Left to Love (The Next Door Boys)

by Jolene Perry

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He didn’t know how to answer. Fortunately Dad came out and saved him from the conversation.

  “Actually, I asked if we could just go home. So, we went home.”

  “And that was okay?”

  “That was perfect.” I couldn’t help but look back at my new husband talking with Dad. It had been perfect.

  “Tom, I’d like a few minutes if you have it to talk about the custody issues with Nathan?” Brian said. Then his eyes met mine. “Maybe you and Nathan could hang out for a few.”

  “Let me show you what I did, Leigh!” Nathan ran into the house. Mom followed.

  I was confused. I wanted to help. My dad had been helping Brian since the beginning of the whole mess, but now that we were married, I should be involved, too. How did Brian not understand this?

  He must have understood the look on my face. “This isn’t your fight, Leigh. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  “But we’re married now, Bri. I want to do things with you,” I insisted.

  He shook his head. “It’s not your fight. It’s me cleaning up my mess.” He reached out and briefly touched my arm before following Dad into the house. It felt like a dismissive gesture. I felt left out and more than that, I was surprised. It was the first time that Brian hadn’t done everything he could to make me feel a part of his life. I was hurt but didn’t want to show it, not in front of Mom.

  “Come on, Leigh!” Nathan ran back out and pulled on my hand.

  I followed him upstairs.

  “This is my very own drawing book, just like Dad’s!” He picked up a spiral sketch notebook that my parents must have bought.

  “That’s great, Nathan.” I wondered how Dad and Brian were doing.

  I sat with Nathan, but couldn’t force myself to pay attention. I tried to nod and smile at all the right times as he showed me his drawings.

  “Nathan! You ready to go see your mom? We have to hurry or we’ll miss the visiting time!” Brian yelled up the stairs.

  At least we’d have some more time in the car together. Not that we could talk much with Nathan there, but it would be something. I came down the stairs and followed them outside.

  “We’ll be back before you know it, Leigh.” Brian smiled as he gave me a hug and a kiss on my cheek.

  “I thought I was going,” I whispered. My chest sank, caved.

  “What would you do?” He kept us close, our heads together.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Coming in wouldn’t be a good idea, especially because of what I need to talk to her about. Your dad printed off all the paperwork she’ll need to sign. I really don’t like the idea of you sitting in the parking lot of the prison.”

  “I want to be with you,” I took his hand in mine.

  “I’m sorry, Leigh. We’ll be back in time for bed.”

  I felt our hands slide apart, and it seemed significant. I stood back and watched my two boys drive away. It hurt. They suddenly didn’t feel any more like my boys than they had a month ago.

  I stood in the driveway for a moment not sure what to do with myself. “Mom, can I borrow your car? I need to hit the fabric store,” I called into the house. Something needed to occupy my brain and pass the time.

  “Sure, hon,” she called as she walked back in the house. “They keys are in it.” My parents were the only people in the world who always left their keys in their cars, and yelled out about doing it.

  - - -

  I walked through the racks of fabrics hoping that something would jump out at me, but nothing did. Nothing gave me the relief I wanted from my train of thought. I wanted something to grab me and force my brain to start forming it into a project in my head. It didn’t happen. I gave up and headed back to my parents.

  Mom had dinner waiting. We sat by the pool to eat. I had no idea what to say about my week. I didn’t want to let on that I’d gone to see Joseph, but I didn’t want to lie either. Talking about what Brian and I did together was also not the best topic.

  I really didn’t want to talk about the custody issues, and the fact that my new husband had just left me with my parents to visit his ex-wife with their son. I ate, more to ward off questioning looks from Mom than hunger.

  I helped Mom with dishes, ran upstairs, changed into my swimsuit, and hit the pool.

  The water smoothed me out, relaxed my muscles and my brain. I lay on my back and allowed my body to go limp.

  I was probably being too sensitive about Brian and Nathan leaving. So what if Brian wanted to handle things on his own? He was doing it for both of us. It shouldn’t be a big deal. But I couldn’t help but wonder if our ideas about my relationship with Nathan were the same. I loved that kid, it was such a different kind of love from the love I had for Brian, but it ran just as deep. I’d do anything for him. I wanted desperately to be his mom, but he already had one.

  Brian’s reluctance to let me talk with him and Dad made me wonder if he really trusted me with Nathan the way I wanted him to.

  I had to admit that it hurt more because we were so newly married. Part of me expected to get my way with everything, for the first little while anyway. I laughed at myself over that thought. I started to swim, instead of float, back and forth across the pool. I lost track of time, and I lost track of laps. It got dark, but the air was still hot against my exposed skin.

  “Hey there.” I heard Brian’s voice on the side of the pool. “Nathan’s in bed.”

  I stood up, unsure of how to react to him or whether to say anything about how I felt. I took in his face and knew that I didn’t want any kind of argument. If he felt like he wanted to handle things, I’d just try to support him in it… probably. “How did it go?”

  His expression immediately changed. That said it all. “Not well. She was mad. As soon as I brought it up she pretended like I wasn’t there, and she didn’t say another word to me. I guess that’s better than her pitching a fit in front of Nathan, though they’d have probably taken her away if she had.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be fixing this for us.” He ran his hand through his short hair and stared down at the water. “The paperwork is in for me to get sole custody, Leigh. All we’d need to do is add your adoption paperwork on top of that. Nathan doesn’t want to go there anymore, and I can’t blame him. I’m not sure what to do about that either.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to take him that way, and it’s not just your job anymore.”

  He shook his head. He didn’t agree. “No, this is my mess, I need to fix it.” His eyes met mine. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Not at all.” I needed some contact to ease the tension in my chest. I’d save this conversation for later, unless I went back to my earlier thought and let him handle it on his own. He stripped off his t-shirt and climbed into the water. I forgot about our disagreement.

  “I love that suit.” He smiled as he looked down at me.

  I wore the two-piece that my mother hated. I loved it – wide stripes of white alternating with rainbow colors. He rested his hands on my hips, and we smiled at each other. Never in my whole life did I think that the simple act of someone touching me would bring so much joy.

  “It brings back happy memories for me,” he said, “and some sad ones as well.”

  “Like?”

  “Like seeing so much of you and wondering if I’d ever be able to touch you like I am now.” He pulled me closer and we got lower in the water until it covered our shoulders. “Like seeing those scars on you for the first time.” He traced the red lines on my stomach with his finger. I looked down through the water. They were the scars that started my year of ovarian cancer, and were a mark of the reminder that I wouldn’t get to have my own kids.

  “It made me realize what you’d been through, and I remember thinking how unfair it all was. Of all the people in the world to have to go through that, it just didn’t seem right. It made my problems with Amanda seem trivial.” I suddenl
y knew what day he was talking about. Nathan had asked me about my scars. We’d been swimming in the pool together when Brian walked out.

  I remembered seeing the distracted look on his face, which I’d assumed was all for Nathan. Knowing some of that concern had been for me, forced my arms more tightly around him.

  “I really don’t want your parents to come out here when we’re touching like this and while we’re mostly naked in the pool.” He kissed me softly.

  “Fine.” I smiled and swam away from him. I floated on my back, only about two thirds of my body underwater.

  “I don’t think this is going to work for me either.” He caught up to me quickly and pulled me into his arms.

  “Well, then I guess it’s time to go in.”

  “I guess it is.” He kissed my back as I walked away from him to step out of the pool.

  FOUR

  We were officially back to business. Honey-moon over. I turned on my website email and was shocked to see an in-basket so full. I had a ton to go through. There were requests for all sorts of sewing related things. There were close to thirty emails asking if I could do wedding dresses.

  They all assured me that they lived close by and would pay me well. One girl offered me five thousand dollars to do a replica of her grandmother’s dress and she’d provide the material. I was shocked. How had all of these people heard of me?

  There were emails asking where my stock had gone—I’d erased all of it two weeks ago in pre-paration for the wedding. There were a few more emails requesting patterns for some of the clothing I’d put up, not just the bags that were so much simpler to do a pattern for. There were a few references to the BYU costume department, which explained some of the traffic but not all of it.

  I realized in that moment that I could do it. I could sew for a living. I thought of Lori’s beautiful shop filled with things she’d created. It could be me. I immediately put up all the items I’d taken down two weeks ago. I checked my bank account. There was five hundred dollars from just the few downloadable patterns in the brief two weeks we’d been gone.

  “Brian?” There was no hiding the excitement in my voice.

  He walked into our sewing room and office where I sat at the computer. “What’s going on?”

  “I made five hundred dollars just on the few patterns I have for download in the two weeks my shop was closed!”

  “What? That’s great!” He sat in the small chair next to me.

  “I also have more wedding dress requests than I could possibly do. You would not believe the amount of money people have offered to pay me!” I clicked on another email request.

  He rested his hand on my thigh and leaned closer. “So, what are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. My eyes glanced his way briefly before continuing down my list of emails.

  “Our semester starts next week. If you really want to do this, will you have time for both?”

  “Wow. I hadn’t thought of that.” What was I going to do? I had an opportunity to do something I loved and make money doing it. Nathan headed to school next week. I’d have his whole school day to sew. “Oh, no.” As the realization hit, my chest sank.

  My expression must have been overly dramatic. Brian smiled. “What is it?”

  “I’m the girl, the one I didn’t want to be.” I looked at him desperately, grabbing his arms.

  “What girl is that?” he asked.

  “The one who goes to college, gets married within a year, and quits school.” I grasped him more tightly.

  He laughed. “Leigh, you don’t have to quit school, and you’re not quitting for no reason if that’s what you decide to do. You’d be quitting because you have the opportunity to make a successful business on your own terms, that with a little marketing from your husband, will make you as busy as you want to be.”

  He was right. I looked at him and took a deep breath in. “Brian, I can really do this.”

  He took my hands in his. “You can really do this.”

  “I’m going to do it.” I turned back to the computer, scanning the list of email requests.

  Brian laughed again. “Let’s think on it, but I’ll support you no matter what you want to do, okay?”

  I threw my arms around him and then had to feel our lips together.

  “Ew, can you two stop doing that?” Nathan asked from the doorway.

  “Sorry, Nathan. I know adults can be gross.” I smiled at his expression of disgust.

  “Can we eat now?” he asked.

  “Is it dinnertime already?”

  Brian nodded.

  “Sorry, buddy.” I’d completely lost track of time in front of the computer.

  “How about pizza?” Brian asked.

  “Yeah!” Nathan ran for the door. Our local pizza place took forever to deliver, and we could walk there. It was a little awkward walking home with a large pizza box, but a lot faster.

  - - -

  Brian and I spent a lot of time on our knees over the next couple of days about my business. I sent Lori an email just to get some ideas or confirmation from her. She was obviously in love with what she was doing. I knew I would be too.

  I spent a few days emailing potential clients for wedding dresses. I had no interest in spending the time sewing a wedding dress I didn’t like—they were way too much work for that.

  I gave Brian a few patterns for him to do his magic on, so they could be put into the computer. He was busy with his first week of classes, but happily obliged me. Soon I had three more patterns for sale by download. I made two hundred the first day. I realized that wouldn’t be normal. It would be the traffic from people who’d been sending me email requests for more patterns. But still…

  It was official. I was no longer a student at BYU. I owned a sewing business.

  - - -

  Nathan and Brian left early Saturday morning to see Nathan’s mom before he started school. I was home alone and heavy with disappointment. Brian would go work at the bar that night, and we had church the next day. I wanted some more one-on-one time with my new husband. I sat on the couch feeling a little depressed and very tired. I closed my eyes to take a short nap.

  “Leigh?” Brian’s voice was quiet in my ear.

  “You’re back already?” I sat up slowly, blinking in the light from the lamp above me.

  “Dinnertime, like we planned.” He touched the side of my face.

  “Wow.” I ran my hands through my hair. “I must have slept for a long time.”

  “Are you okay?” He tried to keep his voice light but his forehead creased together in worry. Mostly leftover concern from watching me way too closely last year.

  “Just tired, I guess.” I’d been asleep for hours—since just after breakfast.

  “Okay, well I’m glad you got some rest then. I got dinner.” He stood up and walked into the kitchen.

  “Thanks.” I still felt groggy. I must not be getting enough sleep.

  - - -

  I went through Nathan’s backpack a dozen times to make sure he had everything. He knew where his class was and where to go after he got off the bus. I couldn’t keep still. The thought of Nathan being so grown up, and gone all day, made me more melancholy than expected.

  Brian and I walked with him to the end of the driveway. I gave him another final hug before he pried himself away from me to get on the bus.

  I took a deep breath to keep away my tears as the door closed. The bus headed down the street. Who was this bus driver anyway? What gave him the qualifications to drive that bus full of kids? I had to trust people to watch over Nathan for the whole day. I wiped a few tears away. Brian put his arm around my shoulders, and squeezed me close.

  “I love you. He’s fine. I promise.” Brian kissed my head.

  “You can’t promise that. He’s with strangers all day.” It felt so weird.

  “Leigh, that kid held his own with whoever Amanda was bringing into the house, and from what I can gather he was left home sometimes for days.
He’ll survive a few hours of kindergarten.”

  Great. But how would I do?

  FIVE

  The bride-to-be knocked on my door at ten AM, as scheduled.

  “I’m Leigh Wright. It’s nice to meet you.” I reached out my hand.

  “I’m Amber and this is my mom, Barbara.” I shook her hand as well.

  “Let’s see what we’re looking at then.” I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the old dress she’d promised to bring with her.