Between Heaven and Earth

by Michele Paige Holmes

  Matt considered for a minute. “If you promise that you won’t ask me to buy anything, then you may look.”

  “Can we get something next time?” Asher asked.

  “Fair enough,” Matt said, having no idea if that was really fair at all or if he was the biggest pushover ever. Basically he’d just promised them that there would be a next time, and he would buy them candy then. Austin and Asher scampered off to look in the glass cases.

  “Can I look, too?” Noah asked his mom.

  “Same rule,” Cassie said. “We’re not buying anything today.”

  He nodded and hurried off.

  “Don’t put your sticky hands or face against the glass.” She stood and quickly began gathering the empty cups. Matt helped her, collecting the used napkins and doing his best to wipe up the table.

  “Are all kids this messy?” he asked as he bent to wipe down Asher’s chair as well.

  “I’m not really sure,” Cassie said. “Probably, but I only have Noah, so I can’t say.”

  They both finished their tasks at the same time and stood, facing each other awkwardly across the table.

  “You’re really good with kids,” Matt said. “Noah’s a lucky boy.”

  “Thanks.” Cassie fiddled with her keys and looked over at the candy counter. “He’s pretty great. I’m the lucky one.”

  “I really appreciate your help today,” Matt said, though he’d already thanked her a time or two. He wanted her to know how much her invitation to play soccer had meant. “Austin’s been having a rough time, and I haven’t been able to help him, but I think that today did.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Her gaze drifted back to Matt. “It helped Noah, too. I really didn’t want him to be afraid of the game, and I think Austin deserves another chance to play. I’m happy to make sure he gets it.”

  Matt nodded. “He didn’t used to be aggressive, but lately, since…” Matt shoved his hands in his pockets in an attempt at being casual when inside he felt anything but. His heart raced, and words pounded through his head as he fought the unexplainable desire to tell Cassie Webb more about his life and circumstances.

  “Since?” she prodded, her gentle tone suggesting that she really wanted to know. He had the feeling she’d be a good listener.

  Matt breathed in deeply then exhaled. He hadn’t even shared this with his coworkers at his new job yet. “My wife passed away about eight months ago. Since then, Austin hasn’t been himself.” He shrugged, uncertain why the first person he’d chosen to tell this to in California was Cassie Webb. He barely even knew her, yet he wanted her to understand or at least partially excuse Austin’s earlier, poor behavior.

  I’m not a completely awful parent. Just a struggling one.

  Her expression softened from one of forced aloofness to genuine compassion. She met Matt’s gaze directly for the first time since they’d left the soccer field. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too.” His eyes lingered on hers a few seconds longer than necessary or probably appropriate, but thankfully she didn’t seem to go back to feeling awkward. Instead she surprised him with another offer.

  “If there is anything else I can do to help you get situated here, or with your boys—” She hugged her arms to herself. “Being a single parent is really hard and— I mean I imagine it’s hard. I work at a school and see a lot of kids and parents…” Her voice trailed off, and she pursed her lips, as if regretful she’d said as much as she had.

  “I appreciate that,” Matt said, purposely ignoring all the clues about herself that she’d inadvertently given him. He could think about those later tonight. It would be a good change of pace from what he usually thought about at night after the boys had gone to bed. “Allowing Austin on your soccer team is plenty, though.”

  She nodded. “Well then, I’d better get going. I have to work early tomorrow, and Noah definitely needs a bath tonight.”

  “Me, too,” Matt said. “Work I mean.” He brought a hand to his forehead, embarrassed. “Though a bath— shower would be good as well. Being a ref was a workout.”

  She grinned. “Try being the other team.”

  “Maybe next time I will.”

  She called Noah over, and he beckoned to Austin and Asher, not trusting himself to go any nearer to the candy where it would be that much easier for them to talk him into getting something. Nope. He was sticking to his guns this time. Furthermore, he was going to make both boys take a bath when they got home even though it wasn’t Saturday night. Kids their age probably ought to bathe more than once a week, anyway.

  They left the ice cream parlor together, Matt grateful that Cassie didn’t seem to mind his holding the door for her this time. After a quick wave, she and Noah were in their car and gone.

  “Did you boys have a good time?” he asked once he was on the right road headed home.

  Austin nodded.

  “I like Noah,” Asher said. “And his mom.”

  “Me, too,” Austin said.

  Silently Matt agreed.

  Matt reached up to the top bunk and pulled the quilt over Austin. He paused a moment to look at his son and felt a deep regret for all the harsh words that had been exchanged between them the past few months. Even in sleep, Austin’s expression appeared serious, as if the days of carefree boyhood dreams were gone. Matt hated that, hated the heartbreak his boys had suffered almost more than he hated his own loss. At least he’d had a childhood. It felt like Austin’s and Asher’s had been stolen right away from them. Matt wasn’t at all certain how to get it back, or if that was even possible.

  He bent down, picking Asher’s favorite stuffed dog off the floor and tucking it in beside him. How wonderful it had been to hear Asher laugh today, to see both boys smiling and playing, having fun like five- and six-year-olds were supposed to. He mulled this over as he stepped over piles of clothes and toys strewn across the room and into the hall. Maybe that was part of the solution to their problems. Until today, they hadn’t had any fun in a long time. It had seemed wrong, somehow, with Jenna gone, but little boys still needed fun. They probably needed it more than ever when they’d lost their mom.

  Matt ran his fingers through his hair and sighed wearily as he took in the colossal mess that was the hall and their front room. Little boys needed fun, but they also needed some rules and order in their lives. Matt doubted that Cassie Webb’s living room looked like this. It bothered him to imagine what she might think if she saw his. Not that she ever would.

  He needed to quit thinking about her, about what she’d almost said about being a single parent. Because she was married, wasn’t she? And he definitely didn’t want to be the kind of man who found another guy’s wife attractive.

  He made his way down the dark hall to the master bedroom and bath. He turned on the shower, unrolled his sleeves, and unbuttoned his shirt. As he pulled it off, Cassie’s forgotten lanyard and the whistle attached to it thumped against his chest. He tossed the shirt aside in one of the piles on the floor. He really needed to get a hamper. Little wonder his kids were such slobs when he wasn’t much better. He hadn’t thought through things very well when packing and didn’t even know if the laundry hamper was in storage or what. He’d been going through the motions on autopilot, simply trying to get them here and in an apartment before school started and the first day of his job.

  Now that they were here, he needed to get it together, the way Cassie Webb seemed to have it together with her kid. Matt removed the lanyard and whistle. Her mouth has been on this. Just thinking about it, about her, gave him an undeniable rush, and for a few seconds, he allowed himself to enjoy the memory of her running up and down the field, laughing and playing with his boys.

  Of course fate would lead him to a married woman. Matt tossed the whistle on the counter. On top of everything else, he didn’t need to turn into a pervert.

  He finished undressing and stepped into the shower before it could get any warmer. A cold shower would serve him right, and a cold shoulder from Cassie We
bb would be best from now on, but of course he couldn’t warn her.

  Instead he spent the rest of the night warning himself and fell asleep laying on his side, facing Jenna’s picture on his nightstand.

  Cassie tugged at the tie on her robe as she left the tiny bathroom. Three steps later, she stood in the doorway of the room she shared with Noah. She hoped he’d picked up his Legos like she’d asked him to but supposed she’d find out in a minute. With necessitated bravery, she started into the room lit only by the glow of the Cars night light on the far wall.

  She’d almost made it to her bed when the ball of her left foot encountered the all-too-familiar sharp pain of a small plastic brick. Clenching her teeth, Cassie bent to retrieve it.

  “Two by three,” she muttered. Small, but not so small that Noah shouldn’t have seen it and put it away.

  Tossing the offending Lego aside, she continued into the room, stopping to pull her bed from its upright position on the far wall. It creaked slightly as she lowered it, and Cassie glanced over her shoulder, worried that Noah would wake. Instead he turned over in his loft bed and mumbled something that sounded happy.

  “Pleasant dreams, sweet boy,” she whispered, the foot-stabbing Lego already forgotten as she sat cross-legged on her bed to comb out her wet hair. Tonight she felt certain Noah’s dreams would be pleasant instead of worried as he had been in the days leading up to this afternoon.

  The soccer plan had been even more successful than she’d hoped. Not only had Noah conquered his fear, but he’d made two new friends— an even-more-important feat. Austin and Asher seemed to have benefited from the interaction as well. Now that Cassie knew their story, she felt certain she’d done the right thing in inviting Austin to play soccer with them. Losing their mother must have been devastating for the boys— and their father. Noah had never known Devon, so he didn’t fully understand what he was missing, didn’t know what it was like to have two whole, functioning parents, a real house, siblings…

  Cassie glanced around the crowded room and wondered if he would ever know those things. At the least, she needed to provide him with a better apartment with a room of his own. Turning her bed into a Murphy bed and getting him the loft had helped, but it wasn’t the same as private space. Heaven knew she could have used a bit of that herself. Though that would mean sleeping alone, truly alone, and she didn’t look forward to that. Hearing Noah’s deep, even breathing at night was soothing.

  Her pregnancy had been the comfort she needed after Devon was shot. Noah’s arrival had given her something to look forward to, and when he was born, someone to live for. She’d thrown herself into being the best, most attentive mother she could be, but now, already, she could tell that she needed to start pulling back a bit. Noah wanted his own room. Soon he would need it. She would have to move.

  Cassie worked through a tangle in her hair and promised herself that if Devon’s situation didn’t change by next summer, she would move. She’d find a place closer to school, an apartment complex where other children lived. She’d start putting Noah’s needs first before what she believed would be best for Devon when he came home. Until then, they’d muddle along as they had been. She supposed there were worse things for a five-year-old boy than having to share a room with his mother.

  Things like not having a dad. Cassie set her brush on the nightstand next to Devon’s picture. She scooted back against the wall, stuffed her pillow behind her, and pulled her knees up to her chest as she stared at the photo.

  “We need you, Dev.” She said it often, but tonight she felt that need more keenly than she had in recent months.

  Unbidden, the image of Matt, hopping around the field and doing a victory dance after Asher’s lone score, came to mind. Noah needed a dad to cheer for him like that, a dad to teach him to open doors, a dad to swing him high in the air when he scored a goal, a dad to set limits on how much chocolate would or would not be purchased at Samantha’s.

  Because she was definitely no good at that. It had taken some serious willpower to walk out of there today without a visit to and purchase from the candy counter.

  Cassie took Devon’s picture from the nightstand and propped it against her legs. She stared at his handsome face, remembering that weekend they’d spent at Tahoe just two months before he’d been shot. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, trying to summon the memory of his voice, the smell of his cologne, the feeling of her hand in his.

  Tonight she felt the six years that separated the life they’d had together from her life now stretching into a wide chasm that was difficult to cross. She hadn’t heard his voice for so long, he only smelled of the antiseptic at the care center now, and though she held his hand each week, he never squeezed hers back.

  She’d stayed here, in their tiny, isolated apartment all these years, not to save money so much as to preserve things as they had been when Devon was here last so that when he came home someday, it would be to a place he remembered. But she was fooling herself, thinking that anything would be remotely the same when Devon woke up. Sure, she was in the same apartment, but it was also occupied by a five-year-old boy and a few hundred Legos now— neither of which Devon knew anything about. The fancy glasses that had once filled the cupboard, the ones they used to toast each other with, had been replaced with plastic. His and hers monogrammed towels that used to hang in the bathroom had been exchanged for a hooded dinosaur towel that hung from a low hook. Devon’s guns were in storage at a friend’s house, and his car was in storage, too. She hadn’t started it in two years. Who knew if it even ran anymore? Nothing would be the same when Devon came home, but she didn’t care. She just wanted him home. Wanted him back any way she could have him.

  “Please.” She opened her eyes again to beg his smiling face. “Come back to me. To us.” She stared at the picture for several seconds, waiting for some premonition, some hint that soon her plea would be answered. But as with all the other times she’d asked and the hundreds of hours she’d spent at Devon’s side since his injury, she received nothing in return. Cassie kissed the glass briefly, then set the photograph aside.

  She took off her robe and lay on her bed, thinking through the past, struggling to summon a memory of Devon for her dreams, but they remained on the periphery of her mind, out of reach and blocked by the stronger memory of Matt Kramer and the stoic expression on his face when he’d told her his wife had died.

  “On three,” Cassie said to the group of sweaty five- and six-year-old boys huddled around her. “One.” Their stacked hands bounced in unison. “Two. Three.”

  “Teamwork!” they shouted. “Good. Job. Bulldogs.” Sixteen little hands flew up into the air, the one closest to her inadvertently smacking her in the face on its ascent.

  Cassie straightened and stepped back from the huddle as Asher ran toward them, his arms laden with juice boxes. Matt followed, carrying the rest and stopping to pick up those Asher had dropped.

  “Good thing they make these sturdy.” Matt held up a partially crushed box as he met Cassie on the field.

  “Good thing they make kids sturdy.” She inclined her head toward the mob attacking Asher. “You’d think he was handing out Halloween candy or something.”

  “Hey guys, over here.” Matt stepped forward, offering the remaining drinks to the swarm of kids. In short order, they were dispersed, and Cassie thanked him then bid him farewell, taking Noah’s hand to lead him from the field. She needed to be at the care center in an hour, and she still had to drop Noah off at her mom’s and pick up dinner on the way to see Devon.

  “You did great today.” Prior to the game, she hadn’t been at all sure that Noah would. Last Saturday’s game had been rained out, and Matt ended up having to go into the office and stay late the following Thursday, so it had been a full week and a day since Noah had played any soccer and since he, Austin, and Asher had been able to interact; however, Noah and Austin had both played with heart this evening, and it seemed the friendship that had started in the most unlikely of
ways was apt to take hold.

  “I didn’t get a goal.” Noah’s shoulders drooped, and he hung his head.

  “But you played great.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “The only reason I offered you a dollar a goal was to motivate you to get in the game and play. And now you’re doing that.”

  “So do I get the dollar?” He looked up hopefully.

  Inwardly Cassie groaned and cursed her bad parenting. “No, not yet, but there are a lot of games left in the season. Keep playing like you did today, and I’m sure you’ll make at least one goal.”

  The hunched-over look returned, so dramatic that Cassie had to be careful not to laugh. Maybe she ought to enroll Noah in acting class somewhere. He’d certainly been good at exhibiting his moods lately. She jiggled his hand to get his attention. “Why is that dollar so important? What Lego set are you wanting so desperately that it can’t wait another two-and-a-half months until Christmas?”

  “Not a set,” he huffed and gave her a look that suggested she knew nothing and never listened to him. “I’m saving for Legoland. For a ticket for you like the one for me that came in my magazine.”

  “Ohh…” She remembered him showing her that ticket, and he had been chattering on a lot about Legoland lately. She’d thought it was because of a commercial he’d seen on TV. But this sounded a bit more serious.

  They reached the edge of the field, and Cassie began gathering her things. “That is very sweet of you to want to get me a ticket. But it would take a lot of dollars to buy one, and we’d need more than just tickets to go. It would cost money to drive or fly there, and we would have to find a hotel.”

  “They have one!” Noah said excitedly. “It’s built out of Legos and everything.”

  “Really?” Cassie pictured a bed made out of the hard bricks and couldn’t feel enthused. “That sounds interesting, but it would still cost a lot of money— money we don’t have while your dad is sick.”