Duly disclaimed.

Martha and Kitty betaed. I have no explanation for how I got so lucky. Please send feedback to dasha_mte@yahoo.com.

This story is a sequel to: I Still Believe

Thanksgiving, 2006

According to the directions and map I printed out from the computer, it takes about seven hours to get from Portland, Oregon to Ithaca, Washington. Somehow, although I haven't gotten up before ten o'clock in forever and I worked until eleven-thirty last night, I manage to get out the door by eight a.m. I'm on schedule.

I've never driven so far by myself, but I'm not flustered. I pack the car carefully, make sure I have the cooler, the map, the spare keys, the phone. I'm ready.

Just as I'm about to get in, I see a familiar green car turn into the parking lot, and I close the door to wait. Martin's hair is sticking up and his tee-shirt is half untucked, but he grins and hurries to me and holds me in his arms. "All set?"

I nod, suddenly unable to speak.

"I can still come with you, if you need me to?"

I shake my head. "I need to do this myself this time." I sound more serious than I meant to.

He studies me for a moment and then smiles. "Gonna break it to your cops gently, Stacey, so they don't haul me off and lock me up?"

I smile back. "Yeah. Got it in one."

"I'll be at Mom's. You have the number. If you need me, call any time."

"I will."

"I'll look in on Velcro on Friday."

"Thanks. Check his water. He likes fresh water."

"He'll be fine." He takes a deep breath. "If you don't need me, call anyway."

"I promise." I hug him hard. "I'll miss you."

I kiss him and say goodbye and drive away. He's hurt that I won't take him with me. Wondering, I think, if I'm worried about whether they'll accept him. Like I think he isn't quite good enough and I have to 'warn' them. That isn't it, not at all. Martin is none of the things Jim taught me to avoid and everything Blair told me to hold out for. They'll love him. He's patient and polite. He doesn't lose his temper; he does use his head. When I say 'no' he doesn't push ... although, to be fair, I should mention that I've only said no once and that was only because I really was late for work. Not that that is something I can tell the guys. Or at least, not Jim.

But I can tell them everything else, because Martin is just the sort of guy they've been hoping for for years.

It's them I'm worried about. And what I'm going to find when I get there. That's why I have to go alone. If things are bad, they won't need yet another guest.

If things are bad, I couldn't cope with that and Martin meeting them too.

I keep my mind on the traffic until I'm out of town. It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving -- lots of people on the road. After I turn onto the Columbia River Highway it gets quieter, and I fish around for the cd's, looking for some music to pass the time. The one on top of the stack turns out to be a collection of the most depressing acoustic folk music imaginable. Jim gave it to me for Christmas years ago. I turn it up and tell myself that everything is fine, that there is no reason to think anything awful is happening. In fact, according to Blair's last letter, everything is going wonderfully:

---Stace,

No, of course it's no trouble. Everything is fine. We've been settled for months. You have to see this place; the back yard goes on forever. Jim is over his cold and eager to see you. Jim has been searching for the perfect turkey all month, and we've already bought the ingredients for the tart.

It's a long way to drive alone, though. Are you sure you don't want one of us to come get you?

Blair---

See? 'Everything is fine.' I'd believe it, except all the letters I got last year said things were fine then, too. And they weren't. Things weren't fine, and were, in fact, getting worse and worse all the time, and all they ever said was, 'it's nothing to worry about.'

They don't want me to worry.

As though I could avoid worrying when I already know that nothing is ever safe. I've learned two lessons in my life, and that was the first one: no one is safe. You can lose everything -- your whole life -- in a moment. All it takes is a heartbeat. You get into a car. You fall asleep. Any mundane, innocent thing. And with no warning, it's all gone: your invincible parents, your home, your friends, all the songs you knew on top forty radio, even your very own self is gone. There is nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can do will avoid it: not being careful. Not hiding. Not being smart. No matter what you do, at any moment, it can all be gone.

Which is hopelessly bleak. But not, because by the time I really began to understand the first lesson, I was already learning the second lesson: no matter how bad things are, even if they are worse than you ever guessed they could be, even if they keep on getting worse long after you think 'worse' is impossible ... miracles are still possible, too.

Still.

Even if you think things can never be good again.

Even if you are sure no one can save you.

Miracles are still possible, that's what Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg taught me. When I had no world and no place and no idea who I was ... Jim and Blair beat the unbeatable monsters who killed my parents. They made room in their lives for me, and let me be myself. They gave me back an entire world.

I was nervous the first time I went back for Thanksgiving. I'd had a few months to think about what a tremendous problem I'd been for them, to remember how patient Blair had been with me, even though I could barely hold a conversation most of the time ... how kind Jim had been even though I must have embarrassed him terribly. I had no idea who I was or how to act; I was twenty years old and afraid to go shopping by myself. The fact that they pitied me enough to take me for the holiday said a lot not only about how kind they were, but also about how deeply pathetic I was.

But Jim met me when I got off the plane, folded his arms and studied me over the heads of the people in between us. I could tell he knew everything, how uncertain and embarrassed and hopeful I was. How afraid I was that I wasn't really welcome. How badly I wanted to be. He stood there and looked right through me, and then he smiled, and I could see right through him. He was happy I'd come.

I began to shove through the crowd, trying to reach him. Jim hugged me quickly, then moved slightly back to stand for a second or two, holding still with his head bent over me ... firm, unhurried, pleased. I felt like I was home.

That Thanksgiving was great. The guys went all-out. In the morning we went downtown to see the Thanksgiving parade, standing in the cold and cheering and laughing. We came home to a huge meal -- a big turkey, and three kinds of vegetables, and mashed potatoes, and homemade bread. Blair had found a stuffing recipe that involved peaches, walnuts, sausage, and cranberries. Utterly fantastic. And two pies. And ice cream. In the afternoon we watched football, with Jim explaining the game to me and Blair making fun of it, until Jim finally dragged Blair off to the bathroom and threatened to give him a swirly. The next day Jim had to go in to work, but Blair took me to the harbor like a tourist and then we went shopping in Chinatown.

It was all perfect, every moment exciting and wonderful. That night I had crawled under the covers in Blair's bed and tried to cry as quietly as I could. I don't know how he knew, but after a few minutes Blair crept in and asked if I wanted to talk about it.

"It's silly."

"Believe me, I work with the police. You would really have to work at it to be sillier than them."

"I just ... I'm having such a good time, I'm feeling guilty."

He nodded solemnly. "Oh. Well, with good reason. They made having a good time illegal while you were asleep."

He said it so seriously that for a moment I almost believed him. Then I started laughing and I couldn't stop.

"It's just ... I never had such a good time on Thanksgiving with my ... parents. I mean they did it, the turkey and all. But just because it was what people did. They didn't get all ... they didn't enjoy it like this."

"And you feel guilty for liking something better with us then you did with them."

"Yeah."

"Because it's disloyal to admit that your parents weren't perfect at everything."

"What? No ... "

"And it is way wrong to think you can just love anybody who happens to love you. I mean, there is a number limit on how many people we can love."

I laughed, because that sort of was what I was thinking and it made no sense at all when he said it out loud.

The next year Blair met me at the airport. We went straight to a video store, where he started to load up on Disney movies. After nine, I said, "Hey, wait, stop. We won't have time for all this! Thanksgiving is a big football weekend."

Blair had smiled a little too brightly and said, "We're pretty footballed out at the moment. This is better."

"But what will Jim say?"

"It was his idea!" Which turned out to be true. Jim never said a word about football. We watched Disney movies all Thursday afternoon. On Friday, Jim went to work and Blair and I watched Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Pocahontas, and the Little Mermaid. We didn't expect Jim to be home in time for dinner. He was going to stop by and visit his father after work. But Jim was home by seven-fifteen. He didn't say anything about it when he came in, just got a bottle of water out of the fridge and sat down with us. Blair put in Snow White next ... and then got all weird, pointing out how they kept infantilizing the dwarves so nobody would think it odd that she was living with seven men and no chaperone. Then he started to talk about the social politics of dwarfism and stereotypes and social stigma. By the time he was talking about a guy named Stewart Hall, Jim was laughing so hard I thought he'd fall off the couch. "Has he been like this all day?"

"Like what?" I asked. "It's been great. You should have been here during Pocahontas."

"Oh, my God, you've corrupted her! She was normal when I left this morning, and now look! We can't send her back to Portland analyzing Disney movies!"

We watched the Jungle Book next. Blair and I cried. Jim fell asleep against Blair's shoulder.

So we had a wonderful holiday. Everything was fine. I emailed every few weeks. Jim sent me a phone card, and I called every month or so. Until summer, when I found several letters from Blair in my mailbox. The first said,

---Stacey,

I don't know what you may have heard, but don't worry. Jim and I are fine. Everything is under control. Remember, no matter what happens, we love you.

Blair---

This was a little ominous, but I didn't get to the computer lab every day during summerschool, and there were other letters in the queue. The next said,

---I know it looks pretty confusing, but it turned out the way I wanted it to. Honest. Everything is going to be ok.---

I had to think for several seconds to come up with a bad word strong enough to cover how I felt. What could be going on? I opened the next one hopefully, but it was the worst of all,

---S,

Jim is fine. We will probably be home tomorrow after 2:00 p.m. If you really need to talk to somebody, my mom will be at the loft all evening tonight.

B ---

Even that one was a day old, and it was already pretty late at night. Too late to call anyone, or do much of anything. The next morning I skipped class and went into town to the big central library which gets all the out-of-town papers.

Everything in Cascade was a mess. The articles about Jim being superman were just ... weird. Blair had lost his job and been kicked out of school. Jim had been shot. I read everything twice. It wasn't a surprise, really. After all, I already knew that disaster could strike out of nowhere and destroy everything. I went back to the dorm, locked myself in my room, and cried.

But when I called that night, everything seemed fine. Jim was home. Blair sounded calm. They seemed to want to pretend that nothing all that extreme had happened. They had never asked anything of me before, anything at all. So I gave them this. I didn't ask any questions. When Thanksgiving came around, my plane ticked showed up just like always. Blair met me at the plane. His hair was very short, but he seemed happy as always. We had one of those huge spiral hams instead of turkey (Blair said Jim just wouldn't stop whining, but it was the only pork either one of them were going to see for a month). On Friday, we all headed out to Jim's father's house. Which was nice. Sort of. Ok, boring. Jim's niece was too young to be much fun, but we did play chutes and ladders for a while. Most of the time I spent in the kitchen with Sally, Mr. Ellison's housekeeper. She had a fantastic collection of cookbooks, and when there was nothing I could help her with, she let me look through them.

Thanksgiving the next year was normal, but short. I had to leave early for a band competition, and missed the trip to Jim's dad's. About a week after I got back to Portland, though, Blair called me up and we had a long talk about Jim. About how everything in the newspaper had been true. About how Blair's police research had been a cover. About how Blair had lied at the press conference and what a huge secret Jim's gifts were. Not because there was anything wrong with Jim. But because keeping it a secret kept him safe. That last part I had figured out for myself.

The next year ... I was in sight of graduation at last. Filling out applications for serious cooking schools (and one college with a serious HRT program -- just, Blair said, so I would have options). I had a big announcement I wanted to make. Why not, it was a landmark year for me. And it was time. I chose Thanksgiving dinner as my big moment, and blurted out, "I've decided to start dating."

Jim nearly choked on his turkey. It was bad enough that Blair stood up and hovered over him, ready to administer first aid. When things had settled down again, Jim and I were both bright red, and I couldn't blame my blush on coughing.

"Um. Sweetheart. Don't you think you're rushing things a little?"

"Oh, come on. Physically I'm 24. Even if you only count years I've been, well, here, I'd still be about seventeen. That's when you're supposed to start dating, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah!" Blair said. "I think it's great."

"You, shut up," Jim snapped. "Stacey, sweetheart, it's not that I don't ... Your situation is kind of unique."

"I thought you'd be happy for me! Hell, I thought you'd just be relieved I wasn't after you!"

Which was the unkindest thing I'd ever said to Jim, and I was sorry for it even before he blanched and looked away. "Stacey, I never ... "

Blair rescued both of us, dropping a hand on my arm. "Hey. Don't mind him. He's just going all parental and over protective. He has a problem with that. I think it's great. Have you been to a doctor yet?"

"Um, what?"

"They gave you classes in school, didn't they?"

"Well, yeah. Sort of."

"Ok. Now I'm getting all parental and over protective. If you're going to start going out, you need to know the score and get some protection."

"Oh, God, Sandburg!" Jim fled the table, dropping his nearly full plate in the sink. "You can't have this conversation."

"Well, someone has to, and that school clearly isn't doing its job. I wish my mom were here. She knows more about this than I do."

"For God's sake! She's underage!"

Blair smiled at me, totally unruffled by Jim's freaking out. "Well, technically, she's not, you know. That's kind of the point."

"Not even legally," I added. "I'm under my own recognizance as of September."

Jim retreated toward the door. "I'm going for a walk."

While he was gone, Blair sat me down at his computer and left me alone to explore different birth control options at a women's health website. When Jim came back from his walk, he knocked softly on my door (I didn't have to wonder how he always knows when I'm awake anymore) and apologized, and explained that he understood I had to grow up sometime, and he wanted me to meet someone and start a family of my own ... he just thought of me as being very vulnerable and innocent and he was afraid I'd get hurt. "But I know you've come a long way in the last few years. I believe you can do anything you put your mind to."

I smile, pitying him his obvious embarrassment. "You don't think I'll screw it up?"

"Oh, sweetheart. Everybody screws it up. But I think you'll survive it."

Saturday afternoon, he took me to a gym and taught me basic self-defense. Just in case all my experiences weren't positive.

Sure enough, when Blair picked me up from the airport the next year, it was only three days after the first time I had been dumped. At the loft Jim greeted me like he always did, a brief hug and a moment of stillness. Sensing me, I think, hearing me or smelling me, like a mama cat checking over a kitten. And this time he dropped a kiss on my head and asked, "What happened, sweetheart?"

Blair, putting away my bags, hopped out of the room he always gave to me. "What happened? What's wrong?"

So the whole story came out, how I met the perfect guy and he was so nice to me and how beautiful he was and how badly I wanted him, and then I found out he was seeing someone else! When I confronted him, he wanted to stay with her! They patted me on the head and fed me. Blair said there were lots of people in the world to love and who would feel honored to love me. Jim said I should hold out for someone worthy. We cooked a lot.

The year after that I will never forget. It was the year I was learning to drive. We spent most of the weekend practicing in empty cemeteries. I would have thought it would be Blair who would be the cool one about it. Jim was the one who was always so adamant about safety. Over-protective does not begin to cover it. But no, Blair tended to hyperventilate every time I took a curve a little fast. Jim was the one who shrugged and said 'no harm done' when I confused the brake and the gas and only missed hitting a headstone by three inches.

So it went. I knew Jim and Blair weren't my parents, but they were my family. I wrote to them every week or two, and called every couple of months. They sent cards for my birthday and presents for Christmas -- toys and clothes at first, then books and music, later. They gave me a place I belonged outside of the school and people who loved me even though they didn't have to. On the days when I didn't know myself, when I felt like I didn't belong anywhere and would never catch up or grow up or fit in, I could remember Jim and Blair. What mattered was being kind and intelligent and honorable and loving. I couldn't make myself be like everyone else, but I could manage those things.

I made other friends, got other offers for Thanksgiving, even. I always came home.

After I started at the culinary institute I began to bring new dishes with me: roasted eggplant salad, strudel, wild mushroom ravioli, divinity. My apple-cranberry tart became a particular favorite of Jim's. They would buy the ingredients before I came, and I'd make it fresh on Thursday morning.

My councilor at school had tried repeatedly to talk me out of becoming a chef. Sure, they were trendy, almost little celebrities at the moment, but didn't I want to do something Challenging and Important? But Blair had jumped on it right away. Cooking was art. It was beauty and skill and communication. And food -- sharing a meal and how and with whom you ate it -- was such a basic part of all human cultures. Food wasn't just biological nourishment, it was dating and 'bringing home the bacon' and cooking for your children and business lunches and staying for breakfast the morning after and putting out dishes of rice for the ancestors and Easter baskets and bringing a fruit basket to the new neighbors. Food was socially very important, a fundamental way of creating and maintaining relationships. Because they understood, I always cooked my best for them. For them, it wasn't work, it was art, and on Thanksgiving I brought them my masterpieces.

Last year I was worried about coming; Jim hadn't sounded like himself on the phone for a while, and according to Blair's e-mails, had been sick on and off all fall. They always put in extra effort for me, and I didn't want to descend on them if they weren't up to company. But Blair said Jim was run-down, but fine. Of course, I was coming! Jim would hate for me to miss Thanksgiving, and all he'd talked about all week was my tart.

Blair picked me up at the airport. His badge lets him walk right through security, so I was actually met at the gate. When we got home, Blair motioned me to be quiet; Jim might be sleeping. But when we opened the door, he was looking down at us from his bedroom. "Hey, sweetheart," he said, and slowly came down the stairs.

He looked terrible, pale and exhausted. But his eyes looked right through me and he smiled that beautiful smile. His arms were strong when he hugged me, and that tiny hesitation at the end was just the same as always, just right. "So what did you bring? Tell me you've got strudel in your carry-on."

He was glad to see me. I was so sorry I came, because they tried so hard to make everything perfect and fun. They insisted on the big meal, on the trip out to see Bill and Sally, on everything being absolutely normal. All the special foods I brought, Jim forced himself to eat. Smiling. Trying not to gulp water between bites. Them pretending that nothing was wrong and me pretending I didn't notice that Jim was miserable and Blair was worried. It would have been so much easier on both of them if they hadn't had to try so hard for me. If they'd just told me not to come or sent me to sleep in a hotel or just admitted things weren't fine. But in a way, they still thought of me as that shy, traumatized little girl whose mind was eight years behind her body. With both of them suddenly so vulnerable, I didn't know how to say 'you don't need to protect me' without them feeling like I didn't need them.

It was a relief to go back to Portland. The first time I had felt that.

Blair sent letters in December and January and February. The letters were pretty normal, all around: talk about cases and gossip from the PD. Questions about recipes. Congratulations (or condolences) about my love life's ups and downs -- which I kept vague and cheery. But each letter included the sentence "Jim is feeling a little better." Every single one, and almost always those exact words. Notes from Jim, which had always been pretty rare, stopped coming altogether. I don't think I could have been more worried if I'd thought Blair had actually been out-and-out lying to me, but I don't think he was. Fudging? Yes. Deceiving himself? Yeah, probably. But it was vague. Whatever was going on seemed insidious and subtle, nothing I could come out and ask about.

In March, Blair called with "big news." He said that it was pretty surprising, and he didn't "want me to freak or anything."

They were moving.

"We've just had it with the city. So we looked around until we found someplace that looked, you know, quiet. Not such a rat race." Evading anything specific, brushing off my concerns. The same non-information I'd been getting for months.

I offered to fly up and help them pack. I expected Blair to say no, but he sounded pathetically grateful. So just over a week later I was getting off a plane in Cascade, for the first time without someone to greet me at the airport. I rented a car and drove myself to the loft. There was another first: I had to knock. I'd never had to knock if Jim was home.

He smiled when he opened the door, and I bit down on my dismay. How thin he looked, and so pale. But it wasn't until he hugged me -- slackly and too quickly -- and immediately backed away that I realized just how bad things really were. He was a faded image of himself; even his "Hey, sweetheart," seemed to come from far away.

I was scared, seeing him like that, but I put my overnight bag in the corner and sat down at the table with him. Sick or not, he was still Jim, the valiant friend who had won my freedom and helped orient me in the world and had always done his best for me. When Blair came home we were sitting at the table, drinking tea and looking at pictures of my new cat, Velcro. Just like nothing was wrong.

I spent two days with them. Blair and I carried stuff up from the basement and Jim sorted it into things for the trash and things for the move. They had already stopped working for the PD, so we had all day to spend sorting and piling and boxing. Really, you'd think a place like the loft wouldn't accumulate too much stuff, but both of the guys turned out to be packrats.

Overall, it was scary. The only soap in the house was hypo-allergenic baby wash. Dishes and surfaces seemed to be cleaned with some weird all-natural product made of citrus oils. There were air filters in every room. I'd never even seen the guys keep cold medicine before, and the bathroom medicine cabinet was full of prescription drugs I'd never heard of. More than once I woke up to the soft creak of movement upstairs or the sound of Jim coughing or Blair's voice saying something persistent and gentle, too softly to understand.

About two-thirty on the second night it was all three. I lay in the dark trying not to listen, staring at the ceiling of the dark, bare room; everything was packed, the books, the wall hanging, the kachina dolls. I remember wishing I were the kind of person who would be able to help, who wouldn't just lie there while the best friends anyone could ask for struggled with something mysterious and awful.

After about half an hour there was a creak on the stairs, and then the door to the bedroom opened just a hair. "Stacey? Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I whispered back.

He came in without turning on a light and squatted beside the bed. "Jim said you were awake."

"Sorry."

Blair sighed. "It was us who woke you."

Maybe it was the dark that gave me the courage to push at last, but I finally asked the direct question: "Blair, what's going on?"

I couldn't see his face, but I heard the deep breath in the darkness, and the shift as he moved closer to the bed. "With Jim?"

"Yeah."

"You understand about his senses?"

I nodded, and then, remembering the dark, whispered, "Yes." In fact, Blair had been on the police force for a year before they had really explained anything at all, and we hadn't said much about it in the years since. I added, in case Blair was worried that I was put off by them or something, "They sound pretty cool."

But even though he agreed, Blair sounded sad. "Yeah. Pretty cool ... Stacey, you remember you were telling us about working in the kitchen on Saturday nights during tourist season? How they have extra chefs in the kitchen and everybody is yelling and tripping over each other and you can't find anything and everything smells weird because the garlic sauce and the chocolate sauce are cooking next to each other on the stove?"

"Yeah."

"That's how it is for Jim all the time."

I thought about that, but Blair was still talking. "We just have to slow things down. Less traffic, smaller tribe, better air ... We've made some changes already, and he's doing better."

"Oh."

"So you see, there's nothing to worry about. He just needs some rest."

That was all I got: a metaphor simplified down so that a child could have understood it, and an empty reassurance.

The next day the truck came for their stuff. The movers were still loading when I had to leave to catch my plane. I hugged them both hard and told them I loved them before I went. I made it around the corner before I started crying.

After they'd had a few weeks to settle, Blair had started sending letters again. He made their town sound like a place in a story book: little family-owned stores, apple trees, vineyards, a candy factory. He told stories about the kind of weird people you meet when it's your turn to go process-serving and the adventures of Doris the Police Dog and what Jim said to the landlord when the toilet backed up while they had company on the Forth of July. There were lots of letters that also said Jim was 'doing really well' and 'much better.'

I offered not to come this year. As badly as I wanted to see them, having me around and trying to pretend for me would only add to the strain they were under. And maybe ... if Jim were still fading away, maybe I didn't want to see it.

But they said come. What could I do? Force them to admit something they didn't want to include me in? Or say, 'no' and let them think I was abandoning them?

Or go. Bring them all the lovely food my car could carry and smile and let them pretend if they wanted to.

So I'm here in my car, listening to sad music over and over, and clinging to the steering wheel because I've been in the car a long time and praying there will have been some miracle and everything will be fine when I get there.

In the mountains it gets cold enough that I have to turn on the heater, and there is a tiny sprinkling of snow. It would be a beautiful trip, if I had a little more confidence in my driving and were a little happier.

I stop to check the directions frequently, eventually leaving I 82 for a smaller highway, and then a windy back road, and then a windier back road, and then a long gravel drive. The landmarks have been pretty clear though, so I am sure I'm not lost.

I'm right. Their cars are parked in front of the little white house at the end of the drive, Jim's jeep and Blair's little truck. I pull in beside them, relieved to have made it and a little proud of myself.

The door hasn't opened yet. They don't know I'm here. That's not a good sign.

I get out and open up the trunk. The front door opens while I'm collecting my suitcase, but I don't know the man who comes out. He's my height, with short hair and a beard, and he's wearing one of Blair's old plaid orange shirts. "Hello?"

"Hey, Stacey, what do you think of the house?" the man says with Blair's voice. He comes around and takes my suitcase with one hand, reaching for me with the other. "Was the trip all right?" His eyes are blue and happy to see me.

Blair's eyes. "Blair?" I squeak.

"Oh! Right. I forgot." He lifts his chin, preening comically. "What do you think?"

"It's a ... It's a ... "

"Beard. It's called a beard. Do you like it?"

The beard is thick, but neatly trimmed and curly. Here and there it is speckled with white. "It's fantastic! But why? I mean you never, ever said ... " I shake my head wonderingly.

"Well, one of the guys at work and I, well, we kind of dared each other. Sort of a bet. When it was over, he shaved his off and I ... guess I just didn't."

"Well, it looks great."

He lifts the small cooler out of the trunk with his free hand. "What have you got? Strudel?"

"Strudel is in the bag. Bolognaise sauce is in the cooler. Also some bean soup. And some really light lemon custard. Um, where's Jim?"

"Not home yet. He had to go pick up the turkey."

"But his car's here."

"He took the county car. They want him to drive it off duty. We're thinking of selling the jeep."

"Oh."

He leads the way to the front door, holding it open for me. "The turkey has been a bit of a pain. All you can get around here are those factory farm birds with injected oil and salt, so we finally gave in and ordered a free-range organic turkey from the big supermarket over in Chelan."

The living room is small and tidy, with a big comfy couch. The windows, as always, are spotless. A narrow hallway leads off, one way heading toward the kitchen, the other toward the bedrooms. "Bath room," Blair says, pointing. I peek in. There is soap -- the adult kind that comes in bars -- at the sink. Ahead of me, Blair opens another door. "This is where you'll sleep. The mattress is new, it's the one we bought for the move."

"I'm putting you out of your bed, again," I say automatically.

Instead of answering, he glances away. "So. Um. Do you want to, um, change clothes or anything? Do we need to put the food up?" Suddenly evasive, which is not new. But twitchy? He's usually smooth, not twitchy.

"Is something wrong?"

Uneasy smile. "No, nothing's wrong."

"You know I care about you both, right? That if there's anything I can do ... "

I expect to be cheerfully brushed off, but instead he winces and looks everywhere but at me. "Actually ... there was something I wasn't sure we should talk about at all. But maybe now would be a good time."

It sounds like I'm about to get what I want and I am not happy about it. I go cold all over, except my hands are sweating. Blair takes the cooler and sets it in the kitchen. Then he leads me into the living room to sit beside him on the couch.

"Stacey, um. You know that no matter what, Jim and I love you, right. And we'd never want to hurt you or freak you out or anything."

I nod, although my mind is screaming 'oh God!' so loud it echoes in my head. Clearly I had read too much into seeing the bar soap in the bathroom. Things weren't better after all.

"The thing is." He stops and takes a deep breath. "Jim and I are together." Then he stops, like that was it, what he wanted to tell me, and he's waiting for a reaction.

"I don't understand."

"Stacey. Jim and I are in love. With each other."

He still isn't making any sense, and I wish he'd get to the upsetting part, whatever it is. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because it's a big change no matter how you look at it, and while I've got a feeling you can handle it, if you need to process a little, I think it's better to do that without Jim being here."

"What are you talking about?" My impatience slips out; I've steeled myself for the bad news. Why won't he just come to the point? Why is he going on about -- "Wait. Do you mean this is new?"

"Well, yeah. A few months."

"Oh. Oh. Wow." I have to stop and think about it because it puts everything in a whole new light. "A few months?" I resist the urge to ask him if he's sure.

"Uh, yeah. I thought, if we talked about it, it would be better to do it in person then over the phone, or I, well, I might not have put it off. Maybe."

"Oh. Ok."

"So. Ah. Are you ok? With this?"

"Yeah. I guess. I'm kinda surprised. I've assumed you and Jim were together ever since I found out that men could marry each other."

"Oh. What?"

"Well, you know, not legally."

"Oh." Then, "Oh. So you're not. Surprised. Or upset. Or anything."

"Why would I be?"

The question seems to throw him. He rallies valiantly. "Well, a lot of people would be."

"A lot of people are idiots. You taught me better than that. What, did you think I wasn't paying attention?"

He's looking at the floor, not at me, but he's holding my hand hard. Before either of us can say anything, we hear a car out front. Blair twitches aside the curtain. "Well, that's timing. Why don't you go outside and say hello."

I remember, before this surreal conversation, what it was that I was so worried about. At the door my feet turn to lead, and I take a deep breath. I smile. And open the door.

In the act of opening up the trunk, he turns toward me. For a moment, I can't see him properly. I'm expecting the worst, and my eyes don't want to see it. But what I'm expecting really isn't what I'm seeing.

He looks great. Younger than the last time I saw him. And bigger. I stand there staring and he moves really quickly, catching me in a quick, close hug and then pausing for almost a second as he moves away. "Hi, Stacey. Long trip?" His smile has become sympathetic and he still hasn't let go of me.

I smile up at him. "What? Oh. Not too bad." Relief I can scarcely believe is washing over me in waves and I have to swallow.

"Stacey? Sweetheart? What's wrong?" He's not smiling now, but looking at me in that way that sees through everything.

I swallow again. I wouldn't begin to know how to explain. "Nothing. I'm just. I missed you."

He accepts that, hugging me again and turning us toward the car. "Wait till you see this turkey. Magnificent."

The bird, it turns out, comes in its own box and, Jim assures me, with a brochure. Jim carries it, while I follow with the bag of other groceries. We find Blair in the kitchen, shifting things around in the fridge to make room for the turkey and the things in my cooler. I set the bag on the counter and start to unload: canned soup. Flour. Eggs. Buttermilk. Something thin is wrapped in a plastic bag and tucked into the side. I pull the bag off and stuff it into the bag sleeve hanging from the cabinet. "Oh, cool." I hold up the pair of magazines: one says "Twelve New Blueprints for your DREAM HOME" on the cover and the other says "Modern Carpentry." "You guys building a house?"

Jim ducks his head and snatches up the soup. Blair whirling away from the fridge, takes the magazines from me. "No. We're not," he says a little sharply. "We're just a little frustrated because it's so hard to find a house around here."

The Bolognese sauce and fresh pasta I brought become dinner. I had thought it was art that would go unnoticed, with Jim not eating and all. But I have my most discerning audience back; he cleans his plate twice, and I can tell he isn't forcing it.

For dessert I had brought a very delicate lemon custard: high in calories, light and simple in flavor. It was lemon because I had noticed last year that Jim seemed to have less trouble with citrus than some other things. I had been determined to make something he would not have a hard time with. It was so basic and plain, though, that now it is almost embarrassing. I'm so relieved it's unnecessary that I kind of want to just toss it out ... but there would be no way to explain that.

After dinner, Blair offers to do the dishes and sends Jim and me out for a walk. It is dark, so the trees are just shapes and the white gravel is all I see of the ground. The sky, though! The sky is all stars. Small ones and big ones, crowded together in a very dark sky. It's all very beautiful, but scary too. Anything could be hiding in these woods. If a pit opened up right in front of me, I wouldn't really see it.

I suppose it is all very different for Jim. No doubt he can see everything just fine, and hear what might be hiding in the trees. He is a dark bulk beside me, solid and tall. The sound of his feet on the gravel is louder than mine, a steady, confident tromp.

"You've never spent much time in the woods, I guess."

"No. I don't think I've ever been in the middle of nowhere like this before."

He laughs. "This isn't the middle of nowhere, believe me. We have neighbors just a couple of miles away. You can hear them from here even through all these trees if the wind is blowing in the right direction."

"Really?"

"Well ... .maybe not. I can hear them."

We stop. The air is cold on my hands and face.

"So, everything all right?"

"Yeah," I say.

"Something's bothering you."

I squint in the darkness, bewildered by all the things I can't say. So I lie, "Everything's fine." Which I can tell is a mistake, even in the dark. This is Jim. So I look for something I can say. "I'm engaged."

"Engaged? To be married?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't know you were serious with anyone."

"Martin ... He teaches high school." I swallow. "His brother is a waiter ... set us up. My first and only blind date."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you mentioned that. I didn't know it was serious. Does Sandburg know about this?"

"No."

"You usually, I mean, you usually tell us when you're getting serious." He is speaking very slowly, being careful. But he can't hide his suspicion.

"It didn't seem to be a good time."

"What do you mean? What's a bad time?" I can hear him frowning. "Stacey ... I don't mean to push here, but is there some, well, some reason you didn't want to talk about him?"

For a moment I almost laugh, because this is so familiar I should have expected it. This was the guy who taught me six ways to get away from a larger opponent (with four of them making him hurt a lot). Of course he gets edgy talking about my love life. I don't laugh because I have to answer him and I still don't know what to say.

"Stacey, now that I think about it, we haven't heard much that's ... concrete from you in a while. Sweetheart, you have to know, if something's wrong ... You know we'd do anything for you."

"I know that."

"Then tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine." Words I have come to associate with everything being really awful. Ironically enough, I mean them.

"Then why didn't you tell us what was going on. Was it ... was it us? Some reason why you wanted us kept out of it?"

It just gets worse and worse. He just keeps getting more sure that something about the situation is wrong and I don't have an answer to give him. "No." But I am feeling distinctly trapped.

"If nothing was wrong, why didn't you talk to us?"

"Because I thought you were dying!" I yell, and he flinches back. Inwardly, so do I. This is a conversation I don't want to have, don't know how to have.

"You what?"

"You were just ... sick for so long ... and when I looked into your eyes ... "

"Oh, my God." With a rustle, he is suddenly very close. "Sweetheart. Why didn't you say anything?"

I am angry enough to shove him hard, but he only moves back a bit because he chooses to, because I'd have as much chance of moving him as I would an industrial refrigerator. "Talk to you? Every time I turned around, I was asking! And you both kept saying everything's fine, it isn't a big deal! I finally thought maybe --" my voice squeaks a little, and I swallow, "it was one of those things people don't talk about. And then Blair told me it was your senses and I realized it was worse than that, it was something nobody could do anything about." I am crying, which is stupid because everything is fine now. Second lesson to the rescue again! They have their miracle.

He puts an arm around my shoulder and I let him. "We didn't want to worry you."

"Oh. Well. You did a fantastic job at that."

He flinches, but doesn't pull away, and I remember that making Jim flinch is easy and really, really mean.

But I am still really, really angry. "And then Blair this afternoon! He's -- He goes all serious on me, some kind of 'Mr. Bad News.' And I'm thinking, well here it comes. This is it. But no, he just tells me." I stop because Jim has suddenly gone very still and I remember that he still thinks of me as a little girl (which is the real reason why he got so edgy when I told him I was engaged) so I am going to have to word this carefully. "Stuff that isn't bad and isn't really news." I smile. "Although, apparently, it is."

"Blair told you."

"Yeah."

"What did --"

"About the two of you." I sniff. "Congratulations, by the way."

After a short silence he says, "So you're ok with this."

"Oh, please. What's with you guys? Besides, I went to school in San Francisco."

"Oh," he says meekly.

"Um, you guys are ok, right? I mean, this is not San Francisco. Nobody's gonna come after you or anything, right?"

He swallows hard and whispers, "No. We're ok. Nobody's gonna hurt us."

"Good."

I lean against him. I feel tired suddenly, the burden of months lifted away in a single afternoon.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. We never meant to hurt you."

"I know that."

"We just didn't want you to worry."

"I'm a grown-up. Really I am. I have a job -- I run the kitchen for a forty-table restaurant. I have an apartment. I have a cat --"

"I know that. I know."

"I drive. I vote. I have a retirement plan. I'm getting married sometime next year."

"I know."

"I'm a grown-up. And grown-ups worry. And they help their friends."

He sighs and holds me a little tighter. "I know. I hear you, Stacey."

"Ok."

We stand in the darkness, in the middle of the long, gravel driveway for several minutes. It's cold and dark and very nice. "So tell me about Martin."

I do. I tell him about Martin in the cold dark until I run out of words and can only stand there shivering.

He hugs me carefully. "Congratulations, sweetheart."

"Will you give me away? Will you and Blair sit where parents sit?"

He doesn't say anything, but I hear him swallow and nod.

"Thank you." I am nearly crying. Again.

"It's, ah, cold. Let's go on in."

We head back to the house, not looking at each other, not needing to.

End Pilgrimage by Dasha: soulcake@bellsouth.net

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