Lowcountry lost, p.28
Lowcountry Lost, page 28
“Me too.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I like being your friend.”
“A friend who is now sharing responsibility of two boys with you. This is a pretty serious endeavor.” I wiggled free and sat at the dining table.
“Something happen?” He joined me.
“Nothing major. We just need to pay more attention to Bash and Koda’s needs.”
“Sounds to me like you’re already handling that.”
I looked up and narrowed my eyes. “How?”
“Bash called me last night and told me you took Koda shopping for new shoes and clothes.”
I clucked my tongue. “The poor thing was hobbling around in shoes two sizes too small. How’d we miss that for weeks?”
“Boys can sprout inches overnight. I grew up in a house full of them, I should know.”
“Still. I should have noticed.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over something you’ve already fixed.”
“I just want to do my best for those boys . . .” I glanced off, then back to him. “I know we haven’t known them long, but it feels like they’re family.”
“I know.” Rowan grew somber and stared off to the left. Blinking slowly, he brought his gaze back to me. “I think God put Bash and Koda in our life on purpose. Like it’s meant for us to take care of them.”
“If God deems fit for us to take care of Bash and Koda, then why didn’t he do the same for our own children?”
Rowan frowned, shaking his head. “I have no answer for that, but I do know you’re a natural at taking care of Bash and Koda.” He reached out and took my hand. “Didn’t you come up with the quote for the mural?”
I nodded, my eyes trained on the beautiful knife sitting on the table before me.
“A new start doesn’t negate the past. It learns from the roots of history and blooms into a better version.” He squeezed my hand. “You know the truth in that or you wouldn’t have come up with it in the first place. Avalee, we have a strong root system. Sure, we also have some damaged branches, but we could heal . . . We could have our own new start.”
“I know we’re in this together . . . I’m just trying to figure out what a new start looks like for us.”
“It can look like whatever we want it to.” Rowan scooted his chair away from the table and stood. “I’m going to go check on Bash and change out of this suit.”
“Okay.” I grabbed Rowan’s hand as he walked by. “You’re a natural with those boys, too, ya know.”
He stopped and smiled at me.
I didn’t have a sentimental gift for him, but I could give him my words. “You’re one amazing man, Rowan Murray. I’m grateful to have my best friend back . . . I’ve really missed him.” I rose to my feet, my focus on his lips. Always able to read me as easily as I could him, he leaned down and kissed me.
Loving this man was as easy as breathing. I just needed to figure out how to stop suffocating under the weight of our grievous past.
CHAPTER 35
THE AUGUST NIGHT WAS AS HOT AS ALL THE JULY NIGHTS, but I was too busy admiring the completed memorial garden to care. With the warm glow from strings of lights zigzagging between the buildings on each side and the sounds of the hushed gurgling of the water fountain and the tinkling of wind chimes, the intimate outdoor space held a magical quality full of whimsy, exactly what I’d envisioned. A place where Douglas would have enjoyed visiting. My little ones too.
A minivan pulled up in front of the entrance to the garden, and moments later a heavyset woman dressed in purple scrubs helped an elderly lady into a wheelchair. I had reached out and invited Loreen Holt to visit the garden before the town opened so she could have privacy, but I hadn’t expected her to be in such poor health. She was hunched and wafer-thin.
I rose to my feet, about to go greet Loreen and her aide, but the older lady’s face crumpled as she read the bronze memorial plaque mounted to the brick column at the entrance. Withered came to mind as I observed her, like life had been whittling away at her, little by little. Not much remained but a husk. And in this moment the poor husk nearly folded in on herself. Deciding she deserved space to mourn, I caught the nurse’s attention and mouthed, I’ll be back later. She nodded her head.
I made the three-mile loop around town before returning. As I walked by the entrance, I saw Loreen hunched in her chair by the three-tiered water fountain. The creamy white granite glowed underneath the string lights and the underwater lights cast a green hue to her face. The murmur of water seemed to have her in a trance.
“Hello,” I said gently as I joined her by the fountain, taking a seat on the bench beside her chair. I looked around and caught sight of the aide sitting on another bench, far enough away to give Loreen some privacy yet close enough if the elderly lady needed her. I gave her a smile and turned my attention to Loreen. “I’m Avalee Elvis. You must be Loreen Holt.”
A moment passed before she cleared her throat on a frail cough. “Yes.”
“Thank you for accepting my invitation.”
She finally glanced away from the fountain and met my eyes with a pair of cloudy blue ones, but said nothing. Surely, this had to be beyond overwhelming, so I didn’t push for conversation. Sometimes situations didn’t require words, so we sat there for a long spell of quiet as she took in the space. Her gaze moved from the fountain to the mural of the pecan tree with my quote on a ribbon beneath it. A new start doesn’t negate the past. It learns from the roots of history and blooms into a better version. She nodded as if she agreed with the saying. Then she looked to the left back corner, where we’d installed an interactive musical nook. It was a garden in memory of a child, after all, so we’d installed drums that looked like red-capped mushrooms with white dots, an upright xylophone shaped and painted like a butterfly, lily pad cymbals, and my favorite, three giant bamboo rainsticks.
The warm breeze gave the garden movement and I could all but imagine little fairies hiding in the flowers and shrubbery. I looked over at Loreen and watched her ease up in her chair to look over the lip of the fountain. I did the same and admired the coins glittering underneath the lit water. The day we’d finished installing it, workers kept stopping by to dump their spare change in at Koda’s insistence.
I fished a coin out of my pocket and offered it to her.
“Oh . . . no, dear. I don’t believe in wishing.”
“Good. Neither do I.” Wishing only ever let me down. “But I like to toss coins in Douglas’s fountain because all the money will be collected and donated to the March of Dimes in his memory each year from here on out.”
Her chin wobbled as I expected it would. “You were the one to find my son.”
“Yes,” I answered even though it wasn’t a question.
Loreen reached for the coin and I gave it to her. She flicked it into the bottom basin, barely making a splash. With our eyes trained on the rippling water, she caught my hand in hers and held it. An unspoken thank-you, I was sure.
We sat there staring into the water until I had the overwhelming urge to tell her my story.
“I’ve lost three children,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Two miscarriages and one stillbirth.” The two words felt all wrong leaving my tongue. Two words that shouldn’t exist, right along with the two words kidnapping and murder. I couldn’t believe I just said them out loud and to a stranger no less. But somehow it felt freeing.
Loreen held my hand tighter with more strength than she appeared to have. It should have felt odd holding this stranger’s hand, but perhaps our similar grief made her feel familiar to me. “We’re in a club no mother should ever be a part of, my dear.”
I trained my bleary gaze at the illuminated water. “I want to ask God why . . .” My throat filled with pain, making it impossible to speak further.
Beside me, Loreen shifted in her chair, slowly crossing her ankles. After some time, she interrupted the silence with her own confession of hurt.
“I spent the first year with hopes that my little boy would return home. I couldn’t fathom it any other way. And then years moved forward without giving me my son back. My husband planned a funeral against my wishes.” She shook her head and sighed. “I refused to attend. I was so mad at Doug Senior for giving up hope. Then, after he left me, I finally gave up hope too. My grief got the better of me. I put up a wall between me and my other two children. Years later when Jacob and Jane were grown adults, I realized the mistake of pushing them away, but the damage had been done and my children kept their distance.”
I wiped a tear off my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Loreen.”
We grew quiet until she spoke again.
“I made a list of questions long ago, questions I would demand God answer once I got to heaven. But now, at ninety-two years old, I see how it doesn’t matter. I don’t want answers anymore, I just want peace.” She squeezed my hand before letting go. “I suggest you do the same. Focus on peace. Not the questions we can’t answer.”
“I want to but . . .” I motioned at nothing in particular and shook my head.
“I lost my son at the hands of a sick man. But I lost the rest of my family at my own hands. I let grief and anger rule over me to the point that’s all I had . . . It’s been a lonely life.”
Soft footsteps approached and the aide appeared at Loreen’s side. “Ms. Holt, we need to get you back. It’s close time for your meds.” She offered me a sad smile, clearly having heard our conversation. “This garden is beautiful.”
I returned her sad smile with one of my own. “Thank you.”
“I’m Florence.” She unlatched the wheels on Loreen’s chair and turned her around.
“Avalee.” We shared a better smile this time.
“May I give you a hug, Loreen?” I asked before they moved away.
“I could use one, yes.”
I rose from the bench and stooped over and gently embraced her. It felt like hugging a frail twig, but the scent of her floral perfume softened the hug. Slowly, I released her and took a step out of the way, then followed behind them.
“Please say hello to your handsome husband for me.”
I stumbled a bit but recovered. “Oh, uh, I don’t have a husband.”
Loreen looked over her shoulder, her brow puckered. “Rowan? He called you his wife.”
Laughing softly, I veered around the wheelchair, and held the gate door open for them to pass through. “That man has a bad habit of doing that.” I shifted to face her. “You know Rowan?”
“He’s come to visit me just about every week the last two months. Brings me flowers.” Loreen smiled warmly. “You have yourself a catch.” I started to correct her but she held up her arthritic hand, several fingers bent in painful looking angles. “Don’t make my mistakes. That man wants to be caught. I suggest you stop lollygagging and catch him.” She tipped her head resolutely.
“Maybe I’ll just let him catch me,” I joked.
“That works too.” Her smile lit up her pale eyes.
I helped Florence get Loreen in the van. Before closing her door, I spoke softly, “You don’t know how much I needed to hear what you shared. Thank you for that and please know you are welcome to visit the garden anytime.”
She patted my hand where it rested on her arm. “Thank you, dear. You have no idea how much it means to me what you’ve done to honor my son. Take care of yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Smiling, I shut her door and watched the van drive away. Glancing one last time at the tranquil garden, I headed down the street toward the saloon. I grabbed the door handle but stopped before going inside when I caught sight of Rowan sitting on the tailgate of my truck.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Waiting on you.” He patted the spot beside him. “C’mere.”
I hesitated, but the need to talk outweighed my discomfort. I hopped up beside him and studied my dangling boots. “That was Loreen. I invited her out to see the garden in privacy.”
“I know.”
Glimpsing him out the corner of my eye, I tsked. “You really get around with the old ladies, Rowdy. Maudie is gonna be jealous.”
Rowan chuckled. “Your grandmother already knows. She’s the one who encouraged me to go visit Loreen in the first place.”
“I’m still trying to figure out how you manage to sneak off and spend so much time with my grandmother.” I pushed my shoulder against his.
He just smiled at my comment instead of responding to it. “My visits with Loreen . . . It’s been nice to talk with someone who knows what we’ve been through, to an extent. It’s like only parents who’ve lost a child can understand, ya know.”
I nodded, moving my gaze back to my dangling boots. “I’m sorry I never let you talk about it.”
A soft sigh left him. “We did what we had to do to survive. Don’t apologize for that.”
I listened to a medley of croaking frogs, wondering what they had so much to talk about while trying to find the right words to share. “You wanna know what hurts the most?”
“What’s that?”
“Not getting to hold him. I didn’t even get to say hello or goodbye.” I had no recollection between glimpsing the blue baby to waking up two days later with a stomach full of stitches and emptiness.
Rowan wrapped an arm around my waist and tugged me closer. “I met him,” he said in a scratchy whisper.
The moon hung heavily over the pecan grove, whitewashing the treetops as fireflies flashed in a twinkling effect around the trunks. Eyes focused in that direction, I braced myself and asked, “Will you tell me about him?”
Rowan didn’t talk right away, opening his mouth a few times but then pressing his lips tightly. Lips that were trembling. He’d not even started talking about it yet, but we were already ripping open the poorly healed wound by finally accepting it had happened. That acknowledgment was profound in itself, but once he began sharing, every raw spot on my soul burned.
“I’d hoped the doctors were wrong and Declan could come out crying.” Rowan’s voice cracked. Clearing his throat, he continued, “My boy came out pouting like his mama. His little face was all scrunched up and his bottom lip poked out.” With silent tears slipping down his cheeks, Rowan mimicked a pouty face.
Laughing through my own tears, I shook my head. “I don’t pout.”
“Oh yes you do. Just yesterday when the inspector came in and said we couldn’t continue with the chapel reno until the electrician fixed the fuse box? Boy, you pouted the rest of the day.” Rowan puckered his face again, lips protruding in such a way that I almost kissed them.
I drew back a bit. “So he pouted?”
“Yeah. I think he was as mad as I was that he wouldn’t get to stay.” Rowan wiped his face with the back of his hand and swallowed with difficulty, coughing a little. “You were in surgery and Declan . . . As soon as they placed him in my arms, his little face relaxed.”
We cried a while, holding on to each other, and I wondered with deep regret why we hadn’t done this very thing during those hard moments. Why hadn’t we clung to each other? Where had that wall come from that prevented us from doing this then?
Eventually, Rowan pulled himself together enough to speak. “They gave me some time alone with him. At some point, I noticed he was starting to get cold, so I undid my shirt and placed him on my chest. It wasn’t to keep him warm. I . . . I knew better than to try, but I did it so I could soak up his warmth.” Rowan choked on a sob.
“Oh, Rowan.” I hiccuped.
All these years and I never really considered my husband’s grief. I was too wrapped up in my own to see anything past it. At least I was unconscious during the most horrific moment of our lives. Rowan didn’t have that escape. He lived it, alone, and those memories of holding his dead child . . . I couldn’t help him carry them any more than he could help me carry mine.
But maybe we could find a new way to carry each other.
“What did he smell like?” I asked, after regaining some composure.
Rowan didn’t even bat an eye at my odd question, just gave me a sad smile. “He smelled like perfection. A faint sweetness. He smelled so pure . . .”
Each of my questions sent a jolt of pain through my chest, but I continued anyway, allowing myself to feel it all. “Did he have any hair?”
“A little.” Rowan leaned close and said softly, “It was red.”
I giggled through a sniffle and squeezed his forearm. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“Your red hair vanished. I had a feeling our babies stole it from you.”
A grin lit up his damp face. “I like that idea.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he stared up at the dark indigo sky. “I would have given them my soul if God would have allowed it.”
“Me too.” I mopped my face with the collar of my shirt.
With my head resting on Rowan’s shoulder, I marveled at how we finally braved unsealing the silence where we had kept all the hurt, all the grief.
More fireflies came out to join us as we continued talking. The talking sounded a lot like healing.
In a lull of conversation, our eyes met and held. For the first time in almost a decade, I initiated kissing him. Leaning into his space, I pressed my lips against his and held on for dear life. A roller coaster of emotions tumbled through me but I continued kissing him. Rowan wrapped his arms around me and lowered us onto the bed of the truck. Arms entwined, hands searching for purchase, we kissed like we used to before life got hard. The kind of kissing that’s reckless with abandon. The kind that you’ll be recalling the next day with a smile on your bruised lips.
A throat cleared and startled us apart. Jackknifing up, I found Bash at the back of the truck, peering at us with his arms crossed, Preacher and Koda by his side.
“Not together . . . I’m calling bull.” Bash’s eyes narrowed.
