Someone to Watch Over Me (19 page)

They got through the day without getting too emotional, but when it came time to settle down for the night, Romeo was restless. He wandered through the house sniffing everything as he went, and then he started whimpering.

Gwen was in bed already, Petunia curled at her feet, something Gwen wasn’t up to fighting about. Besides, her feet always got cold at night, and Petunia was really warm. And it was her first night. And she’d been stuck in a Dumpster. They were all entitled to whatever comfort they could find together.

But Romeo would not settle down, and he seemed to be looking for something.

“Do you want your bed?” Gwen asked him, the next time he came into her room and whined.

“Aaarff!” he said.

“Okay.” Gwen got up, grabbed a robe and stuck her feet into her sneakers, got Petunia’s leash on her, and off the three of them went, up the alley.

She knocked on Jax’s back door, and when he flung it open and shouted, “What?” before he’d ever even seen them, she said, “Romeo needs his bed.”

“What?” Jax repeated.

Romeo slid past them both and trotted off down the hall.

“His bed,” Gwen said. “I think he misses it, and he still misses your mother. I thought if we took the comforter off her bed and the stuff he piled on it, he’d be happy.”

Jax looked like he was ready to argue about that, like he had a million things he wanted to say, and Gwen felt like she was back in high school making stupid excuses to see a boy who’d just broken up with her. Thinking that the sight of her would make him immediately regret his decision and claim undying love for her right there on the spot.

Did people ever outgrow doing stupid things in the name of love?

She closed her eyes and said, “Can we just try it? With the comforter and stuff of your mother’s at my house?”

“Sure.” Jax gave in, and off they went down the hall.

Romeo was in the bedroom looking from Jax to the bed, to Gwen and Petunia, obviously not sure what to do.

“Don’t worry,” Gwen said to Romeo. “We’ll fix it.”

She wrapped everything in the comforter and picked it up, barely managing to hang on to it and Petunia’s leash.

Jax stood in the doorway watching them all, probably waiting for Gwen to yell at him again, which she wasn’t going to do.

She was going to walk right back out of here, unless he asked her not to, which he would not do. Still, there had to be something….

“Gwen? What I said the other night? If you’re ever in trouble? If you ever need me, I’ll help? I meant that.”

She glared at him. “Careful. That sounds an awful lot like a promise that could last, and you don’t believe in anything that lasts, remember?”

To which he said nothing, just shoved his hands deep into his pockets and stood there.

“Okay, guys,” she said to the dogs. “That’s it. Let’s go.”

Jax opened the back door for them all and watched as they went outside and took off down the alley.

He didn’t say another word.

Jax woke, disoriented and grumpy, to the sound of someone pounding on the back door the next morning.

He winced as sunlight hit him square in the eye as he looked at the bedside clock and saw that it was half past ten. Not surprising, since he’d stayed up until sometime after 3:00 a.m., unable to sleep and frantically sorting some of his mother’s things into piles to keep and to throw away.

The pounding came again.

“Coming,” he yelled, rolling out of bed, pulling on his jeans and a T-shirt.

He pulled his shirt on as he opened the door with his other hand and found his sister Kim standing there.

“Why didn’t you just let yourself in?” he asked, backing up so that she could.

She hesitated in the doorway. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be alone.”

Jax jerked the shirt into place and tried not to glare at her. “I am most definitely alone.” And he intended to stay that way for a while.

Women.
They were so much trouble.

“Well, I wasn’t sure that you would be, so I knocked. Were you drinking last night?”

“No, I didn’t.” He’d thought about that, too, but drinking wasn’t going to get him out of this house and on with his miserable life, and that’s what he wanted more than
anything. To get on with his life. So he’d sorted things and thrown things away instead of having a few beers.

“Well, you sound grumpy enough that it seemed like a good guess,” Kim said. “Is everyone in this family upset right now?”

“I’m not upset,” he claimed, ridiculous as that was.

“No, you’re always this sweet to me,” she said, all-too-familiar tears filling her eyes.

“No. Don’t you dare. No more crying women in this house. I’m making a new rule. If you cry, you can’t come in. Dry eyes only in this house.”

Kim sniffled and looked greatly offended. “I didn’t come to cry to you about anything. I came to tell you there’s something wrong with Katie and Kathie. That’s all.”

“Of course there is.” Jax tried hard to find some scrap of patience to say, “Mom just died. We’re all a mess.”

“Something other than that,” Kim claimed.

“How could you tell? You mean they’re even more of a mess than before?”

“Yes.”

Great.

“And you want me to fix it?” he asked.

She gave him a look that said,
Of course. That’s what you do.

He wondered what else could have possibly upset them more than their mother dying. What could even register on top of that? He couldn’t imagine anything.

“Did they have a fight?” he tried.

“No.”

“They’re speaking to each other?”

“Yes. Not much. But…they’re not doing the silent-treatment thing.”

Jax really hated the silent-treatment thing. His sisters had it down to an art form.

“They’re just being weird,” Kim said.

Jax fought the urge to say,
Yeah? They’re women.

He was in a truly foul mood.

He opened his mouth to say,
Okay, I’ll talk to them,
but what came out was, “You know, they’re just going to have to handle it themselves. Or you can handle it. Because I can’t.”

Kim gave him that same look Gwen had, way back when she’d decided he’d either grown three heads or was some kind of gift from God, which turned out to be really, really funny, hadn’t it?

Of course, Kim hadn’t been in on the joke. She just gave him a funny look and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I can’t do it,” Jax said again. “I can’t fix anything else this week. I’m way over my limit. It may be a month before I can fix one more thing.”

“But you always make things better,” Kim said.

“I know.” And he felt as low as a snake, saying this to her. Next thing he knew, he was close to crying himself. He’d have to kick himself out of the house. “I just can’t handle one more thing, Kimmie. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is right now.”

Kim put her hand on his forehead. “Are you sick?”

“No,” he said, stepping back, so that her hand fell away.

She still looked as if she just didn’t understand. “But—”

“I’m not in the best shape myself, okay? She was my mother, too.”

“I know that, but—”

“I can’t be the one who copes with everything right now.” Someone else would have to be elected to the position. He couldn’t fill it anymore. He was failing everyone. His mother. His sisters. Gwen. Even the stupid
dog. Although Romeo was better off with Gwen. No doubt about that.

“Did something happen?” Kim tried.

“Yeah. I reached the limit of what I can do.”

He stood back and waited for that to sink in. Kim looked even more worried than she had when she’d shown up at the door. No doubt, the moment she left, she’d be on the phone to both her sisters, calling for an urgent family conference, here, to figure out what was wrong with Jax.

Great.

He could tell all three of them how inadequate he was to handle this.

And he’d promised his mother he’d take care of them and everything else.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, and pulled her into his arms.

“No, I’m sorry,” she tried. “You always take care of us, and it’s not fair. It’s just…the way it’s always been. I thought you could handle anything.”

“So did I,” he admitted.

“Are you sure nothing else happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I broke Gwen’s heart. She’s in love with me, when I told her not to dare do that, and instead of loving her in return, I gave her the dog.”

“You gave her Romeo?” It sounded like she thought he’d admitted to murdering someone. “But…he’s Mom’s dog.”

“And Mom’s not here. Don’t worry. Gwen loves him, and he makes an absolute fool of himself over her. They’ll be very happy together.”

Without Jax.

Was it really going to work that way?

“She even got another dog. A girl dog. Looks like a fat marshmallow. Romeo was licking her nose last night
before they left. He probably thinks they’re going to have a doggie wedding or something.”

“So the dog’s ready to commit to one woman but you’re not?” Kim claimed.

Jax scowled. “That isn’t funny.”

“I don’t think so, either. I think it’s sad.”

“You don’t even like Gwen,” Jax reminded her.

“I don’t know her. I can’t dislike her if I don’t even know her.”

“All three of you disliked her without even knowing her. Remember?”

“Well, obviously we weren’t being fair to her. She brought those nice flowers for Mom’s funeral and made that really nice casserole, and she seems to have made you feel better through all this. Jax, I could learn to like anyone who could help you through this. So, you broke her heart?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you ever going to quit doing that?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I want you to be happy. You don’t really think you’re going to be happy if you’re all alone, do you?”

“Beats the alternative,” he claimed.

“Does it, really? Because you sure don’t look very happy this morning. And it seemed like, while she was with you, she made you happy. Why don’t you call her and tell her you made a mistake? Ask her to give you another chance?”

“She doesn’t want to fool around, Kimmie. She wants everything. The ring. The minister. Happily-ever-after and all that. We all know what garbage that is.”

“I think that’s exactly what you need,” she claimed. “You need someone who loves you and is going to stand by you, even when things get really scary and really hard.
Is she someone who’d be there for you when things got really scary?”

“Not after what I said to her last night,” Jax admitted.

“Well, you could always apologize. Tell her you’re a fool. Tell her you’re a man, and that you were wrong. She’ll understand that.”

“I could say that, and she’d probably forgive me. But even if we got back together, what’s the point? It wouldn’t last, Kim.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do I know that? What do you mean, how do I know that? You’re my sister. We lived the same life. We know nothing lasts.”

“I don’t know that,” she claimed.

Jax took a breath, ready to argue. He knew he was right about this. “You know it.”

“You mean because of what happened to Mom and Dad?”

“Yes.”

“Jax, I get angry, and I don’t understand things. I have questions that I don’t think will ever be answered to my satisfaction. But I don’t believe nothing good will ever come to me in life. I don’t believe I won’t ever have anything good that lasts. Is that what you honestly and truly believe?”

He planned to say yes, but she didn’t give him the time.

“You can’t really believe that,” she said, putting her hand on his arm and staring up at him as if she were six and some kid down the block had just told her the tooth fairy didn’t exist.

I do,
he thought.
Really, I do, and I’m right.

“Jax, you’re supposed to be so much smarter than the rest of us.”

Well, maybe I’m not.

He was in for a family meeting to end all family meetings, he feared. He could just hear them now.

You wouldn’t believe what he told me. And he meant it. Really. I could see it in his eyes. He believes this. He’s more of a mess than any of us ever realized.

Again, he remembered that he’d promised his mother he’d take care of the three of them.

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to lie, and he sure didn’t want to admit the truth of the matter.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Jax—”

“Lock up, okay? I really have to go.”

He slipped on his shoes and walked out the door.

I
t was like having a posse after him. His sisters would be after him, and he didn’t want to get caught. And he probably knew from the beginning where he was going, but he didn’t even want to admit it to himself. Gwen had called him a coward, and she was right.

He went to his mother’s grave, couldn’t help but think Romeo would have liked to come. He’d have to remember to tell Gwen to take him to the cemetery every now and then.

It took a long time, walking there instead of running, but he wasn’t in any particular hurry. He was afraid of what would happen when he arrived.

All too soon, he found himself staring down at the grave, hands shoved into his pockets, a serious frown across his face, his heart pounding.

“I messed it all up,” he began, then stared off into the sky, hearing nothing in return. “Mother, you can’t quit on me now. All those times I wasn’t sure what was going on or what I believed in, and you were there. I need you now. You’re not done with me yet.”

Nothing.

He swore softly, then sat down at the foot of the grave, staring at the blank spot where the headstone would go once it was finished. And then he found that wasn’t close enough, and he stretched out on his back in the grass beside where she was, stretched out his hand toward her so that, if she was there, they could have been holding hands.

He’d held her hands a lot in the end. They’d gotten so cold.

“God, I miss her.”
He said the closest thing he’d come to a prayer in ages. “So much.”

He didn’t know what to do. He was ready to give up when he heard someone behind him and turned around, really hoping miracles did exist, that his mother was right behind him ready to explain everything to him.

Instead, he found Alicia.

He scrambled to his feet, wondering how much she’d heard and how he might explain, but before he could say a thing, she held out her hand. In it was a distinctive, cream-colored envelope he recognized right away.

His mother’s pretty stationery.

She was one of the only people he knew who still sent hand-written notes, when the whole world had long ago turned to e-mail for just about everything.

“I think it’s time I gave you this,” Alicia said.

Jax was afraid to even take it. He turned his head to the right, stared off toward town and said, “You’ve been holding out on me all this time?”

Alicia shrugged. “Your mother asked me to. She thought it would take you some time to be ready to hear what she wanted to say.”

“And you think I’m ready?” Truly, he wasn’t sure he was.

“Well, Mrs. Myers said you seemed like you were in pretty bad shape when you went charging by her house. She lives right across the street. Didn’t you know?”

Jax shook his head.

“Well, she does. She told me about seeing you here sometimes, and…Well, I don’t know. Today seemed like the day. When she called me and told me you were here and seemed upset…I hope this is the right day. Your mother loved you very much, Jax.”

“I know. Flaws and all, she loved me.”

“I don’t think she thought of you as flawed. A little confused sometimes, but not flawed.”

“I am. You know that. I wish I could be the kind of man she wanted me to be,” he admitted. “Her and Gwen and my sisters. The kind of man they need me to be, but I’m blowing it. I’m failing at everything, and my mother…My mother’s just gone.”

“That reminds me. When she handed me this, she also wanted me to tell you that you’re not the final authority on what does and doesn’t exist in this world, much as you’d like to think you are.”

“She said that?” He knew she had. It sounded just like her.

Alicia nodded. “And that she loved you and your sisters and would be watching over you, always. Here.”

Alicia held the envelope out to him again.

He finally took it, in a hand that was shaking. Alicia kissed him softly on the cheek and said, “You’ll be okay.”

And then she walked away, leaving him there.

Jax sat back down, heart pounding, afraid to open the envelope, afraid of what was inside.

But his mother hadn’t deserted him, even now. He still had all the words of wisdom she’d given him over the years and friends of hers who were watching over him and his sisters and Gwen and maybe even God, and he had this letter from her.

I’ll never really leave you,
she’d told him one day near the end. It seemed she’d truly meant it.

He opened up the letter, found that it wasn’t even written in his mother’s handwriting. There was a little note in the corner saying that she’d been too weak to get it all down and the pastor at her church had written it for her, one day in the hospital, that if Jax had any questions, the minister would be happy to talk to him about anything in the letter.

Great, mom. You found a way to get me to talk to the man after all. Should have known you’d be able to manage even that.

Jax closed his eyes, bracing himself, looking for strength, wanting all the answers to all the questions he had to be found in this one letter. What were the chances of that happening?

And yet, so far, whenever he’d really needed help, he’d gotten it from somewhere. Who was arranging that, he wondered? Who was taking care of him now?

He knew what his mother would say. She’d say it was God.

He still didn’t know how he felt about that.

And he was stalling on the letter.

Finally, he unfolded it and began to read.

He grinned. Right about that, Mom.

No! No! No! Not that. Not that he’d disappointed her!

Math? She was going to give him a math lesson?

“I think I have, Mom. She’s a good woman,” he said. “I mean, good down to the core, and she’s stronger than she knows. She’s been so alone and scared, but she kept going, and she believes in me. I’m not sure I deserve her, but I need her, and…Oh, I hurt her. I really hurt her.”

He was almost to the end, and he didn’t want it to end. “Mom—”

That was it. There was another note from her minister, saying that she’d fallen asleep, that the man wished Jax well and was ready to talk, anytime Jax needed to.

Petunia looked absolutely adorable.

Romeo lay at her feet gazing up at her adoringly, in the reception area at the dog groomer’s.

She swished her pretty bouncy, curly tail, all pristine and white, with a sweet little, pink, curly ribbon tied around it
and fanning out against her back, kind of like her tail was part of a bow on a Christmas present.

She had a matching pink collar with little rhinestones glittering on it, and her fur had been trimmed up tightly against her body—she wasn’t fat at all, just furry when they’d found her. Around her face her pretty hair fluffed out in something like a wild, curly halo. They’d trimmed her bangs, so that Gwen could see her beautiful, dark eyes and her little button nose, her tiny mouth, which was hanging open, her little pink tongue showing as she beamed up at Gwen.

She’d been studiously ignoring Romeo, who was all but drooling.

“That’s the way, darling,” Gwen said. “Let him wonder a bit how you feel about him. He’ll appreciate you more that way.”

Not that Gwen was a big advocate of playing silly games with men. She was just feeling a bit raw this morning. Nothing like telling a man you loved him for the very first time in your life, and having him admit what he really wanted was for you to take his mother’s dog off his hands.

Not that she believed he really meant that, either, but she figured she was entitled to be a little mad about it, at least for a while.

She scooped Petunia up off the floor, tipped the lady at the dog-grooming shop very, very well, and let them all fuss over pretty Petunia a moment more. Romeo didn’t seem to know what to make of it. They thought Petunia was even more beautiful than he was?

Gwen grinned. “It’ll be good for you in the end, Romeo. Trust me on this.”

At least the dogs’ love life was going to work out. Gwen could tell. She figured any little, furry girl who’d survived a
restaurant Dumpster and come out of it sweet and gorgeous deserved the love and admiration of a dog like Romeo.

“Way to go, darling,” she told Petunia and kissed her face.

Petunia beamed up at her. Romeo seemed a bit jealous, but he’d just have to get used to that.

“It’s going to be a whole new world, Romeo,” she told him.

The dog groomers grinned as if they understood perfectly and believed completely in canine love. Honestly, Romeo was more comfortable in showing his feelings than Jax was.

Gwen frowned, thinking,
Do I really want the man that much? Do I need him that much? Do I really, really love him?

Yes, she did.

She’d just have to wait until he came to his senses, and she had some measure of faith that he would. Maybe she’d go have a talk with his mother, and then she’d just love both her dogs and try not to be so sad.

Faith,
as her aunt would have said. If we knew, absolutely, that everything would all work out in the end, we wouldn’t need that thing called faith.

Jax went back to the house, and there were his sisters, waiting for him, looking as if they’d come for an intervention of sorts. He walked in the door and they all came up to him and started talking at once.

“Did you really give away the dog?”

“Are you done with that woman? Because she didn’t seem all that bad.”

“You really should let us take care of you for a while, Jax. You always take care of us, and it’s just not right.”

“Stop!” he said. “Just take a breath and give me a minute here. Everybody sit and try to calm down.”

He walked into the living room and sat, and they followed him, quite obediently. He was surprised. They
must really be up to something if they were willing to feign cooperation with him. Must be to catch him off guard all the more.

Okay, Mom. What now?
He’d forgotten to ask about the girls.

“I’m okay.” That was his opening line. They stared back at him, biting their tongues, barely managing not to contradict him. “I mean, I’m not quite okay. Not all the way. But I’m better. I’ve been talking to Mom, and…”

Too late, he remembered what was weird about that.

Their looks got even more curious.

“I mean,” he jumped in, miraculously before the three of them did, “I’ve been trying to think of what she’d say at a time like this….” Not bad. Keep going. He could weather that little slip. And then, a brainstorm…“Actually, I remember a lot of what she did say when Dad died, and mostly, it was that we still had each other, and we would love each other and lean on each other and get through anything that came along. And that’s what we did. It worked then. It’s going to work this time. I mean, things are bound to be a little crazy at first. It was then, too. But things get better. It just seems like they never will sometimes, but then they always do. I mean, what has life thrown at us that we couldn’t handle? Nothing. We’re still here. We’re together. We’ll take care of each other. We’ll be okay.”

He thought he’d done a pretty good job of selling that little pep talk, and he had meant it. He was starting to believe, despite everything, that they would be okay. Sad sometimes, mad at others, maybe not quite ever understanding, but okay.

“She said she’d watch out for us,” he said.

“And you believe that? Really?” Katie asked.

“Yes,” he said, hoping they’d all forgotten about the little conversation with her that he’d mentioned by accident.

“You do?” Kim asked.

More certain this time, he said, “Yes.”

“I didn’t think you really believed in things like that,” Kathie said.

“Well…Mom said I don’t have to believe in something for it to be true.” He grinned. “She said I’m not the final authority on what exists and what doesn’t in the world. She said she was proud of all of us, and that she loved us and that she’d be watching out for us. I know better than to argue with her. All of us do. She always managed to bring us around to her way of thinking, one way or another.”