The Longest Ride(140)
He’d supposed that his mom had been immune to those sorts of feelings, that she had a strength he hadn’t inherited, but as he’d ridden out to check the cattle that morning, something about his mom’s property had caught his attention, and he had pulled Horse to a stop.
His mother’s garden had always been a source of pride to her. Even as a toddler, he could remember watching as she readied it for the spring planting or weeded it with painstaking care during the summer, harvesting the vegetables at the end of a long day. But now, as he looked out at what should have been straight, neat rows, he realized that the plot was overrun by weeds.
“Okay, so about this Friday.” Sophia rolled over in bed to face him. “Keep in mind that it’s an art auction.” It was only two days away, and he tried to come across as properly attentive.
“Yes. You told me.”
“Lots of rich people there. Important people.”
“Okay.”
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t planning to wear your hat and boots.”
“I figured.”
“You’re going to need a suit.”
“I have a suit,” he said. “A nice one, in fact.”
“You have a suit?” Her eyebrows shot up.
“Why do you so sound so surprised?”
“Because I can’t imagine you in a suit. I’ve only ever seen you in jeans.”
“Not true.” He winked. “I’m not wearing any jeans now.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” she said, not wanting even to acknowledge his comment. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”
He laughed. “I bought a suit two years ago. And a tie and a shirt and shoes, if you must know. I had to go to a wedding.”
“And let me guess. That’s the only time you’ve ever worn it, right?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I wore it again.”
“Another wedding?” she asked.
“A funeral,” he said. “A friend of my mom’s.”
“That was my second guess,” she said, hopping out of bed. She grabbed the throw blanket, wound it around herself, and tucked in the corner like a towel. “I want to see it. Is it in your closet?”
“Hanging on the right…” He pointed, admiring her shape in the makeshift toga.
She opened the closet door and pulled out the hanger, taking a moment to inspect it. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s a nice suit.”
“There you go, sounding all surprised again.”
Still holding the suit, she looked over at him. “Wouldn’t you be?”
In the morning, Sophia returned to campus while Luke rode off to inspect the herd. They’d made plans for him to pick her up the following day. To his surprise, he found her sitting on his porch when he got home later that afternoon.
She was clutching a newspaper, and when she faced him, there was something haunted in her expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It about Ira,” she said. “Ira Levinson.”
It took a second for the name to come back to him. “You mean the guy we rescued from his car?”
She held out the newspaper. “Read this.”
He took the paper from her and scanned the headline, which described the auction that was to take place the next day.
Luke furrowed his brow, puzzled.
“This is an article about the auction.”
“The collection is Ira’s,” she said.
It was all there in the article. Or a lot of it was, anyway. There were fewer personal details than he would have expected, but he learned a bit about Ira’s shop, and the article noted the date of his marriage to Ruth. It mentioned that Ruth had been a schoolteacher and that they’d begun to collect modern art together after the end of World War II. They’d never had children.
The remainder of the article concerned the auction and the pieces that were going to be offered, most of which meant nothing to Luke. It concluded, however, with a line that gave him pause, affecting him the same way it had Sophia.
Sophia brought her lips together as he reached the end of the article.
“He never made it out of the hospital,” she said, her voice soft. “He died from his injuries the day after we found him.”
Luke raised his eyes to the sky, closing them for a moment. There was nothing really to say.
“We were the last people to see him,” she said. “It doesn’t say that, but I know it’s true. His wife was dead, they had no kids, and he’d pretty much become a hermit. He died alone, and the thought of that just breaks my heart. Because…”