“Do you remember when you asked if you could buy me an ice cream?” she asked. “That first time?”
“I remember wondering why you said yes.”
She ignored his comment. “You took me to the drugstore, the one with the old-fashioned fountain and the long counter, and we both had hot fudge sundaes. They made the ice cream there, and it’s still the best I’ve ever had. I can’t believe they ended up tearing the place down.”
“When was that, by the way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe six or seven years ago? One day, on one of my visits, I noticed it was just gone. Kind of made me sad. I used to take my kids there when they were little, and they always had a good time.”
He tried to picture her children sitting next to her at the old drugstore but couldn’t quite conjure up their faces. Did they resemble her, he wondered, or take after their father? Did they have her fire, her generous heart?
“Do you think your kids would have liked growing up here?” he asked.
“When were little, they would have. It’s a beautiful town, with a lot of places to play and explore. But once they got older, they probably would have found it confining.”
“Like you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Like me. I couldn’t wait to leave. I don’t know if you recall, but I applied to NYU and Boston College, just so I could experience a real city.”
“How could I forget? They all sounded so far away,” Dawson said.
“Yes, well… my dad went to Duke, I grew up hearing about Duke, I watched Duke basketball on television. I guess it was pretty much etched in stone that if I got in, that’s where I’d go. And it ended up being the right choice, because the school was great and I made a lot of friends and I grew up while I was there. Besides, I don’t know that I would have liked living in New York or Boston. I’m still a small-town girl at heart. I like to hear the crickets when I go to sleep.”
“You’d enjoy Louisiana then. It’s the bug capital of the world.”
She smiled before taking a sip of her coffee. “Do you remember when we drove down to the coast when Hurricane Diana was coming? How I kept begging you to take me, and how you kept trying to talk me out of it?”
“I thought you were crazy.”
“But you took me anyway. Because I wanted you to. We could barely get out of your car, the winds were so strong, and the ocean was just… wild. It was whitecaps all the way to the horizon, and you just stood there holding me, trying to convince me to get back in the car.”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Are there storms like that when you’re on the oil rig?”
“Less often than you’d think. If we’re in the projected path, we usually get evacuated.”
“Usually?”
He shrugged. “Meteorologists get it wrong sometimes. I’ve been on the fringe of some hurricanes and it’s unnerving. You’re really at the mercy of the weather, and you just have to hunker down while the rig sways, knowing that no one’s coming to the rescue if it goes over. I’ve seen some guys completely lose it.”
“I think I’d be like one of those guys who lost it.”
“You were fine when Hurricane Diana was coming in,” he pointed out.
“That’s because you were there.” Amanda slowed her pace. Her voice was earnest. “I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I always felt safe when you were around.”
“Even when my dad and my cousins came by Tuck’s? To get their money?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Even then. Your family never bothered me.”
“You were lucky.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “When we were together, I’d see Ted or Abee in town sometimes, and every now and then I’d see your father. Oh, they’d have those little smirks on their faces if our paths happened to cross, but they never made me nervous. And then later, when I’d come back here in the summers, after Ted had been sent away, Abee and your dad kept their distance. I think they knew what you’d do if anything ever happened to me.” She came to a full stop under the shade of a tree and faced him. “So no, I’ve never been afraid of them. Not once. Because I had you.”
“You’re giving me too much credit.”
“Really? You mean you would have let them hurt me?”
He didn’t have to answer. She could tell by his expression that she was right.
“They were always afraid of you, you know. Even Ted. Because they knew you as well as I did.”
“You were afraid of me?”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I knew you loved me and that you’d do anything for me. And that was one of the reasons it hurt so much when you ended it, Dawson. Because I knew even then how rare that kind of love is. Only the luckiest people get to experience it at all.”