Summer Kisses

by Melinda Curtis

  She’d texted him that things had gone well, and that they were stopping in Cloverdale for ice cream.

  He should have felt relief that Becca had done the right thing. Instead, he was beside himself with worry for Grandpa Ed, and unforgivingly angry at Becca and Agnes for taking him along.

  “Best day I’ve had in years,” Edwin slurred. “Bested a con artist and a private investigator in one morning.” Grandpa Ed accepted Flynn’s help out of the car.

  Becca brought his walker around. Flynn yanked it away from her.

  “Hey, there’s no need to be upset,” Edwin said.

  “There is.” Flynn couldn’t believe that no one seemed repentant. He glared at Becca. “You shouldn’t be gallivanting about.”

  “I’ll stop gallivanting when I’m dead,” Edwin grumbled, taking the walker handles and proceeding up the walk. “Leave her be.”

  “Uncle Flynn,” Truman ran around the car, Abby at his heels. “There was this woman. And Agnes told her off. And we saved Becca from going to jail.” He hugged Flynn’s legs, then turned to Becca. “I’m hungry.”

  Becca managed a sad smile. “You just had ice cream.”

  The evidence of which was in two large brown stains on his red-and-white striped shirt.

  “I could use some popcorn.” Truman grinned.

  “Only if you pick up your room first.” Becca barely had the terms out when Truman and Abby ran toward the house.

  She put a hand on Flynn’s arm. “I’m sorry. The investigator scared us. All of us, including Truman.”

  Flynn hadn’t considered how they’d felt. “You should have thought it through.”

  “You’re upset because we didn’t take you along.” Edwin was moving more slowly up the walk than the day Flynn had brought him home from the hospital. “You have more important things to do than babysit us.”

  Flynn thrust his hands through his short hair. “I wouldn’t have let you go, Grandpa Ed. Or Truman.”

  “In this day and age, we might have gone off a little half-cocked, but it turned out all right in the end.” Edwin paused at the bottom step. “Never thought three steps would seem like a mountain.”

  “Harold must be spinning in his grave over what his daughter tried to do.” Agnes shook her head. “I’m picking up Mildred and going over to Rose’s and then I’m going to tell them about everything that happened today.”

  “Including about the ring?” Becca teased, entirely too light-hearted in Flynn’s opinion.

  “Including about the ring. No more secrets.” Agnes hugged Becca and then left in her Buick.

  Flynn watched the Buick kick up dust down the driveway, unable to kick his anger aside. “I found out where Kathy is. She checked herself into rehab. Alcohol addition.”

  Edwin looked at Flynn over his shoulder, a quick look that said volumes about the worry he’d shouldered over the years. “Just like her mother. I know I shouldn’t blame myself for it, but I feel as if I should have seen that coming.”

  “Me, too.” Flynn rubbed at his short hair.

  Becca lingered a few feet behind them. “I need to call my lawyer after I make Truman some popcorn.”

  “Go on.” Flynn waved her off. “I’ll help Grandpa Ed up the stairs.”

  “I’d like that,” his grandfather said gruffly. “Do you think you might sit with me and talk awhile instead of running to repair something?”

  His grandfather’s request washed away the anger, calmed, soothed, but didn’t manage to wash away the worry.

  * * *

  “I HAVE NO NEWS,” Hank, Becca’s lawyer, said when he interrupted the dynamic tunes of elevator music that played while she was on hold. “I need to make this quick.”

  “I want to settle,” Becca said firmly.

  “That wasn’t the strategy we agreed to,” Hank said, all bluster and volume.

  “The private investigator Gary hired riled up the daughter of a recently deceased client. She tried to accuse me of stealing jewelry.” Becca experienced a twinge of guilt over the ruby ring, but she knew that Hank could sense weakness, even over a cell connection, so she plowed forward. “I want to pay back the money.”

  “All ten thousand?”

  Doubts slithered through her thoughts like baby snakes. “Yes.”

  Hank swore.

  “What will the next client Gary unearths accuse me of? I can’t go through life looking over my shoulder. I still believe the money was a gift from Virginia, but some gifts have to be rejected.” Like Irma’s heart pendant.

  “Did something happen to you? You don’t usually sound like this.”

  Score a point for rediscovering her backbone. She decided to ignore his observation.

  “All right. If you’re determined to accept his emotional blackmail, how do you plan to pay Gary back?”

  “A little at a time. No interest.”

  “Dream on.”

  “Hey, those are my terms.”

  “You’ll need him to sign a document where you claim no wrongdoing and he claims to exit your life forever.”

  “I like it when you speak lawyer English.”

  “You pay me for advice, not to baffle you with terms you’ll never understand.” He sighed, and she could see him at his desk, tapping his pencil on the scribble-covered blotter. “Are you sure? It’ll make us look bad if you make this offer and then don’t want to follow through.”

  “I’m sure. This has become a vortex that dragged down too many people in my life. I won’t let anyone be hurt again.”

  * * *

  “WHEN ARE WE going on that trip overseas?” Edwin asked Flynn when he was settled in his recliner with a small bowl of crackers and a glass of ice water. “I want to show you where I spent my tours of duty.”

  Flynn couldn’t believe his grandfather wanted to talk about the trip. They’d been avoiding talking about it since he came home from the hospital. “When do you want to go?”

  “August. Before Truman goes back to school.” Despite his slurred speech, Edwin sounded chipper. “He should come along.”

  Truman sat in the middle of the living room floor, munching on popcorn. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.” Edwin smiled. “And your mother. She should be out of the hospital and better by then.” They’d broken the news of Kathy being sick to Truman. He took it like the little trouper he was—with stoic resolution. “It’ll be nice to go somewhere as a family again. Do you remember that trip we took to the Grand Canyon when you and Kathy were young? I think that’s one of my fondest memories.”

  “Will we fly in an airplane? I’ve never been on an airplane.” Truman radiated energy.

  “Yes, but August?” Flynn didn’t like it. “That’s the height of vacation season for Europe. Every country we visit will be crowded.” Not to mention the places they planned to visit weren’t kid-friendly.

  “The most interesting people travel in August.” He waved off Flynn’s concerns. “We’ll start with South Korea. Lousy place to fight a war. Hotter than an attic in summer, colder than an ice floea in winter. Rice paddies or steep mountains. There is no in-between.”

  “Did we win that war, Grandpa?” Truman said.

  “No one ever wins a war. It takes its toll on soldiers and civilians alike.” Grandpa Ed stared at the wall with the photos and accommodations of his past. “I’d like to see Algeria. Don’t have any desire to see Vietnam. Perhaps Berlin. Have we talked about going to Berlin before?”

  “We can go wherever you want to.” Flynn was happy to have the trip within sight.

  “Berlin is such a fascinating city.” Edwin’s eyelids got heavy. “Irma said it was beautiful.”

  Flynn searched the pictures on the wall. All the pictures of foreign places were of his grandfather alone or with his staff. “When did Grandma
go to Berlin?”

  Grandpa Ed mumbled something that sounded like, “Last year.” Edwin’s eyes drifted closed. Just when Flynn thought Grandpa Ed was asleep, his grandfather startled. “When did we go to Washington, D.C.? Was that last year?”

  “More like fifteen years ago. I was in middle school.”

  “It seems like yesterday.” Grandpa Ed sighed. “You haven’t changed so much. Always making sure everyone likes you. You don’t need to make a friend of everyone you meet.”

  “What’s Grandpa talking about?” Truman tossed Abby a handful of popcorn.

  Flynn shrugged. He wasn’t sure.

  Grandpa Ed turned into Grumpy Ed. “I’m trying to tell Flynn that he can say no once in a while. So what if Zenobia’s faucet drips? Who cares if Felix has a creaky floorboard? Flynn’s life is passing him by while he takes a hammer to every nail in town.”

  “I thought you wanted me to help people here!” Flynn heard Becca come in through the kitchen door.

  “I do, but not every day of the week, not every spare minute of the day.” He dropped his voice. “There’s a woman in the kitchen.”

  “Who?” Truman whispered back.

  “He means Becca. Don’t start with the matchmaking,” Flynn warned.

  “You people nowadays. You think everything should come on a timeline. Job. Check. Home. Check. Marriage. Check.” Grandpa Ed huffed. “Life is too short for timelines.”

  Misdirection was called for. “Can we go back to planning our trip?”

  His grandfather shook his finger at him. “Some things should be spontaneous.”

  Flynn shook his finger right back. “Not trips to foreign countries.”

  “Irma liked Paris. I was too young for the Second World War, so it’s nothing more than a city with interesting food to me.”

  “When did Grandma go to Paris?” Flynn had never heard mention of her trip before.

  “That year.” Grandpa Ed was vaguely firm.

  “What year?” Flynn was fairly certain his grandmother had never traveled outside the United States.

  “Flynn.” Becca gestured for him to come to the kitchen. Her eyes were watery, as if she’d been blinking back tears.

  “I need a glass of water.” Flynn followed her into the kitchen, thinking that perhaps the excursion with Becca had helped stimulate his grandfather’s brain.

  “Don’t argue with him.” Becca wiped at one eye with the back of her hand. “It’s his eleventh hour.”

  “Meaning?”

  “They didn’t tell you about this at the hospital?” When he shook his head, she searched for the words to explain. “It’s when people rally. They feel energized before they pass away. It’s like their system, or God, knows that everyone needs a moment of clarity before...”

  Flynn’s head started shaking. “No. I don’t believe you.” Or more accurately, he didn’t want to believe her.

  She put her hands on his shoulders. “I want you to be prepared. Listen to what he’s saying. Make peace with his leaving. You can’t fix this.”

  Something dark robbed Flynn of his breath. “I don’t believe you,” he gasped as weakly as Grandpa Ed.

  Becca’s gaze was filled with compassion. She hugged him, quickly, then went back to her dishes. “It’s okay. I could be wrong.”

  But that was unlikely. Becca dealt with death on a regular basis.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  AFTER BECCA TOLD Flynn about the eleventh hour, he didn’t talk to her the rest of the afternoon. She’d served them dinner and left, her heart heavy.

  It wasn’t lighter when she returned the next morning.

  Flynn didn’t say a word to her as she cooked blueberry pancakes for Truman and Edwin. He headed toward the door.

  She moved the pan off the burner and followed him. “Wait. I wanted to tell you that I’m going to pay Gary back the ten thousand dollars. I talked to my lawyer about it yesterday and he’s going to draw up the documents.”

  He hadn’t been expecting her to say that. His eyebrows went up. “That’s a big decision.”

  “It is, but it felt right.” Becca fingered her wedding ring. “After Terry died, he’d left so much unfinished business, so much he’d wanted to do but never got the chance to, that I decided people should get their last wishes. And if I could help them, it would be like fulfilling one of Terry’s last wishes.”

  “Makes sense.” His tone was detached. They were back to being strangers.

  Becca was heartbroken. “But being in Harmony Valley, being with you, has made me realize that every wish, every choice, has a consequence. I meant well, I really did.”

  “I know you did, Becca. It’s good, what you’re doing.” His eyes wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Thank you. I didn’t want you to worry about me. No one should worry about me.”

  He seemed to chew on his cheek, as if trying to keep words from spilling out. And then he did look at her. He looked at her with a gaze so full of disappointment that she struggled not to shrink back. “That’s your grief over Terry talking and the brave front you put on and the crazy notion that you’ll never love again talking.”

  She backed up a step, feeling lost and unsure and belittled. “I just wanted you to know.”

  He sighed, a sound so heavy that her shoulders nearly bowed with its weight. “I feel honored that you don’t want me to worry.” He walked off to start his busy day.

  “Wait,” she said. She had a sinking feeling that Edwin’s time was near. “Maybe you should stay close to home today.”

  He turned to look at her. “If I do that, I’m admitting...what you said yesterday.” And then he left.

  Becca hadn’t known what she wanted to happen by telling him everything. The need to dispel all her secrets to him outweighed the mistakes she’d made—dragging his grandfather to Diane’s, telling him the end was near. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to talk to her.

  She found herself back in the kitchen. The pancake she’d taken off the burner was hard and cold.

  Kind of like her heart.

  * * *

  JOEY HANDED FLYNN a cup of gas station coffee when he arrived at the job site. “Past couple of mornings I’ve been thinking you need more caffeine.”

  Flynn accepted the cup and drank deeply without fear of it being too hot. This particular gas station was twenty minutes away.

  “This morning it looks like I should have gotten the jumbo size for you.” Joey peered at Flynn over the top of his sunglasses. “Everything all right? Kathy? Edwin? That caregiver girl of yours?”

  Flynn had tossed and twisted himself in his sheets all night, worrying about his grandfather. He’d freeze at every sound, wondering if it was a death knell. Every hour he’d crept down the hallway to his grandfather’s room to make sure he was still breathing.

  Becca had to be wrong.

  Except he’d gone online and looked up the eleventh hour and seen the symptoms his grandfather was exhibiting.

  He didn’t want Becca to be right.

  “Flynn?”

  “I think...this is the end.” Flynn choked on the words and immediately gulped down more coffee.

  “I’m sorry.” His father seemed to know what he meant.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. I may have resented him for taking you away, but I can’t resent the way he raised you.” Joey patted Flynn awkwardly on the back. “I cried when my mother died. She’d given up on me long before my biggest mistakes. She didn’t want me there at the end. I had to wait in the hall for hours. Just listening to her laboring for breath, remembering how she used to bake cupcakes with homemade frosting, wondering when she’d give up and let go. Knowing I couldn’t do a thing to comfort her.” Joey stared toward the river. “Crappy conversation fo
r first thing in the morning.”

  “Thanks. For sharing. And for trying. To be here. To be back in my life.” Flynn drew a deep breath, praying he wouldn’t start sobbing like he had when the police took his dad away. “Dad.”

  And then they were hugging, slapping each other on the back in the manlike ritual that decreed hugging okay.

  “I don’t know what any of this means,” his father said. “But I will expect an invitation to special nights, like the Super Bowl. My better half, she’ll want to come over on days, like Father’s Day.” Joey looked like he’d swallowed a live eel. “I’m rushing things, I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll talk.” Flynn knew Joey could never replace his grandfather, but he felt less alone with him in his corner.

  * * *

  BECCA COULDN’T INTEREST Edwin in food, not even blueberry pancakes.

  She’d helped him dress and got down the hall to his recliner. He asked for coffee, but hadn’t taken a sip. He didn’t speak much. Communication had deteriorated to slow nods or shakes of the head.

  “Someone’s here.” Truman went to the window.

  The man was tall, with easy strides and an easy smile. “I’m looking for Edwin Blonkowski. He wrote me a letter.”

  This could be just what Edwin needed to interest him in the world again.

  Becca opened the door. “Edwin, one of your letters...worked.”

  Edwin turned his head.

  To his credit, the letter recipient didn’t flinch or hesitate. He came forward and offered Edwin his hand. “I’m Nate Landry. Used to be sheriff up in Cottonwood.”

  “Got fired for arresting the mayor’s son.” Edwin’s voice was a rusty wheel, but Becca was glad to hear it.

  “My services were no longer required.” His grin was slow as molasses.

  Edwin waved a puffy, slightly blue hand. “Your services are required here.”

  “I couldn’t find any job posting online.”

  “We just got the internet here a few days ago,” Becca explained. “But I wasn’t aware Harmony Valley was hiring a sheriff.”

  “There are funds...to hire a sheriff when...the population rises...above eighty.” Edwin wheezed, having obviously expended his energy on his greeting.