Page 69 of Second Start: Family
“Different reasons. Some go stir-crazy. Some decide whatever they were trying to leave behind isn’t so bad after all. Some have whatever they were trying to leave behind catch up with them.”
Vicky ducked her head under the faucet.
Kenzie’s thoughts followed a path to the past.
“Right?”
Kenzie started at the distinct question. Vicky had been talking, but the water and the towel around her shoulders muffled the words, leaving Kenzie’s mind too free to wander.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear what you said.”
“No great loss. I was listing some of the short-term wonders we’ve had as teachers here.”
“What sort of things were they trying to leave behind?”
“Mostly husbands.” Vicky wrapped the towel around her head and stood upright. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Hall said something about some past teachers being married.”
“It’s no secret. Buck Felton had to persuade one of the husbands he wasn’t welcomed around here. But it didn’t matter, Renee was gone by morning, anyway.”
“Buck Felton?”
“Aaron’s father. Married to Lori?”
“I know. I just — I would have thought—” That Hall would have come to the rescue. “I mean, wouldn’t you call the sheriff?”
“Not if you want help anytime soon. Out here, we take care of things ourselves, then we call the sheriff’s department and let ’em know how it turned out.”
“I see. Well, you don’t have to worry that anyone will come after me.”
Vicky eyed her. Not outright disbelieving. But not believing, either. “Glad to hear it. Hey, we got off target. I figured you came to talk about you and Hall.”
“No. We agreed … it was a mistake. We won’t do that again.”
Vicky straightened, her hair turbaned in a towel. “Then you really do need to talk to me. I knew you two hadn’t progressed very far or you wouldn’t be over here talking to me so soon, but this is downright regression. Did you not hear what I said before?”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. Sit.”
Kenzie did. Vicky sat sideways on the couch, facing her, but staring at the windowsill.
“I haven’t always been here alone. Not a hundred percent of the time, anyway. I don’t mean the other teachers, I mean here, in my trailer. In my life.”
She said nothing after that for so long that Kenzie thought she might be done talking.
Kenzie wouldn’t push her toward confidences she didn’t want to share.
“We met when I took a vacation to San Diego, got chatting in a bookstore. They can talk all they want about love at first sight being unrealistic, but that first day, I knew. We both knew.”
Vicky sounded so much like her usual prosaic self that Kenzie’s recognition of what her friend said took an extra beat.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t realities to deal with. For starters, geography. A Wyoming schoolteacher and a sailor stationed in California. We made it happen, though. My breaks, his leave. Here or there or somewhere else. He was divorced with a couple kids, so there was that to work out, too. And he’s black.
“You know, some might expect people around here not to have accepted him.” She gave a dry laugh. “And they didn’t at first. Not because of his race. But because he was a newcomer and they were waiting to see how he treated me.
“When they saw how he was to me, how we were together, Ned was accepted completely. As he got nearer to retirement from the Navy, my sailor was ready to move here, where it couldn’t possibly be more land-locked, for the school years … as long as I got him back to water over the summers.”
