Bridges Burned
Ssj_hotaru
The thing about country roads, Yamato mused as he maneuvered the sleek black Lincoln down the winding two lane blacktop, is that, in one way or another, they all look the same.
He'd just come up from Bakersfield, having been there on business and deciding to drive the extra miles to visit the town where he'd grown up; and maybe to take a special girl up on a promise she'd made him the day he'd left.
Ah Mimi. He smiled at some of the memories, how he'd ever been stupid enough to leave her he didn't know, even his heart had been smart enough to stay behind. In the five years he'd been gone, he'd never managed to forget her. Oh, there'd been other women, he was a healthy man, and certainly handsome enough, but there had been none who'd even touched her memory, let alone his heart.
He'd sworn the day he'd drove his rusty old mustang convertible down The Canyon for the last time that he'd come back for her when he'd made something of himself, then maybe she'd leave with him.
Bitterness rose in his throat, but he swallowed it back down. She'd been young and scared; he couldn't hold that against her.
He came around a turn where the Kern River swung back to run parallel to the road, snow from the cottonwood trees drifted in the breeze as he slowed the car, allowing memories to carry him away.
One memory in particular stood out in his mind like the granite thrusting stubbornly forth from the middle of those murky rapids.
They'd been young, her barely thirteen, him on the brink of fourteen. Two young teens sitting on a rock and racing sticks, urging them on with shouts of encouragement as the current pulled them away.
"Yamato, whatcha gonna do? When you grow up I mean."
"Travel."
"Why? Don'tcha like it here?"
"This valley ain't goin' nowhere."
The conversation came to him through time and he could see them both, a young girl gazing sadly across the water, a boy tossing a small stone away from him, searching for a way to expel his feelings of suffocation.
He stepped on the gas, wanting to escape that memory before he was reminded too much of why he'd left. Small towns, God! He'd rather have a nice big city any day.
As he continued on, listening to the low growl of the engine with satisfaction, he smiled lovingly. If nothing else, the car alone had been worth leaving this hellhole for.
He'd found her by accident when his mustang had broken down. He'd loved that car too, in the twisted way one does when they also hate it. It had been the nastiest color orange, but he'd always felt a sense of pride when he was behind the wheel.
Except for that day the only thing he felt was the need to see it explode at the bottom of a cliff. He'd walked six miles until he came to an old yellow farmhouse. The woman who'd lived there didn't have a phone, and if she had, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because there wasn't a towing service around, or a mechanic.
They'd chained his car up to her Chevy truck and he'd spent a week working on it, along with helping her around as a kind of rent.
He'd stumbled onto his baby while looking for the lawnmower in the barn. She'd been covered by a blue tarpaulin that was crumbling without a single hesitation he'd ripped it away to reveal a car that looked in sad shape. The vinyl on the roof was rotted, the paint faded, the steel rusting. He'd popped the hood to read her stats, then blinked and read them again. Something wasn't right, as the average teenage boy, he knew all there was to know about cars, and he knew for sure that Continental and Mark never came together on a Lincoln. But there it was, one below the other.
He checked the interior, the leather could use some doctoring, but otherwise everything seemed hunky-dory. And there it was again. Continental on the steering wheel, Mark IV on the glove compartment.
He'd asked the woman about it later. "That old thing," she'd said "I haven't thought about it in years." But she answered his questions promptly: 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, limited addition, classic luxury car.
He'd left a month later driving a car he'd come to affectionately refer to as The Bitch.
Now, fully restored, black as midnight, and long as a hearse, he felt more connected to her than he had to any woman since he'd left the Kern River Valley. He was more at home in her burgundy leather interior than in any residence he'd ever live in, and he believed with all his heart that he'd die before he'd give her up.
A deer bounding across the road ahead reminded him that anything could jump out of the surrounding forest and he was forced to slow. Having been so rudely ripped from his mental declaration of love, he looked around and was stuck by immediate recognition.
That dirt road over to his right, hidden almost entirely by undergrowth, led to a kind of Eden where he and Mimi had spent many of their after school hours stretched out on a foam cot he'd kept in his trunk. Oh, the memories!
He remembered a time when he was eighteen, she just a year younger and grounded for life. Hot nights in southern California can last forever, especially if they're spent alone. After three days of separation, he'd pulled into her drive a little passed midnight and flashed his lights at her bedroom window.
Even now he can vividly recall her scurrying down the rose trellis in nothing but her skimpy black nightgown, gripping the roll bar as she hurled herself into the passenger seat, just as her father came onto the porch waving his unloaded .22.
A police car had been on them like white on rice almost as soon as they left the neighborhood. After several miles of close pursuit, he'd pushed the pedal to the floor, pulled off onto their road, and cut the engine. They both held their breath until the siren and lights had passed, then they'd laughed and kissed and touched… and barely made it to their spot.
After a few minutes more of driving, he entered the town of Kernville, a place that brought back even more memories, not all of them good. Small communities were notorious for their prejudice of the bad boys, and this one was no exception.
There. In Circle Park right next to the big, fenced in tree stump. That was where he'd left her. He recalled that day with the clarity of a man who'd tortured himself by watching it more often, maybe, than was healthy.
The trunk of his car had been full of everything he imagined he couldn't live without, the backseat empty and waiting for the bags Mimi hadn't packed. He remembered being angry and impatient when he'd seen her sitting on her porch step, not yet close to ready.
He'd dreamed and planned for this day, they'd talked about it until it had become like an obsession. Freedom was within his grasp. That long, open road full of possibilities stretched out before him, and she wasn't even started!
But he'd turned cold when she walked towards him, agony written all over her face, and asked if they could talk over lunch. He'd bought them both a sandwich from one of the many cafés in town and they'd sat on the metal bench in front of that stump, neither having the stomach to eat.
She'd explained slowly, as if that would make it easier to comprehend, and he'd felt a piece of himself die with each word.
She couldn't leave, this was her home: roots, tradition, family, history. Her great grandfather was buried in the Cottage Grove Cemetery, as was her grandfather, and there were spots saved for her and her parents, even her own children. She didn't want to go anywhere else, live anywhere else, or even think of anywhere else, and would he please understand.
He couldn't though; he'd begged and pleaded, telling her he'd do anything to be with her. "Then stay." She'd said, looking him straight in the eye. Anything? Anything but that. No, he'd left alone that day after a sweet, lingering kiss that left the taste of tears on his tongue, his or hers he couldn't say, maybe both.
"Come back Yamato, I'll be waiting." She'd whispered and he'd driven away, hating this valley more than ever because it had denied him the one person he loved.
But he was here again, turning down the same old road, noticing nervously that the only thing that had really changed was the street itself. He guessed that someone had complained enough to finally get the holes and cracks filled in.
He slowed as he entered her neighborhood, thinking of all the times he'd called over the years, so afraid she'd moved and he'd never be able to find her, just to hear her voice for those few seconds before she hung up. He wondered if she ever figured that silent caller was him. Once it had been a strange man's voice and he'd slammed his phone down immediately, so mad he could chew nails. But his sense of fairness had exerted itself and he realized that he hadn't exactly been celibate so what right did he have to be angry with her?
That had only been a few nights ago, and now he was here to try and right all the wrongs he's made. If she still didn't want to leave, maybe now that he was a secure adult and a respectable defense attorney he could learn to live here, maybe even be excepted into the groups Mimi moved in. He was pulling up in front of her house when a ball bounced out before him, followed by a young child. He hit the brakes and turned the wheel sharply, rocking up on two tires before settling back to a complete stop.
My car!
The kid!
Both thoughts ricocheted simultaneously through his mind.
He stared in horror at the little girl standing in the street clutching her ball as though it were a lifeline (much the way he was with the steering wheel) and looking at him with big blue eyes full of fear.
Every gore movie he'd ever seen rushed behind his eyes, supplying him with detailed visions of what might have happened. He couldn't have moved if a bombe had exploded beneath him. He didn't know who was more relieved when the woman came running out into the street.
His eyes focused on woman and he'd have recognized her anywhere, the long, flowing hair he remembered was now shoulder length and she was wearing slacks with a pearl button blouse, but she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
She scooped the little girl up and hugged her tightly, her face so full of love and terror that it twisted his heart. Then he'd noticed their hair was the same color. Her daughter? He felt his world quake and scrambled for something to steady it.
But then a dark haired man he hadn't even been aware of enfolded them both in his embrace, comforting them. He felt as though his soul was being flayed, but the masochist in him couldn't turn away. After a few moments, Mimi relinquished the child who clung to the man like a monkey and begged rather sweetly for some ice cream, not even fazed by her brush with death.
He watched Mimi as she watched the two of them, such joy on her face that everything inside him shattered. She hadn't waited for him after all. He'd come back, but she hadn't waited.
She started when she noticed him, as if she hadn't known he was there. Her eyes suspicious, not knowing who he was, and that hurt, more even than her being married.
Before she could say or do anything, he lowered the window a crack, just enough so that she could hear him.
"Watch her, the next car might not stop." Then he drove the car all the way onto the neighbor's lawn to turn around and head back the way he'd come, wishing he'd never driven down The Canyon.
Mimi watched the long black car speed away, the strangest sense of déjà vu washing over her.
Reluctantly almost, she took her eyes from the vehicle and turned back to her husband, curving an arm around his waist, her small hand resting comfortably on the indent of his spine. She gazed lovingly into her daughter's blue eyes; eyes so like those of her real father.
Sometimes, like now, when she was in an odd mood, she wondered if he ever even thought about the small town girl who hadn't been strong enough to hold him.
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Author's Note: I got the idea for this story while listening to the song below, while it doesn't match up, indeed, even goes in the opposite direction, I thought I'd put it here just because if I hadn't heard it, I probably wouldn't have thought of this story. Thank you for reading. Please review! J
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That Ol' Wind
Garth Brooks
She dropped her boy at school on time
One less worry on her mind
Now it's off to work and on the radio
Come's an old familiar song
And then the D.J.'s voice comes on
And say's he's back in town tonight for one last show
Her eyes well up with tears
God could it be it's been ten years
Since that Autumn night outside the county fair
When two strangers shared a night
And in the darkness found a light
That to this day is still alive and burning there
He asked her twice to come along
They said good-bye at the break of dawn
'Cause you can't hold back the wind
If it's meant to be again
Then someday he'll find his way back to her arms
The marquee misspelled his name
And not too many people came
But that didn't matter to them
They laughed and loved all through the night
And as they faced the morning light
They found themselves standing there again
And he asked her twice to come along
They said good-bye at the break of dawn
As his bus left out she cried
With him standing by her side
That ol' wind had once again found its way home
Someday he'll tell her about the money he hid
And someday she'll tell him that the boy is his kid
But for right now they're both in love
The only thing they're thinkin' of
Is that they're finally where their hearts have always been