I am silent for a moment. “I’m not sure.”
“He didn’t give me a time frame.”
“I don’t think he has one.” He did tell me that he wouldn’t let Sam ask the doctor how long he had left. He prefers not to know.
I prefer not to know either. Because when it happens, Bess is going to be devastated. No matter how much you prepare for death, even when you know it’s coming, it still hits you like a ton of bricks the moment it happens. And I think it’s going to hit Bess even harder than she can imagine when he’s finally gone.
I just hope her light keeps shining.
37
Bess
Eli and I are sitting on the porch with Kerry-Anne and Miles when Aaron calls to let us know they’re on the way home. He called when their plane landed and informed us that they would be back soon. Aaron sounded tired, but he said in a just a few words that the visit with his mom was a good one, and he would explain more when he got back to Lake Fisher.
Eli sits with Miles in the bouncy seat next to him, and Eli occasionally reaches over and spins the toys that hang in front of Miles’s face. Kerry-Anne is in the yard picking some weedy-looking flowers from the tiny patch of grass in front of the cabin.
“Do you think he’s always this well-behaved?” I ask Eli. I have discovered that as long as Miles is fed, has a clean butt, and isn’t tired, he’s amazingly well-tempered, even to the point that it’s a little off-putting.
“I think he and Kerry-Anne both are on their best behavior. They’re saving up the bad behavior for when they come to live with us permanently.” He spins the toys again, and Miles bats at them, his little fists flying. “By then, we won’t be able to decline.” He calls out to Kerry-Anne, “Bring those here, Kerry-Anne. Let me show you something.”
She walks over with the fistful of flowers. “Can I have these?” he asks her. He holds out his hand. “I want to show you how to make a crown.”
She stares at him for a moment and then hands them over, her gaze wary.
“Many, many years ago, I made Bess fall a little bit in love with me when I gave her a crown made of these funny little weeds,” he explains.
I bite back my smile, but I can’t hold it back when Kerry-Anne looks at him askance. “She fell in love with you over some weeds?” She leans toward me and says very softly, “My daddy says you have to have high standards when it comes to boys.” She holds up one finger. “Expect the best and you’ll get the best.” She sounds so much like Aaron that it makes me laugh. She even does the dad voice he’s famous for.
“He’s right,” Eli agrees. “But sometimes it’s the little things that win them over.” He shows her how to string the stems together by poking a hole in one and threading the other through it, and continuing the process until he has a whole strand of them. “Lean over here, Bess,” he says, and he holds the crown of flowers aloft so he can sink them down onto my hair. I lean over and he lays them on top of my head, and I feel like he just turned me into a queen. Again. He did it all those years ago, and he has now done it again.
“Thank you,” I say with a regal dip of my head, and he goes to help Kerry-Anne pick a few more flowers so he can make one for her too. He has just crowned her when Aaron’s van pulls up. I pick Miles up so we can all go and meet them at the van.
I’m surprised, however, when Sam gets out, slams the door, and stomps into the house instead of speaking to everyone. She slams the cabin door behind her too.
“What’s wrong with Sam?” Kerry-Anne asks as she lets her dad pick her up and hug her.
“It’s a long story,” Aaron says slowly, as he looks in the direction she just went. “You can go check on her if you want,” he says to Kerry-Anne. Then he shakes his head and goes to unload the van. “Nice crown,” he says with a grin. “Eli’s playing the game!” Eli grins at him as he takes Aaron’s carryon and turns to take it into the house.
I transfer Miles over to Aaron, who gladly accepts his weight, kisses his little forehead, and then he follows me over to sit on our porch. “How was the weekend?” he asks. “Kids do okay?” He’d texted me a few times this weekend, but he didn’t check in as much as I’d expected.
“Oh, sure. They were fine,” I say with a little shrug.
“No troubles?” he asks. He stares hard at my face.
“Not a one.” I wipe a bug away that lands on my arm. “How was your mom?”
He rocks his head back and forth. “Strangely lucid the first day, and a little scattered on the second.”
“Did you explain about everything?”
“As much as I could. She did a lot of crying that first day, which upset Sam. Then Sam had a catastrophe herself on Saturday.” He cringes. “It wasn’t a great day, and I’m pretty sure she’s still mad at me.”
“What did you do?”
He scowls at me. “What makes you think I did anything?” He lifts Miles so he can blow a raspberry on his belly.
“Because you’re you,” I reply. “Duh.” He continues to give all his attention to Miles, which is nice, but it’s not answering my question. “So, what did you do?”
He rolls his eyes. “Sam got her period for the first time on Saturday.”
“Oh.”
He flinches.
“So what happened?”
“Let’s just say it involved her in the hotel bathroom screaming at me that I wasn’t her mom, and that I was absolutely useless in a crisis. So I left her alone in the hotel to go down to the gift shop to get some supplies.”
“Supplies.” I bite back my grin.
“Stuff. You know.” He glares at me like he’s willing me to understand so he won’t have to say the words out loud.
“You mean tampons and pads? That stuff?”
His cheeks turn red. “Yeah, that.”
I grin at him. “You can say tampon, you know.” I enunciate the word tampon really slowly.
He glares at me. “I’d rather not.”
“So you went to the gift shop. Please tell me you didn’t get anything in jumbo size.” I put my hands together like I’m praying. “Please.”
“I bought whatever the gift shop had.” He looks everywhere but at me.
“Whatever the gift shop had…?”
“Yes.” He is decidedly uncomfortable, if the way he’s fidgeting means anything.
“And then what?”
“And then I went back upstairs, where she was very quietly waiting, I might add.”
“So she’d stopped screaming?”
He grunts. “Right that second, yes.”
“Is she still hiding in the bathroom at this point in the story?” I work really hard not to laugh at his expression.
“Yes. She’s still waiting in the bathroom.”
I lean back so I can rest on my palms and laugh at him. Because laughing at your best friend must be done in a relaxed pose. “So what did you do next?”
“Why do you care so much?” he asks, exasperation dripping from his words.
“Just curious.” I wait a beat. “Please tell me you didn’t try to go in there.”
“No, I did not try to go in the bathroom with her, you dummy.” He mimes tossing a softball underhanded. “I cracked the door and threw them toward the sound of her voice and told her there were instructions inside the package.”
Oh no! “You told her there were instructions inside the package…”
“Yes.” If looks could kill, I’d be dead on the ground. Or at least mortally wounded.
“So she had to figure it out on her own.” I nod. “I see.”
“Don’t start with me, Bess,” he warns. “It was a hard weekend.”
“I didn’t start anything.” I draw air quotes around the word start. “Your daughter did. She started her period and you did nothing to help.”
“She didn’t want me to help her!” Miles flinches, so he calms himself down by closing his eyes and taking a deep breath through his nose. “You know what, fuck you, Bess.” He huffs out that breath he spent
so long sucking in.
“Okay,” I say. I take Miles from him and prop him up in my lap. “Here’s what you’re going to do.” I point my finger at him when he opens his mouth to protest, and he snaps it shut. “You’re going to run to the store on the corner, and you’re going to get three things.”
“I told you I already bought the supplies—”
“Would you shut up?” I wait for him to settle, like a first-grade teacher might. “You’re going to run to the store on the corner and get three things. One: get a heating pad. Two: get an over the counter pain reliever. And three: get a bar of chocolate.”
He scratches his head. “Why does she need a bar of chocolate?”
“And get some teen-size supplies.” I draw air quotes around that word too.
“Wait. They come in sizes?”
I fight not to roll my eyes. “They come in sizes. Get the low flow.”
“Low flow?” He suddenly looks like he’s going to puke.
Eli steps out onto the porch. “Why is Sam locked in the bathroom?” he asks.
“Oh, jeez.” I stand up and take Miles with me. “I’ll keep this one.” I jerk my thumb toward the house. “And those other two kids you created, I’ll watch them too. You take Eli with you. Two brains are better than one. Particularly when both are male and both of them are shopping for feminine hygiene products.”
“Where are we going?” Eli asks. He looks from me to Aaron and back again.
“To buy chocolate bars,” Aaron says, his voice droll and lifeless.
Eli still looks confused. “Why are we going to get chocolate bars?”
“Because I’m about to start my period and I want a chocolate bar.” I glare at both of them, but it’s all I can do not to laugh because Aaron suddenly looks horrified.
“Oh, okay,” Eli chirps. “You ready?” He pats his pockets looking for his keys. When he finds them, he walks toward the car.
“Do we really need to get chocolate bars, or are you fucking with me?” Aaron asks.
“Trust me, Aaron. Women do not fuck around about periods or chocolate bars.” I stare hard at him, and if I had laser beams in my eyes, he’d be dead right now. Or at least seriously wounded. Well, it was his turn.
I let myself into the house and walk toward the bathroom, where I can hear the sound of water running in the sink. I knock softly on the door.
“Go away, Dad!” Sam yells.
“It’s me, Sam,” I call through the crack in the door. “It’s just me and Miles. I sent your dad on an errand. Can I come in?”
She cracks the door and I can see her dark-stained panties in the sink where she had apparently been scrubbing them. “Is he really gone?” she asks. She looks around behind me.
“He’s really gone.” I walk in, still holding Miles in my arms, and close the door behind me. “So, what’s up?” I ask as I sit down on the edge of the tub and rest Miles on my knees.
“My dad is completely useless in a crisis,” she says, and she blows a lock of hair from her forehead with one well-placed breath. “Utterly and completely useless,” she says for emphasis.
“So you got your period, huh?”
She spins to look at me, a look of horror on her face. “Did he tell you?”
I nod toward the panties in the sink. “I kind of figured it out.”
“Oh.” Some of the anger leaks out of her and her shoulders fall back into their normal place. “Yeah, I got my period.”
“Did your dad get what you need for it?” I ask. I don’t go into a ton of detail.
“He came back with pads and tampons, but I don’t want to use the tampons yet.” She shudders lightly.
“Well, when you’re ready, you’ll have them.” Miles kicks his feet, which makes me laugh and encourage him more. “So you figured out how to use them?” I pretend like I’m not paying much attention to her, but in reality she has all my attention.
“It’s not rocket science,” she says quietly. She wiggles in place. “Although it does feel a little crooked.”
“You can try for a straighter one when you switch to a new one.”
“I ruined my favorite panties.” She starts to scrub again.
“So now you have period panties. Every woman has period panties. They’re the ones with the stains we can’t get out, and we don’t care because we know they’re only going to get more stains.”
“Do you have period panties?” she asks quietly.
“Many, many pairs,” I say flippantly. “Just put those to the side of your underwear drawer and you can pull them out when you need them.”
“Oh, okay.” She stops her frantic scrubbing.
A knock sounds on the door. “Sam,” Aaron calls out.
“Go away, Dad!” she yells back. “God, he’s insufferable,” she mutters.
I bite back my grin and go to the door, open it a crack, and step out. I hand Miles to Aaron and take the bag he’s holding. I glance between Aaron and Eli. “Everything go okay at the store?”
“Fine,” they both say at the same time. I can only imagine the chaos that was the two of them shopping for low flow sanitary supplies.
I open the bag and glance inside. “Will one of you go to our cabin and get my pink nail polish?” I look from one to the other and back.
“I’ll go,” Eli says, and he looks grateful that he gets to leave.
“Is she okay?” Aaron asks me.
“She’s fine.” I lay a hand on his arm. “It’s just new and confusing, Aaron,” I say calmly. “And she doesn’t understand it any better than you do.” I cover my mouth to hold in my laugh.
“You suck so bad, Bess,” he says, but he starts to grin, too.
I point toward the bathroom. “I’m going back in there.”
“I hope you survive. I through she was going to snap my head off and throw it out the window.”
I laugh. “I’ll be fine.”
I open the door and step back into the room. She’s still scrubbing, but she looks pretty resigned to the fact that her panties are not going to come clean. “I sent your dad and Eli for supplies,” I say.
She gasps “You told Eli?”
“No, no,” I rush to say. “I told them it was for me.” It’s not a total lie, so I don’t feel guilty about it.
She arches one brow and she looks so much like Lynda that it’s like going back in time. “What’s wrong?” she suddenly asks.
I make a curve with my index finger over my eye and lift it skyward. “When you did that thing with your eyebrow, you looked just like your mother.”
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“You’re welcome.” I riffle through the bag and pull out the heating pad. “You might or might not need this.” She takes it from me. I open the bottle of junior strength pain relievers that Aaron got and shake two into her hand. She takes them with a little water from the faucet. I peer into the bag again and grin. “Your dad is an overachiever,” I say. Then I hold up the chocolate bar. They bought four.
I sit down on the edge of the tub, hand her a bar of chocolate, and open a bar for myself. She stares down at the chocolate bar. “What’s this for?”
“It’s just a treat.”
“Why do you get one?”
I lay my hand on my stomach. “I’m about to get my period too,” I say. I’m not, but it seems fitting. I take a bite of the chocolate bar and point to the bag. “There are pads and tampons in there that might be better suited for you.”
“Oh, okay.” She glances toward the bag, but she doesn’t look in it.
A knock sounds on the door and I get up, crack it open, and peer out to find Aaron standing there with my bottle of nail polish. I hold my hand out for it. “What are you guys doing?” he asks.
“Eating chocolate,” I say around my full mouth.
He stares at my face. “Why are you eating chocolate?”
“Do you really want to talk about my period, Aaron?”
He pushes the nail polish into my hand, closes my fist around
it, and shoves my hand back through the slit in the door. Then he solidly closes the door.
“I hate you, Bess,” he says through the crack.
I grin.
I shake the bottle of nail polish. “So, how do you feel about pink toenails?”
We paint one another’s toenails as we finish our chocolate bars, and then she looks toward the door. “I think I’m ready to go out now.” She wraps her new period panties in a dirty towel and tosses them into the hamper.
“Oh, okay.” I push up from the floor and stand up. “Thanks for painting my toenails.” I wiggle my toes against the linoleum.
“It’s not easy being a woman,” she says stoically. And I force myself to look sympathetic and nod, rather than laugh.
We go out and find Aaron and Eli sitting on the porch. “So, what’s for dinner?” I ask. I just ate a chocolate bar the size of my head, so I doubt I’ll even want dinner.
Aaron shoves my shoulder. But he freezes when Sam walks out of the house, sits down next to him, and leans against his arm. “Thanks for the chocolate, Dad,” she whispers.
He lifts his arm around her shoulders and mouths the words “thank you” at me.
I smile at him, stand up, wipe my butt off, and follow Eli home. We’ll be back together for dinner, but right now Aaron needs some time with his family. No one can be sure how much time he has left, so every minute counts.
Eli looks at my head as we go inside, and I grin. I still have on the crown he made for me, and I plan to wear it for the rest of the night.
“Hey, I found something of yours,” I say. I walk in the kitchen and retrieve his small red ball from the kitchen junk drawer. “Here.” I throw it toward the floor so it bounces toward him. He catches it and grins.
“Thanks, Bess.” He stares at it in his palm as if I just gave him a diamond ring. And the rest of the evening I hear that stupid ball strike the floor and the wall over and over, and I’ve never enjoyed such an annoying sound so much.
38
Eli
The next morning, I wake up to the sound of someone banging, fireman style, on my front door. I sit up quickly, and Bess rolls to get up. “I’ll get it,” I say. I walk to the front door wearing my boxers and t-shirt, and I adjust my junk before I open the door. A minute before, I’d been sound asleep with Bess’s butt pressed against my crotch, not to mention that it’s morning.
Feels like Home (Lake Fisher Book 2) Page 21