Dane's Storm

Her gaze landed on it, and her expression was one I hadn’t seen before. Nervousness. But she took it with a trembling hand, opening it, her eyes moving over my grandfather’s words. When she’d reached the bottom, she looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Wallace,” she breathed. “You stupid, stubborn fool.” She smiled, though, a tremulous tilting of her lips and slipped the letter into the clutch on her lap.

She stood. “I have something for you too.” She reached into her clutch again and brought out a folded piece of paper. Then she leaned forward, surprising me by kissing me on the cheek. “Welcome to the family, Audra. I’d say, welcome back, but I never truly extended a genuine welcome the first time, did I?”

“Thank you,” I whispered. And with that, Luella Townsend, my former arch-enemy-grandmother, soon-to-be grandmother again, walked out of my hospital room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

I took a moment to digest some of what we’d talked about, but I knew I’d need longer than I had that moment to ponder everything I’d just discovered. The doctor would be in any minute.

I looked at the paper in my hands and slowly unfolded it. It was a professional engineering sketch of the industrial park that I’d first seen the model of in Dane’s office in California. But there had been an addition made to this version. At the entrance to the park was a large sign, flanked by trees and greenery. The sign read: Theodore John Industrial Park.

Underneath in Luella’s handwriting, it said, Named for my first great-grandchild.

A sob came up my throat and I clutched the piece of paper to my chest, joy and sorrow mixing to form a heavy happiness in my heart. Tears pricked at my eyes. My beautiful boy will be remembered. A gesture I never expected.

The click of the door opening startled me, and when I saw Dane entering my room, I sniffled, letting out a small half laugh, half sob that had him frowning as he walked toward me.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

I shook my head, handing Dane the paper and grabbing a tissue to wipe my nose.

He stared at the picture for a few minutes, his eyes softening as he brought his bottom lip between his teeth and then gave me a sad smile. “The old lady’s not a hundred percent evil, huh?”

I laughed softly, sniffling again. “Only about fifty percent. I have so much to tell you, but my building, it’s all mine. She doesn’t want it. She never did.”

Dane looked confused. “I was planning on talking to her about that later today. She’s been ducking out before I could get a word in with her.”

“It’s okay. We talked, and it was better that way.”

Dane sat down on the edge of the bed, using his thumb to wipe away the last trace of my tears. “Okay. You’ll fill me in later.”

“Yeah.” I looked at the magazine he’d set down on the table next to my bed when I’d handed him the paper. “What’s that?”

He picked it up, handing it to me. “Oh,” I breathed when I turned it over and saw the cover. The magazine I’d sketched in on that mountain while half dead and starving, waiting to be rescued by help that never came.

I opened it slowly, cautiously, stopping on the first sketch I came to. Dane, leaning against a tree, his face in profile, shoulders hunched as he looked into the darkness of the trees. I ran a finger down the lines of his face, over the shadow of his beard, tears pricking my eyes again. I could smell the pine and the crisp cold of the mountain air. I could feel the gnawing, never-ending hunger in my gut, and I could feel the fire in my heart for the man I’d always, always loved.

I sniffled, flipping the pages until I came upon a sketch of Theo, the way I remembered him, his eyes closed as though he were only sleeping, his tiny face so perfect. “He looked like you,” I said, my eyes moving to Dane’s.

He nodded, his expression serious, filled with gravity. “I know. But I have a feeling he had your brown eyes.”

I tilted my head, my lips tipping up very slightly. “Someday we’ll know. Just not quite yet.”

Dane smiled back. “No, not quite yet.”

I studied the only picture I had of my child, running a finger over his cheek, recalling the satiny feel of his skin.

After a moment, I found the strength to turn the page, finding the picture of the sun setting over the mountain, recalling the vivid grandeur of that beauty in the midst of such unrelenting harshness. “Hmm,” I hummed.

There were other sketches in there too, I knew, pictures of the mountain, the place the plane had come to rest and eventually went over the cliff, and of our tiny shelter from the storm, the place we’d come together to share our warmth and eventually our hearts.

“I don’t know why I grabbed that,” Dane said. “When I raced back to the camp after you’d fallen, my mind was so foggy with sickness and so filled with terror for you, I grabbed the things I thought were important and stuffed them in the duffel bag. I’m glad I knew, even somewhere in my feverish brain, that that was one of them.”

I let out a ragged breath. It was. It was important.

A knock sounded at my door again and we pulled apart as my doctor came in the room. “You two ready to get outta here?”

Dane laughed, standing and shaking Dr. Fletcher’s hand. “You have no idea.”

Dr. Fletcher smiled. “I can only imagine. You’ll want to tell your ride to pick you up around the back, though. There is a horde of reporters waiting in the lobby.”