Beneath Their Willow

His Story          
Clink, tank, swooshclunk, Eric Clapton wailing in the background, it was all so easy for Tanner to ignore with a couple rounds in him. A small glass of whiskey was cradled in his left hand. The perspiring sides made it slippery and soothing compared to the humid unventilated air of the bar. Inside the glass was the fluid that soothed his aching dryness. The amber glowed like ecstasy. Amber ecstasy, Amber Ecstasy, sounds like a porn star, he thought wearily. He took the first sip of his new glass and felt the burn slid down into him, rolling into his core, singeing what was left alive of his soul, and becoming his only essence.          
Giggles spun their silky feminine webs to his ears. He glanced over. There were three of them; they were here every week. He knew they were beautiful, he couldn’t deny the way their voluptuous curves made his body react or the way he felt when they turned their sparkle clad eyes towards him. Their skin was no mystery, the clothes they wore were meant to make men feel pulsing in the pants and do anything to get a little taste of the deep cleavage they displayed. They looked like they had names like Amber Ecstasy, and still he had no interest in them.          
They could never get his attention, and so it became a game every week. One would come over and flirt with him a little, touch him a little, suggest a little. But it never worked. He’d throw back another glass of whiskey and they would dissolve in an alcoholic haze.          
Truckers, home from their runs for the weekend, laughed boisterously in a corner slamming mugs of beer down on the table and slapping each other’s backs. Delight and excitement were a tangible force in the air-like jell-o almost-so sweet and thick; everyone was just swimming in it, except for Tanner. He was here to forget. It was so easy to let the laughter slip away, to let the dark mahogany of bar trickle from his mind’s hands, to let the girls and the truckers and the bartender all become shadows that fled in the noonday sun. What he meant to forget was always what he relived again when the whiskey did away with realty. And like a leaf, brown and dry in the fall of its days, being taken back to the summer when it was green and coursing with life, Tanner was once again 18 and running through the high, lush grass at Cowper’s Field looking for her.          

As if the entire world was meant to spin around it, a looming graceful weeping willow stood in the center of Cowper’s Field. Tanner parted its pliant branches and there she was. Sitting at the base of the tree that was twice the size of her, Tara Jo was reading a book. With the sun just setting and casting it’s light into this little inlet of life, hitting her just right, Tanner could easily imagine fairies, clothed in leaves, spilling sparkly light from their wings as they flew, fluttering around her and maybe a centaur pawing the ground as his mistress delved into a new world of a book. Chestnut hair cascaded along her shoulders and her tank top covered just enough to make Tanner want to discover what it hid. He could tell she was ignoring him on purpose because he could see her lips getting tight with anger.
He ducked into their private little place and sat down next to her. Tara Jo breathed a sigh of frustration.
“Why are you leaving me?” Tanner asked, his voice slipping with desperation. Without looking up, Tara Jo answered.
“I’m not leaving you; I’m leaving this place, this town. How can you even ask me that question?”
Hearing those words tightened Tanner’s heart in his chest. Most people called it breaking, but it really wasn’t, it was more like his heart was making its self as small as it could so the pain couldn’t find room in it. “You know if you leave Juniper you’re leaving me, you made the decision knowing that, Tara…and I always thought there was something we had that…wasn’t something you just walked away from.”
“I’m not walking away from you.” She said, still calm and still looking at her book.
“I’m coming with you” Tanner said.
“What you do you mean you're coming with?” she finally dropped her book and look at him.
“I mean if you want to go to Sara Lawrence I’m not going to ask you not to. But Tara Jo, I’m not going to lose you. I love you too much. So that’s why I’m going to New York with you.” He felt confident as he said it. He had had a fantasy that she would throw her arms around his neck and proclaim her joy in between happy tears upon hearing him say that. Instead he was met by a cold stare.
“You're going to follow the heartless girl that chose to leave you half-way across the country to a city that is brash, uncaring, and completely without any real dirt for you too carry out your family’s farm legacy?”
“Yes, if it means that I can stay with you.” He said, confidence wavering, dipping into insecurity here and there.
Tara Jo’s golden brown eyes were steel and lips that had always been so welcoming to Tanner were set with white anger. “Did I ever say I wanted you to come with me?”
And that was it. Tanner’s world imploded around him, she didn’t want him with, she didn’t want to be with him and all their plans and dreams were nothing but talk to her. He wanted to be incredulous. He wanted to believe she didn’t mean it. But he couldn’t, not when her eyes had always been portholes into the wealth of emotion that she beheld. He always knew that when her words were lies, her eyes, to him, always told the truth, and her eyes were saying, “I never asked you to come with me.” His heart clenched into a ball so small it seemed to disappear.
Tanner stood up, and as stiff as he could manage, he walked away from her but when he parted the branches he turned and said, “I’m sorry you feel that way, I won’t bother you anymore.” And he left. Looking forward, he walked, not letting himself cry, not letting himself hurt, and not letting himself die right then and there.
Then something hit him hard, knocking him over. For a moment he actually thought he had collapsed from the pain but then he realized that it had been Tara Jo. She had ran up and barreled in to him, throwing her arms and legs around him. They had toppled to the ground and now Tara Jo was on top of him, her head buried into Tanner’s neck, sobbing.
Between sobs she said, “I love you so much,” she paused to let out a breathy whimper, “I can’t even see leaving you, come with me please, I love you…I love you Tanner,” another pause to sob, “I’m sorry…just please know I love you, I live for you.”
Tanner twisted out from underneath her and then pulled her into his arms. Rocking her and telling her softly that it was ok, that everything was going to be fine. Finally her tears slowed and her lips didn’t tremble, her speech was no longer slurred by violent sobs. Tara Jo sat up and sniffled. She reached up and touched a day’s growth of hair on Tanner’s chin. She let her fingers slide along the rough surface until they were on his lips.
“I have to leave Juniper because I was meant for more than being a farmer’s wife. But you and I…we were meant to be together. So please come with me to New York.” Tanner smiled.
’Tara Jo, I would be honored to escort you to New York.” He stood up and bowed at the grass covered, tear stained girl, laughing on the ground. She stood up too and took his extended hand.
“Well I do declare you have set my heart to pounding and my head to feeling faint. You had better catch me before I get the vapors.” Tara Jo said in a suspiciously accurate imitation of a southern belle.
“I suppose since you asked so nicely, I must oblige.” He pulled her into his arms and before she knew what was happening his lips had claimed her mouth so fully there was no getting loose. She let herself fall into the kiss, feeling the moisture of his mouth, soft and silky, until she felt warm hands inching their way under her tank top. She pulled away and slapped him gently.
“Sir, I do not recall us being betrothed and I believe that kind of behavior is inappropriate. I may have to tell my incredibly rich and powerful father who would have you removed from our thriving metropolis of Juniper, North Carolina. Now what would you do thrown to the wolves like that? So my love, I will remove my sinfully attractive bosom from your presence.” Tara Jo flipped her hair and strolled away from Tanner. Tanner groaned and called after her.
“Pretending isn’t funny anymore!”
Tara Jo looked back coyly. “Go home, take a cold shower, break the news to your parents about New York and maybe I’ll feel a little less pure tomorrow.” Tanner groaned again.
As he ruefully started to walk backwards in the other direction he called, “Nice sashay by the way.”

The bar was clearing out and the bartender was wiping down the counter. The wet rag was leaving shiny streaks behind it like a slug. He hated being in public places alone. It made him feel uneasy, like he was in a post-apocalyptic world or at least a something exciting was going on down at the local Piggly Wiggly and he was missing out. He glanced around.

There had been one time when he had gone to the library with Tara Jo to keep her company while she studied. It was her sophomore year and the workload was hitting her hard. She kept falling asleep while she was working, which resulted in a night of wasted studying and a weird impression on her forehead. She asked Tanner to come with her to keep her awake and although he knew it was going to be boring as all hell for him, he agreed to it for Tara’s sake. It had taken more time than they expected, and they were still in the library a couple hours after she had said they would leave. Tanner was getting a little restless. They were all alone, save for a librarian that was occasionally peeking her head around a bookcase at them. Tanner kept seeing the flash of her gray hair from the corner of his eye and it was really starting to work his last nerve. Tapping his fingers on the table and humming Camp Town Races to entertain himself, he was starting to annoy Tara.
“Stop that.” She reached up and put her hand over his hand that was tapping the table.
“Sorry.” he mumbled then tried to read an article in his magazine before he realized he had read it three times now. Some gray was sticking out of the bookcase again, but by time he looked she was gone. His hand found his way back to tapping a rhythm. Camp Town races sing this song do da do da. Camp Town races sing this song oh da do da day.
“Stop!” then she smiled hastily and patted his hand. “I know you’re trying to help but really I’m getting less work done this way. Can’t you find a book or something?” Tara pleaded.
“Did you know that librarian has looked around that corner 6 times in the last half hour? That’s once every five minutes.” He looked off into that direction and Tara tossed her pen at him. He caught it and laughed. Reaching out, he kissed her cheek.
He sat back again and this time he tilted his head up and started to count ceiling tiles. One hundred twenty tiles later he had an idea.
“I’m gonna go for a walk.” He drawled quietly. He left the library and circled once around it. Smiling at some children playing in a tree, he remembered when that was him and Tara up in their willow. The way she always wanted to play Peter Pan and he just wanted to play monkeys or climb higher than her and throw twigs at her. She had always wanted something deeper in life than he did. He wanted two things: Tara Jo and Tara Jo’s children. As long as he had those two things he would be as happy as any man could be. He found a drinking fountain and gratefully lapped at it for a few minutes. That place was dusty and his throat itched. After he finished circling the library he took on last look at the sunset that had gilded everything around him, the air smelled crisp like fall. He loved that smell. Then he decided to go back inside by her to make sure she was still awake.
He found her with her head in her hand, vigorously highlighting a book. He sat down beside her and she glanced at him.
“Hi” she said quickly then went back to highlighting.
“Would you give that thing a rest? Look, it’s saying ‘Help me I can’t breathe I’m so tired.’” He laughed and grabbed the highlighter from her making it dance in front of her. She laughed and made a grab for it. As soon as she did he grabbed her hands and pulled her onto his lap.
“I gotta tell you something that I don’t think I say enough at all. I was out there and I was thinking about all the work you do I just gotta say how proud I am of you. You are so amazing and intelligent and so…complex. I wonder how you ended up with a simpleton like me. You have done so well. Nobody back in Juniper would believe it.” She smiled so brightly he thought she might pop.
Then she nuzzled into his neck and said, “You know why I ended up with you? Because, you are like nobody else I know. You’re everything I’m not and everything I want to find in myself.
Then from around the corner they heard a raspy voice yell, “You two cut that out! That kind of perverse behavior is not for the library!” she became very shrill and the end of her sentence like she was a teakettle done boiling.
“I think she was waiting to do that.” Tanner whispered.


He dropped his key as he tried to hang it up on one of the hooks by the door. He looked down at it nestled in the cream colored carpet. It looked pretty comfortable there and the six foot two inches he would have to travel in a downward motion didn’t seem worth it.

He had been hit with a wave of nausea as he came into the house and almost passed out right there. And now as he looked at the thirty stairs going up to his room in the attic he wished he had passed out. No amount of distance seemed worth the energy it would take to travel it tonight. But he didn’t enjoy the idea of his parents finding him curled up on the floor by the front door…again. So he tracked up the two flights of stairs to the attic.
A long time ago his parents had it converted from an attic to a complete living space for him. The original space with its domed ceiling and arched windows served as the bedroom and living room. To the left of the stairwell was the bathroom. Tanner headed directly for it.
Hurling into the porcelain bowl wasn’t unusual for him and everything was expelled from his stomach in the normal routine of gagging and heaving. Lying on the ground with his head against the cool perspiring base of the toilet, he waited out the waves that seemed to have taken the room. The bathroom mat was itchy against his cheek but he didn’t get up and still didn’t when the air blowing in from the open window made him shiver and pull into a tighter ball for warmth. The air pouring in reminded him of the time he was in a department store in Manhattan with Tara Jo. It was the end of their reign in New York. Tanner was elated. Tara Jo was miserable.
Their years in New York had been a disaster on Tanner’s part. He stopped leaving the apartment because the fast-paced citizens treated him as if he had half a cow’s brain, he missed his family, he missed his dog, he missed being able to walk a mile in any direction and not see another person, he missed Cowper’s Field and Uncle Randy’s general store where he went every Saturday when he was eight to buy nails for the fort he had built, he just missed home.
To Tara Jo, New York was her home. Her life in Juniper was never ideal. Her dad was an alcoholic with an inclination for hitting Tara Jo when he was bored. They lived in a trailer two miles out of town that once got crashed into by a runaway cow. Jim Gante had sneaked into Tom Harper’s pasture and put head phones on Miss Carol o’ Daisy. He then proceeded to blast MC Hammer into the poor cow’s ears so loud she let out a moo that woke Tom and she took off running and didn’t stop until she collided head first with Tara Jo’s trailer, putting a good-sized dent into her bedroom and into Miss Carol o’ Daisy’s head. Her Daddy died two years later and Tara Jo moved in with her late Momma’s cousin. From then on Tara’s life went a little easier. She got encouragement that wasn’t accompanied by bruises and hugs that weren’t a means for groping. But the trailer still stood two miles down the I-70. Propped up on cinderblocks and dented in the rear.
New York was an escape from that. She had taken the only part of Juniper that meant anything to her with her. So the city was her home. But unfortunately the only part of Juniper that meant anything to her was miserable there. She promised him three years into their adventure that as soon as she graduated they could return to North Carolina to get married and start a family. She was offered a job at a literary magazine in Wilmington. She accepted the job contritely and turned down a better job in New York for Tanner.
It was their last week there and Tara Jo insisted on one last trip to Bloomingdale’s. They had been there for almost two hours and Tanner was sick of sitting under the same air vent blasting the same cold air outside the same dressing room that Tara Jo was in trying on the same two jackets.
“Tara, are you almost done yet?” he yelled into the dressing room. She peaked her head out and smiled at him.
“Would you be patient? I can’t decide. This one,” she held up a deep red trench coat with a paisley printed collar and sash, “or this one.” She then held up another trench almost an exact duplicate.
Tanner, feeling a little befuddled said, “Aren’t they…well…the same coat?”
Tara Jo gave Tanner and exasperated look. “This one is puce and this one is cranberry.”
“Are those brand names?” She glared at him then walked back into the dressing room.
Tanner threw up his arms and said, “That’s it!” He followed his chestnut haired beauty in to dressing room and grabbed the surprised Tara Jo, throwing her over his shoulder. She let out a high pitched squeal followed by peals of laughter and half hearted “put me down’s” He held one jacket up the mirror then the other, resolutely said, “This one.” then found the nearest cashier. The sinewy cashier with the tight smile gave him a scandalized look as he handed her the trench coat and a credit card.
“We’ll just be taking this.” She continued to stare as she rang in their purchase. A receipt printed out and she said,
“I’m going to need someone to sign this.”
“Just a moment.” He drawled. He turned around.
Tara lifted her head and said, “Hi, how are you?” then signed the sheet on Tanner’s back.
They left the store that day with one puce trench coat and a really great story to start off the third part of their lives with.

Tanner was lying in bed waiting for the spinning to stop but he wasn’t optimistic about those chances. Maybe it never would have happened if they had stayed in New York. Everything was his fault. If he had never pressured her to return to Juniper she never would have done it. They would have been happy, together.

They moved in with his parents and they had redone the attic for them. The same attic Tanner slept in now. Their plan was to stay there until they could find a place of their own. They were at a diner having lunch and talking about buying a new car.
“But is it more important than saving for a place of our own?” Tara seemed against the idea.
“Yes it is. ‘Cause your gonna need a good car to drive to Wilmington every weekend to make the money we’ll need to buy us a new little place of our own.” He smiled at her then reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Plus, I think we’re perfectly happy at my parents house, at least for now.”
Tara smiled back. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.” She stood up and walked done the hall to the bathroom.
Tanner’s mind was whizzing with thoughts. If they got married a year from now and had their first baby a year after that they could stay with his parents until the baby was old enough, then they could find their own place. They needed a car with enough room for the three of them and maybe more. Yellow would be a good color for a nursery. Maybe he should start building it now. They could easily convert some storage space into an extra room. Tara Jo would be a wonderful mother. She could teach the baby so many wonderful things. Maybe they would move some place that would be better for Tara Jo’s career and still be a good place to raise a baby. He didn’t know of any such place but if he talked to Tara about it he bet she would have some ideas.
A waitress came up to him and pulled him out of his plans.
“Hey, we’re real sorry but we ran out of roast beef. Is there anything else we can get for you?” she looked apologetic so Tanner smiled reassuringly to her.
“Hold on, my girlfriend ordered the roast beef sandwich; I’ll go ask her.”
Tanner got up and went down the same hallway Tara Jo went down. He expected to just knock on the bathroom door and ask her but when he turned the corner he saw her leaned up against a wall, talking on her cell phone. She didn’t see him right away so he overheard the very last part of her conversation.
“I know you miss me and I know you’re horny but honey I can’t get away for another two weeks. I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do.” She paused for a moment to listen to the other person talking then she said, “I know, but I have to go I love you, bye” She hung up the phone and turned, almost slamming into Tanner.
“Tanner!” she gasped.
“Who was that?” he’s voice was ice. He was trembling, with pain and with rage. He wanted to throw something, he wanted to hit something. He so desperately didn’t want to believe what he just heard. Tara Jo opened her mouth to say something but Tanner stopped her. “Never mind I don’t want to know.” He turned around and left the diner. Slamming his car door and squealing his tires as he tore out of the parking lot, leaving Tara Jo shocked, teary-eyed, and abandoned there.
When Tanner got home he found a couple suitcases and packed all of Tara Jo’s stuff, leaving them on the porch for her when she came home. He locked the door and put the chain lock on so she couldn’t get in. He never told his parents what happened. He couldn’t bring himself to. After all these years… He felt the familiar clenching in his heart, as if it were trying to squeeze out the pain. He sat on his living room floor looking at a picture of Tara Jo as a little girl. She was standing in their back yard with a crown of dandelions on her head. She was bending over picking something up and the dandelions fell over her forehead. She looked up just in time for the picture. She was beautiful. He had been in love with her way back then too. He felt a furious beast unfurl itself inside him and he hurled the frame through a large picture window. He let out one solitary sob.
The next day Tara called him.
“Hi,” she said quietly
“What do you want?” he barked.
“I just want to talk.”
“Yeah well I’m not sure I want to talk to you. I don’t want to have to listen to begging and sad apologies.”
“I’m not going to beg. Tanner it’s over. I know that. You know that. I just want to talk. We’ve been together too long to have it end like that. But I will apologize. I never meant for that to happen.”
“No you just meant to string both of us along for your own pleasure.”
“It was never like that Tanner. You know me better than that.”
“I don’t know you at all”
“Tanner…I’m sorry…”
“Why Tara? Why wasn’t I enough for you…why weren’t we enough?”
“Because Tanner, I can’t live like you! I can’t be trapped in this little town and plan my family and restrict myself to growing corn for the rest of my life! I want to see the world! I want to make myself a career! And the crap job I’m working now is not a career. I want to be somebody. I have what it takes to be somebody but all you want me to be is a housewife!” her voice was filled with iron and determination.
“That’s not true! Why didn’t you tell me you were unhappy?! We could have seen the world together! If it were between losing you and losing Juniper I would have happily left Juniper! I would have launched a nuke at it and danced in the ruins!”
“No Tanner, it couldn’t have been us. We weren’t meant to be. It had to be this way. Goodbye Tanner.” And then she hung up. It was over just like that. Tanner felt something in him fizzle and then melt. He lost something that day. Maybe it was his sanity. But he was pretty sure it was his soul.

He rolled over in bed. He wasn’t passing out like normal. He needed more whiskey. Why couldn’t he just forget her? He was pretty sure she had. But he couldn’t move on. Life was too big and he just didn’t have the strength to get up off his knees. Setting his feet down on the cold ground, he found his way to the bathroom in the dark, stumbling only a little. He felt his way to the medicine cabinet and found a bottle of anti-depressants. He left the bathroom in a daze and found a half empty bottle of whiskey. There was no light in the room, just a somber red alarm clock glowing its numbers at him. 4:17. He sat down at his desk and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. Opening up the bottle and taking the first swig, he began to write.

Her Story

Sweat-drenched and shaking, Tara Jo ripped out of sleep. She felt herself die inside, something became withered and slid out of existence. She wanted to cry; more so if she didn’t cry she would probably blink out of existence herself. She had just had a terrible nightmare but when she searched her brain for details they were gone. Still she couldn’t shake the vise grip it had on her throat. She reached up on her nightstand for a glass of water but in the process she knocked over her alarm clock. 5:22 it said. She couldn’t help but think the dream was about Tanner-as so many were-but this one was different.

The plane dipped and burnt orange liquid poured all over Tara Jo’s hands. Her breath caught in her throat. She hated flying. She didn’t care how many statistics people read to her or how many times she had flown and not crashed, it didn’t matter because the plane always felt a little too flimsy up in the air and there was something about plummeting what felt like millions of miles to the ground that didn’t sit easy with her. When the thing shook with turbulence it was all she could do not to wet herself.
She flicked her tongue across her hand where the now sticky whiskey had spilled. Both her hands were trembling a little but it wasn’t because of the flight. She was about to land in Wilmington. That was a two-hour car ride from Juniper. Ever since she had had that dream she couldn’t let go of the need to see him. So many years, all that lost time. Was he married? Could she handle it if he was? Of course she could, maybe. But if he were married with a family he would be happy, and that was all that was important to Tara Jo. If he finally had the one thing that she couldn’t give him, then that was all that mattered. That, and maybe if he’s wife was hideous. That would probably be ok.
Her life since leaving Juniper had been an empty one. She had started her own publishing company and she was highly successful due to her ability to pick out the real talent from the one hit wonders of the book world. But she hadn’t become close to anyone since Tanner and she cried herself to sleep every night.
She couldn’t believe she was going to see Juniper again. It was such a jumble of good and bad memories. She remembered the first time she had met Tanner. She was just six years old and she had wandered into Cowper’s Field and under the willow tree.

She was sitting at the base of the tree digging a small hole. She had weaved a story of fantasy and she was trying to build a little home for a gruff troll she had invented. Dirt had coated her hands and she tried to wipe it off on her dress. Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned and looked to find a little boy running towards her. He had an armful of wood and a box of nails.
“Hey who are you!?” he called to her. “You know you’re in my fort?” She looked around.
“I don’t see any fort.” She used her baby hands to push her hair out of her face smearing dirt across it.
“That’s because I haven’t built it yet. But I’m going to and you're sitting right inside it.” His dark hair was messy and he had Mickey Mouse on his shirt, and yet he managed to look dignified for a child. Tara Jo giggled.
“You can’t say I’m sitting in something that isn’t real yet.” He smiled and sat down next to her.
“I like you. You’re not like other girls. You’re all covered in dirt. Want to build the fort with me? Here, I’ll show you how to do it.” He put one board on top of another and using a rock to hammer the nail in he demonstrated to her how to build a fort. She followed him around giggling and trying to get him to play trolls with her. They decided to meet there the next day too, and that was beginning of something that never truly ended.

She was walking down the street on her way to the motel. Some people were giving her looks as if they might recognize her, but nobody said anything. She found her way into the main building of a small local motel.
“Hi I’m looking for a room.” She said distractedly as she riffled through her purse looking for her credit card.
“Tara Jo?” the clerk asked.
She looked up to see a short man sitting there. He was quite an unforgettable man. They had gone to school together. He was rather short and squat with a yellow tuft of hair. Always the odd one, he had made a rather amusing impression on Tara.
“Robbie! Wow, I haven’t heard anybody call me Tara Jo in years. Everybody calls me T.J. now.”
“Oh really? You live in New York right? That doesn’t surprise me. Up there they got no time to call people by their proper names. They rush around so fast they have to talk in initials and acronyms.”
Tara laughed. “Pretty much, but I’m actually in a little bit of a hurry myself. Could you ring me up real fast?”
“On your way to Tanner’s old place then? I don’t blame you. I myself had to visit his parents to give them my condolences. Tanner and I really didn’t know each other but he was still a good man for the most part, if you ignore all those bar fights.”
“Condolences…what are you talking about?” there was a buzzing in her head and her stomach dropped a little. There was a small reoccurrence of the feelings that night with the nightmare.
Robbie paled a bit. “You mean you haven’t heard? Oh Tara Jo…I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. This is a terrible way for you to find out but…Tanner passed away about a month ago.
Tara felt like something slammed into her chest and she plopped down in the nearest chair. Her breathing was short and her hands were trembling.
“How…?” she asked quietly.
“He killed himself. Popped some pills and washed them down with half a bottle of whiskey." Tara gasped. She didn’t believe it. She couldn’t. She had to go see him. He would be there. He would.
She pulled into their driveway and ran up to the heavy wooden door banging on it and calling his name. Tanner’s mother, Cynthia, opened the door looking stunned.
“It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true.” She started to sob and threw herself into Cynthia’s arms.
“Oh honey,” she said. Petting Tara’s hair. “You heard then? It’s been so hard I’ve wanted to call you.” Her tears began to fall into Tara’s hair. They stood there on the porch for a while, weeping in each other’s arms.
They were sitting in the living room and both of them threw back a glass of whisky.
“I’m starting to see why Tanner liked this stuff so much.” She sighed and set the glass down. “You have to understand we wanted to tell you ourselves but nobody knew your number and nobody knew where you were. We had almost giving you up as a lost cause.” She took a deep breath at this point. “I have to give you something.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It had been folded and unfolded many times and it had a worn look to it. She tentatively handed it to Tara. “We found him with his face down in the pillow with that note in his hand. Just know we don’t blame you.”
She held the letter in her hand and looked at Cynthia. Despite what she said Tara Jo knew they had to be questioning why she did what she did. She had thought she was doing the right thing. She really did. But she had just managed to ruin a lot of lives; hers included.
There had been problems that she hadn’t told Tanner about. Her period had gotten very heavy and it lasted weeks longer than it was supposed to. She went to doctor and they told her she had fibroid tumors on her uterine lining. That meant she needed to have an operation…one that would leave her unable to carry a child. She sat outside the doctor’s office for nearly an hour. She was crushed, destroyed. God had taken her chance to be a mother and in turn Tanner’s chance to be a father. She couldn’t give him anything he wanted, anything she wanted. She had taken so much from him already. How could she ask him to forget this dream as well? He wouldn’t see it that way as first. He would say he loved her and he wanted to marry her regardless. But she was going to be half a woman soon, damaged and broken. He deserved better than that. He deserved a family. She had to leave him. But she couldn’t tell him the reason why. She needed a plan. One that would make him leave her. She wanted to scream and cry, throw a tantrum nobody ever had seen before. How could this happen to her? She couldn’t leave him. Without Tanner what was she? A shell of herself, a body without a soul, but she had to. His happiness was more important to her than her own. So she arranged for Tanner to believe she had gone to New York for two weeks and have the operation in secret. She would solve the rest of the problem later.
She stood in front of his grave. It was under their willow, tucked behind the branches. It was a cold day. The kind that bites your cheeks and the sky was a swirling mass of dismal rain clouds that were to the point of bursting.
She walked around the grave, careful not to tread on the new dirt. Sitting down at the base of the tree where Tanner had found her so many times, she opened the letter.

Dear Tara Jo,
I’ve lost myself in losing you. This life is too large continue with. I’ve lost all of my strength to fight anymore. God gave me love for you but in the end it wasn’t enough. Still, I will love you until I die and forever after.
Always yours,
Tanner

The wind was blowing through the willow's pliant branches, creating a mournful song of loneliness. She didn’t know if it was her state of mind but the wind seemed to manifest her grief. They had lived their lives alone. They were broken people. A love that should have kept them together, in the end, tore them apart. The only reason the last years had been bearable was the preconception that he had moved on and he was married and happy with lots of children and that although they were apart they still shared the same earth. Now all she had was the knowledge that he never forgot the love they had as she hadn’t. But he will never know that she hadn’t.
She walked away from the willow and Tanner, feeling like she was beaten and bloodied, that she had fallen down a hundred flights of stairs and landed in a puddle of mud and she was slowly drowning in it. The wind and the branches continued to sing their soft requiem as she left Cowper’s field for the last time.
Back in her hotel room she thought about the day it had happened. She had begun the affair with a man she had gone to school with who was more than willing. She knew Tanner was in the hallway and it almost killed her to do it but she had to do it. It had been her intention all along to get caught.
After Tanner left the diner she walked for a long time. She sat by their willow for a while breathing in all the memories. She walked around town, thinking about things they had done, and said goodbye to the town she had grown up in and had hoped her children would grow up in. It was dark before she found her way back to Tanner’s house. She stopped short when she saw all her things and the shattered glass everywhere. She bent down and saw the picture. The glass was creaked and so was the frame so she pulled the picture out. It was a picture of her and Tanner; she was bending over and he was next to her making faces at the camera. She almost laughed. They had been blissful spirits as children, so happy. She sat down next to her luggage on the porch and cried for the first time that night. She had to face the fact that she would never see him again.

A maid found her the next day with her face down in her pillow, clinging to the picture of Tanner and herself as children for dear life. They buried her next to him beneath the willow. For the first time in almost a lifetime they were together.

It was a beautiful summer day. Large cotton candy clouds slowly drifted across a blue sky. A girl and a boy walked in to the field from the woods. They were camping in the forest near Cowper’s field.
“Oh look!” she ran to the willow tree and kneeled by the graves. Tanner’s said "A Lost Love" and right next to his Tara Jo’s said "Finally Found."
“Oh my gosh.” the sentiment touched her heart and a gust of wind blow through the branches as a soft lullaby, so hushed and gentle. There was a bittersweet tone that spoke of the years lost and the reunion of souls. She smiled up at the boy.
“It’s like the angels are singing to them.” She said. He smiled back at her and helped her up, kissing her softly and leading her away into the afternoon.