Running From Love (15 page)

“Maybe because both my parents were American? We moved to Australia when I was three because of Dad’s business, and then Therese came back to Los Angeles when I was five.”

“I see.” Adele’s gaze flashed to Trevor and then back to Poppy. “So where is home?”

Poppy shrugged. Her eyes swept over Trevor, and then she looked at Adele. “I’m not sure anymore.” Poppy smiled, but there was a seriousness in her eyes. “For the last ten years home has been Mesquale for six months of the year, and then anywhere I wanted to travel for the other six. I kind of thought that would be my life.”

“And now?” Adele asked.

Poppy’s eyes locked with Trevor’s. “And now I don’t think I’m …” Trevor reached his hand across the table and his fingers intertwined with Poppy’s. “I mean, I don’t think
we’re
so sure right now.”

Adele’s smile spread over her face. “This makes me happy. So very happy. Poppy, we’re celebrating Trevor’s birthday next month. You’ll come to the party, won’t you? It will be small. Really just family and close friends.”

Trevor snorted. “Yeah, when mom says ‘small’ she means like four hundred people.”

“Stop, Trevor, not true. I promise you the guest list is no more than two hundred and fifty.”

“See?”

Adele ignored him and continued. “We won’t be able to truly celebrate without you. I can see what an important part of Trevor’s life you’ve become. Please, if you can join us.” She speared a tomato in her salad. “I’m hoping that Trevor will have lots of good news to share that evening.”

Poppy’s gaze landed on Trevor. His normally contented expression was awash in not exactly panic, but consternation. He hadn’t made up his mind about Up Side Burger. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do, and he didn’t have much time to decide.

“Thank you, Mrs. Brice, I’ll try.” Poppy wiped her napkin over her mouth and looked at Trevor. “I’m sorry, really, I can take an Uber, but I should get going. Brian should nearly be to the hospital by now.” 

“I’ll take you.” Trevor jumped up.

“No—” Poppy caught herself. She was stopping him … why? To protect herself? To keep him at a distance? As though either of those were even a remote possibility any longer. He’d found his way deep into her heart. She would let Trevor in, she would accept his support, she would let him show his love. “Actually, that would be nice,” she corrected herself. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He bent down and placed a kiss on top of her head. “Just let me get my keys.” He slipped away from her.

Adele put Poppy’s clean clothes in a plastic bag. She brought them to Poppy, saying, “I remember when Trevor’s father was in the hospital. Please know that I mean it when I say if you need anything, anything at all, please let me know.”

Poppy nodded. A thickness grew in her throat. What she needed was to try to understand the complex feelings that wove through her. When it came to Therese, Poppy went from fear to anger to hurt to disdain to not caring a whit. She’d even had moments of just wanting the whole damn thing to be over. How selfish was that? What kind of horrible person was she to wish her own mother dead? But it wasn’t the first time. She’d had similar thoughts when she was a teenage girl, alone in Sydney with a father who worked all day and drank away most nights with his mates. Sure Mimi and Brian had stayed as long as they could, but they’d both had lives to lead, and Poppy was seven years younger than Mimi and five years younger than Brian. As an adolescent she’d felt so alone, so awkward, so unloved.

Tears formed in her eyes. Now, according to everyone around her, she’d be best served if she could find a way to forgive Therese. Well, she damned sure wasn’t certain that she could forgive Therese, or that Therese even deserved her forgiveness.

“Ok, ready.” Trevor stood before her in jeans and a sweater. The scruff on his face made him look rugged and sexy. The warm hopeful look on Trevor’s face, full of understanding and compassion, made her feel better, safer, more grounded. How was that happening? How had the very man she’d sworn not to give her heart to now become the guy who firmly kept it safe for her? 

“Be careful, the roads will be slick,” Adele cautioned.

Trevor shot his mother a patient smile. He leaned his head down and accepted her kiss on his cheek.

“Poppy, so nice to meet you.” Adele pulled her into a hug. Poppy’s family weren’t really huggers. Affection hadn’t ever been their thing, so for a moment, Poppy stiffened in Adele’s arms, but Adele just clasped her a bit tighter. The tension eased out of Poppy’s body. The hug from Trevor’s mom actually felt good. Adele pulled back and met Poppy’s eye. “And please, do call me Adele.”

“I will, and thank you.” Poppy smiled at her, completely understanding where Trevor had gotten his warmth and his smile.

Poppy entered Therese’s hospital room for the second time that day. A man who looked eerily similar to Poppy’s Dad stood beside Therese’s bed.

“Brian?” Poppy whispered. He turned. She hadn’t seen her older brother in nearly eighteen months, and he’d changed in that time. His hairline was pushed farther back and his trim physique was giving way to too many good meals and too much time at a desk. Dark rings smudged the skin under Brian’s eyes.

“Poppy.” He said her name as though it were a breath of fresh air. Brian reached out and wrapped her into a hug. Mimi stood just behind him with Daniel, her husband, at her side. Brian looked past her, his brow wrinkling … of course.

“This is Trevor. He’s my …” What was he? “He’s my boyfriend,” Poppy blurted out. She hadn’t used that word since she was a schoolgirl in Sydney, and it didn’t fit what Trevor meant to her. She watched Trevor offer his kind words to Brian, and Mimi, and Daniel. He was more than just a boyfriend. She was actually considering staying with him, a thought that had been unfathomable to her when she left his bed at Mesquale. How foolish, even then … of course she loved him … yes, she absolutely did love him. She’d most likely loved him since the day they met.

A single small light in the corner softly lit the room. Drops of medicine still dripped through a tube slowly into Therese’s hand. A machine by her bedside beeped with each pump of Therese’s heart, echoing her fading life.

“The doctor was by. She, well—” Brian glanced at Mimi, who pressed her fingertips to the inner corners of her eyes. Brian looked back at Poppy. “We’ve reached a decision. We took her off the ventilator.” He turned his eyes toward Therese. “It’s time to let her go.”

The lump in the back of Poppy’s throat thickened.
Let her go
. Hadn’t Poppy been trying to do just that when it came to Therese since she’d been five years old? Now the choice had been taken from her. It would be the giant tumor and the failure of Therese’s body that took her away and forced Poppy to let her go. Poppy reached out and grasped Brian’s hand and then moved toward her sister and took her hand as well.

Mimi face was awash in tears. Always so strong for everyone else, who was ever strong for Mimi? “I’m sorry, Mimi. I’m so sorry,” Poppy murmured.

Mimi choked on her sobs. A nurse entered the room and checked the machine and the drugs. She looked at them, her eyes reflecting a soft gentleness. “We’ll make certain that she’s comfortable.”

Poppy’s face crumbled. What did it mean to be comfortable when careening toward death? Did it mean that Therese was in some in-between space, unaware of her imminent end? Poppy tugged her hands away from her siblings’ and pressed her palms to her cheeks. This, all of it … she turned … God, she had to get out … get away … be anywhere but here …

She turned to run and there was Trevor. His thick chest, his strong arms, his calm face and brilliant eyes that held warmth and love. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, into his touch. Poppy’s heartbeat steadied and the clutching panic in her belly gave way to a settled acceptance. She could hear his heart through his sweater. The strong life force pounding through him. Finally, she could turn and face the room, his arms still around her.

The beeping was gone. The nurse had turned down the sound on the machine. The light on the heart monitor still showed Therese’s heart beating. The heart rate number grew smaller and smaller as each second passed. Poppy stood, motionless, watching the life drift away from the woman who she hadn’t called mother for most of her life. First Brian went to Therese’s bed. A kiss to her forehead and a long look at her face. With tears in his eyes, he brushed past Poppy and out into the hall. Then Mimi approached, her face now stoic and stone-like. She held Therese’s hand and pressed it to her own cheek.

“Bye bye, Mama. I love you.” She leaned forward and pressed a long kiss to Therese’s cheek. She backed away from the side of the bed and went to the window where she stood looking out, Daniel behind her. His arms wrapped around her.

Trevor still held Poppy. His arms tight around her, supporting her and giving her strength. She slid from his embrace. A need compelled her to go to the edge of Therese’s bed. There in the dim light, with her mother’s heartbeat ticking down like a stopwatch ticking away time, her mother lay with her eyes closed, her breathing so slow, so soft, as to be nearly unheard. Poppy stared at that face, the face that she had dreamed a million times, and at this woman who Poppy had needed to be her mother a million times more. Nothing would ever change the fact that Therese hadn’t been that mother. As Poppy looked at Therese, motionless and nearing her end on this plane, a feeling burst through her. Not quite forgiveness and not quite sadness, but a sense of calm. A knowledge that she would be okay, as would Therese. A peaceful acceptance, as though in this very second before the end of Therese’s life, their individual souls had released each other.

Poppy leaned forward and pressed her lips to her mother’s forehead. “Good-bye,” Poppy said, and with one final shuddering sigh the woman that Poppy had long ago called Mommy was gone.

*

Trevor took Poppy toward Malibu. The silence in the car heavy upon them. Poppy’s face unreadable as they drove west toward the ocean. Once there, he put her to bed. She was awake but quietly alert, not catatonic. Her face contained a stoicism, as though even she couldn’t discern what she should feel. What could he do for Poppy? His own experience told him that nothing but time and rest could heal the pain of parental loss. Trevor slid into bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her body. He pulled her close. The scent of oranges and mint still in her hair.

“Trevor,” Poppy whispered. Her voice contained pain. She put her hands on the arm wrapped around her chest.

“I’m here.” He pulled her closer and spooned his body to hers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

With his words, her entire body relaxed in his arms. Her breathing slowed until finally, every tense muscle in her body softened and relaxed. As she drifted to sleep, the tension in his own muscles drained from his body.

What a horrible time for Poppy and for her family. He’d hold her and feed her and simply be with her while she recovered from this loss. They would exist together and he was good with that. He had decisions to make, about his future and the future of Up Side Burger, but those decisions could wait. His birthday was a month from now. There was plenty of time to love and heal between now and the moment in which he had to decide. He would love and care for Poppy and be the best for her that he knew how to be.

Poppy walked along the beach. The waves caressed the shore and the water tickled her toes. There had been no funeral for Therese, only the request that her ashes be spread off the coast of Australia a year after her death. Poppy pulled the cuffs of her sweater over her hands and looked up into the gray sky. Fog lay heavy over the coastline this morning. There was no brilliant blue sky, no bright yellow sun, only a grey that seemed to match her mood. A funk had hovered around her for nearly a month. She mourned Therese, but not in the way she suspected most women mourned the passing of their mother. The thought that perhaps she wasn’t mourning correctly, the way she should mourn the woman who gave birth to her, created a layer of guilt that clung to Poppy’s every thought and action.

These morning walks had begun out of necessity. The first three days after Therese passed, she hadn’t moved from the bed. On the fourth day Trevor had pulled her to standing and pushed her out the back door, down the stairs to the sand, ordering her to walk to the curve on the beach where a giant rock jutted from the sand. She hadn’t wanted to, and she’d set off with a scowl, muttering unkind words.

Trevor had been right about sending her off to walk. With every mile she accumulated her malaise grew lighter. She spent her walks each morning ruminating over Therese, and Mimi, and her brother, and Trevor, and her life as it was and what she thought she might do for the rest of it. That was the problem she turned over in her mind today. Trevor’s birthday was two days away, and the party that his mother was hosting was tomorrow night. He’d be giving her his decision about running Up Side Burger. They’d discussed it a couple times before Therese died, but he hadn’t brought it up since. Trevor hadn’t brought much of anything up since, other than what she wanted for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and whether she wanted to go to a movie or stay home.

She wrapped her arms around her chest. He was babying her, protecting her, and though she found it hard to admit, she liked it. That he took care of her and her needs when she was tired and weak and afraid spoke to his love for her. That she didn’t have to make a more complex decision right now than whether she wanted a baked potato or quinoa with dinner.

He made her laugh, he kept her well-fed and warm. His company made her heart feel light. So why did anxiety creep along the sides of her belly? How damaged was she that she wanted to sneak through the darkness of night and hop a plane to Tibet, or Kathmandu, maybe even Phuket? What was her mental malfunction that she couldn’t mourn her dead mother the right way or commit to a man whom she loved and who so completely loved her?

A chill lingered in her heart. Everything died and ultimately everyone left. There was no permanence to life. Impermanence was the only certainty. Again, fear clutched her insides. How could she pledge her life to another, knowing that love, life, her very existence were as ephemeral as a wave on the ocean? She squinted toward the house. On the deck, Trevor’s familiar strong figure stood, hands on his hips, looking her way. She loved him. There was no doubt. But whether that love would cause her to stay and give up her wanderlust she couldn’t say. A slighter figure stood beside him … who was that? Smaller, with blonde hair … A smile broke across Poppy’s face.