Without ever having touched her, Abby could’ve sworn Rob was trying to make her remove her bedroom’s virtual padlock, along with every shred of clothing.
Worst of all, on each and every date that wasn’t a date, the conversation had meandered from groundcover, paving stones, and statuary, and inexplicably wound around to reveal pieces of their lives. This afternoon’s not-a-date lunch had included glasses of sauvignon blanc and lubricated Rob enough to admit that when he’d married his college sweetheart, he’d assumed the union would last forever. And Abby had shared that because she hadn’t married her high-school boyfriend, she’d vowed to never again assume.
He wasn’t saying, and she wasn’t asking, but Abby could’ve sworn she and Rob were in a relationship.
Rob’s double-cab pickup, sporting a Campbell Landscape Design decal, crunched into her driveway and parked beside her Toyota single cab, Briar Rose looped across the driver’s side in cobalt script.
“Well, this was a nice midday distraction from work.Thank you for distracting me.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” he said. A hint of mischief lit his eyes, and then he dropped his gaze. He tapped the steering wheel, a forefinger drum roll, nodded, and bit his bottom lip. “There’s something I’m forgetting . . .”
Finally. She smiled, thinking he was ready to call what they were doing, dating, thinking they would finally end a date with a kiss.
“We need to see what the labyrinth site looks like from inside your house.”
“We do?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s time.” He swiped a notepad from the backseat, and then came around and opened the passenger door.
“But you’ve seen the view,” she said, her voice notched higher, for no reason she could detect.
“Only from the public areas,” he said, and understanding prickled the back of her head.
Midweek, she’d asked Rob into the dining room for apple pie and coffee. Last week’s excuse was popcorn and a movie in the Briar Rose library.
Since Luke had died, no one—not Charlie, not Celeste, not even Lily Beth—had ventured beyond the public areas of the bed-and-breakfast. No one had asked, as if they sensed she’d erected an invisible fence to keep back the world.
She didn’t want to be that person.
“Right this way.”
No guests were chatting in the front-of-house sitting area. Casco Bay informational brochures and Maine magazines remained in tidy piles, the way she’d left them earlier. Her display of lavender sachets piled in a large wicker basket on the coffee table before the pineapple-patterned love seat. Beside the basket, the honor bowl contained only the seed money she’d planted. The guest book was open to the most recent entries, thanking her for waffles and fresh fruit, soft sheets and plush bath towels. A silver dinner bell stood beside her leather-bound guest book, a necessary evil for guests checking in to alert her to their presence. On this midsummer mid-Saturday, her rooms were full, and she wasn’t expecting any new guests.
Abby slid the wooden pocket door aside to reveal her private living room. She glanced inside, checking for Luke’s size eleven sneakers blocking their entry, his cereal bowls with pools of day-old milk, cast-aside beach towels. A couple months after Luke had left for school, she’d gotten away from the habit. But in recent months, the habit had returned. And in that split second of forgetting, she allowed herself to hope.
“Tada!” she said, loud enough to mask the quiver in her voice.
Her gray tabby, Sadie, raised her head from atop a tufted throw pillow on the couch. The cat stared at Rob with her big golden unblinking eyes.
“Don’t take Sadie personally. She’s shy,” Abby said, expecting her cat to dash from the pillow and duck beneath the couch’s sheltering skirt.
But when Abby closed the door behind Rob, her shy girl jumped from the couch and made her way across the room, her shoulders rolling, taking her sweet time. She wound around Rob’s denim-clad right leg and rubbed the length of her body against him, from the pink triangle of her nose to the dark gray tip of her tail.
Sadie pressed up against Rob’s left leg, and her purring vibrated the air. “She likes you. She likes you a lot.”
“Looks that way.” Rob grinned down at Sadie, but he didn’t offer his hand for a sniff or a pat.
“You don’t like cats?”
“More of a dog person.”
Abby imagined Rob lying on a four-poster bed, play-wrestling with a big dog. A retriever or a husky or a Samoyed, one of those notoriously loyal outdoorsy breeds. Abby imagined Rob lying across her bed, no dogs in sight. She imagined lying on top of him, nose-to-nose, chest-to-chest, and winding her legs around him.
Rob took a step closer, and warmth climbed Abby’s neck. “She’s marked you with her scent. She owns you now.”
“I thought cats were aloof.”
“Not this one. Girl’s got some definite opinions.”
“Not unlike her owner.”
And then, right when Rob’s gaze held hers and lingered. Right when his hand rose, as though he might touch her hair she’d purposely left down for his touching, a photo on the side table caught Rob’s attention. Charlie and three-year-old Luke squishing cheeks, a kind of father-and-son reunion after Charlie’s college graduation. Out in the open for years, the photo of Luke barely rattled Abby. But Rob tucked his hand into his pocket, and his face darkened. She’d seen that look before. A couple of times, Rob had noticed Charlie’s name pop up on her cell’s caller ID. Letting Charlie go to voice mail hadn’t altered Rob’s expression.
“Sadie’s never cared for Charlie,” Abby said.
“Never rubbed against his leg?”
Never rubbed against any man’s leg. “No way. She used to leave Charlie presents by his shoes.” Especially when Charlie’s shoes slid beneath her bed. That tidbit of information she didn’t share.
“Animal skins?”
She shook her head, scrunched up her face. “Litter box presents.”
A slow smile curled Rob’s lips. “I may have to rethink my opinion of cats.”
How much had she told Rob about Charlie? That, years ago, he’d left her to fend for herself and then returned? That to this day, they remained close friends. She supposed that alone was enough to bring a wicked grin to Rob’s face, if he were jealous of Charlie. Was he?
“Beautiful view. And this room is all you. Kind of like the rest of the house, but more personal.” Rob bunched up his mouth, as though words were jammed behind his lips. “But I was hoping to see more of Luke.”
Her heart thudded in her chest, one deep, resonating note. “Oh?”
Rob touched her upper arm, his hand warm against her skin. “Luke’s things. You know, stuff that was important to him.”
They’d discussed this before. The labyrinth would commemorate her son’s life, and Luke’s prized possessions could provide the telling details.
The reason she hadn’t stepped foot in Luke’s room since she’d chosen clothes for his burial.
Rob wasn’t trying to get into her bedroom. He was requesting entry into her son’s.
An audible breath slipped through her lips, too late to take it back. “You want to see Luke’s room.”
“We don’t have to.”
The intensity of his gaze drew tears to Abby’s throat. “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I haven’t gone in there for months. Not since—” She’d stood in the center of Luke’s bedroom, box cutter in hand, tearing into the boxes of Luke’s belongings delivered from Amherst. She’d run her hands over each article of clothing, the rims of his Red Sox caps, the rungs of his leather belts. His shirts she’d held to her face, trying to extract a remnant of scent, disappointed when, instead, laundry soap burnt her nose. “This must sound nutty.”
“Not at all. When my mother died a few years back, Dad took to sleeping on the couch in his office. Six months straight, he couldn’t bring himself to go back into their bedroom without her.” Rob shrugged. “At least, according to my brother.”
“Not your take on it?”
Rob widened his eyes, his mouth set in a smile-frown of resignation. “Who knows? My father and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms.”
“Why not?” Abby had known people who’d burned through family relationships with their selfish demands, their me-me-me attitudes, but Rob wasn’t one of those people. She’d only seen him give. If she’d known her father, if the subject wasn’t the one topic her easy-going, nature-loving mother skirted, she’d hold on tight and never let him go. Even when she’d been small, she hadn’t bought into Lily Beth’s fable that her father was a merman who’d returned to the sea. Even a merman would’ve come back for her.
“Dad’s got it in his head I had something to do with my mother’s death.”
Abby held a hand to her heart, unable to imagine Rob doing anything to a fly, other than opening a door to shoo it out.
“When Mom knew she was sick, when she knew the cancer—” Rob shook his head, jammed his free hand in his pocket. “Ticked Dad off when she gave me power of attorney instead of him. Ticked Dad off worse when I enacted the DNR. But, hey, what can you do?”
“Your mother trusted you to honor her last request. In my experience, the strong people get the tough jobs. Tough isn’t easy.”
He shrugged again, and his vulnerable expression blanked out, a deliberate numbing. “Got any more of that apple pie?” he said, and she thought of herself standing at the kitchen counter, middle of the night, fork in hand, filled with the hollowness of missing Luke. She’d eaten three quarters of an apple pie before the pain had hit her in the gut. Satisfied, she hadn’t stopped until she’d swallowed the last sticky crumb.
“I thought you wanted to see Luke’s bedroom.” She drew herself up taller, stepped closer to Rob. She forced back the impulse to press her lips against the tanned star-shaped scar to the side of his right eye, to soothe whatever hurt him.
Many a night, she’d considered going into Luke’s room alone, but then she’d talked herself out of it. She knew exactly what she’d find in his room, could picture bedding and photos and boyhood artifacts. But she had the irrational fear that if she opened that door, if she stepped inside, she would unleash something remarkable, something she could never put back.
She’d considered going into Luke’s room with Charlie. With Charlie, she wouldn’t fall apart, because she’d be too worried about Charlie’s mental state, too set in her role of the emotionally strong one. But if all she was worried about was Charlie, she wouldn’t feel a thing. She wouldn’t feel Luke.
Lately, even joy didn’t feel the same, as if on the day Luke had died, she’d taken out all of her emotions and wrapped them in gauze. You couldn’t filter out pain without also filtering out joy.
But with Rob, her new dating-but-not-dating friend Rob, maybe the experience wouldn’t be too much for her to handle or too little to make a difference. Maybe the experience would be just right.
Rob took her hands in his, stilling her unconscious habit of rubbing her thumb against her forefinger. Inside of his warm grasp, her fingers stilled.
“We don’t have to, if you’re not ready,” he said, but she was already moving toward Luke’s door, one foot in front of the other, Rob’s hand in hers.
She opened the door, and they stepped inside.
Sunshine warmed and illuminated the room. Behind Luke’s bed, the wall glowed with photos of Luke and his friends. Luke kayaking out on the bay with his high-school swim team co-captain. Luke cheering with his dorm buddies in the stands at a UMass football game. And at the center, the photo Abby had taped to the wall, sent from Amherst, in a box of Luke’s belongings: a shot of Luke and his girlfriend, Tessa, sitting on a cafeteria tray atop a snow-covered hill somewhere on campus, getting ready to let go and fly.
“His friends meant everything to him.” Ever since Luke had turned thirteen, it was like someone had flipped a switch, turning his attention away from his family and toward the world.
Rob squeezed her hand. “Last fall, Grace asked a friend to help troubleshoot a car problem, instead of me.”
“How’d that turn out?”
“Not so good. The kid didn’t know as much about automotive maintenance as she does.”
She laughed. “You’ve taught her well.”
A gnarled branch of driftwood decorated Luke’s night table. Sea glass filled a glass jar, along with assorted rocks and spare change. On the shelf above Luke’s desk, a glass aquarium displayed Luke’s collection of starfish and sand dollars. Two boogie boards and a skim board leaned against the ends of his bed. No curtains covered the French doors that opened to a small flagstone patio, allowing a clear view to the yard, the perennials, and the future labyrinth site. Luke’s memorial.
Best of all, she inhaled the brine of the ocean, the rubber of Luke’s basketball sneakers, the singular scent of her son. Had he returned to her? She could almost feel Luke’s presence in the room, filling the hollow places inside her. A shiver traveled up her arms and bunched her shoulders.
“You okay?” Rob asked.
A grin, a silly one at that, ached her cheeks. She could tell because whenever she was thinking how proud she was of her son while in her son’s presence, he’d call her out. He’d tell her to quit smiling so hard, while he mirrored her grin. “Better than okay,” she said, and gave a plump section of Luke’s dark blue down comforter a pat. The fabric compressed, and then re-inflated with air, like a living, breathing thing. “But I think this is enough for one day. Baby steps, you know?”
Rob pressed his lips together and nodded. In his gaze, she saw the reflection of the tears in her eyes.
Still holding Rob’s hand, they left the room, but Abby didn’t bother closing the door behind them. “Thank you. I needed to go in there. I needed a little push.”
“You’re thanking me for making you sad?” he said. “I’m thinking you should smack me.”
“Shows how much you know about women,” she said.
Rob angled her a sideways smirk. “Never claimed expertise in that particular field.”
She turned toward him and ran a hand down his forearm until she held both his hands in hers. Until he was smiling so hard his grin surely mimicked hers. “I was thinking,” she said, rising up on her toes, “I should kiss you for making me happy.”
He bent his head to hers, close enough so his words whispered against her lips, and her pulse tickled her throat. “You can’t do that,” he said, “if I kiss you first.”
Before she could mock-protest, before she could fully close her eyes, his lips brushed hers. His hands ran the length of her back, sweet and soulful, sweeping her closer. She held his face between her hands and leaned into the kiss. The firmness of his mouth upended her stomach, as though she were standing on the edge of a cliff. The nub of his tongue edged her hips nearer to his. The unmistakable scrambling sound of Sadie dashing from the hallway opened her eyes.
Sadie raced around the room, the same driven-by-Luke’s-energy school-morning routine the cat had insisted on following, while Luke slurped cereal and gobbled toast, gathered his books and backpack, and readied for classes. Strange, so strange, because she hadn’t done that since.
Abby placed a steadying hand against Rob’s T-shirt, and his chest moved beneath her hand. His pulse beat into her palm. “What took you so long?” she said.
“I didn’t want to scare you away,” he said, and he kissed her again.
A tinkling sound issued from beyond the closed pocket doors, the dinner bell she left in the entryway for guests to beckon her.
Sadie jumped onto the couch and meowed, a long string of vocalizations.
“Sorry, sorry.” Abby untangled herself from Rob’s embrace, slipped his hands from her waist. “Somebody needs me.”
“I need you,” he said, a dare-laced statement, and he tapped a finger to his just-for-show pout.
Abby backed away from him, shaking her head and waggling a finger. She took a few steadying breaths to soften the flush of h
er cheeks, stiffen the wobble in her legs, and set her back in the land of the living.
Abby slid aside the pocket door.
A girl sat on the sofa behind the wicker basket of sachets. Her eyes widened, and she grinned at Abby, her mouth quivering, unsure. The girl’s brunette hair hung past her shoulders, dark, without an ounce of blue. Her face appeared younger, the beneficiary of a light, rather than a heavy, hand of eye makeup. More unsettling, her cheeks were rounder, the cheekbones less pronounced than the last time Abby had seen the girl retreating through her door.
The girl stood. Her hot pink camisole hugged her full breasts and clung to her protruding belly, about six months along. About six months’ pregnant. About five months since—
Abby’s eyes watered, her heart raced in her throat, and her windpipe narrowed around the pulse.
She remembered the ache in her arms the day Luke was born when Lily Beth had whisked her son away to clean him up. But five minutes later, Lily Beth returned her son to her, instantly soothing the ache. She remembered dropping Luke off the first day of nursery school and standing outside, a hand pressed to her mouth. Two-and-a-half hours later, Luke had barreled into her open arms, knocking the wind from her lungs and steadying her pulse.
She remembered last February’s phone call from Amherst, the day she learned when your world is pulled out from under you, you do, in fact, fall to your knees.
The girl blurred at the edges. Her mouth moved as if she were talking, but all Abby could hear was a high-pitched whir. Abby’s arms twitched like a marionette. Behind her, Rob firmed his hands on her shoulders.
Abby opened her mouth, intending to say Tessa. “Luke’s,” she whispered, and the room went black.
CHAPTER 5
One week after their high-school graduation, Abby and Charlie sat on the checkered couch in Charlie’s parents’ den while his sister, Kate, slept upstairs. Abby’s knees pressed together, Charlie’s arm wound around her shoulders. Forrest Gump played in the VCR, the volume set to mute because they’d seen it at the movies. The windows were open, the sound of crickets thick in the air. Off in the woods a bullfrog croaked, deep and ridiculous. Abby jumped, jostling Charlie’s arm, and his beer bottle bumped up against his teeth.
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