Take Care, Sara

the motel. They both knew there wasn’t one. Dana’s employees were honest and trustworthy; it was just something to talk about and Dana was certainly a good storyteller. Even with the distance between them, they still had their coffee and doughnuts at eight on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as they chatted about nothing of importance. The conversations were important; not the words spoken during them.
    The house she’d found to rent was red with tan trim, small, and filled with unpacked boxes and new furniture. It fit her and Sara felt a relief upon entering it she hadn’t known whether she’d feel or not. It was time to get back to herself; the new self that was living without Cole and able to do so. She would make this home hers and only hers; leaving the ghosts of the past where they needed to be, in the past, in the place in her heart designated to Cole and her parents and their unborn baby; to love and not mourn.
    Painting was easier and her finished art had more depth than it used to carry; the colors were bolder, and the peace she found didn’t fade as soon as she set the paintbrush down. Sara painted with her soul now. Every stroke of the paintbrush on canvas was a gift to those not with her; every painting a piece of her she would share with the world with joy and not sorrow or fear. Business was slow with her artwork at the moment; having been out of practice and contact with the art world for so long, but Sara was confident it would be steady again in time. Like her.
    On one such day, as she painted, her mind drifted to the day she’d seen the ‘C’ in the blue paint and thought it an omen from Cole. Maybe it had been, but maybe it had been in a way different from what she’d thought. Sara set the paintbrush down and tried to recollect the exact shape of the splatter on the floor. Could it have been an ‘L’? Even then, had he been telling her something? Had she seen a ‘C’ at the time because she’d had to see that or because it truly had been? Did she know it to be an ‘L’ now because she wanted it to be or because it always had been? An interesting concept. The letter ‘C’ and the letter ‘L’ could be quite similar, depending on the hand that wrote them. Or it could have simply been a splotch of paint.
    She’d bumped into Mason and his nephew one day at the park and had spent the afternoon swinging and playing with Derek; regaling Mason with tales of her Waupun adventure and Dana. He’d looked at her with contentment, knowing she was on the right path. It was because of him and Lincoln and so many other people, but most of all, it was because of Sara.
    As she now left the house, a warm breeze played with her hair. Sara gazed at the leafy green trees and grass as she walked, her destination filling her with apprehension and purpose. Lawnmowers whirred along in various yards, tossing the scent of freshly mowed grass in the air; kids shouted and squealed as they played. The sun was hot, warming her lightly suntanned skin. She’d loved Waupun, but she didn’t want to live there. Her home was here, in Boscobel. Her home was wherever was closest to Lincoln, even if not with Lincoln. Even if they couldn’t be together, even if he no longer wanted her, Sara wanted a part of him; she needed a part of him; even if only it was his friendship and nothing more. It would be enough. It had to be. But she hoped it wasn’t.
    She hadn’t heard Cole or seen anything unusual since she’d been in Waupun and had heard his final words of “Take care, Sara” in her mind. So maybe he was truly gone and that had been his final goodbye. That saddened her, but it also set her free in a way. Of course, maybe he’d never really been with her at all. But her mind, at least, she had needed him to be, for a while anyway.
    Sara walked through the rusted gate of the equally rusted fence, her skin prickling as she gazed at the land littered with tombstones. Giving a slight shudder, she walked toward his headstone. Sara had never liked cemeteries; they were filled with the dead and no matter where she stepped, she feared she was walking on a body. Graveyards made her feel like she was in another world; the land of the dead, where the dead were never really dead. Winds were cool and harsher here; shadows lengthened and darkened, and even when it was warm out, it was colder here. Sara didn’t want to think of Cole being in such a place, but this was where he was now, and so this was where she would