Three Wishes (42 page)

Authors: Barbara Delinsky

Tom has dozens of pictures of him scattered around the house and dozens more in albumsâbulging, like mineâthat are as popular bedtime fare as any story.
Remember this one, Daddy? Grammy, look at this one, it's you and me. Tell
me again, Daddy, I want to hear about the time you took this one.
Some of the pictures are in color, some in black and white. Some show Wyatt alone, others show him playing with friends, at the diner helping Flash fix Earl his brownie sundae, picking blueberries with Verity, celebrating graduation from art school with Jane.

Jane has done well. She is working as court artist for a media group in greater Boston and is dating the detective who testified in one of her cases. Dotty says he's a thug who's only after her money, but since there isn't much of that, and since the detective in question comes from a family with
three
times as much, I doubt it's so. Besides, Tom's detective friend knows him and vouches for his character.

Tom is protective of Jane.

He is protective of Verity.

He is protective of me, too. Even back in those first days after Bree's death, he never betrayed me. My relationship to her was a secret we shared. He felt it was my job to tell people, my
right
to do it. He gave me time. And there was no rush. My presence in Wyatt's life aroused no suspicion. People knew that Bree and I had grown close. As the baby's godmother, it was only natural for me to help out with his care.

A quick word here, before I go on. I
helped.
That's all. There was never any question about who Wyatt's primary caretaker was. From the start, Tom did all the things that men of my generation rarely did. He diapered and fed, bathed and played, taught and disciplined. He never walked away from a chore, no matter how dirty it was. He was more attentive than ever when the child was fussy or sick.

Wyatt knows that I'm his grandmother. He's known since he was old enough to understand, because the whole town knew by then. Did the grapevine have a field day with that one! Word spread like lightning, not all of it kind. For a short time I was an outsider again, the woman who had cheated Haywood and Bree, the one who had come to town with a “hidden agenda” and been less than honest for four years. I was honest then, though. I bared my soul and invited their censure as part of my penance. When understanding and forgiveness came instead, I knew that Panama was truly my home.

All that, though, came after another trial. Before I told the town, I had to tell Nancy and Scott. It was hard. I had kept secrets from them far longer than from Panama. Nancy was the quicker to come around, understandably so, since she had met Bree and liked her. Whereas she could identify with the despair I had felt thinking Teddy was dead, Scott identified with his father and had more trouble accepting my infidelity. Of course, Scott was nothing if not competitive. When Nancy began visiting me in Panama, he wasn't about to let her get a foot up on him, so he visited, too. By then the trust fund was reflecting a healthy stock market and beginning to grow. Scott was appeased.

I have a good life here in Panama. My work as a florist is only as demanding as I want it to be, which means that I can meet my little kindergartner at the school bus any day when Tom is in court. Naturally, Tom apologizes. He respects the fact that I have a business to run, and if I didn't love him for other things, I would love him for that. But it is a joy for me to be able to do for Wyatt in ways that I didn't do for Bree. I've been given a second chance. There's closure in that.

I see closure coming on another front, too. Tom needs a woman. Wyatt may be only five now, but soon enough, he'll be older and wanting to spend much of his time with his friends.

Tom knows that. He has taught Wyatt enough about Bree so that mention of her is a regular part of the child's existence. That will always be so, for
both
of them. But they need to move on.

Those times when I grow angry at the thought that Bree died too young, I think of the accident that snowy October night. She died then. Had she not been revived, she would never have known Tom or me. She would never have experienced the joy she had. She would never have left a piece of herself behind in Wyatt. So I see those fourteen months as a gift.

Finally, Tom does, too. He knows now that he can survive without Bree. He can be a good parent and a fine lawyer and live the kind of life that would have made Bree proud. She is an irrevocable part of who he is. But just as she willingly gave her life to give him a child, he knows that she wouldn't want him growing old alone.

A new woman has just moved to town, a widow with a teenage daughter and a successful statistical analysis business that she plans to run from her house. That house is a charming Cape newly built on the site of the old Miller house on South Forest. Yes, it took Tom this long to do anything with the lot. He held it for two years after Bree died, finally razed the burned-out old house and left the land empty for another two years before building the Cape, and
then
he was fussy about who bought it. He personally helped this woman secure a mortgage. Her name is Diana, shortened to Dee.

Too much of a coincidence, you say?

I might have said it once, too. That was before Bree's three wishes.

But were the wishes real? you ask.

It's a fair question. A fluke spark from a faulty furnace could have caused the house fire. Bree had seen me around town for three years before she wished to see her mother. And more than one doctor told Tom of the feasibility that intense emotion of the type she had felt at the baby's birth could have caused her healthy heart to stop.

So
were
the wishes real? I'll never know for sure. All I know is that Bree believed they were. In those last fourteen months of her life, she came to believe that anything was possible.

I like to think it is.

From the desk of Barbara Delinsky

Dear Friends,

October 2001 marks the debut of a very special book.
UPLIFT: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors
is a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes sent to me by hundreds of women who have dealt with breast cancer and wish to pass on useful little essentials to women (and their loved ones) who face it now. There is nothing medical in this book. Rather, it is filled with sisterly advice, encouragement, and humor, presented in the words of women from every state, every age group, every walk of life.

It has been my joy to establish this project, gather submissions, and organize them into a book. Although I have written introductions for each chapter, the book is truly a grassroots endeavor belonging to the many women whose words are quoted therein.

I will be donating the entirety of the money I earn from this book to breast cancer research. For that reason, I shamelessly encourage you to support this book. It is a giftâfor those who contributed to it, for those who receive it, and for the cause that will benefit from its sales.

My thanks always,
Barbara DelinskyÂ Â

BOOKS BY BARBARA DELINSKY

An Accidental Woman

The Woman Next Door

The Vineyard

Lake News

Coast Road

Three Wishes

A Woman's Place

Shades of Grace

Together Alone

For My Daughters

Suddenly

More Than Friends

The Passions of Chelsea Kane

A Woman Betrayed

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.