by Vi Keeland
“Well, aren’t you lucky, Abby? I used to spend a lot of time with my grandmother, too. Her house was one of my favorite places in the world to go when I was your age.”
Sophie smiled. “We’re going to have a great time, aren’t we, Abby?”
Abby and I were lucky. I shuddered to think of what life was like for the girls who didn’t have a Sophie or a Marlene. “We have to get going. But you have my number. If there is anything I can do to help—”
Abby interrupted, jumping up and down. “Like take me to the park.”
I chuckled. “Yes. Like take Abby to the park. Just give me a call. I work nights, so I have time during the days.”
Sophie thanked us for stopping by and then Brody and I headed to the car. “What was that all about?”
“Abby’s mom was sober for a few months. She went off the wagon a few days ago. I found her partying with a dealer while Abby was home, so I took her to the park to get her out of there. When things got worse, I called her grandmother and brought her there.”
Brody nodded. “I don’t think this is a great place for you to be.”
A group of thug-looking teenagers were circling his fancy car when we walked up. I looked at Brody. “I can’t imagine what would make you say that.”
He walked right up to the scary-looking teens. “What’s up, guys?”
“Shit, man. You’re Brody fucking Easton.”
“I am.” He extended his hand, and their demeanors went from street thug to sports-idolizing little boys immediately.
“You guys watching my car for me?”
“Those are some nice-looking rims you got there. We didn’t know this sweet piece belonged to you.”
Brody opened my car door and waited until I got in. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he talked to the man-boys for another minute before shaking hands again and getting in.
“Making friends?”
“Making you friends. Told them to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m capable of taking care of myself.”
“You don’t belong in this neighborhood.”
“No. You don’t belong in this neighborhood. I fit in perfectly fine. I think you’re forgetting who I am.”
He started the car and put it into gear. “You’re right,” he mumbled under his breath, “I need to remember that.”
***
I expected perhaps a nurse or two to show up to the church. I was not prepared for hundreds of people who attended Marlene’s service. Not a single person was there because of me. The large church was packed with friends and teammates of Brody’s. I don’t know why I was surprised; everyone loved the man. He introduced me to a few people, and the first chance I got, I excused myself to go sit in a pew. Right before the service was about to start, Brody walked to the front row to join me. His hand was meshed with his girlfriend's, and there was another woman with them.
Luckily, the priest began to speak, forcing any uncomfortable introductions to wait. The service was simple, and I thought I had gotten through it without falling apart. Until the priest asked if anyone would like to get up and say a few words, and Brody stood.
He talked about how his mother had died when he was seven, and his dad had never remarried. The one grandmother he had lived a country away, and he had no real experience with girls. That got a good chuckle from the audience. Then he told a story I had never heard.
“After my mom’s burial, everyone came back to our house. I don’t remember too much, but I remember people were sitting around talking and laughing. I didn’t get how they could be smiling when my mother had just been buried. So I went outside to stew a bit, and my neighbor, Marlene, found me out front on the stoop. She sat down next to me and tried to get me to talk, but I wasn’t much in the mood. After a while, she told me to follow her, and we went back to her house next door.
“She took me into the kitchen and started asking me to grab things for her. Vanilla, milk, flour. She’d point to the cabinet where they were, and I’d get them out. Eventually, we started to talk while she made cookies. When we were done, I remember sitting down at her kitchen table with a big glass of milk and a tower of oatmeal-raisin cookies in front of me. She explained that there were going to be days in life that would be very hard, and the best way to get through them was to find one good thing to focus on. My mom had just died, and it was pretty impossible to find good in anything, but Marlene was so nice to me, I didn’t want to disappoint her. So, before I left to go back to my house, I thanked her and told her that the one good thing for me was her making me cookies that day.
“I’ve never told anyone this, and Marlene and I never discussed it, but for the next twenty odd years, I’d often discover a batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies left where I could find them. In fifth grade, when I flipped over my bicycle handlebars trying to do a wheelie and broke my arm, warm oatmeal raisin cookies kept me company that night. In eighth grade, when I threw an interception that lost the playoff game against our biggest rival, there was a Tupperware full of cookies on my doorstep. Senior year, when I didn’t get into my first pick of colleges, cookies. Five years ago, when my dad retired to Arizona and we packed the last of his things in the moving truck, cookies in the front seat of my unlocked car after I hugged my dad goodbye.
“This morning, on my way here, I stopped off at the bakery around the corner from where I grew up. It was Marlene’s favorite bakery. I bought a bag full of oatmeal-raisin cookies. For more than twenty years, she kept up making me those cookies, and every time it would bring me a smile. But this morning, as I ate one, it just wasn’t the same. You know why? Because it was never the cookies. It was the lady who took the time to recognize I might not have anything to smile about, and made sure to give me a reason. She was my reason.
“Marlene is survived by her daughter, Amanda, and her granddaughter, Willow. She may not have been my blood, but she was there through all my sweat and tears—so she’s my family, too. I know Marlene wouldn’t want any of us to cry today. She’d want us all to find that one good thing and hang on to it until things get better. But to truly honor the life of Marlene Garner, the next time you see someone having a bad day, make them a batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies in her honor. It could mean more than you’ll ever know.”
I was overwhelmed with emotions when Brody was done. When he returned to his seat between Delilah and me, he saw me crying and leaned down to whisper, “Find that one good thing that this brings, Willow. It’s what she’d want you to do.”
My breaths stuttered as I looked up at him. I kept quiet, but all I could think was, This brought me back to you.
Chapter 34
Delilah
After the graveside service, I had to go back to my office, and Brody had to go to practice. Tomorrow morning, I was due to head up to Buffalo for the day for an interview, and I hadn’t even started my research. This time of the year, right before playoffs began, the station spent a lot of time and money gathering interviews with prospective playoff teams. Depending on who actually made it in, a lot of them would be archived and never aired. Buffalo was a long shot for a last-minute wildcard slot in the playoffs.
My desk was a mess of papers when Indie interrupted. It was already almost eight, and I had more work to do before I called it a night, but her visit was a welcome distraction anyway. She plopped down on the visitor’s chair in my office, a box in her hands.
“Come on in. I wasn’t busy.” I waved at the disaster that made me look busy. But the truth of the matter was, I couldn’t really focus. The sadness in Brody’s face, the way his voice broke as he spoke in church today, had deeply affected me. It was all I could think about.
“I made you something.”
“You made me something?”
She looked around my office. “Is there an echo in here?”
“I’ll probably regret it.” I tossed my pen onto the desk and leaned back in my chair. “But let’s see what you made.”
Indie reached into the box. “This is you.�
� She had constructed a stick figure of sorts. Binder clips had been snapped together in various ways to make two legs, two arms, and a body. The metal of two clips formed a neck and attached a stapler remover that acted as a head. The way the staple remover had its mouth open, with sharp prongs, made the figure look more like a roaring dinosaur with sharp teeth.
“I think you have too much time on your hands.”
“I’ve had two hours a day to fill since you haven’t been around to hang out with the last few days.” She reached into her box again and pulled out another creation. “This is Brody.” The carefully created clip art looked just like the one of me, only a full head taller.
“We look like we could be related.” I arched an eyebrow.
She ignored me and took another creation out of the box. This one was easy to identify: it was a snake sculpted out of paperclips. The body coiled around, and again, a staple remover was attached as the head. At least the fangs and open mouth seemed a little more realistic on a snake. She placed it on my desk with the other two.
“Why do you have three staple removers?”
“I don’t. I came into your office while you were in Mr. CUM’s meeting and stole the one out of your top right drawer. I saw Fred Nagel was in the meeting, too, so I stopped by his office on my way back and swiped one from him. By the way, why does his office smell like ass?”
I laughed for the first time in days. “I didn’t know it smelled.”
“You mean you haven’t sniffed the entire floor yet?”
“Shut up.”
Indie rearranged her figure art on my desk, moving the snake between Brody and me. “The snake’s name is Willow.”
“Why am I not surprised?” After the service yesterday, Indie had talked my ear off. While I was focused on Brody, Indie had been watching Willow. She was certain from the way that Willow gazed at Brody that the woman was using Brody’s sympathy to get close to him again. I didn’t know what her intentions were, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how Brody felt about her. Seeing them standing together at the church had made everything I knew about their history so much more real.
Does he still love her?
What if he wanted to give things a second chance, now that she was clean?
“You need to get in there and put an end to the walk down memory lane.”
“They just lost someone they love. They have a lot of history. If I can’t trust him to mourn with her, then I can’t trust him at all, and it’s not meant to be.”
Indie threw her hands up in the air. “That’s crap. We don’t leave everything up to fate, we fight for the shit we want.”
“What if he still loves her?”
“Then you’ll get hurt. I’ll buy you ice cream, and we’ll both gain five pounds sitting on your couch watching Nicholas Sparks movies for a month.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Will it be Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia?”
“With chocolate sauce on top.”
I took a deep breath. “He asked me to meet them for dinner tonight. They’re having dinner with some people who worked at the nursing home where Marlene lived.”
“And you said no?”
“I told him I had a lot to do before I left in the morning.”
“Like what?”
“Research.”
“On?”
“The team.”
“You know every statistic for every team in the damn NFL. Whatever you think you need to learn, you don’t.”
She was probably right. I glanced at the time on my phone. “Dinner is probably half over already.”
“Go bring him dessert.”
Chapter 35
Willow
Laughing over dinner with a man more than twice his age was the first time I saw the old Brody I knew. The sixteen-year-old boy who was filled with cocky arrogance, yet unlike most boys his age, had everything to back up that arrogance. Even more so today.
I watched as Brody swallowed a bit of his meal, mesmerized by the squareness of his jawline. The angles had become even more prominent over the years, turning a boy with some softness in his features to a man with hard, chiseled lines. The start of a five o’clock shadow ran along his tanned jaw, bringing a darker shade to his skin that made his pale green eyes appear even more startling.
He caught me staring and furrowed his brows, then gave me a hint of a smile that made me feel like we were the only two in on a secret before he went back to talking to Grouper.
I was quiet while we finished our meal. As the seconds ticked by, I became acutely aware that we had only hours left. After tonight, there was really no reason for us to see each other. Marlene had been the only thing that bound us together at this point. And she was gone. The thought created a physical ache in my chest.
“You okay?” After we had said goodbye to Grouper and Shannon, Brody and I walked to the elevator bank together.
I nodded.
He pushed the seven button for me and thirty-three for him. When we reached my floor, I stepped out, and Brody held one arm up against the top of the sliding doors, stopping them from closing. “I have practice at nine. Coach has been good about my missing and being late the last week. But if I’m not back on time tomorrow, he’s gonna have my ass. I’ll meet you for breakfast at seven and drop you on my way?”
Uptown wasn’t on his way at all, but I agreed anyway. I’d take whatever I could get.
My hotel room was quiet. I’d always hated the quiet—it left nothing to drown out my thoughts. More so now that I was sober. That was the most difficult part of sobriety—the inability to escape my own thoughts.
Over the last few years, I’d thought of Brody almost daily. But over the last few weeks, I’d found myself constantly wondering what things would’ve been like for us if I had never disappeared that last time. If my life hadn’t spiraled out of control. Would we still be together? Be married? My thoughts were always filled with what if.
I showered and flicked on the TV for company, burying myself under the covers in an attempt to get lost in a show. The first channel I landed on, a couple was in the throes of a passionate kiss. Brody was an amazing kisser. So dominant and controlling, he didn’t kiss gently. There was always a rawness to the way his mouth consumed mine. I reached up and ran my fingers over my lips, letting my eyes flutter closed in memory.
What if . . .
I flipped the channel. FX was replaying a series that had wrapped up last year, Sons of Anarchy, an inside look at motorcycle gangs. It was filled with guns and violence. Perfect.
I watched for a few minutes. Then suddenly the scene of a group of leather-vest-wearing bikers in a clubhouse was over, and I was staring at the tattooed back of a naked blond man. The camera panned down to the man’s taut ass as he furiously pumped inside of a woman. She moaned. Brody was so good with that incredible body. God, it had been a long time since a man had made me moan.
What if . . .
I flipped the channel again.
ESPN was showing highlights from last weekend’s football games. The Philadelphia quarterback sailed the ball into the end zone and into the hands of a wide receiver. He pumped his fist and celebrated the game win. Brody and I used to celebrate game wins in his bedroom. I literally shook the thought from my head and clicked the remote.
What if . . .
I needed to clear my head of Brody. Flipping back to the hotel’s information channel, I gave up on television and clicked on music. The screen displayed choices like Top 40, Classic Rock, Hip Hop, and Country. I picked Classic Rock. Bad Company’s “Feel Like Making Love” streamed through the television.
God, I really did . . .
I listened to Paul Rodgers sing about golden dreams of yesterday for as long as I could. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I flipped to Country Music. Alan Jackson’s “Remember When” blared about remembering your first time.
Brody was my first.
The universe was completely out to get me.
Or . . .
/> Maybe it was a sign.
What if . . .
There were dozens of songs on my playlist that reminded me of Brody. I always skipped over them but never deleted any.
What if . . .
After tomorrow, there would be nothing keeping us connected.
I didn’t want to spend a lifetime hitting skip.
Always wondering . . .
What if . . .
It was time I deleted them all and moved on, or let the songs play.
My life was filled with so many regrets. In that moment, I knew if I didn’t at least try, it would be the decision I regretted the most. I ripped the covers back, got out of bed and dressed, my mind jumping all over the place. The chances of Brody still having any feelings other than disdain and hatred for me were practically nonexistent. But . . .
What if . . .
I had forgotten to give Brody his elevator key card back the other day. He wouldn’t even know I was coming up to his suite until he opened the door. Not giving myself enough time to think about all the reasons I shouldn’t, I took the elevator to the penthouse. I had no idea what I was going to say or do. I only knew it was my last chance, and I didn’t want to live wondering what if.
Brody answered on the first knock. He was still wearing the slacks from his suit, but his dress shirt and belt were unbuttoned. God, he’s magnificent.
“Willow?” I still hadn’t said a word. “Everything okay?”
I shook my head, and we stared at each other for a long moment. “Can I come in?”
For a second, I thought he might turn me away. He closed his eyes, but when he reopened them, he stepped aside for me to enter.
Chapter 36
Delilah
Indie would have laughed at me. I stood in line at the late-night grocery down the street from the Regency with an assortment of pastries from the bakery counter that was just about to close. When she’d told me to bring Brody dessert, cannolis had been the furthest thing from her mind.