To Begin Anew (Blue Jay Romance) (15 page)

“I don’t know what it is you think you know, but I do know that it’s my business and you can stay well out of it. You have enough to worry about.” Debra realized her words were full of suppressed venom, but she couldn’t help herself. Love for your sibling didn’t mean that you had to allow them to walk all over you or to speak in every which manner but the proper one.

“Just thought you should know what kind of man he is before you go getting yourself hurt like you did last time.”

Debra glared at her sister. “You don’t know a thing about me. You don’t know a thing about him. If you had one ounce of concern for anyone but yourself, then you could see that not every man is like the man you married. You have to work that out for yourself and live with the decisions you’ve made.” She paused. She had a mouthful more to throw at her sister, none of which was particularly kind, and she remembered that it wasn’t like her to allow her mouth to get the better of her. She sighed. “Don’t forget that I love you.”

~*~*~

Eric was at his mother’s house before he knew it, the drive there seeming to him as if he’d flown there just on the happiness he was riding.

“You sure seem to be in a good mood,” Gladys said as she hugged her son through her front door. “Did you have a pleasant day?”

Eric remembered his mother’s words of caution when he’d dropped the boys off, and he kept the best news of the day to himself as he replied to her, “I went horseback riding.”

Gladys didn’t appear happy at the news. She’d forever be the over-protective mother. She said, “You know how dangerous that is, Eric. If I remember right, you didn’t so much like horses when you were little.”

Eric chuckled underneath his breath. Of course he hadn’t liked horses - and in truth it wasn’t so much the horses themselves, but the time he’d had to spend away from home. He said, “How have the boys been?”

“Danny had a little while before he wasn’t moping around the house waiting for you to get back. He’s still got a bit of the droopies, that one.”

The ‘droopies’ was his mother’s code word for depression, and in her opinion, the quicker a person got over their blue mood the better. She claimed that she was over her husband’s death, that a healthy person didn’t dwell on grief, but Eric knew better. The woman was tough, but there were times when he could see in her eyes how much she missed his father.

Eric nodded. “Are they ready to go?”

Gladys nodded. “Sure are and not a moment to wait! I’ve got Bingo with Mildred in half an hour, so if you don’t mind son, I love you but get out.”

Eric laughed at his mother’s words. She’d said the same thing to him the day he’d left for college. He was still laughing when the boys came running down the hall, their arms wrapping around him so tight he could tell they missed him.

“Daddy!” Danny’s voice was the loudest, his arms gripping his father the tightest, he was sure of it.

Eric bent down and picked up his youngest son by four and a half minutes, and because he only had room for one kid on his hip, he used his free hand to scruffle David. David giggled and Eric turned to Danny, “You have all of your stuff ready to go, right?”

“Yup. Nanna told us that you were on the way, that you called.” Danny frowned then. “Why didn’t you call us, Daddy?”

Eric squeezed Danny tight for a brief second before he let up and said, “It was just one day, Danny. Besides, you’re a big boy now, right?” When Danny nodded, Eric added, “I’m proud of you.”

Eric felt a tug at his shirt. “You proud of me too? Me too, right?”

Eric chuckled at his son. “Of course you too, David.”

Gladys interrupted what she thought was a nice family moment by saying, “I’m proud of all of you the most, now go. All of you now, shoo!” She was grinning, so she knew neither her son nor her grandchildren thought she was being cruel. Bingo was just too much fun in her old age to be late for, that and if she didn’t get there before Mildred, all the good Bingo stamps would be taken.

Eric was out of the house with his children in the car just as his mother got in her car as well and took off out of her driveway before them. The boys were good about strapping themselves in and staying quiet, but just once he would have liked them to squawk at him and tell him all about their weekend just as they used to do with their mother - just as he knew they’d done with Debra.

He pulled out of the driveway and began the journey home, his mind filled to the brim with uncertain thoughts and questions about his decisions. He hoped to Heaven that he was making the right decisions. Underneath his breath, in a voice so low he knew his boys couldn’t hear him, he said, “God, bless the choices I’ve made today.”

The saying that Mondays were the worst days must have originated from a mother, or at least someone who‘d made a small career out of watching children. Debra waited patiently at her door at six in the morning, tapping her foot with the ticking of the clock so that at least her foot would have something to do.

Eric called her, just as he said he would, but he didn’t ring her just to whisper sentiments into her ear before she went to bed. He’d called to ask her very nicely if she would continue to watch his children for him.

“I really don’t want to ask you, but you’re the only one left. I…”

Debra cut him off, more eager to get to bed than listen to Eric stammer through a speech about needing her and all that fluffiness, “Just have them here like you normally would.”

Boy, at six in the morning, a person could find regret lurking in the least likely of places. Even though she knew she was doing the right thing all the way around, Debra thought that it was just her luck to be involved with a man who also needed a good babysitter.

She opened the front door just as Eric’s car pulled into her driveway and she moved to help the sleepy kiddos out of the vehicle and into the living room. They would probably go back to sleep if she let them and since she hadn’t gotten to her first cup of coffee, she was willing to consider it.

“Good morning,” Eric said as he walked through the door.

“You too,” Debra managed as she helped David and Danny with their shoes and backpacks. Once they were set, she pointed to the kitchen. Because she’d set the trend and cooked breakfast for them, they insisted that she was better at it than their Daddy and refused to allow the man to do anything at all.

Debra smiled as she thought about all the people addicted to her cooking and she didn’t think that the addition of a couple more would do any harm. She began to turn to put the kids’ shoes underneath the coffee table when suddenly Eric was standing there, a smile as broad as the ocean on his face.

“You’re beautiful in the morning, you know that?” he said, his voice just barely above a whisper.

Debra had forgotten how nice it was to hear things like that. She replied just as softly, “You look like you.” She’d meant that as a compliment, though she didn’t think it quite sounded like one.

Eric chuckled. Debra wasn’t a woman who dispensed compliments as if they were drops of water and when she paid one to you, it was almost as if it had to sneak in the back door to keep from waking you up. He gave Debra a quick hug and said in a louder voice, “Have a good day!” The boys waved a goodbye, too busy with putting muffins into their mouths to do much more.

Debra stood where she was, not for the first time noticing how strangely normal and easy interactions with Eric and his boys were. Eric leaving for work and dropping the kids off so that she could get them to school felt worn to her, as if she’d been doing it every day for forever.

She wandered over to the counter and smiled as David woofed down a muffin in two bites. “You should save some of those for tomorrow,” she told him.

“But you’ll make more for tomorrow, won’t ya?”

Debra ruffled David’s head. “Sure I’ll make more.” She noticed Danny looking at her funny, his mouth turned down. She asked, “What’s eating you, Danny?”

“Daddy said we’re gonna find a new nanny.”

Debra leaned in on the kitchen counter, putting her chin on her hands as she rested on her elbows. “He said that, huh? Well, don’t you worry. I’ll be your nanny as long as you want me to be, okay?”

Danny nodded, his face brightening. It was so easy to please children if first you knew how they operated. Danny was fragile, having lost someone close to him already, and he wasn’t able to vocalize how bad it felt. The fact that he might lose another person was too much on him, and in the only way he knew how to ask, he’d needed to know that the comfort he’d found wasn’t going to disappear.

Debra pulled David’s frog out of her pocket and set it on the counter in front of him. She made sure he saw her do it, since the vacuum that was his mouth and hands might eat it without realizing it. She said, “I kept it safe for you while you were away.”

David smiled and looked to his brother. He looked back to Debra. “We’re still going to church on Sunday, aren’t we?”

Debra thought that it was a little early in the week to be making promises, but she realized that the way time was perceived was different for a child. She said, “You bet, little man.”

“There’s something else we wanted to do,” Danny chimed in.

“Oh yeah! There’s a fair where Nanna lives, and she said it was gonna be there in three weeks, and…”

Debra put a finger to David’s lips. She knew all about the fair over in Gilded Creek. Everyone in Blue Jay waited all year just for it to come close enough to pile up their children in their cars and go. She said, “We’ll go.”

“Really?” David said through the finger keeping his lips together.

Debra smiled, “Sure, if you and you brother do well in school.” She couldn’t help but hear the relent in her voice, despite the happy feeling in her chest. The boys would bounce all over the fair grounds like little Easter bunnies out to hide eggs.

Danny grinned. “All right! We’re going to the fair!”

~*~*~

Eric breezed through the first part of the day, for once not minding the mountains of charts and paperwork or stares from the females he worked with. It was as if he’d been given the cure to some kind of disease and now nothing mattered but the joy that wanted to bubble out of him. It was a weird sensation, the feeling of happiness when he’d been surrounded by so much sadness. For a long moment when the feeling was new, he felt guilty that he was allowed to feel this at all when he knew that part of his heart would always belong to Tina, would always grieve for her.

“You sure look like there’s a bounce in your step.”

Eric nodded at Dr. Trent as he made his way over to him. During the day, they had brief moments of down time where talking with one another was possible. After all, they worked at a small town hospital, not a major big-city hospital that was always whirring and humming as if it were a well oiled, living entity.

“Well, I do feel different today,” Eric said, unable to keep from smiling.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have yourself a woman.”

Eric lifted an eyebrow. Either Dr. Trent was sharper than he gave him credit for, or it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he had a girlfriend. It might as well have been printed in big, bold letters on his forehead.

“I‘m surprised you‘re taking my advice and not worrying about that lady on the news, or that little lady that came in here the other day.”

Eric folded his arms to his chest. In the bubble of giddy new-found happiness he’d been wrapped in for the last twenty-four hours, he’d not thought about the consequences. It wasn’t as if he was a normal person who could date as a normal person dated without people being interested in it. To them, the circling vultures, it didn’t matter what life they might be destroying, just as long as they entertained the masses.

Eric sighed, “I hadn’t thought about it. Do you think it’ll be a problem? Should I maybe call them myself, or…”

Dr. Trent shook his head. “Boy, like I said, don’t go worrying about that lady or her news report. She’ll always have something to gossip about. What you
should
do though, is tell that woman you’re with about what could happen. I don’t know much about how ladies think, but I do know that my wife would be mighty upset if I hid something like that from her and she found out ‘bout it from someone else.”

Eric looked away from Dr. Trent. Debra already knew about the news - what person living in Blue Jay hadn’t heard about the news - but he was certain that she didn’t know about Julia. Even though nothing had happened between them, save for in Julia’s mind, he couldn’t predict what she would do once she found out that he was with Debra. Would she do something awful to her, or would she have the good sense and grace to accept that he wasn’t ever going to feel about her the way she claimed to feel about him?