Page 114 of Grown-Up Second Chance

I shook my head and read the same sentence over again.

“You need to put the poor man out of his misery,” Kathleen said.

“And you need to mind your own business.”

I spotted a friendly wave from the road and propelled myself out of my chair. The wave belonged to a couple we’d met at the previous stop. They’d left a week before us. It was easy to drag them from their nightly rounds walking their dogs, cocktails in hand.

“What have you seen? What should we do?” Liz asked them.

“The Teton Mountains are amazing. But I’m sure you saw that on the way down,” the woman said.

“We went through Idaho,” Kathleen said. “I didn’t want to try to thread the rig through animals and tourists.”

“Good idea,” the man said. “I wish we’d done that.”

“You’re going to love painting them,” the woman said to Liz. “The light and shadow change all the time. If you get there early, it’s quieter.”

“Summer and tourists. Can’t avoid them,” the man added.

“And go to the museum,” the woman said. “They’ve got a great exhibit.”

“What about Jackson itself?” I asked. I had memories of a small town with a big square in the middle. Most memorable were the arches of elk antlers on the corners. I had been charmed by the town, always vowing to come back.

“Have you been here before?” she asked.

I nodded.

“It’s changed. It used to be fairly quiet, a place you could find some nice things, or enjoy window shopping if it was too much for your pocketbook. It’s much more … I don’t know … commercial now. It’s more a place to quickly pick up your souvenir saying you’ve been to Jackson Hole. Lots of bars and music. I mean, that was always there, but …”

“They’ve taken a step down,” her husband said. “More neon, less class.”

“They even rebuilt and moved the arches.”

“They had to do that, dear. They were falling apart.”

“I suppose. It’s always hard when my memories don’t match reality anymore.”

That was the truest thing I’d heard in a long time.

Except for Joe. The exterior had changed, yes, but the interior was the same solid person I remembered.

~ ~ ~

The next morning, I took the car and went into the park with my camera. This time I’d decided to practice with the long lens, hoping my early rise would allow me to see some birds and animals. Looking at the park-provided map, I drove to the oxbow bend of the Snake River and hiked closer to it.

Then I waited.

Soon my ears became accustomed to the rhythm of the sounds. Birds, already awake for hours, chattered at each other to defend territory or argue over who saw an insect first. Overhead, ospreys and eagles swooped low over the river, searching for breakfast.

A few other humans were scattered about, but six a.m. was too early for most.

I tried taking pictures of the birds flying overhead, but realized it was going to take a lot of practice for me to get a still shot in the air. I did better when they landed on a limb of a tree.

A fisherman walked close to water’s edge and cast in his line. It wasn’t the elegance of fly fishing, but he made a good focal point for a picture of the river.

As I waited for something to happen, my subconscious focused on what to do about the letter.

What would my sisters think if I abandoned them for a man, no matter how short the time away?

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