Point Hope (21 page)

Jake walked sleepily into the room and silently sat on the floor. They knew the drill: soon Candice would have Jake moving each toy to her exact measurement. Trey sat with them until Hope woke up. When he walked out of the room, both kids were on their knees, slowly moving animals through the parade.

He entered the bedroom to Hope’s screaming. She was awake and wanted the world to know. He checked her diaper, which made her even madder, then scooped her up,
shhhing
and bouncing, and headed downstairs to fix a bottle.

Summer was sitting at the table, a hand wrapped around a mug, her eyes unfocused. She came to at Hope’s sounding alarm. “Want me to hold her?”

“That’d be great.” He passed Hope over and fixed her dinner in record time, handing the bottle to Summer. They both took a breath in the newfound and welcome quietness. The only noise was Hope’s fervent sucking and murmurs. He broke the silence by saying, “She always eats like it’s been days since her last meal.”

Summer laughed quietly without looking up. She had Hope nestled in her arm while she held the little bottle in her other hand to feed her. They looked like mother and daughter with matching blond hair, although Hope’s hair was just a baby dusting. The sound of Summer humming floated over to him.

It was close to their dinnertime too. Trey rummaged through all the premade dinners in the freezer. There was lasagna that looked good, rolls and even gluten-free rolls, veggies, and dessert. Once he had dinner heating in the oven, he went outside to look for Rosette. She was in the greenhouse, as he’d suspected, repotting some tropical-looking shrub. At his entrance, she glanced up. He wanted to smile—she had a smudge of dirt across one cheek that trailed onto her nose, and her hair was curling every which way. He held the smile in, though. It’d probably come across wrong after their argument.

“I started dinner. It’ll be done in about forty minutes.”

“Okay.” She set the pot down and scooped in more soil around the roots.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” he started, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets. “I just wanted to get it all out in the open. So we can fix it.”

“Hmm.” She flicked a glance his way. That seemed to be the end of it, until she added, “I’m sorry too. For holding grudges, for blaming you for everything.”

He stepped closer. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”

A faint mist fell outside, making wiggly patterns on the greenhouse walls, sounding as soft as it looked, cocooning them inside. She started to look at him but dropped her gaze. Maybe if she had made eye contact and if her look had said she wanted more, he might have closed the last few steps between them and wrapped his arms around her. But she only nodded, and he left. She likely wanted time alone to think about them, if he still knew her.

Sometimes taking one step is the best option. Pushing for more can be overwhelming and ruin things. But one step puts you in the right direction.

Inside, he set the table, and once everything was ready, put dinner out and started tracking down everyone. At Alex’s door, he knocked and announced dinner. A long minute passed before a flat answer came. “Okay.”

Trey stopped by the bathroom, and when he came back down the stairs, everyone else was sitting around the table. Even Alex. They met each other’s gaze for a prolonged second. A meaningful second, he thought. Alex probably felt everything around him—his family and his home—were on shaky ground, but Trey hoped a family dinner together would ease Alex’s fears.

“How come we’re having a fancy dinner?” Jake asked.

Candice squished her eyebrows together, looking around. “How come it’s fancy?”

“Cause we have flowers in the middle.” Jake pointed to the vase of red roses to prove his point. They were the roses Trey had bought Rosette. It had seemed fitting to place them here.

“Sometimes families can have a nice dinner together.” He put his napkin in his lap and began serving lasagna. Alex just stared at his plate, his head propped against his fist. 

He tried not to, but Trey glanced at Rosette. She looked emotional. He couldn’t blame her after today. They also had the funeral coming in the morning. Between the stress now and what would be coming tomorrow, he needed this dinner—this time to sit down with all of them. What he expected, he wasn’t sure. But they should be together, especially tonight.

Dinner was quiet. While cooking, he had daydreamed about them laughing and talking, but it’d been just that, a fantasy.

He had another crazy idea: maybe life would go back to normal after the funeral tomorrow.

~  ~ ~

Rosette knew it was selfish to take off and leave Trey with the dinner mess, but she needed to save her sanity. Summer took Hope for a while, and the kids were playing the Wii with Alex. She escaped upstairs to the master bathroom and ran a bath. She zoned off while watching the water fill the tub, only then thinking of getting a glass of wine or lighting a few candles. But tonight she was too tired to care. She clipped her hair up, slipped into the hot water, and let her mind go blank.

Except it didn’t go blank. She needed to talk to Alex about earlier and make sure he was okay. First, however, she had to figure out how she felt about Trey’s words and Trey himself. She actually felt he was trying, despite that recent fight. In hindsight, maybe she had overreacted. He’d told Leena to get out of here, and not come back. She should have been happy about that and let it go. Instead it brought up everything she was feeling about Trey, their marriage, their family. Maybe they had needed that fight.

Then he’d apologized. They’d apologized. But their apologies would be for nothing if they both didn’t let go of their angry and hurt. If she didn’t let go of the old dead weight.

She soaked in the hot water until it grew cool, and still it hadn’t seeped her pain away. She toweled off and dressed for bed. When she opened the bathroom door, she saw Trey sitting on the bed, his hands clasped in front of him and his head bowed. She got the impression he’d been sitting there awhile, waiting for her.

Leaving the light on, she took two steps into the room.

He looked up at her and asked, “Can I sleep in here tonight?”

She started to say yes but couldn’t get the word out. Time ticked by—or possibly stood still—as he sat and tenderly looked at her. He was ready to spring up and comfort her, and she knew she’d break at any second, like an old levy just barely holding back the sea. The bedroom felt cold after being in the steamy bathroom, and the base of her hair was damp, making it worse. Or maybe it was the pain in her heart and the feeling of loss that chilled her. She felt as cold as the sea, colder in fact, as shivers raked her body.

At that, Trey did jump to his feet and, with two steps, engulfed her. His warmth curled around her, calming her nervous shaking and the storm within. She felt his body heat seeping into her, and his fingers massaged her back, warming her. Trey pulled her body into his the way he had when he’d come home from deployment: consuming, needing, wanting, owning. His lips pressed into her neck as he undid the big clip holding her hair up. He bunched her long, messy mane in his hand as he held her against him.

“I want to explain about Leena,” he said in a soft voice. He gently loosened his hold so he could look into her eyes. He spoke softly, tenderly, “Rosette, there’s never been anything there except her trying to flirt with me. I didn’t run to her, confide in her, or ever even kiss her. Her or any other woman.”

She measured his words and face, a flame of emerging hope in her eyes.

 “And I want to add that I handled the entire situation badly. Horribly. I knew it went into the gray, and I should have dealt with it much sooner.” He stopped and started over. “When I started yelling and said I just wanted to feel something, that wasn’t completely true. I wanted to feel love for
you
again.”

Rosette lifted her face toward him. “Do you?”

“Yes.” The words sprang out of him with such force his eyes teared up. “Yes, I do. I most definitely feel it.”

Tears budded and filled her eyes. “Why have we been fighting so much?” she asked, pushing the words through sobs, “when we each want the same thing?”

“We have that,” he said. “Our love for each other. We haven’t always felt it, or fought for it, or even nourished it, but we have it. We just had to dig for a while.”

He stepped back, away from her, but she quickly saw what he was doing. He took a lighter from his nightstand and lit the three vanilla candles over on their dresser. The light glowed into the room, reflecting in the mirror behind the candles. Trey turned off the bathroom light and came back to her, pulling her close again, his lips descending.

She felt it coming, at the last second anyway, and expected his mouth to feel soft and tentative. Instead he slipped a hand behind her head, pulling her even closer, and kissed her for all he was worth. Her body ignited, molding up into his.

Goose bumps jumped up on her arms, not from the cold, but from an overpowering sense of awe running through her. When his mouth traced down her neck, she whispered his name, a sweet kind of utterance she’d almost forgotten. With a lift of her heart, happiness bloomed all through her. 

She reached for him, running her hands over him, reacquainting herself with the dips and planes of his body. She savored the softness of his favorite gray T-shirt, his taut muscles, the slight stubble covering his jaw.

His hand slid over her hip to mold into the dip at her waist. The contact was so warm, familiar yet newly exciting, like returning to a much-loved vacation spot. Or, maybe, like the eagerness of coming home after years away. Trey pulled her closer, his hand moving up and down her body, over her sensitive skin, igniting sparks all along the way.

He broke away, hovering over her mouth. “Do you want this?”

“I need this,” she answered. “I want you, Trey.”

His lips met hers again, but she felt something else too: his tears against her cheek.

This is that moment, she thought, when you suddenly know another person loves you utterly, completely, beyond ever taking it back. He scooped her up and swung her onto the bed, cradling her body with his. They wanted each other—desperately—but she could tell he wanted to cherish every second, as did she. Any remaining hurt in her heart slipped away. Trey loved it away.

Another feeling bubbled up in its place. At first Rosette couldn’t quite identify it. Then, slowly, she saw it more clearly: anticipation…an overwhelming, joyful anticipation for them, for their future, for their life together.

They stayed up late, way too late, making love and then talking softly by candlelight. When she drifted off, her fingers laced in his, she heard him whisper, “I love you Rosette, forever and always.”

Chapter Seventeen

Alex could hear Rosette helping the little kids get ready upstairs as he finished his bowl of Frosted Flakes. He rinsed the dish and stuck it in the dishwasher. It was time to get dressed, but he didn’t want to. It was stupid, but he almost thought if he could skip the funeral, he wouldn’t have to think about all this.

He could see Trey holding Hope in the living room and cooing at her. Sometimes he looked so happy with the baby, and sometimes he looked like he wanted to cry.

He couldn’t imagine being in Trey’s shoes. Having everything on his shoulders. Suddenly Alex got it. All the times Trey was quiet, locked inside his own head, and all the times he left for hours to walk on the beach, he was just trying to hold it together for all of them.

Alex came into the living room slowly, sat down on the couch, and said, “Some people say there’s a reason for everything, even all this. Do you believe that?”

Trey looked surprised that Alex was talking to him.

“I can’t say there’s a reason for everything like Ricky and Amanda both dying, or Hope growing up without her parents, but it seems like there is some kind of silver lining.”

“Silver lining? Like something good is coming out of all this?”

“Put that way, it doesn’t sound that convincing. I guess I mean we can find some way to make life better.” He stopped, pulled in a breath and tried again. “Horrible things happened; we lost people we loved. But I feel I’ve been given a second chance of sorts with all of us.”

Trey had to be talking about him and Rosette. Alex wanted to ask about the argument but couldn’t bring himself to do it. That made it hard to apologize too, so he didn’t say anything. He just said, “Yeah,” as he got up. He meant to go upstairs, but he looked out the French doors and saw Summer step down out of the fifth wheel. She was another “something good” that came out of the bad things lately, even if it felt weird to think about it like that. Before she could come inside, he stepped out and shut the door behind him. A wet, early morning chill met him. He still wore just a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, and nothing on his feet. The patio floor felt cold as ocean water, but he didn’t care.

Summer was already dressed in a black shirt and slacks, her curly hair brushed and shiny. She was heading toward the house.

Funny how he had complained about how there were too many secrets in their family, and now he was keeping his own.

“You don’t have to feel guilty about that night,” he said abruptly to stop her. He’d been planning to talk to Summer since he’d stopped Sarah on the street. But of course now he’d pushed it too close to the funeral.

She frowned at him.

“I want to tell you something. I’m not sure how, but it’s about that night—you know, when Amanda died.” He glanced back to make sure no one was looking. For some reason, he wanted to tell Summer about this first, before Trey and Rosette. Amanda had been her sister. 

“A girl named Sarah was out on that highway that night.” He paused to let that sink in, so she’d understand what he was telling her. “She was looking for her lost phone with only a little flashlight. At the same time, your sister came around a blind corner. It was an accident, Summer.”

The shock slowly washed down her face, first dimming her eyes as the pupils widened, and then changing her expression. Summer caught her breath like she was choking, and she reached for a nearby patio chair. Alex moved another chair closer and sat with her. He waited while she composed herself, at least enough to listen to him.