The Art of My Life (31 page)

Starr glanced back at the church doors
for the fiftieth time looking for Cal. The judge had been
hard-hearted not to let him out for his grandmother’s funeral
twenty-one days before he was due for release. Flight risk, the
judge had said, and he didn’t consider a grandparent a member of
one’s immediate family.

She should have asked the judge to let
him out for her sake. This wasn’t about making Cal pay. This was
punishing her. She shouldn’t be surprised. Whenever she stepped
into the Volusia County Jail to visit Cal, she felt charged and
found guilty herself—as if birthing a law-breaker were a
crime.

She leaned forward, past Jesse’s Irish
Spring scent, and let her gaze travel down the pew over Kallie, her
grandchildren, Aly, Missy, Fish. Jackson stood behind the podium.
Everyone was here but Cal. Even Evie sat two pews behind
them—estranged from Cal or not. Starr knew Evie came to be there
for her, but she wasn’t Cal.

Well, Leaf was MIA, but he’d always
been emotionally MIA. She didn’t miss him. Even though her parents
had been more or less a couple all her life, she didn’t know how
Leaf would react to Henna’s death.

But Cal belonged here. She needed him.
Cal, more than anyone in the family, loved and understood
Henna.

Jackson said words, sweet words, about
Henna. Jackson, who always saw the best in people, was probably the
only person on the planet who could know all the facts of Henna’s
life and how she’d hurt Starr without holding it against
her.

Jackson had held Starr in bed last
night so carefully and asked if she was glad she’d forgiven her
mother. She was thankful Henna died with peace between them, but
she felt guilty for her lack of sadness.

Jackson had been so tender with her,
rubbing her shoulders as though she were in the midst of some great
agony. When she told Jackson she felt no grief, he seemed
disappointed.

Cal should be here. He would feel sad
in Starr’s stead. She swiveled her face toward the doorway. Empty.
There was her grief.

Fish stood at Henna’s graveside with
Missy’s family, looking at the glossy purple coffin—so appropriate
for Henna—poised to be swallowed by brown earth. Missy clung to his
hand, but he doubted she even realized it. A sixty-seven degree
breeze ruffled her hair. People shuffled behind them. Someone
snuffled loudly, probably one of Henna’s friends, Theodosia or
Cissy, who had sobbed through the whole funeral.

Missy had barely let go of him all
day. Not that he was complaining. A one-day reprieve from his
hands-off vow slaked what he starved for.

Since Valentine’s Day a couple of
months ago, they’d taken to meeting at Flagler Avenue Coffee Shop.
At first they talked about forgiveness, then the conversations
moved into free-flow about life—his, hers, life in general. Safe.
Public. Worthy of a parental stamp of approval if her parents gave
a rip. Okay, so they cared, but they trusted him way too
much.

And Fish would sit on his hands all
evening, get in his truck, and drive to the marina as though a
celebrity non-sex tape of their time together was being shot to
further his political career. They got back the friendship they’d
shared as kids and a whole lot more, but not touching her was
killing him. He couldn’t stay here forever, especially after being
physically connected to her all day. He had to make a
decision.

Missy leaned more weight on Fish as
her father read from the Bible. She was wilting as the day dragged
on.

Jackson prayed, and Fish dropped his
chin and closed his eyes.

He felt Missy’s free hand grip his arm
through his suit coat, and her head came to rest lightly against
his chest—over his Barry College Law School acceptance letter in
his breast pocket that arrived this morning.

His eyes popped open to a straight
shot down her navy blue dress. He’d seen the swell of her breasts
and the pink lace trim of her bra before he clamped his eyes shut
again. He kept his eyes closed well after the prayer had ended
forcing himself to picture Henna dead in her green and yellow
muumuu the way he’d seen her at the viewing.

Missy straightened and stared
trance-like at the casket lowering into the hole.

Starr dropped the first handful of
dirt onto the casket.

Missy shuddered.

Jesse and Jackson each took a
turn.

All eyes turned on Missy.

“
I can’t do
it.”

In Missy’s stead, Fish tossed a
fist-full of dirt that broke apart on the foot of the
casket.

People offered quiet condolences and
hugs Missy received with vacant eyes.

Fish stayed at her elbow, wondering
how she would make it through the funeral dinner.

As the family gathered to leave the
cemetery, Jackson glanced at Missy who stared into the open grave.
“Come on, honey, time to go.”

“
A few more minutes,
Dad.”

“
I’ll bring her when she’s
ready,” Fish said.

As her parents climbed into their
mini-van Missy turned her back on the grave and fell into his arms
before the first sob slipped out. She cried against his chest, and
he wrapped his arms tightly around her. He found a napkin in his
jacket pocket left over from the last wedding he’d attended and
handed it to her.

There was nowhere he’d rather be,
nothing he’d rather be doing.

After the dinner, he pulled up in
front of Henna’s dark house.

Missy’s eyes had been closed during
the trip from the church and she didn’t open them now.

“
Are you sure you want to
stay here? I can take you to your folks’.”

“
I’m staying here,” she
said without opening her eyes. “I’ll feel Henna’s
presence.”

He hopped out of the truck and went
around to open her door.

Missy sighed and slid out of the
truck. “Thanks for everything today. You’ve been a rock.” She
lifted her arms to hug him in the glow from the porch
light.

He gathered her gently against his
heart and let her go a second later when she stepped away. “You’re
welcome.”

Missy gave him a tired smile. “I mean
it. I don’t know how I would have gotten through today without
you.”

He turned her around and gave her a
push toward the front steps. “Go get ready for bed. When you’re
under the covers, text me. I want to make sure you’re okay before I
leave.”

Something knotted in his chest.
Missy’s needing him fed something inside him. He wanted to take
care of her for a long, long time. He leaned against the truck
missing her already.

His phone lit with a text alert.
Good night.

He’d check to make sure she locked the
front door. As exhausted as she was, she might not have
remembered.

The knob turned in his hand. He pushed
the door open and crossed the living room. The scent of cleaning
solutions hung in the air as he rapped a knuckle on Cal’s old
bedroom door.

The door pushed open from the pressure
of his knock.

“
Hmm.” Missy lay on her
side in the middle of a queen-sized bed beyond the dim circle of
light from a bedside lamp. Her dark curls splayed across a white
pillow. An arm covered in a long-sleeve T-shirt laid on top of the
quilt.

Missy turned tired eyes on him. “I’m
fine. Going to sleep.” Her eyes drifted shut.

The sadness that had cloaked her all
day still clung to her. He sunk to the edge of the bed. His hand
reached out and stroked her hair.

Missy’s eyes barely cracked open, then
shut again. “Peachy cream…”

He tried to imagine what Missy felt.
His grandparents lived in Colorado and Ohio. He didn’t know what it
was like to have them nearby. But he’d sure ached enough over his
family moving to Peru to understand a little of what she
felt.

He combed his fingers through her
hair, memorizing the orange blossom scent, the contrast between its
mahogany color and the pale fuzz on the back of his
wrist.

He stretched a curl out to its full
length and let it spring back. Another.

Missy’s breathing evened out. She
slept.

He eased off the bed and stood.
Weariness he hadn’t noticed rounded his shoulders… and something
else he couldn’t avoid facing any longer. Love. He’d always felt
protective of Missy, but this was different, deeper.

And he didn’t want to love her. Didn’t
want to love anyone. Okay, he’d admit it, he was too
chicken-livered to sign up for more pain.

He shut off the lamp and stared down
at her until his eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight in the
room.

Missy sighed in her sleep.

He shut the bedroom door firmly
between them, and locked and exited the front door.

He slumped in the front seat of his
truck in the dark. He thumped his forehead against the steering
wheel.

It burned him that she was after a
wedding ring. He wished she was like other twenty-year-olds who
wanted to party, or at most, snag a boyfriend.

He’d never thought about marriage,
never dated anyone he remotely considered marrying. He’d walked the
perimeter of Killman Jewelry Store when he bought Missy’s Christmas
gift, just so he didn’t get anywhere near the engagement rings—a
disease he didn’t want to catch.

Only looking at one girl the rest of
his life didn’t bother him. A mortgage and a mini-van didn’t bother
him. Becoming the man you should be instead of the one you were was
daunting, but not insurmountable.

Kids were a sticking point. Had Dad
woken up one day with four kids wreaking mayhem around him and
realized he’d never get his dream if he didn’t careen after it
right that instant? Well, Fish would chase his dream now before it
could screw up his kids.

Missy wanted marriage and children
now. He still had law school to get through before he could even
start chasing his dream.

He had to go cold turkey from Missy to
keep his sanity. No more meeting at Flagler Avenue Coffee Shop. And
for her sake, too. He didn’t want to hurt her. She had been trying
to detach from him, and he was only making things harder on her by
hanging out.

Good-bye, Mis. I lo—
He
wrenched the key in the ignition and threw the truck into reverse.
No, he wouldn’t even think it.

Cal took another lap around the rec
yard. He’d never been much of a runner, but he had to do something
to keep sane. He swiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of
his arm. His thoughts see-sawed between the finality of Henna’s
death and Aly’s visit as they had all month.

Henna had been gone three weeks. She’d
always been there for him. Always. He dreaded going to Henna’s and
finding Missy living in her house.

He’d done nothing but think these
three months in jail. Whether he existed inside society or outside
wasn’t as important as the people in his life. When he got out,
he’d work at keeping the people he loved in his life—family,
friends, Aly.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Aly
showed up immediately after a cry for her had wrenched from his
gut. He felt almost like a spectator and instead of the one who’d
uttered the plea. Even on his bleakest day, he couldn’t give up on
her.

How could he read Aly and not believe
she still cared for him? She’d driven to Daytona Beach minutes
after Henna died to give him the news.

Thinking about Aly made him pick up
his pace. He couldn’t tamp down the hope now.

Weed had affected his mood, his
ability to think, even when he wasn’t smoking every day. Four
months sober showed him the difference. His thoughts were
clear—focused on his resurrected plan to win Aly.

And tomorrow he’d see her.