Three Days on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel)

by Anna DeStefano

  Walter shook his head, trying and failing twice before he got the door handle to work. He and Julia stepped out of the car, shutting the doors behind them and heading up the driveway.

  Brian wasn’t certain Walter was sober enough to remember anything they’d talked about. But that was fine. Brian wouldn’t forget. And he had his money on Julia convincing her husband to get the help Walter needed, so that one day soon Brian could remind him about the dream he’d shared, and Brian’s commitment to help make it a reality.

  Sam watched their friends disappear inside their home.

  “Is this your stop, too?” he asked, prepared to fight this time, this night, to keep her from slipping away from him.

  When she didn’t immediately say yes, his heart soared. Then her gaze dropped to where he’d been holding her hand since the bar, her grip tightening. Whatever had been upsetting her since he’d gotten home that afternoon wasn’t passing, even though she and Julia seemed to be in a better place. The weight of all the things they needed to talk about felt like a third passenger in the front seat, lodged between them.

  He thought about taking her on the walk they’d discussed that morning. It had been such a romantic idea. But it wasn’t dark yet, and Sam liked to walk at night. And romance wasn’t what they needed right now, even though it would be a welcome distraction.

  Turning the wheel, he made the decision for both of them and headed into their driveway. He stopped halfway down. He didn’t push the button to open the automatic door on the garage. Instead, he turned the engine off, excited suddenly, like one of their kids on Christmas morning.

  “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  Sam nodded, curious and surprised and maybe a little excited, too.

  They stepped out of the car, the cool, clean evening feeling amazing around them as they smiled at each other. This was one of those moments, Brian realized, that you rarely saw for what it was when it was happening.

  It was almost as if they were young again, free again, happy where they were, knowing they were right where they belonged. Or maybe it was just Brian, sensing that they were back where they’d started so many years ago in New York, discovering themselves and each other and looking toward the future as an adventure instead of a struggle that they’d have to fight their way through day by day.

  He rounded the front of the car. He drew his wife around the side of the house toward the back. He was desperate for her to love the surprise he and Joshua and Cade had created for her over the last two evenings after she’d retreated once more to Julia and Walter’s.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked.

  “You’ll see, love.”

  She was his inspiration.

  She was his miracle.

  There was nothing she couldn’t do, no matter how fragile she seemed or how much help she might have needed to get them all to where they were now. She was a source of relentless strength that Brian hadn’t valued enough, until she hadn’t been there, and life had become unbearable.

  Never again.

  He’d never again take what they had for granted. He’d never again help her hold herself back. He was going to be there for his wife—and himself—from now on. No matter how difficult their journey, they would find a way to be honest with each other about what they needed. Including him coming clean about deciding at McC’s to take Jeff up on his offer and follow his career dreams, the way Brian had encouraged Walter to.

  He stopped just before they would have turned the corner to the backyard, amid the overgrown bushes and flower beds along the side of the house that no one had touched in months. He curled his wife into his arms and pecked a kiss on the tip of her nose.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Her kiss back, on his cheek, arrowed straight to his soul. “For what?”

  “For a glimpse of how I see our future,” he hedged. “The boys are so excited. And they’ve done such a great job of not spoiling your surprise. Particularly Cade. He’s been like a drill sergeant, telling Joshie and me what you’d want, and how you’d want it, even though I know you two aren’t making as much progress as you’d like during the day. You have to promise to act surprised later, when they drag you out here once I say it’s time.”

  “Okay… I promise.”

  Her eyes sparkled, the way they always did when he teased her. He made a mental note to tease her more often. Every day, for the rest of their lives.

  “Come with me, Samantha,” he said, leading her around the corner.

  Sam stopped walking, staring at the beauty before them.

  The garden that had sprung to life again in their backyard wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t what she herself would have done. Her family had gone for abundance of color, rather than texture and sustainability, since many of the bedding plants and flowers they’d chosen would bloom just once before needing to be replaced. But her husband and sons had clearly poured their hearts into her surprise. Their love for her was a living, shining feast for her eyes that she knew she’d see again every night in her dreams. And they’d done it all since she and Brian had walked in on Cade and Nate’s fight Monday afternoon.

  “It’s… it’s beautiful,” she whispered, afraid of speaking too loudly and risking the boys overhearing, wherever they were inside. “Oh, Brian. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  …a glimpse of how I see our future…

  Her backyard was thriving once more, overflowing with love. They’d tried so hard, creating a special place for her to be outside, where she could feel safe and calm enough to want to come back to them. And despite his anger at her that morning, Cade had been part of this?

  She brought her hands to her mouth, taking everything in, until she was once more gazing at her smiling husband.

  “Oh, Brian,” she whispered again, and promptly burst into tears, burying her head against his strong shoulder and crying for all the hurt and worry and heartache she’d caused her family. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry…”

  “Hey.” He pushed her away and swept back her damp bangs. He kissed the tears at the corners of her eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong? This is supposed to be a good thing. We wanted to show you how much we missed you. I wanted to show you how sorry I am for not paying attention to what you’ve needed to feel good here. We wanted to make you…”

  “Want to come home.” She sobbed, hiccupping to try to keep from crying even harder. “I know. You thought you had to make a place for me that was separate from everyone and everything else, or I’d never come back. I’m sorry, Brian. Really. I’m so sorry you guys thought it was the only way I could be happy here again. I never meant to do that. I don’t know how I’ve let this go on for so long. But I swear, Julia and I talked while we were waiting in the car, after we’ve fought about it more than once this week. And I think I was even realizing it at the school board meeting on Monday. And then when Beverly brought Nate over this morning, and after Cade asked me to write my own essay, and I let our son let me off the hook so I wouldn’t have to open up to him the way he needs me to… I’d already decided not to do this anymore. Not this way. I swear this isn’t what I want, no matter how beautiful you’ve made my garden again. I don’t want it like this anymore. Not alone, with me hiding from the rest of you like I was before…”

  She was babbling and reaching for her husband, wrapping her arms around him and holding on and hoping he’d understand even though she knew she wasn’t making any sense. Not yet. But she wasn’t going to let him go, or let herself go back to Julia’s or even inside her own house to see her sons, especially Cade, until she’d asked her husband for the help she needed to do the right thing.

  Not until she’d begged Brian to hold her to the commitment she knew she needed to make for herself first, and then for all of them.

  Brian guided her to the wooden swing beside the back door, sitting with her on the plush green cushions and giving her a few seconds to quiet down.

  “Talk to me,”
he said. “Whatever it is, let it out and talk to me, until we both understand what you need. And then… There’s something I need to tell you, too, Sam. I’ve made a decision, and it’s got me spinning as much as all of this has you.”

  He looked around their backyard—their garden now, hers and Brian’s and their boys. He wrapped his arm around her and waited. No telling her it was going to be okay. No trying to get her to stop crying before she was ready. Her husband was waiting for her to take the lead. And he was saying he needed her to make sense out of something that was bothering him.

  The last time it had felt this way—calm and close and safe—had been the night they’d decided to move to Atlanta and take the job offer at Whilleby & Marshal and start their life over.

  “Could you…” She loved this place. She loved them in this place. And she was terrified of messing it up. “Do you think you could start? Saying whatever you wanted to, I mean. I promise I won’t wimp out of telling you what happened today with Nate and Cade. I want you to hear it all. I want to know what you think. But…”

  “You need me to go first?”

  She nodded, holding her breath.

  “Okay.” He held her hand in both of his.

  “Thank you.”

  He brushed his thumb across her palm and back. “I’m not going back to W&M. I have a better offer. A riskier offer that will take a bit more of my time up front. But it will free me up in the long run to be at home more to help you out with the boys, so you can do more for yourself when you’re ready. There’s no guarantee that it’ll work, not like staying where I am would keep paying the bills for as long as we need it to. But I have a chance to do the kind of designs and projects I’ve always dreamed of. I’ll be happier with my work, I think. And I’ll… I’ll be able to help all of us be happier with staying here. It’ll be…”

  He squeezed her hand, struggling.

  “It’ll be a good change?” She remembered him saying the exact same thing about their move south.

  “Yeah.” He let out a breath, sounding as if he’d been holding it in for twelve years. “I think it’s exactly the change I need.”

  “Then that makes it exactly what we all need.”

  Her husband had never been indestructible or perfect or incapable of feeling the damaged, scary things she did. He’d simply thought he’d needed to hold it together, and hold everything inside, so she and their boys wouldn’t know. Now Brian was trusting her to be strong enough to accept what he needed to get better, even after she’d just blubbered all over him.

  Surprise at her instant agreement made funny little wrinkles in the space between his eyebrows. “You don’t even know what I want to do yet.”

  “I know you. And I want to hear everything. But whatever you decide to do, I know we’ll be just fine, as long as we have each other.”

  He’d said that to her, too, that night in their tiny apartment kitchen in New York, when she’d been too messed up to stay, but terrified of leaving behind everything and everyone they knew in Manhattan to begin again. Now they had Chandlerville and Mimosa Lane and their friends and their family. They had each other, and the long journey they’d taken to this moment, where they could finally see what they’d moved here to see.

  “We’re ready, Brian. You’ve made sure of that. You’ve given me so much. You’ve given me time and love and a new life. Now let’s take care of what you need. I’m ready. I promise I am. I won’t let you or the boys down this time. We’re in this together. I won’t ever walk away again.”

  At some point while she’d been babbling once more, her husband had started crying. Softly, so slightly, but he was crying and pulling her close, and kissing her the way he had the day he’d finally found her after she’d walked her students out of Manhattan, and he’d fought his way through the traffic and people and panic to reach her.

  “I love you like dark chocolate,” she said, when he finally let her breathe. “I love you so much, Brian.”

  “Thank God,” he murmured against her lips.

  And then he was laughing and kissing her again.

  “What?” she asked, inching back and loving the happy sound of him chuckling. “What’s so funny?”

  “Will you still love me so much if I tell you I may have promised Walter that I’d back him if he decided to open his own bowling alley? He might not remember a word of our conversation. But if he does, I’m on the hook for helping him design his dream business. It might not be a very lucrative way to begin my own firm.”

  “A bowling alley?” Walter Davis?

  “A community center,” Brian corrected himself. “Where families and neighbors and all kinds of different people and teams could come together and spend time getting to know one another better and having fun. It’s his dream. It’s a good dream. I’d like to be a part of making it happen for him.”

  Sam was laughing now, too, at the thought of Walter and Julia running a local bowling joint. “Okay, then. If that’s what our friends need, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Whatever it took. Whatever kept her husband behaving as if the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

  “Okay then.” He nodded, still looking at her as if she’d grown a second head.

  She stopped giggling, feeling the questions before he could ask them. Her reprieve was dwindling fast, as night closed in and crickets began to cast their spell, along with the frogs and other night creatures that added to the symphony she loved so much during a Mimosa Lane sunset.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  His gaze held hers, as the love and concern behind his question washed over her. He wasn’t assuming that she would be okay. He wasn’t pressuring her to be anything at all. She didn’t need to hide what she was feeling. She never would again. No more faking. No more pretending or walking away from the truths they both needed to face.

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I think I will be, but I’m going to need your help. Cade asked me to do something today. Actually, he demanded it, and I brushed him off. I could let it drop, now that he has. But I won’t. Please don’t let me.”

  “I won’t,” Brian promised, letting the silence gather around them again. Then he prompted, “Beverly and Nate came over?”

  She nodded. “She’s going to talk with James. Nate’s going to work with Cade again tomorrow, and maybe through the end of the school year. The boys are friends again. They spent most of today talking and goofing around. But if they’ll get down to work, I think they’re both maybe ready now to finish what they need to, so Kristen and Mrs. Baxter can promote them to junior high. I think they can do together what Cade hasn’t been able to on his own.”

  “Even the essay?”

  She nodded again, feeling the words rising inside her.

  All the words and the images and the stories she’d never shared with anyone, not even Brian. The things she’d learned that day and every day since, because of the community she’d been a part of in New York and the new friends and family she’d made in Chandlerville. There’d been heartbreak and loss, but there’d also been love—the forever kind—and rebirth and courage and hope.

  And it was those final lessons she couldn’t teach her son, not the way a mother should, the way she should, until she put all the other words out there for him to read and understand and ask questions about. He clearly needed that, to help him make sense of what he’d been through with Nate and Troy and Bubba and the rest of the kids at Chandler that day. And she needed to do this for him—she needed to do this for herself and her entire family.

  “Like I said, I need you to help me do something,” she said to Brian. “Actually, I need you to do something with me.”

  “Anything,” he promised her.

  She laughed again at his eagerness.

  “You’re going to regret that, big guy. I know just how much you hated writing essays in school…”

  Epilogue

  September 1, 2013

  “Everyone ready?” Brian asked.

  Sa
m smoothed her hands down her summer-weight cotton dress. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock in the morning, but the day’s heat had already taken an enthusiastic turn toward broiling. But that wasn’t why she was feeling light-headed, or why her palms were sweating, or why she was hanging back in the kitchen while the rest of her family headed toward the patio door.

  “Mom?” Cade asked. He opened the door.

  “Wahoo, a picnic!” Joshie yelled as he sprinted into the garden.

  Beyond Cade, she could see the crimson blooms of her roses, swaying with the breeze.

  “Sam?” Brian stepped closer again—he’d stayed close all morning, ever since they’d gone for a walk at dawn, the way they had most mornings since she’d moved back home in April. “You okay?”

  She threw her arms around his strong shoulders, loving the word she’d once hated so much. He was making certain she knew that she could still back out of their plans, and he’d be fine with it. There’d been no forced cheer that morning. And breakfast had already been on the counter when she’d come down from her shower to cook. Brian had scooted out for doughnuts, so she wouldn’t have to bake anything for the boys.

  And on top of the box had been a bar of her favorite dark chocolate. And a Post-it, its message repeating the most important thing the last eight months, and the last twelve years, had taught them.

  We’re together,

  wherever you need to be today.

  Love, Brian

  Whether she made it out of the house or stayed home, he’d be fine. They’d be fine, the two of them and the boys and the extended family of best friends and neighbors they’d grown closer to since the last school board meeting.

  “I’m wonderful,” she whispered in her husband’s ear. And she meant it. She leaned away, his blond good looks swimming into focus through happy tears. “I know I’ve been a little nuts, thinking about this morning. But I feel… so lucky to have you all with me. To have all of this back. I’m… It’s wonderful. I can’t wait to get there.”