Always Florence
Page 23
“Yeah!”
Dylan refocused on Nate. “So, maybe you could ask her. If we promise to be okay if something bad happens, would she stay?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BOBBIE STARED AT her bare closet, empty hangers swinging as she ran a hand along them, and considered that a fitting metaphor for her heart. It was full to overflowing for everyone she loved, but felt cavernously empty because she was leaving them behind.
She turned to the pile of clothes she intended to hang in the wardrobe box still in Nate’s basement. He’d promised to bring it over for her, but had probably forgotten or been distracted. She’d have to run over there herself. Her father had agreed to ship everything to her, but she didn’t want him to have to pack anything. He’d done too much already.
She was glad he’d gone to dinner with Stella tonight and left Bobbie to handle all the odds and ends of uprooting her life by herself. She’d been here such a short time she shouldn’t even have roots, but she did. Surprisingly deep ones.
She glanced at the clock: 10:22 p.m. She imagined Nate would still be up, but was reluctant to knock on the door if he wasn’t. She went to her porch and saw that his kitchen was in darkness, but a subtle, colorful glow came from the front of the house. The Christmas tree.
She started across the yard, stepping over the chrysanthemums and going quietly up the back steps. Unwilling to wake the boys, she knocked softly on the door.
She waited a moment, and when there was no response, she knocked again a little louder. Still nothing. She tried the knob and it turned under her hand. Nate was definitely up. She knew he had a nighttime routine of locking doors and turning off lights.
As she walked into the dark kitchen she heard voices coming from the living room. Had her father and Stella come here after their late dinner? She smiled to herself, remembering the first time they’d met, and knowing how delighted they were to have found each other.
She went quietly toward the living room doorway, unwilling to startle anyone until she saw who it was. And then she recognized the voices: Dylan’s and Sheamus’s. What were they doing up so late? Not that it was any of her business. She’d love to see them before she left, but that would be too upsetting for them and for her.
Well, she thought, turning around, maybe she could get the box from Nate before he left for work in the morning. She stopped suddenly as she heard the sound of her name in their conversation.
“...Bobbie became your stepmom and she got sick again?”
She froze in the darkness of the kitchen, unable to breathe. That had been Nate’s voice. She’d missed the beginning of the sentence, so she wasn’t sure what point he was making. But the word stepmom made her put her hands to her mouth so that she wouldn’t betray herself with a sound.
“I thinks it’s scarier that she’s going away.” Dylan’s voice. “I mean, she’s okay now, right? Think of all the cool stuff we could do together.” He talked about picking flowers, leaves, eating together, shopping. Then his voice became choked. “Even watching TV and hanging out is fun.”
They didn’t mind if she became ill again? Of course, they were children, and children always thought bad things couldn’t happen to them.
But that probably wasn’t true of these two. Bad things had happened to them. They had firsthand experience that life was cruel.
“What if we promised not to freak out if she got sick again?” Dylan went on. “You’d rather have her here, right? Sick or not?”
“Yeah!” Sheamus replied with spirit.
“So maybe you could ask her. If we promised to be okay if something bad happens, would she stay? We wouldn’t freak out.”
Another brief silence. “We could help her,” Dylan murmured. “We’re...experienced now.”
The knot in her throat dissolved and a sob broke through with noisy violence. How could she deny such generosity?
Because she didn’t have forever to give them, she argued with herself.
But they weren’t asking for forever. They just wanted now.
And what was forever, anyway, she thought with sudden insight, but the space of time that started at this moment and lasted for as long as she had?
She was so busy sobbing, and trying to cope with the realization that her approach to her future had been all wrong, that she didn’t notice the swiftly moving shadow in the dark until it struck her in the chest and threw her backward into a chair that clattered to the floor. She lay immobile, an enormous weight with a rumbling bark stretched out atop her. Then Arnold recognized her and slurped her face with a rubbery tongue.
The kitchen light went on and she blinked against it, closing her eyes and her mouth as Arnold continued to lavish her with kisses.
“Bobbie! What are you...?” Nate’s voice.
“Bobbie!” Sheamus.
“Bobbie’s here! Why is she crying?” Dylan.
Strong hands pushed Arnold off her, caught her arms and hauled her to her feet. She opened teary eyes and looked into Nate’s concerned face.
“What?” he demanded. “Did something happen to Dennis?”
She shook her head, and as violently as the tears had come, happiness and laughter pushed them aside.
“No,” she said. “Something happened to me.”
Nate apparently considered the quick change from tears to laughter a cause for concern. He guided her to the kitchen table and sat her down.
Sheamus took a napkin from the middle of the table and began to fan her.
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked.
“I saw it in a movie,” Sheamus replied. “She needs air.”
Nate observed that his dream of Sheamus becoming an executive might have to be readjusted to doctor. Reaching for the bottle of brandy, still on the counter, he poured a small measure in a handy juice glass and, pulling a chair around to sit beside Bobbie, handed it to her. The boys hovered on either side.
“Drink a little. Small sips.” She tried to argue, but Nate pushed it toward her lips.
She sipped, coughed and sipped again. “I’m fine,” she said finally, her voice a little raspy, her cheeks pink. “Isn’t this where I started, almost two months ago? Being taken down by Arnold?”
Tongue lolling, tail wagging, Arnold said as clearly as though he had language, “You’re welcome!”
Bobbie laughed again. Nate frowned at her. “Bobbie, what is it?”
She wrapped an arm around each boy and pulled them to her. “I love you two so much,” she said, then sobered suddenly, her eyes brimming again. “I want to stay with you more than anything. I heard you say that you’d promise not to freak out if I got sick, if it would make me stay.”
Sheamus nodded. “Dylan says we’re tough now.”
Bobbie turned to his brother. “Are you really, Dylan?”
Nate was afraid to speak, afraid to breathe, afraid what he’d heard her say was some figment of his imagination, borne out of the urgent wish that she not leave. He waited while Dylan gave her a hug, then looked at her with that alarmingly adult expression he wore now when talking about his parents or his grief.
“We are. Sheamus scared Bill away, and I said goodbye to my mom and dad. I mean, they’re still here.” He rubbed fingertips over his heart, and added with a swallow, “But I’m not waiting for them to come home anymore.” He rested his elbow on her shoulder. “Now Uncle Nate is our new dad, and we think we shouldn’t be without a mom just ’cause we’re scared of what could happen. We want to be brave.”
Bobbie pulled Dylan to her again, then looked into Nate’s eyes, and everything inside him that wasn’t bone melted into a puddle of helpless servitude to the love he saw there.
“Do you want to be brave?” she asked him.
“I am brave,” he replied without hesitation. “But I need you to be...whole.”
“Then I’m in,” she said.
He held her away from him for a moment. The boys straightened worriedly. “What about becoming a fine artist?”
“I’m going to work on that as I can,” she said, leaning into him again.
She felt an almost physical letting go of the dream. The pull was painful. Then she looked into the three faces hanging on her every word and remembered her father telling her, “We’re born to love and be loved.”
“Someone at the school suggested art therapy to me. I may just look into that.”
Nate drew her closer and pulled the boys in. “Brilliant. So you packed all your things for nothing.”
“No, she didn’t,” Dylan pointed out. “She has to move it all over here.”
EPILOGUE
DYLAN STOOD VERY still, even though his nose itched. Hunter, standing beside him, was quiet and serious, and even Sheamus stood like a soldier and didn’t move a muscle. Dylan didn’t want to be the one to mess up.
“May we have the rings, please?”
Hunter gave Uncle Nate a small ring trimmed in diamonds. Uncle Nate put it on Bobbie’s finger and repeated a lot of promises the priest told him to say.
Bobbie looked wonderful. She wore a white dress with a poufy skirt, and a veil with sparkly stuff that Sandy had pulled back out of her face when they got to the altar. Dennis had walked her up the aisle and Dylan saw a tear on his cheek.
Uncle Nate looked pretty great, too, as Sandy gave Bobbie a ring that she put on his finger, then repeated a lot of words after the priest. His uncle wore a dark suit with a funny striped tie and a collar that was weird, but looked kind of nice. Which was a good thing because Dylan was wearing the same clothes himself.
He felt very strange. It was Christmas Eve and he wasn’t even thinking about the toys under the tree, and all the great food in the refrigerator. He was thinking that somehow, life had gotten...nice. Happy again.
Stella wore a pretty green dress like Sandy’s, and her hair was piled up with flowers in it. She was beautiful.
Sandy and Hunter didn’t talk to each other very much, but they were polite. Uncle Nate said he thought they were going to get together; it was just going to take time. Pride was in the way. Dylan wasn’t sure what that meant, but he wasn’t going to worry about it, because his own life was really cool.
Bobbie had moved everything to their house this morning and he was going to be part of a whole family again. Stella and Dennis would stay with them while Uncle Nate and Bobbie went to British Columbia on their honeymoon, but not till the day after tomorrow.
Dylan thought about his mom and dad and how much fun they always had at weddings and parties. His dad loved Uncle Nate a lot, and he’d be happy that Uncle Nate was so happy.
Dylan could think about them now without crying. Bobbie told him that he was lucky to have so many people in his life who loved him. He’d had his parents, and now he had Uncle Nate and her. And Stella and Dennis. And Hunter. And—he guessed—Sheamus. He glanced down at his brother, who looked up at him, his expression a little panicky because they’d been standing a long time and he probably had to go to the bathroom.
For a while there, Dylan had lost his ability to be a big brother. He’d been mean instead. But now he knew where he stood again—in the same house, with different parents, but the same little brother. And things were going to be okay.
He winked at Sheamus and stood a little straighter so that Sheamus would get the idea to hang in there.
He did, and smiled back at him.
Then the ceremony was over, there was loud, cheerful organ music and Uncle Nate and Bobbie walked up the aisle with him and Sheamus between them.
The big double doors at the back opened and a friend of Bobbie’s from her art classes stood there with Arnold on a leash. He had a big green bow on his collar and was very excited to see them.
The lady lost her grip and Arnold shot into the church. He leaped at them, and because their arms were all looped together they went down in a big pile.
Dylan thought he’d remember their laughter as long as he lived.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460317457
Copyright © 2013 by Muriel Jensen
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