It took three shampoos to remove the odor of burnt wood from my hair, but the taste of smoke lingered in my throat. Sitting back in the bathtub, I thought of all what we had lost. The house had burned to the foundation. We escaped with our lives. We were all thankful for that.
All our worldly possessions were lost in the fire. What troubled me the most was not the items that could be replaced, but the treasures that couldn’t — photos, Katie and Benjamin’s locks of hair, their first drawings, my mother’s angels.
The thought crossed my mind that Irwin might be responsible for starting the fire, but I quickly dismissed it. He would never have done anything to hurt my children or me. Still, though, lightning in winter, if Ernie Barton were to be taken at his word, seemed beyond believable. The fire chief refused to speculate, saying once he conducted a thorough investigation, he'd give me and my insurance company a copy of his report. So much for that.
Alex made us feel right at home. The children each had their own bedrooms, as did he and I. The decision was his. What example would we give the children if we shared a bedroom before we became husband and wife? Last evening when he asked me to marry him, my life had been filled to overflowing. His love was my fountainhead. He and my children were my greatest joy for now and for the future.
I closed my eyes and my mind flashed on my siblings. Elizabeth was just as funny, warm and intelligent as I remembered her. And Ryan, my brother ... well, my brother was just as I remembered him also — argumentative, stubborn and opinionated.
Despite how we tried to cram everything that happened in the last twenty-one years of our lives in the times we had gotten together over the past several days, we couldn’t. There would be time enough for that. The important thing to remember was that the past lie behind us and everything had been forgiven and forgotten. It was a great way to end the year.
I thought about Leroy’s suspicion that Vince and Bridget Simson killed themselves with an overdose of prescription heart medicine and wondered if I hadn’t taken a stand with Irwin whether I would have resorted to taking my own life, also. Chills swept through me at the thought.
The water turned cool. I got out of the tub, toweled off, slipped one of Alex’s T-shirts over my head and pulled my hair back in a ponytail. I walked into his bedroom and took the silver box I found in the attic of my house off the dresser. I'd left the box on the hall table for Alex on my way out the door the night I told him what I'd uncovered about his past. I ran my hand over the delicately inscribed initials: MDC Mary Dorothea Cabrini, Alex’s mother.
Alex came in and handed me a cup of tea. “Thanks. You’re too good to me.”
He bent and brushed his lips across mine. “I should be thanking you.”
I frowned, setting the box down. “For?”
“For coming into my life. For Katie and Benjamin. For making my life whole.”
I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tightly. “What was that about a note to Jonathan?”
“Huh?”
“When we were standing on the street, Jonathan thanked you for leaving a note.”
“Oh. When I took the Christmas tree from the back of his truck, I left him a note. And a fifty dollar bill.”
I punched him in the arm. “You had me believing you swiped it.”
He chuckled.
“Alex, can you tuck me in?” Benjamin asked from his bedroom.
“Be right there, buddy.”
“Alex, can you tuck me in, too?” Katie baby-talked.
He grinned. “You’re too old to be tucked in. Now, go to sleep, young lady.” He walked toward Benjamin’s bedroom, a certain bounce in his step.
Smiling, I walked to my bedroom, flicked on the light and gasped. My mother’s angels, my photo albums and Katie and Benjamin’s locks of hair sat on the night stand. The hair on my neck fluttered. Irwin was here with me … with us. I turned, looked into the face that once frightened me and smiled. “Irwin. Come with me. Come meet your brother.”
The End
Restless Souls Page 42
