Someone to Watch Over Me (16 page)

“Sure.” She let him take her by the arm and lead her outside. “Be right back,” she told Amy.

They got out into the hall, just outside the room, Gwen with her back to the wall and Jax standing in front of her, one hand propped on the wall beside her head, close but not too close.

Gwen’s heart didn’t seem to care. It started thudding away as if he had her pinned to the wall.

“Hi,” she said, grinning at him.

“You look…different,” he said.

“That’s what Joanie said,” Gwen told him. “Do you date a lot of women you meet through your job?”

“What?” he whispered.

She smiled again. “Just a guess.” Jax, gorgeous as he was, and in full protection mode on top of that, would be impossible to resist.

He frowned at her. “What’s happened to you?”

“I think…I’m happy,” she said in the same way she might announce she was taking off on a trip around the world or something.

She thought Jax might get scared, thinking about that treacherous L-word again. But he didn’t. He looked surprised and thoughtful.

“This is you happy?”

She nodded. “Like it?”

“Yeah, I do. I don’t suppose you’d change your mind about the rules for our relationship?”

“Sure. Buy the ring and get down on one knee.”

She managed to keep a straight face until he looked honestly worried, and then she started giggling, a sound she quickly stifled with a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I have no business doing that outside that poor girl’s room. I just…I am happy. Thank you.”

And then she rose on her toes and kissed him softly.

“See you tonight?” she asked.

“You’ll see me.” He made it sound like an event fraught with opportunity, then added, “Hey, don’t they have dogs coming into hospitals these days. You know—therapy dogs? I was thinking maybe I could get Romeo a job here. You know, cheer people up. He could do that.”

“Sure,” Gwen said. “He’d be a natural. I bet if you went down to personnel, they’d have an application and everything. You’re counting on the position coming with room and board, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’re going to admit that you like that dog one day,” Gwen told him.

He just grinned and waved before walking away.

Gwen stood there and watched him go, like a lovesick puppy.

She was in so much trouble.

And then she remembered why she was here.

The girl.

Gwen was supposed to make her feel better, if she could, not stand here and giggle and grin outside this room. She wiped the smile off her face and then walked into the room.

The girl gaped at her. “Is he yours?”

“Not exactly,” Gwen said.

“Oh. Okay. It’s just that…He’s so wonderful.”

“I know,” Gwen said.

“Last night I was so scared, and he just started talking to me in that quiet, soothing voice of his, and he held my hand, and I think I cried on his shoulder, too.” Amy paused and looked worried. “Not that…I mean, it’s not anything for you to be jealous of. I just—”

“Oh, sweetie, I understand. He has the best shoulders. I’ve cried on them, too. And it’s his job to take care of people like you and to make you feel safe.”

“He’s really good at it,” Amy said.

“Yes, he is.” Gwen held out the flowers. “These are for you. From your aunt and uncle. There’s a card.”

Amy took the card, and Gwen set the flowers on the table by her bed. “Thank you.”

“Do you feel like having some company?”

“Sure.”

She looked and sounded like such a little girl. Her sad face was a mess, and she didn’t look as though she weighed a hundred pounds, even. It would be so easy to hurt her.

“Jax told me what happened,” Gwen said. “Not your name or anything. I didn’t know that until I made up the flowers and my boss told me what had happened to the person who was getting them. Then I just put two and two together, and thought you must be the one he’d taken care of last night, and I thought…Well, I offered to deliver the flowers because I thought you might need someone to talk to. Amy, this time last year, I was right where you are now.”

“Somebody attacked you, too?”

“Yes.”

“Someone you knew?”

“No. Someone just grabbed me on the street and pulled me into a dark alley. I’d never seen him before.”

“I knew this guy,” she explained. “We’d been out a few times, and we were supposed to go to the movies, and he said he’d forgotten his wallet back in his motel room. I wasn’t even really worried. He seemed like such a nice guy. A nice normal guy. And I just walked right into that room with him.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to do what he did to you,” Gwen said. “It doesn’t matter if you knew him, if you went somewhere willingly with him or if he was a complete stranger.”

“I know that. I think. I just feel so stupid—”

“I did, too,” Gwen said.

“But you didn’t do anything.”

“I was walking down the street alone after dark—”

“But you didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“Neither did you, Amy. It wasn’t your fault. You may not believe it now, but please try to remember it. Because, someday, I bet you will be able to believe it, too. You need to believe it if you’re going to get better.”

Amy started to cry. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get better.”

“I know.” Gwen took her hand and held it. “I didn’t think I would, either.”

Amy sniffled and wiped away tears with one hand. The other remained in Gwen’s. “Every time I close my eyes, I see it happen again. And when I actually fall asleep, it’s even worse, because it’s like I’m right back there.”

“And it’ll be like that for a while. But not forever.”

She sniffled again, then nodded. “I hope not. I don’t know what I’d do if it always felt this bad.”

“It won’t.”

“The minister of my church came by, and he said I just have to have faith, that if I do, everything will be okay, but I don’t know if I believe that. Or maybe I just don’t have enough faith.”

“Neither did I,” Gwen confided.

Amy almost smiled. “And then my godmother came in right after him, and she said faith isn’t something we’re born with or something we can just decide to believe in. She says it’s a soul lesson we have to learn, and that the learning doesn’t come easy. That it comes in times like these.”

Gwen considered that for a moment and then said, “I guess I’m still learning that one.”

“Me, too. She said you just have to ask for the help you need, and you’ll get it. I’m not sure if I believe that, either, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to try. And now that I think about it, I was feeling really alone today, like nobody really understood what I was going through, and then Jax showed up and then you. And I feel a little better.”

“Good,” Gwen said. “I could come back if you like. Or I could leave you my phone number just in case, and you could call me. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Please.”

Gwen wrote her name and number on the card Jax had left for Amy, gave the girl a little hug and promised to be back soon.

She was home, showered and dressed and ready to leave the house that night, when she stopped in the middle of her living room and realized that the TV wasn’t on, to drown out other noises that might frighten her. That she didn’t need the TV because she was humming.

Humming.

And grinning for all she was worth.

Gwen had to sit down, had to take a minute to absorb what was going on inside her. She was so happy. She felt so much stronger, more capable, more confident. She hadn’t forgotten what happened, but she had dealt with it, gotten past it.

She really, really hadn’t been sure she’d ever make it this far, that she’d ever be healed or feel safe again.

The feeling of safety had come first, and it had come in Jax’s arms, but it was like the feeling had sunk into her skin, and it was hers now. She felt safe again, and it was so wonderful.

She flashed back to something Amy had told her.

You just have to ask for what you need.

Gwen hadn’t had much faith in anything the past year. Not herself. Not in God. Oh, she’d made some tentative steps back toward Him. She’d been going to church and paying attention and trying to puzzle things out. But it wasn’t like she’d opened up her heart to Him again.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped her from asking Him for help, and one of the main things she’d asked for was to feel safe again.

And now that she thought about it—the things she’d so desperately needed and how they seemed to have been delivered to her, just in a way she hadn’t recognized at first, and how much better she felt, how much stronger, how much safer….

If she were a woman with more faith, she’d have to wonder if He hadn’t heard her prayers.

And sent Jax to her.

A
s soon as he got off work that evening, Jax ran back to his mother’s grave and took the dog with him.

Romeo was as happy as he had been when Jax’s mother dropped a T-bone steak on the ground at a family cookout a year ago, and Romeo snagged it faster than anyone could even blink.

“That good, huh?” Jax asked.

Romeo lay on top of Jax’s mother’s grave, grinning and sticking his nose up into the breeze. He really liked a good breeze to ruffle his fur.

Jax sat with his back against the tree once again, looking out over the town and then back to the spot where they’d buried his mother.

“What am I supposed to do with her?” he said.

Romeo answered with a puzzled bark.

“Not you, Romeo. Just lie there.”

Jax closed his eyes and didn’t even take a second to think about how foolish he felt, except to hope that no one came along and caught him looking like he was talking to the dog. He just had to think about this, and he really wanted to talk to his mother, and so he figured, why not?

“She looked so happy today, Mom. She was just glowing and so pretty. I mean, I know you think that’s all I care about—how a woman looks—but that’s not true. I promise. And with Gwen, it wasn’t about that at all at first. It was about how sad she was and that I was so sad, and that she listened to me and she understood.”

Not a bad start, my darling.
That was what she’d say.

“Last night, she said there are things she loves about me. Me and the dog, she claimed, but she didn’t say it like that. Not until she started worrying about me getting scared, and I guess, me running away. I can’t run away from her, but I don’t want to hurt her, either, and you know me—and love—you know I don’t believe in that.”

Jax, just because you don’t believe in it doesn’t mean that love doesn’t exist. You’re not the final authority on everything in this world, my darling.
She’d said that to him so many times. That his opinion wasn’t the absolute truth, just his opinion.

“Okay. I know that. I didn’t mean it that way. I just…She’s been through so much, and I don’t want to hurt her.”

That part was easy, as far as his mother was concerned. She’d say,
Then don’t.

Jax frowned. It wasn’t quite that easy. In one of those last nights he’d spent sitting up with his mother, he’d argued that even with the best of intentions, people hurt each other. Look at everything that had happened to his family, everything they’d lost, their father and soon to be, their mother.

His mother hadn’t bought into that for a second.

Jax. Do you honestly believe that the only things that exist in this entire universe are things you can see or touch or understand?

“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” he’d said.

Well, let me try and help you. Try not to be so afraid. Wonderful things do happen. They happen all the time, Jax. You just think too much. Sometimes you worry too much. And considering what you’ve been through—losing your father so young and with me dying, you trying so hard to take care of your sisters—I can understand that. Experiences like that change us. They mark us. They change the way we see the world. They distort things in our minds sometimes, and we have to work to let go of those fears and to see things as they really are.

“I see things just fine,” he’d insisted.

No, you still see things through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy who lost his father and decided it was dangerous to ever love anyone else, because you might lose those new people, too.

“I’m not eleven years old,” he’d argued.

I didn’t say you were. I said you still see things with his eyes at times and you feel with his battered heart.

“You’re saying I’m damaged. Beyond repair, I guess.”

I’m saying things have happened to you in your life that have made you believe ideas that aren’t necessarily true, and it’s time to unlearn those lessons.

“Mom—”

I’m sorry, darling. If I could do this for you, I would. But you’ll figure it out. I promise. Just remember that I’ll love you always.

“Mom!” He could tell she’d been drifting off again, afraid it might be the last time.

And take good care of my dog.

The conversation ran out. No more words of wisdom that he remembered from right there at the end of her life came to mind.

Jax sat there for a long time afterward, staring up at the
sky, wondering where she was and what was beyond that big, blue sky.

Mom? Is that you? Are you there?

But no one answered.

Gwen came over that night, and they worked on gathering the things of his mother’s that they thought the Bees could use. Jax was quiet, still mulling over what had happened at the cemetery. Gwen was quiet, too, and looking at him in an odd way.

Not an I-think-I-love-you-but-I’m-not-going-to-tell-you way.

Jax knew that look.

He’d been on the receiving end of that one a lot. It practically gave him hives because it always meant it was time to move on.

But Gwen wasn’t looking at him like that. She was sitting on the floor putting pretty scarves in one box, hats in another, and every time she thought he wasn’t looking at her, she was staring at him. As if he had grown three heads or something.

What was that about?

Was the whole world just getting weird?

Romeo, now that he’d snatched a hat for his nest on Jax’s mother’s bed, was sprawled out on the floor in front of the fireplace as though he was supervising and congratulating himself on a job well done.

Which reminded Jax…“Gwen, did you think anymore about getting a dog?”

“I…uh…No. I forgot.”

And then she went back to staring at him as unobtrusively as possible.

What in the world?

He had an urge to ask her if she believed people died but didn’t really die. If she had any dead relatives she’d talked to.
Kind of.
But she already seemed to think he had three heads or something, and the subject was just too weird to bring up.

I kind of…talked to my mother today.

Oh, really? How nice for you.

No, he wouldn’t do that.

He dug something else out of a drawer in his mother’s spare bedroom and then realized Gwen wasn’t staring at him so oddly anymore. She was staring at what was in his hand.

He looked down and frowned at the flesh-colored pouch. “It’s my mother’s extra breast.”

“Huh?” Gwen asked.

“One of the fake ones. They cut off one because of the cancer, and she had these things for a while, to sort of…even things out. But they kept falling out of her clothes.” He started to laugh, then stopped. “She was at a funeral for one of the first ladies she met in the Bees, and everybody was bawling, they missed that woman so much. My mother spoke at the graveside service on behalf of the group, and as she was walking back to her seat, her fake breast fell out and rolled along behind her. People had the oddest looks on their faces. They didn’t really know what it was, except for all the women who’d had cancer, and they all just cracked up, right there at the funeral. My mother said it was just like Grace McGraw to give them one last great laugh.”

Gwen laughed until she cried. Jax did, too. Gwen wiped his tears away, and he wiped away hers.

Romeo looked like he wanted in on the joke, too, and then he came and snatched the fake breast out of Jax’s hand and trotted off to his nest with it.

Which only made Jax and Gwen laugh harder.

He ended up sitting on the floor with his arms around Gwen, and her looking up at him.

“You’re starting to feel better,” she said.

“Yeah, I am.”

“It’s okay to feel better. Your mother would want that.”

“I know she would,” he agreed, and then he didn’t care if she did think he was weird. He asked, “Do you think, when people die, that’s it? They’re gone for good?”

Gwen made a face. That was certainly an odd turn in the conversation. “You mean, do I believe in ghosts?”

“Not exactly.”

“You mean, do I believe in God and because of Him we never really die?”

“Not…exactly.”

“Want to tell me what you mean?” she tried.

It was Jax’s turn to make a face, as if he was in pain, as if he’d stubbed his toe or something. Except he was sitting down.

“Want to tell me why you’ve been looking at me like I’ve grown three heads?” he asked.

Gwen was silent for a long time. “Not exactly.”

“Okay,” he said.

“No, it’s not okay. You tell me your thing first. Just say it. It can’t be any odder than what I’m going to tell you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, as though he just couldn’t face forcing out the words, and finally said, “I go to my mother’s grave, and it’s like…she talks to me…I mean, I don’t hear her voice or anything. It’s like I connect with her in some way. I either remember something she said that I need in that moment, or one day, one of her friends showed up and said some things. It’s like my mother’s still here, like she is helping me.”

Then he opened his eyes and stared at her.

“Okay.” Gwen did nothing else but nod.

He could almost see the questions running through her mind, a million of them.
He talked to his dead mother?

“Your turn,” he insisted. “Tell me yours.”

“Okay. I haven’t exactly been on speaking terms with God for the past year—since I was attacked—but I did grumble at Him from time to time, when I was really mad and frustrated. I asked Him for something. Always the same thing. I asked if I could just have one person who understood and cared and who I felt safe with. And I really hadn’t thought that much about it lately until I was talking to Amy today, and something she said made me think that…Well, that maybe God sent me you.”

Jax thought this must have been how she felt when he confessed to having conversations with his dead mother. She thought God had sent her someone like him?

“Oh,” he said, feeling more articulate with every passing moment.

“So…Your mother talks to you, kind of?”

Jax nodded. This was going so well. He was so glad he’d started it.

“Well, it’s a little weird, but I guess I believe that’s possible.

“Thank you.” Jax felt better. “I needed to hear that.”

“So, you want to know if I think she’s gone from the world as you and I know it, but not really gone, and that somehow she’s able to try to help you by communicating with you now?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Well, I used to dream about my grandfather after he died. I really missed him, and sometimes when I was really lonely or really sad, I’d dream about him, and it was like
he was just there, hanging out with me, and it made me feel better. Just like having you in my life has made me feel so much better. I really needed you, Jax. And I think you needed me, and you need to hear some things from your mother. Despite all the bad things that happen that we don’t understand and that don’t seem fair at all, things we blame God for…What if they’re not His fault, and He’s still around and even if He’s not stopping all the awful things, He’s still helping us through them.”

“Why not just stop them from happening?”

“I don’t know,” she cried. “I wish I did. It would be so much easier to believe if I understood that part, but I don’t. I just know that despite how mad I’ve been and how hurt I’ve been and despite the fact that I turned my back on Him, He’s still around, and I think He’s helping me in really important ways. I don’t feel alone anymore. I feel like, if anything rotten happens, someone’s going to be around to help me through it, whether it’s Him or someone He sent to me. And it looks like He’s doing the same thing for you.”

“You believe this thing that’s happening at the cemetery is my mother getting to me somehow, helping me? Because God’s helping her do that or He’s helping me? Even though He took her away from me for reasons I will never understand.”

“What if He didn’t take her away from you?”

“She’s gone, isn’t she? He’s all-powerful, all-knowing. He can do anything, and she’s gone, and if He wanted to, He could have stopped it.”

“Okay, so you believe in Him, you just don’t like the way He runs the world?”

“Not mine,” Jax said, then groaned. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. I thought I did, and now I just don’t know. Life is crazy. I don’t understand it at all. I hate that
she’s gone, but then, sometimes, when I really need her, it’s like she’s there with me.”

“And I think that’s God. Helping us. He can’t fix everything, and I don’t know why, but He does what He can to help us when we really need it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Gwen.”

“You’re the one who thinks your mother’s talking to you, despite the fact that she’s dead. Maybe it’s God speaking to you in a voice you understand and trust.
Hers.
Does it really matter? You need help, and it’s there for you.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I do,” she said. “I wasn’t quite sure of it until right now, but I do. You’re sad and lonely and confused, and God’s helping you, and you’re getting through this. You’re going to be okay. I’m going to be okay, too.”

“I didn’t think you had that kind of faith.”

“My grandfather said faith isn’t something you either have or you don’t. It’s a lesson life teaches you. It’s something that’s inside of us all, from the time we’re created, and it just takes a while for us to recognize it and acknowledge it, for life to show it to us. I think I finally got it.”

“I don’t have it,” he claimed.

“Give it time, Jax. Look around you. See if you can’t find things going on right now that point to the fact that Someone is watching over you and helping you, and ask yourself who that is.”

“It’s my mother—”

“Okay. And how is it that she’s able to?”

“So, that’s it? I’m either going crazy or there is a God?” He laughed softly, wearily.

“Is that so hard for you to believe? I mean, wouldn’t it be kind of silly if we were all just here living our lives, and then we were gone. Alive one day and dead the next? What
would be the point in that? Just to be here for a while and then disappear into nothing? I don’t believe that. I have to believe that we’re here for some reason, that there’s some point to our lives. Do you really think there’s no point to our lives?”