He held back the grin he felt inside and kept a straight face as he stepped forward.
“Drew Bishop,” he said and stuck out his hand.
Liz slid her hand into his, and he held on to it longer than was customary.
“Brooke has spoken of you often,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Tell Miss Elizabeth what we’re having for dinner, Daddy.”
Drew laughed. “I’m afraid it’s a long way from gourmet, but we’re dealing with single-dad cooking here.”
Brooke hiked her shoulders up and gave a squeal of excitement. “It’s roasted chicken with stuffing inside! I helped make the stuffing!”
Liz’s eyes crinkled in the corners as she smiled. “Did you know roasted chicken is my favorite?”
Brooke nodded. “I remember you told me that.”
The day was balmy for February, more like what to expect in early April. With the sun warm against their shoulders, they sat on the back deck. Drew poured two glasses of cabernet and filled a third with ginger ale, and Brooke carried out the two small trays of hors d’oeuvres they prepared and explained that one was a recipe they’d found in her mama’s cookbook.
“It’s called sausage puffs.”
That afternoon Drew and Liz both held back and let Brooke draw them into the various topics of conversation. They spoke of school, jobs and the recreational things they liked to do. They talked of places they lived and traveled to, and Drew told of how he used to be on the road from Monday through Friday.
“I’m glad to be settled in a job where there’s none of that now,” he said.
“I’m glad too,” Brooke echoed.
Before the evening was over Liz spoke of the spring festival the chamber of commerce was planning.
Drew gave her a sly wink and said, “Oh, are you a member of the chamber?”
He said he’d recently joined and looked forward to the possibility of seeing her at the next meeting. As he spoke he caught the look on Brooke’s face. She was beaming.
After dinner the three of them cleared the table together. Since they’d used the good china with a silver rim, the dishes didn’t go in the dishwasher. Drew washed them by hand, Liz dried them and Brooke carried them to the cupboard.
It was almost nine when the evening finally ended. Liz bent and kissed Brooke then gave Drew a casual hug.
“I’ve had a wonderful time,” she said.
“We did too,” Brooke replied happily. “Can you come again next week?”
Liz laughed. “I think that’s something you’d better ask your daddy.”
Drew reached out and took her hand in his; it was something he’d wanted to do all evening.
“Daddy would like to have you come again next week also,” he said.
“Then it’s a date,” Liz replied. “Only this time, no fussing over such a fancy meal. I’ll bring a casserole, and you can put together a salad.”
A short while later Brooke went off to bed, and when Drew came to kiss her goodnight she asked, “Daddy, did you like Miss Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Very much.”
“Good,” she said with a smug smile.
Season of Love
In the weeks that followed Drew saw Liz often, sometimes for lunch and sometimes for a drink after work. On several occasions Brooke spent Saturday night with Annie and the twins, and on those evenings the couple went dancing or to a show.
Every Sunday there was a family dinner at 1220 Lakeside Drive. Over time this became a casual thing where they spent the afternoon cooking then settled at the wooden table in the kitchen. Brooke pulled recipes from her mama’s cookbook and claimed this or that was her favorite dish; then they’d try to duplicate the taste as she remembered it.
When Brooke said corn pudding was her absolute favorite, Liz came with a box of muffin mix and a ready-bake recipe. Liz insisted she was not a great cook, yet she taught Brooke how to make fluffy biscuits that Drew swore were light enough to float off the plate. Once the dishes were cleared and the pots washed, they’d generally pull out a game board and play Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue or Sorry.
By the time March turned into April and buds of green began to sprout on tree limbs and garden beds, the three of them were having dinner together almost every evening. Some nights it was only a pizza, but it was a shared pizza, which made all the difference in the world.
Often as Drew sat at the table with Brooke finishing up her homework and Liz checking her e-mails, he thought back to a year earlier and remembered the anger that had bristled off of Brooke, perhaps off of both of them. They were alone together, each with heartaches too heavy to bear alone and too private to share with one another. They were a family but not a family.
How different it was now. There were times when Drew wished the moment or the evening could last forever, that they could go on this way day after day with nothing ever changing. But theirs was a delicate balance, and any one change could throw everything off.
It was too soon, he told himself. Brooke loved Liz now, but was it because she saw Miss Elizabeth as her friend? What if something changed? What if Liz stepped in to take Jennifer’s place? That thought rumbled through Drew’s mind time and time again. On evenings when he stood at the window and watched Liz back out of the driveway and disappear into the darkness, he inevitably wondered, Is it really too soon?
Part of him wanted things to forever remain the same, but the greater part of him wanted more. He wanted to sense the weight of her lying beside him in the bed, to feel the warmth of her skin against his. He wanted to know that in the morning he’d open his eyes and find her there. He wanted to look to the future and know they would grow old together, sitting beside one another with a thread of contentment tying them together. But more than he wanted anything for himself, he wanted happiness for Brooke.
And so it remained as it was. Friendships continued to be friendships, and passion was held at arm’s length. Sometimes on a school night when Brooke went to bed at nine-thirty, Liz stayed for a while longer. When the house was silent and steeped in shadows, she and Drew sat on the sofa snuggled together like two lovesick teenagers. When he held her in his arms and covered her mouth with his, Drew felt the thundering of his heart and each time he wondered again, Is it really too soon?
~ ~ ~
When spring turned into summer they began to have picnics on the back lawn, and on the first Sunday of August they invited Annie’s family to join them.
The day dawned with an abundance of sunshine and enough of a breeze to make it comfortable. Liz arrived early that morning carrying a basket filled with homemade salads, muffins and cookies. When she came through the door Drew took the basket and leaned down to kiss her cheek as he often did, but she turned and his mouth came down on hers. It lingered there and became more passionate than he’d intended.
It had been too long. With summer came later bedtimes and less private time. He felt a yearning that was impossible to suppress.
“Tonight,” he whispered in her ear.
She smiled, gave an almost imperceptible nod then turned to look for Brooke. She found her in the yard and gave Brooke a hug.
“So are you ready for today?” she asked.
“Yes,” Brooke answered. “Daddy bought a croquet set, and I’m going to teach the twins how to play.”
By the time Annie, Oliver and the twins arrived, the redwood table was heavy with dishes of food, the chairs were set out and the croquet wickets were hammered into the ground.
After lunch the grownups leaned back in the Adirondack chairs with their chilled glasses of dandelion tea and watched as Brooke chased the twins back and forth across the yard. When Starr finally hit a ball through the wicket, the cheers could be heard across the pond.
“Brooke is like a little mother,” Annie said as she laughed. “It’s a shame she doesn’t have a younger sibling.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth before she regretted saying them. She saw how Drew aver
ted his eyes from everyone, and Liz’s cheeks turned the color of sunburn. With another lighthearted laugh she turned the thought off, saying with two rambunctious toddlers she should be careful what she wished for.
The conversation moved on, but the thought was out there.
It’s funny how something you believe no one else knows, something that’s been kept private in your heart, can all of a sudden make you feel as if you are standing naked in the midst of a group. That’s how Liz felt at that moment. She wondered if her maternal desire to be more than a friend of the family was written on her face. At the same time Drew also was wondering if his desire had been that blatantly obvious.
That evening Liz stayed later than usual. It was ten-thirty before the excitement of the day wore off and Brooke fell asleep on the sofa. Drew lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed. He covered her with a blanket and turned on the nightlight then closed the bedroom door as he left. Sitting next to Liz, he snapped off the television and took her in his arms.
“I’m sorry about today,” he said. “I hope you know I feel just as you do, but with Brooke—”
She pressed her finger to his mouth. Not waiting for the explanation that was to come, she gave him a shallow smile then said, “I love Brooke too. I would never ask you to do anything that might bring her sadness.”
Drew kissed her full on the mouth and felt the pounding of his heart.
“I love you, Liz,” he whispered. “You know I do.”
With his hand pressed to her back, he felt the sigh of anguish that rattled up from her chest.
“I know,” she said softly. “That’s what makes this so difficult.”
~ ~ ~
In the early fall Liz asked Drew and Brooke to come to dinner at her apartment.
“I’d like to have the fun of making dinner for you this time,” she said.
That week she bought a folding card table, pushed the club chair into a corner, moved the coffee table to the bedroom and set the table in the center of the living room.
When they arrived the table was draped in a fine linen cloth and set with crystal glasses, china plates and silverware. In the center of the table was a squat vase with a tiny bouquet of pink carnations. Drew had been there on earlier occasions, but this was the first time Brooke had been to the apartment.
“How come you don’t live in a house?” she asked.
Not wanting to address the issue of a big house being the type of place where a person can get lost in their own thoughts, Liz laughed and said this size apartment was perfect for her.
“You know a place is right when everything you own has just the right spot to sit in.”
“But it can happen different too,” Brooke replied. “When we found our house it had all the furniture already in it, so there wasn’t any place for our other furniture to sit.”
“Well, I guess that was a problem, wasn’t it?” Liz replied.
Brooke thought for a moment then shook her head. “No, it wasn’t a problem. We decided the new furniture fit us better anyway, so Daddy told the moving man to leave the old furniture in the old house.”
Liz laughed. “That was a very good solution. You’re quite the problem solver, aren’t you?”
“When I have to be,” Brooke said as she climbed into her seat at the table.
With the chairs pushed up under the table it had seemed as though there would be plenty of room, but once Drew pulled out the chair and tried to sit it was a tight squeeze.
“No problem.” He turned the chair sideways and sat with his long legs stretched out to the far end of the sofa. “You know, Liz, this apartment is as charming as you are, but it’s the size of a dollhouse.”
“Daddy’s right,” Brooke said. “We have a big house with lots of room. Why don’t you come live with us?”
Liz bolted up from the table claiming she thought the soufflé was burning. Before Liz returned, Drew explained that such a thing would not be proper unless a man and woman were married.
That’s when Brooke came up with her great idea.
The Love Potion
Two days later when Brooke jumped off the school bus in front of Memory House, she had twelve whole dollars she’d saved in her pocket. When she bolted through the door she spied Annie working in the apothecary. Instead of hurrying back to see if the twins were up from their nap, she turned and went into the shop.
In a near breathless gasp she said, “Hannah told me you make magic love potions. I want to buy a bottle.”
With a look of astonishment stretched across her face Annie replied, “Aren’t you rather young to be needing a love potion?”
She started to explain at this age it might feel like love but it was simply a crush, and she’d have a dozen or more such occurrences before true love came along. Brooke cut in before she had a chance to finish.
“It’s not for me,” she said. “It’s for Daddy.”
Such a thought made Annie suspicious. Drew was not the type to believe in love potions or magic spells. He was by nature a practical man. He was one of the few who could walk by the potpourri in the hallway and smell only the flowers in it.
“Did your daddy tell you to buy him a love potion?” she asked.
Brooke gave a quick shake of her head. “No, he doesn’t know, so you’ve got to keep it a secret.”
Annie came from behind the counter and squatted down to talk to Brooke. Suppressing the chuckle she felt inside, she kept her expression dead serious.
“In a case such as this,” she said, “it’s important that I know all the facts so I can make sure to give you the right love potion.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Indeed there is. There’s the potion of forgiveness, the one for first love…”
As she spoke, Brooke studied Annie’s face for any trace of trickery and seeing none, she explained.
“Miss Elizabeth has to live in a very small apartment because she’s not married to Daddy. If I could make her and Daddy fall in love they’d get married. Then she could come and live at our house.”
Holding to an expression of seriousness, Annie said, “I can see you’ve thought this through. But are you sure you want Miss Elizabeth to live at your house?”
“I’m sure!” Brooke said. “She’s my friend.”
“If Liz and your daddy get married, then she’ll be more than a friend. She’ll be kind of like your mom. You think you’d be okay with that?”
Images of Jennifer flickered through Brooke’s mind. She remembered how they would shop together, read stories and bake cupcakes that made the whole house smell good. But most of all she remembered the way her mama tucked her into bed each night with a kiss and a wish for sweet dreams. She remembered the way her mama would hold her tight and make her feel like nothing could ever go wrong. These thoughts curled her mouth into a crooked little smile that was oddly reminiscent of Liz’s.
She nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh, I’d be okay with that.”
“Well, if you’re absolutely sure…”
Brooke broke into a wide grin. “Then I can buy a bottle of love potion?”
“Yes,” Annie replied. “But you’ll need the Happiness Forever potion that’s strong enough to make a man propose. That takes time to prepare.”
“I can wait.”
“Instead of just standing here waiting, why don’t you play with the twins and keep them busy for a while so I have time to make it?”
“Okay,” Brooke said and hurried off.
Perhaps Annie would not have made such a rash promise were it not for the fact that she’d seen the way Drew and Liz looked at one another, the way he reached across and touched her hand or her arm every chance he got, and the passion that passed through layers of clothing when he sat next to her and pressed his thigh against hers. She had seen it and knew they were in love with one another. It was so obvious even a blind man could have seen it.
Something prevented them from getting married, and Annie thought she now knew what that
something was.
As soon as she heard the laughter of Brooke playing with the twins, Annie pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called Drew at the office. It wasn’t unusual for Annie to call, but this was the first time she’d phoned him at work. At the sound of her voice Drew became alarmed.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “but I do have a situation you should know about.”
She warned him that Brooke would be coming home with a bottle of love potion that evening.
“It’s just honey, orange blossom and hibiscus, but she believes it’s a love potion. Brooke plans to slip it into your tea this evening so you and Liz will fall in love and get married.”
“You’re kidding.”
Annie chuckled. “No, I’m not.” She explained the conversation she’d had with Brooke.
“Apparently Hannah told her I could make magic love potions, and she’s convinced that’s what it will take for you and Liz to get married.”
“Wow,” Drew said. “I can’t believe it!”
Although she could already sense the happiness in his voice, Annie said, “I hope this is good news.”
“It’s great news. I would have asked Liz to marry me months ago, but I was concerned about Brooke accepting it.”
“I can assure you that’s not a problem. I asked Brooke if having Liz as her mother would be okay, and she said yes. Actually she seemed pretty happy with the thought.”
“Thank you,” Drew said reverently. “It seems like a small thing to say when you’ve given me a gift that will change our lives, but—”
“Actually, this isn’t a gift from me, it’s from Brooke. And if I might add a word of advice, let her go on believing in the love potion. It never hurts to have a bit of magic in your life.”
~ ~ ~
That evening after the dishes were cleared from the table, Brooke volunteered to make a pot of tea.
“It’s a special tea Miss Annie gave me,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned carrying a tray with two of the Lenox china cups filled to the brim and a small plate of cookies.
Silver Threads Page 21