“What if he’s just a lonely old man?” Reese asked hesitantly.
Oriana had thought about this. “Isabella brought the story to the station for a reason,” she said tentatively. “There’s certainly something strange about his past.”
“There’s something strange about everyone’s past,” Reese said. “I just hope we aren’t tarnishing a lonely old man’s name. Have you talked to him?”
Truth be told, Oriana hadn’t spoken to Larry at all since Reese’s radiation had begun. She’d wanted to distance herself from the “lonely” yet slightly scary old man. But now that people like Malcolm were banging on her door for more original paintings (with many more on the way, she was sure), she guessed she’d have to speak to Larry soon. Unless she continued to speak to him via her assistant, Kendra? Wasn’t that what Kendra was for?
What if Oriana was getting too old for this? What if she was too tired?
Reese put his hands on Oriana’s shoulders and rubbed through the strained muscles. He kissed the back of her neck. With this rush of tenderness, Oriana felt overcome. The past few months had been all-encompassing. Only recently had she begun to sleep all through the night. Of course, Reese’s test results hung in the horizon. But right now, they could breathe again.
“Remember when you said you wanted to go back out to Colorado to investigate?” Reese asked.
Oriana half remembered saying it at Thanksgiving, when Reese had barely been able to walk. “Sure,” she said. “But it isn’t that important.”
Reese laughed gently. “I’m feeling better and better. More than that, I’m feeling cooped up.”
Oriana twisted her neck to look at him. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Remember that hot tub on the balcony?” Reese said wistfully. “Remember those mountains, towering over us? I want to see them again.”
He didn’t add what Oriana was sure he was thinking: that he was terrified the test results wouldn’t come back clear, that he was terrified he wouldn’t live beyond this year.
What he wanted was clear. He wanted to see things. He wanted to make memories with Oriana.
It was enough to overwhelm Oriana all over again. But rather than accuse him of not thinking he would live through the year or of giving up, she cleared her throat and said, “We have to talk to your doctor before we make any plans.”
Reese saluted her playfully. “I’ll make an appointment for later this week.”
At the beginning of February, Oriana and Reese boarded a tiny plane at Martha’s Vineyard Airport and settled into first class. Reese looked downright boisterous, laughing along with the flight attendants and telling them about their big trip to the mountains.
“My wife is a hotshot art dealer,” he explained. “She lets me come around the world with her. Aren’t I lucky?”
The flight attendants beamed at Oriana. It was clear they respected her for having such a kind and open-hearted husband. Oriana smiled nervously back at them. She was terrified that something would go wrong in the air, in the mountains, wherever. She had half a mind to take Reese off the plane and drive him back home this minute. But his doctor had cleared him—both when Reese had asked him in the office and when Oriana had called him later to double-check. That, and the flightattendants were already closing the doors, locking them in tight for a safe journey.
The flight from Martha’s Vineyard to Boston and the subsequent flight from Boston to Denver were uneventful, with very little turbulence and a lot of laughter between Oriana and Reese.Leave it to Reese to draw me out of my shell, she thought, giggling so hard that her wine almost shot out of her nose.
At Denver Airport, they collected a rental SUV and headed into the mountains. Oriana drove, glancing every once in a while at Reese, who took countless photographs as they went deeper into the snowy mountains. Everything had changed since their trip in October. The trees were spindly, and there were piles upon piles of white. It was magical, quiet. Spooky.
They stayed in the same hotel in Nederland, where the same woman checked them in and handed them their keys.
“You were here for him,” the woman said as she set their luggage on a luggage cart. “Larry Calvin Johannes.”
Oriana nodded, wincing. She searched the woman’s face for clues, then dared to ask, “Do you think he did what they say he did?”
The woman shrugged and put her hands on her hips. “There are all kinds of secrets in these mountains. It’s impossible to say what people hide from the world up here. My mother never liked Larry, but I don’t think it was because he was violent toward her. He was arrogant. He was always sure he was meant for something great. I guess he was right. People like you sniffed him out and made him a big name!”
Upstairs, Reese told Oriana to shake off what the woman downstairs had said. “Let’s get in the hot tub and relax till dinner,” he ordered, turning on the bubbles and turning up the temp.
Oriana slipped into the water and held Reese’s hand, willing herself not to ask him if he felt all right, if he was too tired. He’dspecifically asked his radiation oncologist about every potential phase of their trip, including whether he could use a hot tub, and his radiation oncologist had given him the a-okay.
They studied one another. It felt as though they’d just woken up from a dream, or a nightmare. It was like they’d gone to sleep in October and woken up in February.
“Before you ask,” Reese said with a funny smile, “I feel fine. I feel great, actually.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But you wanted to.”
