You have the unique chance . . . to break down all the barriers of the past and begin again. Don’t run from it.
All this emotional nakedness around Noelle just seemed so . . . Well, a guy didn’t walk around opening his heart. It didn’t seem masculine. Or helpful. Someone had to remain tough. Solid. Put together.
But if he could admit it, he’d never felt so vulnerable—or loved—as when Noelle had cried for him.
He backed out, onto the highway, paused for a long moment.
Then he turned toward home.
Kyle’s truck was gone from their snowy driveway. Eli entered the house, stamped his feet on the rug. He pulled off his boots, hung up his coat, and dumped his hat in the basket. Ran a hand through his hair. Yeah, he looked like a real prize.
Walking into the living room, he noticed it had been cleaned up with the exception of the tiny unicorns. These Noelle had lined up on the top of the piano. Little fairy-tale creatures capturing the sun, turning the ceiling to kaleidoscope colors.
He picked one up, ran his thumb over it.
Thumping came from the back bedroom.
Kelsey’s room.
He headed down the hall and stood in the doorway. Noelle was hanging one of Kelsey’s pictures from the box—she’d created a gallery of sorts over the bed. She’d filed Kelsey’s books back onto the empty bookcase; her shoes nested on the rack hanging from the door.
And beside the bed, her journals.
“I wondered why this room was half-blue, half-purple,” Noelle said softly. She didn’t look at him.
“Because you and Kelsey couldn’t make up your minds,” he answered. “So you chose together.”
She drew in a breath, and it sounded ragged, like she’d been crying. Shoot. He hadn’t wanted that.
Or maybe he had. Maybe that was the problem—he hadn’t wanted her to dance because he wanted her to be in misery like he was. But maybe the time for misery had passed.
Oh, he wanted to dance. Or at least to let himself hear the music.
He watched Noelle pull out the World War II poster of the kiss in Times Square. It curled over her as she tried to affix it to the wall.
Eli came over, held it up. She stepped inside the pocket of his arms to tape it to the wall. “I love this picture. It shows such an emotional moment, a man outside of himself. I have to wonder what happened next.”
“Maybe she slapped him,” he said.
“Or maybe she kissed him back.” She turned in his arms, and now he could see that yes, she had been crying. He let go of the poster, ran his thumb down her cheek.
Why had he ever thought Lee might take Noelle’s place? This was the woman God had given him, the woman who had shared children with him, the woman who deep down knew his wounds, his dreams. And most of all, the woman who knew how to celebrate the life of their daughter.
Eli couldn’t help himself. She drew him in with her blue-green eyes, that tentative smile, the smell of her, so familiar, so new.
He kissed her.
Tenderly. Not sure if she might slap him or kiss him back. But she made a little sound, curled close to him, her arms winding around his shoulders. She always fit so perfectly in his embrace, and that was familiar too. It stirred up feelings he’d long ago locked tight.
He let them out, just enough, and deepened his kiss, wanting to lose himself but afraid of what might be on the other side.
And she kissed him back. Timid at first, then with something of confidence.
Like she too might be letting go, hoping.
When he finally broke away, he cupped his hand to her face. Searched her eyes.
She gave him a slow, suggestive smile.
Oh.
Oh.
His mouth dried. “I . . . well . . .”
Noelle looked away. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I want to remember so desperately, Eli. And there’s something about the way you look at me, the way I feel when I’m in your arms, the way you just kissed me, that feels so right.” She raised her eyes to him. “I want to be your wife again.”
His throat tightened, his chest burning. His wife. Again. He could barely find his voice. “I’ve missed you so much. And I want that too. But . . . you don’t remember us being together, Noelle. Are you . . . are you sure this is what you want?”
“We’re married, right?”
He nodded.
“Then I want you, Eli Hueston. Don’t sleep in the den anymore. Be my husband tonight.”
He let a slow, rich smile slide up his face. “Do I have to wait until tonight?”
She grinned. “How long do we have before Kirby gets home?”
Emma sat on a barstool at Mulligan’s, red-and-yellow neon lights splashing into the dark pub, alive with conversation. She leaned into the mic, trying not to care that no one paid much attention to the girl on the black padded stool, one foot hooked onto the bottom rung, crooning out a lonely tune on a Saturday night. It ended and she received a smattering of applause.
Outside, drivers splashed muddy slush onto the sidewalks. She hated March, with the crusty, dirt-edged snow caving into the damp streets. The March thaw turned the world gray and bleak, the wind still toting a bitter edge as it stung her face.
And to make it all worse, her brother’s semifinal basketball game was Monday. Right during her audition. She longed to be home, to pack the stands with the rest of Deep Haven, to cheer the boys on to state.
She could still remember Kyle in his high school basketball uniform, the surge of excitement when he sank the final three-pointer for the win.
She segued into another Joe Cocker cover. “‘Ain’t no sunshine, when he’s gone . . .’”
Emma had spent the past two weeks digging up new songs, probably too many from the era of angst, but they seemed to capture the tumult of fear inside her that seemed to only grow as the day of her audition approached.
Monday. She had two more days to put words to the reams of music she’d worked out, each with a fresh, tangible hope that words might swirl to the surface of her mind.
She’d even purchased a journal and sat for hours waiting for something poetic to appear. Instead, she found herself doodling Kyle’s name, words that he said to her on the phone at night, feelings that arose when they hung up.
She wouldn’t name it love, not yet. But something about his low, calm voice greeting her at midnight when she got home from work, as she brewed a cup of hot cocoa and curled up on her chair, as he told her about the happenings of Deep Haven that day, had seeded new feelings beyond those of any high school crush.
He told her about his life, and he listened to her music—sometimes adding a strange verbal beat to the songs she’d play him while on speakerphone.
She finished the song, let the last of the music die out, and smiled as a fresh table of college boys burst into applause. They called out requests, mostly new stuff—Rihanna, Gaga, Beyoncé. She wrinkled her nose.
“You’ll like this one,” she said and launched into Mötley Crüe’s rowdy version of “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.” Then she slowed it down with Lennon’s version of “Stand by Me.”
Her father would have appreciated tonight’s lineup.
The boys raised their glasses to her as Carrie took their orders. Her roommate wore a green tie-dyed shirt and a pair of impossibly skinny jeans, her hair in short pigtails.
Another group of patrons rose, smiled at her as they shoved some green into the tip jar, then headed for the door.
At least she’d be able to make next month’s rent. But sooner or later, she’d have to face the facts.
She had failed Kelsey. And their dream.
Someone at a far table had started singing along, and the husky, twangy sound roused a memory as she closed her eyes and lost herself in the song.
Her father scooted into her memory, having changed out of his uniform, wearing sweatpants, a printed T-shirt of some ancient band, his wool slippers. He raised his hand as she looked up. “Don’t stop. It’s wonderful.”
He seated himself across from her, in that decrepit brown tweed chair he had in college, bobbing his head. And then, as she reached the second chorus, he’d just stared at her, grinning.
Like she might be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
I miss you, Daddy.
It wasn’t fair how life changed, turned on her in an instant.
She glanced toward the entrance as the door opened for another diner. He came in alone, wearing a dark jacket, the light catching his bronze hair, the wide shoulders. He just stood there by the door as if waiting for his vision to adjust to the darkness, looking around the room.
Emma nearly hiccuped her words, her heart swelling, lodging inside her chest.
Kyle.
What was he doing in St. Paul? At Mulligan’s? She finished the song, but by that time he’d caught her eye, smiled, and helped himself to a front row table.
Carrie set down a menu before him, then gave him a second look and shot Emma a glance.
“I’ll be back in twenty, folks. If you have any requests, give them to your server, and I’ll see if I can accommodate you.” Emma slipped the guitar strap over her head, set her guitar on the stand, and stepped off the stage, grinning at Kyle.
He stood. “I hope you didn’t stop for me because I’d just as soon you kept playing.”
They stood there for a moment, and oh, she wanted to leap at him, to throw her arms around his neck. Smell Deep Haven and the woods on his skin.
But she refrained, taking a breath, waiting . . .
He reached out, pulled her to himself. “I’ve missed you.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
She wanted to turn her head, but instead she released him and slid into the opposite seat. “What are you doing here?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Please. You know what I mean. I talked to you last night—you didn’t say a word about coming down.”
“I wanted to surprise you. And bring you this.” He pulled a folded journal from his inside pocket and slid it across the table to her.
Her breath caught at the familiar cover. “This is ‘Life Lyrics,’ Kelsey’s song journal.”
He nodded. “My dad brought her stuff out of storage for my mom to read through.”
“Does this mean she got her memory back?”
“No, but she’s trying.”
Emma’s mind went, however, to a picture of Eli kissing her mother and she shucked it from her brain. Kyle was not like his father—he was kind and funny and creative and spontaneous and . . .
And she wasn’t convenient. Kyle had traveled five hours to sit across from her with that crazy grin on his face.
She opened the notebook, immediately captured by Kelsey’s loose, almost whimsical scrawl. Stanzas, some circled, others crossed out, words underlined in the margins, all surrounded by doodles, betrayed the way she thought. Random. Poetic.
Pure Kelsey.
Emma paged through, found a few finished products she recognized, other half songs they’d never finished.
On the last page, she found the song Kelsey had started in the attic.
There are broken rainbow moments,
And dandelion wishes that don’t come true.
Her throat tightened as she read the title. “‘Emma’s Song’?”
There are times it don’t seem fair,
Like He’s never there.
But He’s watching over you.
Her breath hitched and she looked at Kyle. “She wrote this song for me?”
“Most of a song. It seemed to end right after the bridge.” He leaned over, pointed to the last stanza.
There are times you want to quit;
Let God take care of it.
He loves you so . . .
“I was thinking you and I could finish it. You know, for your audition?” He said it in a small voice, more hopeful than confident. “And we could take some of her other lyrics, set them to music too—maybe some of your new stuff?”
She drew in a breath, paged back through the journal. The “Steps” song and “Rescue Me.” Yes, she knew these lyrics—Kelsey had read them aloud to her, trying them out.
She’d heard music, even then, behind them.
“Are you sure, Kyle? She’s not here to sing them.”
“But you are.” His eyes met hers, wouldn’t let her go. “She left these behind for you, Emma. And you can give them a voice, bring Kelsey’s dreams to life. I know she’d want you to have them.”
She blinked away the burning in her eyes. Lyrics. Life—no, dream-giving—lyrics. She closed the book, smiled at him. Nodded. “I have one more set, and then we have work to do.” She got up. “Do you have any requests?”
He seemed to consider her offer for a moment, then grabbed her hand, pulled her down into his lap. “Just one,” he said softly and kissed her.
Noelle could fall in love with the life her former self had built. With the exception, perhaps, of the crow’s-feet around her eyes and the extra padding around her waist. But like pieces to a puzzle that had lain scattered a month earlier, suddenly, when she stepped back into her life as Eli’s wife, everything fit into place.
Like now, sitting beside him during the Huskies semifinals basketball game against the Eagles, their hands knit together like newlyweds in between the rush of taking to their feet to cheer.
Kirby landed another three-pointer. She turned to Eli and met his high five.
He had such beautiful eyes. Deep brown, with facets of gold when the sun found them. She loved to prop herself up on one arm, trace his jaw, the russet overnight brush of whiskers, his face so relaxed in sleep.
She loved being with him, his strong arms cradling her. Yes, this was how she’d dreamed marriage might be. Sweet. Safe. Intimate.
Other than in sleep, Eli never relaxed, his life so full of taking care of their family. In the past two weeks he’d hauled his ice house home, parked it in the woods near their house, then driven out the backhoe and smoothed over a pothole in their muddy driveway that just about swallowed her SUV whole. He’d turned in the recycling—the giant cans of plastic, glass, tin, aluminum, and paper nearly overflowing in the garage—then washed her car of the grime the dirt road had kicked onto her hatchback.
Small, manly things, but so thoughtful. So she’d responded by hauling out her cookbooks, finding a dog-eared recipe that he might like. Even Kirby smiled when she plunked a smoked ham with homemade au gratin potatoes on the table.
Indeed, their home seemed almost back to normal, or what might feel like normal, if she could remember anything.
One morning last week, she nearly had. She’d woken with the distinct sense of being late, rushed downstairs, and while putting on coffee, heard a voice call from the bathroom, something about fixing her a cup too. A high, sweet voice. She’d spun around to capture it, but it vanished in the dark silences at the end of the hallway.
Maybe she’d simply begun to heal, her brain settling down to a routine. Probably because she’d stopped trying so hard, like Kyle suggested, and started enjoying what remained, the life she had now.
Too many times, the verses she’d heard nearly a month ago resounded back to her. “But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.”
God had been good to her—good enough to give her a husband who hadn’t quit on her even though he felt forsaken. Good enough to give her Kyle, who helped her find the music of her daughter. Good enough to give her this community filled with friendly faces that someday might have names.
And good enough to give her Kirby, the senior star making jump shots from the top of the key.
She’d even dressed the part tonight—a blue Huskies jacket, a pin that identified her son as a player. Kirby’s mom.
Yes, maybe the key to going forward with her life was simply being grateful for it.
Derek, playing near the baseline, caught the ball, shot it back to Kirby. He rimmed his shot, and it ric
ocheted back out. Derek caught it, put the ball up again. Swish.
Four minutes left on the scoreboard and they were up by four.
She breathed out as the crowd lit up around her. She’d noticed Lee sitting a few rows down and felt a strange pinch inside when the woman opted not to sit by her, by Eli. Hadn’t she said they were friends?
Another woman sat beside Noelle today, munching on a bag of popcorn. “Hey, Marybeth,” Eli had said when she sat down, running interference again.
Now Marybeth leaned over, popcorn in her hand. “I saw your picture in the paper with Kirby. Great shot of your family. I can’t believe your last one is graduating.”
“Me either,” Noelle said honestly. Kirby got the rebound from the Eagles shot bouncing off the board, took it halfway down the court, and passed it to Derek. It slapped out of his hands, out of bounds.
“Hang on to the ball!” Eli’s voice boomed out.
Marybeth looked past Noelle to Eli and back. “Such a dad—doesn’t just yell at his own son, but the rest of the team too.”
Well, that could be because Derek didn’t have a father to sideline coach him. The fact that Derek’s father wasn’t here to watch his son turn into a basketball star sent a curl of sorrow through Noelle. She’d have to hunt down Lee after the game and tell her what a great job Derek did. Maybe even invite her and Derek over.
Noelle watched the clock tick down as the Huskies worked their next play, finally tossing the ball to Kirby. He went up for the shot. It hit the rim, bounced out, and the other team grabbed it.
Less than two minutes. The crowd had started a defense cheer and she joined in, clapping next to Eli. C’mon, Kirbs.
The Eagles swished a beautiful three-pointer, bringing their score one under. The Huskies threw the ball into play, and Kirby ran down to the key.
They just had to hold on to it until time ran out.
“What’s the guard’s name?” Noelle said.
“Cory. He’s a good ball handler. They got this.”
The Shadow of Your Smile Page 23