Three Wishes (41 page)

Bree was his soul mate. Her death couldn't change that. She was the ray of sun in a dark day, had been that for him from the first, and she was with him still, cheating death in her own imaginative way. Indeed, he felt her presence so strongly that when the crowd finally cleared, he half expected that she would be there.

Instead, standing a short distance across the newly tamped snow was his father.

Something inside Tom cracked. He was vaguely aware that Alice was there and that three of his brothers were, too, but it was his father who held his gaze, his father who drew his aging body up to Tom's height and started toward him, his father who didn't stop until he was close, then stood for a silent sad minute.

Tom wasn't sure what he saw then, because his eyes were filled with tears. But he felt things he had been too frozen to feel, felt love and grief and need. He felt regret and apology, felt acceptance, and suddenly he was ten years old, coming home to a place of unconditional love.

One open arm was all the invitation he needed. Wrapping both of his around his father, he buried his face in the collar of a coat where the scent of home was familiar and warm even after so many years away, and he cried as he hadn't been able to do before. He cried for Bree, cried for his mother, cried for things that had been lost in the morass of success. It all came out in low gulps that might have embarrassed him had his father made any move to set him back. But even when Tom was finished and held on still, his father held him right back.

In time, the others joined them. He embraced his brothers, holding each in silent thanks, and shared more tears with Alice, who had known Bree and felt her loss. He led them to the graveside, knowing Bree would appreciate that, and knew from the warmth inside him that she did. Then, finding warmth in this, too, he invited them home.

He felt a new urgency now. As short as the drive was, he grew impatient. Once there, he left his family with those closest friends who had gathered again at the house and ran up the stairs to the baby's room. Julia was leaning against the crib rail, rubbing the baby's back. Tom could see that she had been crying. He knew the exact instant when she saw that he had been, too.

“I just fed him,” she said. “He's nearly asleep.” She searched his face in relief and understanding, squeezed his arm, and left the room.

The baby lay under the afghan Verity had made. Tom drew it back and lifted him, one hand under his head and back, the other under his bottom. The baby didn't object. He didn't make faces or squirm. Little arms and legs barely left the fetal position. Eyes that had been nearly closed slowly opened.

Tom felt their warmth, and in that instant, Bree was with him again. The baby had her mouth, her neat ears, the shape of her face, her peaceful disposition. She had bequeathed him these things. He would wear them well. But he had other things, too, even aside from Tom's eyes. He had his own nose and chin, his own sweet voice, and a brain that made his tiny fingers move in gentle ways that were determined by no one but him.

Settling him in the crook of his elbow, Tom slipped a finger into those tiny ones. They promptly curled around it and held on. He lowered himself to the rocker and started it swinging slowly, soothingly, back and forth.

Bree approved. He could feel the force of her ear-to-ear smile. And if that didn't make sense? Tough. He felt it anyway. When she smiled that way, he felt strong. He felt that he could be a good father, that he could be a good
person,
that he could survive after all and make her proud. When she smiled that way, he
believed.

“He's a fine-looking boy,” came a gruff voice from the door.

Tom looked up. “His name's Wyatt.”

Harris Gates came in for a closer look. “Definitely a mix of the two of you. Oh, I know. I never met her. But I saw those pictures. She looked like a good person.”

“The best,” Tom said. He drew in a deep breath, deeper than any he had taken since Bree had died. The pain was still there, but bearable now. “It's amazing. Two years ago, I didn't know she existed. We really only knew each other for fourteen months. Sometimes I think those fourteen months were preordained. Maybe they were all we were meant to have.” He stroked the baby's silky auburn hair and swallowed. His eyes brimmed with new tears. Unembarrassed, he let them stay. “I used to think that she had come back to life solely for me to redeem myself.”

“Haven't you?”

Had he? He had given Bree a home she loved, jewelry, a wedding, a honeymoon, a truck. He had been her cook, her waiter, her chauffeur. He had listened when she talked. He had been with her morning and night, taking pleasure from her pleasure. He had made her the center of his universe and had loved her with all his heart.

Could redemption have felt so
good?
Anything was possible.

“She wrote me a note,” his father said. “It was with the gift she sent. She said you'd made her happier than she thought a person could be. Was she wrong?”

Tom studied the baby. His tiny cheek was against the scarf his mother had made. His eyes were closed, his little mouth pursing in sleep. Tom remembered Bree's mouth doing something like that, then spreading into a smile of delight when he woke her with a kiss. “No. She wasn't wrong.”

“Did you do it only because of the accident? Because you felt you owed her?”

“No. It was because of her. Because I loved her. Because I wanted to make her happy. Because making her happy made
me
happy.” Which sounded selfish again. “So am I still the bottom line?”

His father shook his head no.

Tom studied his craggy face. Age had thinned it and added creases and marks, but it remained a solid face, one people admired. His mother certainly had. Tom had seen her searching for it out the parlor window at the close of the day, even that last time he had seen her, when he had refused to admit to himself how ill she was. “I made some awful mistakes.”

“Yes,” his father said. “You did.” There was silence, then a rough flurry. “So did I. I should have accepted your apology sooner, should have met your Bree. I missed my chance. Now it's too late.”

Thinking about that, watching the baby sleep in his arms, Tom remembered the words on the card that had come with his scarf.
Don't look too closely,
Bree had written.
It's got
lots of mistakes. More love than mistakes, though.

More love than mistakes. He supposed that was what life was about. She had been a wise woman, his Bree.

Gently, he touched the soft spot on the baby's head. The pulse beating there was little more than a whisper, but a sweet one. He tipped his head back to the ceiling. It was the crisp white that he'd painted it, made more brilliant by the beam of the lamp Bree had bought. In the shower of that light, he felt her nearness and smiled.

Epilogue

P
hotographs are wonderful things. They capture moments that would otherwise be lost and save them for all time. Some say photographs are flat, lifeless things. I say not. When the camera is in skilled hands, a photograph comes alive to capture a world of emotions.

Tom Gates's house is filled with photographs like that. I'm always amazed when I baby-sit Wyatt and find more on display. There are usually new ones of Wyatt, of course. Tom never tires of photographing him. But there are others that aren't newly taken, are only newly printed and framed. Those are of Bree.

You see, it's a two-way street. Tom documents Wyatt's life with him for Bree to see and Bree's life with him for Wyatt to see.

Oh, I know. You're thinking that Bree can't really
see
those pictures. Well, maybe she can't. Then again, maybe she can. I've seen Tom agitated over something one minute and, in the next, suddenly take a breath, draw himself up, and grow calm. He doesn't say it, but I know he's thinking of Bree. So is she present in his house?

I can't say she isn't.

She was actually the one to start the thing with photographs, and I don't mean the album she gave me. Among the gifts she left wrapped under the Christmas tree was a special one for Wyatt. It contained a double-hinged frame holding three pictures of her that Tom had taken during their all-too-brief marriage. No one looking at them can help but smile. They capture everything that was Bree—her warmth, her spirit, her love of the life that she found.

It took Tom months to open those last Christmas gifts. Long after the tree had been taken down, he kept them in a pile. He claimed that he had the only gifts he wanted, his son and the burgundy scarf Bree had crocheted. Only when spring arrived, and the daffodil bulbs that, against my better horticultural judgment, he had planted on her grave one bleak January day burst into glorious yellow bloom, did he feel strong enough to open the rest. There were books he had wanted, a legal print for his office, and driving gloves. There was a fine leather briefcase with his initials embossed. There was a small glass heart with multicolored swirls inside, good for nothing more than the thought it carried. Even now, five years later, Tom tucks it in his pocket every day.

Those first few months after Bree died were the hardest for him. Often I would find him in the rocking chair, with the baby asleep on his chest, tears in his eyes, and a stricken look on his face. As though she were an amputated limb, he kept feeling Bree there and mourned all over again when he found that she wasn't. In time, he adjusted to the idea that what remained of her was pure spirit.

That didn't mean he stopped missing her. He stayed home a lot that first year, bonding with Wyatt, yes, but unable to go out and just have fun. I had been the same after Teddy died. Feelings of emptiness, of guilt at being the one to survive, of fear of a future without, were overwhelming. Holidays in particular—the first this, the first that, without the person you loved more than life—were brutal. Occasionally, Tom strapped Wyatt to his chest and went through the motions, but anyone who looked could see his heart wasn't in it.

Two things changed that. No, three things. No,
four
things.

First, there was the town. If Panamanians were nothing else, they were persistent. They kept a close eye on Tom, bringing him food long after the funeral was over, calling often to see how he was, popping by to dote on the baby. They included him in their plans even when he resisted, protected him when the press finally found him, treated him as though he had lived in town for years. They let him know in dozens of wordless ways that he wasn't alone.

Second, there was Tom's family. His sister and brothers left two days after the funeral, but his father stayed on for a time. The end of their estrangement meant the world to Tom, all the more so as Wyatt grew bigger. Every few months, one Gates or another came to town. Whenever Tom felt too much time had elapsed, he packed Wyatt up, and the two of them flew home. Family had been Tom's backbone as a child. It was again now.

Third, there was work. Martin was the best partner Tom could have had. He might have felt threatened when Tom's identity first came out, but that feeling had disappeared entirely by the time Bree died. In fact, their roles reversed. Martin became more assistant than mentor. Under Tom's tutelage, he did the legwork that Tom couldn't do during those first dark days. By the time Tom felt up to returning to work, a thriving practice was waiting, so much so that he and Martin hired an associate. Even when he began to function well, Tom refused to work full time. He wanted to raise his son, Wyatt.

Yes, Wyatt. Wyatt was the fourth and probably the single most influential factor in getting Tom's heart working again. How
not
to smile and laugh with a child like that? I had worried that Tom's grieving would make Wyatt a serious child, but the reverse happened. Wyatt was an early smiler, an early tease, an early talker who loved being with people. Oh, he knew where his bread was buttered. He loved his daddy first and foremost, no doubt about that. But when his daddy took him to the diner, which he so often did, he was in his half-pint glory. By the age of three he had a killer smile and an uncanny sensitivity to people's moods. He had Tom's capacity to charm and Bree's outgoing nature, and was fearless, energetic, and imaginative. More than anyone or anything else, he led Tom back to the world of the living.