Piece by Piece

by Laura Bradford

  The S she’d filled in with pictures of cats and dogs . . .

  The P she’d filled in with pictures of his favorite baseball players . . .

  The E she’d filled in with pictures of soccer balls and goals and whistles . . .

  The N she’d filled in with pictures from swim lessons . . .

  The C she’d filled in with pictures of Spencer and his best friend, Bobby . . .

  The E she’d filled in with pictures of his sisters . . .

  The R she’d filled in with pictures of him sitting on Jeff’s lap and hugging his grandma . . .

  When she completed her tracing of the final letter in her son’s name, she scooted the box across the table to Caleb and Nettie. “Spencer loved sports, and nature, and animals, and learning things, and playing army men with the little boy across the street, and his sisters, and his dad, and his grandma. When Maggie went off to school at five years old, I threw a little Go-to-School party after dinner for the five of us. I made her favorite treat, gave her a special hair ribbon for her first day of school, and sent her off to bed more excited than nervous. She loved it so much, I did it again the night before first grade, and second grade, and then for the two of them the following year when she was starting third grade and he was starting kindergarten.

  “He’d been a part of this special gathering for Maggie for three years at that point and so he was just tickled to finally be an honoree even if he was more than a little worried about actually going off to school. So I let him pick the treat knowing it would be one Maggie would like, too, and, for his gift, I got him this pencil box and decided to spell out his name using pictures of the things that made him most happy. I thought that maybe, if he could see these things during the school day, he might feel less homesick.”

  Leaning over, Caleb took a moment to study each and every letter. When he reached the end, he looked up at Dani, his brow furrowed. “Why didn’t you include a picture of yourself?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I figured I was represented by having made it.”

  Nettie dropped her hands next to the box. “Can I see inside?”

  “I guess,” Dani said, shrugging. “There’s just pencils inside.”

  “I like pencils!”

  Inching the box closer, Dani snapped open the hinge and spun it back around for Nettie to see. “See? Pencils.”

  “Can I take them out?” Nettie asked.

  “I guess . . .”

  Nettie reached in, pulled out the handful of pencils, examined them closely, and then peeked back in the box at Caleb’s audible inhale. “That’s you, Dani!”

  “Me?” she echoed.

  “Yah! Right there!”

  She accepted the box Caleb pushed back across the table and looked inside, her eyes coming to rest on a photograph of herself, cut into something resembling a circle, and affixed to the bottom of the box with four pieces of tape. “W-when? How?”

  “I don’t know, Dani. But it appears I’m not the only one who thought you should’ve been part of that pencil box.”

  Chapter 27

  She’d always been drawn to sunsets. For her, it didn’t really matter if the vivid golds and oranges, mauves and reds were streaking the ocean’s sky or peeking out behind a shopping mall in suburbia. Either way, it was worth a moment to stop and look or make a mad dash for her camera in the hopes of framing its beauty on a wall. But there was something about the one in front of her now—slipping behind lush green fields dotted by the occasional grain silo and windmill—that quieted her heart in a way that felt almost peaceful.

  Pulling her legs onto the Adirondack chair, Dani pointed toward the farthest field she could see. “Is it bad that sheep is still outside, alone?”

  “If a coyote or a fox happens by, yes. But I’m thinking it’ll find its way back to the barn before long.” Caleb took a sip of his lemonade and then set the glass on the armrest of his own chair. “You doing okay?”

  She returned her gaze to the horizon. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

  “No worries.” Stretching out his legs across the patio, he laced his hands between his head and the chair and chuckled. “Those kids didn’t give you much elbow room to eat tonight, did they?”

  Her lips twitched at the memory. “I was one more body on a bench that was already pretty full.”

  “Dani? That had nothing to do with the length of that bench and everything to do with Nettie, Mark, David, and Luke being excited that you were finally joining us for dinner.”

  Not sure what to say, she said nothing.

  “And while I got a kick out of watching you play dodge-ahead with your elbows every time you cut a piece of your chicken, I enjoyed seeing you eat even more,” he said, his own elbows jutting out from behind his cowboy hat like wings. “You needed that.”

  “I’ve been eating.”

  The scrape of his hat’s brim on the chair let her know he’d abandoned his view of the sunset. “I saw inside your refrigerator when you opened it for Nettie this afternoon. You have enough food in there to feed Lydia’s entire crew for a week, if not more.”

  She kept her own eyes on the sky. “I just haven’t had much of an appetite, that’s all.”

  “You had one at the ice-cream place,” he said. “And again tonight.”

  It wasn’t hard to deduce the dots he was connecting. Nor was it hard to see that maybe, just maybe, he was right . . .

  “It felt good to talk about the kids with you and Nettie this afternoon,” she said as the last of the day’s colors slipped away. “It really did. So thank you for that.”

  “It was my pleasure.” Another scrape of his hat against the chair’s wooden slats let her know he, too, was drinking in the part of the night responsible for the orange flashes making their way down the otherwise darkened roads of Amish country. The safety lights, mandated by the state, kept buggies and their occupants visible at night. “So how about Jeff? And your mom? Did you bring something of theirs with you?”

  “I did.”

  When she didn’t say anything more, he pulled his legs back toward the chair and stood. “Well, I’ve taken way more of your time today than I should’ve, but it was nice getting to know you a little bit better, Dani. Thank you.”

  “Getting to know me?”

  “Absolutely. Maggie, Spencer, and Ava were—and will always be—a part of you. Learning a little bit about them meant learning a little more about you, too.” Palming the front of his hat, he tugged it down across his forehead and then motioned in the direction they’d been facing for the better part of an hour. “You enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  Something about his words, juxtaposed against the now-darkened fields, stirred an all too familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach. For the first time since the accident, the crushing weight of loneliness had receded for just a little while, enabling her to eat, to smile, to remember, to feel her children close—

  “Please.” She reached for Caleb’s arm only to pull away at the feel of his flannel shirt against her skin. “Could you stay a little longer? I . . .” She glanced back at the growing darkness and then stood. “I want to talk about my mom and Jeff.”

  “Good, because I want to listen.”

  Nodding, she led the way through the back door of the grossdawdy house. When he was seated at the table, she ventured into the bedroom, returning moments later with a small pink book clutched tightly to her chest.

  “As you know, I was an only child,” she said, lowering herself onto the bench opposite Caleb’s. “I was also a latchkey kid, if you’re familiar with that expression?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “It means I was the kid of working parents,” she explained. “I came home from school to an empty house; I got my own snack, did my homework by myself, and, as I got older, had dinner on the table most nights when they finally got home. Being a latchkey kid meant I didn’t get to do a lot of the things my peers did after school—like music lessons and playdates and stuff like that.
>
  “Mom always said she thought that’s why I went to the other extreme with my own kids—because I wanted them to have the things I hadn’t been able to have, that I wanted to be a better mom than I felt I’d had. She said it was the natural order of things between a mother and a daughter. Her mother had stayed home with her, and while her mom had lots of time to play, there wasn’t money for anything beyond the necessities in life, like food and shelter. So my mom vowed to do things differently when she had a child. Her way to go about that? To work so we had money to take trips like the one that had me meeting you and Lydia.”

  The bench creaked as he leaned forward against the edge of the table. “Okay . . .”

  “And me? I didn’t want my kids to be the ones who couldn’t do things because their mom was always working. So I stayed home and got them involved in everything and anything they so much as blinked at. But when Mom said to me—about my wanting to be a better mom to my own children than she’d been to me—I felt awful. Because the truth is, my mom was a great mom. Did I miss out on some things growing up because of her work schedule? Sure. Often, actually. But when I needed her, she was always there for me. Always.”

  She pulled the book from her chest and set it on the table, title side up. “I wanted her to know that my doing things the way I was doing them wasn’t a reflection on the job she’d done. So when I came across this book in a specialty shop one day, I knew I had to get it for her.” Spinning it around for Caleb to read, she pushed it toward him, her hand gently holding it closed while she continued. “It’s filled with poems and special quotes about motherhood. At the back of the book, there is a page where I was able to include the many things I admired about her as a mom, and why she was the best mom for me.”

  When he looked down at the book, she filled in the final piece of the story. “For whatever reason, when she came to visit this last time, this was in her bag. I-I guess it meant more to her than I realized.” She pulled her hand back. “Go ahead, open it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I-I want you to read what I wrote. My mom was a special woman and I want you—I want everyone—to know that.”

  Slowly, gently, he flipped back the front cover to reveal . . . her mother’s handwriting?

  Confused, she lifted off her bench with her own lean. “Wait. That’s not my writing. That’s my mother’s. What does it say?”

  “It says: ‘Now it is your turn, my love.’ ”

  “My turn?” she echoed. “My turn for what?” Reaching across the table, she flipped the book closed, confirmed it was the same book she’d given her mom, and then opened it once again. “I don’t understand why she’d write that. It was my gift to her . . .”

  Silence fell across the room as, page by page, he made his way through the book, stopping on occasion to read a particularly poignant quote or to comment on a poem. Some made them laugh; others had her wiping a tear while Caleb sniffled. But it was as they approached the end that she felt the emotion really beginning to kick in.

  “Okay, this next one”—she stilled his page-turning hand—“will be the one I wrote. I want you to read it aloud, too.”

  She closed her eyes at his answering nod.

  “ ‘My Dearest Danielle.’ ”

  Her eyes flew open. “It doesn’t say that!”

  “Yes it does.” He spun the book around so it was readable from her side of the table. “See?”

  “ ‘My Dearest Danielle,’ ” she managed past the sudden tightening in her throat. “ ‘I used to believe a mother’s greatest joy was in watching her child grow and learn. I was wrong. A mother’s greatest joy is watching her child become a mother. And while you have been one for many years now, I am awestruck at the job you are doing. You are my life, my light, my joy, Danielle, and I am so incredibly proud to be your mother and to have you be my grandchildren’s mother.’ ”

  Pressing against her strangled sob, she made herself continue, her lips and her mouth filling with tears. “ ‘Forever and always, Mom.’

  “Oh, Caleb,” she whispered, pulling the book close to her body once again. “She didn’t pack the book I gave her; she found one just like it—one she planned to give me.”

  “I’m glad you found it.”

  Seconds turned to minutes as she stared at the book, at her mother’s handwriting, at her mother’s final message of love. “I wish I had seen this before . . . Before the accident.”

  “Maybe you needed it more now.”

  She ran her fingertips across the words one last time and then stood. “I have something of Jeff’s, too.”

  A quick trek in and out of the bedroom had her back at the table in no time, clutching the final item in her hands. “I met Jeff shortly after college. I was sitting on a bench, looking out over the river, when he walked by—or intended to, as he was fond of saying. I was so intent on whatever I was looking at that all his best efforts to get me to look up failed.”

  Caleb laughed. “Nothing like killing a guy’s ego.”

  “That’s what Jeff said. But I honestly didn’t see him. I really didn’t.”

  “So what made you finally notice him?”

  “He sat on my lap.”

  He pulled his hand out from beneath his chin and thumped it down onto the table. “Seriously?”

  “Not really. But by the time I snapped out of whatever zone I was in, he’d bought me a rose from a nearby flower cart, a balloon from the same place, a cup of ice cream he ended up eating while he waited, and this jacket”—she held it up—“from some kid who wasn’t wearing it, anyway.”

  “A jacket? Why?”

  “Because he knew a cold front was coming in and he didn’t want me to have any excuses for leaving once I finally noticed him.”

  He laughed. “Wow. Do you remember what you were thinking about?”

  “No. I was just thinking or, maybe, not thinking. I just knew it was a sunny day and I didn’t have anywhere I had to be.”

  “Wow,” he repeated.

  “I know.” She smiled at the memory. “But once I did notice him—empty ice-cream cup and all—we hit it off and we were pretty inseparable after that.”

  “What drew you to him? Once you noticed him, that is?”

  “He was sweet. He was always doing little things to let me know he loved me—a note in my shoe, a favorite piece of chocolate on my pillow, a quick mid-day call just to tell me he loved me before he went into a meeting. He was a doer as much as he was a dreamer. And he wanted the same things I wanted—stability, honesty, and family.”

  Caleb pointed at the jacket. “You kept it all these years?”

  “Of course. It, more than any other possession, sums up who he was.”

  “How so?”

  “He was kind and he was generous. He was always thinking ahead to what I might need, what the kids might need. And he made it all look so effortless, so easy, so natural.”

  “Sounds like someone I would’ve liked to know.”

  She held the jacket to her cheek. “Absolutely.”

  “How come I haven’t seen you wearing it at all since you’ve been here?” he asked.

  “Because it’s been a reminder of that day, of the way we started. How he made sure we’d be okay and that we’d be together always. Only we’re not now. Or . . .” She looked from the jacket to Caleb and back again, her eyes misting. “Or not in the way I thought we’d be. But he is still with me, isn’t he?”

  “You bet he is.”

  Hesitancy traded places with conviction and she slid her arms into the sleeves, the soft, familiar fabric a gentle and welcomed hug against her skin. She drew her shoulders alongside her cheeks, breathed in the lingering scent of his cologne she could almost pick out around the collar, and tucked her hands into the narrow pockets—

  Pulling out her right hand, she stared down at the familiar blue sticky note folded closed inside her palm.

  “What’s that?” Caleb asked.

  “It-it’s one of Jeff’s notes.”
<
br />   “You’ve kept it in the pocket all this time?”

  “I didn’t know it was there,” she whispered.

  “Oh. Wow. Do you want me to leave so you can read it?”

  She looked at her name and imagined her husband peeking over his shoulder to make sure she wasn’t around as he ripped the page from her notepad.

  She could see him plucking the black pen from the holder on her desk . . .

  Writing the note while listening for the sound of approaching footsteps . . .

  Folding it in half . . .

  Writing her name across the front . . .

  Opening the hall closet and slipping it into the pocket . . .

  And, finally, closing the door in triumph . . .

  “Dani?”

  She let the image play out and then looked back at Caleb, his question catching up to her brain. “Actually, no. I think I’ll save this for another day.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Was she?

  Glancing at the table, she breathed in the sight of Maggie’s picture, Spencer’s pencil box, the book from her mother, and the image in her head of Ava’s flowers—each one a gift, an unexpected reminder of their love for her, and their forever place in her heart and in her life.

  “I wish you could see yourself right now,” Caleb said. “Really see yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “If you could, you’d be able to see what good it does you to talk about them, to feel them, to remember them. Because in doing those things they’re still here. They’re still part of you.”

  “I don’t need to see myself.”

  “But Dani—”

  She dropped her hand back to her side. “I don’t need to see myself because I can feel it. I can feel them. Thanks to you.”

  “You were a great mom—a treasured mom, Dani.” Palming the top of his cowboy hat, Caleb stood and made his way over to the door. “The people who would know that better than anyone else wanted you to know that today. I, for one, don’t think that’s a coincidence.”