Fractured from the Fall

Best-Laid Plans

"So, I was thinking windows?" Lily said, breaking the silence.

"Windows?" Ford asked, confused by her change of topic.

"Yeah, floor to ceiling."

"For what?"

"And huge wood beams running along the vaulted ceiling, plus paint, something light to open the space."

"Lils, what are you talking about?" Ford asked, shaking his head in confusion.

"Remodeling the house."

"You've lost me."

"I thought maybe I could help you remodel the ranch house."

Ford's eyebrows peaked in both disbelief and curiosity. This is why he had kept the house: for her. It had always been for her. 

"You? Want to help me? Remodel the house?"

"Why not?" she asked as if insulted. Did he think she couldn't do it, or did he not believe she waned to? "I pretty much single-handedly designed Richard and I's house. There wasn't a lot he complemented me on in our marriage, except that house. I'm damn good with design and more importantly, I like it. So I recently applied to start taking some classes online."

Ford was surprised and impressed, but most of all, he was happy that Lily was finally doing something for herself.

"Well as much as it pains me to admit it, I think your husband was right. That enormous house of yours was beautiful."

"What?" Now it was Lily who was confused. "How would you know? You never saw it."

Ford made a face like she was missing something.

"Wait a minute, you saw it? When?"

"I came after you about a year after you left," he said sheepishly. "But when I saw where you were living and what your life was like, well, I knew I couldn't ever give you all of that, so I turned around and went back home."

"Oh Ford," she said sadly. Her heart broke at the thought of him coming all that way to get her back and then turning around and leaving. She ached to go back in time. She would have ran to him and left Richard. They'd lost so much time together. She stepped toward him, but stopped, unsure if he still wanted her.

"So, you helping me with the house, is this all part of your 'plan'?" he teased, trying to change the subject, embarrassed over what he had done.

Lily thought about that night that they had gotten high outside her bedroom window and she had told him about how she had a plan. He had teased her for it, and he was right to. 

"Nah, consider it a favor," Lily smirked.

Ford couldn't help but smile at her reference to their first date all those years ago.

"It's a nice idea, but I don't have the money."

"I do."

Ford looked skeptical.

"I signed the papers. For my divorce. And I got a pretty large settlement."

"Oh yeah, why'd you do that?" Ford inquired, secretly happy at the news, but trying to play it cool.

"I think I'd been holding on for the wrong reasons. Being back here made me see that. You made me see that. You've always told it to me straight, even when I fight you on it, even when I don't want to hear it."

Ford looked as if he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself.

The sky darkened. Thunder rolled across the hills and a bolt of lightening cracked nearby.

"Looks like a storms comin'?" Ford said, looking up at the sky and holding his hand out as a raindrop fell into his palm. "Not sure if we can make it back to the house in time."

Was he suggesting what she thought he was? It was true, the house was a decent walk away. She looked around. There was another place for them to take shelter.

"Well there's always the stables," she said suggestively, looking past Ford at the barn nearby. She could feel the memory of their first time together in every inch of her body as if it happened yesterday.

Ford smiled and his dimples popped. Those damn dimples. They were always her undoing.

He stepped towards her, closing the gap between them. He took her hand and her heart fluttered. It was odd how something so old and familiar could seem so exciting and new. She looked into his eyes and felt at home; she was at home in the mountains, at home with this man she had left behind and tried desperately to forget, but somehow found her way back to. There were lines carved in his face, but he was still the same boy she remembered. He was still the same boy she had always loved and always would.

For as long as she could remember, Lily had been trying to find some sort of closure over what had happened with both her mother and Ford. Her past was a wound and she kept picking at the scab, never allowing it to fully heal. Time, love, life, death: it had made her see that it was silly to think she could simply close the door on the past and pretend it didn't exist. Some wounds heal, while others leave scars that are a part of you forever. She thought she needed to come to terms with what had happened in order to live fully in the present, but in that moment she felt at peace with the past and open to the possibilities of the future, and maybe that was enough. Maybe it was naive to think she could ever fully get over the trauma she had endured. Maybe she just needed to embrace the beautiful mess that had lead her to this exact moment.

She looked out over the misty valley and couldn't help but see the irony in that the place she had been running from for so many years, was the thing she had been searching for all along. The plan she had made when she was younger hadn't gone the way she intended, but even the best-laid plans can go astray, and oftentimes it's better that way. Plans change. Detours happen. Life is messy. But the rain doesn't last forever.

Thunder boomed and lightening cracked over the hills as Ford led Lily through the falling rain, toward the stables. Storm clouds enveloped the sky, but the storm raging inside of Lily, was finally quiet.