No. Don’t leave like this. Don’t let it be like this, Sara.Go to him! Run. Tell him you love him. Tell him! No matter how loudly or passionately her conscience shouted at her, Sara didn’t have the power to do it. She couldn’t. Instead she turned around to begin the long walk to the house that soon would no longer be her home.
17
Sara fiddled with the cellular phone, facing the car. She took a deep breath, staring at the phone number on the phone. It was time to go. Her belongings had been reduced to what was in the car and the rest had been put in a small storage unit until her return. The thought of leaving without telling Lincoln goodbye weighed on her. It felt wrong not to tell him, but she wondered if it was right to tell him. It seemed like that was all she thought about now; what was right and wrong. Was it wrong or right of her to love her husband’s brother? Was it wrong or right of her to want another chance at happiness, though her husband could not? Lincoln felt right; Cole had felt right. What did that say about Sara? Maybe it said absolutely nothing, maybe it didn’t matter, but still, she felt it said something.
She took a deep breath. He was fading from her and that was what was the most unbearable. The exact shade of his eyes eluded her; the certain timbre of his voice when he spoke; his scent; it was all leaving her. Leaving her and filling her with a terrible loss, making a part of her hollow. Sara thought that was what hurt the most; more painful than his absence was the lack of everything that embodied him; kept him alive in her. She didn’t want to forget him, not a single detail of him, and it was already happening.
The pull to call Lincoln was maddening, unavoidable, and so she hit the Send button, listening to the ring of the phone. It took her back to all the countless times she’d called him after the car accident, when he’d been all that was between her and insanity from the depth of grief she could not bear. Lincoln had saved Sara from herself so many times. This time, though, she had to save herself. I wish I knew how.
“Sara,” Lincoln said by way of greeting.
She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice, shocked by how much it affected her. It sent tingles from her scalp down to her fingertips. When he didn’t say anymore, she floundered with, “Hi. I, uh…I…I’m leaving today.” Pathetic, Sara.
A pause. “Be safe,” was his gruff response.
“I will.” Sara tapped her short nails against the roof of the car, the sun glaring down on the crown of her dark hair. “I just…I wanted to say goodbye.” The distance between them was suffocating her and it was because of her.
“And so you did.”
“Right. Goodbye, Lincoln.” Dread pooled in her stomach, growing until it filled her with a sick feeling.
She began to move the phone from her ear when he said sharply, “Sara, wait.”
“Yes?” Her voice was breathless and Sara’s heart pounded in anticipation of Lincoln’s words.
“I don’t want you to go. I know you’re going to go anyway, but I just want you to know that.”
“I have to go,” Sara whispered, clutching the phone tightly to her ear.
“I know that. I know.” Lincoln let out a loud sigh. “Just…” He broke off and she could feel the hesitation from him even through the phone. “I’m going to say this and you don’t have to say anything back, okay? I love you. Remember that.”
I love you, she thought back as the line clicked off. Heart heavy, Sara got into the car and began her journey. She didn’t know if it was necessary for her to leave her life in Boscobel in order to find herself, but maybe it was. The house, the town, even Lincoln; they all reminded her of what she’d lost. This separation from all she knew was the one thing that without a doubt, felt right.
The hours she drove with only her thoughts to guide her were reflective and also inescapable. Sara had never really thought of herself as weak or strong before the accident, but since then, she’d convinced herself she was the weakest kind of person; the kind who couldn’t say goodbye, the kind unable to function on their own, unable to accept loss and carry on; the kind of person who broke in the wake of tragedy instead of growing stronger because of it; the kind of person who could take a life and yet be forced to continue living what they felt was an unworthy one.
You’re only human, a voice inside her head said. Was that really an excuse? Sara struggled with forgiveness; for herself, for her inability to save him; for being only human. Humans were flawed, so easy to die, so prone to hurt and hurt the ones they loved, consciously or not. And yet forgiveness was not so easily given, not to herself.
***
Waupun, Wisconsin had over 11,000 residents, but not much more than Boscobel as far as entertainment went. Actually, Boscobel had one up on Waupun: there was no movie theater, old or otherwise, in the town of Waupun. Sara thought the population being so high might have something to do with the two prisons in the city. She supposed in that regard Waupun did have one up on Boscobel, though it wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Her destination had been random. She’d gotten a map of Wisconsin, closed her eyes, and put her finger on a city. Her finger had actually landed on Beaver Dam; a trendier city about half an hour from Waupun, but as her parents had an old friend who owned a motel in Waupun, she’d contacted Dana Newman for an extended-stay room instead of sticking with Beaver Dam. It was more of an inn than a motel; too nice to be reduced to the title of motel. Sara wasn’t really sure how Dana knew her parents; only that she’d seen her at occasional birthday parties and get-togethers through the years. She was charging her next to nothing because, as Dana had said, she’d always liked Sara and she was sorry she’d gotten so much rotten luck in her life.
Dana also didn’t need the money; she was extremely wealthy from being the wife and divorcee of rich men four times over. Short, platinum blond, with leathery brown skin, Dana liked to be stylish, even when the look she was going for was much too young for her sixty-ish body and face and she should probably lay off the tanning bed. Sara had been there over two weeks and every day at eight in the morning Dana brought over a cup of coffee and a doughnut because Sara was too thin and no boy wanted to lay down with bones. Her words. She wore tight capris in black and white and alternating flashy tops with headache-inducing designs and wobbled in six-inch heels no woman had any right wearing, least of all an elderly one.
The room was the size of a small apartment and located on the second floor of the motel, complete with a kitchenette with fun-sized appliances and furniture. The walls were creamy white with pale pink, white, and celery green accents for furniture and fabric. It was uncluttered with a bed, dresser, a pale green chaise lounge with a neoclassic design, and a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. A small closet housed her clothes. The bathroom had a garden tub with a skylight above it. Sara loved it. If she had to pick a room to live in, this would be it. You are living in it, at least temporarily.
A pamphlet in Sara’s motel room boasted: “Waupun comes from the Indian name of "Waubun" which means "dawn of day." In fact, Waupun was originally supposed to be named "Waubun" but the State of Wisconsin made a spelling error, and Waupun never bothered to change it.” She snorted when she read that.
Sara lay on the comfortable full-sized bed with the pink paisley comforter, staring at the white ceiling fan and light. Where did she belong? Not in this foreign city she’d escaped to, not in the past or in the house they’d bought together. Maybe Sara didn’t belong anywhere, but with someone. She’d come to Waupun to find herself and instead she was finding Lincoln.
His eyes glared at her in their powerful way from the recesses of her mind; she felt his arms around her in the warmth of the sun; she longed to hear his deep voice that spoke so passionately and kissed just as passionately. You’re stupid, Sara, for leaving. She tried to make herself feel better by telling herself she wouldn’t have realized that if she hadn’t gone. It was little consolation. The point was she was wasting time she could be spending with Lincoln; the man who’d awoken the fire inside her she’d thought forever snuffed out. And still, she couldn’t return, not yet.