and she especially didn’t feel like looking into Ray’s moon eyes. Although hopefully the circumstances would temper his courting.
She settled him on the living room couch and took the basket into the kitchen. He said yes to an offer of water, and she brought back a long, chilled glass, handed it to him. One of his fingers grazed hers and his smile brightened. She took the leather chair a comfortable distance away.
“How’re you doing today, Lacey? Any better?”
“Yes, better. I mean, I’m getting there. It’ll take some getting used to.”
Ray nodded. “I know what you mean. When June passed, I wandered around the house, entirely lost. I mean, it’s a good-sized house, but not too big, you know. Yet after she was gone, it seemed so…enormous…with me being by myself. Funny thing, though, the rooms themselves seemed smaller, like without June’s life in ’em, they’d shrunk a little. I don’t know if I’m explaining this right. It was just that nothing…nothing was the same without her. Know what I mean?”
Lacey knew exactly what he meant. When Darryl died, things in the house seemed askew, out of place. The bed was too large, rooms too quiet. The quiet had taken on a “loudness” that blared through the house. It was preternatural, unsettling. Eventually, she had found an equilibrium with her home again, but it had taken a while. With Calvin gone now, the house was a stranger again. And she was a stranger existing within its walls, getting through days and nights, counting down to when she would feel “normal” once more…if she ever would.
“I stopped trying to figure out the whys of anything,” he said. “Some things don’t make sense and never will. Like how fast June’s cancer took her away. She hardly had time between that first pain in her stomach and the doctor saying she only had a few months. Actually, it was only a matter of weeks. And with Calvin, well, you wonder why someone so young is gone, especially when everything was coming his way. He would have made the majors. I truly believe that.”
Lacey didn’t have to figure out why her son died. The police report had laid it out very clearly to her: Head-on crash, driving south in the northbound lane. Witnesses were very unanimous that Calvin had been the car in the wrong. An autopsy had at least cleared him of any intoxication or drug use, but that was cold comfort.
“Yes, he would have made it. If only he hadn’t…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Raymond diverted his eyes. Calvin’s fault wasn’t a secret. Still, no one voiced their disbelief that someone supposedly so smart had done something so mind-bogglingly stupid. At least, not in front of her. Whenever she thought about it, she could feel the strains of anger reverberating. Her son was gone because of his own senseless action. Thankfully, the other driver had survived. But barely.
Raymond took a sip of water. She saw him peering at her over the rim of the glass, drinking in her face. She knew he was calculating the minutes he would stay, the days he would visit, how soon her loneliness would make her open up, make her accessible. He was lonely, too—that much she understood. But mutual loneliness was a pitiful reason to let someone into your life, into your bed, with so little in common. As kind as Ray was, there was nothing that pulled her to him.
Maybe she was superficial, but there should at least be some attraction between the man and woman. She couldn’t even begin to imagine Ray touching her intimately. But then again, it had been a long time since she had imagined any man touching her.
There hadn’t been anyone since Darryl. And after such a long drought, it was hard to remember what it was like to even thirst for it. Hunger for it.
She heard a knock at the front door. She rose, wondering why her mother didn’t just ring the bell. Or maybe it was a Jehovah’s Witness or someone selling something.
She opened the door to find Sean standing on the porch. She blinked; she’d thought he was upstairs, and for a second she was confused.
“I don’t have a key,” he said matter-of-factly. His hands were shoved deep in his coat pockets, his hair tossed in his eyes. He looked as sad as he had on many occasions when he’d come to her front porch, seeking shelter in her home from things he never spoke of. That Joan never alluded to.
Without a word, she opened the door to let him in, not questioning why he had left without saying anything. He paused in the foyer for a second, caught sight of Ray, and headed up the stairs.
When she came back to the living room, she could tell by Ray’s confused expression that he had seen Sean.
“Isn’t that the Logan boy? The one who used to hang out with Calvin?”
Lacey didn’t understand why she suddenly felt defensive, why an innocent situation no longer seemed so.
“He came in for Cal’s funeral. He won’t be staying long.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course. That’s nice of you to let him stay here.” She heard the catch in his voice, the question, the tiny speck of suspicion. She didn’t need any of it. She stood by the sofa, looking down at him.
“Thanks for stopping by, Ray. I really appreciate the visit. And thanks again for the muffins.”
He sat for a second, not quickly picking up on the subtle message that he was being kicked out…albeit graciously. He could take his suspicions home with him, stew over them, have them for dinner.
When he stood, he took the opportunity to give her cheek a quick peck. “I’ll be back by tomorrow. I promise you won’t have to go through this alone.”
He headed to the door, leaving her speechless in his wake. Under normal circumstances, she would have called him out on his nerve. She was going to have to put a stop to this soon. Although today wasn’t the day. She followed him to the foyer, opened the door and stood out of pecking distance.
He hesitated at the door. “Well, then…good-bye.”
She breathed a sigh after she shut the door.
“I remember him.”
Sean’s voice made her jump. She hadn’t seen him standing on the stairs. How long had he been there?
He came down the remaining steps and stood in front of her. She still had to get used to his height.
“You should remember him. He lives next door.”
“He was always getting at me and Cal about the noise we made when we played ball out back. He always seemed so…old.”
“Well, he’s probably just a few years older than me.”
“That’s not the type of ‘old’ I mean. There’s old like in years, and then there’s the type of old that makes you wonder if the person was ever young at all. Old-timey and…”
“Sean, I’m not going to stand here and listen to you bad-mouth a nice man.”
“So, you like him?” The stress on “like” made the question personal. His eyebrow was raised; the expression made him appear older. She could see the contours he would grow into in just a few years. His was the type of face that would age well, would still have young women fawning when he was well into his forties, fifties. Life was definitely too fair to the male species.
“Of course I like him. He’s a very decent
