He was pleasantly surprised that the grilled swordfish—surrounded by a sweet perimeter of glazed vegetables—melted like ice cream in August. And as he spent time swimming in Abby’s eyes, he said, “You’re quiet tonight.”
She shrugged. “This dating thing is tough on Paige, that’s all.”
He nodded, unsure of what to say.
“It’ll be fine,” she added.
He nodded again. After a few awkward moments, he changed the subject, asking, “So what’s new with that case you’re working on?”
“It’s been a tough one,” she admitted. “The court date’s already been continued, so I think it’s going to be a grind right to the end.”
“Sounds like you’ve taken on a cause instead of a job?”
“I’d say that’s pretty accurate.” She nodded. “I’ve always believed that each of us should be involved in one cause or another. I’m fascinated with the criminal justice system and would have loved to work for the courts if I’d had the political connections.”
He nodded. “A battle right to the end on this one, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he said, continuing to stare at her.
She smiled and reached for his hand. “What is it?” she asked.
“Not to change the subject, but…I’ve missed everything about you since the last time we were together.”
Her eyes instantly changed; they softened, betraying that she’d just entered into the moment. “Me, too,” she said.
During the meal, Rick told her, “I saw Grant the other night and he told me to send you his love.”
“I bet he did,” she said.
Rick chuckled. “I know. It’s amazing how little he’s changed since we were kids.”
“The three of us will have to get together some time. It would be nice to see him after all these years.”
“Probably not as nice as you think,” Rick joked.
“He can’t be that bad,” she said.
Rick took a sip of beer, leaned back in his seat and recounted his latest encounter with their childhood pal, Grant Wright. “Last Tuesday night, I was already at the pool hall when Grant walked in. He apologized for being late, saying that the strangest thing happened to him in the men’s room.”
“Oh, boy,” Abby said, sliding to the edge of her seat to hear more.
Rick chuckled. “He said he’d found a wallet on the floor. There was no one else in the bathroom, so he picked it up and rifled through it. He said it was like hitting the lottery. The damn thing was stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. So he checked the license and found out that he actually knew the guy who’d lost it. Talk about a dilemma.” Rick paused for effect.
Abby was already grinning at the possibilities.
“So Grant asked himself: If I was the one who’d lost the wallet, what would I want the person who found it to do?” Rick took another sip of beer.
“And?” Abby asked.
“After some careful consideration, Grant finally decided that he’d want himself to learn a lesson, so he kept the cash.” Rick stopped and smiled.
Abby burst into laughter. “He’s so full of it,” she said.
“And that’s exactly what I told him.” Rick said, with a shrug. “But Grant grabbed a pool stick, rolled it on the table to check whether it was warped and told me to believe whatever I wanted.” Rick took a longer sip of beer, allowing Abby the time she needed to get all the laughter out.
“Do you think it’s true?” she asked.
Rick shrugged. “With Grant, who knows?”
After an amazing meal and even more conversation, Rick excused himself to use the bathroom. Abby took the opportunity to call home.
“Hello?” Kelsie answered.
“How’s Paige?” Abby asked.
“She’s fine, Mrs. Soares, honestly. We just finished our first movie and now we’re trying to agree on the second one.”
Abby smiled, relieved. “No horror movies, right? Paige will tell you they don’t bother her, but she won’t be able to sleep for a week.”
Kelsie laughed. “Got it,” she said. “Have a good time.”
Rick escorted Abby out of the restaurant before he revealed two orchestra seat tickets for Mama Mia. “I wanted to surprise you,” he said, excitedly. “Do you like…”
Abby jumped into his arms. “I’ve always wanted to see it!”
The show was incredible. Rick and Abby were on their feet, dancing the entire time. As they exited the lavish theatre, Abby called home one last time.
“She just went in her room,” Kelsie reported.
“Everything okay?” Abby asked, intentionally vague with Rick standing beside her.
“She laughed through the entire second movie,” Kelsie reported.
“Great. Thanks.” She looked at Rick and grinned.
“I’ll be home in about an hour, Kelsie, okay?”
“Take your time, Mrs. Soares.”
As Rick and Abby walked back to the car, Abby asked, “Do you think we’re enough alike?”
He chuckled. “As much as humanly possible, I suppose. It’s clear that the Lord put the eyes of a man in his head, while a woman sees more from her heart. I’m just glad He was kind enough to give me the eyesight to understand this, so I could try to see things from your perspective.”
She kissed him. “You’re learning,” she teased, “but you mean She was kind enough to give you the eyesight to understand.”
He laughed hard and kissed her back.
As if they were making up for some high school prom they had missed, they hurried back to the car to make out.
As they prepared to drive home, Abby wiped the fog from her window and laughed. “The parking lot’s empty,” she announced.
On the ride home, Rick asked, “I think finding that new job is wonderful, Abby, but what is it you want from life? I mean, really want?”
“The stars,” she whispered. “I want to walk among the stars.” It was the exact same answer she gave as a kid.
Rick stared at her. None of the important things have changed, he realized. He wanted nothing more than to give her the stars; to watch her dance in stardust. It’s unbelievable. I’ve spent my whole life in search of true love and I knew where it was all along—on Wilbur Ave where Abby and I rode our bikes. He grabbed her hand and kissed it.
A block away from Abby’s house, Rick pulled over and shut off the engine. It took ten minutes to properly say goodnight.
Abby ascended the front porch stairs elated but equally exhausted. She wasn’t used to the late hour. Through a series of long yawns, she thought about Paige and looked at her watch. “Here we go,” she said aloud, dreading her daughter’s remarks about returning home so late.
After paying Kelsie nearly twice the agreed upon price and walking her out, Abby stepped into the kitchen to find only one bouquet of flowers on the table. She looked in the sink. The second vase was sitting there, empty. “Oh, Paige,” she said, and opened the trash can lid. Paige’s bouquet was buried beneath a crumpled pizza box and a half dozen hardened pizza crusts.
Abby’s face was burning red when she looked up to find Paige scowling at her. Looks like I’m not the only one overwhelmed with emotion, Abby realized.
“Have fun?” Paige asked, her tone carrying the sharpness of a disappointed parent.
“I did,” Abby answered, honestly—but she’d shared too much information and knew it. As if she were facing her nine-year old mother, she held her breath and felt her heart skip a beat.
“Good,” Paige said, “at least one of us did.” She stormed out of the kitchen, marched down the hall and slammed her bedroom door behind her.
Abby hurried in after her. “We talked about this, babe,” she said, taking a seat beside Paige on the bed. “Please don’t be upset. I like Richa
rd. I do. But he’s no threat to you…to us. You have to believe that.” She stroked her hair. “I breathe for you, ya know. Always have, always will.”
Paige looked up from her bed, and sighed.
“Do you believe that?” Abby asked. “…that you’re the most important person in the world to me?”
It took a moment, but Paige finally nodded.
“Good. Then what do you say we forget about bed times tonight, make a big bowl of popcorn and catch a late movie together?”
Paige wiped her swollen eyes and started to get up. “Another movie?” she said, but her voice was lighter; relieved. “Fine.”
Fate was working against little Brian Mauretti. The food that was meant to nourish him was poisoning him instead, and the doctors said the damage was devastating and absolute. Fate had written off Brian. But fate didn’t count on a woman as determined as Brian’s grandmother, Angela DiMartino – who everyone knew as Mama. Loving her grandson with everything she had, Mama endeavored to battle fate. Fate had no idea what it was in for.
An emotional tale about the strength of family bonds, unconditional love, and the perseverance to do our best with the challenging gifts we receive, Goodnight, Brian is an uplifting tribute to what happens when giving up is not an option.
Here is an excerpt:
Summer 1978
Mama’s house was the kind of place where each summer became the best summer of your life. And each year, Heidi, Steph and Ross spent the better part of the summer months at the cottage. It started off as weekends, but after enough begging on behalf of the kids these eventually turned into full weeks. By late August, their parents had finally surrendered and it was one giant slumber party.
Mama’s front yard was plain—except for the four trees she’d planted to celebrate each grandchild’s birth and a two-seat glider built by her late husband, now gone for ten years.
At the front of the house was the beloved three-season porch where the grandkids slept on air mattresses during spring and summer. At twilight, to the sound of rushing waves, they could hear whispered conversations in the darkness; neighbors sitting out, enjoying their safe little world. In the morning, they were usually greeted by robin red breasts foraging for food, or the occasional seagull begging for handouts just outside the screens. Beyond the screen house, at the very tip of the property, was a small wooden deck filled with mismatched chairs painted in different pastel colors.
A statue of St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes, welcomed all guests at the beginning of a brick pathway that led to Mama’s sanctuary in the back yard. A day never passed when Mama didn’t kiss her index finger and place it on his weather-beaten head.
Plants and wild flowers sprung up everywhere. Just past the rose-covered arbor sat a small concrete bird bath with a weather-beaten Adirondack chair facing it. The chalk-red brick meandered in several different directions, but each path led to a round table in the middle of the courtyard, protected by a giant maple arbor. This table hosted hours upon hours of card games, rounds of Parcheesi and priceless conversation.
Fire-red sea grasses grew out of black mulch. Mama loved ceramic frogs and there were a dozen or so carefully placed around the secret garden. There were also a half-dozen bird feeders hanging about. Dragon flies and everything from blue jays to yellow finches claimed the place as home—or at least their summer home. The occasional seagull screeched overhead, drowning out the portable radio that Mama stuck in the window to listen to the Red Sox—or “my boys,” as she called them.
An outdoor shower abutted the house and, if you came in from the beach, you weren’t allowed in the house until you got under it and rinsed off every grain of sand.
Bees pollinated the hydrangeas surrounding a big green lamppost that came on at dusk, creating even more atmosphere. Some nights, Heidi, Steph and Ross spent time there in silence, listening to the crickets and peepers. Most nights though, they chased fireflies with empty mayonnaise jars, while Mama sat in her chair cheering them on.
It was such a magical place that even the occasional horsefly attack was worth the risk of spending time there.
While Mama hemmed a laundry basket filled with men’s slacks, Heidi, Steph and Ross played in the backyard. Mama placed a blanket on the grass and put Brian on his belly. She then dropped his favorite toy—a plush puppy that squeaked when you squeezed its belly—on the far side of the blanket across from him. For hours on end, it looked like he was swimming, but going nowhere. “Eventually, he’ll learn to crawl,” Mama promised. To the untrained eye, this would have appeared awfully cruel, but Mama cared too much not to give him the tough love that he needed to make progress.
After spending countless hours struggling and failing to crawl, Heidi finally spoke up in her tiny cousin’s defense. “Mama…please. It’s too hard for him.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “It looks like he isn’t going anywhere, but he’s actually learning about perseverance; about never giving up.”
Steph looked down at the blanket to find Brian paddling hard to nowhere. “Well, he hasn’t given up yet,” she admitted.
“And he won’t!” Mama promised. She took a break from her mending and searched each of their tanned faces. “Here’s the real secret to succeeding in life: You get knocked down, you get back up. You get knocked down again, you get back up. It’s not getting knocked down that’s the problem. Life does that to everyone. It’s when you don’t get back up that you’re in trouble.” She looked down at the struggling toddler and smiled proudly. “Fortunately, Brian refuses to stay down.”
As if on cue, Brian looked up, grinned and then set his sights on the stuffed puppy again. Legs kicking, arms stroking—he continued to give it everything he had.
“That’s Mama’s boy,” she told him. “You just keep pushing, Brian. You’ll get there.”
The summer went by in a flash and it was perfect. After each breakfast, Heidi, Steph and Ross left the cottage and played all day, taking their lunch in the backyard and washing it down with the water from the garden hose. They didn’t even consider going in until the streetlight came on. They climbed trees and fell from branches. They suffered their cuts and bruises, cried for as long as Mama allowed it, and then headed back out into the wild to eat worms that squirmed out of mud pies. They made friends with kids up the street and were allowed to walk to their houses, as long as they “stayed together.” And, as a treat, they sometimes shared a cola, drinking from the same green glass bottle and learning how to share as they did.
By late July, both Heidi and Steph finally learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels—or helmets. Mama threw a backyard cookout to show off the girls’ new skills.
They also spent a lot of time down by the bay. The girls watched Brian in the shade, while Mama taught Ross how to swim. It didn’t take long for the daredevil to paddle off in the shallow water—all by himself.
While the girls joined Ross in the surf, Mama grabbed Brian, painted him white with sun block and then marched him into the water until she was up to her waist. For the longest time, she just stood there holding him in the water, while he flopped and flailed around.
Standing in the surf, Steph nervously asked, “What are you doing, Mama?”
“Taking away Brian’s fear. Once the water starts to feel natural to him, then the swimming will come natural to him. Right now, we’re just removing the fear.” She looked down at him. “Right, buddy?” she asked.
Brian contorted and thrashed, struggling violently against the water.
It was the last week of August when the kids—Heidi, Steph and Ross—presented Mama with a priceless gift. “Come out to the yard,” Heidi, the group’s elected representative, told her. “We have something we want to show you.”
Expecting to sit through another one of their backyard plays, Mama stepped out into the yard to find Steph and Ross kneeling before Brian on the bl
anket. The baby was propped up on his bum, with a rolled towel wedged behind him, allowing him to stay seated. But there are no costumes or props, Mama thought. As she and Heidi took a seat on the blanket beside them, the old lady looked at the kids and shrugged. “What’s up, guys?”
Ross began giggling and couldn’t stop. Heidi grabbed him by the shoulders, “Shhhh, Ross. Let Steph show her.”
Intrigued, Mama looked toward Steph. “Show me what?”
Steph never answered. Instead, wearing a giant smile, she turned toward Brian and clapped twice. Nothing happened. She clapped twice more. “Come on, Brian,” she whispered, obviously pleading for him to comply.
The little guy looked directly at Mama, brought up both of his hands and quickly clapped them together.
Mama’s mouth dropped open, but before she could get a word out, Steph clapped at the baby again. Brian responded with another clap. This time, he added a laugh.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Mama gasped, and her eyes immediately filled with tears. This was no small feat. Brian’s learning to mimic, she thought. “He’s learning!” she said aloud.
The kids looked up at their grandmother for her approval.
“It’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received!” she cried out and meant it. While Brian applauded, she hugged each one of them.
After a half hour of clapping with Brian and round after round of tearful kisses, Mama stood and stretched out her creaky back. “We need to call Aunt Joan and Uncle Frank.” She shot them a wink. “And after that, I’m treating you guys to McRay’s for supper. Whatever you want to eat, it’s yours!”
“Anything?” Heidi asked.
“Anything,” she said, smiling. “You’ve earned it.”
Once Brian returned home, the other three kids ate enough sugar to launch any one of them into a diabetic coma. It was a glorious—and somewhat discreet—celebration.
Three Shoeboxes e-book Page 29
