The Newcomer

“I didn’t want to say it over the phone! I wanted to be decent about it!”

And he hung up on her.

It was just as well. She was going to have to kill him, anyway. Downy was eighteen. His behavior was hardly odd for a boy his age. Still...

Gina looked at her mother. “I would not have let her drive all the way to Corvallis alone. Driving home alone. At night.”

“I know. But she’ll be okay,” Carrie said. “She’s a bright girl. There’s no rain tonight. She knows the way as well as you do.”

“God, I hope she’s okay,” Gina said.

There was a knock at the door. “Mac!”

Carrie got up from the table and let him in. “Hey, Mac,” she said.

“Hey, Carrie. What do we know?”

Carrie just inclined her head toward Gina.

“She drove to Corvallis to talk to Downy, who, I gather, dumped her and sent her back home.”

Mac lowered his gaze and shook his head.

“She’ll be home in a couple of hours,” Gina said. “But what if she’s so upset she’s not safe and something happens?”

Mac walked into the kitchen, slipped a strong arm around Gina’s waist and pulled her against him just briefly. He put a finger under her chin and looked into her eyes. “Never a good idea to drive when upset, but try to be realistic—if teenagers who just had a breakup had accidents, the accident rate would be too shocking to imagine. The road is good, the weather is good, she’ll get here. And she’ll need some comforting, I imagine.” He lifted one of her hands, which was trembling. “I think the wine is a good idea. Just calm down and be ready to be wise and understanding.”

“What if I have to go get her or something?”

“I’ll do it. Or Carrie will. Gina, honey, stuff like this happens. It’s not deadly.”

“It sure feels that way,” she said in a small voice.

* * *

Gina and her mom sat at the kitchen table together talking quietly, waiting for Ashley to arrive, while Gina sipped on a glass of wine. They were two women who knew how deeply a girl of sixteen would feel the trauma of a breakup. Leaving the two of them to talk, Mac stepped away, into the living room, where he used his phone.

When Ashley started dating Downy, Gina was brutally honest with her about the possible consequences of too much love too fast. She tried to discourage the dating, but there was little she could do—they saw each other at school every day and it was a match made in heaven. Gina had worried about what would happen when Downy moved on to college, leaving Ashley—who was two years younger—behind. But they had managed to make it work. Downy was back in Thunder Point most weekends, especially during football season and for holidays, and they talked and texted every day, many times a day.

And then, in the peak of spring, with love all around, suddenly and without warning, Ashley said, “Something is wrong. Downy sends me right to voice mail and he doesn’t call me back. Mom, something is wrong.”

Gina had said, “He’s probably overwhelmed. He’s got baseball and, academically, he sometimes struggles. Try to be patient.” Downy was a jock, but not a strong student, which presented problems for some college athletes.

“It never happened like this before,” Ashley wailed. “He’s said about ten words to me in a week. He’s busy, he says. He’s studying, he says. He doesn’t call me back because he doesn’t have time. He doesn’t answer my texts. He always texted more than me—right during class. I think he might be with someone new.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Of course! He said no! But he’s lying. I can tell he’s lying. And he’s never lied to me before!”

“Ash, he’s only eighteen. You’re only sixteen. Let’s try not to go crazy here. Maybe this is a little adjustment of some—”

“He said he loved me! What am I going to do?”

The poor darling, Gina thought. Shattered and helpless. She took another sip of wine. Glancing at her glass she said to her mom, “Good suggestion.”

“It’s always more dramatic when it’s your daughter. It cuts deeper,” Carrie said.

“I don’t want her to ever hurt.” Gina whispered.

“I know,” Carrie said. “Believe me, I know.”

Gina hadn’t taken Ashley’s pout over Downy too seriously. After all, he was the scholarship kid with the atomic arm, gone to State to play ball and it was spring—baseball was the game of the day and Downy, a freshman, was starting pitcher. He was busy with practices and games, maybe too busy now to text and call Ashley all day. But Gina’s attention was definitely snagged by Ashley’s flight to Corvallis and Downy’s explanation that, stated simply, he was done with her. There was not a woman on the planet who didn’t know how much getting dumped could hurt. And as for mothers? It hurt more when your little girl suffered than when you suffered yourself.

Mac came into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down with Gina and Carrie. “I called my aunt Lou and told her what was going on and that I’d be staying with you until we knew a little more. Lou will manage the family while I’m here. And I talked to Eve. She knew Ashley was all sideways about Downy and she was worried about her, but she didn’t know she’d driven to Corvallis. I find that strange—they usually know everything the other is doing. Eve thought Ashley just skipped out on practice. So I’ll stay with you until she’s home.”

“You need to get home to your own family, Mac,” Gina said, but inside she thought if he left her now, she’d collapse. “It’s just a broken heart.”

“There’s no such thing as just a broken heart,” he said.

And he should know, Gina thought. His young wife left him with three little kids when he was twenty-six years old and even though Gina hadn’t known him then, she knew him now and knew he hadn’t been with a woman in the ten years since. Until Gina. They were two single parents who had waited a long time to find each other.

Mac muttered something about how, given a choice, he would never want to go back to those youthful days—those young years are so serious and painful. Gina said even more painful was when your kids hurt.

“I’ll never forget when Ash wasn’t invited to the very first boy-girl party ever because the mother of the little girl throwing the party didn’t approve of me, a never-married single mother. Ash didn’t understand that, but she was devastated by being excluded and I had at least six months of guilt and pain.”

“When Eve was six,” Mac said, “after Cee Jay left us, she didn’t want to go to school. She was afraid her mother might come home during the day and Eve didn’t want to miss her.”

“When I was a young mother,” Gina said, “there were very few other young mothers with small children who were friendly toward me. Certainly none who were sixteen...”

“Small towns are brutal,” Mac said. “The best thing about Thunder Point was leaving Coquille, where I made all my mistakes. Of course, they followed me—my kids were soon known as the kids of the deputy and the woman who abandoned them.”

“Is there any way to keep them from paying for our mistakes?”

“Yeah. They’ll eventually make enough of their own to take the heat off. Meanwhile, we just have to stay strong and know we are doing the best we can.”

Carrie got up from the table and started rummaging around in the refrigerator. Being the owner of a deli and catering service, she always had special meals on hand. She did a little slicing and scooping, microwaved a couple of plates—tri-tip, red potatoes, Broccolini spears, a little dark au jus. She made a large helping for Mac, smaller ones for Gina and herself and the three of them ate, though not with big appetites. Everyone at the small kitchen table had personal experience with this kind of heartache. Then Carrie cleaned up and put a pan of her healing chicken soup on the stove. “She might not want anything to eat, but if she does at least it’ll be something soothing,” Carrie said.

It was eight-thirty when they heard the car. Everyone stood expectantly, fearful of what they would see walking in the door. And then Ashley came into the kitchen through the back door.

She was messy; there was evidence of crying in her puffy eyes and pink cheeks. Her beautiful red hair was flat and slack and her clothes wrinkled, but otherwise she looked normal. Except for the expression on her face, which was one of pure agony.

“I had to do it, I had to go to State,” she said. “I sent him two hundred texts and voice mails that he ignored, so I went to face him. I’m sorry I lied and took your Jeep. I promise, I’ll never do it again.”

Carrie took a step toward her. “I made you some soup, honey.”

“Thanks, Gram, but I don’t want any....”

“I’ll be going. Now that you’re home safe,” Mac said.