Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 3 Page 29

  “What about tables? Did she think about renting tables and chairs?”

  “No, she bought them. They’re in the barn. She thought we might want to have them ready for family occasions and church picnics and things.”

  “You’re kidding me. How—”

  “She knows what she’s doing. Trust her.”

  Half-crazed with his mother’s questions himself, Chad could only imagine the frustration Willow felt. He reassured Marianne—twice—that Willow had everything under control. When it did little to settle her, he fired off half a dozen unnecessary—probably duplicate—errands for her to run and promised to let Willow know she would handle them. His mother appeased at last, Chad disconnected the call and sighed. It was going to be a very long week.

  Willow’s eyes widened at the brown chipboard package in Chad’s hands. An ivory sheer ribbon bow tied the lid down, making it look ridiculously chic for something so simple. “What—”

  “Wes left it at the station. He wrapped it so I couldn’t look without you.” Chad winked. “He intends to ask if it was fully wrapped, so take note that I did not untie anything.”

  “Are they that good or that bad?” Willow whispered, biting her lip as she surveyed the package before pulling at the ribbon.

  “I’m guessing they’re better than good.”

  Forty pages of eight by ten photos captured a side of Willow and Chad that neither of them had ever seen. Somehow, Wes caught the undercurrent of their relationship that only those closest to them knew existed and that even the happy couple often missed. Posed shots didn’t look posed and candid shots seemed to reach into their hearts and tie them together in new ways. Most of the pictures neither of them remembered Wes taking.

  “When did he get this one?” Willow pointed to a black and white photo of Chad sweeping a strand of hair back from her face.

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember doing that.”

  They both laughed at a series of shots where Chad attempted to catch Willow jumping from the swing… and failed. The final picture of both of them laying on their backs, arms thrown over their foreheads, and their free fingers intertwined had been shot from much higher than they could remember.

  “Did you see him climb anything?”

  “He did have that ladder with him everywhere,” Willow murmured.

  “I don’t remember him using it.”

  Willow nodded agreeably as she turned the page. “I don’t either. Look at this one!”

  Chad remembered the moment but would never have imagined that Wes caught it. “That was after we took the ones on the porch swing.” The picture instantly became Chad’s favorite. “I love that one.”

  “But you gave me a flower? Why don’t I remember that either?”

  “Because I didn’t really ‘give’ you a flower. I stomped on it walking past and showed you that they were still blooming, remember?”

  She laughed. “Our grandchildren will hear one day how all the beautiful pictures in this album were fake. ‘Oh, grandmother, he gave you a flower!’ ‘No, he crushed it, showed me, and tossed it aside, before chasing me down the driveway because I called him a flower murderer and pinched him.’” Willow snickered. “We’re so romantic.”

  “I got you too. I wonder why he didn’t get any pictures of me tickling you?”

  She ignored the not-so-subtle assault on her hypersensitive nerves and examined the picture again. “Isn’t it interesting how a picture can convey something that didn’t happen?” Just as she said it, Willow turned the page. The photo staring back at them looked like the perfect picture of a couple in love. “Like that. Wow. Look at that.”

  “I like it. What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it—it just looks more—I don’t know…” she hesitated again searching for the right word. “Intimate. The picture looks like he caught us in a very private moment, but I remember that. We were laughing about him tripping and falling but saving his camera at the expense of his cheek, remember?”

  “Right. Wes said, ‘Skin heals but my camera and lenses aren’t as forgiving.’ I see what you mean though, but really, it was an intimate moment. We shared thoughts without words there, remember?”

  It wasn’t what she meant, and Chad knew it. He’d watched her tiptoe around anything personal or that could be misconstrued, and knew what she avoided this time. The picture showed a young couple in love. She just wasn’t there yet and wasn’t going to remind him of that—not while he had time to change his mind. As much as he wanted to reassure her, he too chose to avoid any awkward discussion. Chris had already told him that he was opening them up for trouble later, but Chad didn’t care. With Willow’s propensity for extreme measures, he considered the potential fallout worth it.

  Throughout the book, most pictures showed them with limited physical contact, something Chad had assured Wes would be uncomfortable for Willow. However, the last picture showed the natural affection and comfort that characterized their relationship now. Straddling a low branch of the oak tree by Kari’s grave, Chad sat behind Willow with his arms around her waist. The gravestone showed—out of focus but recognizable, in the foreground.

  Chad swallowed, willing the thickness in his throat to dissolve. Somehow, Wes had frozen the one moment of the entire day that he wanted to see most. He had teased her—tickled her if he remembered right—and kissed her cheek. Thanks to Wes, there it was—a moment locked in time. The happiness of the new fading out the pain of yesterday—fading but not erasing.

  Willow stood, carried the book into the living room, and glanced around the room. With a gleam in her eye, that he knew meant she had chosen her perfect place, Willow removed a sampler from the wall over the chaise and held the album in place, studying the effect. “Will you hold this for me?”

  Chad smiled as she stood back and eyed it critically. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’d have to have an awfully big picture… What if we did the columbine one on one side and the last one of the swing series on the other?”

  “Lass,” Chad said lazily, “You pick ‘em, I’ll hang ‘em.”

  “Oh, I can hang them. I just didn’t want pictures up there that you’d hate. I’ve always hated that sampler. I’m glad to get it out of here.”

  “What’ll you do with it?”

  Willow stared at it disdainfully. “I’m thinking fuel for stove works.”

  “No!” Abashed, Chad regulated his voice to a more moderate tone and tried again. “I just think that someday you might want it or our children might want it. There’s a lot of work—”

  “Ugly work”

  “Ok, fine,” Chad conceded. “You think it’s ugly. I don’t, but I can see why you don’t like it. With your eye for perfection and color I bet you can give me twenty problems with it before I could carry it upstairs, but I still think it’s an amazing amount of work for a little girl—you were what, seven?” He waited for her nod before continuing, “And I think you should save it.”

  “Where?”

  “Attic. We’ll wrap it in an old sheet or something.” Before she could argue, Chad took the frame from Willow and carried it upstairs. “Hey, you scrubbed the hallway today. The soot is gone,” he called down to her.

  “I can’t have people getting all black waiting for the bathroom!”

  “Did my mom call again?”

  As she climbed the stairs behind him, Willow gave him a play by play of the series of calls she’d received that day. “Oh yes. She called at eight, eleven, four, and just as you were pulling in the yard. In between those calls, Cheri called three times, Libby twice, and I got at least half a dozen calls about cake, food, horse, and I can’t remember what all. It’s so ridiculous.”

  “Bad news.”

  Willow glared at him as he looked down from the attic stairs. “What?”

  “It’ll happen again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day… but once Mom gets here, I think she’ll calm down.”

  “Can she come today—now?”r />
  Chad’s bounced around the attic before he called back down, “Nope. You’re mine tonight and tomorrow afternoon. After that, I won’t get five minutes alone with you until after we kick everyone out on Saturday.”

  A look of despair clouded her face. “Why did we think a wedding was such a good idea again?”

  On Tuesday afternoon, Chad and Willow moved all of Chad’s possessions from his apartment to the house. Exhausted from the all-day moving/cleaning fest, Chad collapsed on his couch that now sat in the newly rearranged living room. “I didn’t think I’d ever get that stupid dresser into the attic.”

  “You should have let me help.”

  “No thanks. In this family, you are the official chicken pulverizer, so I’ll do the dresser shoving.”

  “You’re so ridiculous. It’s just meat. You eat it readily enough.”

  “Yes, after globs of fat are nicely melted and it doesn’t shimmer or jiggle anymore.” He glared at the mattress by the stairs. “I think that looks really good right there—modern art.”

  “It’s not staying.” She moved grabbed one end and began dragging it up the stairs. Chad watched for exactly seven seconds before he groaned and forced himself of the couch.

  “If I was five, I’d whine.”

  “If you were five and whined, I’d give you a spoonful of apple cider vinegar for it.”

  He stared at her, waiting for a laugh or a hint of a smile—something to tell him she was joking. She didn’t. “You’re not joking. How could you do that to a kid?”

  “Why not, it’s healthy for them and it tastes bad enough that they won’t want whine medicine.” She paused. “Well, I don’t know about other kids. It worked for me. I remember getting a spoonful when I was twelve. I never let Mother hear me whine after that, and God doesn’t give me whine medicine.”

  Chad laughed. “Aunt Libby would say that He does—He just gives you a different kind.”

  “So what would she say God’s whine medicine is?” Willow grunted as she tried to turn the mattress around the corner of the stairs.

  “More things to whine about as practice in showing self-control in that department.”

  She didn’t respond to that. He watched her process it, the thoughts conflicting with the contortions her face made as she tried to stumble up the stairs backwards, pulling on the mattress. At the door to her mother’s room, she turned. “I think you may have just changed my life.”

  “What?”

  “I try to make myself accept those things—live through them. Learn from them. I never considered them something to conquer in order to grow past them.” She gave the mattress one more heave before stumbling backwards into the room. “I might just learn the art of growing up.”

  They flopped the mattress onto the bed. Willow stood, hands on hips, and stared at it. “Mother would have liked a new mattress. She talked about it sometimes.”

  He slipped his arms around her waist, resting his cheek on her head. “You ok? I can sleep in the other room.”

  “I’m good. We still would have had an extra mattress to recycle, even if she had gotten a new one. I just can’t help but wish she had a new one those past months.” She turned in his arms, laying her head on his chest.

  “You don’t mind that I hauled hers off?”

  “Not at all. She was turning that thing weekly the last year or so.”

  As they left the room, he watched her give the bed one last glance and wondered how truthful she was with herself. In an effort to change the subject, he started to ask about the chicken baking in the oven, but Willow preempted him. She stood on the landing, her eyes taking in the rearranged living room. It felt a bit cramped, he knew, but it worked. Then again, her expression hinted that it might not. Maybe there were simply too many changes at once.

  “Lass…”

  “I think it’ll take time to get used to two couches.” Just as he started to offer to give his to someone, she turned to him. “You know, we could put your computer on the coffee table there in the middle, and we’d each have our own couch to stretch out on while we watched a movie.”

  “You go fix us plates and I’ll get one set up. We can try it. I could use the rest before I have to go to work.” Chad pulled his laptop from the bottom shelf of an end table and paused. “Well…”

  Chad didn’t make it more than fifteen minutes into the movie before he fell asleep, his dinner plate still resting on his chest. While Willow followed the story of Alvin York as he worked to provide for his family, became a Christian, fought conscription, and then finally fought to stop the guns at Argonne, Chad snored, oblivious to the scenes that sent flickers of light over his face at odd moments.

  Half an hour before he was due at work, his phone vibrated. He stirred, and found Willow sitting at the end of his couch, his feet in her lap, asleep. The possibilities of what prompted her to move ranged from simple comfort to his own personal preference—that she enjoyed being near him. Sometimes he was sure that she loved him—truly loved him. Other times, he was just as certain that her affection for him was little different than it had been for her mother.

  He nudged her. “Hey, Lass. C’mon. Wake up. Get yourself to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “No you won’t,” she murmured, still half-asleep. He followed her as she stumbled upstairs. “I have to go to the bath. No wait, that’s not it.” Her groggy mumbles became even more humorous as she attempted to locate the correct word that dodged all efforts to grasp it. “Shower. That’s it. Personal shower. What other kind of shower is there anyway?” she rambled, pulling pajama bottoms and top from her drawer. “Do people give showers for people they don’t care about or something?”

  When she started to unbutton her shirt, Chad took it as a sign to say goodnight and rushed from the room and into the bathroom. “I’ll see you before you go maybe. Don’t fix dinner. I’ll take you to Marcello’s or something,” he called.

  Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Chad grinned at his reflection, “Boy is she going to be surprised when she learns exactly what a personal shower is.”

  Chapter 99

  Willow’s phone rang, but Marianne snatched it up before she could answer it. “Chad, don’t call. You can’t talk to her tonight. She’s ours.”

  “Mom, the Confectionary called. They want her to call them, but for some reason, they can’t get through.”

  Marianne sighed and handed the phone to Willow. “You have exactly two point five minutes. Go.”

  Unsure how serious to take Marianne, Willow answered the phone abruptly. “What do you need?”

  “Gee, I love you too.”

  “Knock it off; your mom is glaring at me. What do you need?”

  A grin split his face. Willow intimidated by his mother was something he’d give anything to see. “The cake people called the Confectionary. Apparently, they wanted to do the cake in regular icing, but it’s not working, so they want permission to use fondant. I thought that stuff tasted nasty, but they swear theirs is delicious and if someone would run down to the Confectionary, they’ll give them a taste sample to bring to you. Then you can call and let them know. They’re way behind on it now but the decorator had been certain she could do it the other way, and now she can’t.”

  “That’s a lot of ands and convoluted thems,” Willow commented, her head spinning. “Why did the people in Rockland call the Confectionary? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “They’re working together on this. I guess they help each other out from time to time.”

  “I’ll go down. Thanks. Bye.”

  Each person in the room stared at her, shocked. She glanced around her, trying to understand the angry woman shooting hordes of imaginary medieval weapons at her from every direction. “What?”

  “I’ll go down, thanks bye?” Lee Wu’s voice was appalled. “Can’t you at least sound loving even if you won’t say it?”

  “Never mind. I’ll be right back. There’s a cake issue.”

  “You are not lea
ving here!” Marianne’s voice startled the whole room. “This is just a plot to get her out of the shower, I know it.”

  “Mom, this is Willow. She doesn’t play those kinds of games.”

  “No, but Chaddie does.”

  A collective titter rose with echoes of “Chaddie?” in the mix. Willow stood, undecided, and then called Chad back. “Your mother thinks this is a ploy to get me out of the shower.”

  “Put me on speaker.” It took her a moment to find the right button but she did.

  “Ok. You’re on speaker.”

  “Mom, what is this about you accusing me of conspiracy to defraud shower attendees?”

  “I know you—”

  “Not as well as you think, apparently. I thought you said this was a personal shower.”

  “It is—” she began triumphantly. “I know exactly how excited Willow—”

  “Mom. Forget her for a moment. I’m your son. I’m your husband’s son. I’m a man. Why on earth would I sabotage a personal shower?”

  A wave of snickers slowly rippled around the room. Marianne clicked the phone off without so much as a goodbye. “You can go. Cheri, go with her. It’ll help keep her from getting stuck there with a million other questions.”

  She felt ridiculous as they shuffled down the street in their “spa” get up. Hair in towels, green gook on their faces, and freshly scrubbed and lotioned feet in flip-flops, Cheri and Willow drew quite a few stares as they made their way around the corner and to the Confectionary. A few customers stepped aside as if facial masks were somehow contagious, but Willow really didn’t care what they thought.

  “We’re here!” she laughed as a woman stepped up to the counter to help her.

  “Willow?”

  “See,” Willow said, nudging Cheri. “I told you they’d recognize me.”

  “You’re the only one I expected…” Carmen passed a plate with two pieces of cake on it. “That one has the fondant; that has the icing. It won’t look good with icing, but…”