Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  Since he won’t be eating with us tonight, I go ahead and fix grilled cheese sandwiches and fries. Then I set Theo up with Paw Patrol and work on some cleaning, a load of laundry, and little things like checking her backpack in case any notes or simple assignments from Ms. Louisa have been added to it.

  I’ve just hung her coloring sheet of Valentine’s birdies on the fridge when the doorbell rings.

  Her quick gasp reaches me from the living room. “Mommy! Who is it?”

  I leave the kitchen and find she’s also on her way to the front door.

  “I don’t know!” I fib. “Who could it be?”

  “I don’t know either!” The look on her face suggests that the possibilities are boggling her mind.

  She is thrilled when we open the door and reveal our visitor to be Beckett—she didn’t expect to be surprised by him twice in one day.

  She’s even more thrilled after he picks her up in another big hug and explains why he’s here.

  “You brought me a present?” she exclaims.

  He laughs. “I brought you three! Happy Valentine’s Day!”

  A high-pitched squeak leaves her. She turns delighted eyes on me, and I return them as Beckett comes all the way into the house so we can see what’s in the cute gift bag looped around his right wrist.

  Very soon, Theo has a cuddly teddy bear in one arm (promptly named Bee) and a box containing a gorgeous strawberry cupcake in the other hand. The headband now tucked into her hair boasts a glitzy pair of pink and silver ‘lovebug’ antennae.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she says as she twirls around the front hall. “I love this Valentime’s Day so much!”

  Beckett’s grin is bright. “I’m so happy to hear that! I wanted you to have a good day today.”

  “Me too!” She stops twirling and comes to hand me her cupcake. “Here. I have to show Bee his new home!”

  “Okay,” I reply, chortling. She zooms away the instant I’ve relieved her of the box.

  I turn to Beckett, but before I can say anything at all, he holds up a finger. “Hey, hold on.”

  “Oh.” I watch him start walking away. “Sure.”

  He goes out the front door, so I go to the kitchen to deal with the cupcake. Theo will probably want to eat it in a minute; I set it on the table with a paper towel so she can dig into it when she’s ready.

  I hear the front door shut. Beckett’s footfalls confirm that he’s back in the house, so I head in his direction. In addition to the couple of things I want to mention to him, I’d like to ask where he got such a pretty cupcake.

  But when we walk into view of each other in the wide kitchen doorway, I see what he went outside for. My feet stop working, and my eyes forget how to look away, and my mind goes blank of everything else.

  My heart, however, is swelling fast in my chest.

  His gentled voice meets my ears: “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He comes a step closer and gingerly holds the vibrant bouquet of tulips out to me. “I got these for you. I know they’re your favorite, and….”

  I figure out how to look at his face again. The softness is back, but it’s different this time. There’s nothing slight about it—it’s here in full force.

  In full sad, sincere, sweet force.

  It hangs on the air between us.

  He whispers, “How have you been today, Noelle?”

  Just like that, my chin is trembling, my eyes stinging, my throat aching.

  This is what he’s been wanting to say to me, I realize.

  He’s been wondering how I’m handling….

  But I guess he didn’t want to ask until we were in a safe place, away from most other people.

  It takes several seconds for me to be able to say, my voice weak and wobbly, “Not great.”

  “Yeah.” He nods a little, a frown creasing his features. “Yeah.”

  Nodding, too, I finally hold my hands out for the tulips. He gives them to me carefully, like he doesn’t want to hurt them. In kind, I cradle them in one arm, admiring the beautiful blooms and their colors—white and yellow and pink and red and orange.

  “But, uh,” I whisper, too, now, “the party was really….” Swallowing hard, I close my eyes. “There’s a lot of—of light around you and Theo. It helped.”

  “I’m glad. The party helped me too. Being with you two always does, in one way or another.”

  I reopen my eyes and return my watery gaze to him.

  For the space of a few breaths, we simply look at each other. I think again about all the things Cliff missed today; I wonder if Beckett is doing the same.

  He says, “I’m really sorry for the parts of your day that weren’t great. I hate it like hell for you.”

  I sniffle. “Thank you.” After a beat: “Thank you for everything—for being so good to Theo, and showing up for her, and…” I fumble a pat onto the wrapping around my tulips, “…and for this. But not just for today, you know? Thank you for every day you give to us, Beck. Every single one.”

  I can tell he’s touched by that.

  However, as I expected, a flicker of a smile precedes a lighter tone than before. “Like I said this morning, there’s no need to thank me. I’m happy to do it all. But if you really wanna show your gratitude, I would welcome it in the form of a future home-cooked meal. I’m sad I missed out today.”

  And at the coincidence of him bringing up what I was going to surprise him with, I laugh wholeheartedly for the first time all day.

  His flicker of a smile becomes a full-blown one that just about erases the gloom in his eyes. Then he’s laughing along with me.

  “There is, too, a need for me to thank you,” I inform him, “and I was actually just about to offer to cook for you as those thanks.”

  His eyebrows go up. “What? No way.”

  “I’m serious. You read my mind.”

  “Holy crap!” He laughs more, decidedly erasing that gloom and further warming me. “I’m the mind-reader instead of Theo? What a plot twist!”

  “Right?”

  I hold my free arm out to him, and he comes in to hug me. We give each other the best squeeze we can without crushing my tulips; even careful, it’s still a good one, because there’s no such thing as a bad hug from him.

  Our amusement quiets down a bit, though. The rub he gives my back is soothing.

  I’m not surprised by his assurance of, “You don’t have to show me your gratitude. I was kidding.”

  I assure him right back, “I know you were, but I wasn’t. Let me thank you at least a little bit, ‘cause keeping my appreciation to myself doesn’t feel right.” After a deep breath of a pause, I elaborate more quietly, “I…don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Still rubbing my back, he breathes deeply too. “I don’t know what I’d do without you either.”

  I believe him. I’ve witnessed the truth of that sentiment many times. Been there for him however I could be, even if it was just over the phone, when he needed to vent or talk about his loss. I’ve welcomed him into my home to sleep on my couch when panic struck him and he couldn’t stand to be alone with his memories and fears. I hugged him for several minutes while he broke down on the day Avengers: Infinity War was released in theaters, because he and Cliff had spent months planning to see it together; they had kept up with every single Marvel movie up to then.

  Days like today don’t hit him the way they hit me, but others do—other reminders hurt him. Cliff and I were in love, but he and Beckett were brothers in spirit.

  “So yes, then?” I check. “Dinner whenever you’re free?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I can’t wait.”

  We finally pull out of our hug, and we exchange a smile.

  Then Theo comes skipping down the hall, her arms full of stuffed animals, including Bee.

  “I’m gonna have a Valentime’s tea party and share my cupcake with my aminals! Mommy and Uncle Beck, wanna come to my tea party?”

  He and I share a chuckling glance about her mispronunciation
of ‘animals.’ I’ve corrected her a few times before; she’ll get it one of these days.

  He tsks thoughtfully. “You know what? I have just enough time for one cup of tea before I have to go.”

  “Woohoo! Mommy?”

  Well, of course I’ll attend that tea party.

  We all move into the kitchen. After I put my vibrant tulips in some water, I help set up the inanimate guests because Theo says they need a special seating arrangement.

  And bit by bit, I can feel my own colors continuing to seep back into me.

  Valentine’s Day is a romantic day, but it’s also about other kinds of love. Even though my romantic love is gone, I still have other loves to celebrate.

  I’ve lost a lot, but I haven’t lost everything.

  Neither have Theodora and Beckett, who are trying to decide whether Bee or a ballerina kitten named Fifi should have a prominent seat at the table—this is Bee’s first family gathering, but apparently, today is Fifi’s birthday.

  “What do you think, Mommy?” Theo asks. “We have to be con-slid-erate.”

  Beckett tries to stifle his laughter as he turns lifted eyebrows on me. He seems to ask, ‘Yeah, what do you think?’

  Truly, who could stay gray around these two?

  - 2 -

  B E C K E T T

  now

  It’s weird how I can be in an awesome mood on one side of a door and in a frustrated mood on the other.

  JENNA: I swear to God, Beckett, if you are with those girls right now, I am going to lose my shit

  As I read and reread the message, my feet slow their previously easy pace. Tension seems to grip me all over, and fast fades the smile I was just wearing over my minutes with Noelle and Theo.

  I was hoping we were past this.

  I was really, really hoping that after last night’s talk, we were finally on the same page—that she finally understood why these girls are important to me, and why I needed to see them today especially.

  But she doesn’t seem understanding.

  Inhaling through my nose, I close my eyes and silently curse the way this makes me feel.

  “You okay?”

  I turn and look behind me. Noelle is still there, standing in the doorway since we often watch each other go when we part ways. She has one hand resting along the edge of the door and her head of dark brown hair tilted slightly. I can just make out the faint reddish tint at the edges of it, where the waning sunlight is touching her.

  I try to say, “Yeah, I’m fine,” reassuringly, but it doesn’t come out sounding that way.

  Concerned curiosity graces her features, weighs in the look her cool blue eyes drift over me.

  As much as I appreciate it, I’m annoyed that she has to lay such a look on me at all. Annoyed that this problem with Jenna is a problem.

  Still, when I add, “I’ll talk to you later, all right?” it does sound as reassuring as I mean for it to. There may not have been a ton of truth in my first statement, but there is in this one.

  It earns me a placated smile.

  “All right,” she says. “Be careful driving, you hear me?”

  My annoyance abates somewhat.

  I’m able to smile back as I return my phone to my pocket. “I hear you.”

  The significance of these words sticks to me as I leave. It bows up to the stress that always jabs at me when my girlfriend reminds me of her distaste for Noelle and Theo; it anchors me and helps me feel like I can find the patience to explain this situation for what feels like the fiftieth time.

  Though if I’m being honest, I don’t know anymore why we’re still trying to be patient with each other.

  This issue isn’t new. It’s been around pretty much since the start of our relationship, when Jenna started realizing just how big a part of my life my late best friend’s family is.

  I guess we both expected the other to eventually change…?

  But that hasn’t happened.

  It sucks.

  I like Jenna a lot when she’s not demanding that I stop interacting with my loved ones. We’ve been together for almost six months, and it’s been good…when it’s been good. She’s responsible, nice, faithful. She’s pretty.

  She likes me a lot, too, when I’m not having anything to do with my past, including spending time with Noelle and Theo.

  She just doesn’t get it, my mind sighs. She still just doesn’t get what the three of us are to each other.

  Even after my attempts to help her get to know the girls.

  Even after my attempts to tell her how much Cliff’s friendship mattered to me.

  Even after my attempts to describe how hard things have been without him.

  To this day, I haven’t felt totally ready to tell her everything we went through growing up, and I never could figure out how to describe my grief to her, but she made it clear early on that she didn’t want to hear any of it anyway. ‘If it’s depressing, I don’t want the whole story,’ she said of both topics. Since so much of it was heavy, I didn’t make myself open up. And it was whatever, you know? Seems like you should be able to talk to your significant other about important things, but I figured it would work itself out someday.

  That failure isn’t what truly bothers me. No, what frustrates me most and makes me the saddest is how she still feels about Cliff’s girls.

  I’ve been trying to keep these two parts of my life in balance—my life with her and my life with them—and it hasn’t been good enough for her.

  That’s because she doesn’t want balance. She just wants me.

  The knowledge stresses me out, yeah.

  When I get home, I start mentally preparing for the conversation we’re sure to have about all this over dinner. We have a date planned at a nice local steakhouse; I made the reservation some time ago, and I’m picking her up in about twenty minutes. Though we’ve been looking forward to it, I don’t have much hope now that we can enjoy our evening rather than fight.

  In fact, I’m about to walk out the door when she sends a text that suggests I cancel our reservation so we can ‘talk.’

  Yeah, a fight is coming.

  I don’t know if I’m more disappointed that this is how it’s turning out or relieved that we won’t be eating an expensive meal while tense and discontented.

  “Goodbye, steak,” I mumble as I start looking for the restaurant’s number.

  The plan gets changed to me just going over to Jenna’s place. Even though this visit won’t be a happy one, I still take her Valentine’s gift with me when I go. She is obsessed with Ferrero Rocher chocolates—didn’t care a single bit about all the delicious things I told her The Chocolate Shop sells—so I got her those and a pair of handcrafted hairpins she mentioned she liked on Etsy.

  But she doesn’t so much as look at me when she answers her door, much less give me a chance to greet her and extend the gift bag. She just swiftly spins back around and strides into the living room.

  I notice a bottle of red wine on the coffee table, along with a half-full glass. That’s what she drinks when she’s upset.

  She sucks in a deep breath before pivoting once more and facing me.

  Yep. Here we go.

  “You were at their house?” she asks, voice tight with anger, eyes even more so. “That’s what my phone said. I checked your location ‘cause I went to your apartment to surprise you before dinner and you weren’t there, but it was way after five, so I knew you weren’t at work.” She holds her hands up and gives me a look that says, ‘Did I catch you or did I catch you?’

  Did she catch me doing what, though?

  I have no problem saying, “Yes, I was at their house. I took their Valentine’s gifts to them.”

  Her eyes go wide, and she inhales like she’s about to lay into me.

  Then she pauses. Closes her eyes. Breathes steadily.

  Momentarily, she looks at me again. “You told me last night that you were taking the kid’s presents to her school party before lunchtime today. What happened to that p
lan?”

  “Noelle and I talked early this morning and—”

  She rolls her eyes.

  Ignoring how she clearly doesn’t even want to hear my friend’s name, I finish, “We decided it’d be a bigger surprise for Theo if I went to the party but gave her gifts to her later. I was only at their house for, like, ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “I don’t care how long you were there. I care that you were there at all. And why did it matter how much bigger a surprise your visit would’ve been?” She walks over and picks up her glass of wine. “Beckett, how many times do I have to remind you that that is not your real niece? Wake up. You aren’t responsible for any part of her life.”

  While she takes a gulp of her wine, I just stare at her.

  How can she act like Theo doesn’t matter just because I’m not actually related to her?

  Has she never listened to a word I’ve said about the impact Cliff and his girls have had on my life?

  She returns my stare as she puts the glass back down.

  “I know you care about her…and about her mother…” she scoffs, “…but you act like they’re royalty when they’re not. They’re just people you know. How can you not see that you give way too damn much to them? Why do you always have to see them and talk to them? Why is it that if you’re not at work or with me, you’re probably with them?”

  “You know our history,” I say. “I’ve told you tons of times that they aren’t just people I know. We’ve been through hell together. Cliff and I went through shit together for almost a decade when we were younger. He was a better friend than I ever thought I’d have, and then Noelle came along, and then Theodora—they’re a huge part of my life, Jenna.”

  “And so there’s just no room for anyone else? Is that it?”