I gave this woman my hand, my smile genuine.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “And yes, I’m Alicia.”
“I didn’t mean to bombard you,” she went on, her hand going back to the bundle of books pressed to her abdomen. Her arms were nearly jam-packed with books and I wasn’t surprised. She did say she was a teacher.
She grinned. “I was hoping to come across you. I’ve heard such wonderful things.”
I wondered at first from whom, but like both she and Ava said this was a small town. I was sure everyone here knew about the long-lost niece who’d literally found her way back to Kansas.
“Well, thank you,” I told her. “I’m glad I got to be here despite the circumstances.”
The fact I was here in my aunt’s place wasn’t lost on me and that showed across the weight of Jolene Berry’s freckled cheekbones.
She nodded. “We do miss her. She was a wonderful woman.”
Something could be said about the jealousy I had for the people here. They got to know the woman who left so much for me. I now only got to experience her through others eyes and her personal possessions.
“That’s what I hear,” I told her, my sigh evident. “I was really young the last time I’d seen her.”
Jolene acknowledged that, lifting and lowering her head.
“I hear you’re fixing up her house,” she said, the light returning to her eyes. She tilted her head. “Again, small—”
“Town,” we said together, laughing at that. I pushed my hand through my hair. “Yeah, doing some revisions and prepping it and the property up for sale. I’ll probably be here a few months.”
Thanks to Gray things had been moving along, but I did still have a lot of time to root here. In the beginning that might have been a bad thing.
So much has changed.
I was still trying to figure it all out, my feelings and where I was going with them. The good thing in all this was at least I had some time, and because I did, I was going to allow myself to sort them out. I must have been smiling because Jolene’s widened and like she knew, the next words out of her mouth were about Gray.
“I hear he’s been heading your project,” she told me, again not surprising me by her candor or knowledge. She hugged her books. “I hope you’re getting what you need from him. From what I hear, he does very good work.”
Because I could attest for that, I told her so, smiling. Gray really did know his way around a tool, a project. He had my full trust and more, so much more.
“And I’m sure you’ve—” Jolene started, pulling me out of my thoughts. Her lips closed and judging by the sudden change of her expression I ventured she was unsure about her next words. She wasn’t smiling anymore and her books suddenly lowered.
Her head tilted.
“I’m sure you’ve met his daughter,” she started, the words moving out slowly. Again, as if unsure. Her lips parted. “Laura. I used to teach her though our sessions concluded not long ago. Since I have the time, I tutor out of my home during the summers. Laura was one of my students. Gray’s decided to do homeschooling with her during the school year so I guess I’m curious about how she’s been.”
I wasn’t surprised Gray would be homeschooling his daughter. Her obvious special needs wouldn’t allow her to be around many people no matter how sad that would be for her. I was sure that was incredibly lonely for her.
My smile fell like Jolene’s had.
“I have met her and she seems well. I’m actually picking this up for her.”
Her gaze traveled to the music book in my hands and as she looked clearly curious, I thought to explain more.
“I’ve been playing piano for her,” I said. “She’s over while Gray works and seems to like it while she sits with me. Up until this point, I’d been playing mostly from mem—”
“I’m sorry. You said she sits with you,” she said, getting closer.
I moved my head. “Uh, yeah, but not all the time.”
“But she does that,” Jolene went on, a wonder in her voice I thought I understood. She’d interacted with Laura just as I had and one thing I was sure we both knew was that she didn’t trust many people. It’d been something I was hoping to change with her by playing.
“She does,” I said happy for the fact. Like I knew, she didn’t trust easy.
Jolene stared off.
“And Gray, he doesn’t mind it?” she questioned, her gaze returning to me. “He doesn’t mind you playing and sitting with her?”
Her words saddened me.
“He doesn’t,” I told her and something about what I said changed everything and I felt that.
Especially with her smile.
Jolene proved to be such a nice person and pleasant like I originally believed about her. Before we parted, she made sure to let me in on all the community events, even going one further and inviting me to service on Sundays with the rest of the town, which I considered taking her up on. Before we left each other, me to continue on to check out and she her browsing, she did say something and it’d been something I hadn’t expected.
“You should ask Gray about enrolling Laura in school,” she said, kinda timid when she said it. “At least to take a tour. We can do specialized classes for her, small or even individualized. Laura’s smart, Alicia. So very smart and I’ve seen it. I saw it every week I worked with her.”
I believed that, that she was smart but I didn’t think that was the issue, nor the reason why Gray was keeping Laura out of school.
I shrugged my bag up. “I’m not sure I should get involved and even still, Laura… she doesn’t seem to do too well around many others.”
In fact, not well at all and being around Laura herself I thought she’d know that.
She came closer. “I know she’d do well with others.”
“How do you know?” I asked and to that, she simply smiled.
“Because I’ve seen it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gray
“She did… what?”
The admission nearly made me miss driving the nail into the oak paneling. It’d been the final nail, the oak panels lining throughout Josephine’s house. The others had been shotty, worn down and the revision went well with the new flooring I’d installed last week in the living room, the fresh floral wallpaper I put in even more. I pretty much had the whole crew in there to work quickly since that’s the room Laura tended to spend the most time.
Getting down from the ladder, I found Alicia in complete seriousness by what she’d told me and the realization of that had me squeezing the base of my hammer to painful proportions. Jolene had no right.
But she’d done it anyway.
My anger was a cloud in the moment and something I couldn’t easily will myself out of. What Jolene Berry had done was a complete violation of my daughter’s and my privacy and had I known about it Laura would have never been working with her in the first place. I only went to her because Jo recommended her, and now, I was kicking myself because of the fact.
I actually had to put my hand on the wall to calm myself down, lost in my head and what this invasion could mean for me and my family, but something in the end, brought me out of it, an array of roses before the light touch on my shoulder.
Alicia in all her loveliness stood before me, a lacy garment covering her bare shoulders as she’d wore a tank top today. It must have been too breezy for her liking and the rich caramel color of it brought out the deepness of her amber eyes and smooth, honeyed skin.
Her hand came down my shoulder and to my arm, which currently shook. I hadn’t kissed her again since last night but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to.
“She played with another child,” she said repeating her words of only moments before. The difference was this time I didn’t fall into a haze, something in her eyes having to do with that I believed. I was focused on them and I was able to see.
She had me sit, possibly knowing how this information was affecting me. During her story, she sat
on a folding chair while talking to me. She had me take that, standing next to me.
“At least, beside another child,” she went on, her lips lifting a little in the most beautiful way. Tucking a piece of her flowing hair behind her ear, she squatted next to me, holding her legs.
“They were together in the sandbox,” she said. “At Jolene’s house one day when Laura was there for schooling. Don’t be mad, Gray. It sounded like the arrival of the other little girl was a surprise.”
So she said, the girl Jolene’s niece. Alicia said it’d been an impromptu visit and something Jolene hurried up quickly after explaining the situation to her sister who’d suddenly dropped in on her. They went to leave and that’s when they found the girls. They’d found them out back.
They’d found them playing in the sandbox.
But this had to be a lie, not making sense. My daughter didn’t play, and never, absolutely never, with others.
You’d never given her the option.
I ran my fingers over my beard, squeezing my mouth as I found Alicia again.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I asked her, but really, I was asking no one and not expecting an answer.
One seemed to come as Alicia looked at me, her head tilted as she studied my face.
“She probably didn’t want you to get mad,” she said, then stood, hugging herself and as she did I chose to follow her.
She took in all the revisions I made on the outside, the home really coming full circle with its new roof and siding. We still had a lot to do, but we were getting there. We were.
“It’s wonderful, Gray,” Alicia said, but almost sounded sad about that for some reason, which wouldn’t make sense. Her aunt’s home gaining closer to completion would make her happy. It had to have as it’d allow her to move on to the next step.
I came up behind her, unable to help indulging in her smell or the way the little hairs that escaped at the back of her bun brushed the nape of her neck. She had this way that always got to me, which made working hard. I think that was why I’d really been cross with her the day she first played for my daughter, not because she was distracting my workers.
But because she’d been distracting me.
I closed my eyes, a change in the air causing me to look at her when she turned around. I wanted to touch her, but it seemed she wanted something else.
“I think she should go to school,” she said to me, another part of the story I’d heard. She said Jolene had led into that, which was how I found out about the woman’s niece and her sister coming over.
I honestly understood the logic, both of them seeing something that led them to believe Laura would be okay at a school. Things weren’t that simple though. Nothing ever was when it came to my daughter.
I lowered my head, my fist touching the wall.
“That’s not an option, Alicia,” I said, looking at her, but constantly finding her eyes had me wanting to tell a story I never could, I let them go. Her enrapture of me was how she’d found out things about my life and Laura’s she never should have in the first place. I seemed to want to tell all around her.
And that was dangerous to me.
Her hands coming around my arms were even more dangerous and soon I couldn’t escape those eyes.
“Look at her, Grayden,” she whispered and I didn’t want to look. Mostly because I knew what I’d see. I heard the ball before I even saw it, but actually seeing it, well, that made it real.
My daughter played, kicking a shiny pink ball I hadn’t seen in months. I had no idea when she joined us outside, but she had. She was here and she was playing.
A veil of her hair cloaked her face, and kicking the ball away, she looked up at us both, a look I’d seen before. It was a look of approval. She wanted permission.
I gave it to her, nodding, but I watched her as she scampered away, making sure she wouldn’t go far. I always did, the tether never allowed to go taut. It’d been my way of protecting her, but as she moved, as she played I wondered if I really had been—protecting her.
“Don’t you think she deserves to be able to play with others?” Alicia asked, the joy in her eyes brighter than any smile she could make. That came next, direct in my direction. I was lost in it, her hand coming to my cheek. Her smile widened. “Or at least the opportunity? If it doesn’t work out and she doesn’t like it, you could always take her out again.”
“You don’t understand,” I told her and I knew in my mind I wouldn’t let her. I’d been keeping her at an arm’s length as I’d done everyone I had come across in the last three years, even Jo. It hadn’t been easy before but never as hard as this.
As hard as it was with her.
Looking into Alicia’s eyes, I could tell she didn’t understand and, really, she never would because I couldn’t let her in. I just couldn’t.
I enjoyed her hands on me so much that I couldn’t push her away though, the softness of her fingers heaven amongst the weathered state of my neck from so many days outside.
I let her smooth her hands down my jaw, cupping my face and there was no getting away from her. There was no escape.
“I know you have a reason for everything you do when it comes to your child,” she said. “I can imagine every parent does.”
If only it were that simple. I wished it was. Laura and I came with so much baggage here, and because we had, it was easy. Hiding was easy. Her being withdrawn only cemented the fact that we had to stay away. We made no connections. We held no relationships. It’d been Jo to change everything and her niece to do one further and change us.
She had changed us no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it. She changed me and I brought my arms around her, no longer fighting it.
We stared at my daughter, the little wonder never going far. I think we both could have stared at her forever.
“She seems happy, Gray,” she said, tilting her head. “She is happy I think.”
I believed she was right, but I supposed the only one who could really confirm that was my kid, but of course, she couldn’t. Maybe one day she could though.
Maybe just maybe if I let her.
Chapter Fifteen
Alicia
I watched a man let go the following Monday morning. I watched a man grow beyond what I think even he probably believed he was capable of, allowing his daughter to go and experience something that clearly put him out of his comfort zone, but doing it anyway. Gray showed a bravery I’d never seen before and despite not wanting to get involved I supported Jolene’s proposal, but not just because of what she’d told me about Laura and her niece but because of what I’d seen from Laura myself. The little girl was changing and I had no idea if that had mostly to do with me playing piano for her or something else, but whatever it was awoke something inside her. It was something I couldn’t control and I think Gray understood he couldn’t either. He had to let her go.
He had to let her live.
He asked me to join him during his tour of the school with Laura, something I happily did and would do several times over. Laura went in with the understanding that she wouldn’t start that day or any day for that matter unless she was comfortable, something Gray emphasized ten times over her and that had only been on the early morning truck ride over to the school, well before many were up and attending their day. Jolene had arranged that, the kindest spirit and someone I truly did have a good feeling about. Some people one just knew had a genuine earnest want to help others.
And who wouldn’t want to help that sweet girl after meeting her.
She went in with a bravery that was only trumped by her father, the man by her side as she held his hand and took in her potential new environment. Mayfield Elementary wasn’t quite like the prep schools I grew up in with its fancy gadgetry and modern halls but something about all schools was they shared the same feel about them, the air the same and filled with a similar life, which told of youth. They had the construction paper hand cut outs and the bubbly letters displayed above them made up of
cartoon figures and alphabet letters. They had the smiling faces of school children who showed merit or partook in group projects. The schools said kids learned there, thrived there and in the end that was all that mattered.
Laura’s experience at the school itself would be different than the students who made their mark on those school walls, but hopefully only in the beginning during her initial transition into the new environment. She was going to be given an individualized learning program, which consisted of one-on-one teaching and limited immersion into group settings as both herself and her instructor saw fit. I think that set Gray at ease a little more but nothing about the experience itself would be easy for him. If anything, this whole experience would be harder for him than it ever would be for his daughter.
I knew when it was time to finally let her go.
Laura had given no indicator of anxiety or displeasure during her tour, but what I think made the final decision for her to attend that day had been her clear excitement while she strode those halls and saw those children on the walls. There was an actual skip to her step while she walked hand in hand with Gray and when she saw the pictures of other children she actually reached out to touch them. This had made me smile and even though Gray had as well it hadn’t nearly touched his eyes.
I’d say not at all.
“You have your instructor call me the minute you don’t feel good or something feels wrong, okay?” he said to her, his hands on her shoulders as he knelt down in front of her. He’d been letting her go for a few moments, reassuring her.
He pushed his hand over her hair. He styled it in two braids today, which I helped him with. She looked so pretty.
He smiled at her. “I’m not far away, kid, but even if I was I’d move mountains.”
No truer words said and I saw that in his eyes. I bet he would move mountains if he actually could.
His Sweetest Song Page 12