Laura Miller - For All You Have Left

She continues her rapid-fire questioning.

“Yes,” I say.

Her eyes grow wide.

“Lada,” she squeals, shoving my arm.

She grabs my thick, dark hair next and gently runs it through her fingers.

“You guys would make the prettiest babies,” she says, before she sets her sunglasses back onto her nose and positions her back flat against the chair again.

“Hannah,” I scold.

It doesn’t faze her, so I give up and return my attention to my book. But I get exactly two lines read, and I hear her voice again.

“Then when it seems we will never smile again, life comes back.”

I close the book and face her.

“Did you just make that up?”

“No,” she says, laughing. “Mark M. Baldwin did.”

I set my face toward the sun again, and I think about my old life — the one I feel as though I’ve abandoned somehow. It hurts to think of it that way. And even though I know it wasn’t perfect, I look back now, and all I see is perfection. Every soft whisper, every spoken word, every gentle touch — it’s all perfect. Time won’t let me see it otherwise. They’re all just perfect memories — perfect, untouchable moments that came and went so softly that they almost feel as if they were always just a dream.

“Hannah.”

My voice is soft and thoughtful now as I wait for her attention to shift back to me.

“I’m scared it’ll never be the same with anyone else,” I confess.

She slowly shakes her head. “No,” she admits, “it won’t.”

A breath lifts my chest and then a sigh lowers it again, even though I expected her response. I expected it because I already know it won’t be. I already know that no matter what, it will never be the same.

“It’ll be different,” she goes on. “But different isn’t always bad.”

I meet her eyes behind her big shades. Then, I return to the sun and let its heated rays wash over me.

“Lada,” I hear her say a second later.

My face turns toward hers again.

“I’m happy for you.”

I smile at her because I know she means it.

“We’re just friends,” I say.

“I know. But I’m still happy.”

She says her last words and then goes back to getting her suntan. And suddenly, I feel my smile edging a little higher up my face and a soft tingle coming to life in my chest — and all I can think is that it’s because I’m starting to feel happy too.

“Lada, I had an extra coupon for that toothpaste you like, so I picked you up a tube,” Hannah says, charging into my apartment.

She stops when she sees Jorgen in the living room.

“Oh…hi,” she stutters apologetically. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know Lada had company.”

Jorgen laughs. “It’s fine. How are you, Hannah?”

Hannah looks as if she’s trying not to blush. She still turns into a thirteen-year-old, smitten school girl around guys that look like Jorgen. I’m not much better sometimes, but she’s definitely worse.

“Great,” she says and then absentmindedly sets the tube onto the counter.

I reach over the sink in the kitchen and pick up the toothpaste. “Thanks, Hannah.”

She looks as if she tries to respond to me, but instead uses all her efforts to fall gracefully into one of my barstools. I, meanwhile, catch Jorgen pointing to his eyebrow, eyeing Hannah and miming the word same. He has this goofy, surprised look on his face. I quickly lower my eyes and try to hold in a laugh, and I think Hannah notices.

“So, what are you two up to?” she asks.

I look up at Jorgen again. He’s still wearing that goofy grin.

“Nothing,” we both say, almost simultaneously.

Hannah sends me a suspicious look.

“No, seriously, we both just got off work,” I say.

She nods her head and pushes her lips together, seemingly satisfied.

“Oh!” she suddenly exclaims. “Lada, remember that book I said I wanted to borrow of yours — that one about the guy from Missouri. Can I borrow it?”

“Uh, sure, it’s on the shelf over there.” I gesture toward the living room. “Jorgen, can you grab it for her. It’s the one on the end with the tan-ish cover.”

Jorgen examines the shelf for a second and then slides a book toward him, sending something falling to the floor.

It catches Hannah’s attention, and I watch her face quickly turn curious as Jorgen reaches down to pick up the object.

“You still have that thing?” Hannah asks.

I look at what’s now in Jorgen’s hand.

“Hannah,” I whisper, trying to get her attention.

It doesn’t work, and she continues.

“We call that Lada’s hope,” Hannah says, gesturing with her eyes toward Jorgen’s hands.

Jorgen looks at the book.

“The pin,” Hannah clarifies. “Of Saint Michael.”

I watch as Jorgen’s eyes travel back to the pin in his hand, and I think that Hannah’s done.

“We have no idea where she got it from,” Hannah goes on. “It was just there that day.”

I freeze. I literally stop moving, breathing, all of it. In exactly five seconds flat, my mouth has gone completely dry, my mind has flashed to a blank canvas and I have lost every single one of my words — Every. Single. One. I wait for Jorgen’s eyes to find mine. They do only seconds later. He looks slightly confused.

Hannah doesn’t say anything else, and I’m more than thankful. At least she stopped at that. At least she spared him my whole life story. I’m still going to kill her, but at least she stopped before Jorgen had to witness it.

Silent moments pass, and I’m pretty sure just enough go by to make it awkward. I can feel Jorgen’s eyes still on me, while my own gaze has fallen to the pin in his hand.

“Well…I…just wanted to drop off the tooth…paste,” I hear a small voice utter.

For the first time in almost a minute, I notice that Hannah is still in the room.

“I…should get going. Lada, call me later.”

I stare straight through her then as she backs away from me and toward Jorgen. I know she realizes she has said too much.

“It was nice seeing you again, Jorgen,” Hannah says, sliding the book out of his hand.

Jorgen seems to snap out of a trance just in time to acknowledge Hannah, and then Hannah’s gone, and it’s only Jorgen and I left in the room.

I take a breath and let go of a sigh.

“Okay,” I say, “so Hannah didn’t give the pin to me. Someone else did, but I don’t know who it was. And it was a long time ago.”

He’s staring at me when I finish, and he seems pale and a little like he still doesn’t fully believe me.

I feel really stupid for lying to him in the first place. I feel even more stupid after having been caught in the stupid lie. But I feel bad too because I know I’ve skirted the truth yet again. There’s more to the story, even though I really don’t remember exactly how I got the pin. Like Hannah’s big mouth said, it was just there. But the thing is, I’ve only known Jorgen for a little more than a month now. I’m just not ready to tell him the whole story.

My stare catches on the empty counter before I meet his eyes again. They still look off somehow.

“Jorgen?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, setting the pin back in its place on the shelf.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He makes his way over to me without saying a word, then stops right in front of me.

“What?” I whisper.

He doesn’t seem mad or weirded out, but I feel as if he should — at least a little. I did lie to him.

In the next second, his arms are around me, and he’s squeezing me into his body. My mind races, and I try to figure out exactly what’s going on before I just give in and slowly wrap my arms around him too. I hold him tight, inhale the sweet smell of his cologne and press my hands flat against the muscles in his back. I feel as if I’m literally melting into his embrace when I hear him whisper into my hair.

“Will you come home with me?”

He pulls away from me and holds my shoulders in the palms of his hands.

“Across the hall?” I ask, timidly.

He laughs once and then slowly shakes his head.

“No, home,” he says. “The county fair’s next week. Will you come with me?”

I search his eyes until I feel genuine excitement coming to life on my face.

“Okay,” I agree.

He gives me this look then, as if he’s waiting for me to change my mind or something.

“Really?” he asks.

I nod my head and start to laugh. “Yeah,” I confirm.

A wide grin lights up his face, and then he pulls me into his arms again.

I’m not completely sure what I’ve just agreed to. It sounds awfully close to something you’d do if you were in a relationship. And though I’m not completely opposed to the idea, I’m pretty sure a real relationship with Jorgen Ryker or anyone new, for that matter, is next to impossible in my situation.

* * *

Jorgen leaves, and I find myself gravitating toward the pin on the shelf. I pick it up and caress its indented surface with my fingertips. I don’t keep anything from my old life where I can see it, but I do keep this out. Hannah was right. It was my hope; it is my hope. I didn’t think of it that way at all when I first had it in my hand. But now, looking back, it really was my hope — my tiny glimmer of hope — like something was telling me to keep going, to keep fighting, to fight back, to live. And now, I think, it’s kind of become like a testament to human survival for me — like it reminds me of just how strong we really can be when we have to be and that just when we think we can’t possibly go on, we do.

“Damn train,” I hear him mumble under his breath as he pulls to the side of the two-lane road.

I look up to see a train frozen and stretched across the part of the tracks where the truck is supposed to drive across.

“Okay, we’ll have to get out here.”

He smiles his crooked smile at me and then pushes open his door. I watch him climb out and shut the door behind him. And after a second, I follow his lead and do the same, even though I’m now one-part bewildered and one-part amused.

“I don’t know why the damn thing stops here like this all the time.”

He’s talking to me but not talking to me at the same time.

“I live on the other side of these tracks. Are you up for a little walk?”

I know my expression turns curious — fast. I’m not exactly sure what I’ve signed up for yet, but at least now I’m happy that I chose to wear my comfortable boat shoes earlier this morning instead of something less forgiving on my feet.

“When you say ‘walk,’ are we talking down the block or more like a day’s journey?”

I can see in between the railcars, and there’s a shed and a little, winding stretch of highway, but other than that, it’s all flat fields and nothing much else for miles.

“There’s an old truck in that shed over there,” he says, pointing at a spot behind the cars. “It’s there mostly for times like this.”

I watch lines form near the corners of his eyes as he holds out his hand. And I can’t help but smile too when I lay my fingers against his.

He swings his legs over the labyrinth of metal and chains that connects the two train cars next and then turns back toward me.

“I know this is pretty much after the fact, but this is safe, right?” I ask.

A playful expression dances to his face.

“It is until it starts movin’.”

I feel my eyes growing wide right before I scurry up onto the metal hitch, steady myself with the help of Jorgen’s hand and then quickly jump off. Immediately, I feel my feet hit the loose gravel on the other side of the tracks, and I let go of a thankful breath.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, securing a strand of my hair behind my ear with my free hand. “There’s really no other way in?”

He slowly shakes his head back and forth. “Not from this side.”

“How often does it just stop here like this?”

“Oh, about once a month or so,” he says casually, as if it’s just another fact of life.

The way he says it makes me laugh.

“Come on,” he says, setting out down the black asphalt with my hand still in his.

The asphalt is the only thing, once we cross the tracks, that reminds me that I’m still in the twenty-first century. I mean, I’m not exactly from the most bustling of metropolises either, but we do have grocery stores and hospitals…and lines on our roads. My eyes fixate on the black highway that carves a winding path through corn fields for several miles. There’s not a single white or yellow mark on it.