“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
“I’m the jealous type,” he said. “You’re all sassy and confident.”
She laughed. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”
They were at the end of the driveway now. Made of stone and surrounded my meadows of wildflowers, the house looked like something from the French countryside. “Holy crap, it’s gorgeous,” she said.
“I told you,” he said.
They passed Kyle’s car parked near the garage as they walked down a stone path to the front door. Maggie answered the door before they knocked.
“Yay, you guys are here,” Maggie said as she grabbed Honor into a hug. “You guys have been hunkered down in the love shack for a week. We’ve missed you.”
Honor blushed. If she only knew.
They stepped inside the house. Honor gasped. High ceilings with ornate details had been restored to their original state. Dark cherry hardwood floors and a spiral staircase gleamed under new light fixtures.
“I’m sorry to say there’s no furniture yet,” Maggie said. “We’re still working on that part.”
“When will you move in?” Honor asked.
“The minute the bed comes, which should be tomorrow. Trey just left. We were looking through sample books and stuff.” Maggie grabbed Honor’s hand. “Come help me choose some upholstery fabrics. I’ll open wine.”
As they strolled to the back of the house, Honor struggled to remember what it had looked like after years of neglect and a hoarding inhabitant with an affection for free range animals inside the house. None of that was evident now. Painted in neutral colors with dark trim, the house had an airy, light quality.
They entered the kitchen. Light cabinets were paired with complexly patterned gray and white granite countertops. With much of the original detail work and updated appliances and cabinets, it was a perfect marriage between past and present.
“This is spectacular,” Honor said.
“I’m in love with every square inch of this house.” Maggie dragged Honor outside to the backyard. “But nothing makes me happier than this.” The patio was made of white and black tile with a fireplace surrounded by furniture. A rectangular pool looked straight out of a film set in 1925. Beyond the pool, a flat, manicured lawn spread to the metal fence. “Jackson said it reminds him of Great Gatsby now, which I have to say I’m thrilled over.”
“I was just thinking that,” Honor said. “Dramatic.”
For the next hour, she and Maggie poured over the fabric samples left by Trey, narrowing it down finally to one for each piece of furniture. Afterward, they poured glasses of wine and went to sit under an umbrella by the pool.
Maggie reclined in the chaise and let out a long breath. “It’s good to be done recording and have some time to focus on the house and the wedding. It’s a month away already.”
“I heard your dad passed,” Honor said. “What do I say? I’m sorry?”
Maggie’s eyes dulled. “Good riddance, is what you can say. Now, tell me, how are you doing? Have they had any luck finding Gorham?”
“No. He’s disappeared from the face of the earth. I don’t know how much longer we’ll keep the security team, but for now we’re going to stay the course and hope they find him.”
“I’m just praying they catch him soon. You don’t need this hanging over your head during what should be such a happy time. It is a happy time, right?” Maggie smiled and lifted her shoulder toward the spot on the lawn where Zane and Jackson stood talking.
“It’s a happy time,” Honor said.
“About freaking time,” Maggie said.
Embarrassed, Honor changed the subject. “Now that you’re through recording, what’s next for you?”
“I’m off the hook until they finish mixing everything for the album. After it’s released just before Christmas, I’ll be doing a lot of promotional type appearances. Until then, I’m supposed to work on my social media presence.”
“You know, I might be able to help with some of that,” Honor said. “I know a lot of people in show business because of Brody. We should talk about your platform. What are you passionate about besides your music?”
“Dance, of course, but I can’t do that any longer.”
“It might be an angle though. Who’s your PR firm?”
“Micky hooked me up with a group in L.A. Michigan PR, which is a weird name.”
Honor was familiar with their work. “If I were you guys, I’d start pitching this as a second chance story. Former Broadway star receives devastating news about her career and reinvents herself into a folk singer when she moves out west. Something like that.”
Maggie laughed. “This is why you do what you do and all I do is sing.”
“I can see about getting some influencers on board,” Honor said.
“Influencers?”
“Sure. Lifestyle people who can endorse you. Create a little buzz. And Brody and I should host a party and invite all his famous friends.”
“Kara mentioned something about that too.”
“I’m on it,” Honor said. “Parties happen to be one of my strengths.”
Honor and Zane sat with Hugh on the lawn of the memory care facility. They’d had lunch first and then ventured outside to sit in lawn chairs under the shade of an oak. Bees hummed in the fragrant flowers that lined the fences. Birds sang from trees. The rolling manicured lawn was green and lush and the sky a brilliant blue, all in sharp contrast to Hugh. Throughout lunch, his eyes stared at them without recognition, although his innate politeness remained from a time before the disease took his memories. Honor could see him struggle, like a baby right before they walked, tentative, worried but determined, trying with all his might to place who they were.
She would make him remember. Today, for her, he would come out of hiding because he must know that her dream had come true. Hugh’s kindness had brought them together. Zane Shaw loved her. And she loved him. Please, God, bring him out. I’ll never ask again after today. Just please, give me this.
She scooted to the edge of her chair to get closer to Hugh. The little boy he once was seemed to gaze back at her with innocent blue eyes, despite the wrinkles etched across his skin. With each visit he appeared older on the outside. However, his mind aged in reverse. This disease took one backward. He remembered events from his childhood but not of the most recent past. She was part of the tail end of his life. She had been the first to go. The doctors said that was normal for dementia patients. Normal, she wanted to shout. Normal is growing old without losing the only thing we have left at the end—our memories.
It wasn’t fair. Nothing was. No one needed to tell her that. So much of life was about luck. Where and to whom you belonged was nothing but a gamble. A shake of the old dice by the big guy in the sky. All of it without sense. Her life proved that. But what of it, you whiner? Bitterness could eat away the lining of a person’s stomach. Nothing to do but make the best of what you’ve been given. Hugh taught her that. Hard work makes a good life.
“Beautiful day,” Hugh said.
“Yes, it is. Reminds me of the first day I ever met you. Do you remember?” Honor asked. Come on, Hugh. One more visit. Please, God.
Hugh cocked his head to the side, observing her. And then, like the lights coming back on after a power outage, his eyes focused and his true self rose from the murky prisons of his mind. “Honor Girl. How you been?”
Hugh. It was Hugh. Really here. “I’m really good. I’m here with Zane.”
Hugh looked over at his son. “Zane, you taking good care of my bar?”
“Yes, sir. It’s running like a top,” Zane said.
“You still taking over the world, Honor Girl?” he asked.
“A little each day,” she said.
“You were such a little thing when you came in looking for work,” Hugh said. “Like a wounded bird, you were.”
“And you nursed me back to health,” Honor said. “You changed my life.” She couldn’t go on.
The words she wanted to say seemed like platitudes incapable of expressing how deeply she loved him, how his kindness had opened her to the possibilities of life. She had to say it all before he left them again. “Everything good in my life I owe to you.”
“Not true. We make our own luck by hard work,” he said.
“Zane finally noticed me. We’re in love.” She flushed and turned to look at Zane, embarrassed, until he flashed her a bright smile.
“I noticed her big time, Dad.”
“It’s about darned time. The way you mooned over that boy.” Hugh laughed and slapped his thigh. Hugh laughed. The real laugh, not a polite chuckle meant to deter them from his confusion. How long had it been? She’d almost forgotten the way it erupted from him in a burst of low-pitched staccato notes trapped inside his chest for too long. Was there a better sound in the world? “Honestly, I thought you’d break every dish in the place when he was home for the summer.” The old Hugh, right before their eyes.
She looked over at Zane. Glazed eyes and splotches of pink on his cheeks gave him the look of a feverish child.
“I used to pray he’d smarten up and realize he was face-to-face with his soulmate,” Hugh said.
“I did, Dad.” Zane moved from his chair to kneel on the grass next to his dad’s chair. “I’m going to marry her too. As soon as she says yes.”
“God answers prayers,” Hugh said. “I knew you were made for each other from the first moment I ever met you, Honor Girl. I thought, now here’s a girl worthy of my boy.”
I’m going to marry her. Was it true? Could she believe in this bliss that heaved and pitched into every raw and naked place? She would have this man by her side the rest of her life. The idea of it made her almost dizzy with happiness.
“Why Dad? What did you see?” Zane’s words resounded with the desperation of a man who knew that they borrowed from time. He would leave them again soon.
“It’s a quality down deep. Grit, cleverness, and compassion all mixed together. As a team, the world will fall at your feet.”
“You’ll say yes, won’t you Honor Girl?” Hugh asked.
“Yes sir. I will.”
“Listen now,” Hugh said. “Very carefully. You’ve found the loves of your life. You’re the lucky ones. You hold onto each other with everything you have. Promise me?”
“Yes sir,” Honor said.
“I will, Dad. I will.” Zane placed his hands over his father’s. “Thanks for all the sacrifices you made for me.”
“Nope, it wasn’t like that. Don’t think for a second it was a sacrifice. You were a gift.” Hugh looked over at Honor. “Beautiful girl, take care of my boy. No one’s ever as tough as they seem, even this knucklehead. I love you kids. Remember that, no matter what happens.”
Zane nodded. “Dad, Sophie Grace comes to see you. She knows about you and what you did for her.”
The rims of Hugh’s eyes reddened. “Sophie Grace. My baby girl. You tell her I love her and that I was there all along, watching from the sidelines, cheering for her.”
“She knows, Dad. You told her. It made her happy to know the truth.”
“Did I? Good. I’m going to see Mae tonight. I’ll tell her how all our kids are doing just fine.” Honor’s chest ached. Mae and Hugh’s baby had been Sophie. If only they’d had a chance to raise her.
Zane’s expression morphed from happy to wary. “Mae’s been dead a long time, Dad.”
“I’m taking her dancing tonight,” he said. “Someplace fancy so she can wear her high-heels.”
How she wished that afternoon could go on and on, but their borrowed time had come to an end. Shutters had come over Hugh’s eyes as quickly as they’d lifted. He stared up at the sky, his face slack and removed.
“Dad. Dad, do you want anything?” One last plea to keep him with them.
“I’m sorry, young man. May I help you?” Hugh asked.
Zane rose from his knees and bowed his head. The sag of his shoulders pierced her resolved to be thankful for the moment they’d had. But no, she must be grateful. Her wish had been granted. Honor stood and wrapped her arms around Zane’s waist and rested her cheek against his chest. “We had him for a moment. I got to tell him about us,” she said. “I wanted that so much.”
“What happened to make him suddenly so lucid?” His heartbeat thumped against her ear. “Why can’t he stay?”
“I don’t know,” Honor said.
“You’ll marry me, right?”
She smiled against his chest. “I promised Hugh, so I guess I’m stuck now.”
“I’ll ask you again. Somewhere special, okay?”
“I just had it. Nothing could be better.”
Honor watered her orange tree using a soaker at the end of the garden hose. Inside, Zane made them grilled cheese sandwiches on her cooktop. The mid-afternoon sun flooded the patio and warmed her bare shoulders and the top of her head. She twisted her ponytail around her index finger, enjoying the way the heat clung to the strands. After all these years, she still marveled that her hair had come back—that it could be warmed by the sun or made into a ponytail, both simple pleasures she wasn’t sure she would live long enough to enjoy.
As the water seeped into the soil, she breathed in the scent of her precious oranges. Over the past few days at least a half-dozen had ripened. They dangled on the stems with their fervent color in bright contrast to the green leaves. The nasty crow was nowhere to be seen. Typical. The little cheat wouldn’t show up when Zane was here, simply to make her look like a liar.
The security group had called and said they were having trouble finding someone for the day shift, so she’d told them not to worry about it. They assured her they’d have someone for the night hours. In broad daylight and with Zane here, she didn’t need to worry.
From this spot, she could see directly into her neighbor’s yard, just below and to the right of her house. On the awning that hung over the neighbor’s patio, a fluffy gray cat with rather large paws slept. As if he felt her gaze, he woke, stretched, and yawned. Intense green eyes watched her before he let out a lengthy meow. Was he a bunny killer? She hoped so. Because if it was him, she could rest easy in her own house. As horrific as the sight of that poor, dead bunny had been, a cat couldn’t be faulted for following his instincts. It was the natural order of things. Unlike a child abuser.
She called to the cat in a high-pitched voice: hi kitty, kitty. He meowed back, friendly but without urgency—like, hey lady, what’s up? She tried to recall his name. Had she heard the children next door calling to him? If she had, she’d blocked it out with her crafty survival skills. If she allowed them to penetrate her well-built walls, they might rip open the invisible wounds that hid her shame, her childlessness. Or was it that they reminded her of her own childhood? The girl nobody wanted.
Today seemed too bright and lovely to hold the likes of Gorham in its midst. Still, she knew it did. Somewhere, a beast made his way to her. This was the way of the world. The noble and wicked, the dreadful and exquisite, the agony and ecstasy, all intertwined and coexisting like warring twins. At any moment, one could crush the other. A person couldn’t know when or how hope would be lost or restored. She hated the precariousness of it all. There seemed nothing to know for sure, or to count on, or for goodness sake, to just relax into with a relieved sigh of contentment. Instead, the unknown was always out there like an unexpected drop from the highest building. What would come tomorrow? Should I be afraid or hopeful? That was the rub, so to speak. The damn mystery of it all made a person unsteady and fearful. When would something good be torn from us? Can I dare hope for something good?
Like Hugh today, for example. Here for those few glorious minutes and gone the next.
She’d known this truth for longer than she should have. Children shouldn’t have to know at six that their mothers are infallible or weak or sick. Later, perhaps, but not as early as she understood it to be true. Her own cancer diagnosis had been a shock, but not as much as it should have been f
or an eighteen-year-old woman. Ah, yes, another package of hell. I expected as much.
She picked an orange and held it to her nose. Warmed from the sun, the fruit’s zesty, dense scent almost made her dizzy. Inside, Zane’s blond head was bent over the cooktop. He hadn’t said much on the way home from the memory care facility. She hadn’t felt like talking either. There was something bothering her about Hugh’s sudden lucidity, like she had traded something for it. Ridiculous. God simply answered her prayer. She looked back at Zane. He flipped a sandwich and then another. He looked right in her kitchen, like he belonged there. They would live here when they were married, she supposed. Sophie could take the apartment. Then everyone would be where they belonged.
The neighbor’s cat leapt from his awning over to her patio. He perched on the railing and sat on his haunches with an expectant look. She walked over to him and scratched his head. But no, that’s not what he wanted. He lifted his chin and closed his eyes. When she did his bidding and stroked his chin, he purred and smiled. “Good boy,” she said. “You take care of that crow for me and there’s some fish in it for you.” Crows not bunnies. She lifted the tag that hung from his collar. Shadow. “You are a shadow, aren’t you, boy?”
Meow. Purr.
She turned the water off and grabbed the picked orange she’d set aside while petting Shadow.
“Hey,” she said as she stepped inside the kitchen.
“Hey yourself.”
She placed the orange, like a prize, on the counter in front of him. “I present to you my harvest.”
Zane grinned. “You’re a woman of many talents.” He had already moved the sandwiches onto plates and set them on the table. They settled down to eat. White cheddar melted down the sides of the bread and the rich, buttery smell of the grilled bread was enough to weaken her knees. She took a bite, ravenous.
“This is good,” she said. Like home. “How did you know this was my favorite?”
“I remember you saying it once,” he said.
“Really?”
“I told you I noticed you.”
She rested her cheek in her hand and watched him chew. How did a man look so good with a mouthful of food? This would be her husband. Her husband. Every day she would wake up next to him.
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