Acceptance, The (10 page)

“You can learn.”

Tyler nodded. “Yes. I could learn. But I think I could change the world if I tried. I think that Aunt Simone’s charity work is more my style.”

His father stretched his arm over the back of the couch and looked at him. “I never would have thought that would be her calling. But it was.”

“She’s changed a lot of lives.”

“She has. Hers included.”

Tyler had heard all the stories of his father and his aunt growing up together in France. His aunt still admitted that until she’d fallen in love with his Uncle Curtis, she’d had a crush on his father. It all seemed weird to him, but his Aunt Simone wasn’t the same woman then that she was now.

She was a strong figure in the community. She’d walked away from fortune and family to marry the man she truly loved. That did say a lot about her character.

Zach patted Tyler’s thigh. “Are you thinking you’d like to talk to her about a job?”

Tyler shrugged. “I don’t know the first thing about how to help people either. I don’t know much about anything.”

A smile formed on his father’s lips. “You’re selling yourself short.”

“In the past three years I’ve held four jobs.”

“Yes, and one of them was on a Pierpont Oil rig.”

“You’ve talked to Uncle John?”

“We’re a tight family.”

He knew that. Wasn’t that the part that drove him home—family?

“Tyler, I want you to do what you want to do. I will always have opportunity for you here. That’s what fathers are for.”

“Spencer and Ed belong here.”

Zach nodded. “They do. Ed has always had it in him and Spencer was designing things from the time he could put Legos together. You’ve always had your head somewhere else and that’s okay.” Zach stood and Tyler followed. “Why don’t you talk to Simone? Feel out what you want to do. If you need something in the mean time I could get you a job at the Starbucks downstairs.”

That made Tyler laugh. “I’d rather work in the building permits department.”

Zach rested his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You give me the word and you’ll have a position.”

“I’ll let you know,” he said, but he was sure that working in an office that overlooked Nashville would make him crazy. Of course the very fact that he was standing there and Courtney crossed his mind made him equally as uncomfortable.

He’d seen her mother pass by him. Surely Courtney was going through her own hell. Tonight. He’d call her tonight and they could compare horror stories. Corporate jobs vs meddling mothers. The thought nearly made him laugh.

First he’d head over to see his aunt. Suddenly helping the less fortunate seemed a lot more appealing that private elevators and parking spaces.

Chapter Twelve

Simone Keller’s office was simple and smaller than the room Tyler had occupied on the Pierpont Oil rig. She sat at her desk, pinched against the wall in the small medical clinic where she’d once worked and now ran her charity. Her long black hair hung over her shoulder. Tyler could hear her and he knew that a phone receiver was pressed to her ear under that curtain of hair.

As she spoke about a fundraising event she looked up at the doorway to see him standing there. A smile lifted her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes.

“That sounds great. If we can get them to help us financially we’ll gain a lot more followers and revenue.” She nodded and took a few notes on a pad in front of her. “Okay. Let me know what you find out.”

She hung up the phone and stood. The chair in her office hit the wall behind her and she shimmied out from behind the desk and moved directly to him.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Her French accent was still deep even after all the years she’d lived in Tennessee.

“I’m out visiting. I just left Dad’s office.”

“He did say you were going to stop by there today. So what is your new title? What kind of view does your office have?”

Tyler rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I didn’t take a job yet. I’m not sure commercial real estate development is my forte.”

She nodded. “I once used to travel the world attending meetings and listening to men discuss oil. It didn’t seem to be for me either.”

“I think your work here is more important.”

She smiled wide and pride in what she did was evident. “I received a phone call today from a young mother who has relocated in Ohio. Her daughter, who had been sexually abused by the mother’s boyfriend, is in school and doing wonderfully. And the mother has a good job and just got a promotion. She called to thank me. Isn’t that wonderful?”

And it was the look on his aunt’s face that told him he couldn’t thrive in corporate America, even if his name was on the side of the letterhead.

“You know, Tyler, I did not know this would have been my calling. One day I did something that changed someone’s life and it changed my life too. I’m sure your father would agree that he didn’t expect me to create something so selflessly.”

He didn’t know about that, but then again he’d only ever known Simone as a woman who gave her all to help others.

“Anyway,” she went on, “why are you here?”

“I was thinking maybe this was more my speed. I thought I’d see if your organization was in need of someone who knew nothing at all.”

She laughed easily, crossed her arms over her chest, and studied him. “You want to work within my organization?”

“I know you probably don’t have the funding for very many employees. My rent is low. I’m bumming a car from my parents. And I really don’t want to work in construction.”

She nodded and pressed her painted lips together. “I have a gala coming up in three months. It is one of my biggest events of the year and nets the organization most of its operating costs. Are you up to the challenge of helping to organize it?”

“Really? I’d love to try.”

She nodded and held out her manicured hand to shake his. “Well, Mr. Tyler Benson, I would love to work with you. And I am not a very nice boss.”

That caused him to laugh as he leaned in and kissed his aunt on the cheek. “I won’t let you down.”

“I know. If you do you will see that not so nice side of me.” She stepped back toward her desk. “Avery is helping put the gala together. Perhaps the two of you should get together and begin to make plans.”

“Is she going to be upset to have me helping her?”

Simone sat down behind her desk. “Do you want to work for your father?”

Tyler cringed. “No. Not really.”

“Avery feels much the same way. And since she has no interest in medicine either, she will not be following in her father’s footsteps. I think she will be happy you came back.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I think you will do very well here.”

~*~

Sitting in Fitz’s bedroom with their mother was nearly as excruciating as his funeral the day before, Courtney thought. Her mother had picked up nearly every item in his room and cried over it. She’d brought boxes and loaded them. Each box was labeled and Courtney also added a braille label as well. Her mother had said that the attic in the garage would be where the boxes would be stored and it would make sense if Courtney could identify the boxes as well.

Courtney didn’t understand the rush to get his items packed away. Wouldn’t it be okay to keep him around just a little longer? Wasn’t it bad enough he was gone for good? Did they have to hide him too?

She kept her calm knowing she’d taken the items she’d wanted. Tyler had helped her there. He’d been helping her quite a bit.

Did he understand that his kindness on the plane had helped her accept the mission she’d undertaken of escorting her brother home? Having him at the funeral had made it tolerable. Tyler had let her escape, he’d let her cry, he’d come when she called. How was it a man she’d known a week could change her life?

“I have a few more boxes in the car. I’ll be right back,” her mother said and she heard her leave the room.

Courtney laid back on her brother’s bed and let out a long breath. Was her mother right? Would the pain be less if all of his things were tucked away? Or would it hurt more to know that the room would be empty and he’d be gone—all of him?

“Courtney!” Her mother’s voice rang down the hall forcing her to sit up and then rise to her feet. “Courtney!”

She followed her mother’s voice to her own bedroom.

“Mother, what is it?”

“What did you do? What did you and that man do?”

Her mother’s voice shook and she could hear the tears being sucked back.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your clothes are piled in the floor. You never scatter your things around. Courtney, you don’t know him.”

She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. Her heart rate kicked up to match the racing blood that coursed through her system.

“I can’t believe you can’t accept my word that nothing happened. I was in a hurry. I changed quickly.”

“He spent the night?”

“Mother, I’m nearly twenty-five years old. If I wanted a man to spend the night in my bedroom, in
my
house, I damn well better be able to do so. You have no room to discuss this with me.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Why? Because you forgot that you had me at sixteen? You forgot that I don’t know my birth father?” The anger was fresh now. She wasn’t quite done. “If I had wanted Tyler Benson to share my bed than damn it, he’d have shared it.”

“Don’t talk like that,” her mother scolded.

“I’ll talk the way I want. I am an adult. I am tired of you treating me like a little girl who can’t do anything for herself. Fitz believed in me. Why can’t you?”

“You’re disabled. You need me.”

That was the breaking point. She knew that her mother was lucky she was
disabled
or she would find out just how much anger she’d stored her entire life. But she still had her words and she wasn’t done using them yet.

“I’d like to have you know that I can do anything. I’ve been told I see things those of you who have sight can’t see. Mother, I’m not the disabled one. You are. You’re emotionally disabled. I am perfectly capable of having a life and loving a man.”

“You love this man?”

“Is that all you’ve heard?” She lifted her hands in the air. “Maybe you’d better go.”

She’d never wanted to be alone so much in her life. It had been a good ten years since she’d mentioned her birth and paternity at her mother. But it was the one button she could push her mother’s buttons with. It was proof that everyone, even her mother, made judgment calls that cost them something dearly.

Courtney had never held her mother’s decisions against her—unless it benefited her in an argument like the one they were having. She’d only been three when the only father she’d ever known came into her life. Fitz was born just shy of her mother’s twenty-first birthday. Michael Field gave her stability. They traveled the world, the family of a soldier. He taught her discipline. He gave her a name. He loved her mother and that was the most important thing to her. And he loved her too.

He’d been known to stand up for Courtney when her mother’s emotional stability challenged her daughter. For the first year when Courtney was learning to live without her sight, her mother cried nearly everyday. But Courtney had heard her in one of her meltdowns. She regretted having a daughter that wasn’t normal anymore.

Only her father understood her mother enough that he knew she hadn’t meant it. Even Courtney knew she didn’t mean it. When Mary Field couldn’t control a situation words flew that she’d later beg to have taken back. Courtney was sure this would be one of those times. But for now she wanted her mother to leave.

She could hear her mother’s breath quicken. “Courtney, I don’t want you making decisions you can’t take back. I mean…I think you’d better…”

“Mother, I’m a grown up who understands my situation. I’m a blind woman. Fine, that’s not a problem really. But I understand the challenge. You had two kids living in Germany by the time you were my age. We all have challenges.”

“I don’t want to see you struggle.”

If that was what she was trying to protect her from, Mary Field was failing miserably.

“Mother, my only struggle is trying to keep my calm right now. Tomorrow it will be dealing with the fact that Fitz won’t be emailing me. The day after that it will be knowing he’s not coming back—ever. And the next day will be the same. And the day after that. The difference will be I’ll still be blind. You can’t protect me from that. And if—
if
—I choose to have an
adult
relationship with Tyler then I will. But that has nothing to do with you.”

“Come home with me,” her mother pleaded.

“No. I live here. I have lived here for a year.” She held her arms out until her mother took her hands and she pulled her in to hug her. “Mother, he’s gone. We have to wake up tomorrow and keep living. We can’t spend the rest of our lives blaming each other.”

Her mother sobbed in her ear. “What will we do?”

“Live, Mother. He’d be very disappointed in us if we stopped living to mourn him.”

“You’re right.” Her mother stepped back. “I’m sorry we said horrible things to each other.”

Courtney was sure that was to even the playing field, though Courtney didn’t regret anything she’d said.

“Go home, Mother. Take a long bath and rest.”

“I will.” She kissed Courtney on the cheek. “We can finish his room later.”

Finally she was making sense.

Courtney listened as her mother walk down the steps and shut the front door. She felt the pain of the day drag through her and she sat in the floor and cried. She missed Fitz so much. She could convince her mother to go on and try to be the voice of reason, but in truth would she ever accept the fate they’d all been handed?

Chapter Thirteen

Tyler had been thinking all day, since he left his aunt’s office. He wanted to celebrate and cook dinner for Courtney. After all, one of his jobs had been as a sous-chef at a family restaurant for a few months. He could pull something together.