Laura Ray (Ray Series) (18 page)

He nodded, “I can understand getting away from the living room.” He reached for her hand as he stood, “Would you like to walk a bit?”

She followed him through the park walking on the soft green grass under the shade of the massive tall trees. The stopped to watch the water tri
ckle along through the rocks as it slowly meandered along the streambed.

When they reached the big pipes which crossed water, Art challenged her to walk across on the pipes. She laughed at him and easily took up the challenge. He followed her across and they held hands as they as they strolled along the road.

“Do you plan to take classes to improve your art?” Art questioned.

“I can’t right now. That takes more money than I can pay right now,” she said with a troubled frown. “I’ll have to do the best I can with what I have.”

“Would you be willing to take a loan from me to help you out?” Art asked hoping to not offend her.

Laura stopped, “Art, I need to get my life
in order, not get in more debt.”

“I know I’m doing this all wrong. My timing is wrong, too.” Art hung his head a moment then with tears in his eyes, he hesitantly continued, “I love you, Laura. Almost from the moment I first set eyes on you, have wanted to ask you to marry me. Will you be my wife?”

He held her hands and kissed them, waiting for her answer.

She stood there looking at him with tears also in her eyes.

She knew that she had feelings for him. He was the only man she remembered caring for other than John. She also remembered how deliciously luxurious it felt in her new room last night. Was she ready to give that up yet? She also knew that Art would deliver her from her financial woes. She would be free to study her art. She thought about how important it was to her to be able to prove to herself that she could be self-sufficient on her own. Again, was it fair to marry him for financial freedom? The question was, ‘did she love him enough?’

“Art, I care more for you than any man I have ever known, except for John.” She shook her head, ashamed to disappoint this wonderful man. “
Someday, I hope I can get settled in my mind and marry you for the right reasons. I can’t marry you until I can give you my whole heart. To marry you for financial gain isn’t fair to either of us.”

He let go of her hands, and said, “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

They called for Danny to get in the pickup and they left the park. Danny started to ask a question but Laura waved him off before he got anything out.

When they reached Laura’s house, Art asked, “Do you want me to help with anything?”

Laura shook her head, “I don’t think we’ll do much more. I’m tired.”

Art went to his house and lay down on his bed and wept. He knew he shouldn’t have
asked her to marry him. He knew that the time wasn’t right. All he wanted to do was help her. He knew what Mary would say, ‘Put it in God’s hands.’

After Art dropped Laura and Danny off at home, Laura looked at the mess she and Danny had been sorting before Art came. Danny interrupted her thoughts, “Mom, what happen between you and Uncle Art?”

She felt so exhausted. She could see the worry and concern in his face. She owed him some explanation. She couldn’t think so she just blurted out, “He asked me to marry him.”

“What did you tell him?”
Danny asked.

“I told him, I couldn’t right now.”

Exasperated, he asked, “Why, Mama? Why?”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her tired face, “It’s complicated, Danny. I’m going to bed.”

He watched her go to her room.
Why did she have to make things so complicated?
He wanted to kick the whole mess in the living room out in the yard. There was no way he wanted to walk around this junk for another week. Well, if he had to be the man of the house, he would make a few decisions of his own. He started pulling most of the boxes and furniture back into the front bedroom. At least, it could stay in there until she was ready to tackle the art studio.

Laura
could hear Danny moving things around in the living room as she lay on her bed. She didn’t care, she felt so tired that she hurt. If she was able to work tomorrow at all she had to have some rest. Her spurt of energy of remodeling her new bedroom and art studio had all left her. She thought of Art asking her to marry him. She felt tears dampening her pillow. Then there was Danny’s reaction when she told him about it. She had disappointed him. She didn’t know he would react that way.

She wondered if she was making purely selfish decisions. She had never thought of herself as selfish before. She reminded herself of keeping her children from her family for years. Yes, she could be selfish. She remembered the warm feeling of family. How nice that felt to feel their love? She wished she could get
Becky’s opinion of Art’s marriage proposal. She thought about calling her as she drifted off to sleep.

Laura awoke once during the night cold. She crawled under the covers.
She reached over to slap the alarm on so that she would wake up to go to work. She had been dreaming that she was painting in her new art studio. She wore a white painter’s smock and one of those cute little hats like she had seen those artists on TV wear. She sat perched on a stool before a canvas with her easel in one hand and a paint brush in the other. A bright light shone through the window and she happily began applying the paint to the canvas with bright colors using sure confident strokes making big swirling designs. Suddenly the windows were open and the wind swished through blowing the paint off the canvas right onto her painters smock.

The next thing she remembered was slapping the alarm off as it jarred her awake. She groaned and looked at the clock. Sure enough it was time to get up.
She sat up on the side of the bed dreading to go to work. She had dreamed again. This time she remembered being frightened and sad. She rubbed her eyes and they were wet. She felt of her pillow and it was wet also. She had been crying.

In her dream she had been so happy. She walked down the aisle wearing a dress identical to Nora’s wedding dress. Art waited for her at the altar. Her marital bless suddenly changed when her heart plummeted to her stomach as she looked for him standing at the altar but things were getting foggy and the man wearing the tuxedo had no face.  She blinked her eyes trying to focus to see Art’s face. Now she couldn’t she see him at all. There was no body at the altar for her. She looked around and the whole interior of the chapel became covered in fog. There was no one there for her.

Laura shook her head to erase the horrible feeling of aloneness she had felt. It was just a dream, she reassured herself. She robotically began her morning adulations to prepare for work.

As she walked through the house she noticed Danny had cleared most of the mess out of the living room back into the bedroom. He had also eaten a whole
bag of chips and drank a couple of sodas. She hoped he wouldn’t be sick but then again he was a fourteen year old growing boy. It was amazing how much he could eat.

At supper that night, Danny suggested, “If you could bring me a couple of gallons of paint, I would start on that front bedroom tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she said. She still felt such heaviness in her heart, she could barely talk. Her arms had felt so heavy at work, she didn’t make quota that day for the first time in weeks. They watched TV and didn’t try to work on the house at all.

By the next afternoon, she began to feel some of her strength coming back and the heaviness around her heart had begun to lift. She stopped at the lumberyard and tried to make up her mind whether to go with eggshell or cream color on the walls of her art studio.
Although she thought that the eggshell was somewhat uninspiring, she decided to go with it because it was less likely to distort her perception of colors as she painted.

The vision of her dream clouded her mind for a moment when the paint flew off the canvas and landed on her paint smock. She hoped that wasn’t a
foreboding of what would really happen. Surely not!

The phone rang on Friday evening after Laura got home from work. It was Art on the phone. Her heart skipped a beat upon hearing his voice. “Do you still want Harold and
me to come over tomorrow to work on your art room?” he was saying.

“Yes, if you don’t mind. I would appreciate your help.”

“Okay, we’ll be there.”

Laura breathed a sigh of relief, he was coming.

Art on the other hand knew that it would be painful to be in the same room with her, but he had promised last week that he would come. If things didn’t change, it would be the last time.

True to his word, Danny painted the room and the trim while Laura worked. When she got home from work he hauled the boxes out to the trunk and they took them to goodwill. The only clutter left in the house was the box springs, mattress, and bed frame. Laura decided to keep the bureau and dresser so she could use the drawers for storage.

When the men arrived, she proudly showed them all that she and Danny had accomplished during the week.

Harold turned a circle in the living room, “So what did you need us to do for you
?” he asked.

“I need that bed frame, box springs, and mattress hauled off. I don’t have a truck anymore to put it in.” Laura replied.

“Is that all?” Harold asked feeling like he would have rather gone fishing.

“I hate to be a bother to you, but if you could build some shelves in the closet for me to store things on, it would be very kind of you,” Laura requested.

After explaining in more detail where she wanted the shelves and what she had in mind for their use, they left to deposit the bed set at Harold’s church for donation and to buy some boards for shelves.

Laura noticed that Art never spoke to her except to nod a greeting when he arrived. She had hoped to see the warm tenderness that she had always seen in his eyes before, but he acted very guarded. He avoided looking directly at her.

Danny sadly sat on the sofa looking down at his shoes as he wiggled his feet around.

She stopped and put her hands on her hips, “Okay, Danny, spill it. What are you thinking?”

“Mom, you really hurt Uncle Art,” he answered accusingly. “I’ve never seen him act like that before.”

She wished there were simple answers. She wanted to be true to herself, but she hated to hurt him, too. She remembered her dream about the paint. Maybe it was a sign that her painting career would all fly back in her face if she tried it. A feeling of insecurity swept over her. Maybe she was wasting her time and effort when her money could be spent for a more practical use. She shook off the notion. No. It was just a dream.

The dream about losing Art gave her cause for alarm. What if she did lose him? That same sadness that she felt in the first of the week crept back shadowing her heart. She walked out onto the front porch and noticed for the first time this summer that she had sadly neglected her flower garden. What would Nora think? Ugh! Too many things to do, and too little time to get it all done!

She noticed the swing on the front porch. She and John had spent so many evenings sitting in the swing enjoying the late afternoon breeze. She never sat there anymore. When would she find the time? In fact, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had swept the porch.

Someday, she promised herself, her life would slow down. Things would go back to normal, whatever that was.

Art and Harold brought precut boards and angles to quickly install in the closet and were finished within twenty minutes.

“All that’s left to do now is paint the boards and you are ready to set up your art studio,” Harold smiled. “This turned out to be a very easy job where Art and I expected to work at least two good hard days of painting.”

“I hated to make you work hard on your days off,” Laura said. “I know you get tired just like I do.”

“We were happy to help you out.” Turning back to the art room, Harold asked, “Did you need anything done to this floor in here?”

Laura shook her head, “No, I’d probably spill paint on it anyway, but thanks for the offer.”

“Well,” Harold glanced at Art, “I guess we’ll get out of here. Goodbye.” He turned with a wave and started for the door.

Laura reached out and grabbed Art’s hand, saying, “Harold, would you and Danny give Art and I some time please?”

“Sure,” Harold looked questioningly at Art. Art gave him a nod. “Come on, Danny. Let’s go see what Aaron is up to.”

Chapter Nineteen

Laura held Art’s hand but still he wouldn’t look at her. She knew her actions had terribly hurt him. She put her arms around his chest and leaned her head against his shoulder but he gave her no response.

“I’m so sorry that I hurt you, Art. I am so sorry.” Laura pleaded, “Please forgive me.”

Art stood there with his eyes closed struggling against the pain in his heart. He lifted his hand and smoothed the hair away from her face and he felt the moisture from a tear running down her face. He pulled her back so he could look into her face.

“Please, explain to me why you feel that marrying me would only be for,” he raised his fingers to make quote signs, “
monetary gain.”