Love is Lovelier

by Donna Simonetta

  “I’m going to get a cola, and sit on the porch,” his mother called from the bedroom. “Do you want one too?”

  “Sure, Mom, that sounds good. Thanks.”

  He heard the ice clinking into glasses in the kitchen as he balled up the dirty towels and put them in the laundry basket for housekeeping to deal with in the morning. There were some definite advantages to living on Retreat property, but he was looking forward to getting into his own place, even if it meant washing his own sheets and towels.

  He took a deep breath. His mom knocked his whole world off its axis with one simple statement. Could it really be that easy to have everything he wanted with Heather?

  The screen door slammed, and the loud bang pulled him back to the moment. He walked out to the porch, where his mom sat in one of the Adirondack chairs with two icy glasses of cola on the table between the chairs. He sat in the other chair, picked up a glass, and took a refreshing sip.

  He turned to look at his mom, who looked completely relaxed and at peace as she watched the river flow by the cabin.

  “Can I ask you a personal question, Mom?”

  She laughed in a happy way, and seemed much more like the mom he remembered from his childhood, than the quiet, timid woman she’d become over the years with his father. “You can ask, but I’m making no promises about answering.”

  His lips tilted up, “Fair enough.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Why did you stay with Dad all these years?”

  Her smile stayed in place, but she winced just a bit. “Boy, oh boy, you don’t pull any punches do you?”

  He inclined his head. “I did say it was personal.”

  His mom took a long drink of cola, and looked back to the river to gather her thoughts before she finally spoke. “I guess the short answer is because I love him.”

  Mick frowned and shook his head once. “Could you give me the long answer then, because I don’t really understand the short one?”

  She turned her head to smile at him, but looked back to the river as she talked, “I’d just finished high school, and we got married right after, we were so young. I was crazy about him. He was a couple of years older than me and was the strong, silent type. He seemed so romantic to me, like the hero in one of those gothic romances I love to read. We had you right away, and he was so excited to have a son.”

  Mick cast her a narrow-eyed, skeptical look.

  “He was!” His mother defended her point of view. “He was so proud to have started our little family. He would stand next to your crib and look at you with such wonder in his eyes. Your daddy is a very old-fashioned man, and he believes raising the babies is women’s work, so that’s what I did. And the babies kept coming.”

  “So you stayed with him for us?”

  His mom shrugged. “In part, yes. I never could’ve supported you kids. I didn’t have any outside work experience. I’d been a wife and mother from the time I was eighteen.” Her eyes grew soft. “And I do love your father, Mick. He’s a good man, deep down.”

  “Real deep down.” Mick snorted.

  She frowned. “I don’t like hearing you talk about your daddy that way. He’s a tough man, but he worked hard in the mine all his life to support us, and he’s never laid a hand on any of us in anger.”

  “He didn’t have to; he did plenty of damage with his words.”

  His mother took a deep breath and nodded. “True. And being the oldest boy, I think he was hardest on you. And you always wanted such different things in life from him. You were such a smart boy, so good at sports, and you wanted to see so much more of the world than our little town, and the inside of the mine. It hurt him, and I think it scared him, so he lashed out at you even more. I’m sorry for that, and sorry I didn’t do more to ease your way, but I have to be honest, I didn’t want to lose you either.”

  His mother’s sadness and raw honesty made his eyes burn. Past the lump in his throat, he said, “Oh, Ma, I’m sorry too. I didn’t want to leave you, but I just couldn’t spend my whole life in that damned mine.”

  She reached across the table and patted his hand. “I know, Mickey, there’s no need for you to apologize for who you are and how you’re made. God gave you brains and drive, and it would have been wrong for you to ignore those gifts. Although, I can’t deny I’m thrilled to bits you’ve decided to move back so close to home. The whole family is.”

  Mick raised a brow. “The whole family?”

  His mother’s answer was firm. “Yes. Some of us just know how to show it better than others. You have to understand, Mickey, you’re the first one in either of our families to go to college, so when you were born, we didn’t even think of it as something our child would want to do. From the second he heard he had a son, your father dreamed of working with you, the way he’d worked with your grandpa. When you didn’t want to do it, he was thrown for a loop. It hurt him. Deep.”

  “I guess I can see that,” Mick conceded grudgingly. “But he’s held onto his anger for years. Why has he never gotten over it? When I started in the NFL, people would say things like, ‘your father must be so proud of you,’ and I’d smile and shrug. They thought I was being modest, but I was so ashamed he wasn’t proud of me; I never wanted anyone to know.”

  His mother’s eyes glistened. “I can’t make excuses for his behavior; I’ve done it for too many years. He held onto his hurt and anger for too long, and when Dave and Billy made noises about following your footsteps out of town, it stirred it all up again for him. Now Danny is a whole lot like your father. He never wanted to do anything but follow the family tradition and work in the mine alongside your dad. And seeing Phil so upset about your brothers and you, has made Danny a little hurt and jealous. He followed in your dad’s footsteps, always did what was expected of him, and he doesn’t understand why it wasn’t enough. Why he wasn’t enough for your father. That’s why he’s so resentful about you.”

  Mick stared straight ahead, and huffed out a deep breath. “I never thought about it like that. Man, no wonder Danny is always on my case.”

  “Jealousy is a terrible thing, and whether he meant to or not, your father fostered those feelings with Danny. My hope is someday, Danny and you will realize he’s who he is, and you are who you are, and there can be some sort of peace between you boys.”

  “I’m seeing things in a new light after talking with you, Mom, so I’ll try harder with Danny from now on, but there’s a lot of years of anger and resentment between us. I can’t make any promises things between us will change.”

  His mother held his hand on the table between them, and blinked back tears. “All you can do is try, son, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I tried my best with you kids, but I should’ve stood up to your father a long time ago.”

  Mick squeezed her hand. “You are now, with your trip to Ireland with Joyce.”

  She raised her head with pride. “I am, aren’t I?”

  “You are, and I’m proud of you.”

  She swiped a tear from her cheeks with her other hand. “That means a real lot to me, Mickey. I hope your daddy comes around and stops being so mad at me.”

  Mick wanted to assure his mother his father would get over it, and everything would be sunshine and rainbows, but in his experience the old man could hold onto a grudge like nobody’s business. “What are you going to do if he doesn’t, Mom? I don’t like to think of you living with that kind of crap. You deserve more.”

  His mother jutted out her chin. “I do. It’s taken me too long to realize it, but I do deserve more. So, if Phil can’t get over me taking a once-in-a-lifetime trip with a new friend, then I guess I’ll have to move on and out, because I do deserve more, and I’m not letting his bad moods and opinions rule my life anymore. And neither should you, Mickey. Let yourself be happy with Heather, because you deserve happiness too.”

  Chapter 28

  Heather heaved a sigh of relief as the frantic rush of checkout ended, and the mini-bus taking the guests to the airport pulled away down the l
ong, winding driveway through the woods. Jeff and she waved and smiled until it was out of sight, and they both let the grins fall from their faces.

  Jeff rolled his shoulders to ease some tension and exchanged a knowing glance with her. “That was a tough group, very demanding. You really earned your salary and then some this week.”

  Her pulse picked up at his words: And then some? Had she misunderstood the situation? Were Jeff and Cisco going to offer both Mick and her a piece of the Retreat at Rivers Bend?

  “Thanks, Jeff. I love what I do here.”

  They turned and walked into the lobby.

  Jeff gestured to the door to their offices. “Want to come back to my office? I’d like to talk to you about something on that subject.”

  Heather’s heart rate went from a mellow folk song rhythm to death-metal pace. It seemed like Jeff was going to offer her part-ownership; her dreams weren’t about to be dashed!

  She preceded him through the door he held open for her. “Sure. That sounds great.”

  Jeff frowned, and his brows formed a ‘V.’ “It does?”

  His surprise puzzled her. Didn’t Jeff know how much a stake in the business she’d worked so hard to build would mean to her? “Well…yeah. Of course it does.”

  “Okaaay.” Jeff drew out the word in a dubious tone, as he sat behind his desk, and she took a seat opposite him.

  Jeff fiddled with a little pile of paperclips on his desk, as he stared at them with the intensity he usually reserved for Magda, his daughter, and football. Either they were the most fascinating paper clips to ever come off the assembly line, or her brother was avoiding eye contact with her. Weird.

  “This is really hard for me,” he said at last.

  She smiled at him. “Don’t be nervous. I think I know where you’re going with this little talk, and it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  Jeff looked up, his eyes wide with surprise. “It is?”

  She nodded. “Yes! Well…not always, but ever since we started the Retreat.”

  His eyebrows shot up so fast and far, she was afraid they were going to shoot off his face and through the ceiling. “It is? That long?”

  “Sure,” she said with a little less confidence, as she started to suspect she didn’t know what was going on here.

  “Okay then. Since this is clearly so important to you, I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay on account of Cisco and me. We want you to follow your dreams, baby sister.”

  Her heart, which had been beating like a hummingbird, felt like it stopped entirely for a moment, before it plummeted to her toes. “What? Follow my dreams to where?”

  Jeff shrugged, clearly perplexed by her question, and he held out his hands, palms up. “I don’t know. Wherever they take you?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Hold on a minute here, Jefferson Lee Braden…”

  He winced at her use of his full name. “You sounded just like Mom the time she caught Ty and I sneaking a beer in the barn when we were kids. Why am I in trouble? I don’t want you to go…”

  “You’re firing me? That’s what you wanted to talk to me about? You’re freaking firing me?” Her voice sounded shrill, even to her own ears, but she couldn’t seem to care. She was so furious she was about to let Jeff long for the manure-shoveling punishment he got for the beer drinking episode.

  His eyes shifted, and he went back to bending the crap out of the poor paperclips. “Not firing you…exactly. I definitely wouldn’t call it firing you.”

  “Oh no? Then, do tell, what would you call it?”

  He hesitated, eyes squinted as he seemed to search for the right words. “I’m not sure what I’d call it…maybe releasing you?”

  “Releasing me.” She was pleased her voice was back to its normal, lower register, and less like a fishwife, but she was still ready to string her older brother up in the tallest tree she could find.

  He responded only to her apparent calmness, seemingly unaware of the danger he was still in at her hands. Okay. She knew she wouldn’t really kill her brother, but no jury in the land would convict her if she roughed him up just a little.

  “Yes. Releasing you to your future.”

  “My future doing what, precisely?”

  “Your future to pursue your dreams, Heather.” He cocked his head. “I’m starting to feel like this conversation has lapped itself. What am I missing here?”

  She snorted. “Magda has been good for you; it took you way less time than usual for you to realize you’re being a complete and total dumbass.”

  He threw down the paperclips, and they skittered across the desk, as his nervousness as a boss in an uncomfortable conversation with an employee gave way to good old brotherly anger. “I’m a dumbass now? What the hell, Heather? I’m trying to do what’s best for you—what you want—even though it’s going to leave me and my business in complete chaos, and I’m a dumbass.”

  Her head actually snapped back on her neck at his words, as if she’d been smacked upside the head. Words failed her, and she felt like a just-caught fish, with the way her mouth kept opening and closing. She swallowed hard, and spoke, “I think I’m starting to figure out what’s going on here. Cisco and you think I want to leave the Retreat now that I have my degree?”

  Jeff flopped back in his big, leather desk chair, visibly relieved at the lessening of the tension in the air between them. “Exactly. Yes.”

  She scowled at him, and he tensed up again, and squirmed in his seat. “Then you’re both dumbasses!”

  He sat up straight, and grabbed another poor, defenseless paperclip. “Why? You worked so hard for your degree; we assumed you wanted to use it to move on to bigger and better things.”

  “Bigger and better things?” she parroted his words back at him. “What bigger and better things? Homelessness and the unemployment line? I did work hard in school, yes, but it’s because I’m a hard-worker. Hey, you know what else I worked hard on for years? This stinking business! I’ve been in it every step of the way since it was just an idea we had in a bull session with Cisco when we all lived back in Portland.”

  He nodded. “You have been with us since the beginning. You oversaw the property renovation while we finished the football season in Portland. Hell, you even used to help us clean guest rooms before we could afford a chambermaid. You’ve been a clutch player on this team. We’d never have the success we do now if it hadn’t been for all your help.”

  Tears, both angry ones and sad ones, burned her eyes and throat. Her voice was rough when she spoke, “I worked hard because the Retreat is my dream. I love what I do here; I helped you build this business from nothing, and now my reward is to get fired.” She chuckled humorlessly. “Sorry, not fired, released, while you offer Mick, who is doing a great job, but has been here for like two minutes, a partnership?”

  Now Jeff looked like one of the fish they’d catch when they went out on his little bass-fishing boat. “Hold on here, the Retreat is your dream? You don’t want to leave us? Your goal wasn’t some hotshot job in D.C. or Baltimore, but a piece of the Retreat?”

  She touched her index finger to the tip of her nose. “Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing! Give the man a prize!”

  He sank back into his chair again. “Well, hell, Cisco and I completely misinterpreted the situation.”

  “Ya think?”

  He frowned at her. “Sarcasm isn’t going to help us here, Ms. Snark.”

  “Sorry. I just can’t believe you thought I wanted to leave! I love it here, and when you started talking to me about offering Mick a partnership, I couldn’t believe my ears. I assumed you’d offer me some stake in the business once I had my degree. I know I don’t have the capital to buy in, the way Mick does…”

  Jeff interrupted her, “No, but you’ve got a fortune in sweat equity invested here. Money is not the issue. Cisco and I honestly thought we were sacrificing the good of the business for your happiness. We were trying to do what was best for you. Damn, girl, do you know how many times the two of us hav
e cried into our beer, trying to figure out how in the hell we would keep this place going without you? We’d never be able to find anyone to fill your shoes”—his eyes twinkled—“and not just because your feet are so big.”

  She smiled, and fought against the tears of relief, which burned her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks. “Hey, I’m really tall! If I had little feet, I’d just topple over.”

  He laughed. “I need to discuss details with Cisco, but if you’re serious about wanting to stay at the Retreat…”

  “I am,” she interrupted.

  “Good. Thank you, Jesus!” he grinned. “Then we can offer both Mick and you a stake in the business. Cisco and I want to maintain a controlling interest, but we’ll be able to offer you both lesser percentages. Mick’s business acumen and sales contacts are helping propel us to the next stage, but you’ve been integral to getting us to where we are today. Your day-to-day management skills keep operations running smoothly. We’d be honored to have you as a partner too.”

  She blinked rapidly. “Dang! I don’t want to cry.”

  Her big, burly brother laughed once. “You don’t? That’s funny, ’cause I’m about one second away from bawling here!”

  ****

  As she hauled herself up the stairs, Heather could hear muted music wafting through her apartment door. She smiled, and felt a little bit of the pressure of the workweek, not to mention the emotional upheaval of her meeting with Jeff, melt away with each step.

  Mick must be home from his business trip to Baltimore. She’d missed seeing him at work today, and was glad he was staying with her this week, so she could see him tonight. She pulled her apartment key from her pocket, and was just about to insert it in the lock, when the door flew open.