by Liz Flaherty
“Oh, good. How about now?”
He’d been examining the tiny panties closely. He raised his head. “Now?”
“Why not?”
Her eyes were wide and entirely too innocent, the laughter in them so obvious he almost heard it. He climbed off the bed. “Okay.” He sauntered toward the doorway.
“Okay?”
He turned and went back to the bed, pushing his pants down his legs. “Maybe in a little while?”
“Maybe.”
“I think we should do it too. Maybe at Christmas time, so we’d get lots of presents.”
Grace looked up from the last chapter of Heart of the Hero, peering at Dillon through the top lens of his bifocals. “Do what?”
“Get married.”
Chapters Ten through Twenty-one went slithering all over the bed when she dropped her knees to stare at him. “Who?”
“You and me.”
She thought of the two-point-three children, the van, the Victorian house in the suburbs, of spending the rest of her life knowing Dillon Campbell was going to show up for the prom every time. He loved her and had slain every dragon in her life. He not only gave generously of himself but accepted and cherished what she gave him.
She continued to gaze at him, lying beside her with Mary Higgins Clark’s latest mystery open in front of him. He squinted to read because Grace was wearing his glasses. His dark blond hair was mussed from the earlier activity that had taken place between them. His lips quirked in the familiar half-smile.
Oh, to spend the rest of her life with him…
“No,” she said, and began to straighten the paper spilled over the bed.
He closed the book, marking his place with his finger. “Why not?” he asked mildly. “I love you, you know. I can’t imagine spending another day of my life without you. I’d like to have children with you, sleep with you, fight with you forever.”
“I’d like that too,” she admitted, “more than anything. It would be even better than running a bed and breakfast and talking to cats. I love you too. It’s scary, loving someone this much. But I want all of you.”
His lips lifted again, but the smile didn’t even approach the silver-glinted eyes. “What part’s missing?”
She lifted the pages of manuscript. “The part that belongs to her.”
“I have a past, Grace. I’ve never denied that. I can’t pretend I never loved someone else.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing? I don’t even know her real name, for God’s sake. I don’t want you to forget her. I want you to acknowledge her. You’ve put her in some dark and lonely place and if you loved her, she deserves better than that.” She rose to her knees in order to face him fully. “Don’t you understand? I want all of your heart, but I don’t want you to take her out of it before you give it to me. I don’t mind it being scarred, but I do mind it having big empty places.”
“You’re talking in purple prose, and you’re asking too much.” His words and stance were stiff, his eyes dark with resentment. He laid the book on the bedside table, not bothering with a bookmark.
“Am I? I’ve shared every part of my life with you. When I didn’t want to, you made me anyway. When I told you everything, it became bearable because the weight was shared.”
He met her gaze full on, and a fissure split on the edge of her heart. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t.”
Chapter 27
“It’s not working, you know.”
Grace ignored Promise and continued to fold. She’d get up in a minute and fetch a needle and thread and stitch hems back into the sheets. When they whipped around in the wind the threads jerked right out.
If she didn’t listen, the words wouldn’t have been said.
“Grace.” Promise’s voice was soft.
“No.” She couldn’t bear to see the resignation that had settled into Promise’s features. The expression was almost serene, and Grace hated it. She wouldn’t look at her. That was all there was to it.
But she did. She raised her head and gazed across the table at Promise. “I’m not listening to you,” she said past the panic that rose in her throat. “You’re just trying to get out of the treatments because you’re tired of wearing a wig.” Please, pick up the ball one more time.
Promise got up, going to the counter where tea steeped in a pot under a crocheted cozy. She poured the hot liquid into cups with silver around their edges and brought them to the table. She moved slowly, limping slightly, her shoulders hunched inside the sweatshirt she wore. She’d grown so thin that her wrists were bonier than Grace’s. Her fair skin was translucent. She wore a bandage on her finger to keep her wedding and engagement rings from sliding off.
“I’ve already gotten out of the treatments,” she said, stirring sugar into her cup. She raised her eyes. Eyes that had not changed along with the rest of her. They still shone bright and blue and loving. “I’m not having any more, because they’re not doing any good. My cells metastasize faster than we can kill them, just like my mother’s did.”
“You’re giving up,” Grace accused.
“In a way, yes.” Promise reached for her hands and held them on the soft surface of a folded sheet. “I’m giving up the long haul because the trip has become too arduous. I know I’m not going to have children, grow old along with Steven, or retire from teaching.”
Grace pulled her hands free and lifted her cup, cradling it in a search for warmth. She couldn’t hide from this. There was no longer any safety in the attic. “Promise,” she said in a whisper, then cleared her throat. “What can I do?”
“They won’t tell me how long I have,” Promise said, “but I know it’s not long. This will be my last Christmas and I want it to be a happy one. I want you to help Steven to let me go.” Her smile was like a benediction. “And I want you to be happy, my dearest friend, whether it’s with Dillon or without him. Don’t make me leave you knowing you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing other people’s laundry and talking to cats.”
Rosamunde meowed indignantly from her seat on Grace’s bare foot and they laughed even as tears slid down their cheeks.
Promise recaptured Grace’s hands. “I’m not brave, just accepting. And I’ve had such a glorious life. I did a job I loved and did it well. I’ve loved and been loved by Steven, even though we didn’t always do it right. And I’ve had you as my best friend. I’m not going to complain, and neither should you.”
Grace closed her eyes on the stinging tears and remembered some of what she’d said to Dillon before he left for Boston the week before. “It became bearable because the weight was shared.”
Dillon had shared the weight of her burden. She could do no less for Promise.
“I will do anything for you I can,” she said. “At least unless you get really weird and start asking me to put you to sleep. If these are truly to be the last days, let’s make them good ones.” She scowled at Promise under her fringe of bangs. “However, I will continue to complain any time I damn well please.”
Promise laughed, and there was no sign of weakness in the husky whoop, no mournful death rattle in her throat when she said, “Oh, Grace, you are such a bitch.”
“I know.”
“And I love you so.”
“Same goes.”
“I don’t like taking the guesthouse. Where will Dillon stay when he comes back?” Maxie said, her hands fluttering nervously.
Grace shook her head. “He’s not coming back.”
Jonah snorted.
“I don’t like pushing you and Jonah out of your room, either, Maxie,” Promise fretted from where she sat at the table. “I feel like such a wimp because I can’t manage the stairs anymore.”
“You are a wimp.” Grace grinned at her. “Now, finish sorting those ornaments or that sequoia-size Christmas tree Steven brought home is going to be pretty naked.”
“Naked?” Steven came into the kitchen, his thin cheeks flushed with cold. “Who’s naked? Why do I always miss the really
interesting conversations?” He went to the coffeepot, stroking Promise’s cheek as he passed. “I think you’re all moved, Max. I put your dirty magazines under the mattress, Jonah, after I’d finished reading them.”
“Those are Maxie’s.” Jonah held up protesting hands.
His wife smacked him. “Go on with you. How are you coming, Prom?”
“I think I’m done. If someone wants to carry these into the parlor, we can get that big bugger decorated.”
“Here you go, Gracie.” Steven plunked the decorations box into her arms and swung Promise into his. “Let’s go for it. We have to get it done before Faith comes over and tells us how to do it.”
“She wouldn’t.” Grace led the way through the deserted dining room. “She’d wait till we were all out of the room and then put everything where she thought it belonged.” She sighed. “And she’d be right. The tree would be a lot better when she was done with it.” She set down the box and surveyed the bare pine that sat in front of the big window. “Geezy Pete, Steven, did you get a lumberjack license before you cut this sucker down?”
It’s like setting a stage. We play the right music, say the right things, laugh at the right times. Promise is dying, Steven’s heart is broken, Maxie and Jonah are staring into each other’s eyes on borrowed time. Why bother when the words stick in your throat and the laughing is just so you won’t blubber like a big baby? What’s the freaking point of it all?
A side glance at Promise’s sparkling eyes answered her unspoken question, and Grace discovered she could speak without clearing her throat first and could laugh without the sound ending on a gasp.
She was lying on her back under the tree attaching the plugs of the light strands to each other when she heard Steven’s smooth drawl. “You’re late, Campbell.”
When Dillon’s voice answered, she felt her slamming heart slip back into place. “I don’t know why you say that. My present’s right there under the tree where it belongs.”
She was at the kitchen table with Maxie and Jonah when Dillon came in the next afternoon. Stacks of white cotton underwear sat before her, and she frowned at them. “I have to talk to Becky Rountree,” she muttered.
“Go for it.” Dillon answered, even though he hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. He poured coffee for himself and freshened the cups on the table. “What do you think of Christmas?”
“I like it,” she said. “I think we should have it every year.”
Steven and Promise came in the back door, bringing with them a gust of cold air. “I absolutely love going to the mall with a woman who has no clue what she’s shopping for,” Steven said. “It was sheer bliss. Any coffee left?”
Promise went to pour it and handed her husband a cup. “We talked about a divorce on the way home,” she told Grace, sitting down and taking a pillowslip from the basket between them. “But we decided we’d wait a while, since I gave up my apartment and he doesn’t want to go back to Knoxville before Christmas. He says they’ll make him go back to work.”
“Lazy little fella, isn’t he?” Grace said. “Can I come and stay with you when you’re divorced?”
“Maybe Christmas Eve,” Dillon said, “at the church before midnight services.”
“Nah, we always eat afterward,” Steven said. “It’s no fun eating when you know you have to get up and go to church.”
“I’m not talking about eating.” Dillon glared at him.
“Well, then, what are you talking about?” Promise asked reasonably. “We can’t open presents on Christmas Eve. It would take all the fun out of making Grace wait. Besides, that’s when Grant’s family celebrates. Grace, there are thirty-two pairs of underwear here.”
Jonah got up, his shoulders shaking with what Dillon was pretty sure was laughter at his expense. “Anyone want a sandwich? I’m cooking.”
“Oh, good, I’m starving. Steven doesn’t understand that people who are recovering from chemotherapy need to eat whenever they’re not throwing up.” Promise moved to help him take leftovers from the refrigerator.
“I think all bald people are like that, not just ex-chemo patients,” Grace said.
“Bitch.”
“Whine-ass.”
Dillon leaned against the counter in front of the sink, shoulder-to-shoulder with Steven, and laughed. There seemed to be little point in doing anything else. “Grace,” he said loudly, “will you marry me at Christmas?”
Grace was walking toward him, the basket containing Mrs. Rountree’s thirty-two pairs of underwear in her arms. She—and everyone else in the room—stopped moving. Her eyes lifted to his, their gaze a sweet mingling of unspoken thoughts, none of which he could read.
“Is there the remotest chance,” she asked finally, “that we could discuss this in private?”
Steven lowered his cup. “Why would you want to do that? Honey,” he addressed Promise, “maybe you should call Faith. She’d hate to miss this.”
“Grace and I have already discussed it.” Promise stacked the rest of Mrs. Rountree’s clothing into a basket. She straightened, a tiny frown of pain crossing her face, and nodded sagely at Dillon. “She’ll marry you. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“We should decide what you’ll wear, dear,” Maxie said, hipping Steven and Dillon to one side so she could fill three glasses with water and waitress-carry them to the table. “What do you think, Promise? Her khaki-colored overalls? They don’t have grass stains on the knees yet.”
Steven stepped away from the counter. Dillon watched as he lifted divided pill cases from the middle of the table and dispensed medication to Maxie, Jonah, and, with a tender sweep of his hand over her cheek, to Promise.
A glance toward Grace told Dillon that she, too, was watching the tableau. Her gaze lingered on Promise, and he saw Grace’s shoulders round under unseen weight.
“How could you?” Grace set down the basket she was carrying and stood in the middle of the cobbled street, her hands fisted on her hips. “You know why I won’t marry you. How could you bring it up in front of everyone like that?”
“Do you still love me, Gracie?”
She hesitated, unwilling to give him the upper hand. As if you’ve ever in your whole life had the upper hand. “Yes.” She picked up the basket and continued toward Mrs. Rountree’s house.
“Then why won’t you—”
This time she dropped the basket, and the white cotton underwear nearly bounced over the top. “Don’t you understand?” she demanded. “I don’t want to make do. I don’t want to settle for less. I don’t want the part of you you’re willing to give away because it won’t hurt.” She stared off past him, unwilling to meet the silver glinted eyes. “Ever since Mama died, I’ve had the leftovers. I stayed with Papa so Steven and Faith could have a life. I take my meat from the table last so everyone else can have the bigger pieces. Before I started making my own, I even used cheaper laundry detergent for myself than I did for everyone else. And I don’t mind that. I like being able to make people comfortable. It’s not a martyr thing or anything like that. It’s just something I like doing.”
She chanced a look into his eyes and caught a hint of laughter. She felt a surge of fresh anger. The sorry sucker was enjoying this. Here she was, slopping her heart around on her sleeve in the middle of Lawyers Row, and he liked it.
“But—” he urged.
“So just this once,” she said, shaking her finger at him, “I want to be completely, childishly selfish. I don’t want the leftovers. I want it all. The whole tortilla.”
“Enchilada.”
“What?”
“Enchilada. You want the whole enchilada.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you didn’t. You said—”
“Never mind what I said. Listen to what I mean.”
“It’s hard for me to,” he admitted, “when I’m aiming right at the unselfish side of you.” It was his turn to look somewhere beyond her, and grief diminished the laughter in his eyes. “Promise is go
ing to leave us,” he said quietly. “We both know that. I would like her to feel easy about you, to not feel as though she’s leaving you alone. I know it’s all symbolic—” he lifted his hands to forestall her objections “—that you’re an adult who can care for herself whether you’re alone or not. I also know that however much I love you, she loves you nearly that much too. And as much as you may love me, right now you love her more. She’s your primary concern, not us.” He smiled crookedly. “To tell the truth, I’m probably more concerned with Steven right now than I am with you too.”
“Isn’t that a clue?” she said. “If we were in love, the kind of love that marriage goes along with, our best friends wouldn’t even be part of the equation.”
“This isn’t a book you get out of the library and read on Saturday night, Gracie. In those books, the endings are happy, all the strings neatly tied in bows, and the hero and heroine’s story is the one that counts. If we’re the lead characters in this story, we’re not doing a very good job of it because right now we’re not the ones who matter most.”
She picked up her basket and walked on, keeping her back straight. He caught up, stopped her and transferred some of Mrs. Rountree’s laundry from her basket to his. “She wouldn’t like it worth a damn if we decorated the street with her underwear, now, would she?” He smiled at her, though his eyes were still sad, and she stared at the basket in her arms. At the burden he had lightened.
“Okay.” She gusted a sigh that caused her straggly bangs to flutter in front of her eyes, “I’ll marry you on Christmas Eve if Deac can find the time.” She continued down the street, and when he tucked his basket under his arm and put his free one around her shoulders, she leaned into him. Just a little. Then she said briskly, “But I’m not wearing some fancy white dress like Promise will want me to, and Faith isn’t getting me into high heels, either.”
“Fine with me.”
“Just so you understand.”
