My cell phone rang downstairs and I knew I’d never make it in time. It was probably the school. They had a policy of not letting a child off the bus unless an authorized adult was there to walk them home. This meant she was probably sitting in the office right then, wondering where her mother was and feeling abandoned. That would be the best-case scenario. I couldn’t bring myself to entertain the worst.
Slowly I stood and looked down at my grandmother. Not knowing what else to do, I offered a hand to her.
She batted it away. “You try to help my fat butt up and you’ll be down here again with me. Go call Craig to pick up Bella. I can wait.”
It took what felt like more energy than I had to hop my way down the steps. When I finally made it to my phone to call Craig, it just rang and rang. I left a message and sighed. My father didn’t carry a cell phone, so that left only David. If it hadn’t been my daughter at stake, I would never have considered contacting him.
He’d been on his best behavior lately, waiting patiently for me to die so he could claim his daughter. Still, he managed to sneak in a jab every now and then when Lindsey wasn’t around to chide him for it. And this was just the sort of thing he would rub in my face . . . discreetly, of course.
As I dialed, a frantic pounding bellowed from the front door. I didn’t need to open it to know who was there. The school must have called David when they couldn’t reach me. By the time I dragged myself over, I was so exhausted that I almost collapsed into his arms.
Chapter Thirty-two
The doctor told me that my foot was broken and needed to be set and cast. I told her, “Yeah . . . no.”
Crossing her arms, she lectured me on what could happen down the road if it didn’t heal properly. Did I really want to have my foot rebroken in six months? I told her that I’d take my chances. Her disapproving scowl made me laugh. Though I was third-world thin and as pale as her lab coat, the joke was apparently lost on her.
No way was I going to spend my final weeks in a hard, itchy cast. Once I explained that I was about to knock on heaven’s door, pity replaced irritation. She wrapped my foot in Ace bandages and sent me home with her blessing and a pair of crutches.
And so I sat on my front porch, occupying two rocking chairs—one for me and one for my foot. The night air felt unmistakably autumn—crisp, but not cold. Gone were the floral fragrances of summer. In their place, the scent of cinnamon and apples drifted through the cracked-open window as Mama Peg baked a pie with the first batch of apples ever harvested from Mom’s tree. My sweet grandmother was constantly baking and cooking my favorite things in an attempt to get me to eat more. Even so, I never managed more than a few bites before my stomach revolted.
Dressed in the only pair of flannel pajamas I owned that didn’t slip down my meatless hips the moment I stood, I leaned my head back against the wood spokes of the rocking chair and surveyed the night. Under the light of the moon, I watched Craig’s shadow move across the yard toward me. When I looked up, my gaze met his, and my heart fluttered right on cue.
I combed through the ends of my hair with my fingers. Even without undergoing chemo, it was beginning to thin. “Hey, stranger, where’ve you been all day?”
He took a seat in the empty chair beside me. “Working.”
“I thought you gave up working weekends?”
“I was working on something else.” His Cheshire grin told me it was something involving me.
“Oh?”
“Do you need me to drop Isabella off at David’s?”
The window behind me clicked shut. I turned to see Mama Peg walking back to the kitchen. “My dad already did.”
Craig slipped his hand under mine and I rubbed at his familiar calluses.
“You think she’ll make it through the night this time?” he asked.
I sighed, keeping at bay the anxiety that rose every time I thought of how Isabella would adjust when I was gone. “I hope so. We’re running out of time.”
He nodded solemnly, brought my hand to his lips, and kissed it. “Even if she freaks out again, maybe this time it’ll be 2 a.m. instead of midnight, and the sobs will just be whimpers.”
I laughed. “You’re as sick as Mama Peg.”
Sweet Pea emerged out of nowhere and rubbed his side against Craig’s pant leg. When Craig reached out to pet him, the cat predictably swiped. Craig jerked his hand back just in time. Sweet Pea hissed and sauntered to the other side of the porch.
Craig watched the cat disappear into shadows, then turned to me. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
A smile played on my lips as I rubbed the hem of his sweater between my fingers. “Please tell me it doesn’t involve steps.”
“Maybe a few.”
I peered at him through my lashes. “Or a blindfold.”
He looked up at the roof as if considering it, then shook his head. “I guess we’d better not, with your broken foot.”
When he turned his head toward the yard, I noticed a streak of white running down his cheek. I wiped the coarse substance off him and brought my fingertips to my nose to investigate. It smelled like cleanser. “Have you been cleaning?”
He looked like a man caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Maybe.”
I wiped the powder from my fingers onto his jeans, earning a raised eyebrow from him. “What’s my surprise?”
He brushed off his pants and stood. “It’s at the saddle barn.”
“You’re going to make a lame woman hobble all the way over there for her trinket?”
“It’s not a trinket, thank you very much, and there’s no way to bring the surprise to you. You have to go to it.”
I tried to feign a frown, but my smile won out. “Well, if there’s no other way . . . You mind grabbing those for me?” I gestured to the crutches leaning against the house.
Craig glanced over but made no move to retrieve them. “I have a better idea.”
He bent over me, slid one hand under my thighs, the other around my back, and lifted me into his arms. A year ago, I would have felt embarrassment, wondering if I was too heavy to pick up. Now I worried about being too light. A hint of what must have been shock glinted in his eyes, but if he was bothered by my featherweight, he was kind enough not to say so.
His chivalry soon made me forget my insecurities. I clung to him, glad for the peace and warmth his embrace brought. My visits with him were among the few times when I could abandon my worries about Isabella, Dad, and Mama Peg. I never felt I had to worry about him. He seemed to be strong enough for the both of us.
When I kissed his cheek, his fledgling whiskers scratched me. “You need to shave,” I said.
He carried me down the steps and started across the lawn before answering. “I thought you liked me with a little scruff.”
“A little, yes, but you’re beginning to look like Leif Eriksson.”
“Maybe I should buy one of those Viking hats. Would you like that?”
I thought that I just might but decided not to say so. “I wouldn’t bother,” I said. “We have nothing worth plundering.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I beg to differ.”
I laid my head against his chest as I bumped along in his strong arms.
“Do you really not like the scruff?” he asked, sounding vulnerable.
“No, sweetheart, I was just teasing. There isn’t a thing wrong with the way you look. You’re my dream guy, inside and out.” I kissed his neck to emphasize my point.
At last we came to the saddle barn. It was a modest building, bigger than a shed but smaller than a full barn. It used to have a rustic look when its cedar siding had been painted barnyard red. That was before my father made it his retirement project to renovate the exterior to look like a smaller version of the main house—same white paint and black shutters.
He even added some finishing touches like flower boxes, in which Mama Peg planted geraniums each spring, accented by English ivy cascading over the sides. The geraniums were dead now, but the ivy wou
ld outlive me.
The inside renovations came after I moved away. Mama Peg said my father built the apartment in hopes I’d come home. When I didn’t, he decided to rent it out to pay for the home-improvement loan. It was my good fortune that Craig happened upon the For Rent sign before someone else did. I couldn’t imagine what the last few months would have been like without him.
When we came to the front door, I expected Craig to set me down. Instead he managed to turn the knob without dropping me. I was duly impressed.
“I can hop up the steps,” I said. “You don’t need to—”
He gave me a stern look. “I’m carrying you and that’s that.”
I grinned at him. “You’d make a great Viking.”
Like a groom with his bride, he carried me over the threshold. He managed to flip on the light switch at the bottom of the stairs with his hip, and up we went. It was exciting just to be in the saddle barn. This was my first look at its transformation.
Craig hadn’t brought me here before now because he said the temptation of us being alone and secluded might be more than we could resist. I didn’t argue. Even with me dying, keeping our hands to ourselves was getting increasingly difficult. Thankfully, when one of us was weak, the other was strong.
When we came to the top of the steps, he gently set me down. I saw nothing but darkness and a few shadows of furniture until he turned on a lamp, flooding the room in soft light.
Nothing could have prepared me for the scene before my eyes. “Wow,” I said, looking around. “This is . . .”
I couldn’t find the word I needed, wasn’t even sure there was a word. Oh, wait; yes, there was. “Groovy.”
He smiled proudly. “It’s seventies retro.”
“Yes, it certainly is.”
“I put the orange shag in myself. You wouldn’t believe how hard that was to find.”
I closed my eyes, then reopened them. Nope, it was still there. “I can believe it,” I said.
“What do you think?” His eyes were bright with anticipation. “I know it’s out there, but it’s supposed to be. It’s weirdly cool, don’t you think?”
I took in the avocado couch, the tie-dyed pillows, and the peace sign poster, trying to find something encouraging to say. Finally I nodded toward his old floor-model record player and went with “Wherever did you find that?”
He rushed over and turned it on. “Do you believe some dummy was actually throwing it out? It still works.” He knelt, opened the cabinet beneath it, and pulled out a real-life 45. He slipped it from its sleeve and put it on the turntable. When he set the needle down on black vinyl, the Bee Gees sang “How Deep Is Your Love.”
“You thought of everything,” I said.
He looked as excited as a little boy on Christmas. He hurried over to me. “I haven’t shown you the best part yet.”
I was more than a little fearful of what that might be. A life-size wax model of Elvis, perhaps?
He wrapped his arm around me and helped me hop to his bedroom. We stopped at the doorway. I peeked in, not at all surprised to find a mirrored ball dangling from his ceiling. It scattered glittering sparkles over the walls. “Wow” was all I could say.
He grinned ear to ear. “Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?”
It took me a minute to decide if I loved or hated it. In the end I found the uniqueness of Craig and his apartment to be irresistible. “You know, it sure beats the beige cookie cutter everyone else our age lives in.”
When my gaze slid off the disco ball down to his empty bed, I lost my breath. Atop a smooth cover rested three matching pillows. The left was monogrammed with his initials—CA, the right with GA, and a small square pillow resting in between the two of them simply read Bella.
Tears choked me and I couldn’t take my eyes off them long enough to look at him. Nothing had ever touched me as much as those three pillows and what they meant. His fingertips slid down the length of my arm as he lowered to one knee.
I let out a jagged breath and looked into his stormy eyes.
“Jenny, I’ve already asked your father’s permission, and he’s already told me no.”
I laughed through my tears.
Craig didn’t even crack a smile. He just ran his thumb over my ring finger, looking as nervous as a pig at a barbecue. “But he’s promised not to kill or evict me for doing this, so I’m going to give it another shot. I know this apartment isn’t much, but it’s all I have right now. I’d buy us a house if our time weren’t so short. Bella’s bedroom isn’t much bigger than a closet, but it’ll hold her bed and a dresser. . . .”
He reached under his sweater, pulled a small velvet box from his pocket, and opened it. A diamond set on a ring of gold gleamed against a black backdrop. “Jenny, do you love me?”
I laid my hands on his shoulders to steady myself as my eyes became Niagara Falls. “You know I do.”
“Then spend your last days with me . . . here.”
His love consumed me and I was no longer sure of what I should say or do.
“Say you’ll marry me. We only have a little while.”
Staring at that symbol of his love, I couldn’t think straight. “I don’t know, baby.”
“It’s getting harder for you to take care of yourself, let alone Bella. Mama Peg can’t do it. Your father won’t say it, but he’s stopped playing golf and going out because he’s afraid to leave you alone.”
I wiped tears from my eyes, but more replaced them. “He can’t do that.”
Craig lifted my ring from its box. “Please let me take care of you. You and Bella move in here, and we’ll play house until I have to let you go. I promoted Jimmy to manager, and he’s going to run the business until—”
“You can’t do that for me.”
“Already have. I’ve earned a vacation, wouldn’t you say?”
The thought of us living together—Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Baby Bear—was amazing. The best way I could think of to spend my last days. And if we were married, I could finally give myself to him the way I longed to. I loved him with everything in me and I knew it was the same for him.
I leaned down and pressed my lips against his. The kiss we shared felt almost holy. It seemed to last forever, but when he finally pulled back, I realized it hadn’t lasted nearly long enough.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted that more than I’d ever wanted anything for myself—but I was a mother first, woman second. My time was short, too short to waste.
Was it possible that what Isabella needed could be the same as what I wanted? Why couldn’t I transition her to David from here? What was the difference really, but a few hundred feet?
Craig’s eyes searched mine for the three-letter word he wanted to hear. I didn’t give him that. I simply smiled and extended my left hand.
Chapter Thirty-three
Lying in bed, I touched the engagement ring I wore on a chain around my neck. Like everything else I owned, it was too big for my emaciated frame. When Craig slipped it onto my finger, it had fallen right back off. The symbolism wasn’t lost on either of us, but still we managed to find humor in the moment. Or at least pretended to.
I pushed off my pillow and leaned on my elbows so that I could better see out the window. The night sky was a clear navy blue with twinkles of starlight sprinkled throughout it. With a smile, I wondered if Craig was looking at this same sky and thinking of me. Had there ever been two people more in love? It just didn’t seem possible.
I slid the ring back and forth on its chain, liking the feel of the smooth gold band against my fingertips. We’d have to marry as quickly as possible, of course, but that didn’t have to mean a drab city hall ceremony. If the weather cooperated, we could exchange vows in front of the lake—that would be pretty. I bit my lip, considering it.
What in the world would I wear? Being as thin as I was, my choices were limited to something white that could hide my boniness. I wouldn’t get to don the strapless princess gown I’d always dreamed of, but if Crai
g’s eyes glinted with the same admiration on our wedding day as they did every other time his gaze fell on me, not even a frumpy white frock could make me feel less than beautiful.
I lay down again, bent my arms behind my head, and gazed at the reflection of glimmering moonlight on the ceiling.
First thing in the morning, I’d call the church and make arrangements, then city hall or wherever it was you got a marriage license. My breath caught as I considered that within days I would be Genevieve Paige Allen . . . Jenny Allen . . . Mrs. Genevieve Allen . . . Mrs. Craig Thomas Allen . . .
When I ran out of possible derivatives of my new name, my elation began to ebb. As it did, a twinge of guilt nipped at me—I was sentencing the man I loved to the fate of widower. Was it as selfish as it felt? Doubts sprouted in my mind like weeds until I remembered the words that Craig had whispered to me one night as we sat together on the porch swing, listening to the crack of thunder and watching lightning explode in the sky like fireworks.
Holding my hand, he told me that I was his fate, that he could no more stop himself from falling in love with me than the Nile could decide not to flow into the Mediterranean. My guilt slid away on a moonbeam as I drifted off to sleep.
* * *
It seemed that as soon as unconsciousness took me, the phone jolted me awake. By the third ring, I’d thrown off my sleepy confusion and regained my senses enough to know what the call meant. Isabella—once again—wasn’t able to make it through the night at her father’s house.
These late-night calls had become so routine that I didn’t have to ask to know it was David, not Lindsey, on the phone, explaining to my father that Isabella was crying to come home. He would soon drop her off, shaking his head, looking as frustrated as I felt.
Isabella would crawl into my bed, lay her head on my pillow, and whimper a promise to do better next time. My reply was always the same—“You need to really try. One day soon, I’m not going to be here for you to run home to.” Her beautiful eyes would widen with a look that broke my heart. Powerlessness would overwhelm me as I snuggled her tightly and kissed her wet face.