by Nicole Deese
“Oh, um . . . the tall cupboard. To the left of the fridge.”
“Great.”
Another few cabinets banged open and closed, taunting me to move. To do something. But not even the fact that Joshua Avery himself was standing in the middle of my unclean kitchen, becoming far too acquainted with my half-eaten take-out containers and unwashed dishes, could make me do anything but slump onto my sofa and wait for it all to be over.
Minutes later, he strode back into my living room and sat on the coffee table directly across from me. Our knees bumped and my gaze trailed the length of his dark-wash jeans. They were a good fit for him. The tailored hem brushed the top of his canvas shoes. Not too short. Not too long. But just right. Like him.
“Hey,” he said, softly. Invitingly. “We missed you today. At school.”
My focus remained on his perfectly shaped kneecaps.
“I heard you came in to the office last night. Left your sub notes on Diana’s desk.”
Was that really last night? Why did that feel like a week ago . . . or longer?
“Uh-huh, I did,” I answered.
He touched my hand, causing my gaze to lift to his. “I’m sorry I didn’t know, Lauren.”
I didn’t want you to know. I wanted you to stay the same. To be the one person who still sent me ridiculous texts and made me feel like everything could be . . . normal again.
“Who told you?” I asked.
He looked momentarily conflicted. “I don’t want you to hold it against her. In truth, I didn’t give her much of a choice. I found your address in the staff directory and planned to check on you after school today—with or without an explanation.”
It had been Jenna, then.
I nodded. I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t.
“I’ve been worried about you,” he continued.
I dropped my gaze to the carpet. “I’m okay.”
“I think our definitions of that word aren’t the same.” His light chuckle sobered quickly.
“I thought I was ready to go back today, but I wasn’t.” I shrugged. “I did bring all the get-well-soon cards home though. Thank you for those. And thank you for . . . the gift. I’m sure Noah would have loved it.”
A momentary hesitation was followed by a hard exhale as he raked both hands down his face. “Oh, Lauren. I’m . . . I’m sorry. If I’d known what had happened before today, I would have taken that out of your box and—”
“It’s fine. Turns out, stuffed T-Rexes are really good listeners.” My attempt at humor failed, but I couldn’t handle anybody else feeling sorry for me.
Especially him.
He lifted his hand to the side of my face to brush the stray bedraggled hair off my cheek. He tucked the loose strands behind my ear. “I can be, too.”
I closed my eyes and expelled a truth I hadn’t yet articulated, not even to Gail. “I don’t know if I can do it again.”
Bits and pieces of Stacey’s phone call had started to come back. Her telling me to take some time to recover, along with a reassurance that I’d be first in line whenever I was ready to be matched again. If I’d be ready again . . .
“All you can do is take it one day at a time, Lauren. That’s all any of us can do.”
I looked up then, staring into his eyes.
His sad smile had me wanting to reach out and tap the corners of his lips, to change his frown into an expression that suited him far better. Because sorrow wasn’t a match for him.
Perhaps he was thinking something similar about me as he touched my trembling chin.
“Hey.” Joshua’s tender voice melted my insides. “You’re gonna make it through this.”
Was I? Because I wasn’t so sure. I squeezed my damp eyes closed and willed my tears away. “I don’t want to cry another tear. I’m done crying.”
He searched my face for understanding. “Then what do you want?”
“To laugh again.” I squared my shoulders and worked to sit up straighter on the slouchy sofa. “Tell me something funny.”
“Lauren . . .” My name sounded strained, pain-filled even, but I shook my head to cut off whatever sympathy Concerned Joshua was about to deliver. I didn’t want another drawn-out conversation about the stages of grief. I’d had enough of those from Gail. Right now I needed Carefree Joshua.
“Your texts were the only thing I looked forward to over the last few days.” I let out a shaky breath. “They made me feel normal again. Like, I don’t know, like maybe I don’t have to be stuck here forever.” In this sadness. In this heartache.
He nodded once and cleared his throat. “So one time, when I was much younger, I wanted to experiment with my mother’s traditional strawberry Jell-O salad, so I opened the lid of her Tupperware container and shoved a handful of tiny plastic dinosaurs down through the Cool Whip layer and into the red gelatin. But unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize my mom was taking that salad to a big women’s event at our church. And unfortunately for her, she didn’t notice my, uh, culinary addition until the ladies began commenting on the surprises inside their desserts.”
And just like that, my face cracked into my first real smile in days. “Didn’t you realize plastic dinosaurs were a choking hazard?”
“I was seven. Easily forgiven for my boyish ways, but I guess even then I had a thing about making my mark on the world. One dinosaur at a time.”
“I think you’ve succeeded.”
His smile broadened. “I’ve been a nerd since the day I was born. Just ask my family.”
The comfort I found in his presence made me yearn to soak up every second of it that I could.
“I don’t want to interrupt, but Brian’s on his way over,” Jenna said, coming down the stairs and then finding a place beside me on the sofa.
“He is?” I asked.
“Yep, and he’s bringing a hot loaf of French bread and a bottle of red to go with our pasta. Oh, and he’s chosen a board game, too. Sorry, we’ll be stuck with whatever he’s picked out, so tonight could get interesting.”
“Uh, you do realize my pasta-making skills are limited to spaghetti, right?” Joshua asked.
Jenna laughed. “Spaghetti’s perfect. It’s all comfort carbs in the end, anyway. If Lauren’s up for it, she makes a killer meat sauce.”
Joshua playfully tapped my knee. “What do you say? Wanna be my sous chef for the night?”
I couldn’t formulate an appropriately cheeky response. I was too distracted by the thought that my friends were staying. Not for an afternoon, but for an entire evening.
For me.
“Thank you both. For doing this.” I rubbed my temples. “Even though I’m such a—”
“A wonderful person who would do the same for either of us?” Jenna cut in. “Can we at least all agree now that your days of shutting us out are over? Because I don’t think I can handle going three days without you ever again.”
Acutely aware of Joshua’s presence across from me, I fixed my attention on Jenna. “Agreed.”
“Good. And now that that’s settled”—she stood and looked pointedly at Joshua—“do you mind if I get your help moving a certain something from a room upstairs?”
He gave a brisk nod as a new kind of pain punched through my chest wall. By the expression on her face, I knew exactly what she was hinting at—the desk in the nursery.
“Leave it,” I said. “Let’s just leave that room alone for now.” For now, or forever? That was still to be determined.
“But wouldn’t it be better if we just moved it out to the end of the hallway and—”
Joshua studied me as he replied. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time to make those kinds of decisions later. Let’s just leave it be for now.”
She looked between us and relented with a sigh. “Sure, okay. Then I’ll just bring down the clean towels from the laundry room and put them away in the linen closet.”
A compromise I could grant. Folding laundry was one thing, but rearranging the nursery? Not a chance.
Skye pattered up the stairs after her, leaving me alone with Joshua.
“I better go boil some water for the pasta,” he said, standing to his full height and giving my shoulder a light squeeze.
“Do you mind if I run upstairs for a minute? I’d like to freshen up a bit before we make dinner.”
He winked at me, yet I couldn’t help but note how contrary it was to the concern that still edged his gaze. “No problem.”
Heart pumping from all the extra exertion, I climbed the stairs two at a time. But before I made a dash for my hairbrush, I reached out and closed the nursery door, banishing my view of the Cadet Blue walls and the half-assembled crib for the foreseeable future.
Spaghetti sauce I could manage, but I wasn’t sure when, or if, the door to the nursery would ever be opened again.
chapter
twenty-one
People often complain about the busyness that surrounds the Christmas season. Always too much to do and never enough time to accomplish it all. But embracing the chaos had somehow become my latest coping mechanism in life. I’d accepted all the mental distractions provided by classroom parties, crafting sessions, and staff gift exchanges that helped one day bleed right into the next.
And if not for the hours between midnight and six in the morning, I could have easily fooled myself into being fine. After all, I’d managed to do that with almost everybody who passed me in the hall or conversed with me in the break room. But, of course, not everybody was fooled by my freshly showered, mascara-wearing self. The J-gang, made up of Jenna and Joshua, hovered worse than a helicopter parent during the first week of kindergarten.
Even now a prickle of awareness breathed down my neck as Joshua’s eyes met mine from across the staff lounge. Inches taller than the rest of our male staff, the tips of his hair brushed the green and red streamers hanging above the cake table. Mrs. Pendleton had already given her good-bye, thanks-for-making-our-school-a-better-place speech to Joshua after she provided an update on Mrs. Walker’s expected return at the first of the year.
Clapping, cheering, and gluttonous sheet cake consuming had ensued, though I hadn’t so much as touched the slice I’d been handed nearly ten minutes ago. The festive sprinkles adorning a thick layer of waxy frosting were just too much. Or maybe it was Joshua leaving Brighton that was the too much. I’d known this day was coming—for weeks now. The going-away party had been listed on every office memo and staff calendar since Thanksgiving break. Yet somehow the day had still snuck up on me like a surprise attack in a dark alley.
Joshua held his paper cup filled with punch and saluted the staff for making him feel so welcome. He complimented the school as a whole, throwing in a few well-placed jokes, as well as an announcement that his reading app had just been given full clearance to launch sometime early next spring.
Again, the teachers applauded him. Truly, the man couldn’t make an enemy if he tried.
“. . . so as great as this good-bye cake tastes,” he continued, “I’m afraid you’ll be getting a lot more of me at Brighton—just in digital form.”
I tried to join in on all the back-patting and lighthearted jokes, but I simply couldn’t think of anything funny about Joshua leaving Brighton. Not one single thing. Gaining him in digital form was hardly a consolation prize.
After another few minutes of mingling with the masses, I tossed my uneaten cake into the trash and headed back to my room to close up for the coming holiday break. There would be no point in taking down the handmade snowflakes pressed to the wall of windows overlooking the parking lot, not when an epic storm was predicted to blanket our city in white over the days to come. A few inches had fallen last week, but most had been slushed away by the indecision of December’s highs and lows. I could relate.
Not four steps inside my room, I saw them. Two tiny plastic dinosaurs propped on my desk near my coat and purse, as if they’d been waiting on me to return from the party and take them home. Joshua had been leaving these little trinkets around the school for me to find since the day I’d returned, his version of Elf on the Shelf. Sometimes they had a funny joke or quote attached to their necks; other times he left a piece of candy with them or a pack of gum. His hiding places had become a game for my students each morning as they’d found them stuck inside cubbies, coat pockets, library books, and once inside Frog and Toad’s aquarium.
But today’s miniature dinos weren’t actually hiding at all. They were simply out in the open, placed on top of a package, waiting for me.
I slid my fingertip down the long, curved neck of the brontosaurus and over the spiked scales of a green Stegosaurus. A tiny smile slipped through my mask of melancholy as I thought of the hands that had placed them here on his last day at Brighton.
“You found them.” There, framed in my doorway and backlit by the fluorescent lights of a hallway he’d never have reason to walk again, was a man who’d come to mean far too much to me in the past six weeks.
“They sure didn’t make me work very hard today.”
He shrugged. “We figured we’d go easy on you since it is the start of Christmas break, which is basically a holiday in itself.”
No teacher in their right mind would argue with that. “True.”
He crossed the room and slid the gift closer to me. “Go ahead.”
“I’m the one who should be giving you a—”
He shook his head. “This is a guilt-free zone. There are no should haves allowed here.”
I clamped my mouth shut and reached for the package on my desk. It was obvious by the shape and weight of the gift in my hands what lay beneath the reindeer-printed paper . . . but that made the effort he’d taken to wrap it even more thoughtful.
With two good rips, I uncovered a familiar hardback I’d read cover-to-cover multiple times over the last decade. I’d loaned out my personal copy of George Avery’s award-winning textbook The Art of Teaching Kids to Read to many a teacher throughout the years. I’d earmarked, highlighted, and underscored my favorite passages from front to back, sharing it at conferences across the Northwest. But the copy in my hands now had an updated cover, all shiny and new, the pages crisp and bright. A gold sticker on the front proclaimed Revised and Updated Edition!
Of all of George Avery’s published works, this one had always been my favorite.
“Joshua . . . thank you. I—”
“Open it,” Joshua prompted.
I shot him a quizzical look, then lifted the cover to reveal an inscription. I sucked in a breath.
Lauren,
My favorite son (adjective added only because said son is hovering close by) has asked me to sign a copy of this newly revised copy to a friend he insists, “makes a difference every day.” I have less guilt retiring from the classroom knowing there are teachers like you in our world. May God bless you for your sacrifice and love.
Please stop in for a cup of cocoa. I make the best in the Northwest . . . or at least, the best in my house.
George Avery
I continued to stare at the words printed there, failing to come up with any adequate ones of my own. George Avery had signed a book to me.
Because of Joshua.
“You’re happy, right?” His worrisome question broke my trance. “I should have clarified that this was also a cry-free zone.”
I shook my head, refusing the exit of my happy tears, and hugged the book to my chest. “Yes, I’m happy. Thank you so much for this.”
Reassured, his smile brightened. “He means it, you know. The invitation for cocoa. It’s basically a summons.”
“Oh, gosh . . .” A nervous laugh bubbled up my throat. “I can’t imagine actually doing that.”
“Well, I can, because we also want you to come for Christmas.”
The book slipped down to my abdomen as my glance snapped up to his. “What?”
“Christmas. You know, it’s that little holiday sandwiched between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. And don’t try to tell me you can’t come, because Jenna already
told me about your promise. And to be honest, I’m a little scared of what she’ll do to me if I don’t follow through on my end.”
I sighed. Jenna.
Jenna had called last night as she was packing for the trip she and Brian were bound for right after school let out. Ten whole days she’d be away, skiing with her in-laws in Tahoe—a trip she was now considering canceling because of me. It was the first time in our friendship I’d been legitimately angry at her selflessness. But missing a holiday vacation because I was a little more Eeyore than I was Buddy the Elf was absolutely unacceptable.
“I’m not getting on that plane tomorrow if you tell me you’re just gonna stay home, Lauren. Why won’t you accept Gail’s invitation for Christmas dinner? You’ve always split the day between the Cartwrights and your family.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d asked that question. And she wasn’t wrong; I had been following that schedule for years. But I just couldn’t do it this Christmas. I wasn’t ready to be back in Gail’s house or to smell the fresh loaf of gingerbread she would make on Christmas morning. I simply couldn’t trust myself not to fall apart at the familiar scent or worse, at the sight of Benny. I might be able to suppress the memory of the awful phone call I’d taken in their bathroom while I was at home or in my classroom, but not even my best distraction tactics could keep it from my mind while back in the Cartwrights’ home. And I refused to ruin anybody’s Christmas.
“I just can’t,” I nearly whispered into my phone. “Trust me.”
“Then what about going to your sister’s house or stopping in at your parents’? I know they’re not the best company to be around right now, but . . .”
“Believe me, being home alone on Christmas is a better alternative than being at either of their houses.” I’d planned to drop off gifts for the kids, but there’d been no apology for what my mother had said to me regarding my decision to adopt. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a month. And Lisa’s texts had been absent of anything having to do with the adoption conversation, as if by not talking about it, I might have changed my mind. How exactly was I supposed to handle them now? What would I even say? “Oh, actually, never mind about what we discussed in that messy closet. The baby boy I was going to adopt . . . yeah, well, he belongs to someone else now.”