Page 65 of The Fixer and the Fugitive

Jody nodded. “Right. I keep searching for a little box. Ring size, you know? We’re all hoping.” She held both hands up to show him both sets of crossed fingers.

Sam laughed. This was his first full conversation with the woman, and yet she felt comfortable probing into his marriage plans with Celeste. But that was the way in Paradise, he was learning. Each person’s life wasn’t solely his own. The town viewed itself as a collective, but not in a communist way. More like a family. It was mind boggling, but also sort of wonderful, especially for someone like him who had been so long without family.

“You’ll be the first to know.” He said it in a joking way, but she responded with a sincere nod.

“You bet I will,” she said, tapping the mail slot behind her.

Mental note, never order jewelry through the mail here.

He thanked Jody, headed back to his truck, and was waylaid by Fletcher Reed. Unlike Celeste, who thought the man was always two seconds away from donning feathers and declaring himself a chicken or something similarly insane, Sam found him amusing. So he fancied himself famous. What was the harm? He seemed nice enough.

“How’s it going?” Fletcher asked.

“It’s…” Sam began and then somehow ran out of steam before he could finish the lie. “Okay,” he said at last.

Fletcher glanced at his watch. “Wanna grab a coffee?”

“Yes,” Sam said because the alternative was going back home and he hadn’t worked through enough of his feelings to face Celeste yet.

“So what’s up?” Fletcher asked as soon as they were seated in the diner. Avery brought coffee, followed by pie delivered with a breathless smile by her three year old son.

Sam appreciated that they were cutting to the chase, but he wasn’t sure where to begin. Without a doubt he knew Celeste wouldn’t want him to spill any of her information or their private issues. On the other hand, how was he ever supposed to fix what he couldn’t figure out?

“How did you and Chloe meet?” Chloe was quiet, a bit shy, sharp contrast to her gregarious and outgoing husband.

Fletcher gave him a wry smile and shook his head. “You really don’t know. Amazing. You and Celeste are meant to be. To answer your question, we met as kids and grew up together. It wasnotlove at first sight. We’re opposites in almost every way. It took a while for that to actually attract. We reconnected after she came to Paradise. I fell in love, both with her and the town.”

Sam remained quietly thoughtful, breaking off little pieces of his pie without actually eating them.

“Was there a reason you asked? Is everything okay with you and Celeste?”

“I wish I knew,” Sam said, tossing aside his fork. “Celeste is the most incredible person I have ever met. She works harder than anyone I’ve ever known. The woman never stops. It’s as if retirement gave her a blank slate she feels she has to fill with a list of accomplishments.” He thought of yesterday, when Celeste went to her first story time at the library, nervous and excitedand trying not to be. When she saw Celeste checking out so many picture books, the librarian suggested she join the weekly kids’ circle. Celeste had been willing to undergo the humiliation of being the only non-parent there, merely because she wanted to begin again, to learn to appreciate books from the ground up, starting with children’s stories. Some days Sam loved her so much he felt like his heart couldn’t take any more.

“Does that bother you?” Fletcher asked. “Her attempts to accomplish things?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. They felt gritty, despite the fact that he finally felt caught up on sleep for the first time in a decade. That was another great thing about Celeste: she had let him sleep, hadn’t bugged him or badgered him or guilted him for being so unproductive. She was so caring, so kind, and she didn’t even realize. “I guess I want to know why she’s a blank slate. I want to know everything, and she won’t let me in. I don’t know how to show her that she can trust me, that all I want is to love her.”

Now it was Fletcher’s turn to be thoughtfully silent as he stared at his pie. “Maybe you can’t.”

Sam blinked at him. “You mean give up?”

“In a manner of speaking. Give up trying to fix her. Give her space and time to come to her own realizations. If you manhandle her into opening up before she’s ready, it will make things worse. You might damage her further; she might not forgive you.”

Sam felt the bottom drop out of his stomach and suddenly regretted the pie. “I don’t want to hurt her, to damage her,” he exclaimed, then lowered his voice when a few people darted him looks.

“Do you want to fix her?” Fletcher asked.

“Of course I do,” Sam said, tossing his arms wide in frustration.

Fletcher shook his head. “You can’t.”

They stared at each other. Sam’s frustration was palpable. Fletcher seemed to be letting the words sit for a while so Sam could soak them in before he continued. “You can’t fix another human being. You can only love them. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you’re willing to love her as she is, secretive and closed off, or if you can’t. If you need her to open up and let you in or it’s a deal breaker, so be it. There’s no shame in having boundaries and declaring them, as long as you do it with integrity. If you’re willing to take her as is, then you work on yourself, on your own longsuffering patience.”

“Are you some kind of counselor or psychiatrist?” Sam asked.

“Nope. I’m a messed up guy who’s trying to do better for his family. And I learned a lot of things the hard way, this lesson specifically. Chloe had some issues, stemming from our childhood. I had to give her time and space, had to let her come to me in her own way.”

“It sounds easy in theory, but we live in the same house, see each other all day every day. I tell myself I’m going to let it go, and then I’m confronted with the reality of how little she lets me in, and I get frustrated.”

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