Here With Me (8 page)

“It doesn’t matter how long, Tilly,” Aunt
Genevieve said, her voice hard. “What matters is that they’re
here.” She looked at her sister and Melody caught the gleam of
tears in her great-aunt’s watery blue eyes.

For the first time, Melody thought about how
difficult it must be for Genevieve to watch her sister have to give
up the things she loved, to have to slow down. It had to be a
startling realization that they were both of an age where frailty
and ultimately, death, beckoned.

When Tilly and Louis turned to stare at Aunt
Genevieve, Melody pushed her chair back suddenly, unwilling to let
them examine the woman too closely. It was her right to grieve
without these two intruding. “I’m going to get our things from the
car,” she said.

Before she could barely move, George was
standing next to her. People were popping up like
jack-in-the-boxes. “I’ll carry them,” he said.

“Your old room is ready,” Grandmother said.
“If you don’t mind, while you’re unpacking, I think I’ll lie down
for a while.”

The grandmother she’d known would have
suggested a walk through the fields or a trip into town. It made
her realize how life had changed, and she was grateful that she’d
made the decision to come home, that she hadn’t had to disappoint
the woman. “I’ll see you later,” Melody promised. “After I show
George around.”

“That would be fine, honey.” Her grandmother
stood, more sedately than everyone else had. “I’m so happy to have
you here. We all are.”

Melody doubted that Louis or Tilly shared her
grandmother’s sentiments but she refused to let it bother her.
She’d keep out of their way as long as they kept out of hers.

On her way through the foyer, Melody grabbed
her keys from the entranceway table. She reached for the door but
George, hot on her heels, reached around her and opened the door
for her.

He was way too nice for this family.

“I tried to tell you,” she said as they
walked outside.

He shrugged and didn’t look overly concerned.
“Bernard and your uncle Louis don’t seem particularly fond of one
another.”

“It’s been that way for years,” she said. She
pressed the trunk-release button on her key ring. The trunk sprang
open and George stopped abruptly and grabbed for her hand. Heat
streaked up her arm.

“What?” She turned and looked at him. He was
staring at the trunk, like he half expected a monster to
emerge.

“How. . .” his voice trailed off.

“How much stuff?” she finished his question,
wanting to be helpful. “Not that much. Two suitcases, a box of
books, and another box of miscellaneous. Come on,” she said, and
attempted to pull him forward.

It was like a hungry ant trying to carry home
a slice of bread. Too little against way too much.

“George? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head.

“Are we going to get my stuff?”

“Sure.” He started walking but he didn’t let
go of her hand. When they were three feet from the car, he moved
fast, stepping in front of her, placing himself between her and the
trunk.

Oh good grief. What was his problem?

“Let me,” he said, reaching into the
trunk.

“If you can get both suitcases, I can carry
the books and the other box,” she said.

“No,” he said. “You shouldn’t be lifting,” he
added, his tone a little gentler.

She wondered who he thought had loaded all
the stuff into the trunk. “Oh, fine. Can I at least carry that?”
She pointed at Sarah’s photograph, which she’d wrapped in a brown
sack from the grocery store. “It’s very light, I promise.”

Before she could move, he’d reached into the
trunk and pulled out the sack. He held it in his hands a minute
longer than necessary and suddenly, as odd as it seemed, a whiff of
pine floated past her.

“Do you smell that?” she asked.

He frowned at her. “What?”

She grabbed for the photograph. “Never mind.”
She was losing her marbles. She walked around the car to open the
passenger-side door.

“I’ll get my camera,” he said, coming up fast
behind her. He reached around her, grabbed the box, and slung the
strap over his shoulder. Then he walked back to the trunk, hauled
both suitcases out, and picked up one with each hand.

They were halfway to the house when the door
opened and Tilly walked outside. Melody prepared herself for
another smart remark but Tilly just brushed past them. When they
got to the door, Melody turned around and saw that Tilly was
checking the mailbox.

She led George directly to her room on the
second floor. Grandmother hadn’t changed it much in the last couple
of years. The walls were painted a light yellow and the white
comforter with small yellow and green flowers looked as thick and
warm as ever. Next to the bed was a sturdy nightstand with a phone
and her old clock radio. Across the room, her cherry wood dresser,
obviously freshly polished, gleamed as the bright afternoon sun
bounced off of it. The thin, white ruffled curtains had been pulled
back and the window was open a few inches, letting in the fresh
spring air.

It was a girl’s room and George Tyler looked
big and uncertain standing in the middle of it. Still holding the
two suitcases, he turned around, taking it in. His eyes rested on
the Raggedy Ann doll that sat in the corner of the windowsill. It
was missing one leg and someone had taken a scissors to her
hair.

“It was my mother’s,” she explained, sure he
must think her silly for hanging on to such things. After her
parents’ deaths, her grandmother had given it to her. She had clung
to it night after night and cried. Until it seemed like she just
couldn’t cry anymore.

He bent his knees and set the suitcases on
the floor. When he straightened, she noticed that his right hand
rested on his camera and his thumb stroked the worn case almost
absently. “I imagine she’d be glad to know that you have it,” he
said, his tone somber.

His eyes held the look of a man who’d known
loss. “George?” she asked, not wanting to intrude.

“Where do you want your cases?” he asked
abruptly, letting her know that he didn’t intend to let her get too
close.

She waved a hand. “On the bed is fine. I’ll
unpack later. But definitely before I. . .we. . .go to bed.” Like a
fool, she felt her face heat up.

It was one thing to sit at a table and pass
him off as her husband. It was a whole other thing to sleep in the
same bed. She’d been so worried about him meeting her family that
she hadn’t thought the whole thing through. Her grandmother would
expect them to share a room, to share a bed.

Her legs suddenly feeling weak, she sat down
on the edge of the bed. The mattress squeaked under her weight.
This was perhaps even more awkward than the morning she’d walked
into her friend’s restaurant, smelled bacon cooking, and promptly
thrown up on the straw dispenser.

“I guess the fair thing to do,” she said,
determined to not make it harder than it needed to be, “is to take
turns sleeping on the floor. It’s no big deal,” she said hurriedly.
“The carpet is clean and thick and I know where my grandmother
keeps the extra blankets. It’ll be like camping.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her
mind.

Her baby, almost like he or she had heard the
comment and liked the idea, did a little flutter kick. She spread
her hand over the roundness. “Jingle here thinks it will be
fun.”

“Jingle?”

“I wanted to call him or her something other
than
the baby
. But I didn’t want to set him or her up for
gender issues later on.”

“Beg pardon?”

She’d read that phrase in a book before but
she wasn’t sure she’d actually ever heard anyone use it. It should
have seemed odd, sort of feminine or something, but from George, it
seemed right. Polite. Very gentlemanly.

“I didn’t want to call him by a girl’s name
if he’s a boy or a boy’s name if she’s a girl. So I came up with
Jingle. You know, ‘Jingle Bells’ and all that. I found out I was
pregnant right before Christmas.”

She gave her belly a little pat, letting her
child know that she appreciated the acrobatics.

He rubbed his chin in contemplation. After a
minute, he said, “I imagine Jingle expects his or her mother to
sleep in a bed.” His eyes shifted downward. She realized that it
was the first time that she’d seen him really look at her belly.
Now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to look away. However, when
he realized that she was watching him, he turned a pretty shade of
rose, starting from his neck to the tip of his ears.

“I was almost sixteen weeks along before I
started to show,” she said, trying to make conversation to put him
at ease. “Even then, I was able to wear my regular pants as long as
I kept the top buttons undone.”

He nodded and she saw that his green eyes had
taken on the same intensity she’d seen that first night at the
beach. It was like she was telling him something important,
something he needed to know. And she realized it was the first time
she’d shared any of the details of her pregnancy. Before, there’d
been no one who cared. “Now, six weeks later, I’ve given in to
elastic waists and loose shirts. Most people probably just think
I’m plump.”

He shook his head. “Your arms and your face
are still slim.”

It was silly but it seemed nice that he’d
noticed that. She resisted the urge to tell him that her normal
34B-cup breasts had somehow turned into a full-fledged C-cup. If he
started staring at them, she’d be the one whose face would be
turning pink. “Here’s the deal,” she said, redirecting the
conversation back to where it had been. “Whether I’m sleeping on
the floor or in a bed, it’s all about the same to Jingle so it’s
crazy not to take turns.”

He looked her in the eye. “If there’s
sleeping on the floor to be done,
I’ll
be the one doing
it.”

He’d said it in a way that made her realize
that it would be useless to argue. “Fine. I’m going to wash my face
while you get the rest of our things. Don’t forget your things from
Target are in the backseat,” she added.

Once he’d left, she immediately walked into
the attached bath. She didn’t really need to wash her face but she
figured if she’d told him that she needed to pee, he’d have sunk
right into the floor.

The man seemed to embarrass awfully easy.
Once her bladder was empty, she washed her hands. In the mirror
that hung over the long vanity, she saw that her grandmother had
painted the bathroom at some point. It had been a dull taupe when
she’d left and now it was a beautiful sage green. The
goldenrod-colored fixtures that had been there as long as she could
remember had been replaced with classic white.

She turned off the water, dried her hands on
the thick burgundy-and-sage towel, and walked back into the
bedroom. She’d laid Sarah’s photograph on the dresser when they’d
come in. She walked over, picked it up, unfolded the brown sack,
and pulled it out.

It really was lovely. She held it flat
against the wall, like it would look hanging. No. That wouldn’t
work. It looked weird next to the dresser. She walked over to the
eighteen inches of bare wall that stood between the two large
windows. She positioned the photograph in the middle.

She heard the downstairs door slam and then
the sound of George coming up the stairs. When he entered the room,
she looked over her shoulder and asked, “How’s this look?”

He dropped her box of the books. They hit the
floor with a jarring thud.

He didn’t look like he even noticed. He was
staring, first at the photograph, then switching to her, then back
to the photograph again. His eyes moved so fast, it made her dizzy.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. She pulled down the photograph and
turned to get a better look at him.

“Where did you get
that
?” he asked,
his voice husky.

If he’d been pink before, now he was so pale
she wondered if somehow his blood had all seeped out. If she looked
out on the stairs, would there be a trail leading from the car to
her bedroom?

“It was Sarah’s. It hung in our office. When
they found her car at the beach, this was in the trunk.”

He walked over, took it from her, and ran his
fingers lightly across the photograph. It surprised her when she
saw that his hand was shaking.

She sniffed. There was that smell of
evergreens again. Someone had to be trimming trees somewhere. It
was just odd since there weren’t all that many evergreens in this
part of the state. She walked over to the window and closed it.

“It’s nice, don’t you think?” she asked,
motioning to the photograph. “Even though it’s in black and white,”
she rambled on, wondering exactly what she would do if all six feet
of him decided to topple over. “I can just imagine what the sky
must have looked like. Probably a mass of reds and oranges.”

He nodded and swallowed so deliberately that
she could see his throat muscles working. “I expect you’re right,”
he said after a deafening moment of silence.

“I’m not sure what this is,” she said,
pointing to a series of squiggly lines about an inch from the
bottom, on the right-hand side. “At first I thought it was the
photographer’s signature but I can’t make it out.”

He looked at the picture more carefully. “I
don’t know,” he said, sounding concerned. He carefully laid it on
the bed and backed away a step, then another. Hell, if he weren’t
careful, he’d back himself all the way out the door and roll down
the stairs.

“Grandmother is going to expect me to show
you around,” she cautioned. “I don’t want her to think there’s
anything odd going on.”

He jerked his head, his eyes shifting quickly
from the photograph and settling on her. For a minute, he looked
almost wary.

“George, is everything okay? Please don’t
tell me you’re going to back out of this now.”