HF02 - Forever After

by Deborah Raney

  “No really. I swear. I may stop counting at thirty-nine, but honest, I’m twenty-nine right now. For real.” She held up three fingers in a Scout’s honor gesture.

  He laughed. “Okay, okay, I believe you. It’s nice you have someplace to go. I do, too, just so you know. Ma’s renting the house to me as long as I want to stay.”

  “Over on Bramblewood, right? I always liked that house. Not that I’ve ever been inside …”

  “Yeah, it’s home. But it’s going to feel awfully strange rattling around in there by myself. Me and the cat.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean. And I don’t even have a cat.”

  His face fell, as if he’d just realized the implications of his words. “I’m sorry, Jenna. You already know what it feels like—to be alone.”

  “Hey, I don’t have a corner on the market. You’ve been there, too.” She was saying the things she knew he expected her to say. She’d watched Bryn and Susan Marlowe carefully, learned to imitate the grief that always colored their voices when they spoke of their beloved husbands.

  Lucas didn’t seem to notice. “It’s not the same. Sure, it was awful losing Pop, but I watched Ma go through what you’ve been through. It’s different losing your … other half.”

  “But you had this to deal with, too.” She nodded toward his cane, wishing she could erase this whole thread of their conversation.

  He took another swig of coffee, then set his cup on the windowsill. “I have an idea: let’s not sit here and try to figure out who has it worse.”

  She smiled, relieved. “Very good idea. Change of subject.”

  He turned and looked out the window, playfully craning his neck to look beneath the wide awning that covered the window. “Lovely weather we’ve been having, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” she deadpanned.

  “Okay. That was lame. How ’bout them Chiefs?” He lifted a fist in a rah-rah gesture.

  “Nope. I don’t speak ‘sports.’”

  “Politics?”

  “Definitely not.”

  He raked a hand through a head of gorgeous black curls. “Religion?”

  She winced. “I’d rather not.”

  “Wow … I give up then. Your turn.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Ah. Coffee. Now there’s a fascinating topic. So what do you think of the caramel latte? Be honest now.” His eyes flashed with mischief.

  “Haven’t tried it yet.”

  He blew out a sigh, obviously enjoying their lighthearted exchange. “So what’s your poison?”

  “House blend, black.”

  “Boring, boring. But that’s probably why I’ve got this spare tire around my waist and you’ve kept your girlish figure.” He patted his belly, which was a far cry from being a “spare tire.”

  She smiled but studied the nearly empty coffee cup in her hand, not sure how to respond to his compliment.

  Lucas must have sensed her discomfort because when their eyes met again, his expression had turned serious, even guilty. She could almost read his mind: he’d been flirting with his buddy’s wife—a married woman, as far as he was concerned.

  “Listen, Jenna. I’ve wanted—” He twisted the lid from his coffee cup with long, slender fingers. “This might sound strange, and I hope it doesn’t bring back bad memories—stuff you’ve tried to put behind you, but I’ve wanted a chance to talk to you.”

  She frowned, curious. “About what?”

  “Zach and I got pretty close working together. I just … I hope you know how much he cared for you. How much he loved you. The guy’s whole face would light up when he talked about you. He—” He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “That’s probably enough. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how your husband felt about you, but someone told me something similar—about my dad, how he was proud of me. And it—it helped.” He stopped, looking embarrassed.

  But when he met her eyes again, he looked so sincere, it made her want to cry.

  “It helped a lot,” he said. “And I just thought you should hear the same from Zach. From someone who heard it from his own mouth.”

  Jenna felt frozen to her chair. She pasted on a smile and murmured a shallow “thank you,” but she felt as if Lucas Vermontez—however innocently—had punched her in her already-bruised heart.

  She’d never doubted Zach’s love for her. Didn’t doubt for a minute that he lit up when he talked about her to the guys at the firehouse.

  But how long could she pretend that she’d loved him the same? And how long would she carry the ache inside her because she hadn’t?

  For a minute he couldn’t breathe. So she was really going to do this.

  6

  Tuesday, November 11

  Lucas retrieved the morning paper off the driveway and trudged back to the kitchen, greeted by the smells of burnt toast and fresh-brewed coffee.

  His mother appeared in the doorway. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  He grunted, not ready to engage yet this morning. He was still lost in a dream about Jenna Morgan. A guilty dream, but one he wasn’t ready to surrender yet. It had been good to see her last night, good to laugh with someone and talk about mundane things.

  But why did he have to go and bring up the fire? It had obviously upset her—and why wouldn’t it? She’d clammed up after that. They’d talked for a few more minutes … about her move, about his desire to get back on at the firehouse. But thanks to him, the meeting had ended on a tense note.

  After he got home yesterday, he’d considered calling her, maybe try to apologize for the direction their conversation had taken, and casually invite her to meet him at the coffee shop again. Now, in the light of day, that seemed like a stupid idea. But he’d already decided he would find excuses to hang out at Java Joint, just in case she showed up there again.

  Too bad she was having to put her house on the market. He tried to imagine how he’d feel if Ma were to sell this house—the only home he could remember, and a place where memories of Pop seemed to reside in the very walls. Difficult as it had been at first—to be reminded of Pop in every room—those memories offered comfort now.

  His mother opened cupboards and rummaged noisily through a jumble of travel mugs, mumbling as she tried to find a matching lid, then scolding Lucky when he got underfoot. “This stupid cat is going to put one of us in the hospital!”

  The commotion pulled Lucas from his dreamworld. Just as well. His fantasies were just that.

  Ma poured coffee into a tall mug and screwed the lid in place. She wore a smile that said she was in her own la-la land. He knew exactly who she was with there, too.

  He hobbled across the kitchen to refill his mug. She handed him the creamer, and that’s when he saw it. A ring twinkled on her finger. Not the simple anniversary band Pop had given her, but a sparkly diamond with tiny blue stones set on either side.

  For a minute he couldn’t breathe. So she was really going to do this.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said, gathering her purse and the bag she toted library books in, “I won’t be here for dinner, honey. Can you fend for yourself?”

  “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with that big honkin’ ring on your finger?”

  She gave a little gasp and clasped her hands, covering the ring. But she couldn’t camouflage her smile.

  He held out a hand. “Let me see.”

  She presented her hand, turning her wrist so the stones caught the light.

  “How long have you been carrying this rock around?”

  “Since about nine o’clock last night. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  He shielded his eyes, pretending to be blinded by the glare.

  She rewarded him with a schoolgirl giggle.

  “I’m happy for you, Ma. I really am.” The sudden lump in his throat took him by surprise. He swallowed over it and cleared his throat. “So, have you set a date?”

  “Not yet, but we don’t want to wait too long. It will be a quiet, private ceremony. We’ve talked abou
t one of those wedding cruise packages.” She looked up at him with a little shrug, as if trying to gauge his opinion of the idea.

  “Well, let me know when you decide. I’m trying to set up some people to come in and tear out a couple of walls, maybe paint a room or two black.”

  She stared at him. “You’re going to paint—?”

  “Kidding, Ma. You can breathe now.”

  “Oh, you!” She landed a playful punch to his shoulder.

  “Ow!” He rubbed the spot in feigned agony.

  But she turned serious, cupping his unshaved cheek in her palm. “It’s good to have my Luc back. Even if I do want to clobber him sometimes.”

  He wrinkled his nose and grinned at her.

  She looked at the clock. “You’d better get moving. Don’t you have PT this morning?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know why I’m bothering, though. I don’t think it’s helping.”

  “Yes, it is.” She shook a finger in his face. “You’re just too close to see it. You’re so much better, Lucas. Don’t you dare give up now.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’m goin’, I’m goin’. …”

  “That’s more like it.” She slung her purse over one shoulder. “Speaking of which, I’d better get a move on, too. I might be late tonight—don’t wait up.”

  He shook his head. “Man, is that a strange switch of roles.”

  “Hey, at least I never miss curfew, which is more than a certain young man I remember can say.” Laughing, she went out through the garage.

  He went to the sink and watched her car back out of the driveway. As hard as it was to think about Ma married to anyone but Pop, he had to admit it was good to see her smiling again. And Geoff was a good guy. A little stuffy, maybe—especially compared to Pop. But he was good to Ma, and he obviously made her happy. He wouldn’t begrudge her that.

  He thought about what his mother had said. He was better, at least emotionally. There had been some dark days after the fire. He didn’t remember a lot of them, didn’t want to remember. Even after he’d graduated from the wheelchair to the walker last spring, he’d plunged into a depression so deep he hadn’t been sure he would ever find his way out.

  He’d never told his mom—maybe she’d guessed—but there had been days he’d prayed to die. He never could have done anything … desperate. That would have killed Ma after losing Pop. But he could beg God to take him. And he had.

  But it wasn’t his mental health Ma had been talking about this morning. She meant his physical condition. Was the physical therapy making a difference? Was he still improving, getting more mobility back? His legs were a mess. Flesh and muscle had been torn and scarred, and he was full of enough plates and pins to send airport metal detectors into conniptions.

  It would have been bad enough if he’d only injured one leg, but to have both of them messed up was too much to deal with. His left leg was the worst. Since the surgeries, he’d had almost a year to heal. His doctors said he’d likely seen most of the improvement he was going to see. If that was true, those hunks of concrete had crushed more than his legs.

  But maybe the doctors were wrong. He dumped his coffee in the sink and put his mug in the dishwasher. He needed for them to be wrong.

  He couldn’t let himself think too hard about what life would be like if he had to live with this limp, with the cane, if he couldn’t get in good enough physical shape to get back on with the fire department. It was the only thing he’d ever wanted—from the time he was a kid. To be a firefighter like Pop. And with Pop gone, he wanted it even worse.

  Otherwise, nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.

  She’d become an actress … to the point that sometimes she even convinced herself.

  7

  Friday, November 21

  Jenna stared at the boxes stacked five-deep in the living room and wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her T-shirt.

  As relieved as she was to have sold her house in less than two weeks—and for the asking price—it was sobering to realize that as of next week’s closing she would officially be homeless. Not homeless as in needing the homeless shelter, of course, but homeless in the sense that she was twenty-nine years old and couldn’t even provide for herself. Thank goodness she still had Bill and Clarissa.

  For some odd reason, as she’d packed up her belongings and looked around this place that had been her home for a decade, she’d had flashbacks of her childhood home.

  Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could smell the stale cigarette smoke and the mold growing in the corners of the bathtub in the two-bedroom mobile home in a run-down trailer park in St. Louis. She could hear the mice skittering behind the walls, and the Jacksons next door launching words at each other that even her mother didn’t use.

  Shaking off a reality she didn’t want to claim any longer, she reached for the goldfish charm at her throat and rubbed it till it grew warm beneath her fingers. She ran her palm over the smooth finish of the dining room table and its matching chairs and hutch. Dug her toes into the plush carpeting as if she could tether herself to the luxury it represented.

  This house wasn’t rich by many standards, certainly not in Bill and Clarissa’s eyes. But compared to where she’d grown up, it was a mansion. It had taken years of pinching herself to believe she could possibly deserve to live someplace like this. That she could be trusted to care for a real home with nice furniture and original paintings on the wall, and carpet that wasn’t embedded with oil and spaghetti sauce and blood.

  She wouldn’t be here to watch the trees grow tall, or to see the flowers and perennials she’d planted come to life next spring.

  It was beginning to hit her: she’d be at the mercy of Bill and Clarissa—for everything—while she was in their home.

  She still hadn’t mentioned Bryn Hennesey to Zach’s parents. Every time she and Bryn got together, she was afraid Clarissa would ask where she’d been, and afraid Bryn would ask if she’d told the Morgans they’d been spending time together. She feared running into Clarissa when she and Bryn were together, though that was unlikely, since they didn’t frequent any of the Morgans’ high-class haunts.

  She wasn’t about to give up her friendship with Bryn, but something told her she’d better wait until she was firmly ensconced in the Morgans’ house before she let that cat out of the bag.

  She hauled three boxes out to the garage and came back inside to start working on the kitchen. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she separated stacks of newspaper and began wrapping breakables. Thanksgiving was next week, but she wouldn’t need her dishes since the Morgans had invited her to spend the holiday with them. Last year, Thanksgiving—and Christmas, too—had gone uncelebrated with Zach so recently buried.

  Oddly, packing up this house that she and Zach had shared, wrapping dishes that had been wedding gifts, and storing away decorative items she would have no use for at the Morgans’ had made her think more about Zach than she had in months.

  She took a small measure of comfort in the fact that in the act of leaving this home they’d shared, she felt twinges of the emotions she’d feigned so well in the past year. Perhaps she’d loved Zachary Morgan more than she gave herself credit for.

  But shouldn’t a woman know whether or not she loved the man who’d been her husband for more than ten years? She’d thought she was over the agony of wondering why Bryn and Susan Marlowe, Emily Vermontez, and even Garrett Edmonds could all mourn the loss of their spouses passionately and publicly, while she had to pretend.

  Why couldn’t she have loved her husband wholeheartedly? Even with the tension that was sometimes between them, Zach treated her with kindness. He had been a good man in life—and a hero in death.

  Lucas’s words about how much Zach had loved her were disturbing. In a deep way. She hated that she’d grown so adept at pretending. She’d become an actress … to the point that sometimes she even convinced herself.

  The phone rang, echoing in the empty space. Crumpling the last sheet of newsp
rint, she jumped up and grabbed the phone on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Jenna? Hey, it’s Bryn. How’s the packing going?”

  “It’s going.”

  “Do you need a break?”

  “I need one … not sure I have time to take one.”

  “What if I bring pizza over? I can help you pack until five or so.”

  “Hey, I can’t turn down an offer like that!” She smiled into the phone. “Make it half pepperoni and you’ve got a deal.”

  Thirty minutes later, the two of them sat on barstools at the kitchen counter washing down pizza with Diet Coke.

  “I keep forgetting to tell you.” Bryn wiped pizza sauce from the corner of her mouth. “Remember that day we stopped by the shelter and Sparky found that gasoline?”

  Jenna nodded, remembering how anxious the dog’s barking and growling had made her.

  “He did it again the other day. At the shelter. Sparky almost never acts like that, so I let him take the lead. It was the craziest thing. … It was like he was a bloodhound or something. He led me to a pile of debris beside the Dumpster east of the building—sniffed out a can of paint solvent that was buried in all the remodeling trash.”

  “Somebody needs to haul that stuff off before there’s another fire.”

  “No kidding. But you should have seen Sparky. He just stood there beside the Dumpster, waiting for me to praise him.”

  “Why would a dog sniff out something like that? I could see if it was a rabbit or a cat or something, but paint solvent?”

  “I know. It’s almost like he’s been trained to detect it.”

  “Maybe he was. Does anybody know where that homeless guy got him?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure Sparky was just a pup when Charlie got him.” She frowned. “But now that you mention it, I’m not sure where Charlie adopted him from. I always assumed it was the Humane Society, but I’ll ask him.”

  “You still see him?” Charlie was a homeless guy Bryn had taken a liking to when she volunteered at the shelter. He’d been moved to another shelter in Springfield after the fire.