Page 70 of Shane
“Sure. I don’t throw anything away. Pack it in, pack it out, my motto for life in general. Leave no trace behind. Especially in the Arctic.”
“Why?” Everlee demanded to know. “Why’d you decide to photograph the Arctic, of all places? It’s cold up there.”
A hint of shadow flittered beneath Tuesday’s bright-eyed demeanor. “Once you’ve lost everything, what does it matter where you go or how cold it is when you get there? You’re still alone. And alone is the loneliest kind of cold.”
“Well, yeah, but…” Everlee knew she was finally seeing the real Tuesday. “Is that why you work for Freiburg, so you can go to far-off places alone?”
She heaved a great sigh, still headed into the hangar. “Mostly, yes. When I’m working, I forget what I’ve lost, at least for a while. Up North I was cut off from mankind, and yes, Mother Nature could’ve killed me anytime she wanted. But it’s also a uniquely perfect experience to stretch out under all those stars at night and know you’re the only living being within miles. Well, except for an occasional polar bear or seal, which I took plenty of photos of. But, for a few days or a week or a month if the weather’s decent, it’s just you and God and the infinite sky.”
“And the cold.”
The corners of Tuesday’s mouth lifted into a sad smile. “But frigid cold ensures solitude, doesn’t it? In my experience, coming back home where it’s warm and living with mankind is the bigger challenge. People are the real predators on Earth, not polar bears. War. Hunger. Oppression. Climate change. Mankind is behind all those. I wish I had my camera. I’d show you the last photos I took.”
“Of the sky?”
“No, of a mother polar bear and her yearling cub. It was by far my best naturally monochromatic shot, all grays, blacks, and shades of white. Took those the morning I packed up and hiked to my rendezvous point. Hooked up with the bush pilot who’d flown me in. And here I am, back in America, the land of selfies and idiotic reality shows, where nobody listens to what anyone else says, but where everyone’s shouting like their opinions are the only ones that matter.”
“You’d rather be at Mother Nature’s beck and call?”
“Always. You know where you stand with her. She’s the ultimate serial killer, and her‘survival of the fittest’law is the greatest test for mankind. Either we wise up and obey her, or she’ll put us back in the primordial ooze we crawled out of. Even polar bears know how deadly she is. One mistake in the Arctic and—” Tuesday snapped her fingers “—you’re dead.”
Everlee sucked in a breath. She’d never, not once in her life, had a sister or girlfriend. But Tuesday sure felt like a friend now. She had to ask, “Whatareyou afraid of?”
Tuesday cocked her head as if Everlee had just asked a sixty-million-dollar question. “Losing the people I love. Cold and darkness are simply physical challenges to be met, to be studied, and to be overcome. But loving someone, then watching them suffer and die, and not being able to save them…” Her gaze strayed to the canvas-covered office in the corner. “That’s the hardest loss in the world. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“You mean your parents.”
“And the only man I’ve ever loved. But you have to understand, Freddie was my hero, not my lover. He was my knight in shining armor, but mostly, he was my best friend. I was lost, ready to kill myself after my parents died like they did. I was thinking about suicide the day he came along. I was mixed up and hurt, confused and so alone. God, I was sick, mentally sick. I know that now. Everyone says they’ll be there for you when they hear the bad news, but then they leave and get on with their lives. But you’re still stuck in the same place, trying to pick up the pieces of lives that no longer exist. That’s where I was when Freddie showed up. He just knocked on my door, gave me a big hug, and told me I was going with him to New York. He literally came to my rescue, Agent Yeager. I know it sounds corny, but he swept me off my feet. He held onto me and let me cry until I was all cried out. Not once did he tell me to get over it or buck up or any of that stupid stuff. He sat with me on my parents’ front porch and listened. I had no one. I didn’t know what to do, how to even begin putting my life back together. But from day one Freddie heard me. He listened and he cared. He let me cry and he” —both her shoulders lifted— “he took me home with him that very same day. He gave me a safe place to hide, and he let me heal. He made all my financial problems go away.”
She sighed. “He let me lean on him and he put me through college. He loved me, Everlee. Without me having to do anything at all. Like my parents, he honestly just loved me.”
Tears filled Tuesday’s eyes and Ev’s were already overflowing. She ran a finger under her eyelid, her heart breaking with empathy for the poor high school girl from Minnesota who’d had to deal with her parents’ deaths all by herself. Reminded Ev of herself. She’d had to handle her mother’s funeral alone. Sure, the funeral director helped, but he was just doing his job, wasn’t he? He got paid to care. How uncanny was it that she and Tuesday had so much in common? She wished she’d believed Tuesday from the start.
“You actually loved him back?” she asked cautiously, not wanting intimate details, but needing to figure out how a young girl had ever found love with a man so much older.
“Not like everyone thinks, but yes, I loved Freddie. I still do,” Tuesday answered quietly, her gaze direct and fixed on Ev. “There was never anything physical between us, nothing more than hugs and maybe a kiss on the cheek. Anything else would’ve been weird, and believe me, I wasn’t in a good place back then. Freddie understood. He was more like the grandfather I never had. Trust me, I didn’t believe him at first, that he wanted to take me to New York, to his home. I tried to argue, I did. But he refused to walk away. He said he’d never leave me alone. I think that, all by itself, is the greatest gift we can give anyone who’s suffering. Just being there for them. Just showing up and really, truly caring.”
She took a deep breath. “At first, I hated the city. New York is noisy and big. There are way too many people there. Everywhere you go, all you see are walls of brick and glass and concrete. Sirens howl all day and every night. But yes, eventually, I grew to love the city, mostly because it was Freddie’s. He was my best friend, Everlee. He empowered me, and everything he did made me stronger. How do you think I graduated from Columbia? I had nothing when Mom and Dad died, nothing but funeral expenses and debt and debt collectors and…”
She ran a hand over her head, sweeping her long blonde hair over to the opposite side of her neck. “He said it was what Dad would’ve wanted. He was my dad’s friend, and until he died, Frederick Lamb kept me safe and gave me something to live for.”
Swallowing hard, Everlee knew then why Shane trusted Tuesday. Shit, he’d even let her hold him when he was at his weakest, and that still bugged Everlee. But because of Tuesday, Shane was now passed out and snoring. Sleep and, apparently, acupressure, were precisely what he’d needed. “How’d you learn acupressure?”
“Freddie had horrible migraines. He showed me what to do, how to help him. It’s easier when someone else manipulates your pressure points for you. Better yet, two people working together are always better than one.”
“I’ve never had many friends,” Everlee volunteered. And why that blurted out of her mouth, she had no idea.
Both Tuesday’s shoulders lifted. “Me either. But people can change. I mean, it’s up to you and nothing’s impossible. Not if you really want something. Freddie taught me that. He was a great believer in positivity. He had a magnificent library in his place, and I could’ve sat there and read all day because it was so quiet and peaceful. He helped me get back to normal. My new normal.”
“We need to talk,” Everlee told her new friend. “Because Shane’s right. Youareinnocent. Now let’s prove it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Yeah, migraines,” Shane admitted to Sasha. After the onset of his migraine, he’d slept three hours, and while he’d been passed out, Everlee and Tuesday had ganged up on him. In a good and helpful way. He vaguely remembered their gentle hands on him, and he did feel better than after most killer-migraine episodes.So acupressure, huh?
Once he’d come to, he’d found himself lying on a fuzzy blanket that smelled moldy, with something else rolled into a pillow under his hard head. Since then, Ev and Tuesday made sure he had a bottle of water in his hand and something in his stomach. At the moment, the three of them were sitting cross-legged inside the abandoned hangar’s office, under the tarp that now kept the chilly Arkansas night at bay. Everlee had set a flashlight bottom-up on the floor so they could see.
She and Tuesday had somehow become BFFs while he’d been out of commission. The way Everlee now advocated for Tuesday, even explaining how much she’d loved Frederick Lamb and why, told Shane these two women had gotten a lot out in the open. Which made life simpler. Everlee wasn’t shooting daggers at him with her eyes every time he spoke to Tuesday. At last, they were a team of three.