ALONG THE ENDLESS RIVER

Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table, flipping through her calendar and trying not to think about what had to be done. She made notes in the square of dates that were upcoming- doctor visits, birthdays, a hair appointment for Mallory. She found herself rubbing her hands together, wringing them, as she worked.

In the great room , Paul was slumped in a chair, working away on his laptop while CNN played at low volume. The kids were up in their rooms, likely on the phone or computer, but definitely doing their own things at the moment. It was the perfect time for her to check in and see what Jason was up to.

The last three months had been so unexpected to her that she had become accustomed to feeling like a stranger in her own life. She was caught in a constant tide of new and different emotions that made the days seem like out-of-body experiences. The highs and lows had been beyond anything she expected at this point in her life, and as much as it excited her to feel this way again, it troubled her as well. She thought that either she was losing it altogether or she had been granted some sort of second chance at life. Regardless of which was more accurate, it was time to deal with things in a direct, honest way.

The fact was that Jason had appeared in her life again out of nowhere. Or, more accurately, it seemed out the glow of a past life she fondly remembered. They had known each other in high school, lost touch in college, and she had only run into him a few times when she was first married. Then, she never remembered seeing him again until the day he came up and said hello at Whole Foods. He had caught her off guard, but she immediately recognized those big brown eyes and that charmer’s smile. It had been such a long time, but he looked great and they had started talking so easily. He was older, a little more tired, but there was still something there that reminded her of the make-out sessions they had shared as teenagers. And that memory had been just enough. Maybe it was timing, maybe it was fate, but whatever it was had awakened a girlish happiness in her.

For the past two years she had been just barely coasting along. The electricity in her own marriage was non-existent. Paul had become a predictable and predictably disappointing life partner. She was happy enough with the life he provided for her, but it was the life with him that had left her feeling empty. Or at least, she was just over it all. She knew Paul inside and out, had seen his moments of total weakness when he had too much to drink and seen him crippled by business deals that fell apart outside of his control. Although he was a strong and diligent man, she no longer saw him that way. And it was that feeling, the thought of being linked to a man who might be weak inside, which ultimately turned her heart cold and snuffed out any remaining embers of unconditional love that she might allow to breathe. So into this void of romance and attraction stepped Jason, and suddenly the whispers of feelings she thought were behind here, began to surface again.

They had exchanged numbers, just to keep in touch, and she had thought that was it. Sure it had been exciting to see him, still handsome after all these years. But there were many people who she bumped into, people she used to know, then exchanged the usual pleasantries and promised to keep in touch. She didn’t expect it to be any different. Then the texts began.

They were innocent enough at first, “Great to see you...” or ” remember when...“, but soon they escalated to where they started from either side with “Hey Good Looking” or some other flirty opening. In fact, “Hey Good Looking” became their call-sign. Over a period of nearly two weeks the game of texting had ratcheted up to full on flirtation and she was anxious to see him again, to see if the pictures of him in her mind from their chance encounter were accurate, if the excitement she was feeling was real.

And as the texts increased, she found herself almost dialing his number but quitting before she pressed CALL. Then another meeting happened, this one planned via texts.

“Hey Good Looking....Headed to Whole Foods in a few minutes....need anything?”

“Just the usual- see you there in 30”

The second meeting had been like a date at the grocery. Walking the aisles together, laughing about high school stories and sharing small details with each other of their lives since. He was divorced, back in the area after being in Chicago and Atlanta, and she loved hearing about how great he told her she looked, how much she looked just like they did when they were in school. She found herself paying attention to him in an almost rapt way. She studied his jeans and the chukka boots he was wearing when he turned his back to her to look at a bag of granola. When he put a box of organic vermicelli into his cart, she looked at the veins on the back of his hands, the dark silver bead bracelet that hung tight on his wrist. She realized she was totally focused on him, not distracted like she had felt for as long as she could remember.

For an hour and a half they half-shopped, taking time to put things in their carts and steal glances at each other like a couple of awkward high-school kids. It was like the kind of light and airy flirtation that she remembered so fondly from her teenage years, and she found it intoxicating. It made her feel like the clock has just been wound back twenty-five years, and the pressures of adult life were still miles and miles away from her.

She didn’t see him again for two weeks, as he had to go out of town on business. But then, out of nowhere she received a text to meet for coffee at a Starbucks in another part of town. She met him, feeling comfortable that no local person might stumble upon them, and for an hour they talked about everything going on in their lives and about all of the people they had gone to school with. It was intoxicating to her, and, thankfully, she set a timer on her phone for 55 minutes, almost as a safeguard against letting herself get carried away. When the alarm on her phone went off, she lied and said she had to pick up something form her mom’s house, and she found herself almost skipping to her car as she left Starbucks.

They repeated their grocery store date a week later, this time the tension and spark between them were amplified by multiples of ten. The flirting was almost dream like to her, like she was walking through the produce and organic sections in someone else’s body. Jason was funny and quick to laugh at her little jokes, he listened when she talked and seemed fascinated at the few ideas she chose to share. At one point he handed a bag of coffee form the shelf, and in the exchange she felt her hand reach up to touch his arm. That small gesture drew them closer, close enough that he could have leaned in and she would have welcomed his mouth on hers right there in the public. She felt a surge of electricity crackle through her and it was almost more than she could refrain from showing.

He was also a known commodity, someone who she remembered in such a positive way- yet as an adult she found him also yet be the handsome stranger, and all of the unknowns about him seemed loaded with excitement and potential. By the end of this most recent grocery date, Elizabeth had decided that she would sleep with him as soon as the opportunity presented itself. It was scary and thrilling, and for the first time in a long time she felt alive.

She had looked everywhere since Bobby died. At church, the shooting range, the country club, yoga. But now, she had finally found that diversion she needed. Jason had been that breath of fresh air she had been looking for, the spark she had wanted so badly to find in her life at home, but just never could. This was her time, she had decided. Time for her to do something for herself, only because it made her feel good- there would be no regrets.

Standing there in the kitchen, she felt the charge of danger and excitement just thinking about their last grocery store date. Elizabeth shot him a quick text, just something to check in with him.

“Hey Good Looking...I am getting low on groceries, how about you?”

Her heart raced a little as she pressed SEND. If he responded, she would begin setting up the pieces to start this affair. Then, she would have passed the point of no return. She was ready, and she sat there trying to go back to work on the calendar, but staring at her phone as it sat on the kitchen counter.

Three minutes later, her phone began to rumble on the counter. There was a call coming in. Chicago area code. Holy shit. Her heart jumped again in her chest, this time hard enough that her ribcage felt like it was stretching.

Elizabeth moved away from the entrance to great room, across the kitchen to the breakfast room , then into the hallway near the garage entrance. There with her back to the garage door and facing toward the direction she came, she picked up the phone and answered in a hushed, relaxed voice.

“Hello?”

Her hands shook, as the reply came back and shocked her.

“Hello, who is this?” a woman’s voice said on the other end.

Elizabeth’s mind swirled in a weird panic. The number was Jason’s , for sure. But, before she could filter any thoughts, her phone reflexes kicked in.

“Elizabeth Kemper, who is this? You called me.”

“My name is Karina,” the voice said, with a hint of accent on the pronunciation of the name. “I am a friend of Jason Petrie’s and I just saw a text to him form this number.”

“Oh,” Elizabeth said, ” I’m so sorry I just tried to send my sister a text a few minutes ago. I must have hit a wrong number.”

The woman on the other end was silent. Elizabeth realized how stupid she must have sounded- nobody typed in numbers for texts anymore. She felt a nervous tingle running up her spine as she waited there , back against the garage door , feeling suddenly caught between her husband in the other room and this woman on the other line.

“OK, its no problem,” the woman named Karina said , again revealing a little Baltic accent. “The person who’s phone this is has been missing for a couple of days so I am just checking his call and texts, hoping somebody will know something. Sorry to have bothered you.”

Elizabeth’s nervous tingle went into a complete cold chill. Robotically, she answered, ” I am sorry to hear that, I hope things work out. Good night.” Then she hung up quickly.

She stood there in the shadowy light of the hallway, breathing hard. Part of her wanted to call back, to come clean with Karina and find out what the hell was going on. But there were just too many questions. Was Karina a girlfriend? An estranged wife? How would she explain how they knew each other?

Jus then, Paul emerged from the great room, holding a can of almonds in one hand and popping one into his mouth with the other. He was wearing a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, part of his new wardrobe as he had become re-dedicated to the gym in the last 24 months. She looked at him, thinking she couldn’t remember the last time she saw him wearing anything but sweats or shorts in their house. There just was not anything there anymore. No mystery, no fire, nothing. Then her head spun back to the phone in her hand and the sea of questions that flooded her mind.

“Hey babe, who was that?” Paul asked, turning his back to her as he put the almond can back into the cupboard.

“Just a wrong number”, she said cheerfully. And she made her way across the room , back to her calendar and, and began writing down numbers on the open notepad next to it that didn’t mean anything.

Over the next few days she found herself obsessing over her phone. She checked her text messages routinely every 15-20 minutes during all waking hours, just to be sure she wasn’t missing anything. From the moment she woke, until the moment she fell asleep, she discreetly checked for some message from that Chicago area code. And with each passing hour, she felt herself feeling a little more desperate and embarrassed. Her head was spinning with ideas, fantasies, and fears. What is the woman who had called was his wife, if he was still really married? What if he had gotten cold feet? What if he had just taken off on some whim, and their little budding romance had meant nothing to him? What if something terrible had happened?

A week passed since her call with Karina, and she heard nothing. Then another week, and she found herself beginning to let go of the girlish ideas that had been filling her head since seeing Jason at their last grocery store date. She was ashamed that she had let herself get so swept up, that she had been so vulnerable to the kind of destructive , reckless attraction that destroyed marriages and ruined families. And while she shamed herself privately, she still held some flicker of hope that a text would come through and the excitement she had felt would return. It was a strange place, to be caught between these feelings and left with everything unresolved , but she tried as best she could to focus on everything else and just forget it, like it had been a weird dream.

On a Saturday morning she was in the kitchen looking through the refrigerator and making decisions on which of the leftovers would stay and go. Paul was working on something outside , and as he came in to wash his hands, her phone on the kitchen counter began to rumble with the alert of an incoming text. She was well practiced now at not over-reacting, even though she had a deep urge to dive toward the phone and check it as fast as possible. Instead, she took her time and turned around, away from the fridge, with a box of leftover Chinese food intended for the trash-can.

Her phone vibrated again- another text- and Paul passed by her , headed for the sink, whistling as he walked by. She pulled open the cabinet for the trash and tossed in the Chinese, and then, intending to turn and check her phone casually, her heart almost stopped....and a dread from deep inside her rose up like a tidal wave.

Paul was a whistler and a hummer, particularly when he was busy working on something. His back was to her , as he washed his hands at the sink, and his whistling had morphed into a humming of the same little tune. She felt like the edges of her vision were closing in all around as she focused on Paul, his back still to her as he worked in a few mumbled words into his humming.

“Heyy good-loooking, what you got cooking...” His voice was mumbled and muffled, but just loud and clear enough that the words were unmistakable in the quiet kitchen, over only the soft shushing of the faucet.

She felt her mouth almost drop open, like the muscles of her jaw just lost their tension. The tunnel vision intensified and her head started spinning. Panic flooded her mind and her throat felt like a closing drain.

Then, her phone vibrated a third time as another text popped in. Paul stopped his singing as shut off the sink water. Without turning, he said,

“Looks like somebody is dying to get a hold of you.”

Her heart skipped again. What was happening here? What did he know? And what has he done?

She almost responded but her words felt choked, stuck somewhere in a gasp in her throat. He wheeled now, and turned to face her. His eyes met hers quickly, and she mustered everything she could to hide the swell of fear and tension that had overcome her.

“So what’s cooking?”

His smile was purely wolfish. It was a look she had seen on him only a few times in all of their years together, the light in his eyes was menacing and cruel, his mouth drawn up in a leering grin that sent a shiver down her spine. Pure survival took hold of her, and she steadied herself to respond.

“I have no idea, its probably Angie- she is trying to get this shower organized for Teri Gallagher’s daughter.”

Her words were smooth and effortless, and she was as casual as possible as she stepped toward the counter and reached for her phone.

Paul made a quick sudden step, and she just knew- for an instant- he was going to intercept her and grab the phone. A rush of physical terror ran through her and she leaned in, almost jerking her body to get a second hand on her phone. But, Paul stopped half way and simply stepped aside, in the direction to the door he had come in. But, as he did, his gaze never left her and that wicked smile never left his face. Then, as she recovered her composure, in that fraction of a second, he winked at her and walked past without turning his head. She felt her breath settling and she did everything she could not to exhale loudly. And with his back to her and headed for the back-door, Paul again began whistling his happy little tune.

Her hands were shaking as she wrapped them around her phone like she was trying to hide it, to conceal it from view. But, it didn’t matter and it wouldn’t matter. Somehow, Paul knew and everything between them was changed forever.

Two months had passed since their encounter in the kitchen, and not a word about it had ever been said between them. She had been so careful to remove and delete the text messages, it seemed impossible he could have seen anything. Elizabeth had almost convinced herself now that Paul had not acted how she remembered, that it had been her imagination running wild. Jason had not been heard from again or seen, at Whole Foods or anywhere else. And Paul seemed to be happier and more content than usual. There was one quirk in his behavior that made her a little uneasy, though. The summer was winding down, and when he wasn’t golfing, Paul had taken a considerable interest in the events unfolding around ISIS. He seemed fascinated by the brutality of the group and couldn’t help watching the gruesome beheading videos that were surfacing. One Saturday she came into the family room to find him watching CNN coverage of the events, transfixed, while downloading an unedited version of the beheading video on his laptop. He offered to show her, but Elizabeth declined, disgusted by the idea that he thought she would have any interest in it. But he just shrugged of her rebuff and sat there transfixed, glancing back and forth form the TV to his laptop screen. For whatever reason, his level of interest had disturbed her, and she tried to push it from her mind.

The next weekend, they had plans to meet a couple for dinner- old friends that they had just recently begun hanging out with again. Paul and the husband, Danny, were playing golf together in a weekly league. Elizabeth had taken the opportunity to re-connect with Danny’s wife, Samantha, who she had once been relatively close with. Danny and Sam were fun, had kids a little younger than Mallory and Jacob, and they loved to go out to eat and get drinks after. The timing was great for a revival of their friendships, and this dinner was planned for a new tapas style place that supposedly had the best sangria around.

About two hours before they were to leave, Elizabeth got a call from Sam. She was apologizing, but Danny had some kind of stomach virus and they would have to cancel. Disappointed, Elizabeth told her she understood. So, she went to Paul to break the news, but his answer surprised her.

“Lets go anyway, just you and me.”

Dinner was relaxed and comfortable, made easy by the great food and even better sangria. Their conversations had slid back and forth between the kids and things going on with work. There was going to be a lot going on during the coming school year, with both Jake and Mallory busy with sports. Paul had a trip coming up to California, and they discussed the schedule impacts of this, and briefly, insincerely talked about how nice it would be if Elizabeth went with him.

As the plates were cleared and they sat there sipping their drinks, Paul leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms forward, his shirt cuffs drawing back form his wrists as he did. Elizabeth nearly gasped out loud when she saw, sitting on his left wrist a very familiar looking dark silver beaded bracelet. Paul tilted his head, catching her looking at it, and suddenly the tension and fear of their strange encounter in the kitchen came flooding back into her mind. She felt choked, like the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Paul kept her eyes fixed on hers and wrapped his hand around his glass of Sangria. He took a long and savored drink form his glass, then set it back on the table looking thoroughly satisfied.

“Well maybe its time we talked about a few things,” he said flatly with no malice or stress in his voice. Just cool and easy, his throat wet with alcohol.

He took another sip of his Sangria, then set the glass back down on the table, and ran the fingers of his right hand along the beads of the bracelet.

Elizabeth was horrified, stunned by the sudden-instant turn of events. She felt like a careless insect that had wandered directly into the center of a spider’s web, caught in a trap that she had never even seen. She felt flush with anger and panic, and nearly blurted something out before Paul spoke again.

“I have been thinking that maybe its time I shared something with you.” His words made the hair on her neck stand fully up and she braced herself for what had to be a life-altering moment.

“RJ showed me something a few years ago, something he had been working on up until the day he passed away. It’s a cabin, but its more than that. And I think now is a good time for you to come and see what he built.”

She was so stunned, so turned upside down that she felt like she might slip out of her chair onto the floor. In her discombobulated state, all she could manage was a few broken words.

“What...a cabin....why?...”

For the next half hour, Elizabeth sat there and listened as Paul explained everything he knew about the cabin. She had so many questions, and he answered them as best he could. He explained the trap door and the bunker, the vehicles in the barn. He told her about the food stores, the weapons stash, and the endless supplies. He did the best he could to describe the security gate in detail and give her a rough idea of where it was located- but Elizabeth’s sense of directions was notoriously bad.

And as unexpected as the entire conversation had been, she just couldn’t shake that deep dark feeling of being caught in an ambush of some kind. The idea of Bobby’s survival bungalow in the woods was fascinating, but Paul had put her in such a state of alarm that everything he said-every gesture, every smile- seemed loaded with hidden menace and cruel intent.

As they were finishing the final drink, with the bill sitting on the table, she felt herself mad brave by the alcohol and almost asked him where he got the bracelet. But, somehow, Paul was locked into her and sensed the courage rising up in her, seemed to feel that she knew she had been trapped and played for a fool, and now she might be bold with her back against the wall. He defused her plan with a simple comment.

“You know Elizabeth, I do think RJ was right about one thing. All that matters these days is family. The stuff that has gone on in the past, or happened between people that doesn’t matter. It just matters how we take care of each other from here on out.”

She found herself agreeing with him, nodding along and saying that she felt the same way. But the whole time, her head was swimming with ideas about what Paul was really up to, what was hiding. She thought about Jason. What had happened to him? Why had he just fallen off of the face of the earth? How much did Paul know about their budding – but aborted- romance? And if that was Jason’s bracelet Paul was wearing, then what in the hell was going on?

But with all of the questions swirling in her mind, she remained on auto-pilot , never really revealing a fraction of the panic and confusion that she felt. She just smiled and talked about wanting to put focus on these last few years with Jake and Mal still central in their home.

They paid the bill and drove home, laughing a little bit in the car about people they used to know and the crazy things they used to do. Strangely, she felt a weird sense of comfort shifting in. Like the relief that comes from finally facing something that you have worried about and agonized over. To her it felt like an entire conversation had happened, like she had admitted her feelings and he desire for betrayal. And all had been accepted, and then put squarely into the past. Yet nothing had been discussed and, if anything, the dance around the subject had been somewhat terrifying.

Still she couldn’t help but feel like a wave of normality had washed over them. There was an easiness that was old and familiar, an almost-forgotten warmth between them in the front seat. Behind his sunglasses, Paul’s eyes flickered while they joked and smiled along during their strange little car ride. The Sun was dropping now all the way down to the horizon, late and lazy like it always did in the earliest days of autumn. For the first time in a long time, she noticed how handsome Paul was, how he had aged with grace and how the exercise had re-drawn the cheekbones and athletic angles of his face.

And, as Paul felt her eyes on him, his mind was somewhere else entirely. Feeling the trophy bracelet jingling there lightly on his wrist as he gripped the wheel, his thoughts drifted back to the night he acquired it and all that had happened to bring them to this moment, together, but never more apart in their whole lives together.