Willowleaf Lane

“Shopping is one of the few things I can manage. I can still push a cart with one hand.”

She frowned. “Then why don’t you have anything in the refrigerator except beer and what I brought you from Pop?”

“I just haven’t had time. I’ll get to it.”

“I don’t mind,” she offered again. At least if she went shopping, she could be certain he had a few more fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator and a little less alcohol. “I know you don’t like going into town.”

He made a face. “I don’t like going to the doctor as well, but sometimes you can’t avoid it.”

Except he didn’t do that as often as he should, either. She again clamped down on the words, knowing he wouldn’t welcome them.

Since he had been back in Hope’s Crossing, she had tried nagging, cajoling and bribery to convince him he had to take better care of himself. What was the point of going through the months of medical treatment that had saved his life after his injury and the resulting infections if he was only going to waste it sitting around here?

Nothing appeared to work. If anything, he was only digging in his heels harder.

She had never told him that his near brush with death had been her own impetus for change.

She could remember sitting by his bedside right after he had been flown stateside from Germany. At the time, she had weighed more than two hundred pounds and had felt nauseous and exhausted from the long day of travel and the poor food choices she had made on the airplane.

He had been in and out of consciousness and not really aware of her and Pop sitting there beside him, both of them scared to their bones that he wouldn’t make it through the evening.

It had been a long night of prayer and reflection. As she watched her brother cling to life, she had thought about the years of diets she had tried, the weight she would lose and then regain, the frustrating, demoralizing cycle she couldn’t seem to shake.

She had just about accepted she would spend the rest of her life in that state. But now her brother had nearly died in service for his country. He was fighting to survive, barely hanging on, each moment a hard, painful slog.

Meanwhile, she was slowly killing herself, fighting high blood pressure and prediabetes at not even thirty years old. She had been alone and fat and miserable.

It had been an epiphany, a realization that she couldn’t keep going on that cycle. She had made a vow that this time would be different. She owed it to herself and she owed it to her brother to show a tiny measure of the same courage and strength he had.

The irony was, right now, she felt better about herself than since she was a young girl. She looked better, she was stronger, she was certainly healthier and no longer needed any medication. Through a healthy diet and an intense exercise regimen, she had lost almost half her body weight.

Dylan, meanwhile, had won the fight to stay alive, at least physically, but the emotional toll his injuries and new limitations had taken on a once-tough, vibrant soldier had been brutal.

He was broody and angry and she knew she couldn’t fix this for him, no matter how many grocery bags or plates of food she brought over.

“Want me to heat something up for you?” she asked him now.

“No. I’ll grab something later.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

If their mom were still alive, Margie Caine would drag Dylan down this mountainside by his ear and throw him back into life, whether he liked it or not.

“No hot date tonight?” he asked.

She gave a short laugh, fighting down the fierce wish she could channel a little of their mother right now. “You know me. I’ve got them lined up around the block.”

Despite all the changes, dating was one area she still hadn’t really ventured out into. She had never learned to flirt when she was a teenager.

“You ought to,” he said gruffly. “Have them lined up around the block, I mean. You just need to put a little effort into it.”

If she had been able to find it at all amusing, she would have laughed at the irony of her brother giving her advice on dating when he had become a virtual hermit.

“Thanks for the vote of encouragement. Since I’m up here, I was thinking about grabbing fifteen minutes of cardio before I go home. Do you and Tucker want to come for a walk with me?”

The dog lifted his head, perking up as much as his droopy ears and morose eyes allowed. He gave his musical wooo-wooo bark and clambered to his feet, obviously understanding the magic w-word.

Dylan, not so much. He curled that hand on his thigh again, clear reluctance shifting across his features.

“What about my dinner?”

“You can eat it later.” She ignored the growl of her stomach. A few endorphins would take care of that until she could get home to her chicken breast. “Come on. We won’t go far.”

After another moment of hesitation, Dylan slowly rose to his feet and she felt a surge of elation that was probably completely unwarranted for such a small victory. She would take it anyway. A little fresh air and movement could only be good for her brother, though she knew he puttered around the barn and attached wood shop a little.

She walked off the porch, grateful for the old tennis shoes she kept in the back of her SUV for spontaneous exercise opportunities like this one.

She and Tucker had taken a few walks up here before, usually without Dylan, so she had a passing familiarity with some of the trails that crisscrossed the mountainside among the pines and aspens. She headed toward one she liked that wended beside a small pretty creek and, after a pause, Dylan followed her.

Tucker ambled ahead, his hound dog nose sniffing the ground for the scent of any interesting creature he might encounter.

They walked in silence for a time, accompanied by the annoyed chattering of squirrels high above them and the occasional birdsong.

She breathed in deeply of the high, clear mountain air, sweet with wildflowers and pine, feeling some of the tension of her day begin to seep away. “I can’t tell you how badly I needed this today,” she said.

“Glad I could help.” Dylan’s dry tone surprised a laugh out of her.

“It’s beautiful up here, I’ll give you that. Remote but beautiful.”

“Nothing wrong with a little seclusion,” he answered.

“I suppose.”

Dylan had always been so social, always in the middle of the action. She missed that about him.

Because of the time, only an hour or so from true sunset, and because neither of them had eaten, she decided not to push too hard. After about ten minutes, they reached a small glacial lake that blazed with reflected color from the changing sky.

“Let me take your picture,” she ordered, pulling out her camera phone.

He frowned but stood obediently enough, his hand resting on the dog’s head.

“Perfect,” she said, snapping several before he could move away. She didn’t bother asking him to smile.

Behind him, the surface of the lake popped and hissed like Pop’s cheese sauce bubbling in the pan. “Looks like the fish are jumping. Do you ever come up here and cast a line?”

She regretted the words as soon as she said them, when he shrugged his left shoulder, rippling the empty sleeve.