My Only Regret Ch. 03

I was so done with crying. I could live the rest of my life without a tear and be happy. And if I could get through the next few hours I could live the rest of my life even happier; happy with Christian and babies and prestige in a city far away from little Wood Creek.

I pulled my black SLK 350 into the first available space at the neighborhood Super Wal-Mart. It was crowded as hell and I got a workout through the parking lot maneuvering around the unaware pedestrians that Wal-Mart seems famous for. Sunday afternoon you see, everyone out after church like mushrooms after a rain. I passed through the front doors with out an old lady slapping a sticker on my boob and made it to women's apparel without tossing any small children out of my way. I'd decided after I left the house that my outfit, jeans and a T-shirt, were too much for visiting my hometown mainly because they where Roberto Cavalli and red...and leather. The spankin' new Mercedes was enough of an alarm bell. I didn't need to look anymore ... snooty. After all, the people where probably still trying to get the stench of my high and mighty ass out of their breathing air.

The first thing I found was a decent looking pair of dark blue Faded Glory's that looked about my size. The next was a plain white tank top. I rifled through the racks and picked out a navy sweater, a pair of kaki pants and a black t-shirt. Then I was off the shoe section. A mother and Son where arguing in front of me the whole way there and I had to finally push through them to get where I was going. I needed boots. Nobody wore Jimmy Choo wedges in Wood Creek. You wore boots, you had one pair of tennis shoes for running, one pair of dress shoes for Easter, Christmas, Sunday and Weddings, and you had 5 pairs of good boots. It was like unwritten rule. I hadn't worn boots in ten years. I left Wood Creek I left boots. I found some tan steel-toed work boots and my outfits were complete.

I waited in line for 15 minutes at a fitting room before I finally got a room. I tried on the jeans and black t, back towards the mirror. I kept thinking I wasn't ready for this, I just wasn't. I took off my hoop earrings and undid my gold gross and tucked them safely away in a secret pouch in my purse then rooted around for the hair tie I always kept. I actually kept two because you never know when you're going to need one, or when someone else was going to need one. I pulled them both out and used one to tie my all my hair into a pony. The other I kept tight in my fist without noticing. I turned.

At first all I felt and saw was horror. I was seventeen again, I was back in Wood creek, I'd never left. My mom would knock on the door at any moment and tell me to hurry up that she had to get to the pet section before everyone else grabbed up the half priced dog chow. No one knocked. My mother was dead. I wasn't in Wood Creek, I was in Trent, I'd left, I'd been all over the country. I wasn't seventeen I was twenty-seven. I wasn't afraid. RIGHT. I inched toward the mirror and examined myself further, whilst I chanted silently, 'I'm not seventeen. I'm not seventeen.' I touched my check with my left hand; the other hair tie was there on my wrist. Just like I used to wear it. I jerked it off and tossed it behind me.

"Your not seventeen, Dillon. Your not!" I said aloud, not loud enough to disturb anyone else but enough for it to really sink in. I shook my head and backed away from the mirror, collected my things and headed for the register. The pimple-faced girl there gave me an odd look when I came up and handed her a bunch of tags, I had to explain to her I was wearing some of the merchandise out of the store and the Cavalli jeans where really mine.

**

A half and hour later found me in Wood Creek. I'd managed to get passed the welcome sign without a heart attack or an abrupt U turn. I had however sunk down in my seat as I passed the church not that anyone was there anymore, I just didn't want it to see me, the shame of not having gone to this or any church in10 years made the building seem ominous. I drove down the main street drag and tried to not explode. People, faces I recognized walked up and down the street, some still in their Sunday Best. I prayed to God they wouldn't recognize me, even though I certainly didn't look different then I had at seventeen, I'd lost the baby cheeks but not much else, I'd always looked a bit older. I hit a red light at the intersection by Riley's Bakery Café.

Everything was the freaking same! Every building in its place, even the same cars parked in the same spots! I wanted to run. It took all my control not to hit reverse and never come back. A blonde woman walked in front of my car staring hard, I looked like everybody else but the car didn't. I didn't recognize her, thank god, but she looked at me as though she did. She was almost to the end of the cross walk when her arm hesitated, like she was going to wave but the light turned green and I took off, not looking back. Damn flashy roadster I was in Truck and SUV land, I was sticking out like a sore thumb. A very sleek and attractive sore thumb.

It hit me at about five minutes later. I had no idea were I was going. I knew where I was. Sure. Home. Full of short dumpy buildings worn away by the harsh rain and snow Creek was famous for. Trent Summit was just the right amount south to be saved from the weird weather conditions of Wood Creek and was prettier because of that. Creek was always muddy; the only thing that changed was the feel of the air. It was hideously humid in the summer and freezing in during winter and fall. It was springtime, the only time when you could by no means predict the weather. One day it would be cold and rainy the next it would be ridiculously hot. No pattern whatsoever. Today was actually mild. It had rained by the smell of it but was getting warm. It could be frigid by tonight though you never knew.

I had planned to stay in a hotel for one night. It only took about 45 minutes from Trent to Creek and I had come early so there was no real need to stay. But I figured I needed some time to visit everything maybe even talk to people. It would be the least I could do and Christian would see I tried. I was booked at the Hampton Inn at the other edge of town but I had wanted to see things before I checked in and if I happed to meet anybody before then I could always say 'Well it was nice seeing you but I've got to go check into my Hotel now.'

Visiting my old house seemed the logical thing to do. So I went there first. I grew up in a plain looking one story brick house. The basement was finished and that's where I moved my room when I turned 13, so you could actually call it two. Anyway I was an only child, I was originally a twin but the other baby miscarried and the pain my mother went through she never wanted to repeat. She was a stay at home mother and my father was a fireman. We were very typical. My father worked all the time, my mother drank all the time, I, stayed as far away from them as I could, all the time.

My mother died when I was 16. She had gotten so drunk one night she fell down the stairs and cracked her head open. I hadn't been there when she died neither had my father. A lot of physiatrists try to say that I blame myself for her death. The truth is I don't. I just don't. We'd been close before she became an alcoholic but after that we'd been strangers. She became bitter and resentful, I tired to get her help, my dad didn't care and she fell apart. I didn't blame myself because I'd spent years trying to save her. I couldn't and it wasn't my job. My father is still alive but I don't know where. Someone called me about 7 years ago and told me he moved out of state but I didn't ask where. I didn't blame myself for my mother's death but I blamed him. I blamed him for being a cheater and never being around.

I moved out when I was 18 years old. I had gotten into a good college on a full scholarship and worked the whole time as a secretary at the corporation where I work now, to pay for everything else. I have a degree in human resources and make almost $100,000 after taxes a year, pretty damn good for a woman my age and level of experience which I'll admit isn't much, I worked my ass off and I still am. I haven't talked to my father in 10 years and I probably wont for the rest of my life. I'm okay with that. Even now looking at the old dilapidated building I used to live in. He is one part of my past I don't need to connect with. Other then him I don't have any other family. All of my grandparents were dead before I was born and both my mother and father where only children to boot. I don't have cousins or aunts or anything. That used to make me sad at Thanksgiving when I was a little girl. It doesn't anymore I have Christian now. I have Mrs. And Mr. Miller I have plenty of friends back in the City.

I didn't even bother getting out of the car and looking at my old home. It was falling apart and it looked like nobody lived there anymore. I went to my high school next. Wood Creek High, home of the Wildcats. Still looking like a cement and iron prison. The football fields are nicer now though. It houses about 350 students. Just like Wood Creek Jr. High and Wood Creek elementary school. Wood creek has had the same population for over a hundred years. I sat in the parking lot for a while not really sure where to go next. I thought about heading over to Joel's. Generation after generation of Holt's have been living at that bright white house at the end of Caldren road since the beginning. You can tell by all the additions. They move away and then come back. Joel might not have even left.

Growing up he lived with his mother and father, his four brothers and sisters, and grandfather. Old Papa Holt, I smiled just remembering the trouble he used to get us in. HE got US in. He was one of those old men that ages on the outside but not on the inside. He used to tell wild stories about the war and when he was a boy. He'd sit in his unbalanced rocking chair and tell us the evils of vegetables and old women. Make us fetch him moonshine from the barn and cookies from the oven things like that. I really loved that old man. I prayed he was still alive. The moment I thought it I knew he wasn't.

I made my way along Caldren road. My house wasn't far from his, a good run or a bike ride away maybe. It was stupid to have gone to my high school first but seeing Joel's was not on the top of my things to do list. The road was broken and filled with potholes and my car was taking a beating. I was hating it. There weren't many houses along Caldren and nothing much to look at. A lot of trees, a few barns, a pasture there. And finally one big white house in the middle, 30 acres of pure joy, a separate two car, two story garage built by hand by Joel's dad and grandfather. I pulled in to the gravel drive, which was more like a parking lot, behind Mr. Holt's white and brown-stripped pick-up. There was also a blue Bronco, a red ford pick up from the fifties I knew was Papa Holts, it was half covered (bad sign), a black Explorer, a gray Escort and gray Navigator, a Town car, a blue Camaro, Mrs.Holts old reddish minivan, and a new black Dodge 1500, plus one Holt Tile Van off in the grass. It was Sunday morning; I really hoped everyone wasn't here for breakfast. How dramatic would that be?

I sat in the car for no more then five seconds before a woman blond woman in a pink Sunday dress came out of the house, she was trailed by two kids. I recognized her right away.

"Katie?" I asked stepping out. The woman who had been headed towards the Bronco stopped abruptly.

"Dillon?" I smiled at her.

"Holy Shit!" she said hurrying towards me. We embraced. Joel's youngest sister smelled like maple bacon and I knew I was in trouble. She pulled back looking completely amazed. I guess Joel didn't tell her. Her pouty pink lips were set in utter surprise. She had the families more common light brown eyes which all off the Holts did except for Papa and Joel. She looked gorgeous.

"When did you get to be so beautiful?" I teased.

"What, did you expect me to stay ten forever?" She said smiling. "Where have you been girl? God, it's been forever."

"New York."

"Really. Well La de Dah." She said. "Oh. I want you to meet my babies. Ashley, Alex!" she called over her shoulder. Babies, I thought, what was she 19, 20? The two blonde haired kiddies I'd seen follower her out came shuffling over.

"Ash, Alex this is Dillon. She's mommies good friend." The little girl, dressed in purple, clung to her leg and avoided my eyes but the little boy, Alex waved at me. I waved back.

"Hi," I said

"Hi," he said back. He had rumpled golden curls and blue eyes. Cutie-pie stamped on his forehead.

"Its nice to meet you. How old are you?" I asked bending slightly.

"Four!" he proclaimed.

"Four!" I said trying not to look at Katie but failing miserably. She didn't even blush.

"I was 16," she said like I couldn't do the math. I nodded and stuck my hand out to Alex he tried to shake it hard but couldn't get his hand all the way around mine. Katie made her way to the Bronco and popped open the back door.

"Come on pumpkin heads into the truck." She said peeling Ashley off her leg. She helped the little girl into the back and then Alex. "I wish I could stay and chat," she said. "But we've got to meet daddy, isn't that right?" she said to the kids. Ashley let out an excited squeal. "Get in your seats." She ordered and turned back to me.

"Who's daddy?" I asked.

"Robert Cline."

"Tommy's little brother?"

"The one." She said. I wanted to ask if they were married but thought that rude. It didn't occur to me to look at her finger. Some days I'm a little slow. "Are you staying in town long?" she asked.

"For tonight."

"Maybe we can get together before you leave. Give me a call." She said digging in her little pink purse. She pulled out a little pink card that read 'Ruth's Beauty Parlor. Katherine." Her cell phone number, I think, was scribbled on the back. I pocket it and smiled,

"Will do." I said, turning to the house, "Everybody is at breakfast I suppose."

"Yup. But don't let that worry ya. Everyone will be happy to see you." She said giving me another hug. "Oh! I wish I could stay. But we're late already." Something seemed to have occurred to her. "Wait till Joel sees you. He's going to flip!"

"Oh, he already did." I said, I hadn't meant to but-

"What! He knows you're here? He didn't say anything! I'll kill him!"

"Don't. Its my fault."

"What?"

"Mommy." A little voice called from the car.

"Be there in a minute." She sang.

"We kind of ran into each other in Trent Summit."

"And?"

"I was with my...fiancée." I said. I wasn't sure if that's what Christian was to me exactly but it didn't really matter, tomorrow we would be.

"Shit." She said. Then, "Oh I mean I'm happy your getting married. Congratulations, its just-."

"I know. Awkward.

"Yeah."

"Mommy!"

"Okay!" she yelled. "Well I got to go. But-."

"I'll call you." I said and we parted. I stared up at the white house I'd nearly grown up in and couldn't force myself to move. I considered leaving and coming back later but I knew I'd loose my nerve. I tried no to think about what was going to happen and moved forward, focusing on something else. Katie. She had twins! She was so young. But she looked like a good mom. Talking to her was just so easy. I hadn't expected it to be. As a kid she'd been so fierce. So wild, the littlest Holt had. I'd baby-sat her more times then I could count. We'd always had fun, painting or playing. She'd always talked about Joel and I getting married. We'd planned my wedding secretly for years. I figured she'd hate me if I ever came back, angry I left her and Joel and everybody. But she didn't. I was tremendously relieved.

I stood at the threshold. My fist coming down for the knock hoping that Katie's warm welcome wouldn't be the last.

To be continued...