The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [44]
Judy blinked, her mind clearly wandering between the present and the past. Denise stayed silent, waiting for her to go on.
“I remember we used to hike down by the river to collect blackberries. Your mother wouldn’t even wear shoes in those prickly things. She had the toughest feet I’d ever seen. She’d go the whole summer without wearing shoes, except when she had to go to church. Her feet would be so dirty by September that her mother couldn’t get the stains out unless she used a Brillo pad and Ajax. When school started up again, your mother would limp for the first couple of days. I never figured out whether it was because of the Brillo pad or simply the fact that she wasn’t used to wearing shoes.”
Denise laughed in disbelief. This was a side of her mother she’d never even heard about. Judy continued.
“I used to live right down the road from here. Do you know the Boyle place? That white house with the green shutters—big red barn out back?”
Denise nodded. She passed by it on the way into town.
“Well, that was where I lived when I was little. Your mom and I were the only two girls who lived out this way, so we ended up doing practically everything together. We were the same age, too, so we studied the same things at school. This was in the forties, and back then everyone sat in the same classroom until the eighth grade, but they still tried to group us together with people the same age. Your mother and I sat next to each other in school the whole way through. She was probably the best friend I ever had.”
Staring toward the distant trees, Judy seemed lost in the throes of nostalgia.
“Why didn’t she keep in touch after she moved?” Denise began. “I mean . . .”
She paused, wondering how to ask what she really meant, and Judy cast her a sidelong glance.
“You mean why, if we were such good friends, didn’t she tell you about it?”
Denise nodded, and Judy collected her thoughts.
“I guess it mainly had to do with her moving away. It took me a long time to understand that distance can ruin even the best of intentions.”
“That’s sad. . . .”
“Not really. I suppose it depends on how you look at it. For me . . . well, it just adds a richness you wouldn’t otherwise get. People come, people go—they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.”
It took a moment for Denise to respond as she remembered the friends she’d left in Atlanta.
“That’s pretty philosophical,” she finally said.
“I’m old. What did you expect?”
Denise set her glass of tea on the table and absently wiped the moisture from the sweating glass on her shorts. “So you never talked to her again? After she left?”
“Oh no—we kept in touch for a few years, but back then your mother was in love, and when women fall in love, it’s all they can think about. That was why she left Edenton in the first place. A boy—Michael Cunningham. Did she ever tell you about him?”
Denise shook her head, fascinated.
“I’m not surprised. Michael was kind of a bad boy, not exactly the kind of guy you want to remember way longer than you have to. He didn’t have the greatest reputation, if you know what I mean, but a lot of girls found him attractive. I guess they thought him exciting and dangerous. Same old story, even today. Well, your mother followed him to Atlanta right after she graduated.”
“But she told me she moved to Atlanta to go to college.”
“Oh, that may have been somewhere in the back of her mind, but the real reason was Michael. He had some kind of hold on her, that’s for sure. He was also the reason she didn’t come