“Good,” Aaron said, and Jeremiah fought the urge to throw his arms around the kid.
Jeremiah turned to Ben, who sneered. “Yeah, you mean me,” he said. “I’m the one who has to talk.”
“I just want to know why—” He thought about saying why you lied to me, but the Dr. Gilman in his head vetoed that.
Too accusatory. You’ve gone that route before.
He thought about asking why Walter and why not Lucy.
Too close to your own hot buttons and not quite the problem, is it?
“Why do you want to work with Walter?”
Ben blinked at him, as if surprised, and the Dr. Gilman in his head nodded in approval.
But Ben just shrugged.
“What kind of work do you do with him?”
“We’re cleaning up all his moldy saddles and stuff.”
It was Jeremiah’s turn to be surprised. That was not fun work.
“And you like that?”
“Better than gardening.”
Careful, he thought, careful here.
“You know you could have just told Lucy you didn’t want to garden.”
“I did.”
Jeremiah could just imagine how that had gone and he hung his head for a second, looking for another way into the boy’s head.
“Walter tells me stories about Mom.”
Jeremiah’s head jerked up.
“What stories?” Aaron asked, his eyes alight.
“Ones about Pirate—”
“Who is Pirate?” Casey asked.
“Mom’s dog growing up,” Aaron told him. “Mom said he used to chase the mailman so bad that he would leave the mail down at the bottom of the drive.”
“That’s not all,” Ben said. “Pirate nearly killed Duchess, Walter’s old dog.”
Jeremiah sat back in his chair, blown sideways by the boys’ reaction to these stories. Aaron’s eyes glittered and Ben…Ben was smiling.
You don’t talk about her anymore, he thought. You didn’t want to upset the boys so you just stopped talking about your sister. Their mom and dad. They died and then you put the memories away where the boys couldn’t reach them.
You thought it was the right thing.
“First of all,” he said, sitting back. “Pirate was my dog! Your mom stole him.”
He could see on their faces, they weren’t sure what he was doing. They looked as if the ice under their feet wasn’t totally solid.
“How’d she steal him?” Casey asked.
“She used to go to bed at night with dog treats under her pillow, and Pirate would sleep on her bed because she fed him all night. He used to sleep like a person, too. You know how dogs usually sleep all curled up?”
Casey jumped away from the table to demonstrate, curling up like a donut, while Aaron and Ben watched, their mouths curving slowly into smiles.
“Well, Pirate used to sleep stretched out, on his back with his paws in the air. He used to push her out of bed all the time.”
“But she still let him sleep in her bed?” Aaron asked.
“Every night. She really loved that dog.”
The boys smiled at each other over this piece of their mother he’d handed back to them.
“Did I ever tell you about your mom and dad’s wedding?”
“No!” Aaron said, and Casey got up off the floor and crawled into Jeremiah’s lap. It took him a second to swallow back the barbed lump in his throat, and he pressed his lips to Casey’s curls until the moment passed.
The boys all leaned forward, toward him, as if he was fire and they were cold.
I’m sorry, he thought. I should have told you these stories all along.
“Your mom,” he whispered, “wore white cowboy boots under her wedding dress. And your dad nearly threw up at the altar.”
He skipped the part about how he and Conner had gotten drunk as skunks behind the church before the ceremony.
“Did Mom get mad?” Aaron asked.
“Furious.”
“How’d she even know?” Ben asked. “If he didn’t actually throw up?”
“Your dad burped. And it did not smell good.”
Casey howled, and Jeremiah laughed, remembering, and then before he knew it, Aaron was laughing and so, remarkably, was Ben.
“I know that wedding album is around here somewhere.” He set Casey down and wandered into the very rarely used den where all the photos were kept. The boys followed and it was a good night. Magical almost. The kind of night he’d never thought they’d have.
Jeremiah watched the boys, heads bent over Aaron’s baby album, and he decided not to waste time feeling bad for having denied them this. Instead, he was going to go back over to Walter’s tomorrow and tell him Ben would be working with him.
Because it made Ben happy and it was about time something did.
17
Lucy drove slowly over the pass, trying to formulate her argument. Trying to screw her courage to the sticking point, but her stomach was in knots.
All she could think about was how angry Jeremiah had been. How betrayed.
What did you think was going to happen? she asked herself. This is the way you handle every problem in your life. You bury your head in the sand and hope it will go away. Hope something will magically change.