s coming back for me and I don’t know why he’d do that. What was ever between us is long ago over and settled. But I can’t come back as long as he’s here, Tom.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before? God, Etta!”
“You didn’t stick around long enough to tell you. But I want Izzy and the girls to be careful. I don’t know what he’s got in mind. They need to be careful of him, especially if he’s looking for me.”
“I’ll take care of them. Shit, Etta, if he’s in the same city as me, his life expectancy would be nil if he so much as comes within fifty feet of this house, you or these girls.”
“I know that. But I want them to know who he is. So can you explain to them for me? I don’t have the heart for it, Tom. It was all I could do to tell you.”
“I’ll take care of them. You don’t need to worry about them. I want you to worry about us.”
“Tom, I love you more than I could ever express, but I have to go. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m going to get you back. Even if I end up a farmer in Iowa, I will get you back.” She launched herself at him and held onto his body with all of her strength and might. Her ardent embrace was matched with murmurs against her neck of her name as he held her and stroked her back and hair. “I’ll get you back if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Oh, you dear, sweet, crazy man. I love you, Thomas,” she said, leaning back to look him in the eyes, to press one last kiss against his lips. “I have to go. Good-bye.” They disengaged their limbs from each other and walked, hand-in-hand, around the corner of the house to walk to her car. She and Peggy got in the car and drove away from the only family she’d really known in her life.
* * *
The trip was solemn and quiet, with Etta driving through Michigan while Peggy caught up on sleep. Peggy had grabbed the one thing she valued most from Toledo to bring with her on the bus, her collection of cassettes. They agreed that whoever was driving could choose the tunes. Peggy was been concerned that Etta would cry and that would be dangerous while driving, but Etta had insisted she be behind the wheel to start the trip. If she kept her mind on driving then she wouldn’t be as tempted to break into tears. She knew she had to hold things back for a while or the pain of leaving Tom and her new, make-shift family in Marquette would be more than she could bear. The flood would never end. So she kept driving, listening to a tape of classics for relaxation: Vivaldi, Beethoven and Chopin. It didn’t take long for Peggy to drift off.
As she listened to the chords and intricacies of the beautiful, yet haunting, “Clair de Lune”, her mind drifted to everything that had been wondrous and new with Tom: how he understood her, inside and out, his patience and kindness. He’d always known she held a secret too deep to share. Her heart broke into tiny pieces, much like the sixteenth notes broke the melody from the chords in the music. Maybe one day those pieces would come together to create a thing of classic wonder like that which Debussy had created. But right now, she just couldn’t see past the poignant melancholy that would linger in her mind whenever she thought of Tom. No matter how beautiful, eventually the piece had to come to an end, as had her time with him. After all, all good things come to an end.
They stopped for lunch at Donato’s in Duluth so she could pay her respects to Tom’s parents before they continued on in their trip. From Duluth on, Peggy took over the wheel. She didn’t try to talk to Etta about what was going on in her mind and heart, knowing that the floodgates would burst at some point. When she was ready to talk about it, she would be there for her. She switched the music to a Blues mix she had that included Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and other 60s refrains. Music had such power to heal the worst of all pains. This was something Peggy knew in the depths of her soul. She’d always cloaked herself in music when things got to be too much. The right music would heal Etta. She just had to find it. It was going to be a long day of driving.
As they drove along the northern Minnesota highway, tall pines along either side interspersed with sprays of white and yellowish greens of birch and poplar and bunches of tiny white flowers her grandmother had always called “little white lies”, the vivid spring forest flew by their windows. The song “Buttercup” by the Foundations came on and Peggy sang along quietly with the light-hearted song that belied the betrayal of indifference the lyrics suggested. She innocently drove along, until she glanced over to find Etta sitting with her head buried in her hands sobbing.
“Oh, my God, Etta. Stop it! What the hell? Why are you crying at this song? This is supposed to be a fun song,” Peggy exclaimed. She sang along with the “ooo-oo-oooo” in the song.
“I don’t know. I just can’t take it,” she said, between shortened, choked breaths. “I’m her. I’m like that bitch, Buttercup. I’ve broken his heart.” She broke out into wails of weeping. Finally the dam had broken. “All he ever wanted to do was build a relationship with me and I left and broke his heart.”
“Do you want me to stop? We can talk.” Peggy asked.
“No, just keep going. We’ve got to get there. Just because I’m crying doesn’t mean we should stop. It’s never going to go away. I’ll always love him, Peggy. And he’ll be looking for me around every corner.” She looked out the window at the beauty of nature passing her by. The world was literally going to pass her by from now on, the world filled with beauty and desires and love would pass her by without him. She’d never escape it. “That’s what he said, that he’d get me back if it was the last thing he did.”
“Oh, man, Etta. He loves you. He really does. And if he said that, then he means it. Then why are you crying?”
“Because I’ll never see him again. I can’t hurt him again, ever. Can’t you see?”
“No, I really don’t. I don’t get why you can’t go back. I know that bastard, Owen, is there or is going to be there, but you can get a restraining order on him. That’s the least the courts can do for you. So you’ll go back, restraining order in hand, and if he shows up, you call the cops. Isn’t that what you told me to do?”
“Yeah, well, I can’t risk having to leave Tom like this again, not ever. He’s better off without me.”
“The hell he is. And that’s what he’d say too. Dammit, Etta, you’re not some tease who doesn’t return his affection. It’s just a song. You’re not like that. You love him back.”
“Yeah, I do, but it isn’t working out very damned well, is it?”
“Give it a minute to settle, Etta. Things will look different in the morning or in a couple of weeks.” Peggy stopped the tape and ripped it out of the cassette player. “Enough of that. Let’s get something a little less damned depressing in there for you. How about polka? Got anything against a little “Beer Barrel”? That isn’t going to make you burst into tears, is it?” She lifted one eyebrow and hoped a little cheeky smile might clear Etta’s mind a bit.
“No, polka music is fine, you weirdo. Leave it to you, you run from a place but make sure to grab your music on the way out.”
“Well, music is the most important thing, at least to me. How about we stop at Tibbey’s for a caramel roll? We can take time for that, can’t we? It would be sacrilege to not have a caramel roll on the way back from Duluth, wouldn’t it? We can’t break solemn tradition. See, five more miles to drippy, sticky goodness.” She held out her hand to Etta, who grabbed it and held on. She was such a lifelong friend. She’d never forget her for what she was doing today.