Forever Checking (Checked Series Book 3) (10 page)

She probably thinks she’ll hurt his feelings if she says she doesn’t want to do his activity. And Melanie is always telling her that she should never hurt her friends’ feelings.

So she’s going to participate in his therapy…or at least watch his therapy…so as not to upset him.

Hmm…sounds familiar.
{Sam Smith blasts out his refrain.}
Melanie would be so prou—

“Ready?” He’s standing by my bedroom door, holding his grocery bag—the one that apparently isn’t holding any needles.

No. No. No. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.

Abby’s little hand finds my fingers. She holds them. Squeezes them.

My mouth opens. “Let’s go.”

Abby and I float down the stairs behind him, holding hands. His bag makes crunching sounds as we move. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The sunlight beats in from a downstairs window. Beaming. Beaming. Beaming.

I am about to touch dirt.
Gross. Gross. Gross.

We reach the bottom of the stairs. He leads us right to my shoe towel. Three pairs of shoes sit on top of it. His brown shoes. Abby’s pink sneakers. My…black pumps. Not really gardening shoes.

Is it even called gardening when you plant a flower and not something you are going to eat…like tomatoes or, I don’t know, some—

CALLIE!

He is slipping his shoes on. Abby is standing beside me, waiting for me to make the next move.

And I don’t really have next move options. I have a pair of sneakers upstairs. But they are white. Clean and shiny and white. They don’t belong in the dir—

“Hey.”

I look up, up from my shoe towel, at the sound of his voice. His eyes are calm.

“Stop freaking out.” He looks down and reaches his hand into the grocery bag. Crinkle crinkle crunch.

My eyes follow his movement, follow his hands as they pull out…black sneakers. Brand new black sneakers, no doubt. Sneakers that look like they’ll fit my feet—which means that he somehow used his mind-reading superhero powers to read the size number on the inside of one of my shoes or that—

“Mandy.” He explains simply. Answers my unspoken question. He called Mandy. Of course he—

“She told me about your shiny white sneakers. They didn’t sound like gardening sneakers.”

Gardening sneakers.
Planting flowers must still count as gardening. Doesn’t matter…no matter what he wants to call what we are about to do, these sneakers are going to get filth—

He continues to talk as he holds the sneakers out to me. “Don’t worry about these. They were cheap. You can throw them out afterward if you want.”

Does he ever NOT know everything? Does he—

He doesn’t know about your head radi—

STOP, Callie. Stop. Stop.

{You don’t have to stop, though, Sam Smith. Not that I could make you stop if I wanted to.}

I take the shoes and the new pair of socks that he pulls next out of his bag. What choice do I have? As I lean down to put them on, Abby reluctantly lets go of my hand and Velcros her sneakers over her little feet.

As soon as we both have our shoes on, her small hand grabs my fingers once more.

Then we all head outside.

ABBY AND I ARE STANDING in the grass, watching him pull all kinds of stuff from his Mary Poppins bag.

First, a little shovel and the purple mum. Then a small watering can. He puts these items on the porch…the porch that is right beside a patch of dirt—the area, I guess, where our flower is going to be planted. By me. Somehow…

Next out of his bag, a big black garbage bag. He spreads this out in the grass right in front of the patch of dirt, the flower spot. Then…a box of gloves. He pulls four gloves out of the box and reaches out to hand two to me and two to Abby.

Abby takes the gloves from him with her right hand. Her left hand still clings to my fingers, though.

As I grab my two gloves from him, he sort of smiles at me and then looks at Abby. Sadly. He looks at her sadly. Because she is probably somehow reminding him of his mother.

Damn it.
Time to try to make this somewhat better. Time to be some sort of role model. Some sort of freaking screwed up role model.

One. Two. Three.

I squeeze Abby’s hand and gently let go so I can put my gloves on.

 For some reason, some miraculous reason, she follows my lead and pulls her gloves onto her little hands. The gloves are too big. Not tight on her skin at all. She doesn’t say anything, though. She just grabs my hand again.

Two gloved hands together.

Two sets of eyes looking at the dirt in front of us.

{Two of us listening to music in our heads? I don’t know. I’ve never asked Abby about a head radio. I’m not going to ask her about it right now, though. OBVIOUSLY. But who knows. Maybe Sam Smith is singing to her too. Maybe he’s simultaneously singing to many OCD sufferers. Busy man. If he—}

He’s looking at me. Pensively.

Stop thinking about the music, Callie. Before he somehow magically notices, figures it out. Stop. Stop. STOP.

“Are you ready, Callie?”

Nope. Not at all. God only knows what is in that dirt. Animal feces. Or—

He is handing me a little shovel. A brand new little metal shovel.

Is there another name for a little gardening shovel? I’m not sure. But it’s in my fingers now. Solid. Heavy.

Abby’s grip on my hand gets stronger. I look down at her. She’s still staring at the dirt. So nervously. So lost in worries.

This. Shouldn’t. Be.

She’s so little. She should be worried about princesses or birthday parties or the tooth fairy.

Or not worried at all.

Okay…time to be a role model. A role model.

One. Two. Three.

I squeeze her hand, and she glances up at me. Then I paint a quick, reassuring (I hope) smile on my face and make my feet move toward the garbage bag sprawled over the grass. She follows.

One. Two. Three.

My knees bend. I move down, down, down until I’m kneeling on top of the garbage bag. Kneeling down, sitting back on my feet. Abby stands beside me, our heads now pretty much at the same level. Our hands still together.

“All right. Let’s get started.” He sits down beside me on the garbage bag, his jeans touching mine. His warmth—

“I need you to start digging a hole. Right here.” He points to the patch of dirt in front of me. Then he pulls his hand back and—

And puts it on my leg, rubbing back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

My head blurs up. My stomach bounces around. My leg—

“Are you okay, Aunt Callie?”

My head turns at the sound of Abby’s voice. Scrunched up face. Big eyes. She looks even more worried now. Worried about me.

Okay.

One. Two. Three. Another squeeze of Abby’s hand. A gentle release of her fingers. A quick nod.

And…

And…

And…

One. Two. Three.

Shovel raised above the dirt. Down. Down. Down.

Contact.

I start shoveling further down into the dirt. Digging down down down. Scooping up some dirt. Carefully. So cautiously.

He continues to rub my leg.

Leg rubbing. Leg rubbing. Leg rubbing. Head fuzzing. Head fuzzing. Head fuzzing.
{Sam Smith singing. Sam Smith singing. Sam Smith singing.}

I have dirt in my shovel now. One. Two. Three. Lift up up up. I dump the dirt on the side of my started hole.

And everything repeats. The digging. The scooping. The leg rubbing. The lifting. The dumping.
{The singing.}

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Rep—

“Okay. I think that’s enough.”

Already?

Wow.
This…this isn’t awful. No blood is involved. And it’s doubtful that there are contagious diseases buried under the dirt beside my porch. No one is really around this dirt other than Mandy and me…and I really doubt that some random stranger intentionally buried Mad Cow disease or something beside my porch. So I have that going for me…

And my hands are covered in gloves. And the gloves aren’t even dirty. It’s—

“Do you want to put the mum in the ground, Abby?”

I can feel her body tense up beside me as he talks, as he moves his hand from my leg to grab the mum on the other side of him.

I look up at her. She looks, well, near tears. Definitely near tears. My hand instinctively starts to reach for hers, but it stops as I see Abby’s face flinch.

Obviously, I can’t grab her hand. Obviously, she doesn’t want to touch my gloves.

She does, however, lean her head close to mine. She puts her mouth next to my ear. And she whispers. “I don’t want to.” After the words come from her mouth, she moves back into her original position and looks at me worriedly, waiting for my response.

I just smile. And whisper back. “It’s okay, sweetie.”

Poor girl. Worried about telling him that she doesn’t want to participate in his activity. Worried about hurting his feelings.
{Sam Smith gets louder, belting out his refrain.}

I look back toward him. Sitting beside me. Holding the mum.

One. Two. Three. I reach out and take the mum from him, sure that I don’t need to tell him that Abby doesn’t want to plant it. Sure that he pretty much understands what is going on, how Abby is feeling. He is a psychologist, after all.

One. Two. Three. Easiest part yet. I put the mum in the hole. Done. Now I just have to put all of my dug out dirt back.

And…go. Scoop, lift, dump. Scoop, lift, dump. Scoop, lift, dump.

I’ve got this. I’m not going to tell him, though. If he thinks this is too easy, God only knows what activity he’ll come up with next.

More blood work, no doubt.

Do not think about blood work. Do not think about Judy. Do. Not. Think.

Scoop. Lift. Dump. Scoop. Lift. Dump. Scoop. Lift. Dump.
{Josh Groban butts in with “
You Raise Me Up
.”}

All of the dirt is back, loosely surrounding the mum. My new mum. I flip over the little shovel and press the dirt a little, trying to pack it in. And I know I’m probably not packing the dirt in as well as another person might, but, well, I’m doing my best. I’m not trying to be some award winning master gardener or anything. If that’s even a thing.

“Good, Callie. Good.” He’s pleased. So am I. My gloves are still clean. My head is still, well, pretty okay. I don’t want him to know that, though. I want him to think I’m being especially strong and brave today—not to think that this was an easier than usual therapy session. Not to think that we need to up the therapy rigor tomorrow…

“Okay, we just need to water it. I already partially filled your new watering can at home. You’ll have to put more water in later to give the mum—”

“I’ll water it.” Abby’s little voice. Abby—trying to get involved in this, in his activity.

“Go for it.” Without missing a beat, he grabs the watering can, takes a piece of plastic wrap off of the side and top of the can, and hands the can to Abby.
{Josh continues, working up to a key change.}

Abby stands right beside me, leans forward, and waters my new purple mum. And she smiles. Because she is having fun? Because she is participating in his activity? Because we are almost done? I don’t know why. But she is smiling.
{And Josh hits his key change.}

“Okay. Looks good.”

Abby stops watering and hands the can back to him. Then she and I both wait for further instructions. Four gloved hands hanging in the air—not touching anything.

Do we look ridiculous? Yes. I’m positive that we do. But I don’t care. We just planted a freaking mum. And we survived. And—

“All right. I’m going to remove your gloves, and then you can both go inside to wash your hands.” He is talking to both of us, but he’s looking at Abby. Trying to make sure that she is okay, that she remains okay.

Still sitting on the garbage bag, I hold my hands out in the air and watch as he carefully removes Abby’s gloves, leads her to the porch, and pushes open the front door so she can go inside, take off her shoes, and hurry to the kitchen to wash her hands.

Then he turns back to look at me. Eyes smiling. Mouth smiling. “You made it.” He starts over toward me.

I did make it. Even though it wasn’t the most challenging activity, the most scary situation, I still made it. So I—

He kneels down on the garbage bag right beside me, reaching for my outstretched hands. He starts at my left wrist and rolls the glove off of my hand, his eyes intensely on mine the whole time. As though he is instead taking off my shirt. Or my jeans. Or—

He peels the glove off of my right hand. Both gloves off now. My naked hands just hanging in the air. His eyes on mine. My face flushed. My—

“Aunt Callie?” Abby. Hanging out of the front door. “Can I take a bath?”

I force my eyes to leave his as I look past him to nod to Abby. “Sure, sweetie. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She disappears back into the house. My eyes return to him. He throws my dirty gloves down on the grass beside him and pushes out his elbow, exposed by his pushed up shirt sleeves, for me to grab.

“Go ahead, Callie. If you are afraid that you’ll get me dirty, don’t be. I promise I’ll take a shower when I get home.”

Him in the shower. Him in the shower. Him in the shower.

His eyes twinkle a little as I grab his elbow, making me wonder if he is once again hearing my thoughts. My dirty thoughts. Well, actually, they are technically clean tho—

Carefully, we stand up together, my hand gripping his arm, and we walk toward the porch.

When we arrive at the open doorway, he leans in toward me. Just his head. His lips brush mine for a second. Just a second. A tingly second. Then—

The sound of a car pulling into our driveway. Mandy’s car. Mandy’s here.

He smiles and pulls back a little.

“I know you have class soon, so I’ll clean up out here and head home. I’ll text you later.”

I smile back at him. “Thanks.” Then, reluctantly, but not overly reluctantly because my hands are still in a questionable state (some invisible pieces of dirt might have slipped through my gloves), I let go of his arm, head into my house, remove my shoes (his shoes), and wash my hands.