Читать книгу A Conard County Courtship - Rachel Lee - Страница 8
ОглавлениеVanessa hoped she hadn’t made a mistake. Tim Dawson seemed like a laid-back sort of guy, however attractive, and his son was a trip. It ought to be okay for a few days.
But honestly, the thought of being stuck alone in Bob Higgins’s house because of a blizzard had been more than she could face. As she’d sat there, waiting for Tim to return with his son, memories had clamored, and maybe the worst part was that they were so confused.
So much for thinking she’d dealt with the past and put it away. The house had dug it all up again. It would have been okay if the memories had been bad, but the thing was, they were good memories, which made Bob Higgins’s betrayal all that more difficult to deal with.
When she stepped outside to follow Tim to his house, the icy air astonished her. The temperature had fallen that fast? She wore what she’d thought would be an adequate wool coat, but it wasn’t enough.
She hurried to get into her car and out of the wind. Matthew had told his father he wanted to ride with her, but before she could say anything Tim had squashed that. Good. She liked the kid as much as she could, having only just met him, but she was far from being ready to drive him around. Also, she knew next to nothing about children.
Maybe she should have gone to the motel. The town had only one, it seemed, and the reviews hadn’t been exciting. Truckers and transients? And what if she got snowed in there?
She shook her head at herself. She wasn’t usually a ditherer, but then she’d never faced a situation quite like this before. Not as an adult making her own decisions.
A town she had nearly forgotten that held secrets about her family that might cause people to judge her. Her dad had certainly thought so. A house from the man who’d destroyed her family. She couldn’t imagine staying there by herself to deal with the good memories that refused to jibe with later reality. Worse, the bad memories from later were more sharply engraved on her mind. She didn’t want to relive her dad’s deterioration and death. All that bitterness. Her mother’s despair.
She hoped Bob Higgins had gone to hell, then caught herself. She didn’t wish that on anyone. But that was the problem with being back here. Having thoughts like that. She was going to face a very ugly part of herself until she was able to walk away.
Tim lived right around the corner. He pulled into a paved driveway that left enough room for her to pull in beside him. She was relieved she wouldn’t be blocking him in or leaving her car on the street to interfere with snowplows.
From the outside, the two-story house appeared tidy—freshly painted white, black shutters all in good condition. A side door led into a mudroom, and from there into a warmly decorated kitchen, painted yellow with sunflower decals along the soffits. A woman’s touch.
“Your wife won’t mind?” she asked, a belated concern. It almost embarrassed her that she hadn’t asked earlier.
“I’m widowed,” Tim said as he bent to give Matthew a friendly pat on his behind and sent him to put his backpack away. “Homework before dinner.”
“Okay, Dad, but I still haven’t showed Vannie my book.”
“After the work sheets are done, okay? She’d probably like to put her suitcase in the spare room and settle a bit.”
Matthew looked at Vanessa and grinned. “I don’t have much homework.”
“Then I’ll have to hurry my settling in.”
Matthew dashed off, leaving Tim and Vanessa alone for a moment.
“He’s cute,” Vanessa offered.
“He’s also endlessly energetic. Don’t let him bug you too much. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”
Miserable as she had been by herself at the Higgins house, now she felt a desperate need for a few minutes alone. With her emotions all topsy-turvy, she needed just a little time to let them settle.
Closing the door behind her in the guest room seemed like a sure way to get that done. Tim brought in her suitcase, told her where to find the facilities, then left her alone in a lovely room.
She suspected he cherished the memory of his wife, because little enough had been done to erase a woman’s touch. No man had chosen those white ruffled curtains or thought to put an embroidered oval doily on the top of the mirrored dresser. A comforter decorated with forget-me-nots covered the queen-size bed, and matching rugs scattered the polished wood floor.
Definitely his wife’s choices, she thought, along with the pale lavender paint on the walls.
So he hadn’t changed a thing. That told her something about his grief. Then she thought of his son, the boy without a mother, and reluctantly her heart went out to them both. The fact that she didn’t make relationships didn’t mean she didn’t care.
It was the relationships that could frighten her. But for Tim and Matthew...that wasn’t enough to unnerve her. She didn’t intend to be here that long.
She enjoyed a few minutes by herself, changing out of her traveling clothes into more comfortable green fleece, pants and thick socks. Then she decided it was time to go out and face the world of Tim and Matthew. Hanging around in her room might seem rude to Tim after he’d been awfully nice to invite her to stay here.
As she passed the dining room, she saw Matthew hunkered over some papers, chewing on a pencil. He flashed her a grin and went back to work.
She found Tim in the kitchen, washing and patting down a whole chicken. “Can I help?” she offered automatically.
“No need. Just have a seat at the kitchen table. Coffee?”
“No, thank you. Maybe some water?”
“There are bottles in the fridge, and glasses in the cabinet beside it if you want one. I’m a bottle drinker, I’m afraid. Anyway, apologies for not getting it for you, but my hands are covered with chicken.”
“I don’t expect to be waited on,” she assured him. “It’s kind of you to give me shelter from the storm. Honestly, I didn’t want to stay alone at the house, and Earl’s and your description of the motel made me uneasy.”
Tim nodded as he placed the chicken in the roasting pan beside the sink. “You’d probably be okay there, but you aren’t going to want to have to cross the highway in a blizzard this cold just to get to the truck stop to eat something. Anyway, with this weather moving in, they’ll be packed...and so will the truck stop diner.” He flashed her a smile. “My house is so much nicer.”
“It is,” she agreed readily. “Your spare room is beautiful. Your wife?”
“Yeah.”
She watched him oil the chicken then wash his hands again, wondering if mention of his wife was off-limits.
When he was done prepping the chicken, he washed his hands again then leaned back against the counter as he dried them with a towel. “My wife passed six years ago. Pulmonary embolism, if you can believe it. Out of nowhere. Matthew has absolutely no memory of her. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said carefully. “I am very sorry for your loss.”
He tossed the towel to one side. “You get used to the most incredible things. Anyway, yeah, she decorated most of the house. Your room was her pride, though. It wasn’t often she could find everything she wanted that would match.” He rested his palms on the counter behind him. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“People you’re in a hurry to get back to?”
“I work at a natural history museum, and they told me to take whatever time I needed.” Indeed, they’d been very kind. But she was also acutely aware that she hadn’t answered his questions. He’d been straightforward with her, and she felt she needed to give him something in kind.
“My parents are both dead, and there’s no one else.” And never would be. No risks of that nature. She’d seen the price up close and personal, as they said.
He didn’t press the issue but instead turned to pop the chicken in the oven when something beeped. “We eat early around here. Better for Matthew. Tonight we’ll have broccoli with cheese and boxed stuffing to go with this. I hope that sounds good.”
“It sounds great.”
He got himself a bottle of water from the fridge. She still hadn’t gotten one for herself, so he placed one in front of her with a glass.
“So what do you do at the museum?” he asked.
“I help connect dinosaur bones. Unfortunately, they’re rarely discovered as a complete kit. Weather, erosion, what have you, have scattered and mixed the bones. So my job is to figure out what they are and which ones belong where.”
“Do you assemble them?”
She shook her head. “Not unless there’s an extraordinary find. No, mostly we catalog and put them away for safekeeping and later study. It’s not like we know everything.”
“Matt would probably love a trip to see dinosaur bones.”
She smiled. “I’m sure he would. And this summer there’ll probably be several digs going on around this state. Wyoming is a great place for fossil beds. He could see someone pulling them out of the ground...if he has the patience.”
“I’ve read about that. Just never thought about taking the time. Guess I should.”
A silence fell, and she felt awkward about it. With people she knew, silences could be allowed, but she didn’t know this man that well. “You don’t have to entertain me,” she nearly blurted.
He lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile. “That goes both ways. Besides, once he finishes his homework, Matthew will take over the entertaining. You’ll probably be begging to go to your room for some solitude.”
A laugh trickled out of her. “I’ve hardly met him, but he seems high energy.”
“I’ve often wished we could tap some of that energy for ourselves as we get older. It’s amazing. He can wear me out sometimes.”
“All kids are like that, right?”
“I would worry if one weren’t.” He glanced at his watch. “Want to move into the living room? I’ve got an hour before I need to start the rest of dinner. We could check in on how bad the storm will be.”
She was agreeable and followed him into another tasteful room. His wife was a living presence here, she realized. In a good way. She had created a comfortable, lovely home.
He flipped on the wide-screen TV to the weather station. Whatever else had been in the programming had given way to a nearly breathless description of the storm that bore down on them, complete with advice not to travel and to stay inside if possible.
“These are going to be killer temperatures,” the woman reciting the weather said. “Not a time to decide to make snowballs, kids, or a snowman. You could leave your fingers behind.”
“Or worse,” Tim said. “Do you remember when you were a kid living on a ranch?”
She looked at him. “Earl’s been talking?”
“Earl knows darn near everything. Like the sheriff. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t share things that are personal. Is it some kind of secret that you lived on a ranch?”
She shook her head but felt the memories jar her again, just as she thought she’d managed to put them away once more. “I just don’t remember very much of it. I was seven when we moved away, so all I have left are snatches. Why?”
“I just wondered how many cold mornings you stood at the end of your road waiting for the bus. Do you remember those?”
“One or two,” she admitted. “It was just me, of course, but when it got really cold my dad would drive me to the stop and we’d wait together. Once the snow was so deep he couldn’t drive me, so he forged ahead of me so I could walk.” She smiled faintly, enjoying the good memory of her father. “I remember how the snow was practically up to his waist. Behind him I was walking through a tunnel.”
Tim smiled. “We don’t often get snow that deep right here. It tends to fall farther east because of the mountains.”
She nodded, not really caring. Her only agenda was to get this house out of her hair and go home. Then she remembered Matthew. “He’s taking a while with his homework. I thought he said it was just a little bit.”
“Compared to what he usually has, it probably is. But he knows I’m going to check it, and he doesn’t want to be sent back to fix his mistakes.”
That drew another smile from her. “He’s a cute kid.” And he was. He could have been included in a Norman Rockwell painting.
“I think so. Of course.” He looked toward the windows, as it sounded as if someone had thrown sand against them. “Ice pellets. It’s begun. I need to go pull the curtains to keep this place warmer.”
He closed the ones in the living room first, a deep burgundy that complimented the dark blues in the furniture and was picked up in the area rug centered on the floor. She sat by herself with the TV weather running at a quiet volume, the forecaster clearly happy to have something interesting to report.
The journey that had brought her here was certainly an odd one. She’d never expected, nor had she ever intended, to see this town or this county again. Not because anything so bad had happened to her, but because of the aftermath of what had happened to her family.
All she remembered of that time was having to move, leaving most things behind, but also leaving her friends behind. She remembered having friends back then. Not the kind of reserved friendships that came later in her life, but she’d known other people, other kids. Whisk—they were gone.
Changing schools, changing lives and listening to her father’s endless bitterness. He’d turned some of that bitterness on this town and county, on the people he had known here, people he was sure were making fun of him or looking down on him.
After that move, and several others that followed, Vanessa had begun to feel like a visitor in her own life, ready to move on at a moment’s notice.
But she didn’t want to think about that now. Anyway, she’d been round and round about it all for years before she decided to put it away. The past couldn’t be changed, and concentrating on it seemed like a waste of time.
So coming back here? That seemed like a step backward, a step in a direction she didn’t want to go. Being here would resolve nothing, but it had sure stirred up a lot of unpleasant feelings and memories.
Whatever had Bob Higgins been thinking? Once upon a time she’d called him “Uncle Bob” and played with his children in that very house. Then her father had told her endlessly and repeatedly what an awful man Uncle Bob was, how he’d stolen everything from her family. She’d learned to hate him.
Now that house. It didn’t make sense, and she guessed she would never understand. She just had to find a way to dump it as quickly as possible. Get back to her normal life.
All of a sudden, Matthew came bouncing into the room. “All done! Daddy says it’s okay so I can come talk to you.”
She shook herself out of her reverie and summoned a smile. “You were going to show me your book.”
“Later,” he said decisively. “Daddy says you work with dinosaur bones. Are they really big?”
She liked his enthusiasm. “Some are huge. As long as this room. The ones I like best are the small ones, though.”
“Why?” He scooted onto the other end of the couch.
Why? How to explain that to him. “Everyone loves the big bones,” she said slowly. “And they’re easier to find most of the time. But the little ones are like a secret.”
That made his eyes shine. “Do you find out the secret?”
“Sometimes. Has anyone ever showed you a picture of the bones in your foot?”
He shook his head.
“Well, there are lots of tiny bones in your foot. Your foot wouldn’t move very well without them. But someone looking at them if they were scattered around might put them together and finally figure out how your foot works.”
He nodded, looking very intent. “So it’s like a puzzle?”
“Exactly. Sometimes I make mistakes and put pieces from different puzzles together, and I have to figure out what’s wrong. But when I find enough of the pieces of the same foot puzzle, I know how the dinosaur’s foot worked.”
“Do you do that all the time?”
“Once in a while.”
“I’d like the small pieces, too,” he decided. “More fun. But the big pieces?”
“More exciting for everyone,” she agreed. “Youngsters like you are always coming to the museum to see the big dinosaurs we’ve managed to put together. It can be wild to stand on the floor and look up, up, up to see the head of the dinosaur. It makes me feel very small and very glad there aren’t any more dinosaurs around.”
He clapped his hands with delight. “I wanna do that sometime.”
“I’m sure you can,” Tim remarked, entering the room. “We’ll take a trip and do that.”
“Goody!” Matthew was satisfied. “Now can I show you my book?”
“Of course,” Vanessa answered.
Matthew skipped from the room, and Tim said, “If he’s imposing, let me know.”
“He’s not.” She had to smile. “His excitement is refreshing. Too bad it’s winter. There’s an escarpment about a hundred miles from here where they’ve been making some incredible finds. Closed until spring, of course.”
“I feel almost ashamed for not knowing about that dig.”
She laughed, warming to him. “It’s not making the news like the weather is. Most paleontologists work in obscurity unless something really big or new is discovered, and even then it rarely catches the eye of the mainstream media. You’d need to keep up with journals.”
“Well, I don’t have a lot of time for that, between work and child. Does a dinosaur fascination last long?”
She blinked, surprised. “In what way?”
“I mean, do kids stay interested long enough that summer can get here and I can take him to the dig?”
She laughed, shrugging. “Some kids stay fascinated for years. Others are in and out of it in a short time. The dig won’t necessarily be all that interesting for him at his age, though. They might have a few things laid out on a table, but unless they’re working on pulling a big piece out of the ground, it might seem dull to him.” She hesitated, then said, “Listen, if it’s okay with you, I can send him some materials from the museum. One of them is a wooden puzzle, where you have to put the pieces of bone together and made a 3-D model. It’s really popular.”
“Thank you.” His smile grew wide. “I’m sure he’d love that.”
“Consider it done.”
How easy it was to talk about her work. But it had always been an easy topic for her. Working in a museum suited her in more ways than one. It certainly helped keep her largely by herself. Yes, she had a few girlfriends, but it wasn’t the kind of closeness that would cause her to grieve if she had to move on.
Casual relationships. That was all she had, and she was content that way. Sometimes she wondered if she were just an oddity, or if she were broken in some way.
But at nearly thirty, it hardly seemed to matter. Not when she was content with her life.
Until that damn house.
* * *
Matthew bounced back in with his library book. Tim was curious to see what he’d chosen, so he sat on the far end of the sofa from Vanessa and let the boy sit between them.
It turned out to be a book of jokes, some of them well beyond the youngster’s comprehension, but he seemed fascinated by all the knock-knock jokes. Tim could have groaned. He knew Matthew’s memory for things that interested him, and he suspected he was going to be treated to knock-knock jokes for months. Or at least until Matthew found a new interest.
“Maybe it’s time to get Harry Potter,” he said.
Matthew immediately forgot his joke book. “Really?”
“Really,” Tim said. He’d vastly prefer listening to summaries of the day’s reading of Harry Potter than a slew of bad jokes.
“I’ve read Harry Potter,” Vanessa volunteered. “You’re going to love it.”
Matthew beamed. “I think so. Ms. Macy thought I was too young.” He frowned suddenly. “I don’t think it’s in the school library.”
“Maybe not,” Tim said. “It’ll be in the public library, and if not, we’ll go to the bookstore and get it.”
“Why wouldn’t it be in the public library?” Vanessa asked.
“Some people can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality,” he said. “Surely you remember the uproar back when about kids reading about witches and warlocks?”
“I didn’t pay much attention. I was too busy reading.”
He laughed. “Surely the best way to handle it.”
They endured a few more bad jokes. Tim didn’t mind Matthew reading them. He was, after all, reading. What he dreaded was the possibility that the boy might still find them funny and worth repeating a long time after he’d returned the book.
“Time to get the rest of dinner going,” he announced. “Matthew, can you set the table?”
“The good table?”
“Of course. We have company.”
Once again, Matthew dashed off to carry out his assigned task.
“You shouldn’t go to any trouble for me,” Vanessa protested quietly.
He shook his head a little. “This is a learning experience for Matthew. Plus, he likes being able to help. So, wanna come supervise me while I make boxed stuffing and frozen veggies? I might mess up otherwise.”
The way he said it made her laugh, and she gladly followed him back into the kitchen. The rattle of ice against the windows was audible in there, and Tim felt a snaking draft.
“That cold air is the heat coming on again. It’ll get warm soon. Boy, it sounds miserable out there.”
“It certainly does,” she agreed. “And thank you for your invitation to stay here. I’d have been miserable in the Higgins house.”
“The Welling house now,” he reminded her. “And you’re more than welcome.”
* * *
It was her house now, but as she watched him finish the dinner preparations, she felt an urge to share something with him, maybe so he could better understand her reactions. “Did Earl tell you what Bob Higgins did to my family? And to others around town?”
“Something about an investment scam?”
“Yeah. I don’t get exactly how he did it, but he got people to give him money to invest. Periodically he’d pay out to them, especially if they had a need, but somewhere along the way he must have spent too much money to keep up the pretense that he was actually investing it. That’s when he talked my father into mortgaging the ranch, promising him that his so-called investment fund would not only pay him enough to meet the mortgage payments, but would give him extra. Bob was my dad’s lifelong friend. I don’t think it ever entered his head that Bob was conning him.”
“God, that’s awful. I don’t understand people who steal from others, especially when there’s a trusting relationship involved.”
“I don’t get it, either.” And it was a primary reason she found it so hard to trust. “It was especially hard on my father. He’d lost everything, we moved away and gradually he became an alcoholic. We moved again several times when he lost jobs and then...well, the alcohol killed him.”
“My God! I’m so sorry, Vanessa.” He’d stopped mixing the stuffing, and the vegetables were still waiting beside a microwave container. After a moment, he visibly caught himself and returned to his tasks. “I can’t imagine how awful that had to have been for you.”
“Eventually you don’t feel it anymore. Anyway, I think the stress killed my mother. She was awfully young for a heart attack.” She sighed, watching him move with the grace of a man in great shape doing the minor little things of mixing the stuffing, starting the microwave, putting a pat of butter on the bowl of frozen broccoli.
A man who could handle everything, she thought. Construction, fatherhood, cooking...he had a full plate, all right. Much fuller than hers, which seemed to be mostly filled with her own melancholy memories right now.
She missed her dinosaur bones. They spoke to her, too, but in ways that excited her. People didn’t have that effect on her. She couldn’t trust them to tell a true story, unlike the bones, which couldn’t lie.
And that probably made her neurotic, she thought with an unexpected tickle of amusement as Matthew erupted into the kitchen. That boy was like a human power plant. “I think I did it right.”
“I’ll check in a moment,” Tim answered. “Did you get yourself a glass of milk? And did you ask Vannie what she’d like to drink?”
Vanessa suspected this was a new stage for the boy. He looked a little surprised, then said, “I get to do the drinks?”
“You can carry a glass of milk into the dining room, can’t you?”
That big, engaging grin. “Sure.” He turned to Vanessa. “You want milk, too?”
“I’d very much like a glass of water, thank you.”
She was charmed, enchanted, and so very glad not to be riding out this storm all alone at the Higgins house.
Matthew was just tall enough to reach the bottom shelf of the upper cupboard by stretching, and he pulled out two glasses. He stuck his tongue out and bit it while pouring one glass half-full of milk, clearly taking great care. The other was more easily handled at the sink. Then, carefully, he picked up both glasses and carried them away.
“You must be very proud of Matthew,” she remarked. Tim had pulled the stuffing from the microwave and replaced it with the frozen broccoli. The machine hummed quietly.
“I am,” he agreed. He fluffed the stuffing with a fork, the recovered it with a glass lid and faced her, an easy posture leaning back against the sink. “I keep hoping Claire would feel the same.”
“Your wife? I’m sure she would.”
“Well, he’s not perfect. He has his moments.” He straightened. “I promised to check the table setting. Be right back.”
Then she was alone in the kitchen, and alone with her own thoughts. Inevitably she wondered if there hadn’t been something she could do about that house that wouldn’t have involved her. Odd, when her memories of being there were so sketchy, that it should have such a strong impact on her.
Uncle Bob. Aunt Freda. She never heard what happened to Freda and the girls, other than that they’d left Bob behind when his misdeeds came to light. And Earl had said that Freda had changed the girls’ last names. Like her family, they’d fled from destruction wrought by one man without a conscience.
Because he couldn’t have had a conscience. He’d used every one of his friends in a horrible way. Her dad had just suffered the biggest losses.
Then Tim reappeared as the microwave dinged to announce the broccoli was ready.
Time for dinner.
* * *
By the time Tim decreed bedtime for Matthew, they were able to pull back the living room curtains and see a world turned into a white whirlwind that reflected the interior light.
“Not a good night to be out,” Tim remarked. “I hope everyone heeded the warnings.”
Matthew, Vanessa had noticed, had grown very quiet since helping to clear the table and load the dishwasher. He hadn’t spoken at all.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked him.
“He’s feeling just fine,” Tim said drily. “He’s hoping I didn’t notice that he failed to go upstairs when I said it was bedtime.”
“There’s no school tomorrow!” Matthew protested.
“Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know for sure yet. Either way, it’s bedtime for buckaroos, and yes, you can read.”
Matthew tried slumping his shoulders and dragging his feet, but when that didn’t get a response, he perked up and ran up the stairs.
Tim just shook his head and smiled. “There’s some decent coffee in the pot if you want some. Sorry I can’t offer dessert.”
“I’m not used to it. It was a great dinner, though.”
“Thanks. Just the basics. Anyway, I need to go up and tuck him in, make sure he doesn’t skip important things like brushing his teeth. Make yourself at home.”
She did just that, curling up sock-footed on the end of the couch with a scientific journal she’d pulled out of her carry-on bag.
The house had central heating, so it must have been her imagination that it was getting colder. The coffee she’d brought in here with her helped only a little.
So she tried to bury herself in the most recent paleobiology publication. She didn’t have an advanced degree, but she possessed an unquenchable curiosity about vertebrates of the past. She’d lucked into a great career field, because one of her professors in a class she’d taken just to round out her core requirements had noticed something about her and encouraged her.
She’d be forever grateful to him for that gift. And with time, she’d grown knowledgeable enough that her lack of advanced education had mattered less and less, although she picked up a course from time to time.
Tonight, though, concentrating on a morphology study didn’t hold her attention. Well, of course not. She’d been going through quite an emotional earthquake since Earl Carter had called her with the news.
Lowering her head, she tried to force herself to pay attention, but the words on the page just seemed to swim in front of her. Maybe she should try reading it on her laptop, where she could magnify the print.
But there was something she’d always loved about holding a journal, the way it felt, the way it smelled, the brand-new unread pages. She viewed each one with a fresh excitement that she didn’t at all feel when she read online.
So she kept trying, wondering how long it took to put a little boy to bed—and wondering why she should care. She was in a cozy place with nothing to worry her, at least until sometime tomorrow.
Between one breath and the next, she drifted off with the journal in her hand and her head on the overstuffed arm of the sofa.
* * *
Tim had one of those revelations that only a parent could have. When he helped Matthew get into his pajamas, he discovered the boy was wearing four pairs of briefs.
“What’s this?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Why so many?”
“You told me to put on new ones every day.”
Apparently, he’d left out an important part of the instructions, Tim thought as laughter rose in him. He quelled it, funny though this was, because another thought occurred to him: the boy couldn’t have been bathing. He wouldn’t have worn all those underpants if they were wet.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “And how do you handle your socks?”
“New ones every day. I was going to tell you my shoes are getting tight, too.”
Tim could easily imagine that they were, even though they were almost new. “So how many socks do you have on each foot?”
“Four.”
“What started all this?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“When you were doing the laundry and said I hadn’t worn enough underpants or socks for a week. Fresh ones every day.”
Tim remembered that conversation clearly. Oh, man. “I left out part of the instructions, kiddo. The part about taking off the dirty ones before you put on fresh ones. Come on, let’s get rid of all these in the hamper and put you in the shower.”
Tim wondered if he’d ever learn how literal a child could be. Probably not. He’d keep making these simple mistakes until Matthew grew up enough to fill in the blanks.
With his son showered, dried and in fresh pajamas, Tim scooped him up and carried him to bed. God, it felt so good to have this boy in his arms. He smelled sweet and just so right. Not much more of this, though. One way or another, Matthew was going to get too big, and from what he’d seen of slightly older kids, he’d be lucky to snag a hug.
But for now he took pleasure in the moment and just wished Claire could share it, too.
Sometimes he felt his wife around, as if she peeked in on them, as if her love still existed. Maybe it did. And maybe, like an angel, she kept watch over Matthew. He certainly hoped so.
Though it had been six years since Claire’s unexpected passing, he still missed her. Missed all the little things they had shared, which in retrospect seemed a whole lot more important than the big things.
Glances over breakfast that seemed to warm the air. Shared looks of understanding that needed no words. Being able to reach out and just hold her hand. Those little things had turned into a huge gap in his life.
He wanted no replacement for Claire. He didn’t think it was possible, and he wasn’t looking. Most especially he didn’t want to upset Matthew’s life. His son seemed to have adapted quite well to the fact that he didn’t have a mother, unlike his friends.
Whenever someone pressed Tim on the subject—and yes, he knew they did out of some kind of concern—he simply said that was for later. After Matthew was grown. Safely down the road and something he didn’t need to think about now. Not when he had his son to concern him, and not when he was still aching with loss.
He was learning that you never stopped grieving. It just softened with time. Or became like a comfortable old friend, always there, never gone. At least it didn’t cripple him the way it once had. He could pause, absorb and acknowledge the pain, then keep going.
Matthew made that essential.
Downstairs, he found Vanessa curled up on the couch and sound asleep. He thought about moving her to her room then decided against disturbing her. If she woke up on her own, she could go to her room then. In the meantime, she looked comfortable, and it wouldn’t be the first time that sofa had been a bed.
Out in the kitchen, he opened his laptop and logged in while he brewed fresh coffee. He had more jobs than the Higgins house. There were a couple of remodel and repair jobs he’d promised to email estimates on by Saturday, and he needed to finish them.
He paused a moment, thinking of the woman sleeping in his living room. What a cutie, he decided. A lovely woman, and she’d handled Matthew’s sometimes overwhelming energy well.
Then he returned to work. Two things in his life, mainly. His son and his work. Everything else paled beside them.
