What's Left Behind (10 page)

Rob wasn’t anywhere near as old as Dan, and Abby wasn’t as young as Dan’s wife. But still . . .

Rob was looking to start over with the right woman, not do over his entire life.

Grace waggled her eyebrows. “So your design client Abby’s a blond babe?”

“She’s an attractive woman with blond hair. I don’t think she’d appreciate the term
babe,
” Rob said, although late at night, alone in his apartment, he’d imagined whispering the term
baby
over her earlobe, and then exploring the rest of her bare curves. First time, fast and furious. Second time, slow as sin. Rob’s neck heated, a sudden sunburn.

“Ha! You like her. You like her a lot,” Grace said, reminding Rob of what Abby had said about her cat taking a shine to Rob. What was the beast’s name? Sophie? Sadie? Until now, Rob hadn’t considered Abby might’ve been letting on how she felt about him. “Hello, hello!” Grace used to say. “Light dawns on marble head.” Until now, Rob hadn’t considered that his daughter could turn a conversation around on him.

“How about you and Tyler?”

Grace’s smugness faded. She scrunched up her mouth and shook her head, a slow side-to-side refusal.

Rob got up on one knee, raised his hands over his daughter. “Gracie girl?” he said, giving her less than a second before he went in for the kill, aka the tickle attack.

Grace squealed and flopped over. She folded into a ball for cover. “Uncle.”

“Can’t hear you.”

“Uncle!” she yelled. “Uncle, already!”

Rob let her catch her breath and sit up. “About Tyler?” he said.

Grace nodded and spoke like a woman who knew her mind. “I like Tyler. I sure do like him a lot.”

And Rob liked Abby a lot. He owed it to his friend Abby to come clean. He owed it to himself to be realistic about what he really wanted, not a subject he’d spent much time pondering of late.

He wanted to take Abby out on real dates. He wanted to get to know her better. He also wanted to get inside her pants. And he wanted to support her, even if Abby wanted to convince Tessa to let her adopt her son’s baby.

If Abby got what she wanted, Rob couldn’t see a future with her.

That didn’t stop Rob from still wanting to get inside her pants. That made him worse than Grace’s friend-turned-boyfriend Tyler, starting a relationship when they were headed in different directions. Starting something he knew he couldn’t finish.

On the day Luke was born, Abby had awoken to chalk-white skies, snow drifts edging her bedroom windows, and a pressure that wracked her body and had her calling out for Lily Beth.

Today’s overcast skies couldn’t hamper Abby’s mood.

“Rain’s coming.” Lily Beth squinted past the guests sitting in the rows of teak folding chairs before Luke’s handprint stepping stones, and gazed out to the water. “Listened to the weather service on the drive over,” Lily Beth added, even though she and Abby knew full well the ways to predict a storm without the benefit of radio waves. Same as Abby, surely Lily Beth had awoken to a dewless lawn, a sky free of fog, and the sensation of wanting to jump out of your skin, like the fish dimpling the surface of the harbor.

“Fortuitous for a ground-breaking ceremony?” Abby asked, because she knew that would be her mother’s next proclamation. Lily Beth grinned and squeezed Abby’s shoulder.

They could use a good downpour, something strong and soaking, to soften the dry soil and open it up for the rows of plantings and stones that would edge the grassy path of the labyrinth. For now, white lines painted the temporary path until the real thing came along.

Charlie strolled around the side of the house, carrying a bouquet of red roses in his right hand, yellow roses in his left. He caught Abby’s gaze and broke into a broad grin. Without slowing down, he made an exaggerated sweep of her body, head to toe and back again, and then drew his lips into his mouth and emitted a low wolf whistle of appreciation.

“For me?” Lily Beth said, fingertips to her chest.

Charlie winked and gave Lily Beth a kiss on the cheek. “The whistle, not the blooms. These are for my girls,” he said.

It took Abby a beat to realize he meant her and Tessa. It took Abby a moment to shake herself out of déjà vu: the memory of a teenage Charlie stopping by Lily Beth’s to bring Abby drooping grocery-store roses and stale chocolates in a heart-shaped box. Charlie dropping in to say his good-byes.

Abby took the flowers from Charlie’s hands. “Classy,” she said. “The flowers, not the whistle. You do know this is my place of business?” Abby said, even though no Briar Rose guests were attending the gathering.

Without qualm, Charlie leaned close and directed his gaze to Abby’s cleavage. “If you didn’t want me to whistle, then you shouldn’t have worn that dress.”

Heat rose from Abby’s center, a confused mix of anger and embarrassment that Charlie could, so easily, draw a reaction from her. She buried her nose in the red roses, inhaled partway.

Lily Beth flipped her hair with the back of her hand. “Oh, that old thing?” she said, twisting a line from one of her and Abby’s favorite movies. “Abby only wears that when she doesn’t care how she looks. Isn’t that right, baby?”

“That’s right.” She didn’t care, at least not about Charlie’s opinion. She’d chosen the low-cut turquoise dress for Rob. After spending half an hour ruling out several more conservative contenders, she’d decided to trot out her secret weapons. Rob had come by yesterday with a crew to spray paint the labyrinth on her lawn and erect a simple arbor at its entrance. The first time she’d seen him all week, and she couldn’t get him to look her in the eye, let alone gaze at her cleavage. He’d been all business. Fine by her, as long as he dropped the act when they were alone.

She wanted to get him alone.

That wasn’t about to happen with a yard full of guests.

Celeste tiptoed over the lawn, perching on the balls of her feet so her high heels wouldn’t dig into the grass. She held a tray of Luke’s favorite cupcakes, Death by Chocolate. Two short helpers—daughter, Phoebe, and son, Elijah—held on to Celeste’s skirt. “Where’s your new best friend?” Celeste asked, referring to Tessa.

Abby widened her eyes. “That’s the precise reason I haven’t let you come by.”

“What,
that?
”

“That comment, that look on your face.” That overprotectiveness Abby loved and appreciated. “Mama Bear,” Abby whispered, and Celeste took down her snarky shield.

Lily Beth waved at Phoebe, and she ran across the lawn, a streak of red curls. Abby’s mother knelt in her long skirt and caught Phoebe in her kayak-paddling-sculpted arms, then hoisted her onto her hip and spun her in a circle, putting a grin on Abby’s face. Her mother did not act like a soon-to-be great-grandmother. Then again, she’d never acted like a traditional mother or grandmother either.

Seemed to work for Tessa.

On Tuesday, Abby had let Lily Beth drop in for a casual meet and greet—as casual as the circumstances allowed. She brought Tessa a bottle of Earth Mama Body Butter, a drawing tablet with an egg-in-a-nest cover, and the last sand dollar Luke had given her.

Seemed to work for Lily Beth.

But then Lily Beth sat in Abby’s driveway behind the wheel of her lime-green Beetle for a good ten minutes before she’d keyed the engine and headed for home.

Abby played at swiping a cupcake from Celeste’s tray. “Heard there’s been a rash of cupcake robberies,” she said, and her stomach dipped. Tone, cadence, word choice. Without meaning to, Abby had channeled Luke.

“Don’t you dare!” The tilt of Celeste’s head, the rue in her grin. One glance from Celeste let Abby know Celeste had heard it, too.

Abby brought her voice back to a normal range. “They look delish.” No regrets, no sadness allowed. Want to share funny Luke stories? Go right ahead. Talk about a prank he played, even complain a little? Go to town. But no tears. Not today.

Celeste set the tray on Abby’s quilt-covered table, right next to Luke’s favorite drink.

Extra-tart lemonade filled an etched glass beverage dispenser, and a dozen matching glasses awaited the beverage. Elijah studied the arrangement and then turned each glass right-side up.

Abby gave Elijah a thumbs-up. “Good job. Why didn’t I think of that?” she said, and he grinned at the table.

No adult beverages or fancy finger sandwiches. Abby had invited her closest friends and instructed each person to bring a dessert. Homemade cider doughnuts balanced in a pyramid. Blueberries melted atop a two-layer cheesecake. Bite-sized carrot cakes with cream-cheese frosting rounded out the selection. Today was all about a boy and his sweetness.

Now and again, Abby could stand a lesson in sweetness, at least as it pertained to Charlie. He was the only person she knew who could, knee-jerk, get a rise out of her. She tucked the bouquets under her arm and touched Charlie’s shoulder. “Thank you for the flowers. I’ll go put them in water. They’ll look lovely on the table.”

“Not as lovely as you.”

Abby took her hand from his arm, straightened her posture. “What are you doing?”

Charlie laughed. The sharp burst of air sent a shiver up the back of her neck. “Trying to pay you a compliment,” he said, and his tongue darted out to lick at his bottom lip. A slight tilt to his chin, and Charlie locked his gaze on hers. Too serious, too loving, too inappropriate for their friendship.

“Well, don’t!” Abby said. “I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“Abigail Pearl,” he said, full-on crooning. “You’ll always be my jewel of the sea.”

What madness was this?

If Charlie had suggested they duck behind a bush for a quickie, she would’ve known he was kidding. Kidding, but hoping she’d take him up on the offer. If he’d asked her to mess around, complete with an obscene arm-pump gesture, she might’ve even laughed. But for Charlie to go soft on her, speaking to her as though they were still teenage lovers who’d never stopped loving . . .

Why now? To what end?

A heat churned in Abby, bringing her dangerously close to tears. Tears that she didn’t understand, which really ticked her off. She shook the flowers at Charlie. “I’m going to go put these in water,” she repeated, “and when I get back, I expect you to act normal. Think you can manage that?”

“Not a chance, Pearl.”

Abby opened her mouth to protest Charlie’s term of endearment, but nothing came out. At the house-side flagstone path, she turned to find Charlie staring after her. He nodded, as if he’d gotten exactly what he’d intended.

Charlie’s madness couldn’t hamper Abby’s mood.

Instead of taking the flowers into the kitchen, Abby headed to check on Tessa. She wasn’t overly surprised by Tessa’s tardiness; that girl took forever getting ready. But Rob was supposed to have been here half an hour ago, and he’d never been late before. When she’d invited him to stand by her side and say a few words about labyrinths, he said he’d be honored. But what if he felt the invitation too personal? What if personal was the last thing he was interested in?

Abby slid open the pocket door, cocked her head not so much toward as against the racket. The song “If I Die Young” reverberated off the walls of her living room, a thick rope of sound that lashed out from Luke’s bedroom and noosed Abby’s heart.

“Tessa!” Abby yelled, but all she could hear were the lyrics. The smell of roses sharpened in her nose and clogged her throat, a vile reminder of the days after Luke’s funeral and the bouquets that had riddled her home.

When Luke was eight he’d, quite accidentally, discovered Abby’s vulnerability to sad songs. Charlie had recorded some favorite music for him, a mix CD that included, of all things, Irish ballads. “Kilkelly Ireland” told the tale of an Irishman whose son immigrated to America, and thirty years of unrelenting loneliness that ended with the father on his deathbed. Nice story for a child.

Luke had loved it.

Boom box in hand, he’d chase Abby around the sofa, while Abby attempted to outrun the father’s sorrow.

“If I Die Young” was a heck of a lot harder to outrun. The song reached down through the still waters of Abby’s hard-earned tranquility and scraped the soft, sandy bottom of her loss until grief clouded the water and muddied her impossible-to-hamper mood.

Abby tossed the bouquets on the sofa and raced into Luke’s room in time to hear the lead singer for The Band Perry claim she’d had enough time. Enough time for whom? Abby certainly hadn’t had enough time.

Tessa lay on her left side atop Luke’s bed, hands cradled around her belly.

Abby’s senior year in high school, there had been a car accident where three football players had died, juiced up on beer and testosterone. Because no matter how many videos the guidance counselors played in drivers’ ed of mangled cars and bloody wrecks, no teenagers really believed they were mortal. Or, if they did believe it in the vaguest sense, they saw death as a song, where you looked down on your friends, legs dangling from the vantage point of a white fluffy cloud.

They saw death as romantic.

If you died when you were a teenager, you’d never experience the disappointment of watching your dreams fall short or suffer the indignities of old age. To Abby, those lost boys were forever young, brimming with beauty and potential. Brimming with life.

For those left behind, life was a heck of a lot more complicated.

Abby went to Tessa’s iPod she’d attached to Luke’s dresser-top speaker and twisted the volume knob until it came off in her hand.

Tessa sprang to sitting. “I was listening to that.”

Electricity thrummed through Abby’s body, curled her toes, hunched her shoulders, and beat a drum at the center of her bottom lip. A slow, deep breath only quickened her pulse. Abby understood Tessa’s behavior, she really did, but that didn’t mean she’d facilitate it. “No, what you were doing was having a pity party for one, the timing of which is completely inconsiderate, seeing as I’ve invited a couple dozen guests over for sweets and happy Luke remembrances. No time for melodrama today. No time.”

Despite Abby’s speech, the sad song played in her head, sweet lilting country vocals about a mother burying her baby. Flash of identifying Luke’s body. Flash of picking out Luke’s casket. Flash of touching her son’s face for the last time. The drumbeat at her lip spread to encompass the rest of her body.