A SECOND CHANCE ROMANCE BOXED SET

by Lewis, Laurie

  “The place looks great, Mom,” Wes gushed with surprise. “Cool flat screen. I’m glad you’ve finally done something for yourself.”

  The phrase “You have no idea” rattled around in her mind, but Avery steeled her will and smiled innocently. “Thank you, Wes,” she said, never missing a beat as she whipped cream for pie, while offering her cheek to receive a kiss from her unmarried, twenty-six-year-old son.

  The buzzer went off on the oven. Avery turned off the mixer and grabbed a pot holder so she could retrieve the rolls.

  “I’ll get them. You sit down,” daughter Jamie insisted, taking hold of her mother’s shoulders and leading her to a chair. “You look tired.”

  Avery noted an annoying recent development with Jamie and Wes, who had adopted a worry-driven, slower-tempo, higher-pitched, as-if-they-were-talking-to-a-child intonation that rose at the end of each phrase when addressing their mother, or when their communications included the word “Mom.”

  Luke’s reaction was different but equally disturbing. The concern in Jamie’s voice brought him to the kitchen in a flash and at a double his normal decibel range. “Mom’s tired?” he asked, as if fatigue were a fatal symptom. Only nineteen and quiet by nature, Luke tended to express his emotions with volume. Avery saw the same thing in the high school kids she tutored in the writing lab. Particularly the boys. She called their reactions the “Rahhh” principle. Fear, worry, disappointment, hurt—they all came out as Rahhh!!! Yes, she could see through Luke.

  She tried not to analyze her children, but she knew something monumental—no, something cataclysmic—had happened, not only to her but to them as well, on the day their adored father died. Losing Paul was more than merely losing a husband and father. His absence created a shift in all their universes, placing each of them in new orbits. Wes had become the self-proclaimed head of the family. Jamie, her only daughter, constantly reverted to a newfound protective hovering mode. And Avery’s previously lighthearted dreamer—Luke—had instantly catapulted out of latent adolescence and into a somber adulthood. The rapid shift in her youngest was the rudest awakening for Avery.

  Her twenty-nine-year-old son-in-law, Brady, headed for the study. “I brought you a new set of ink cartridges. I’ll go install them.”

  “Uh . . .” She stalled, but it was too late to create an adequate story to explain the disconnected pile of devices on the desk.

  “Whoa.” He offered an ominous chuckle as he exited the room a few moments later on a beeline for Avery. His eyebrows rose until they nearly reached his receding hairline, and his hands held the mangled remains of a USB cord whose end had been ripped away. Avery hurried to him, grabbed the wire, and smiled sheepishly as she shoved the contraption into the pocket of her apron.

  Brady leaned close and whispered, “I don’t think you gave the poor thing a fighting chance.” Unlike Avery, he seemed unaffected by the questioning glare his wife was shooting him from across the room. “Want me to hook it all back up for you? I’ve got a spare USB cord out in my car.”

  Avery cringed with each whispered word. The more attention he focused on the problem, the wider her children’s eyes grew. “That’d be just great,” she muttered in a monotone as she hurried over to create some subterfuge by sautéing her Brussels sprouts.

  The rest of the day progressed uneventfully. Wes stepped up and filled in for their absent patriarch, offering the blessing on the food. Everyone fell silent as that painful landmark was crossed. The meal, filled with family favorites, was accented with light banter—reminiscences of days past—though Avery noted the conspicuous way her children avoided mentioning Paul, as if their father was not only gone but had never existed at all. Feeling as if the best portion of her own life was being obliterated, she folded her napkin with a deliberateness that brought all conversation to a complete halt. When she looked up, she saw eight worried eyes riveted on her.

  Jamie’s nervous glance shifted to each of her brothers before she leaned over her plate and eyed Avery. “Are you all right, Mother?”

  Avery noted how her daughter had recently begun referring to her as “Mother” instead of the previously expected “Mom.” She disliked it immensely, but as she could barely speak, she responded with a rapid series of nods until she found her voice.

  “It’s all right to talk about your father,” she finally managed to say. “Avoiding his memory doesn’t ease my sorrow. In fact, ignoring his absence makes it more apparent.”

  “We just—uh—,” mumbled Luke.

  “I know, I know.”

  They slogged through dinner and the men cleared. Then, while she and Jamie did the dishes, Avery noticed the guys huddled near the TV. She didn’t give it much thought other than to wince at the extravagance of her purchase.

  The huddle broke up and Brady suggested it was time to leave. Avery saw a new level of worry wash over Jamie about leaving her mother again.

  Big brother Wes urged the old married couple to go as he wrapped Avery up in a hug, giving her an exaggerated shake. “Luke and I are going to school Mom in Mario Kart 101.”

  Avery laughed. “I don’t think so, pal. The cook is ready to hit the hay.”

  “Mind if Luke and I stay and play?”

  The question prompted Avery’s mile-wide smile that seemed to give Jamie the comfort she needed to make a guilt-free exit. Avery gave the young marrieds a quick hug goodbye before turning back to her college singles. “All right, Mario and Luigi, I’m going to turn off all the downstairs lights except for the kitchen and family room.”

  Avery hit the study’s light, but the room still glowed from the repaired computer’s monitor and the small desk lamp. Her gaze fell on the bookshelves where Paul’s legal books and fifteen Avery Elkins Thompson first editions stood. Those novels were Paul’s proudest possessions. Avery knew he’d read each one at least three or four times, curled up in the big lounger by the bay window. They brought her no pleasure this night, nor had they any night since her muse died.

  She sat at the computer. Just seeing its screen lit again felt wrong. There would be no sweet notes from Paul waiting in her email file, no links to exotic destinations to which they fantasized journeying. As she clicked the final command to shut down the computer, she noticed a little pile of USB connectors with a sticky note in Brady’s handwriting. “Just in case,” it read. Avery smiled. She adored that son-in-law of hers, though he and Jamie were a mismatched pair. Avery knew it was as much circumstance as passion that drew her perky, comely daughter to the scruffy TA, seven years her senior. Brady was a spiritual person, steady and kind, a marriageable version of the ailing father Jamie adored and had long been steeling herself to lose. That fear and Paul’s eventual loss had made her a tough and rigid woman at times, exerting control over her changing universe, and sweet Brady yielded to her as much as possible.

  Avery sighed as she switched the desk lamp off and headed down the hall, passing the “wall of fame,” where all the kids’ photos were on display. She passed a favorite vacation photo and straightened it, though the frame already hung perfectly square. She knew the frame wasn’t off. She was. More accurately, the sweet memory the image conjured was throwing her emotions off kilter. The picture chronicled one of the family’s nightly walks along the beach on Anna Maria Island, Florida. Jamie snapped the photo of Avery and Paul as they posed before the fabled beach house of a man who had become a legend along the island. Only after the photo was printed did Avery realize that Jamie had actually caught the widowed owner of the sprawling Victorian home standing like a solitary ghost on the widow’s walk. He and his solemn, lonely watch contrasted sharply with the happy images of Avery and Paul in the foreground.

  Avery’s finger traced along the image of Gabriel Carson, the mysterious, romantic widower. He had so fascinated Avery’s writer’s instinct that she hounded the locals for more information on him until she discovered where his florist’s shop was located. Her cheeks still flushed when she recalled how she studied the handsome loner from outs
ide his business’s storefront window, watching him chat and laugh with the waiting customers as he arranged their opulent bouquets. But when they exited, leaving him alone, Avery watched his eyes dim as his face settled into quiet soberness.

  His aura haunted her for weeks, and when she and the family returned home to Utah from their summer jaunt, she fashioned a character in one of her books after the intriguing Mr. Carson.

  Avery bit her upper lip and shrank as her arms prickled in shame. How many times had she given thanks that she and Paul weren’t that man, mired in enduring mourning! It all seemed so ironic. So selfish. So shameful.

  “I’m right there with you,” she said to the man in the photo.

  “Did you say something, Mom?” asked Luke as he walked by carrying a glass of milk and a piece of pie.

  She snapped out of her daze. “I’m just enjoying watching you eat.”

  “Your cooking is the best,” Wes chimed in as he too passed with a snack in each hand.

  Avery eyed them skeptically. “Why are two handsome, single guys hanging out with their mother? Surely there are some nice young ladies who would appreciate your company.” She eyed Wes carefully, watching for any sign she had struck a nerve. “Wes?”

  Wes backed away into the family room near the TV. “Talk to me, Mom,” he urged as he set his glass down and pulled her along.

  “Wes—,” she protested.

  “It got to you today, didn’t it? Dad’s death, I mean.”

  Avery stuttered and smiled, trying to deflect the worry imbedded in the question. “I’m . . . I’m fine.”

  Wes reached behind the cabinet where the guys had previously been huddled, retrieving shards of glass that had eluded her. “What really happened here?”

  Avery knew his question wasn’t intended to be intrusive or judgmental, yet if she answered truthfully, admitting how un-fine she actually was would lead them through a portal from which they might never fully return. Wes could handle it—the realization that his mother was fragile. Could he also tell that she was frightened by the prospects of widowhood? Avery somehow knew that Jamie was already aware of that disconcerting fact. But she knew Luke, whose sad eyes darted from hers to the floor and back, would be crushed by the revelation. Avery had maintained the pretense of stoicism and soldiered on for him.

  “All right,” she began and hesitated. “I admit it. I was trying to move the darn thing and dropped it on the floor.”

  She looked at her boys to gauge the success of her subterfuge. Wes appeared dubious, but a spark of hope lit Luke’s eyes, so she continued to add more plausibility to her tale. “I know I shouldn’t have, but . . .” She was a terrible liar. It was the last “talent” the pious woman’s kids would have expected her to hone, but here she was, going for the blue ribbon. “I hadn’t cleaned back there for months, not since—”

  Wes tipped his head sideways as if weighing her story, but Luke jumped right in, relief evident in his voice. “See, Wes. I told you.” He turned to his mother. “And Wes thought you were losing it.”

  Avery sighed, realizing she had temporarily dodged the bullet with Luke, but Wes wouldn’t let the topic go so easily. “What about the vacuum cleaner? I can understand replacing the VCR. Dad was the only one who could make it work anyway, and I know the Kirby upright was from the Neanderthal period, but it’s in about eight pieces out in the garage. What’s up with that?”

  Avery tried to dream up more excuses, but she was too wrung out to play the game any longer. “Please, Wes,” she begged with a cracking voice, “I’m trying to be strong.”

  His hands flew to his hips. “For who, Mom?” He shot a glance in the direction his brother exited. “For Luke? He’s not a kid anymore.”

  “You don’t understand. You and Jamie had more life experiences to prepare you for this.”

  “Mom!” Wes turned on her with frustration and then quickly backed down. “No amount of life experience can prepare anyone for this.”

  Avery stared at her son in utter confusion. “Dad’s health was failing for years, Wes. Surely you knew.”

  “That he was killing himself?” His voice was bitter. “Sure. Heck, it’s just about all we talked about for the last three years.”

  Killing himself? How many times had Avery silently used those same words over Paul’s poor health choices. She sank into the chair and Wes rushed to kneel beside her. “I’m sorry. We’ve all talked about how losing Dad has affected each of us, and all of us, even Luke, can see how hard this has been for you.”

  Avery stared straight ahead, musing on her folly in trying to hide such a thing from her sensitive, astute children. “I thought I’d been so strong. I didn’t want to burden you.”

  “You’ve been great, Mom, the way you’ve carried on, but it’s just not normal. Family is supposed to lean on each other when they mourn. We’ve had each other to vent and grieve with, but because you were trying so hard to move on, we didn’t feel we could come to you.”

  Avery gasped and turned to her son to be sure she’d heard him correctly. “I . . . I’m so sorry,” she said as tiny tears wet her lashes.

  “No, Mom, no. We’ll be fine. We know why you handled things the way you did. We’re just saying that we’re not kids anymore. Let us help.”

  Avery bit her trembling lip to still it.

  “I’ve been offered an internship in Florida this semester. My construction program hooked me up with a nice opportunity outside Orlando, working on a resort. If things go well there, I might finish the rest of my courses online and relocate. I’d like you to think about coming down with me. A change would do us both some good.”

  “Florida? I could never—”

  “Why not?” Wes interrupted. “You came back here to bury Dad. I get that. We all love this house, and Dad’s people are all here, but your life and your work and family are in D.C., where you haven’t set foot in eight months. And what about the Bayside condo in Baltimore? You and Dad haven’t visited it in years, and you love the waterfront. Remember how much you loved Anna Maria Island those summers when I went to Bradenton for tennis camp? The island is only two hours from Orlando. If you’d come, we could see each other plenty, spend weekends together.”

  For a second, the idea brought back pleasant memories of splashing along the beach with Paul and the kids, but then she remembered the photo, and the thought of going alone as a widow made her stomach cramp. Avery stood abruptly. “I couldn’t, Wes. I just couldn’t. Not without Dad.”

  Wes gritted his teeth so hard his jaw twitched. “You shouldn’t punish yourself because of Dad’s choices, Mom.”

  Avery heard the accusation in her son’s voice and spun around to stare at him. “What are you saying?”

  Wes quickly backpedaled. “All I’m saying is that Dad did what made him happy.” The acrid tone was still there. “Wouldn’t he want you to do the same now?”

  Avery knew that wasn’t all he’d been trying to say. She pushed the Anna Maria Island thing away and focused on the catalyst for Wes’s idea. He’s going to Florida. She wondered why that seemed so worrisome to her, and then she knew.

  “You can’t just walk away from your education, Wes. What about the plan you and Dad laid out?”

  Wes pulled himself up, seeming taller than his actual six feet three inches, and jutted his thumb into his chest. “I kept the promises I made.”

  The acridness of the response sent Avery back a step. “Meaning what, exactly?”

  His shoulders rounded along with the flint-like set of his eyes and mouth. He ticked off his points with raised fingers. “I graduated from high school with honors, finished my mission trip, and headed to college. All the things I promised Dad.”

  “And then you left college to join the Marines. You’ve only been back in school for one semester. This internship in Florida feels like you’re running away from your education again.”

  Wes’s eyes darted to the carpet. “I’ll graduate, Mom. I just can’t sit in a classroom to do it . . . and I c
an’t stay here.”

  There it was . . . again. A glimpse into the real issue—home—a topic she couldn’t bear getting into. At least not this night. “I’m going to bed, Wes,” she said firmly as she left the room and headed first to her best friend—the fridge.

  She was a nervous eater, someone who worked her problems out in front of the fridge or over a quart of ice cream. She knew she’d been relying on those coping mechanisms the past month as she faced her wedding anniversary and the first anniversary of Paul’s death. Wes’s plan seemed to be to run away.

  Avery knew floundering wasn’t a word anyone else would ascribe to her oldest son. There was something unsettled about him, but she had no idea what to do. Kid analysis was Paul’s forte and, without him, there were no willing sounding boards for her parenting woes. She maintained limited contact with her liberal-minded sisters back in Maryland, but they disagreed with pretty much everything about Avery and Paul’s conservative, religious lifestyle. Like Avery, they’d done a better job than their own parents, whose only expectations were that their children reach adulthood without a federal criminal record, but they had no interest in, nor patience for, the woes of a widowed sister who remained bridled to “outdated, unrealistic, failure-bound expectations.”

  Nope. She would not be crying on their shoulders, nor would she apologize for adopting the values and practices Paul was raised with. And though the world seemed to hold less regard for those Thompson family values, the kids cheerfully complied and flourished within the boundaries they provided.

  And then Paul died.

  She opened the freezer door to reach for the Rocky Road as two competing refrigerator magnets taunted her. One read, “Food is love.” The other countered with, “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.” She begrudgingly returned the ice cream and grabbed a zero-calorie fizzy fruit water instead. Disturbed by both her conversation with Wes and this unsatisfying alternative to Rocky Road, she flopped onto a barstool at the counter and opened the bottle.