to reach for their overhead luggage, but Doris June was content to live by the rules and stay seated. She had a bag of puzzles in the overhead compartment and she’d wait for the line of people to pass before she pulled it down. She’d gotten to the airport at six o’clock this morning anyway and she was tired.
She could also use the few extra minutes to go over in her mind what she intended to say to her mother about the quite understandable possibility that her mother’s mental agility was compromised and that her mother might want to be open to receiving some help. Help that Doris June fully intended to give even if she had to pretend to take a series of short vacations to Dry Creek, Montana, to give it.
In her checked luggage, Doris June had a whole packet of information about how to deal with what she had decided to call “senior confusion.” She hoped that “confusion” was a friendly, befuddled term that would not hurt her mother’s dignity. The one thing that stood out every time she read one of those brochures was that Doris June, being the primary caregiver in the event of anything, should realize her mother needed help and that it should be given as naturally as it would be if her mother had a physical limitation that meant she couldn’t walk or see or hear anymore.
There was no cause for shame because a person faced a change in mental ability and Doris June intended to see that that message got through to her mother. Her mother was a proud woman and deserved to keep her pride.
Doris June knew that she was limited in how much help she could give her mother from a distance and she was perfectly willing to spend more time with her mother if that was what was needed. Doris June’s job was going smoothly, and she could afford to take a week off every three months or so. She had already mentioned the idea to her boss, and she had his full support. He knew Doris June was all her mother had and he understood the importance of family obligations.
There was nothing to prevent Doris June from flying back to Dry Creek regularly to help her mother with odds and ends—things like filling out the form for the state tourism board or maybe doing her taxes. Even if all she did was make pots of soup for her mother to freeze, Doris June would be happy to do it.
She was even prepared to make the big move and leave her job in Anchorage so she could relocate to Dry Creek. She had thought about doing that anyway before he moved back—not that she was exactly staying away because Curt Nelson was back, but she sure didn’t want it to look like she was moving back home because he was there all single and available.
If Doris June did move back to Dry Creek, she would want it clearly understood that she was moving back there to do her duty to her mother and for no other reason. The people of Dry Creek had a tendency to gossip about their own and Doris June didn’t want to have any speculation that she was coming back to ignite a love that had died decades ago.
She’d had enough pity stares over the years to last her a lifetime. She didn’t know why the people of Dry Creek had been so interested in the breakup between her and Curt. People broke up all the time even in a small town in southern Montana.
Besides, Curt had married that woman from Chicago. What was her name?
Not that it mattered, Doris June decided. The only thing important about that wedding was that it should have put a complete end to any speculation about her and Curt. She certainly would never have chased a married man. And, not only because she knew God would be appalled if she did, she also knew that she’d be so mad at a cheating man that she wouldn’t be able to respect him much less love him even if she did snag his interest.
Doris June picked her purse up from under the seat in front of her.
The real problem was that even though the speculation had died down, the pity hadn’t gone away. During the year or so after Curt announced his marriage, the people of Dry Creek treated Doris June as if she was a recent widow. The more sympathy people gave her though the more irritated she got. Her life hadn’t turned out the way she’d thought it would, but she didn’t need a crowd of people around her reminding her of the fact. She could remember it very well on her own.
She would have stopped going to church when she visited Dry Creek those first years after Curt got married, except she refused to give people there anything else to say about her. She did stop going when she was at home in Anchorage, however. At first, she told herself that she was too tired on Sunday morning and she just needed a break until the busy times at work let up. Finally, when the pace at work slowed and she still didn’t want to go though, she faced the truth of it. She was mad at God. He had let her down and she didn’t know what to do about it.
She knew she couldn’t stop believing in Him; that would be like refusing to acknowledge that her mother was alive. She knew God existed; she had felt Him in her soul and there was no undoing that. She even continued to believe that He had some sort of a plan for her life. What she couldn’t believe any longer, however, was that He placed any value on her heart.
She felt betrayed. She had lived her life by His rules. She had honored the wishes of her parents when it came to leaving Curt. Honor thy father and thy mother, the Bible said, and she had done it. She had trusted that God would fix things if she kept her part of the bargain. After all, she knew her parents followed God’s ways as best as they could. They all prayed. They all believed. She’d had faith that God would work things out. She had been patient. And then—boom—Curt had married someone else. That’s when she knew she shouldn’t have listened to her parents or to God. They had all let her down.
Her heart was broken and it was because she had obeyed someone else’s rules.
Of course, she could not live her life with her face turned away from her parents any more than she could renounce God. She wished she could say she’d had an epiphany of understanding somewhere along the line and that she had forgiven God and her parents; but it wasn’t like that. Life had just inched up on her.
Her father had his first heart attack and Doris June had to stay in close contact with her parents, even if she wasn’t talking to God. Finally, she became tired of avoiding God, too. There was no undoing what had been done and she was the only one suffering. She missed going to church and talking to God in prayer, especially when she was worried about her father. She had no real choice but to return to God. It was a bitter decision, however, and the dryness never really left her heart.
Her struggle with God had been very private though. She didn’t want others to know how hard it had been for her. It was humiliating that she had cared so much about a man who had not cared enough about her to wait.
She might not have been able to live without talking to her parents and to God, but she could live without talking to Curt again.
Although, it wasn’t easy to keep anything from the people in Dry Creek. Many of them mourned with her over Curt and she knew it. Dry Creek was small enough that the loss of one was the loss of all, whether it was a house that burned down or a crop that was lost due to hail.
All the pity for her lost love became awkward, however.
Doris June wished there was a no-sympathy-needed card she could send to others to say that she was fine now and that, while she appreciated their sentiment, she didn’t need special treatment. Unfortunately, there was no such card. There also didn’t seem to be any time limit on the sympathy. People still treated her as if she had reason to be upset at any mention of Chicago or brides or weddings.
In fact, Doris June usually didn’t get a wedding invitation in the mail like everyone else. Instead, it would be delivered by hand to her mother with instructions to only give it to her if her mother thought she could handle it.
If there was any justice anywhere in the world, the people of Dry Creek would forget all about the day she and Curt had started to elope only to end up in the sheriff’s office with a bent fender on the Nelsons’ old field pickup and a swirl of angry parents buzzing around them.
Curt hadn’t even been going fast when he hit the signpost. Neither one of them knew there was a signpost there. They found out later that the highway maintenance crew had just come into Dry Creek the day before to put up the sign as a precaution.
Fortunately, the sheriff who had