Hard to believe this time last year nothing but scrub brush and weeds claimed the space, Cole thought. The house bore the kind of weathered look as if it had always been there. They could move in any time but they’d been waiting for the end of the school year to make the transition.
Cole mounted the steps and crossed the porch. He strolled through the front door and called for his wife. “I’m in the master bedroom,” Maggie answered. “I’ll be right out.”
He didn’t wait, just turned left beneath the open staircase and entered their room. The king sized brass bed claimed most of one wall across from the Ozark stone fireplace. Maggie fiddled with a dried flower arrangement on the mantelpiece so he walked up behind her and put his arms around her.
“Cole,” she said with gladness. “Did you finish?”
“Yeah,” he answered as he turned her around her to face him. He kissed her, a slow deep kiss. She grabbed the galluses on his overalls and clung tight. “Everything looks good, almost as good as you.”
Maggie laughed. “I look fat and you know it.”
He stroked the roundness of her full belly and she caught his hand, held it in place. “Do you feel it? That’s your son kicking.”
Cole nodded, amazed at the force his unborn child exerted. “You sure it doesn’t hurt when he kicks so much?”
She nodded. “It doesn’t but he’s a firecracker.”
“He will be if he’s born on the Fourth of July,” Cole joked.
“That’s the due date but we’ll see. I don’t think Jack will wait until then,” Maggie said.
His lost children each bore a name beginning with ‘B’ and Maggie’s first two had ‘K’ names so they decided to do something different for their son. When the ultrasound revealed beyond any doubt the child would be a boy, Cole wanted to name him Jarek for his Pop and call him Jack for convenience. Maggie agreed but she promised if the next child happened to be a girl, they’d call her ‘Sophie’ after Babka.
“I like the name ‘Jack’,” she told Cole again. “But I still think we should make his middle name ‘Lazarus’ named after you.”
“My name’s not Lazarus,” Cole replied as he always did.
“But you came back from the dead,” Maggie said, very serious.
He stroked hair back from her lovely face, stared into the depths of her grey eyes and told her the truth, “I came back for you, honey.”
She offered him her satisfied little Mona Lisa smile, hugged him tight and because Maggie possessed a practical nature said, “It’s almost time for the bus and the kids.”
Cole listened and heard the diesel engine grind to a stop at the gate. “It’s here now. Let’s go meet them.”
They walked up the lane, feet crunching against the gravel as the sunshine turned shadows into lace. A squirrel dashed up one of the oldest trees and fussed at them, waving his tail like a flag. Cole inhaled the luxurious scent of honeysuckle in bloom and heard the soft buzz of bees working the flowers. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and smiled to see the teens trudging toward them.
He’d never been happier, here with his family in the heart of the Ozarks on the shores of Lake Taneycomo, the place where all his dreams had come true.
Lake Dreams Page 23