Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart)

by DeStefano, Anna

  She peeled off her linen jacket and draped it and her tote over the white porch rail. Her mother would have described what coated Selena’s skin as a genteel misting of dampness. What it was, though, was good old American sweat. There was nothing gentle about the humidity that owned this part of the world ten months out of the year. Selena gave the maxi skirt of her sundress a hike and grabbed both sets of hoses. She dragged the lot across the freshly mown lawn, the ancient sprinkler attachments thumping behind her. Memories nipped at her heels, each step she took closer to the Dixons’ property.

  It shouldn’t be a surprise that Oliver had finally returned. When word reached Selena yesterday that an ambulance had whisked Joe Dixon to the hospital, she should have realized Marsha and Joe’s eclectic tribe of grown foster children would rush to his side as quickly as they could. Even Oliver. Like Selena, mostly because of her, he hadn’t made Chandlerville a real home. Most everyone in their small neighborhood on the other side of town from places like winding, affluent Mimosa Lane had assumed he’d never return. But this was Joe Dixon. The thought of losing such a fine, loving man had hit Selena and a lot of their neighbors hard, as it must have Oliver, no matter how long he’d been away.

  Of course the Dixons’ prodigal son was rushing to Joe’s side—a son who’d deserved to spend his entire life here, with his foster family supporting him. Oliver had lost so much when he’d left. Selena would never forgive herself for the role she’d played in hurting him and his foster parents.

  She positioned the oscillating sprinkler first. She placed the revolving one closer to the Dixons’ yard.

  “Catch, Mommy,” Camille said.

  Selena didn’t stand fast enough. The neon green Frisbee that always lurked somewhere in the front yard sailed over her head . . . and landed at Oliver’s feet, where he’d walked back outside.

  Selena was still achingly beautiful.

  Beautiful . . . and stunned to see Oliver. What was she doing there, a few feet away, looking like a paragon of motherhood while he remembered every dark and messed-up and surprisingly sweet thing they’d shared?

  He should have stayed inside, but he hadn’t been able to. Just as he couldn’t look away now from the dark, curling hair that cascaded halfway to the waist of her rose-colored dress. She was as striking a woman as she’d been a teenager. Willowy and fragile, she exuded the same vulnerability that had devastated him when they’d first met, first kissed, and eventually had became each other’s first lover. Even after all this time, his memories of them from before everything fell apart remained as out-of-control as that first kiss.

  Selena was the only person he’d ever talked with about his life before Chandlerville—about the night when he’d been thirteen and home alone and had answered the phone to hear a stranger telling him that the world as he knew it was over. A thug had shot his single mother while she worked her midnight-’til-dawn, minimum-wage convenience store shift. Oliver had become a ward of the state. And Selena had understood how a part of him would forever be numb after that night, no matter how hard she or Marsha and Joe Dixon tried to break through the distance that got him through each day.

  When he’d discovered Selena living next door, she’d seemed as lost as he’d felt. She, too, hadn’t belonged on quaint, picturesque Belleview Drive. And with one look into her impossibly brown eyes, Oliver had begun to believe that he wouldn’t feel alone forever. Together, they’d dreamed that they could finally have more. They’d learn how to love. Then, their senior year in high school, they’d let it all slip away.

  How many times had he thought of discovering her all over again, just this way? Of stepping through the gap in the hedge that separated their childhood homes so he could see her up close and touch her and know for certain she was really beside him. Now, more than a little afraid of breaking whatever spell had brought them to this moment, he couldn’t move.

  They’d been over ever since his last attempt to save her from herself and the dangerous influence he’d become in her life. Her reckless response had been to break up with him and, only weeks later, sleep with his best friend, Brad. After that, Oliver had figured they were as over as two people could be.

  An adorable child—her daughter?—ran to Selena’s side.

  “Hey, mister,” the kid said with a soft lisp, pointing to the Frisbee at his feet. “Can you throw it back?”

  He bent and grabbed the toy. When he stood, an insomnia hangover dug claws into his skull.

  He spent most nights tracking each shadow’s progress between sunset and sunrise. The earliest hours of the day were when he did his best work, while clients slept and he could bring their systems down and test new coding solutions. He was supposed to be forming better sleeping habits, but he’d already told his sponsor that plan was a nonstarter. He’d never been much for down time. And last night, he’d been warring with the impulse to drive the half hour between midtown Atlanta and Chandlerville. He’d needed to be home for the first time since he was eighteen, and possibly at the worst time for his recovery. And that was before he’d realized he’d once more find Selena waiting for him next door.

  He’d assured himself that there was nothing more he could do for his foster family, and that his return at such a stressful time was the last thing his parents needed. But every half hour, he’d checked in with his brother, tracking Joe’s condition. By sunup, it had become increasingly clear to Oliver and Travis that their foster family’s house on Belleview Drive was where Oliver needed to be.

  Joe Dixon might be dying.

  Oliver threw the Frisbee over the hedge. Its curving arc sent the little girl scampering away, giggling. Then he and Selena were standing there, time and bushes and the past stretching between them. Selena made eye contact again, looking more than a little afraid of him. He mentally kicked himself for not waiting for her to leave before coming out to grab his bag from his truck. This was pointless. Painful. And avoidable. And he’d grown into the sort of man who steered clear of needless confrontation that could only end bloody.

  Nodding, making up his mind, he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, walked to the truck to snatch his bag, and then headed inside. He was being rude. But it was for the best. Inside the Dixon home, the quiet simplicity of the place further frayed his calm, rather than improving it. He closed the front door and leaned against it. The back of his head thudded on the worn wood.

  Memories of more than just his mistakes with Selena jumbled together. Pictures of the Dixon brood stared back at him from the wall across the entryway: his own foster brothers and sisters, as well as the new passel Marsha and Joe were raising. Everyone who’d lived there when he’d moved in at thirteen had done their best to make him feel welcome. Even Travis, the eldest of his foster siblings. Those first few months, he and Travis had fought like mongrel pups protecting their turf. But their bond had ultimately become the strongest.

  Oliver’s house key bit into his clenched palm. Marsha and Joe had presented it to him, his first day there. Just like that, everything that was theirs had become his. He’d meant to get rid of it when he’d left town, but some things even he couldn’t let go of.

  He’d left the well-meaning couple as a pain-in-the-ass teenager, pissed at the world and ready for whatever fight he could pick next. Eventually, he’d sobered up for good, and it had sunk in: how much he’d thrown away. The Dixons would always be superheroes to him, regardless, and he’d spent the bulk of his adult life making things up to them. He’d promised himself never to cause them another moment of trouble.

  Shoving the key into his jeans pocket, he carried his duffel up the stairs of the sleepy house where, thanks to Marsha and Joe’s superpowers, a new batch of castaway boys and girls were about to greet their normal day. Travis had said to make himself at home in their parents’ bedroom. Oliver had been chugging coffee all night and hadn’t bothered to clean himself up when he’d headed out. He’d been half afraid that if he stopped for something as simple as a shower
, he’d talk himself out of seeing Joe, possibly for the last time.

  Now he needed that shower and a few minutes to regroup, while a part of him was still outside, wanting the answers he’d never gotten from Selena. But he’d come home to say good-bye, not to haunt the past as if looking back would do anything but create more problems.

  Travis had said their newly engaged little sister, Dru, would arrive soon to cover breakfast and bus call for the youngest of the kids. Oliver wanted to be gone to the hospital by then. He would check on their father, thank his foster parents for everything they’d sacrificed for him, and see what, if anything, more he could do financially from Atlanta. Maybe his simply being here today would give them closure. Maybe not. Nevertheless, he was headed back to his own life soon. Very soon.

  He had a make-or-break, face-to-face meeting in Atlanta on Monday with a potential new account. And his lingering in Chandlerville, especially with Selena back in town, guaranteeing that rumors about them would be flying once locals caught sight of him, too, would be the kind of wrinkle Marsha and Joe shouldn’t have to deal with.

  Like a zombie, Selena had watched Oliver disappear inside the Dixons’ house. Minutes later, still unable to move, her heart was still doing pirouettes in her throat. He hadn’t spoken a word. And she’d been too self-conscious, too mortified, to string two syllables together.

  You need help, Selena, Oliver had said to her forever ago on the Dixons’ front porch. She’d been drunk again. For once he hadn’t. And he’d been determined to help her straighten up. This is my fault. I should have seen that you were out of control. Let me help you now—let me make this right.

  I don’t want your help! she’d screamed at him, betrayed and certain he was dumping her and determined to hurt him back. You’re a liar, just like everyone else. You said you loved me. Now you’re telling me how messed up I am.

  She’d been eighteen. They’d spent their senior year in high school as teenage clichés, acting out, using alcohol and sex to dull the loneliness they’d thought no one else could understand—until they’d found each other. When he’d decided to clean up his act, with or without her, she’d shown herself to be the real bad seed, not hell-on-wheels Oliver Bowman. She’d struck out solo after that night, raging blindly onward. She’d destroyed the last of her childhood, their love, and Oliver’s place in the Dixons’ home.

  “Do we get to stop for doughnuts?” Camille asked. Her watering can was empty. She was hopping up and down at Selena’s feet. Ouch! Make that on Selena’s feet, smearing dirt and Georgia clay all over Selena’s soft-soled shoes. “Mommy, you said we could get—”

  “A chocolate doughnut on the way to school.” Selena led her daughter back to the house. She shoved her memories down, deep inside, into the emotionless corner of her mind where the past was a cautionary tale, instead of an old wound forever seeping fresh blood.

  The toes of her favorite shoes squished, sinking into the boggy soil beneath Belinda’s perpetually dripping spigot. Selena mentally crossed off another piece of her once stylish wardrobe that was too delicate for a busy day in Chandlerville. Her linen ballerina flats used to match a chic sheath dress embroidered with a matching array of seed pearls and tiny silk bows. The dress was long gone. The shoes she’d talked herself into keeping because they were so beautiful and made her smile. Now they were another mess she could chalk up to experience.

  “I’m fixing you when I get home,” she warned the spigot, twisting the dial on the hose’s timer and setting the water to shut off in half an hour. Gardening she might be a novice at, compared to her mother. But after Selena’s New York ex had left her for a younger, child-free prototype, taking his big-city money with him, Selena had mastered do-it-yourself plumbing like an all-star.

  “What’s wrong?” Her six-year-old tugged at Selena’s thrift-store dress.

  “Nothing, sweetheart,” Selena instantly replied to the question no child should ask as often as Camille did.

  Selena turned the spigot’s handle. Water gushed from the sprinklers. She grabbed her things, set her daughter’s watering pot on the porch steps, and knelt in the grass, kissing Camille’s temple on the way down. She tightened the ribbons she’d tied around her little girl’s wispy, golden ponytails. Of course she’d managed to make them slightly off-center. Camille looked adorable anyway.

  Had Oliver seen it?

  Had he noticed her daughter’s blonde good looks, or how Camille’s smile naturally curved higher on one side than the other, just like his?

  “We’d better snag your nutritionally barren yet organic and nut-free breakfast to go,” Selena said, rather than indulging the questions that would torture her all day. What good would it do, wishing things were different? If she were going to do anything more than stare at all-grown-up Oliver, she’d had her chance twice already. “We want to get to school before Karen Davenport hoards all the best craft supplies.”

  “I’m going to rule the art table in day care.” Camille pumped a tiny fist into the air, celebrating her impending triumph—claiming first dibs on a crayon box she would have to share with the mean girl Selena’s job exposed her daughter to five days a week.

  She was a school employee, a substitute teacher. Which meant Selena dropped Camille at Chandler’s early child-care center each morning she worked, without having to pay the fee she otherwise had no funds to cover. She was fortunate the school’s principal, Kristen Hemmings Beaumont, kept her in mind so often for the part-time opportunities a list of subs vied to fill. Practically every day for more than a month, Chandler’s newly married principal had called Selena in to cover a succession of jobs. Kristen had taken a special interest in Camille, saying she reminded Kristen of her stepdaughter, Chloe, at the same age. Even knowing next to nothing about Selena and Camille’s circumstances in New York, Kristen seemed genuinely committed to helping them reclaim their financial footing.

  Subbing so often meant Selena woke her daughter earlier than other kindergarteners, so Selena could rush to school and plan for whatever last-minute work she was to cover. The elementary school’s child-care center wasn’t the start she wanted for her daughter’s day. But it was the best solution to the logistical nightmare their schedule had become since moving back to Chandlerville. So for now, this was just the way things were going to have to be.

  Selena scooped Camille into her arms again and held tight. Her earliest memories were of her parents fighting nonstop, and of one or both of them threatening to move out. And then of Selena and her mother making their way alone, finally arriving on Belleview Lane, where Belinda had remained ever since—with barely enough money in the early years to keep the lights on and food in the house. Now, that was Camille’s reality. And Selena was going to make that up to her daughter—one day, one muddy, squishy footstep at a time.

  She headed for their car.

  She’d affectionately named the heap she’d bought with the last of their meager savings Fred. When he slowed as he struggled up a hill, she imagined there was a rusted-out hole beneath the floor mats where she could stick her feet through, like one of the Flintstones pedaling to help the engine along. But dilapidated or not, Fred was hers. She didn’t owe anyone anything for him. And he had come through like a champ on their long journey back to Georgia, his tenacity charming Selena down to her unpedicured toes.

  Slipping behind the wheel after buckling Camille’s car seat, she turned the key. The ignition sputtered, and then died. Black smoke spewed from the tailpipe.

  “Uh oh,” Camille said.

  Selena’s next attempt to rouse Fred from his funk ended in an emphysemic belch.

  “No doughnuts?” Camille asked.

  Selena laughed ruefully. She dropped her head to the steering wheel. This wasn’t happening.

  She didn’t mean to glance next door to Oliver’s shiny red truck or the Dixons’ home. Her head just seemed to roll to the side. Not a single light glimmered inside the house, as if no one were awake yet to kick off t
he bustling chaos that would soon consume the place. Except she knew for a fact that at least one person was up. A man who’d been the first dream she’d let herself believe, and the first one she’d watched die.

  She sat back, gritted her teeth, and turned Fred’s key again. Because he was going to cooperate. She wasn’t giving him a choice. The rumblings beneath his hood told her he wasn’t taking kindly to being bossed around. The engine finally caught and roared to life.

  “Yay!” Camille cheered. “Chocolate!”

  Soaking in the happy sound of her daughter’s celebration, Selena cajoled her ancient Ford into reverse. She steered him out of the driveway and pulled away from the morning’s rocky start. But as she turned onto Maple, heading for Dan’s Doughnuts on Main, a deluge of unwanted questions swamped her.

  Had she just thrown away her last chance to clear the air with Oliver before he vanished again? Were the town rumors right about the seriousness of Joe’s heart condition? Would she be risking her principal’s good graces if she carved a few minutes away from school that morning to slip by the hospital for a visit with the Dixons—and maybe to see Oliver while she was there?

  Acknowledgments

  radKIDS is an amazing program for kids and young adults, advocating for and teaching safety across our country to communities, children, and parents. Any errors I’ve made through the course of this novel in depicting radKIDS instruction and philosophy are mine alone.

  I hope I’ve inspired you to support and take advantage of this approach, which radKIDS calls, “Personal Empowerment Safety Education.” I’m betting there’s a program and certified instructor near you!

  For more information, please visit www.radkids.org.

  About the Author

  Anna DeStefano is the award-winning, nationally best-selling author of more than twenty-five books, including the Mimosa Lane novels and the Atlanta Heroes and Daughter series. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, she’s lived in the South her entire life. Her background as a care provider and adult educator in the world of crisis and grief recovery lends itself to the deeper psychological themes of the stories she writes. A wife and mother, she currently writes in a charming northeast suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, not all that different from her characters’ beloved Chandlerville. She is a workshop and keynote speaker, a writing coach, and a freelance editor.