Mulberry Park. Judy Duarte
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expecting him to move on and go about his way, but he continued to study her. “You’re watching me as if you haven’t been entertained in years. Don’t you have a television at home?”
“Nope. Got tired of all the dang reruns.” A teasing glimmer lit his eyes, and humor tugged at his lips. He nodded toward the case he carried. “I don’t suppose you play chess.”
“Afraid not. I never could figure out how to balance the game board in a tree.”
“Too bad.” His grin broadened to an outright smile. “If you ever get it figured out, just give me a holler. My name’s Walter.”
“Mine’s Claire. And I’ll do that.”
He nodded, then turned toward the parking lot, heading for the red pickup with the American flag decal displayed on the rear window. She’d seen it here before. It had a bumper sticker that claimed he was one of The Chosin Few.
A Korean War veteran, she suspected. A man who’d proudly fought at the Chosin Reservoir.
She tried to smooth the letter, then carefully tucked it into the waistband of her shorts.
As the pickup roared to life, she lowered herself to the ground. Her legs were still a bit rubbery from her run, and her foot slipped, causing her ankle to twist slightly and her knee to scrape against the bark.
“Ouch.” She regained her footing, but grumbled again at the stupidity that had put her in this position.
The old man had called her crazy, and she had to agree. All she needed was a broken neck. Or to get laid up and be unable to work. Or worse. God forbid she’d be unable to run anymore. The rigorous daily jog was what kept her sane and her life on track.
Once safely out of the tree and seated on the bench, she pulled out the letter, reread it, and considered her response. Then she took the marker Analisa had again provided, printing this time so the girl could read the words all by herself—without Trever’s help. When she finished, she dropped the marker back into the envelope, folded the wrinkled paper, tucked it inside, and placed it on the lowest branch.
As Claire drove toward the small condominium complex just off Chinaberry Lane and the three-bedroom place she called home, she again recalled the old man’s words: Crazy fool woman.
For a moment, she’d wondered if maybe he’d been right. After all, how many grown women climbed into trees and responded to letters addressed to God?
There was a time when Claire might have called Vickie, the woman who’d once been her best friend.
“Hey, Vick,” she would have said. “You’ll never guess what I found today. And what I did.”
But Claire had lost her connection to Vickie when Erik had died. Not that Vickie had been the one to pull away; she hadn’t. It’s just that one of the many things they’d had in common had been children the same age, and Claire hadn’t been able to face the constant reminder of what Vickie still had.
And what Claire had lost.
Chapter 3
Walter turned down First Street and headed for the house he’d lived in for the past twenty years. He didn’t often chat with people he’d met in the park. Why should he? Folks just seemed to think he was either feeble-minded or a dirty old man, so he pretty much kept to himself.
But that shapely brunette jogger reminded him a lot of Margie when she’d been a sweet young thing and full of spunk.
He’d never said a word to the jogger before today, though. Women like her didn’t want to be bothered by a worn-out old man like him. But when he’d walked out of the restroom and spotted her climbing a tree, he hadn’t been able to resist.
It had been ages since he’d kidded a pretty little gal who knew how to tease back.
Margie, with her quick wit and playful side, had been like that. She’d had a way of making him smile and laugh at the simplest things. And when she’d died in the prime of life, Walter had been devastated.
He’d tried to shake the grief that had dang near killed him by drowning himself in the bottle, but it had been only a temporary fix.
How long had it been? How long had he been without the woman who’d shared his life and loved him in spite of his flaws and the demons that plagued him in the middle of the night?
Nearly twenty years, but it seemed like forever.
He supposed a man got used to fixing his own dinner, mending his own shirts. But living alone—or rather, sleeping alone—was tough.
And he wasn’t talking about sex. It was more than that. It was the intimacy they shared, the conversations they had while lying close, holding each other.
They said time healed grief, but he wasn’t so sure about that. After seeing the attractive young woman perched up in a tree, having a chance to talk and hear her voice, to catch a glimpse of her smile…
For a moment, he’d let the years roll back and had pretended she was his sweet wife.
And where had that gotten him?
Now he had an overwhelming urge to toast Margie’s memory, to tell her again how sorry he was for the times he’d fallen off the wagon and let her down.
Maybe he ought to talk to someone. But who? Blake or Tyler? The kids who hadn’t spoken to him in over ten years and had told him to lose their phone numbers? Or Carl Witherspoon, his best friend and mentor who’d died six months ago?
Walter looked up in the dusk-tinged sky and shook his head. “You left me in one heck of a fix.”
He wasn’t exactly sure who he was talking to, but as usual, there was no response.
It seemed that even the Ol’ Boy Upstairs had forgotten him. Maybe He’d deemed a reformed hellion unworthy of entering the Pearly Gates. Not that Walter was looking forward to death. He suspected that all those years he’d been stubborn and had refused to accompany Margie and her sons to church had finally caught up with him. And that when he finally passed on, his tombstone would read: All Dressed Up And No Place To Go.
But heck, here he was on the right side of the cemetery lawn, and he still had no place to go, nothing to do.
Up ahead, flanked by an empty, weed-infested lot and a vacant building that had once housed a feed store, Paddy’s Pub waited to pour a flood of scotch on a man willing to drown.
Happy Hour would be in full swing, which was tempting, but three years ago, Walter had made a promise to take one day at a time. A promise he hoped to keep.
Carl had more or less become Walter’s AA sponsor, although Walter had refused to attend any meetings. “You’ll have to get me rip-roaring drunk first, Carl. Crowds make me skittish when I’m sober.”
The two men had become friends anyway and met almost every afternoon at Mulberry Park to play chess. Now, even though Carl was gone, Walter still showed up and set up the board on a picnic table.
Hanging out at the park alone was a stupid thing to do, he supposed, but it was a heck of a lot better than reverting back to the old ways, going back to the time when the pub had been his home away from home.
When he felt weak, he willed himself to think again of the tragedy that had struck about three years ago and had been so instrumental in causing him to take that first step into sobriety when nothing else had.
There but by the grace of God go I, the old saying went. And it was true.
It could have just as easily been Walter behind the wheel that afternoon, his reactions dulled by Jack Daniels’, Walter who’d hit that little boy riding his bicycle along the street, Walter who’d have to live out the rest of his days behind bars.
At least he’d been spared that.
Still, there was enough other remorse to wallow in, other guilt to trudge through.
He