Falling into Forever (Falling into You) (15 page)

“What if I just want to play
house in Atlanta with you? You know. We can see how dirty the dirty South really is?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and I laugh at his cheesiness.

“Don’t even joke about things like that.
We’ve had eight months, of Prague, and here, and everywhere in between. We were only supposed to have a week together, if you remember correctly, and we’ve managed to extend it for this long. We should just take that and be grateful. Besides, it won’t kill us to spend some time apart. People do it every day, you know. You can’t get rid of me that easily. Long distance relationships do not have to be complete failures. We’ll be fine.”

T
he nagging sense of worry that’s plagued me for months starts to surface again, but I push it away. We would be fine. We had to be fine.

“
I would argue that we have not had eight months. Hell, we’ve barely had eight days this summer. It’s not like I’ve seen much of you.” Apologetic green eyes bore into my own. “I’m sorry about that. I know I promised…”

I put a finger to his lips. “It’s really okay.
I’ve been fairly productive myself. Sam and I have now mastered pretty much every dance there is. I can even do a pretty mean Thriller at this point, although I’m not sure if that’s the kind of cultural experience that you promised my mother. However, I do think that even MJ himself would be proud.”

“Hey. You
never know when knowing those moves might come in handy. What if you’re kidnapped by some unscrupulous characters who will only let you go if you do the Thriller dance perfectly a hundred times in a row? You wouldn’t be laughing about your lack of cultural experiences then.”

That mak
es me giggle. He touches my chin and draws me close.

“
Okay. Forget Thriller. What would you say if I told you that I found the perfect little house for us, just a few blocks from Greenview?”

“I’d say that you’re crazy. Please tell me that you didn’t.”

“I even have the perfect plan--I’ll put on my beret and you can pretend that I’m some Eastern European prince that you picked up on your fabulous adventures. Best of all, we can garden and get a dog and let it roam around and get muddy paw prints everywhere. We’ll be an old married couple.”

“
If we’re still playing the what if game, I would tell you that you’re absolutely nuts and that Marcus would never approve of this plan.”

“And then I would tell you that he already did
. There’s only one condition—you have to read all of the scripts and tell me which one to pick. As Marcus says, and I quote, ‘Jensen, your taste in screenplays is shit, at best, and fucking shit, at worst.’”

“Did he really say that
?”

Th
e Marcus stamp of approval fills me with a ridiculous sense of pleasure, especially given the fact that I ostensibly dislike Marcus. Kind of. So, maybe he’s grown on me. A little bit. Still. I shouldn’t care if he approves of my taste in screenplays. Jerkface.

“He did. And he also approved the Atlanta plan.”

“Seriously?”

“
Seriously, silly. Just you, me, and Buster, chilling in the garden.”

“But…”

“But nothing. You know how this argument will go. You’ll protest, I’ll make a dazzling argument filled with logical claims that even you won’t be able to poke any holes in, you’ll change the subject, like you always do, and we’ll waste a couple of hours fighting until you eventually give in to my desires. Then, we’ll kiss and make up. Let’s just skip all of the foreplay and kiss and make up instead. Plus, I already have the winning argument, one that you absolutely can’t fight.”

“And what would that be?”

“I already put the deposit down on the house. You, me, and Buster will be chasing each other around in no time. If you say no, that’s a lot of money down the drain. Wasting money drives you crazy.”

“I
t’s nonrefundable?” He had convinced me before he had even mentioned the deposit, but I wasn’t planning to give in as easily as all that. “And cheap enough so that I can pay my half of the rent?”

“And it’s nonrefundable. And cheap enough so that you can pay your half of the rent. See, I already anticipated your silliness. I thought you would be proud of me for knowing you so well.”

“Let me guess. You already found Buster, too.”

“No, that one I leave up to you. The womenfolk get to pick the dogs. It’s probably written on a tablet somewhere.”

“I don’t think they had dogs back in the Stone Age.”

“I don’t think they wrote on tablets back in the Stone Age. Now, get your ass over here so that I can do a proper job of convincing you.”

“I’m curious to know what you think a proper job consists of.”

“Baby, I’ve got moves you’ve never seen.”

“And don’t think that just because you’ve found a perfect house that you can call me baby.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

*
* *

6
Years Later

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

“We’re now arriving in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where the current temperature is a balmy seven degrees Fahrenheit.”

The flight attendant’s cheerful voice snaps me out of my daydream. We never did find exactly the right Buster, I think to myself, with a little smile. What if…

“
Hallie Caldwell, you’ll only drive yourself crazy playing the what if game.”

It was something my mother used to say, whenever I peppered her with questions. The same questions that my own daughter peppers me with on a daily basis.
And my response is an echo of my mother’s. I chuckle to myself. It is true, the old adage. We all become our mothers, given enough time.

The wait to disembark is painfully long. As
soon as I hit the end of the tunnel at the gate, I break into a run. The airport is tiny, and I can see both of them standing just beyond the glass.

I
bust through the doors.

“Mommy!”

She’s running towards me on steady, chubby legs. It takes everything I have not to run towards her with the same determination that I see in her face. But Grace would hate that, so I force myself to stand still. I settle for scooping her up and closing my arms tightly around her tiny little body as I ignore the rush of people hustling past us with their bags and cell phone and tablets and signs.

The smell of baby powder really is the best smell in
the whole wild world, as Grace would put it.

“Mommy, you were gone for so long.
So much has happened.”

I chuckle and touch the tip of her nose.

“Like what, sweet girl? Tell me everything.”

“
I got a new pink shirt and a truck and a real trucker hat.”

I g
ive my mother a sideways glance as I set Grace back down again.

My mother sighs and grabs the black bag from my shoulder as she leads us into the parking garage.

“It’s not good for little girls to fall into masculine and feminine stereotypes. She wanted the pink shirt, so I told her the only way I was indulging that wish was if she agreed to wear the trucker hat along with it.”

I look down at the camouflage cap coveri
ng Grace’s riot of dark curls and tousle the ends with my fingers. She grasps my hand with surprising strength and beams up at me.

“Uncle Sam called to tell me almost happy almost birthday and we sang together and he said we need to go to the beach, him and me and you and Aunt Marie and maybe Aunt Eva and
maybe Grandma and we’ll get shells and swim in the ocean. He said that we went swimming in the ocean a long time ago, but I can’t ‘member.”

“We most certainly did go swimming in the ocean a long time ago. And Uncle Sam is
right. He and I talked about the beach while I was in the big city, and we both think it’s time for another trip. And maybe Grandma and Aunt Eva will want to come this time, too, since they had to miss it the last time we went.”

“I’m a good swimmer. Probably even better than Uncle Sam.”

“Uncle Sam has a deathly fear of sharks, so I think it’s probably safe to say that you are a better swimmer than Uncle Sam.”

“See, Grandma? I told you she would want to go to the ocean.”

I lift Grace into her car seat and ignore the surprised look on my mother’s face. Unfortunately, I can’t ignore the questions.

“You saw Sam? And you want to go to the ocean?”

Her voice is incredulous, but I try to make my answer as matter-of-fact as possible.

“We didn’t go last year. And I think it’s probably time to go again.
Grace doesn’t even remember the ocean. It’s my duty as a mother to rectify that.”

“I really just want to swim.
With the sharks. And the jellyfish. Miss Oona says that the jellyfish aren’t made of jelly, though. But she might not be telling the whole truth.”

“I promise, w
e shall swim. But hopefully not with any sharks. Or jellyfish, for that matter.” I take the cap off and ruffle her hair. “There will be lots of fish, though.”

My mother drives, and
I sit in the back seat with Grace as she babbles away. She’s filled with long, winding stories about preschool and Grandma and a boy named Derek and everything else that happened while I was gone. I catch my mother casting a wary glance in my direction a few times, but my attention stays focused on my daughter instead. There will be time for questions later, even if I’m still not sure about the answers.

I do know one thing.
For the first time in a long time, I’m able to watch every toss of my daughter’s head and every little grin without feeling every ounce of the weight that Ben will never be here to see it again. The ache is still there, of course, but it’s not the stabbing, breathtaking pain that I’ve felt for too long.

When
my mother stops at the end of a long, curving driveway, I breathe a sigh of relief. I unbuckle Grace, but before I can lift her from the car seat, she wiggles away and dances up the stone steps.

I take a long look at the
cabin, our little sanctuary. It’s like something out of a storybook, nestled amongst the trees and lake. The grass has grown wilder in my brief absence, as it always does, but it makes sense here, among the explosions of flowers and color covering the front yard and porch. The dusting of snow on the ground doesn’t change that. Grace grabs the key from behind one of the flowerpots and opens the door as we lag behind her.

My mother places a strong hand on my back. “I’m getting too old for this. That girl wears me out.”

“I think you used to say that about me, too.”

“At least you used to l
ook before you leaped. That one is a world of trouble.”

Grace takes a tumble over
the hardwood floors in the entryway, and before I can check to see if she’s all right, if she needs kisses or a pink Band-Aid to make it better, she’s up again, running into the kitchen and tossing her trucker cap into the air.

“
Thanks for looking after her, Mom.”

“Of course, baby. We had dinner before we came to get you, so it’s j
ust the bath now. I’ll heat something up for you if you want to take on story duty.”

I give my mother a grateful smile, and she touches my arm.

“Do you have the contract? I’d like to take a look.”

“It’s in
my bag. I’m sure you’ll find a thousand places where there’s something that I didn’t think of. And I’m also sure that Eva’s going to love talking to you on the phone tonight about how you should be doing her job.”

I shoot a warning look to my mother
. She and Eva have never seen eye-to-eye on anything and my mother’s never been one to mince words. I think she might even scare Eva a little bit.

“I know I’ll enjoy that conversation.
” She shoots me a wicked little smile right back. “You know, I think I could have handled the deal. I’ve gotten pretty good at contracts.”

“Mom, the only thing worse than doing business with friends is doing business with family. It’s certain disaster.”

Before I can say more, Grace interrupts us by tugging on the bottom of my coat.

“Mommy, can you read the story about the moon tonight? And then, I can read the one about the bears all by myself.
I know all the words. I don’t need any help.”

“Moon and bears. But that’s it. There’s no way you’re getting more than two stories out of me.”

“Three?”

“Two.”

“Four?”

“Two.”

When she nestles her tiny body next to mine in the narrow twin bed with its princess canopy, and pleads with me for just one more story, I can’t resist. Moons, bears, tigers, lions, and princesses it would be. So, one bath, two cups of cocoa, and six stories later, Grace finally falls into sleep. Exhausted, I tiptoe down the stairs to find my mother poring over endless sheets of paper.

“There’s soup on the
stove and a bowl on the counter,” she says, obviously distracted. Before I can sit down, she looks up at me with wide eyes. “Hallie, you didn’t tell me that the company you were planning to work with…”