Winning His Heart

CHAPTER TEN

DAVID CONTEMPLATED THE STARS above his head. He could sleep in his car, except he had put the roof up at dark and locked it. His keys were inside the house. Ditto for his wallet, or he could go get a hotel room somewhere, though of course hotels would be booked solid at this time of year in Blossom Valley.

If his mother managed to get out the back door again, he had her escape route, and the route to the garden shed, blocked.

What do you mean “at first”? Kayla had asked him about his choice not to marry, not to have children.

At first it had been because he had never found the right person. Now it went so much deeper. Some forms of his mother’s illness had a genetic component. What if he had it?

And his father had died young of heart disease, plunging the family he had protected so diligently into a despair deeper than the ocean.

David’s doctor had assured him his own heart was the heart of an athlete. And the other? There was a test they could do to determine the presence of the “E” gene.

But so far, David had said no. Did you want to know something like that? Why would you? Just for yourself, no. If there was someone else involved in his life...?

Was it the strangely delightful evening with Kayla making him have these wayward thoughts?

He decided firmly, and not for the first time, that he was not going there, that these kind of thoughts were counterproductive. They had snuck by his defenses only because he was exhausted. He closed his eyes, drew in one long breath and ordered himself to sleep. And it worked.

David woke up feeling amazingly refreshed. The sun was already warm on his face, and he glanced at his watch, astounded by how late he had slept and how well. He realized he was glad to have slept outside.

The inside was not really a house anymore: doors locked, cleaning supplies hidden, windows never opened, stove unplugged. One of the live-in care aides had moved into his boyhood bedroom, and he was relegated to a tiny den with a pullout sofa when he came.

David got up swiftly, not wanting to dwell on all the depressing issues inside his mother’s house. He returned the cushions to the deck that was never used anymore, except by that care aide he suspected of slipping outside to sneak cigarettes.

What had he said last night to Kayla? That his mother’s house looked like normal people lived here. He was aware, the feeling of being refreshed leaving him, that he had probably kept that particular illusion alive too long.

It wasn’t safe for his mother to be here anymore.

He would look at options for her today. He was aware of feeling that there was no time to lose.

He would look after it and leave here. For good, this time.

David knocked on the door, and this time it was opened by a new aide, who must have arrived to help the live-in with morning chores. She looked at him with an expression as bewildered as his mother’s.

“It’s a long story,” he said and moved by the aide.

His mother was in the kitchen, toying with her breakfast, an unappetizing-looking lump of porridge that had been cooked in the microwave. At one time David had hired a cook, but his mother had become so querulous and suspicious of everyone that staff did not stay no matter what he offered to pay them. Then there had been the issue of her sneaking down in the night and turning on the stove burners.

But this morning his mother was dressed, and everything matched and was done up correctly and her hair was combed so he knew she’d had help. The thorn scratches on her arms had been freshly treated with ointment but were a reminder of what he needed to do.

He left the house as soon as he had showered and put on a fresh shirt and shorts from a suitcase he did not bother to unpack. He went downtown and had breakfast. His mother, obviously, had no internet, and for many years he hadn’t stayed long enough to miss it. Now, after a frustrating phone call, he found out it would take weeks to get it hooked up.

He drove down to the beach, still quiet in the morning, and began to make phone calls.

The first was to his assistant, Jane, a middle-aged girl Friday worth her weight in gold.

With her he caught up on some business transactions and gave instructions for putting out a few minor fires. Then, aware of feeling a deep sadness, he told Jane what he needed her to research. A care home, probably private, that specialized in people with dementia.

“See if you can send me some virtual tours,” he said, stripping the emotion from his own voice when she sounded concerned. Then, as an afterthought, maybe to try and banish what he was setting in motion, he said, “And see what you can find out about an ice cream parlor for sale here in Blossom Valley. It’s called More-moo.”

He was aware, as he put away his phone, that his heart was beating too fast, and not from asking his assistant to find out about the ice cream parlor.

From betraying his mother’s trust.

Not that she trusted me, he reminded himself, attempting wryness. But it fell flat inside his own heart and left the most enormous feeling of pain he’d ever felt.

Unless you counted the time he’d witnessed Kayla say I do to the wrong man.

“I hate coming home,” he muttered to himself. He stepped out of the car and gazed out at the familiar water.

And suddenly he didn’t hate coming home quite so much. The water. It had always been his solace.

After a moment he locked the phone in the car and went down to the beach. He took off his shirt and left it in the sand. The shorts would dry quickly enough. He dove into the cool, clear water of the bay and struck out across it.

An hour and a half later he crawled from the water, exhausted and so cold he was numb. And yet, still, he could not bring himself to go home.

No point without a Wi-Fi connection, anyway, he told himself. He drove downtown, bought some dry shorts and looked for a restaurant that offered internet.

It happened to be More-moo, and David decided he could check out some of the more obvious parts of their operation himself.

He managed to conduct business from there for most of the day. Jane sent him several links to places with euphemistic names like Shady Oak and Sunset Court, which he could not bring himself to open. She sent him the financials for More-moo, which he felt guilty looking at, with that sweet grandmotherly type telling him, No, no, you’re no bother at all, honey. And keeping his coffee cup filled to the brim.

Whatever reason they were selling, it wasn’t their service, their cleanliness or their coffee. All three were excellent.

He brought dinner home for his mother, rather than face the smells of some kind of liver and broccoli puree coming out of the microwave.

She had no idea who he was.

That night, it seemed so easy just to go and drag the cushions back off the deck furniture and lie again, under the stars, protecting the back exit from his mother’s escape.

He was aware of a light going on in Kayla’s house, and then of it going off again. He both wanted to go see her and wanted to avoid her.

He hadn’t had a single call about the dog, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t his failure keeping him away.

It felt like the compassion in her eyes could break him wide open.

And if that happened? How would he put himself back together again? How?

Tomorrow he was going to force himself to look at some of the websites for care homes. Tomorrow he was going to force himself to call some of the numbers Jane had supplied him with.

Tonight he was going to sleep under the stars, and somehow wish that he were overreacting. That when he went in the house tomorrow he would see his mother was better, and that it was not necessary to make a decision at all.

But in the morning, after he’d showered and shaved and dressed, he went into a kitchen that smelled sour, and his mother had that look on her face.

She looked up from her bowl of porridge—surely at Shady Oak they would manage something more appetizing—and glared at him.

David braced himself. She held up a sweater she’d been holding on her lap, stroking it as though it were a cat.

“Where did this come from, young man?”

“I’m sure it’s yours, Mom.”

“It’s not!” she said triumphantly. “It belongs to Kayla McIntosh.”

He tried not to look too surprised that she remembered Kayla’s name. It had been a long time since she had remembered his. Even if it was Kayla’s maiden name, it made him wonder if he was being too hasty. Maybe no decisions had to be made today.

“You go give it back to her. Right now! I won’t have your ill-gotten gains in this house, young man.”

He took the sweater. Of course he didn’t have to go give it to Kayla—it probably wasn’t even hers. But he caught a faint scent overriding the terrible scents that had become the reality of his mother’s home.

The sweater smelled of freshness and lemons, and he realized Kayla must have given it to his mother the other night when she had found her in the roses.

Was it the scent of Kayla that made him not pay enough attention? Or was it just that a man couldn’t be on red alert around his own mother all the time?

The porridge bowl whistled by his ear and crashed against the wall behind him. All the dishes were plastic now, but the porridge dripped down the wall.

“Mrs. Blaze!” the attendant said, aghast. The look she shot David was loaded with unwanted sympathy.

He cleared his throat against the lump that had risen in it, that felt as if it was going to choke him.

He said to the caregiver, his voice level, “When I was a little boy, my mother took the garden hose and flooded the backyard in the winter so I could skate. She made lemonade for my stand, and helped me with the sign, and didn’t say a word that I sold five bucks worth of lemonade for two dollars. She never missed a single swim meet when I was on the swim team, and they must have numbered in the hundreds.

“She stayed up all night and held me the night my father died, worried about my grief when her own must have been unbearable. She lent me the money to buy my first car, even though she had been putting away a little bit of money every week trying to get a new stove.

“My mother was the most amazing person you could ever meet. She was funny and kind and smart. At the same time, she was dignified and courageous.

“I need you to know that,” he said quietly. “I need you to think about what she once was. I need that to be as important to you as what she is now.”

“Yes, sir,” the aide said.

“I remember the skating rink,” his mother whispered. “My mittens got wet and my hands were so cold I couldn’t feel them. The bottom of my pants froze, like trying to walk in stovepipes. But I wouldn’t stop. Wanted to surprise him. The ice froze funny, all lumpy. But he was out there, every night, skating. My boy. My boy.”

David had to squeeze the bridge of his nose, hard.

“I’ll return the sweater right now,” he said, as if nothing had happened. He went out the door, gulping in air like a man who had escaped a smoke-filled building. He heard the locks click in place behind him.

He drew in a long breath, contemplating his options, again. He tucked the sweater under his arm and went out his gate. He paused in that familiar stretch of lawn between the two houses.

As much as he logically knew the illness was making terrifying inroads on her mind, it hurt that his mother saw him as a thief and untrustworthy, that she could remember Kayla’s name, but not his. It hurt that she had become a person who would throw her breakfast at anyone, let alone at her son.

But she remembered the skating rink, and so did he, and the pain he felt almost made him sorry he had brought it up.

He thought, This is why, now, I will not get married and have children. I cannot do this to another person. I cannot pass this on to another person.

Was he thinking these kind of thoughts because Kayla, at some level, was making him long for things he was aware he could not have?

Drawing in a deep breath, David went through Kayla’s back gate. He would hang the sweater on her back door, then walk to the lake and swim. He was developing a routine of sorts, and he loved the cold water in the morning, when the beach was still deserted.

He went up the stairs to Kayla’s back deck and eyed the patio furniture—four old Adirondack chairs, grouped together. Once, he seemed to remember, they had been light blue, but now the wood was gray and weathered. The chairs looked like they would offer slivers rather than comfort. The deck was in about the same condition as the chairs. It had not been stained in so long that the exposed wood had rotted and was probably past repair.

He went to hang the sweater on the back door handle. He noticed only the screen door was closed, the storm door open behind it, leaving a clear view into the cheeriness of the kitchen.

Was that safe? Even in Blossom Valley?

He had just decided it was none of his business when Kayla came to the door. She didn’t have a scrap of makeup on and had her honey-colored hair scraped back in a ponytail. She was wearing a bib apron tied over a too-large T-shirt and faded denim shorts.

The contrast to his world of super sophistication—women who wore designer duds even when they were dressed casually, and who were never seen in public without makeup on and hair done—was both jarring and refreshing.

Kayla looked real. She also looked as if she had been up for hours, and the smell of toast—so normal it hurt his heart—wafted out the door.

For a moment she looked disconcerted to see him—not nearly as pleased to be caught in such a natural state as he had been to catch her in it—but then her expression brightened.

“Have you heard something about Bastigal?” she asked eagerly.

“No, I’m sorry. I just brought you back your sweater.”

“Oh.” She looked crushed. “Thanks.”

She opened the door, and it screeched outrageously on rusting hinges. He noticed she didn’t even have the hook latched on it.

“Do you have a phone yet?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“You should get one,” he said, “and you should lock your door. At least do up the latch on the screen.”

She looked annoyed at his concern, rather than grateful. “This is Blossom Valley,” she said. “You and I ‘prowling’ was probably the biggest news on the criminal front in years.”

“Bad stuff happens everywhere,” he said sternly.

“If it’s safe enough for you to sleep out under the stars, it’s safe enough for me to leave my screen door unlatched.”

He glared at her.

“The latch is broken,” she said with a resigned sigh. “The wood around it is rotted.”

“Oh.”

She bristled under what she interpreted as sympathy or judgment or both. “And how are you sleeping in the great outdoors? Fending off mosquitoes?”

Did she mutter a barely audible “I hope”?

Was he trying to control the locks on Kayla’s doors because his own world seemed so unsafe and unpredictable—beyond saving—at least where his mother was concerned?

Several retorts played on his tongue, never better, reminds me of my boy scout days—but it shocked him when the truth spilled out.

“I hate it in that house,” David said, his voice quiet. “I hate how the way it is now feels like it could steal the way it once was completely from my mind. Steal Christmas mornings, and the night I graduated from high school and the way my mom looked when my dad pinned that rose corsage on her for their fifteenth anniversary, right before he died. The way that house is now could steal the moment the puppy came home, and the memories of the dog he grew to be.”

He blinked hard, amazed the words had come out past the lump that had been in his throat since his mother had thrown her porridge at him, but then remembered the backyard skating rink.

David was both annoyed with himself and relieved to have spoken it.

Kayla’s bristling over her unlocked door, and her glee at his sleeping arrangements, melted. “Oh, David, I’m so sorry.”

He ordered himself to walk away, to follow his original plan to go to the lake and let the ice-cold water and the physical exertion take it all.

Instead, when the door squeaked open and Kayla stepped back, inviting him into her house, he found himself moving by her as if he had no choice at all.

He entered her kitchen like a man who had crossed the desert and known thirst and hardship, and who had found an oasis that promised cool protection from the harshness of the sun, and that promised a long, cold drink of water.

He looked around her kitchen. He had spent a lot of his growing-up years in this room and this room was as unchanged as his own house was changed.

A large French-paned window faced the backyard. It was already a bright room, but Mrs. Jaffrey had painted the walls sunshine-yellow, and though the yellow had faded, the effect was still one of cheer.

The cabinets were old and had seen better days, and nobody had that kind of countertop anymore. The table had been painted dozens of times and every one of the color choices showed through the blemishes in the paint. It was leaning unsteadily, one of the legs shorter than the others. The appliances were old porcelain models, black showing through the chipped white enamel.

The kitchen was unchanged, but still he felt something catch in his throat. Because although the room was the same, wasn’t this just more of the same of what was going on next door?

He could practically see Kevin sitting at that table, gulping down milk and gobbling down still-warm cookies, leaving dribbles of chocolate on his lips.

He could see Kevin’s devil-may-care smile, almost hear his shout of laughter.

David realized he had lied to Kayla when she had asked him why he had never chosen marriage and a family.

And when she had asked him if he ever missed this, for this kitchen was really the heart and soul of what growing up in Blossom Valley had been.

Right now, particularly vulnerable because of what had just happened with his mother, he missed how everything used to be so much that he felt like he could lay his head on that table and cry like a wounded animal.

Kevin was dead, but even before his death, had been the death of their friendship, which had been just as painful. Now, the Jaffreys had moved. It seemed shocking that Kayla was Mrs. Jaffrey now.

Really, with the death of his father, David felt as if he had begun to learn a lesson that had not really stopped since: love was leaving yourself open to a series of breathtaking losses.

And still, this kitchen softened something in him that did not want to be softened.

The kitchen was a mess of the nicest kind: recipe books open, mixing bowls out, blobs of yellowy batter—lemon chiffon cake, at this time of the day?—spattering the counter. David was painfully aware that there was a feeling of homecoming here that he no longer had at home.

He realized some of it was scent: Kayla’s scent, lemony and sweet, that clung to her, and the sweater he was holding. There was the fresh smell of the toast she’d had for breakfast, but underneath that he remembered more good things. He swore he could smell all the cookies that had ever been baked in that archaic oven, and Thanksgiving dinner, and golden-crusted pies that lined the countertops after the original Mrs. Jaffrey had availed herself of Blossom Valley’s apple harvest.

He compared that to the hospital smells of his mother’s house—disinfectants and unappetizing food heated in the microwave and smells he did not even want to think about—and he felt like he never wanted to leave this kitchen again.

“Mom asked me to return your sweater,” he said past the lump in his throat. “She remembered your name.”

Kayla scanned his face and took the sweater wordlessly from his hands, hanging it on the back of one of the chairs.

There. He’d done what he came to do. He needed to be in the water, to swim until his muscles hurt and until his mind could not think a single thought. Instead, he found himself reluctant to leave this kitchen that said home to him in a way his mother’s home would never do again.

Instead, he found himself wishing Kayla would press her hand over his heart again.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

No. “Yes.”