Stranger

  “I thought it would be worth it,” Sam said.

  I had to swallow hard before I could answer. “And now you don’t? Because of decisions I made before I even met you?”

  There was more to it, I was sure. More about his dad. His music. My sweet Sam was a bundle of issues he didn’t want to share.

  “Look at it this way,” he said at last. “I’m giving you what you wanted. Now you don’t have to worry about crying.”

  “It’s too late, Sam. I already am.”

  For a minute, I thought he’d take me in his arms. That everything would be all right. I thought we’d work through this and come out stronger for it.

  “Just pretend I’m still a stranger,” he said, and that was when I left.

  Chapter 20

  It would be dramatic to say the earth stopped turning for me, or the sun stopped shining. I could say I plunged into a deep depression and couldn’t get out of bed, but that would be a lie. I didn’t have time not to function. Jared’s internship had ended and he’d passed his license test.

  He’d accepted the job I’d offered him and would start after a month’s vacation. Good for him, bad for me. I still hadn’t decided about offering him a partnership.

  Shelly, however, had quit. She and Jared had fought horrifically about the whole partnership thing, and she’d broken up with him. I hadn’t heard if she’d gone back to a smug and formerly forsaken Duane, but I was sure to find out sooner or later.

  I stopped hoping each phone call I answered would be Sam after the second week, not because I didn’t want him to call, but because I had to force away the sadness and concentrate on my life. I cried, sometimes, but even the urge to do that faded every day.

  With Jared gone and a temporary office manager who didn’t know the routine, I was trying to juggle eggs without making omelets. I could handle the services and burials. I could even handle the embalmings and preparations. I didn’t sleep much, but that was okay because it meant when I did that I didn’t dream of Sam.

  What I prayed wouldn’t happen was a home-death call. Most of the calls we got came from hospitals and nursing homes, and I kept my fingers crossed that nothing else would happen until I could get Jared back on the job.

  No such luck.

  The call came in the early afternoon from a family who’d been in a month before to make arrangements. The wife was dying of pancreatic cancer and had hospice service at home. They’d expected her to pass away much sooner, but she’d held on.

  I assured them I’d be there to take care of her as soon as the doctor signed the papers, and then I hung up the phone and buried my face in my hands.

  “Ms. Frawley?”

  I looked up. No matter how many times I’d told Susie to call me Grace, she hadn’t quite mastered it. And she still closed her eyes at the sight of a corpse. “Yes?”

  “You have a couple messages.”

  I thanked her and took them, sorting through them and finding nothing from Sam. No message from Jared telling me he’d be back earlier than planned, either.

  Dammit. What was I going to do? I couldn’t go alone. I couldn’t tell the family I wasn’t able to take care of their wife and mother.

  I did the only thing I could do. I called my dad.

  Things had been strained between us since the day of my mom’s party, but he didn’t refuse to help me. I knew he wouldn’t. No matter what he might think about me, my dad wouldn’t let down a client.

  I’d worked with my dad often enough to know his style. The words he used to offer comfort to the family, the way he preferred to cover the bodies and tuck in the edges, all of that.

  But watching him this time I seemed to see it all with fresh eyes. I saw myself in my dad, in subtle ways, like which straps on the gurney I buckled first or how I folded the body’s hands.

  At the funeral home he helped me get everything settled and started, but instead of telling me what to do or correcting me when I did something differently, he followed my lead.

  “Things have changed,” was his only comment.

  I’d been thinking a lot about the partnership idea. Jared was a good worker, and taking on a partner would mean more freedom for me in many ways. Making this business a corporation would change things but also make them better, I thought. I thought my dad might growl when I brought the subject up, but I had to ask someone and I respected his opinion.

  We talked about it for a long time, as we worked and later, in my apartment over coffee and doughnuts. He had a lot of good points, but more importantly, he listened to what I had to say and didn’t try to tell me what to do. He offered advice without orders.

  I got up to hand him another doughnut when he side-swiped me.

  “We haven’t seen you in a while. Why don’t you come over for dinner on Sunday. Bring Sam.”

  I put the plate back on the coffee table. “I don’t see Sam anymore, Dad. We broke up.”

  My dad didn’t have to say anything. He just held out his arm and made a place for me to cradle my face against his shoulder when I started to cry.

  “It hurts, doesn’t it,” he said, patting my back. “I know.”

  That was all he said, but it was enough. Later, when I’d stopped crying, he offered me the ever-present white hankie from his pocket. I declined with a grimace, and we laughed.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there enough when you were younger,” my dad said. “I know you think I don’t have the right to tell you what to do now.”

  “And I know you’re just trying to help. I do. But…it’s better if you let me ask you.

  Okay?”

  He nodded with a sigh. “Yeah. For what it’s worth, Gracie, I’m sorry about your fella.”

  “Me, too, Dad.”

  “I think it’s a good idea. Offering Jared the partnership. The home’s too much work for one person. I had your uncle Chuck and it was still a lot of work. I missed things I shouldn’t have. It’s good to have time for your family, too. Your kids.”

  I gave a soft snort. “I don’t have kids.”

  “Someday,” my dad said.

  I’d thought I was done crying, but I was wrong.

  The service had been simple but well attended. Mrs. Hoover had been loved by many. I’d hung back to make sure the chapel was empty before I drove the hearse to the cemetery, and found Mr. Hoover still sitting in the seat in front of the poster-size photo of his late wife.

  “Mr. Hoover, it’s time to go.”

  He looked up with a smile. “I know. I just wanted to sit here for a few minutes. I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. The bed’s just not the same without her in it.”

  “I understand,” I told him, and I did.

  “Of course, she hasn’t been in our bed for months, but I guess while she was still in the house I could imagine that one day she might be.”

  I nodded. Time was ticking, but I didn’t even glance at my watch. I sat beside him, instead, and we both looked at the picture of Mrs. Hoover.

  “That was her graduation picture,” he said. “I already knew then that I wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t say yes. I’d asked her twice by the time we graduated from high school, but she said she wanted to wait until after she’d gone to nursing school.”

  “She was lovely.”

  “And headstrong. Mercy, but that woman was bossy.”

  I handed him a tissue, but he waved it away and took out a white hankie to wipe his eyes. I patted his hand. We both looked a bit longer at the picture.

  “If you’d known back then that someday you’d be sitting here like this, getting ready to bury her,” I asked him, “would you still have married her? Even knowing one day you’d have to live without her?”

  “Oh, heavens yes,” Mr. Hoover said with a sigh.

  “Even though it hurts so much?” I heard the quaver in my voice and fought to hold it back.

  “Of course.” Mr. Hoover patted my hand now. “Because my life’s been so much richer for having had her in it, you see. And I know I?
??ll see her again. I believe I will. I wouldn’t trade one minute of what we had together even if it meant I’d never have to feel this way.”

  He patted my hand again and stood. “I believe my son’s waving at me from the doorway, there.”

  I looked and sure enough, young Mr. Hoover was waiting for his dad and me. “I’ll be right there.”

  I looked a moment more at the picture of that bossy, headstrong woman who’d made his life so much richer, and then I went to help them finish saying goodbye.

  When my phone rang in the middle of the night, I always answered it, even if I wasn’t on call. With Jared now a full-time partner and the paperwork under way to turn Frawley and Sons into Frawley and Shanholtz, I wasn’t always the one on call, but I always answered my phone in the middle of the night.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  I refused to even crack an eye to check the time. “Well, I wasn’t in a coma.”

  Soft laughter. “How are you?”

  “I’m tired, Sammy. How are you?”

  “I’m a little drunk, Grace.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No.” He laughed again.

  “Did you have a reason for waking me?”

  “I was thinking about you, that’s all.”

  “I’m thinking about hanging up.”

  “Don’t. Please,” Sam said, and I sighed but didn’t.

  I listened to the sound of his breathing. I closed my eyes and wished I could make myself believe he was breathing beside me, in my bed, but no amount of imagining would convince me.

  The plastic of my cell phone pressed too hard against my ear and though I could hear his breath, I didn’t feel it on my face.

  “I got a call from Phil. My agent,” he said. “He says if I can get to New York, he’ll get me some studio time. Book me a few shows. See if he can get me on the radio or something.”

  The way he said it, like it didn’t matter, meant it did. Very much. “Good for you.”

  “I’m going next week.”

  “I’m happy for you, Sam.” With my eyes closed, it didn’t matter if my vision blurred with tears.

  “Can I come over, Grace?” A crackle of static would have stolen his words, spoken in a tone so low, but the connection was clear and without interruption.

  “Yes. You can. But will you?”

  His breathing shifted. He was drinking or weeping, and I didn’t want to imagine him doing either. “No. I guess not. It’s late.”

  “Send me a copy of your album when it’s finished.”

  “Don’t cry,” Sam said. “Please don’t cry.”

  “I don’t understand,” I told him. I buried my face into the pillow and bit down hard, to force away tears. “I don’t understand you, Sam. I let you in, and you don’t want to be in. Why?”

  Misery painted his words, but I had little sympathy for his sorrow. “I’m sorry. I know you hate me.”

  “Goddammit, Sam! I don’t hate you! That’s the problem!” I punched the pillow this time.

  “I wish I did.”

  “I wish you did, too.”

  I smiled into the softness of my poor abused pillow. “You sneaked in under the radar, you know that?”

  Sam’s soft chuckle tickled up and down my spine the way it always had. “You didn’t want a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed, thinking of what Mr. Hoover had said to me. How he regretted nothing, not even the pain of losing the one he loved so much, because his life had been made so much richer for knowing her. Knowing Sam had made my life richer.

  “I should have left you alone,” Sam said. “You wanted me to.”

  I opened my eyes, finally, to the light of dawn creeping through my window. “No. I took a chance on you because I wanted to, Sam. And I don’t regret a minute of it, because knowing you has made my life better. And maybe next time I won’t let being afraid of what I might lose keep from appreciating what I have.”

  “Next time?” His voice sounded thick, but he didn’t clear his throat.

  “I used to think I wanted to spend my life alone, but not anymore.”

  “But—” He stopped. Breathed. Sighed. “No more rentboys?”

  “Maybe one or two.”

  “You’re killing me, Grace. You know that.”

  “They have phones in New York, don’t they?” I asked him. “Call me.”

  And then I hung up.

  Sam did not call me from New York.

  I’d only half expected him to. I’d only half wanted him to. As each passing day put more time between us, I could step back further and further from my thoughts of him. We’d spent less time as a couple than we had together. Love had sneaked up on me out of the blue. I’d watch out for it better, next time.

  There didn’t seem to be a next time now that I was open to the idea. I met men here and there, when I went out with friends. At the gym I’d started frequenting, now that Jared could oversee more of the business without my supervision. Even, heaven forbid, on a few blind dates set up by my mother with sons or nephews or grandsons of her friends. The world had become a wonderland of possibilities, and though I had fun and met a lot of nice guys, I couldn’t picture any of them making the sort of difference Sam had.

  Jared and I began switching our on-call weekends and taking time off during the week to compensate. It was the best arrangement for both of us. Though we jokingly referred to each other as “work spouses,” and we had more than one knowing smile sent our way from people who assumed we were dating, nothing awkward reared its ugly head between us. Though sharing my business with him had its ups and downs, I didn’t regret asking Jared to be my partner. Jared, with his sense of humor and steady commitment to making Frawley and Shanholtz a success, had made my life better, too.

  Despite what I’d told Sam, I didn’t go back to hiring any of Mrs. Smith’s gentlemen.

  Playacting had lost its appeal when held up against the memory of something real. I had Sam to thank and curse for that, and some days I did both.

  He didn’t call me, but I looked him up on the Internet now and again. I read reviews of his shows and of the CD he’d made. Both got good press, even if it was only in the small independent bar magazines. He didn’t seem to be making it big, but he was making something, anyway.

  I hoped he was happy, and as the time passed, I tried to be happy, too.

  My job meant I wasn’t the most reliable babysitter, but I was free, which made me a better choice than the teenager who lived down the street. Besides, my sister had said, she trusted me with her kids. Perhaps more importantly, she could leave them with me without a long list of instructions. Leaving them with me, she said, was being able to get dressed and walk out the door without worrying. It was worth it, she said, even if sometimes she and Jerry had to come home early because I got a call.

  So far, so good this afternoon, though. Melanie and Simon had been ecstatic to learn I was taking them to Mocha Madness, a coffee-and-sandwich shop with an indoor playground in it.

  The idea was that the kids could run themselves ragged on kid-safe climbing walls, tube mazes and other play equipment, while the adults sat and soothed themselves with coffee and pastries and read the newspaper. With its one-way-in and one-way-out entrance to the playground, monitors and clean restrooms, it was well worth the twenty-minute drive and the five bucks each it cost to let them loose for a few hours.

  “Auntie Grace, you are the bestest aunt ever!” Simon clung to my legs as I settled my jacket and bag on the back of a chair positioned so I could watch them play.

  His sister joined him on my other side, her arms going tight around my waist. “We love you!”

  “Oh, you kids, I love you, too,” I said, imitating the popular Internet cartoon called Potter Puppet Pals they loved to watch over and over. “Now get off me.”

  Giggling, they did and left me to my refillable mug of coffee and the latest romance I’d had on my to-be-read pile forever. I’d been getting a lot of reading done in the past few months. r />
  Simon, cheeks flushed, came to the table a while later to drink from his plastic cup of lemonade. “Auntie Grace, your cheeks are pink.”

  “So are yours, buddy.” I stuck a finger inside my book to hold my place as I pushed his sweaty hair off his forehead. “Are you having fun?”

  He nodded and squirmed away from my touch. “Yeah. That boy over there. He’s my friend.”

  My gaze followed his pointing finger toward a little boy wearing a stuffed steering wheel attached around his waist and running around a racetrack laid out on the floor. “Oh, yeah?

  What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.” Simon shrugged, unconcerned, and headed back to the playground.

  I watched him leap right into the game with a friend whose name didn’t matter, and I tried to remember what it was like to instantly trust every stranger who came along. I scanned the crowd of gamboling children, found Melanie and, satisfied, turned back to my book.

  The story engrossed me, but my need for coffee raised my head. Only a glance, but my attention tore from the book and I let it close without the benefit of my finger to keep my place this time. Across the room, sitting at a tiny table meant for two, a man stared back at me.

  Sam.

  He saw me. I knew he did, because he’d been staring at me, but as soon as our eyes met he looked away. A moment later, a young woman with blond hair joined him. With her back toward me, I couldn’t see her face, but the low-riding jeans and tight T-shirt told me enough. She handed him a large cup and set one down in front of her. She spoke to him, and he answered, his eyes moving once more over her shoulder to meet mine.

  That time, I looked away, back to the book on which I could no longer concentrate. I was more upset by the fact I couldn’t focus on the story than by the fact Sam was obviously not going to greet me. That, I understood.

  It didn’t hurt my feelings.

  It didn’t make me feel.

  Oh, but it did, the fact we’d stared each other in the face, both knowing the other, and had said nothing. Not even a casual lift of our fingers, the sort of gesture you’d give to an acquaintance whose face you recalled while their name escaped you. He didn’t acknowledge me.