by Holly Jacobs
“Seriously. Pearly’s taking Aaron for the afternoon, and Louisa has agreed to do something with me. The only problem is, I don’t have a clue what to do with her.”
“What kinds of things did the two of you used to do?”
“Oh, you know, kid stuff. We hung out, saw movies, went to a few dances, watched television together. We were just together. It didn’t really matter.”
“So what’s wrong with just being together today?”
“That’s what I want, but I want something for us to do while we’re together.”
“You don’t know much about women, do you?”
Joe wanted to retort that obviously he didn’t, since he’d already lost the only woman he’d ever loved once and didn’t want to see it happen again. But he didn’t say it; he just shrugged.
“Do the kind of thing you used to do, forget all your troubles for one day and just have some fun. You two keep circling around the past, so maybe it’s time to forget it for a while and look at the present. This is where the two of you always dreamed about ending up, so enjoy the fact that you’re both here. There’s a great putt-putt course on the bayfront. Go up on the Bicentennial Tower. Eat ice cream. Maybe take a drive out to Waldemeer.”
Joe smiled. “That’s good.”
One day.
One day with no guilt or recriminations about the past. One day just to be Joe and Lou again.
“Yes, it is good if I do say so myself.” Elmer’s chest puffed out a bit.
Joe laughed. “Thanks, Elmer.”
“Just don’t screw it up,” he said.
Joe planned on doing his darnedest to see to it that he didn’t.
“It’s a surprise,” Joe said as he drove down State Street.
“Come on, Joe,” Louisa protested.
She’d been roped into this excursion. She’d have got out of it if she could, but there didn’t seem to be any way to back out. It wouldn’t be so bad if she at least knew where they were going so she could prepare herself.
“You know I don’t like surprises,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” Joe argued, with maddening certainty. “You just think you don’t like them. Sit back and enjoy the scenery. How long has it been since you just sat back and enjoyed a day?”
“I enjoy my life, Joe,” she snapped.
At least, she’d enjoyed the quiet pattern of it all until recently.
Joe had thrown her well-ordered world into chaos.
“Okay, wrong question. How long has it been since you took a day off and just relaxed?”
“Relaxing around you is difficult,” she answered honestly.
Joe sighed a huge, put-upon sigh. “Lou, you’re bound and determined to make this difficult, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she said, grinning despite herself. “When I was young I wanted to make things as easy as possible, but I’m older now and have found that ‘difficult’ is very often better.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yes I am.”
Insane about you, she thought but didn’t say. She watched him as they drove.
They drove a few moments in companionable silence.
A sort of peace settled over her.
Even after all the time they’d been apart, he still did something to her, still touched some part of her no one else had ever reached.
Someplace she’d never wanted anyone else to reach.
“My parents come home next week,” he said out of the blue.
Her moment of peace was shattered. “Oh.”
He stared straight ahead, not even glancing in her direction. “I’m going to call and tell them about Aaron as soon as they’re back.”
About Aaron.
Not about her.
Louisa knew that Joe was here, was with her, for Aaron’s sake, and yet, hearing it put so succinctly stung.
“Okay,” she simply said, mainly because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I was thinking about making a trip down to Lyonsville to see them.”
She wanted to shout, No.
She didn’t want his parents anywhere near her son. She trusted that his mother wouldn’t say anything about why Louisa left. It wouldn’t be in her best interests, after all, and his mother was always looking out for her own best interests. But still, there was a small piece of her that was nervous about what new monkey wrench his parents would toss into their somewhat precarious relationship.
But rather than telling him no way was her son going near his parents, she said, “If you want.”
He glanced at her, and she saw the troubled look on his face.
“Really,” she said, offering him a tight smile. “They’re his grandparents, he should know them.”
He was back, staring at the road, clenching the steering wheel. “I shouldn’t have brought it up now.”
“Sure you should have.”
“No. That’s not what today is about. No more serious talk. We’re not here for anything remotely deep and meaningful. We’re going to have fun if it kills us. And let’s start with…” He pulled into the small lot next to the Harbor View Miniature Golf Course.
“Putt-putt?” Louisa asked.
“We used to play it a lot. I thought it might be fun.”
“Fun for me,” she said, more than willing to take one day off, just one day with Joe and no serious talk.
One day to just enjoy being with him. “I mean, I always liked putt-putt since, as I recall, I always won.”
“I think your memory is faulty, because I remember you as the big putt-putt loser.”
“Want to put your money where your mouth is?” she challenged.
“What do you suggest?” Joe asked.
“Loser buys the winner ice cream.”
“You’re on.”
Louisa couldn’t remember a time she’d laughed so much.
True to his word, Joe didn’t bring up his parents again. As a matter of fact, the deepest discussion they had was whether shooting through the water and making a hole-in-one qualified for the one-stroke penalty for leaving the course.
“Loser,” Louisa whispered as she licked her chocolate-and-vanilla-swirled ice-cream cone.
“Cheater,” Joe answered back.
“Hey, even if I hadn’t docked you a penalty, you would have lost.”
“But only by one point,” he said.
“One point, two points, ten…it doesn’t matter. You lost. Just like you always used to.”
“You know, you didn’t used to gloat this much,” he said.
“Ah, there goes that faulty memory again. Must be a sign of your advancing age, this memory-loss problem. I used to gloat even more than this, and you pouted about the same. I guess some things never change.”
“And some things do.”
She was silent then, remembering all the things that had indeed changed.
He reached out and touched her shoulder, “Hey, that’s not what I meant. What I meant is, here we are, in Erie, just as we always planned. Finish your cone. I want to go up to the tower and look at the lake we dreamed about for so long.”
His hand fell away and he smiled, “Come on, lighten up.”
“You’re on,” she said.
They finished their cones and took the elevator to the top of the tower.
Standing at the railing, Joe slipped an arm over her shoulder.
Louisa didn’t pull away. Couldn’t have pulled away.
His arm felt right.
“We didn’t exactly take the path we talked about, and yet, here we are,” she whispered.
“The lake is as beautiful as I imagined.” He paused a moment, “And so are you.”
Louisa could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks. “I’m average at best.”
It was an old argument.
Joe’s next line was exactly what it would have been eight years ago. “Definitely nothing average here.”
“You’re biased,” she said. “Because you—” She stopped sho
rt.
Her next line would have been, because you love me.
But that was eight years ago.
“Because I’m the mother of your son,” she said instead.
Joe didn’t argue with her change of the script, but he pulled her just a little bit closer.
Love.
It was a word neither of them used. Too much time had gone by and they would never use that word again when referring to each other.
For a moment Louisa felt a sharp pang of regret, but she brushed it aside and concentrated on simply enjoying the day.
“So, are we still in the having-fun mode?” he asked.
“What do you suggest?”
“Elmer said that it’s the last weekend for Waldemeer to be open. What do you say we head over and I take you on the Ferris wheel? He says it’s an awfully big one. Maybe we’ll get stuck at the top and I’ll have to comfort you, because you’ll be so afraid.”
“Ha,” Louisa said with a cross between a scoff and a chuckle. “As I recall you’re the one who’s afraid of heights. I’ll have to comfort you.”
“I can live with that,” Joe promised. “You’ll have to hold my hand and whisper sweet, comforting words in my ear until I forget that I could fall to a certain death.”
Laughing, they headed toward the elevator.
Even before stepping into the car, Louisa felt herself falling and feared that if she didn’t stop herself she would hit the ground with a thud.
Chapter Seven
Sunday had been magic.
Joe winced as he thought the word.
It was much too mushy for a real man to use, but try as he might, he couldn’t come up with a better word, so he was stuck with magic.
He figured as long as he didn’t use it out loud, he was okay.
But he kept thinking it Sunday. And here it was Monday. He’d rolled out of bed, and his first thought was about seeing Louisa.
“So, what do you say we go meet your mom at the store?” he asked Aaron when he picked him up.
He was picking him up every day at school and Aaron didn’t seem to mind it. As a matter of fact, there were times when Joe thought his son looked forward to those moments as much as he did.
“Sure,” Aaron replied. “And then we can stop for McDonald’s on the way home.”
“McDonald’s?”
“Yeah. They’ve got this cool new truck in their Happy Meals. Justin got one and—”
“You want one, too,” Joe filled in.
“Yeah,” Aaron said with a wistful sigh.
“Well, we’ll have to ask your mom, but I think I could manage to spring for McDonald’s for dinner.”
Aaron threw his arms around Joe’s waist and hugged him tight for a moment. “Thanks. The truck, it…”
His son continued to prattle about the truck and his day at school, but Joe was still reliving the impromptu hug.
He reached out and mussed Aaron’s hair and was rewarded with a quick grin.
He felt as if he was on top of the world.
No, take that back, on top of the Ferris wheel again. Elated and able to do anything.
“Let’s go get your mom,” he said, anxious to have the three of them together again.
It was a great day.
It was a day from hell, Louisa thought.
One of the Murphy’s Law sort of days where anything that could go wrong did go wrong.
She needed to make more Mud Pies. They were selling like hotcakes, and her stock was low. Elmer was supposed to come in and help her, but he’d called to say he wasn’t feeling well. So she was trying to juggle customers and chocolate making.
This was one of those days she wondered why she had thought opening her own store was such a good idea.
She started to fill the small chocolate tank from the larger tank in the back room. Tubing carried the chocolate from one to the other. It was a great system.
The bells over the front door jingled.
She stuck her head through the door, ready to shout she’d be out in a minute, when Aaron rushed in, a small whirlwind of motion. She met him halfway.
“Mom, Mom, can we go to McDonald’s for dinner? Dad said he’d treat, but we had to ask you. They’re giving away trucks with the Happy Meals, and Justin got one and it’s so cool and I need one and—Can we?”
“You said it was up to me?” she asked Joe.
He grinned. “Well, we talked about consulting each other, so there was no way I was saying yes before asking you.”
He was teasing. She saw it in his eyes and grinned. “Thanks. But I’d say this is a case where I don’t have a chance in the world of saying no. I mean, we can’t have poor Aaron go another day without his truck, can we?”
“That’s what I thought,” Joe said, trying to maintain a serious face.
“Yay!” Aaron cried. “I love McDonald’s. I want a milkshake, though, not pop,” he told Joe. “I always get chocolate milkshakes, and Mom always gets strawberry. What about you?”
“I get ice tea.”
“Boring, Dad,” Aaron told him.
“Yeah, that’s me. Your boring dad.”
Louisa saw how moved he was that Aaron had called him Dad.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back. She knew she’d let them fall when she wrote about this moment tonight.
Yes, this was a moment that definitely would be immortalized in her journals.
She looked at the two of them and her heart felt filled to the point of bursting.
Filled.
“Oh, my gosh,” she gasped, as she ran into the back room.
“Louisa?” Joe called, following her.
The light on the wall was blinking, and the small vat was overflowing. Chocolate ran in rivers over the side and onto the floor.
Louisa hurried to the switch across the room. Hurried too fast, without taking into account the fact that chocolate was slippery.
Very slippery.
She skated a short distance, then lost her footing and fell. There was a small chocolaty gloop sound as she hit the floor.
“Lou, are you okay?” Joe asked.
“Fine. Could you get that switch?” she asked, pointing to the wall.
Joe started across the floor with a lot more cautious restraint than Louisa had shown. He hit the switch, then turned around, looking rather triumphant.
It was the turn that got him.
Louisa watched him fall in elegant slow motion, his arms windmilling at his side as he tried for balance that never came.
Gloop.
He was down, as well.
“Hey, what about me?” Aaron cried.
With no hesitation, he ran full force toward the chocolate-covered floor, stopping abruptly as he hit the sweet mess, and literally skating across the puddle to the other wall.
“Ha. I didn’t fall.”
“Aaron Joseph, you get off the chocolate while you’re still clean,” Louisa scolded as she cautiously got up. “I’ve already got as much mess as I can handle.”
“But it’s fun. It’s like ice-skating, only with chocolate. Justin thought he was so cool with his truck, but wait till tomorrow. I’ll have a truck and I can tell him I went chocolate-skating. No one else ever got to do that.”
“Aaron, enough. Get off the chocolate, then slip off your shoes and go get me a bucket.”
“Aw, Mom.”
“Now.”
Aaron used a skating sort of gait and started back across the lake of chocolate.
Louisa looked at Joe, who was slowly climbing to his feet. “I’ll help clean up.”
“You don’t have to. The rule here is, If you make the mess, you clean the mess.”
“Ah, but maybe the rules should be, If you have a problem, you call on me. And vice versa. I’m here for you, Lou, even when it’s only a bit of chocolate on the floor.” He looked at the floor and chuckled. “Okay, so maybe this qualifies as more than a bit.”
She got up and looked at the mess. “Yeah, I guess it do
es. I got distracted when the two of you came in, and then Aaron called you Dad and my heart melted. Chocolate was the last thing on my mind.”
She paused and looked at the chocolate-covered man in front of her. “I’m so happy for you.”
She could see a myriad of emotions in his eyes as he said, “For us. I’m happy for us.”
“Hey, here’s the cleaning stuff. I’ll help, Mom.” Before she could say no, her ever-helpful son was skating across the chocolate again, this time in his socks with a big bucket in his hand.
It must have been the bucket throwing off his balance, because suddenly Aaron was falling into the chocolate. But unlike his parents, he bounced right back to his feet, grinning from ear to ear as he licked at his chocolate splattered face. “Cool.”
Louisa looked at her two chocolaty guys and thought, if all her messes ended up being this much fun, her life was going pretty well.
Louisa smiled.
She realized she’d been smiling since the chocolate cleanup. They’d all ended up such a mess, but it wasn’t the mess she remembered, it was the fun. They’d laughed as they’d scooped up the sticky chocolate.
Aaron kept calling Joe “Dad” and every time he did, she and Joe exchanged a look. She knew what he was feeling. It was like old times, but better.
The chocolate incident had marked a significant turning point in their relationship.
Something had changed in that one afternoon.
The difference was there…palpable.
It wasn’t as if the past eight years had been erased. They were still there, standing between them. But it was as if something new was growing around the pain…something that had been a mere bud eight years ago and was finally sprouting.
Louisa knew that Joe realized it as much as she did. It was there in the way he looked at her—quiet looks that felt like coming home.
He was becoming more and more a part of their lives.
Louisa was accustomed to sharing a cup of coffee with him in the morning before she went off to work and he went to bed.
She was getting used to coming home and having dinner waiting for her.
Her heart melted as Aaron gradually began to call Joe “Dad” on more and more occasions.
Watching the two of them grow closer was a dream come true.
