Take a Chance on Me(13)
Even after he’d grown a foot taller than her, she could still make him feel like a small boy, the kind who wanted to say, Look, Mom! and get a smile.
She sighed.
“Something else on your mind?”
She walked past him to the kitchen and put the container of milk back in the fridge. It was probably sour by now. “Your father mentioned that you were angry with him.”
She had picked up a washcloth and was scrubbing his tiny table, the place where Tiger spilled his cereal this morning.
“Mom, I can do that.”
She looked up at him. “Do what?”
Right. “I was just . . . Well, you can’t imagine how humiliating it was to stand there in Owen’s place, a mule at auction, just for some good press. If Dad wants to boost stays here at the resort, he’s going to have to think about updating the place. And maybe you and Gracie could upgrade the lodge canteen offerings to something more than box lunches and s’more kits.”
His mother gathered the cereal remains in her hand. “We’ve always said that Evergreen Resort was an oasis. A place to get away from all the noise of the city.” Turning on the water, she began to wash out the rag. “It’s supposed to be quiet up here.”
“What if people don’t want to get away anymore? What if they like—?”
“The busyness? Being constantly entangled in life?”
“Being connected.”
“Sometimes a person just has to break away from all that. Listen to their own thoughts, maybe hear a few of God’s.”
She wiped her hands on a paper towel, then threw it away. “Can I just look in on him?”
Darek nodded and watched as she tiptoed to Tiger’s room.
What if someone didn’t want to listen to God’s thoughts? What if . . . what if someone preferred the chaos, the noise?
It might keep them from looking too deep inside, from being horrified at what they saw.
His mom reemerged and shut Tiger’s door behind her. “He’s so precious. Especially when he’s sleeping.”
Darek couldn’t disagree. He followed her out to the porch.
The lodge lights flickered in the distance. “You want me to walk you back? Tiger is like a log when he goes out.”
“No. I know my way.” Of course she did. She’d walked these paths for over half of her life. But as she stepped off the deck, she glanced out over the water, pausing for a moment. “Do you think he sits over there and watches you like you watch him?”
He stilled. “I don’t watch him.”
His mother glanced at him.
“Much.”
“I remember the days sitting on the deck watching you boys waterskiing or hitting a hockey puck around or swinging from that dangerous rope swing. You two had so much fun together.”
“Mother—”
“Must be a terrible thing to have to look every day into the faces of the people you hurt.”
“Jensen doesn’t care who he hurt.”
She was silent. Then, “I wasn’t necessarily talking about him.”
“Whose side are you on here?”
“Why, yours, of course. Which is why I ache for you and all you lost.”
“Felicity.”
“Mmm-hmm.” The wind tugged at her hair, and it whispered around her face.
He glanced at Jensen’s castle and a dark boil simmered in his chest. “I still can’t believe he got off so easily. He should have gone to jail. Should still be there, rotting. Remembering what he stole from me. Us.” He looked at her. “He’s never, not once, asked for forgiveness. And he hasn’t had to—his lawyer made sure of that.”
She considered him, her eyes soft. “Does one have to ask for forgiveness to be forgiven?”
He tightened his jaw. “Is there forgiveness for someone who kills another man’s wife?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I hope so, for your sake.”
“What does that mean? I shouldn’t be required to forgive a man who stole everything from me, should I?”
With a sigh, she patted his arm. “I know forgiveness is a lot to ask.” She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad Tiger is okay. Good night, Son. I love you.”
Darek watched until she disappeared into the darkness.
Yes. Yes, it was too much to ask.
He stepped inside and closed the door to the house across the lake, shining in the moonlight.
Claire Gibson wasn’t sure what bothered her the most.
The fact that Jensen Atwood no longer lurked in the shadows of the VFW, a ghost in the audience of her performance, or that Darek Christiansen had left with another woman. A woman not Felicity.
A woman not his late wife and Claire’s deceased best friend.