“Two friends saved up enough to buy one just like it, didn’t they, Mr. Moretti?”
He laughed. His round cheeks puffed out and his nose turned red. Tears streamed out of each eye—tears that Keith suspected were just as indicative of loss as they were mirth. “Oh, that was terrible. Yes, Anna and Carol. They both loved that couch. Saved for six months and eight to buy one just like it, but when they went into the store, the color had been discontinued. Maria was so proud of herself.”
“Was she religious?”
Keith stared at Erika, curious what had prompted her to shift the conversation. Mr. Moretti just nodded. “Oh, my Maria was very devout—at Mass every day sometimes. She would get up and start my breakfast, run down the street to the church at six o’clock, and be back in time to see me off.”
“What about you?”
“I went because she went. Every Sunday.” Mr. Moretti sighed. “When she died, I stopped going.”
Keith leaned forward. “Why is that?”
“Because I didn’t hear the beauty in the words anymore. They felt empty and hollow. I came home and read the Bible that Victor gave us on our fiftieth wedding anniversary. It has more comfort for me.” The man ducked his head and took a bite of his meat. He swallowed it down with a sip of wine. He stared at the glass and apologized. “I didn’t offer—I’m sorry. I’m a terrible host tonight.”
“You’re wonderful,” Erika reassured him. “I got Keith water. We’re good.”
“Anyway, the Bible—Psalms especially—it’s enough for me right now.”
“So you still believe in God. You just don’t believe in church?” Erika glanced at Keith before turning back to the old man, waiting for his response.
“I love the church, Erika. I just don’t love being there without my Maria. I know it is wrong. I just can’t bring myself to go. So, I pray here, I read the Bible, and I hope that God understands. I think He does.”
“I know He does,” Keith murmured. “And if you ever want to try church again, just call me. You can go with me instead. Maybe a different place…”
“I thought of that,” Mr. Moretti admitted. “I just didn’t know where to go or if an old Catholic would be welcome in anyone else’s church.”
“You’d be welcome in mine,” Keith insisted.
“What about me? Am I welcome at your church?” Erika’s eyes taunted him. Did she know how hopeful a question like that could make him?
“I’ll pick you up Sunday morning at nine-forty.”
She didn’t answer for several seconds. Mr. Moretti’s eyes slid back and forth, watching. Eventually, Keith decided she wouldn’t accept and started to assure her he’d never pressure when Erika said, “Okay. Do I have to wear a dress?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The man, Sean, folded up files and stuck them in his briefcase. He stood, offering his hand to each of the Wahls in turn. “I know it’s a lot to take in all at once, so be sure to reread everything—several times. It’ll make transition easier.”
“When do we move to the cabin?”
“We’ll be driving you out there in a day or two. We need to wrap up a few more things here. By then, Leo might be able to join us.”
“They’re bringing him here?” Allison sat up and leaned forward. “Can you tell us how he’s doing?”
“Thankfully, the ink on his neck was black. That helped. The tattoo isn’t gone, by any means, but the first treatment did make a significant impact on it. The doctor is pleased.”
She frowned. “Why are you avoiding the thing you know we care about most? How is he?”
“He’s just been removed from his morphine drip, so he’ll be a lot more lucid now. I’ll be going to visit him and walk him through transition as well.”
Allison’s eyes widened. “Oh, no! Oh, oh, no!”
“What?” Rod held his wallet in his hands, clutching it as if to gather strength, but his eyes rose to meet those of his daughter.
“The trial. They’ll see that his ears are closed, or his neck is faded or fading, and they’ll know. They’ll find out.”
Sean shook his head. “We’ve got that covered. He’ll wear a neck brace to the trial at his doctor’s recommendation, but he’ll wear short sleeves to show the arm tattoos. We’ll leave his ears until that’s over.”
“So, he can’t go anywhere.”
“That is why you chose the cabin, I thought.” The marshal stepped toward the hotel room door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. First order of business—get used to those names.”
As the door shut behind him, Allison stared at the paperwork before her. “Elizabeth Watson.” She shook her head. “I’ll never get used to it. Maybe I should have chosen my own name after all.”
Rod nodded. “John Watson. Does anyone read the classics anymore? I feel like a sidekick.”
“Mom likes hers,” Allison smiled at the look on her mother’s face.
“Anne—just like I dreamed of as a girl. I hated Eva until I met your father. I always wanted to be an Anne.”
“Anne Watson has a nice sound to it, but I’ll always think of you as Eva,” Rod murmured.
The room grew quiet—pensive. Allison stared at the name before her until it blurred. Still, it was a new start. A fresh one. “I wonder what name Leo will get?”
Eva came and sat next to her daughter, putting an arm around Allison’s shoulders. “I think that’s a very important question.”
“Why?”
“Because I think it will also be yours. You won’t be Elizabeth Watson forever, will you?”
“I think they’ll name him Leroy.”
The women stared at Rod. “That’s all wrong for him,” Eva insisted. “I could never call Leo that with a straight face.”
“Lawrence?” Her parents shook their heads in unison. “What about if we called him Larry?”
Again, her parents gave a decided negative response. Rod tried again. “Lyle.”
“We don’t even know they’ll start with L. They didn’t stick to our first initials.”
Eva made a good point. All three Wahls—now Watsons—sat lost in thought. Eventually, Allison moved to her bed and grabbed a pillow to hold. “He has to be an L. I just can’t imagine him with anything else.”
“We could call and ask them to have him consider it for you. They said we could choose…” Rod reached for the phone, but Allison shook her head.
“No, let Leo make his own decisions—or not. He’s had enough of his life ripped apart without me getting all stupid over a letter.”
Eva came to sit by her daughter, but Rod never moved. He sat in the same chair he’d occupied for the past few hours, staring at his wallet. A tear splashed onto it. Eva leaned forward. “Rod?”
His eyes rose to meet the concerned gazes of the women. “I just—losing the house and everything with it was hard, but it was taken from me in an instant—gone.” He opened the empty wallet, flipping through the clear sleeves absently. “But this… my identity, my photos, all handed over to a stranger. They stole who I am—or was—at my own request.” Rod’s shoulders shook. “People have asked me what one possession mattered more to me than anything. I always said that first family portrait. It’s gone now.”
Allison and Eva jumped from the bed, rushing to Rod’s side; their arms wrapped around him as they wept with him. Grief spilled out in random and often unintelligible statements as the family grappled with loss and change. A quilt, Rod’s golf buddies, photo albums, Eva’s book club, Allison’s church—each thing that characterized their lives surfaced and disappeared from their grasp nearly as swiftly as it arrived.
Rod stared at his hands. “I joked about early retirement. I guess that happened.”
“You can start a new practice, can’t you?”
Allison’s eyes widened. “Mom, didn’t you hear Sean? If it requires a license like that, it’s out. No lawyer, doctor, dentist—no teacher. Not unless we start over.”
Fear gripped Eva, her body growing rigid as th
e reality of it hit her. “How will we survive? We can’t live on the insurance and savings indefinitely.”
“Dad will start a lab. He always complained about how most were run. Now he can do it the way he thinks is best for dentists. He’ll teach Leo. It’ll give Leo a good skill too. I’ll go back to school or maybe I’ll take up in home health care—get my LVN or something. We’ll make it because we have to. God takes care of His people.”
“We’re not his people, Alli—son.”
She opened her mouth to assure her father that God would take care of all of them—not just she and Leo, when his words tore at her, slashing her heart and into her soul. Tears fell, first slowly before pouring over her cheeks as sobs wracked her body. In recent days, he’d called her that often—Alli-son—separating the syllables with an extra hint of emphasis on Alli. He couldn’t do that anymore. One more thing—something that had become almost the most precious thing to her—stripped away when Allison became Elizabeth.
Rod misunderstood. “We—well, I—want to know more, Allison. I do. I promised to read and understand. I will.”
The words should have soothed and comforted. Broken by change and loss, they didn’t. Not yet.
Leo stepped from the car, his eyes roaming the landscape. He’d never imagined Oklahoma as home. What kind of strange name was Skitooka—Skiatook—something like that. He started to ask, but Allison—Elizabeth now—stepped from the cabin and rushed to greet him.
He braced for impact, knowing it would hurt but unwilling to rebuff her. Allison pulled up short, nearly stumbling into him in her attempt to stop. “I almost forgot. Where are you injured?”
As he gestured to his left side, she squeezed him from the right. “I was so worried. They wouldn’t tell us anything—craziness.”
“Yeah, well, you know how I felt then.”
Allison examined his neck. “It looks different.”
“It should. Only about three or four more treatments to go.”
“Sean said you had to wait until after the trial for your ears.” Her index finger traced the hole that seemed so much a part of him. “I think I’m glad it’ll be a while.” Rod and Eva stepped onto the porch and Allison tugged him toward them. “They’ve been worried about you too.”
Rod stepped forward, his hand extended. As Leo reached for it, Allison’s father hugged him instead. “Welcome home, son.”
Tears sprung to Allison’s eyes. Leo grabbed her hand, squeezing it. Sean urged them inside. “He needs to stay out of the sun for a few more weeks and he needs to stay away from where anyone can see him—like out here by the road.”
His eyes traveled over the house as Leo stepped inside. Though smaller than the Wahl’s home, it was larger and nicer than any cabin he’d ever seen—more of a log home. The ceiling rose to a second story—a loft separating rooms upstairs. Leo swallowed hard as he realized there were only two rooms.
As if on cue, Sean asked the Wahls to go over some financial papers with him and Leo asked if he was allowed to explore the back of the property. “Sure. Just keep the sun off that neck. The gauze—”
“Got it in my pocket. Thanks.”
He followed Allison outside and took in the scenery. She pointed through the trees. “If you walk that way for about a mile and a half, you’ll run into the lake—well, reservoir.”
“I like the furniture out here. Did it come this way?” As he spoke, Leo wrapped his neck in gauze, shielding it from the sun’s rays.
“Yeah. There’s nothing inside except for a couple of mattresses, but the previous owners left this and the grill.” She ran her hands along the log deck furniture and smiled. “It’s so different from home, but I love it.”
“Allison…”
“You’re supposed to call me—”
“I know.” He swallowed hard. “I just can’t yet. Can we talk?”
Leo lowered himself gingerly to the chair closest to him. Though he tried to lean forward, it hurt too much. Gasping for air, he reclined a bit, a flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck. “I went from being a ripped guy to wheezing like an old man in the space of two years—well, almost three.”
“You just got out of the hospital. Give yourself a break.”
Ignoring the admonishment, Leo tried to force himself to say the words he’d been rehearsing for days. Instead, he found himself whispering, “I never got to ask you out.”
“So do it now.”
“We can’t go anywhere,” he protested.
“We can have dinner on the deck—candlelight even. We can go for a walk near sunset. We can watch a movie when Dad gets back with the TV.”
“He’s going to buy a TV?” It seemed an odd first purchase.
She giggled. “Yep. He took one look at that corner by the fireplace and said, ‘That’s just screaming for a TV. I’m going to get one after Leo gets here safe.’”
“I wonder if he’d get me a decent shirt and a pair of jeans. My stuff is gone.”
“He would,” she assured him, “but your stuff is here. Karen sent it with us.”
“My Bible?”
Allison moved to sit on the arm of his chair. She slipped her arm around his shoulder and rested her cheek in his hair. “Yep. I’ve been reading it. I envy you your Bible. Mine’s gone, of course.”
“I don’t think so. Didn’t you keep one in your car?”
“Yeah…” She sat up. “Oh! My car! It’s fine, isn’t it?” Allison jumped from her seat and dashed for the door. “Be right back.”
“So much for a serious talk,” he muttered. A minute passed. “So much for ‘be right back.’” Two minutes. “Minutes get longer every second.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I gave Dad a list. Mom’s going with him. They’re getting steaks, candles, a new shirt for you and an amazing dress for me—gotta look my best for our first date—and a movie.”
“What movie?”
Her eyes told him before her lips opened. “First Drop.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I did. Memories, you know. I asked them if they thought I should go for comedy or romance and they said that living in the same house probably meant romance was a bit too tempting.”
“And First Drop was your idea of comedy?” Leo shook his head.
“Can you call it anything else?”
Here, he had to concede. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
Though he’d intended to discuss their relationship and what it would mean, he couldn’t do it—not before they even had a date. “So many things.” Allison settled on the arm of his chair again. This time, he looked up at her. “Elizabeth, huh? How do you feel about nicknames?”
“Depends on who gives them to me.”
“You’re no Liz. That’s too harsh for you. Beth is too immature.”
“I looked up lists of nicknames for it. I kind of regret letting them pick for me now.”
Leo frowned. “You let them choose? Why?”
“It felt weird naming myself. Mom and Dad didn’t know either, so we just told them to choose something. Dad regrets it,” she added, laughing. “He’s John Watson—as in ‘elementary, my dear.’”
That she hadn’t chosen Elizabeth both surprised and relieved him. It seemed such a stuffy name—not gentle and feminine like Allison. “I’ll have to read one of those. That’s all I know about Sherlock Holmes. ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’”
“So anyway, I checked it out and the nicknames for Elizabeth are things like Betty, Lizzie, Liza, Liz, Lisa, Elsa, Elsie, Tess, and…” She snickered before she continued. “There was also Buffy.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I thought maybe it might be appropriate…”
“No way. I like Tess… and maybe Lisa. We should ask your parents.” After a few seconds, he sighed. “I wish they would have named you Bethany. That fits you.”
“We should consider that when—” Allison stopped herself. “—we have a chance.”
/>
“Yes we should. As it is, I’ll call you that anyway.” Leo wrapped his hand around hers. “Bethany. It fits Elizabeth—sort of. And after all, that’s what nicknames are for.”
“You never told me what your name is.”
“The first name was easy for me. I wanted something close to my name but from the Bible. I could only think of one.”
As Allison thought about it, her thumb traced the knuckle on Leo’s hand. “Bible… close to Leo…” A slow smile formed and brightened her face. “Levi.”
“Yep.”
“I like it. I like it a lot.”
“Good.” He prayed she’d like the last name he hoped would be hers soon. “I tried to find names from the Bible for a last name too—things with meanings of God. Drove Sean crazy trying to search for them all over the Internet.”
“And…”
“Well, with a name like Levi, I ended up with a lot that sounded too Jewish. I kept picturing people expecting me to know what a Torah was or something, so I nixed Abrams, Daniels, Isaacs, and stuff like that. It just didn’t work.” He waited for the impatient flick of her hair that he’d learned to expect when she didn’t want to wait anymore. “So, I just looked for names that had God in the meaning.”
“Okay, if you won’t tell me the name,” she teased, “how about you tell me the meaning.”
“Gift of God—because that’s what this all is. A fresh start that is a gift of God.”
Allison’s cheek dropped to his hair and she scooted closer. “I like it. It fits you. You’ve been a gift of God to my family. In a strange way,” she hastened to add. “But you really have. Dad promised to read some of the Bible—asked without any prompting at all.” Her voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “I really think you did that, Leo. Not the situation—you. Who you are and what Jesus has done for you—that made the difference.”
As he sat there, Leo grew weary, aching for the chance to lie down but unwilling to move until the pain returned. “I need to rest.”
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