by Neesa Hart
“Tell her I said ‘hi.’ “
“Do you really believe I can see her?”
“I think you believe you can. That works for me.”
Ryan studied him for a minute. “Are you really going to skate with me in the father/son game next week?”
It took Scott a few seconds to adjust to the lightning-fast change of subject “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Do you know how to skate?”
“We have ice in Dallas.”
“Dad’s a great skater. He grew up in Michigan and used to play hockey like me.”
“He must be pretty good then.”
“Are you going to marry my mom?”
Scott coughed. “We haven’t talked about it.”
“I don’t want you to.”
Scott paused. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you and I go into the kitchen and talk it over? I’ll see if I can find us something to eat.”
“You’re not going to make brownies, are you?”
Scott remembered telling the story about his eggless brownies and laughed. “No. I think I can probably find an apple or something.”
“Mom peels the skin off for me.”
“Then it’s time you learned to eat apples like a man, kiddo. Come with me.”
Ryan dashed ahead of Scott to crash through the swinging door. He climbed up on one of the stools, and told Scott where to find glasses and napkins. Scott handed him an unpeeled apple.
“I can’t eat this,” Ryan said.
“It’s just a peel, Ryan. It’s not bad for you. Just take a bite.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Ryan gave him a disgusted look. He curled back his lips and pointed to the space where his teeth had once been. “No teeth.”
Scott laughed. “That does present a problem, doesn’t it.” He took the apple, sliced it into wedges, then set it down in front of Ryan. “How’s that?”
He grinned at him. “OK. Do you like the peel?”
“Yeah. It tastes different than the apple.”
Ryan shoved a wedge into his mouth. He chewed, his expression thoughtful. Scott watched him. “What do you think?” he asked.
Ryan nodded. “Good.”
“OK. So you want to talk about your mom?”
Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Yeah. Are you going to marry her?”
“I don’t know,” Scott replied. “You said you didn’t want me to.”
“Dad wouldn’t like it.” Ryan shoved another wedge of apple in his mouth.
“Did you ask him?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“He just wouldn’t.”
Scott looked around the kitchen. “Is he here now?”
Ryan shook his head. “He’s in the den talking to Annie.”
“I see.” Scott paused. “What if I decided to marry your mom? How do you feel about it?”
“Dad wouldn’t like it.”
“But what about you?”
Ryan frowned. “I don’t know. You’re OK, I guess. You’re not Dad.”
“No. I’m not your dad.”
Ryan spun an apple wedge on the counter, and stared at it. “Do you want to be?”
Scott took a deep breath. “Ryan, I’d never try and take the place of your father. I’d also never try to take your mom away from you. I might ask you to share her with me, but I wouldn’t take her away.”
Ryan raised stricken eyes to Scott’s. “She cries a lot.”
“I know.”
“She never used to cry.”
“It hurt your mom real bad when your dad died.”
“Me too.” His mouth started to tremble.
Scott walked around the counter to sit next to Ryan. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Ryan shook his head. He was staring at his apple wedges. Scott ruffled his blond hair. “It’s OK if you cry, Ryan. I cried when Annie died. I still do every now and then.”
He raised tear-filled eyes to Scott. “I don’t like to cry.”
“Me either.”
“Do you do it anyway?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes when I’m real sad.”
“Like now?”
“Like now.”
A tear slid down Ryan’s face. “I don’t think Dad ever cried.”
Scott managed a slight smile. He picked Ryan up, and sat him on his lap. Ryan’s slender arms wrapped around his neck. “I think he probably did, sport. I know he wouldn’t mind if you did.”
Ryan started to sob. Scott rocked him back and forth as he turned his gaze to the window. Snow-laden clouds had turned the sky a misty gray. Scott was starting to wonder if the sun ever shone in Cape Hope.
As Ryan’s hot tears flooded the front of his shirt, Scott thought about Maggie, about the way she’d cried on the plane the day he’d met her. She was suffering so much, holding on to her memories of Mark so tightly, that Scott was beginning to wonder if there was any chance at all for them. He didn’t know what he could do to ease her burden other than listen and wait. What he did know was that his heart was becoming increasingly linked to the happiness of this family. Their grief was his grief. Their pain, his pain. Their healing, his healing.
He hugged Ryan close to his chest, and waited.
Mark clenched his fingers into a fist and stormed into the living room.
“Mark?” Annie followed him. “Are you all right?”
The look he gave her tore her heart out. “I can’t take this.”
“Oh, Mark.” She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to hear that.”
Mark wrapped his arms around Annie. “I feel rotten.”
She gave him a tight squeeze. “We’re doing the right thing. I know we are.”
“I’m afraid I might break into pieces before this is over.”
Annie met his gaze. She laid her hand on his cheek. “I’ll hold you together if you’ll do the same for me.”
He hesitated. She thought he was going to refuse. Finally, he exhaled a long, tired breath. “Deal.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ryan’s tears were completely spent. Scott marveled at the resiliency of youth. The only traces of his outburst were the lingering redness around his eyes and the occasional catch in his voice.
When the worst of his tears had passed, he’d pulled away from Scott. He had been embarrassed, unsure.
Scott had poured him a glass of milk.
Ryan seemed to accept the gesture as an offer of masculine comfort. He wiped his nose on his sleeve before picking up the glass.
Scott took another bite of his apple. “So,” he said, deciding to pursue a more neutral topic, “tell me about this father/son hockey game. What are the rules?”
Ryan plunked his glass down on the table. His serious expression was lightened by his milk mustache. “The dads’ team only gets three players on the ice at a time. We get to play with six.”
“Sounds fair,” Scott said.
“You have to use short sticks, too. The rest is the same as a regular game. The dads fall a lot.”
That, Scott thought, was a good thing. “How many of the Bruins play?”
“Last year, it was just Coach Bullard and Mr. Polokov. But this year, it’s gonna be awesome ‘cause Coach says he might get Carson Lipter to play.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“Carson Lipter is the greatest hockey player in the world,” Ryan assured him.
“So how come you turned down the chance to have Carson Lipter partner you, Ryan?”
He looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, Ryan, we agreed to be friends, right?”
“I guess.”
“So can’t you tell me?”
Ryan met his gaze again. “I wanted Coach to do it.”
Scott considered that for a minute. “Coach Bullard?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Ryan squirmed. “Mom likes him.”
Revelation dawned. Scott smiled. “Ah.”
“She likes you, too,” Ryan said.
“I hope so.”
Ryan toyed with a piece of his apple. “I think she likes you better.”
“I guess I hope that’s true as well.”
Ryan seemed to hesitate. “Is that why you agreed to skate with me on Saturday?”
Scott shook his head. “No. I did that because I like you.”
Ryan tipped his head to the side. His gaze was suspicious. “Do you really know how to skate?”
“I told you that we have ice in Dallas.”
“Yeah, I guess. We have a frozen pond in the back. Did you know that?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Maybe if Mom finishes working, we can go skating after dinner.”
Scott swallowed. “Maybe we can.” Dear Lord but he hoped Maggie would put a stop to that idea. He reassured himself with the knowledge that he didn’t have skates.
Ryan shrugged. He seemed to be finished with the conversation. “I have to do my homework now. Can I do it in here?”
“Sure. Do you need help?”
“No.”
“All right. How about if I go in the living room and work on some stuff? If you need me, I’ll be in there.”
“OK.”
Scott threw away his apple core as he walked into the living room. He’d gotten himself into one hell of a mess with this hockey game. He’d never ice-skated before, and hadn’t even roller-skated since he was a child. There was a very real possibility that he was going to make an utter fool of himself, but it had been the look on Ryan’s face that had done him in. In many ways, the kid was having an even harder time than Maggie in adjusting to his father’s death. Ryan’s insistence that he could see Mark, talk to him, and worse yet, that Mark talked back, was evidence of that.
Scott dropped down on the couch and picked up the phone. No matter how much he wanted to believe he’d win the Cape Hope project, he couldn’t simply ignore his existing clients in Texas.
An hour later, Scott hung up the phone. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. It had been an exhausting day. It didn’t help matters any that his clients were frustrated by his long absences. A noise from the kitchen caught his attention, and Scott realized with a growing sense of dread that Ryan was still in there. Did it take second-graders an hour to do their homework?
He remembered the night he’d accompanied Ryan and Maggie to Ryan’s hockey game. Hadn’t his homework consisted of writing a sentence about a picture he’d found in the newspaper? Scott stared at the swinging door. This could be bad.
He walked across the room to nudge open the door. The sight that greeted him made him slide it shut and cast a quick, anxious glance at the stairs. There was no noise from Maggie’s room, and with any luck, she was still immersed in her sketches. He cracked open the door again.
Ryan had dragged what appeared to be every mixing bowl in the house out of the cabinets. They were strewn across the counter. A few littered the floor. Broken eggshells and globs of yolk and egg white covered the kitchen table. A whirring sound drew Scott’s attention to the mixer, where something that looked like paste, and probably tasted worse, was being flung against the walls. An overturned canister had left a white, sticky wave of sugar flowing onto the floor, and everywhere, everywhere, a cloud of white flour dust hung like fog in the room.
Scott had to scan the room twice before he located Ryan, standing on a barstool, the bag of flour clutched in his hands, aiming for a large mixing bowl. “This is bad,” Scott mumbled. “This is really bad.”
Ryan looked up. His face was covered with flour. He smiled at Scott. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I’m making cookies for Mom. I couldn’t find chocolate chips, so I’m using Cocoa Puffs. You think it’ll be OK?”
“This is really, really bad,” Scott said.
Ryan’s brow puckered. “What?”
Scott shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You don’t look so good.”
Scott waved his hand in front of his face to clear a puff of flour dust. “Maybe it’s the flour.”
“I tried not to make a mess.” He looked down at the bowl. “A lot of it spilled.”
Scott took a deep breath. He looked back at the kitchen door. He had visions of Maggie finding the kitchen in this condition and going ballistic. He wondered if she’d believe they’d been hit by a tornado while she was working. The evidence was certainly damning enough. “Maybe,” he said, scanning the room, “maybe we should try to clean up a little bit and then finish the cookies.”
“I want them to be done when Mom comes downstairs.”
“Maybe we’ll have time to do both. I don’t think your mom would want to find the kitchen messy. How about you?”
Ryan thought it over. “I guess not.”
“So what do you say you put down the flour and we try to get this place straightened up a little?”
Ryan plunked the flour bag down on the counter. Another white cloud billowed forth. “OK. What do you want me to do?”
Scott unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and started to roll his sleeves back. “Let’s start with the flour.”
Maggie put the finishing touches on a valance design and put her pencil down. She clasped her hands together above her head to stretch the cramped muscles in her shoulders and back. The clock on the bedside table said it was just after four-thirty. She squinted at the weak light through her window. She hadn’t even realized she’d been working so long.
Ryan’s giggle carried up the stairs. Maggie smiled as she stretched once more. Scott must still be with him. It felt good, and right, and comfortable to know that Scott was taking care of Ryan. It would be easy to get used to that.
Maggie’s gaze moved to the picture of Mark on her desk. She wondered if it was her imagination or if his smile wasn’t quite as bright as she remembered.
Another giggle, followed by a deeper, masculine laugh caught her attention. Maggie put aside the troubling thoughts and concentrated on the pleasant aroma in the air. She identified it as the mingled scents of brewed coffee and baked cookies. The picture of Scott and Ryan alone in her kitchen was enough to lure her out of her reverie.
When she entered the kitchen, Scott’s back was to her, and all she could see beyond his shoulder was Ryan’s face, covered in white icing. She recognized his look of intense concentration by the sight of his pink tongue poked between his teeth. “Hi,” Maggie said.
“Shh.” Scott waved a hand behind his back. Ryan shot her a panicked look.
Maggie raised her eyebrows as she eased forward. “What are you working on?”
Scott didn’t look around. “Al-most done.” He drawled out each syllable with slow precision.
Maggie peered over his shoulder. Her eyes widened. Scott was placing an icing-coated rectangular sugar cookie on top of a structure that looked amazingly like a cross between the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Empire State Building. Ryan grinned at her. “Isn’t it cool, Mom?”
Scott set the final cookie in place, then leaned back from the tower with a look of boyish glee. “Done.”
“Wow!” Ryan stared at the tower.
Maggie couldn’t prevent her lips from twitching with an amused smile. “That’s quite impressive,” she told Scott.
He beamed at her. “The best I’ve ever done. I’ve never been able to get one over four layers high before. Now I know I didn’t take all those classes in structural design for nothing.”
“This is so cool.” Ryan peered at Maggie through the latticework of the cookie tower.
“When did you two decide to do this?” Maggie asked.
Ryan looked at Scott. Maggie didn’t miss the conspiratorial glance that passed between them. Scott met her gaze. “We thought we’d give you a chance to get some work done this afternoon. Right, Ry?”
Ryan nodded. “Right.”
“So,” Scott said, awkwardly changing the subject, “did
you?”
Maggie looked around the kitchen. Nothing appeared to be amiss. “Did I what?”
“Get some work done.”
“Yes. I’m almost finished with my sketches.” She regarded Scott through narrowed eyes. “Is there anything I should know?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the panicky look on Ryan’s face. Scott shook his head. “No, nothing. Oh wait,” he said, clearing his throat, “Lily called. She wanted to know if we’d like to have dinner at her house tonight. I said it was OK as far as I knew, but I’d have to check with you first.”
Maggie hesitated. She wasn’t really up to Lily’s questions. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, Maggie. It’ll be fun.”
Fun, she thought. Fun like hurricanes and earthquakes and tornadoes were fun. Scott was licking the icing off his finger, looking at her expectantly. She remembered that he’d given up his afternoon for her. Guilt prompted her to shrug. “I guess it will be all right. What time are we supposed to be there?”
“Seven.”
Ryan jumped down from his seat. “I gotta go finish my homework.”
“Hold it.” Maggie caught him by the shoulder. “Wash that icing off your face first.”
Ryan shuffled his feet. He looked anxiously at Scott. “I’ll do it upstairs,” he said.
“What’s wrong with here?”
He took two steps toward the door. “Nothing. I just want to do it upstairs.”
Maggie shook her head. “Here.”
“Uh, Maggie,” Scott said, his expression turning sheepish.
She looked from Scott to Ryan and back again. “What is going on?”
“It’s about the sink,” Scott said.
“The sink?”
“Yeah. I was going to fix it after we finished the tower.”
“It’s not his fault Mom.”
“What’s not?”
Scott edged around Maggie and backed toward the sink. “Now before you look, I think you should know it’s really not that bad.”
Ryan tugged on Maggie’s hand. “He didn’t know we don’t have a bis . . . a dis . . .”
“Disposal,” Scott helpfully supplied.
“A disposal,” Ryan echoed.
“You clogged the sink?”
“Sort of,” Scott said.
Maggie raised her eyebrows. “So big deal. We’ll just dump some Dranó in there.”