Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 3

by Chautona Havig

  Oh, the thrill of her first trip into a brick and mortar fabric store. Nothing could have prepared her for the sheer delight that comes with the rainbow of colors, prints, and textures available on rolls and bolts. She fingered velvets, organdies, chiffons, and cottons. From twill, to denim, to chambray, and calico, the store carried it all. Pattern books were highly distracting, and she spent over an hour pouring through them, wondering just how people narrowed down their choices.

  Unlike most stores she had visited, there weren’t many helpful salespeople ready to answer questions or direct customers to the right places. Willow found that both refreshing and frustrating. To find the help she needed, she observed. She watched several women and one man on the floor until she decided who was the most knowledgeable and most helpful and then went to wait for the man to finish helping an elderly woman find the burlap.

  “May I help you?”

  Something in his mannerisms felt strange. Willow didn’t know how to categorize it, but the man seemed, well, more effeminate than masculine. However, he knew his merchandise, and that was why she was there. She could think through his personality when she was at her own leisure. “I’m making bridesmaid and flower girl dresses. I need a yellow that will blend nicely with the center of daisies.”

  “Oh, finally someone who knows her own mind. This is going to be fun!” His hand gestures, facial excitement, and the exaggerated wink he gave her felt odd, but she followed him to the more formal wear fabrics, listening to his suggestions and taking mental notes.

  “I have a picture of my dress. I don’t even know what I’m going to do for the girls. I’ve only been to one wedding, and so I’m a little out of my element.”

  “Ok, let me see that dress—” The man who introduced himself as Josh, glanced at the picture, back up at her, and smiled. “You’re going to be stunning! That dress—you’ll be a goddess!” Before she could reply, he led her to a line of different chiffons and charmeuses. “I think these are probably the right drape for what you want. Are you going to copy the bodice line or…”

  The way Josh rested his hand on his hip reminded Willow of her mother. She’d always propped one hand on her hip while thinking. “I want something similar as far as the empire waist and the accent there, but I want something different for the upper bodice. I was thinking…” As she spoke, Willow pulled out a notebook and drew a dress with a similar waist and skirt line but falling to just below the knees. “It’s outdoors so I thought if they were in something shorter, it’d be more comfortable. Why should we all have to fight skirts?”

  “Now that’s the way to think. Keep it in fitting with your setting. Your flowers are daisies then?”

  “With lilacs on tables.”

  “Luscious. I love it. Ok, well if you took this here and just crisscrossed fabric, draping it over the shoulders like this…” Josh took the pencil from her hand and made a few sketches. “Then you’d have the same feel, but your dress is still unique as is theirs.”

  “Well I only have one bridesmaid, and then a young girl too old to wear something childish but too young for this look.”

  Josh sat thoughtfully. “How old?”

  “Fourteen, I think.”

  “Oh my stars, I think you are wonderful. So many little girls at that age are wearing nightclub apparel. It’s ridiculous.” He continued as if he hadn’t made a startling statement. “What if, instead of this, we just do a simple neckline kind of like yours but several inches higher so it barely scoops at all from the neck? You could use that for the little dresses too but with a different waist.”

  For an hour, they planned and collaborated until Willow knew exactly what she needed and helped him carry piles of bolts and rolls to the cutting table. He teased and joked with her as he cut until she almost felt like she’d made a new friend. Huge shopping bags stood waiting by the register as she paid for her purchases, shocked at what seemed to her like an obscene amount of money.

  “Well, I guess I don’t need this list anymore,” she said as she asked him to throw it away.

  “We’re glad you came here first! You’ve been the most interesting customer we’ve had in weeks. Congratulations on your marriage,” he continued, “And may God bless you.”

  “He already has. Chad is blessing enough.”

  A wistful look crossed the young man’s face but Willow didn’t have time to ask about it. A cab pulled up to the curb and popped the trunk for them to load her bags. “Goodbye, Willow. Knock ‘em dead at that wedding.”

  She started to direct the driver to the travel hub, but remembering the huge bags of fabric, she demurred. “Can you go as far as Westbury?”

  “Of course,” the man answered in a heavy accent she couldn’t recognize. “But it will be very expensive. I am thinking the last fare was forty-eight dollars.”

  “Not a problem. Thanks.”

  Chad sped toward Willow’s farm lost in thought. Each mile toward Fairbury, left him feeling even more unsettled than the last until he finally whipped his truck around at the rest stop and drove back to Westbury. Through the familiar streets of the city, he navigated around traffic until he pulled into the massive parking lot at his father’s store.

  Stella saw him and the pained expression on his face, and buzzed him immediately into the office entrance. “Go on up, Chad. Your dad’s up there going over this week’s order I think.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’s the girl—is she the one you’re getting married to?”

  “Willow is fine,” Chad assured her. “May.”

  “Congratulations. I always said you’d be a catch.”

  Chad waved and climbed the stairs to his father’s office. He had no doubt that his father had seen the exchange and wondered about it. He passed a few of the employees clocking in and out and waved at the ones he knew.

  “Hey, Chad. What’s up?”

  “Oh, Pop.”

  Christopher never understood this side of Chad. He seemed almost girlie when he was wrapped in emotional knots, and emotions were something that Christopher, like many men, didn’t do well with emotions. “What is it son?”

  “I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  Chad shook his head and sighed. “Be a husband. No, better than that, I don’t know how to be a husband to her—to Willow. You were right. I’m hanging onto my emotions by a narrow tether.”

  “I knew once you opened yourself up, you’d fall hard.”

  “Why do you think I’ve kept the door to my heart locked so tight—”

  Christopher interrupted before the conversation delved deeper into the emotional abyss Chad occasionally skirted. “Well, you don’t have that right anymore.”

  “What?”

  “You offered yourself to a good woman. You can’t hold part of you back out of self-preservation.”

  “But she—”

  Sharply, Christopher shook his head and pounded his index finger on the desk between them. “This isn’t about Willow. This is about Chadwick Elliot Tesdall. Chad needs to get over himself and start denying self in favor of his bride-to-be. You don’t get to offer only part of yourself. Even if Willow holds back, you can’t.”

  “Well I can’t exactly—”

  Very patiently but firmly, Christopher stopped his son’s self-centered ranting. “Son, I’ll say it again. This isn’t about you. This is about Willow. This is about denying self because you love her. This is about denying self because you promised, when you asked her to be your wife, to give yourself—and that includes your needs, wants, and desires, up for her. For her. Not for the marriage, not for yourself or to make you feel good about who you are. For her. You. Will. Deny. Self. It’s what being a husband is. You will—”

  “I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do. I think you’re still stuck in the memory of how it felt to sleep with an attractive woman in your arms.”

  “Oh, Pop.”

  “I’ll give you ice packs at your bachelor dinner.
” A confused look crossed Chad’s face and Christopher winked. “Well, it’s kind of hard to wrap a cold shower…”

  “That was bad—very bad.” He stood to leave but at the door, he turned. “I think I’ll need a couple gross on those ice packs. Just get Chris to go in on them with you.”

  Christopher’s laughter followed him out the door and down the steps. He started toward home again but once more, retraced his path all the way home this time. The weight of his father’s words felt as though they were crushing him. He needed his mother’s perspective as well. The truth his father spoke didn’t negate his need for support and understanding, and time had proven his mother to be an excellent source for both.

  The house seemed empty as he entered. Tiny jars of the marmalade covered every surface of the kitchen and a large number stood stacked on the dining room table next to a case of boxes. The sound of the shower upstairs told him that’s where he’d probably find his mother, but then the metallic ring of the dryer door shutting in the basement sent him downstairs instead.

  “Mom?”

  “I thought you were going home to rest.”

  “I had to talk to Pop, and then you know how that goes, I need a bit of balance after one of his talks.”

  “What did he say?” Marianne knew how personally Chad took her husband’s blunt rebukes.

  “He said I had to give Willow everything I have and that holding back any part of me was wrong.”

  Marianne beckoned her son to the lumpy couch in one corner of the basement. The old couch, the same one she’d sat on as she fed Chad his bottles so many years before, was still the favored location of mother/child talks in the Tesdall house. “Son, you don’t want to hear this, but your Dad is right.”

  “Mom I don’t know if I can—”

  “Let me tell you something. You can do a lot more than you think you can. I’m not going to tell you everything, but there was a time in our marriage when I didn’t trust your father. It wasn’t completely his fault, if anything, it was mostly mine, but I didn’t. At first, he, as justified as it probably was, held back and protected himself emotionally from my tirades.”

  “You—”

  Marianne nodded ruefully. “I said, it was ugly. Anyway, he took it to Pastor Edmundson. Remember him?”

  “Yeah. Old guy. He always terrified me, but I trusted him completely. It was strange.”

  “Well, Pastor E told your dad to treat me like the cherished wife of his dreams.”

  “Even if you were being the wife from the nether regions?”

  Marianne nodded ruefully. “And I was. Really. I was absolutely horrible. I’m so ashamed of how horrible I was.” With a deep breath, she continued her story. “You know, I know that sometimes you feel like your father is distant or insensitive. I know I used to think that sometimes too, but this time, well, I saw the side of him that is where you get your intuition and compassion. He was so good to me, so gentle, so loving. He held my hand, hugged me, held me, and kissed me as often as I’d let him. The more I pushed him away the closer he came. While everyone was demanding that he ‘give me space’ he did all the little things I’d hoped for for years.”

  “Was that when I was in the fourth grade?”

  “You remember,” she whispered. “I always wondered how much you picked up. Chris never did, but you were always attuned to the emotional climate of the house.”

  “I remember weeks of silence except at the table, at church, and when we’d play a game. Then everything was very polite. Too polite. You didn’t tease anymore. Then one day, I came home and dad was stroking your hair as you peeled potatoes. You hated it.”

  “No, son. I hated that I loved it. I’d always hoped he’d show that kind of tenderness, but until that time, he only showed it behind closed doors and with other things in mind.”

  “Gross mom.”

  Marianne waggled her eyebrows and winked. “You asked for it,” she teased. “No, seriously. That is about the time he changed.”

  “I thought you were going to get a divorce.”

  “What!” She’d never considered divorce much less thought her children would imagine such a thing. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “All those weeks of frost and then dad thawed, but you seemed to grow colder by the minute. I didn’t know what was wrong or why but—”

  “That’s exactly what happened son. Your dad lived the Word in our marriage. He cherished me, died to self for me, and loved me in ways I’d always hoped for and hadn’t expected. The reality of it took my breath away.”

  “You guys have been ridiculously mushy ever since.”

  “Libby chewed me out. Royally. Honestly, it was the worst dressing down of my life. I felt a lot like that when I let Willow have it.”

  “You weren’t too hard on her were you?”

  “She had the facts of life. That she knew well. She needed the life of those facts.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  “She’s home. I hear the door. Go help her and act like a fiancée. It’s all new to her in ways that most of us cannot fathom.”

  Half way up the stairs, Chad paused. “I love you, Mom.”

  Chapter Ninety

  The hush of the library reminded Willow of the hospital—without the obnoxious beeping at odd intervals. She sat at the computer and tried to use it but could not translate what she’d seen Chad do with his laptop into the machine before her. The little square that Chad used to move his little arrow around wasn’t anywhere. She looked all over the keyboard, the monitor, and even moved things as she looked for it, but she just couldn’t find it. She stood to ask for help and saw the young man next to her move the little flat-bottomed ball around and that seemed to work.

  Trying again, she sat and moved the mouse around the pad and watched the arrow but couldn’t find the little buttons near the keyboard for clicking on things even though she also didn’t know what to click on in the first place. She stood again. The boy’s face met hers and he frowned. “Got a problem?”

  “Yes. I can’t figure out how to use this thing.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” he whispered back, disbelief written across his eyes.

  “I wish I was, but I’m not. I need to find a place called Google and from there I’m supposed to be able to search for someone.”

  “What are you trying to find?”

  “My grandmother.”

  He clicked around the screen for a second and asked, “Name?”

  “Lynne Solari.”

  He whistled low, earning him several indignant glares from nearby people. “Is she related to the TV guy Solari? The one who owns half of Rockland’s entertainment?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Probably not huh?” He worked for a few minutes but he came up empty each time. “You got a credit card, lady?”

  “Sure.” Willow whipped out her card and handed it to him, but he waved it back. “Just a minute. You don’t just hand your information over to a stranger. What kind of freak are you? You’re asking for all kinds of fraud with that.”

  “Oh. How could that happen?”

  “Are you for real?” he protested. “I could take those numbers and run up huge bills. I could use them to do all kinds of damage. You don’t share your Social Security number, your driver’s license number—”

  “I don’t have one of those,” she interrupted.

  “Ok then, state ID!” A general hushing sent his voice back to hushed tones. “That kind of information is asking for trouble.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know. They always ask for ID when I use the card, so I thought—”

  “Online, they can’t. Anyone with the card number, expiration date, and security code on the back can max out that card.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  “I’ll look away; you type the numbers in here and then hit submit. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Willow eyed him warily. “Then, how can I know it’s safe? I mean that number is in
there if I do that. Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “They encrypt it. It’s safe that way.”

  “I don’t understand. Encrypt, what is that?”

  The kid stared at her as if she’d grown antlers or something. “You punch in the number. It’s just sitting on the screen but you can erase it. Like this. He typed several random numbers and then backspaced. “See, no numbers. No one knows what numbers you just punched.”

  “Ok.”

  “Well, encryption takes those numbers and jumbles them up and spits them out right on the other side for just long enough for your credit card to authorize.” He paused. “Well, it’s actually more complicated than that, but—”

  “Ok, so this is safe.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying to me?” she asked stubbornly.

  “Why don’t you go ask the librarian?”

  “Well,” she protested, “If it’s not safe to give the card to you because you might misuse it, then why should I trust the librarian to give me accurate information.”

  “Cause she’s paid to be trustworthy.”

  Willow hesitated again. After several seconds, the kid threw up his hands. “Fine. Find the woman or don’t. I could care less, lady.”

  Willow motioned for him to move. She carefully typed in each number, rechecked it, triple checked all the information once more, and then with a deep breath, hit the submit button. The moment she did it, she groaned. “I should have asked Bill.”

  “Who’s Bill?”

  “My financial advisor. He would have told me—Never mind. We did it. Now what?”

  Several minutes passed before the kid handed her a dozen papers. “Here you go. The address is right there. If this chick isn’t related to Steve Solari, I’ll eat my Wii.”