A Boy to Remember

by Cynthia Thomason

  “What’s wrong with the jacket?”

  “Nothing, Mom. But it does kind of date you.” When Alex started to protest, Lizzie added, “I mean, you’re still so pretty, and you have a great body. Why hide it under something so boxy?”

  “Because I’m not on a hunting expedition, Lizzie,” Alex said, but she returned to her closet and fingered through the few scarves she’d brought with her from Chicago. She chose a silver-and-black gauzy one, tossed the jacket to the bed and loosely framed her shoulders with the scarf. The look seemed to transform her from matron to date. Unsettling? Yes, but she felt feminine, and, well...

  “Daniel is here, ladies,” Martin called from the foyer.

  Alex grabbed her bag and followed Lizzie down the stairs. The tails of the thin scarf fluttered behind her like the wisp of a cool breeze. The look in Daniel’s eyes made the last-minute change worth the trouble.

  Now, sitting in row F in the ultramodern theater, next to a handsome man she once thought she loved, Alex felt younger, vibrant, more womanly than she had in years. Not that Teddy hadn’t complimented her often. He had, but she’d never tossed aside an expensive jacket for a simple scarf to please him.

  As if reading her thoughts, Daniel leaned in close and said, “You look lovely tonight, Alex.”

  Her face flushed, a pleasant but slightly embarrassing reaction. She wanted to return the compliment but didn’t. Daniel was, to use an almost archaic term, dashing in a dark suit and black tie. The footlights reflected off the tops of his polished black loafers. But the other Daniel, the one who could build a set and inventory a hardware store, was still present under all that finery. His hair was skillfully mussed. His face was shadowed with a hint of beard. His cologne, woodsy and fresh, rattled her senses whenever he leaned close enough for his shoulder to touch hers.

  Yes, she wanted to tell him that he looked nothing short of magnificent. If they had been friends, she could have. If they had been lovers, she could have. But in truth, they were neither. They were practically strangers who once knew the magic of a few idyllic summer months. And far from being on the verge of romance tonight, if she wasn’t very careful, they could be headed for disaster. So she muttered a simple, “Thank you.”

  After what they all agreed was a remarkable performance, Daniel took them to a popular restaurant near the theater where the adults had champagne and Lizzie a ginger ale. They all indulged in decadent desserts served on delicate china plates, each sharing bites.

  When Daniel turned into the drive of Dancing Falls at nearly midnight, Lizzie thanked him for the evening. He had barely stopped the car when she jumped out of the backseat flashing her smartphone. “I’m sorry to rush off,” she said. “But I have calls to return to my friends in Chicago.” She smiled at Daniel. “I told my girlfriends I was going to Les Mis tonight.”

  Scurrying toward the house, she called back, “No hurry, you two. Finish your conversation.”

  Alex couldn’t help smiling. Lizzie had been steering her and Daniel together all evening. They had been talking about a key child care facility for single working mothers that Daniel had initiated. Alex thought they had finished the discussion.

  Daniel turned and placed his hand on the back of her seat. “So, back to politics, eh? What would you like your senator to do for you, Alexis?”

  Such a leading question! Maybe it was that second glass of champagne, but Alex had to stifle a giggle.

  “What is so amusing?” he asked.

  “My daughter,” she said. “Lizzie is about as subtle as a cyclone.”

  “Well, good. I need someone on Team Daniel.”

  She smiled. “What exactly does Team Daniel want?” She was enjoying the innocent flirting much more than she should. It was innocent, wasn’t it?

  “First of all, I’d like to know if your memories of that summer are as vivid and happy as mine are.”

  Probably more. Except for an outcome that changed her life, her memories were indeed happy ones. She’d made love with Daniel. It had been perfect. But she couldn’t admit to that. “We were kids, Daniel. Everything that happens when you’re young seems to be monumental in importance, both the good and not-so-good.”

  “Come on, Alex,” he said. “What happened between us was all good. At least that’s how I remember it. Every night, waiting for the show to end so we could steal a little time together. We were so close...for as long as it lasted.”

  His voice took on a dreamy, sad quality. She wanted to wrap her hand around the arm that lay on her seat back. Of course she couldn’t. “We can’t go back, Daniel. You know that.”

  “I’m not talking about going back.” He leaned in close to her and she caught another light but heady whiff of that cologne. “I’m suggesting we go forward from now, tonight.” His hand slipped to her nape, and he gently rubbed the tender skin under her hair. “I really want to take advantage of this moment Lizzie gave us. I want to kiss you, Alex, see if some of the magic still exists.”

  She backed away from him and wondered why the simple motion seemed to take an extraordinary amount of effort. “Daniel, we can’t. I can’t.”

  He smiled. “Too soon?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  He removed his hand. “Okay. I get it. But I wonder if we should talk about your husband sometime? I’m a good listener.”

  “I don’t know. The pain of losing Teddy is too fresh.”

  “I’m here if you change your mind, for the next two weeks, anyway,” he said.

  A small, painful clinch numbed her chest. “What do you mean?”

  “I have to go back to Columbus, Alex. I’ll be here for the opening of the play two weeks from tonight, but then it’s back to business as usual for me. Hopefully, I’ll have finished at Pop’s store and listed the property with a Realtor.”

  She didn’t speak. Just focused on her hands in her lap. This should have been good news. She couldn’t think about any sort of relationship with Daniel, not when they were so intimately connected in ways he didn’t even know. But two weeks. It was so soon.

  “Alex?” He whispered her name. A low timbre that vibrated deep inside her, just like he used to say her name. “Are you okay?”

  She reached for the door handle. “I’m fine. I’m going in now. Thank you for a lovely evening.”

  He held her wrist. “Wait. What about a picnic on Sunday, just the two of us.” He held both hands in the air. “No funny business, I promise, but I’ll bet you haven’t even been to the Cuyahoga Valley Park since you’ve been back. Let’s spend the afternoon together, take the train ride, shoo ants off a couple of sandwiches.” His grin was so enticing. How could it hurt? So many ways.

  And yet she heard her voice accept his offer. “Sounds like fun,” she said. “I guess I could. But Daniel...”

  “I know. We’re grown-ups now.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “But you never know, Alex. There still could be some magic.”

  She touched her cheek as she walked to the front door. Could there be magic? Enough to allow for a profound confession and ultimate forgiveness? Or would it take a miracle?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MARTIN FOSTER LOVED his home when it was filled with the women he adored. This Saturday had been nearly perfect with his daughter and granddaughter chatting nonstop about the play they’d seen the night before, and the opening night of The Music Man coming up soon. His Maggie had been resting peacefully, showing no signs of the demons that often seemed to plague her. And even Jude had come to the big house and lay in the sun while Wesley did cannonballs into the pool.

  Only Carrie, Martin’s youngest, and truly the one he worried most about, was absent. But to make up for the loss, the girls had called her that afternoon, and they’d all caught up with Carrie’s latest escapades in her attempt to find herself in some forest setting, this time in Washington
State. How ironic that the one daughter who had breathing and asthma problems would be the one who wanted a career in forestry.

  “So how are you feeling, honey?” Martin had asked before hanging up. “And tell me the truth. Do you need any meds?” He constantly reminded her to take the medications that kept her breathing difficulties from becoming too severe.

  “I’m fine, Daddy,” she’d said in that always hopeful, always cheerful way she had of imparting information. “Don’t worry about me. You sent me enough antibiotics to last into the next century.”

  “They don’t do you any good if you don’t take them,” he urged.

  After being told he worried too much for about the hundredth time, he allowed Carrie to disconnect. He joined his grandson in the pool, where they fought galactic battles with water guns until dinner.

  After supper, the girls cleaned up the dishes, Wesley fell asleep on the sofa and Martin watched the sun set over the gently rolling hills of his chosen spot in the world. Just after dark, sirens exploded on the serene calm of his evening.

  Jude came running to the front porch. “What the heck?” She darted down the steps. “Sounds like they’re coming here.” The family watched flashing lights race by their property line about a quarter mile away.

  “Something’s going on,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, and it looks like the epicenter is the old Jamison place, where Miss Fix-a-Fence lives!”

  Martin stood. “Aurora’s? All these emergency vehicles are headed to Aurora’s?”

  Jude darted a glance at Alex, who’d just joined them on the porch. Jude shrugged her shoulders and mouthed their neighbor’s name as if to say Since when have they been on a first-name basis?

  Alex mouthed back, “Beats me.”

  Ignoring his daughters’ less-than-subtle exchange, Martin dashed into the house and returned with his keys. “I’m going over there.”

  He climbed into his Lincoln Navigator and spit gravel as he headed down the drive. He told himself he was only going because he was a doctor. If something had happened to his neighbor, he could be of some help.

  When he entered Aurora’s drive, the area near the house looked as if an amusement ride had been set up. Blue and white lights flashed from three police cars. The red lights of another vehicle at the back added to the crazy display. And Aurora was nowhere to be seen.

  Getting out of the car, Martin dashed to the nearest officer, a young man whose father had recently been the recipient of a heart monitor. “Carl, what’s going on? Where’s Ms. Spindell?”

  “Oh, hi, Doctor Foster. How are you?”

  “Carl...?” he said impatiently.

  “Yeah, the lady who lives here, that’s her name? She’s in back with the EMTs.”

  Martin ran around to the rear of the house, where he found Aurora seated on the back of an opened ambulance, her leg elevated on an overturned flowerpot. EMTs were checking her vital signs. She glanced up at Martin and tried to disguise a grimace with a smile. “What are you doing here, Marty?”

  Marty? No one had called him that since his grandmother died forty years ago. In spite of the emergency situation, Martin realized he liked the way his nickname sounded coming from Aurora’s unpainted lips. Her crazy hair bristled around her delicate features as if it had been charged from a light socket.

  “I’m your closest neighbor, Aurora,” Martin said. “It wasn’t hard to determine that something was going on here. I thought I might be able to help.”

  Turning to the two EMTs, he added, “What’s the situation? Why is her leg elevated?”

  “She has either a sprain or mild fracture of her left ankle,” one of the medics said.

  “I’m fine,” Aurora insisted.

  “We’re urging her to go to the hospital, but she claims she doesn’t want to.”

  “I don’t need to,” Aurora said. “All they would do at the hospital is x-ray it, tell me what we already know and wrap an Ace bandage around it. I can do that here.”

  “Aurora, if you have a fracture...” Martin said.

  “I don’t. Look.” She wiggled her foot as if that was all the proof needed. And if that wasn’t enough, she restated, “No hospital.”

  Martin asked the EMTs to fill him in on Aurora’s condition and discovered that her vital signs were fine and she probably was only suffering from a sprain.

  “But that’s not all,” one of the medics said. “What Ms. Spindell didn’t tell you is that her house was broken into tonight. She came inside while the intruders were still here and chased them out the back door.”

  Martin shot his new friend a look meant to convey both his admiration and horror. This explained the presence of half of Fox Creek’s police force. “Aurora, that’s crazy. You could have been seriously hurt, or worse.”

  “They were cowards,” she said, nodding to an object a few yards away. “See that toilet plunger? That’s the only weapon I had, and those two kids took off like spooked rabbits.”

  “When she was chasing the thieves, she fell through a step, and that’s when she hurt her ankle,” the EMT explained.

  Martin leaned over and probed the hurt leg. “Does this hurt badly?” he asked.

  “No. It’s fine. A few days off my feet and I’ll be good as new.” A quick intake of breath indicated that she was lying.

  “I am officially recommending a trip to the hospital,” Martin said.

  “I am officially refusing,” she said. “I want to sleep in my own bed.”

  “Okay, then.” Martin turned to the medics. “You guys can go. I’ll look after her. If she needs any further care, I’ll bring her to the hospital tomorrow.”

  “You’re the doc, Doc,” one of them said.

  The medics helped Aurora to a lawn chair and climbed into their vehicle. Within a minute, they were gone, their taillights disappearing around a curve in Aurora’s drive. Martin moved the flowerpot, added an outdoor cushion for comfort and settled her leg on top.

  “Don’t budge,” he said, and went into her house. A minute later he came out with an ice pack, which he put on her ankle. Then he pulled up another chair and sat down. “I take it you were able to call 911,” he said.

  “Always carry my cell phone,” she answered.

  “And a toilet plunger.”

  She smiled. “A girl can never be too careful.”

  “Was anything taken?”

  “I don’t know. Probably some junk jewelry my son’s father gave me. I don’t lock it up, so I suppose it was easy pickings.”

  Martin pondered the odd reference she’d just made. Why did she refer to the man who gave her the jewelry as her son’s father instead of her husband or ex-husband? “Were you out when the intruders broke in?”

  “I was at the grocery. I didn’t know anyone was in the house until I opened the front door and saw a flashlight beam coming down the stairs. That’s when I grabbed the plunger from my downstairs bath.”

  “These kinds of crimes, breaking and entering, are rare in this neighborhood,” Martin said. “But that doesn’t mean that you should be careless. Had the door lock been tampered with?”

  “No. I didn’t lock it.”

  “Aurora...”

  “I’ll lock up from now on,” she said. “Learned my lesson.”

  “What you need is a security system, one that notifies authorities if anything is amiss in the house. I can recommend a good company.”

  “I’ll probably take that advice,” she said. “Can’t have robbers busting in when I start having guests.”

  “Or when you’re here alone,” Martin added. “I’m sure most of the population in this part of the state knows that a single lady lives out here. You’re almost inviting trouble.”

  “I can usually handle trouble,” she said. “Though I admit that I am a little sha
ken by what happened tonight.” She shivered. “Thanks for coming by, Marty. I’ll call you tomorrow for the name of the security company.”

  “I’ll help you inside. It’s getting chilly.”

  Martin slipped his arm around Aurora’s shoulders and helped her navigate the rough patches of lawn. She was amazingly agile for her age and hopped up the steps and into her home almost effortlessly. A police officer met them inside and asked a few more questions about what she remembered.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow for a list of anything that’s gone missing,” he said. “And we’ll make sure a car passes by a few times during the night.”

  Aurora nodded. “Thank you, Officer.” In the dim living room light, her face was flushed. Perhaps the difficult trip from the backyard had taken a toll.

  The police officers left, and Martin was careful to lock the door behind them. He checked the back door and first-floor windows, as well. “Do you have an Ace bandage?” he asked when he came back to the living room. “If not, I can get one from my house.”

  “There’s one in the downstairs bath,” she said. He went to get it and gently wrapped the elastic around her slightly swollen ankle.

  “You’ll need to stay off this for a few days,” he reminded her.

  “Thanks for everything, Marty, but don’t worry about me. I’ve been taking care of myself for longer than I care to remember.”

  “Aurora, don’t you have any family you can call? Maybe you shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  “Family?” She uttered the word as if the notion was ridiculous. “This may come as a surprise to a family man like you, Marty, but not everyone values their kin like you do. I can’t count on anyone, and that’s fine with me.”

  Hmm... There was a story here, and Martin didn’t feel he should pry. But he was worried. Aurora couldn’t tip the scales at more than a hundred and ten pounds. Despite her tough talk, there was an air of fragility about her, as if she might break in a stiff wind. What if those thugs came back? What if she tried to walk and fell, further injuring herself?