The One I Trust (13 page)

We canceled our hotel reservations and spent the night at Charlotte and Jordan’s house—actually a high-rise condo with ten-foot ceilings, two balconies, and views of both the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan.

Charlotte pulled out her old high school yearbooks and showed me every picture she could find of my dad. He had played lacrosse and basketball and I let myself imagine for a moment how if I’d been raised by him and Charlotte, then my last name would have been Wellehan.

Brafford Odell Wellehan
.

That didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and Wellehan didn’t lend itself to being as good of a first name as Reid did. Of course the chances were pretty high that they probably wouldn’t have named me Brafford Odell in the first place. Charlotte and Jordan had given their sons very
normal
-sounding names: Jonathan Paul, Nathaniel Chase, and Adam Gregory. The older two—Jonathan and Nathaniel—were both away at college, but Adam had dinner with us before heading off to basketball practice. Apparently Charlotte had been looking for me ever since I’d turned eighteen and she’d always been very open with her boys about the fact that she’d had me, so while Adam was definitely surprised to find me in his living room when he got home from school, he wasn’t surprised to find out that I existed, and I spent no small amount of time trying to figure out exactly what he was to me, finally deciding that he was my half adopted brother.

Jordan was very nice. Quiet, but nice, and if having me in his home brought back memories of unhappy times between him and Charlotte, he didn’t let on.

Charlotte took off from work the next day and drove us to the airport. We hugged for a long time before we said good-bye and promised each other that we’d get together again soon.

“And you have to meet my mom,” Charlotte said. “She’s not going to believe this.”

Her mom . . . my grandmother.

“I can’t wait,” I said, and we hugged again.

We went through security and found our gate, sinking into seats to wait for our flight to be called. After a few minutes I closed my eyes, and after another moment, I heard Emily ask, “What are you smiling about?”

I opened my eyes and looked at her.

“I was smiling?”

She nodded and laughed.

“What were you thinking about?” she asked.

“I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to do those fireworks.”

“Oh, brother,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

“What?” I asked, my mouth dropping open in dismay. “You don’t want me to propose to you?”

“I never said that.” She looked exasperated. “You just . . . you don’t need
fireworks
.”

“But you said you wanted fireworks.”

“I was just using that as an example,” she explained. “I didn’t mean that that was my dream proposal or anything.”

“What is your dream proposal?”

She rolled her eyes again.

“I’m serious,” I said, turning to face her fully. “Tell me what your dream proposal would look like.”

To my surprise, she was quiet for a long moment, and then she said, “I guess I would want it to be the exact opposite of everything Ethan did.”

I looked at her for a minute and then bent my head, kissing her softly on the lips.

“Tell me what he did,” I said quietly.

She looked at me uncertainly.

“Tell me,” I urged. “How can I do the opposite of what he did if I don’t know what he did?”

She hesitated for another moment.

“We were hiking in the Poconos,” she began.

“Where’s that?” I asked. “The Caribbean?”

“The Poconos are
mountains
in Pennsylvania.”

“Oh. Right.”

I got my third eye roll.

“Anyway,” she said, shaking her head. “We stopped at this overlook and there was a little cliff and—”

“My proposal is definitely not going to involve cliffs,” I interjected.

She gave me a smile.

“So,” she went on. “We were getting ready to leave and he said he wanted to take a picture of us on the cliff, so he set up the camera. I thought he was turning on the self-timer, but he was really videoing it. I was smiling into the camera waiting for the picture to take and then I realized that he was down on one knee, holding up a ring.”

“So I don’t have to get down on one knee?” I asked.

“No.”

I gave a little fist pump. “Sweet.”

She tilted her head at me disapprovingly.

“What?” I asked. “Do you
want
me to get down on one knee?”

“No,” she admitted. “I guess not.”

“What kind of ring did he give you?” I asked.

“It was a diamond solitaire. Marquee cut. White gold.”

“I have no idea what that is,” I admitted, “but I’ll look it up.”

“It was actually a whole lot like your mother’s ring.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded.

“Well,” I said. “I wasn’t going to give you that one anyway. I’m going to buy you something special. Something that’s not a, uh . . .”

“Diamond solitaire. Marquee cut.”

“Yeah. That.”

“You don’t have any money to be spending on a ring,” she reminded me.

“You just let me worry about that,” I said, and she smiled.

“Did he ask your dad first?” I asked.

“No.”

“Crap. Are you serious? I have to ask your dad?”

She laughed.

“I don’t even know your dad!” I protested.

“You don’t have to ask my dad,” she assured me, laying a hand on my chest. “I couldn’t care less what either one of my parents think.”

“So,” I clarified. “There were no fireworks?”

She smiled and shook her head again.

I leaned closer to her and put a hand along the side of her face. Her hand was still resting on my chest. I looked into her eyes.

“Will you say yes when I ask you again?”

She looked at me with a charming, almost mischievous smile on her face. She cocked her head and replied, “I guess it’ll depend on the fireworks.”

Charlotte called me that evening.

“I got in touch with Jarrett,” she told me.

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “he was a little shocked to hear from me, to say the least.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, giving her an unseen nod.

“And then when I told him why I was calling he was even more shocked.”

“Yeah.” I nodded again. When she didn’t go on, I prodded her. “And?”

“He’s umm . . .”

She hesitated.

“It’s not you,” she finally went on. “I just really threw him for a loop and I think he needs some time to process everything.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said. “No problem.”

“It’s not you,” she said again. “I gave him your number. I think maybe he’ll call you after he’s had some time to get used to it.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” I said. “It’s fine. I understand. Thank you for trying.”

“I’m really glad you found me,” she said quietly.

“Me too.” I smiled.

“And I was thinking . . .”

“What?”

“Maybe Jordan and I could come down there and visit sometime?”

“That would be great!”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Absolutely. I’d love to have you come down. My friend Hale has a big house on the beach. We could get together for a weekend or something.”

“Oooh!” Charlotte said. “I love the beach.”

“Well then, you should definitely plan a trip down here.”

“I want my mom to meet you, too,” she said.

“Bring her along,” I said. “I want to meet Jonathan and Nathan, too. Bring everybody.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let me see what I can get worked out.”

“Sounds great,” I said, and I really meant it.

It sounded great.

I LIKED MY new job a lot. This was somewhat surprising to me since I really had anticipated being bored out of my skull, but I guess after so many years of having such a high-stress job and having so many things to worry about, it was nice that my biggest concern was suddenly,
Are there thirteen bottles of shampoo on this shelf or fourteen?

Another reason that I liked my job was because of my supervisor. His name was Ray and he picked up me and whoever else needed a ride at a gas station three miles from Hale and Anneka’s house and then drove us to whatever store we were going to be working at that day. Lots of times Hale or Anneka would give me a ride to the gas station to meet him, but if the weather was nice or they were taking Molly out to a breakfast of bacon (something they did at least once a week), I would just walk.

It was not glamorous work and it didn’t pay all that great, so the turnover rate was high. One week it might be me and Ray and two other guys riding to the store together, and then the next week it would just be me and Ray until new people were hired. I think Ray appreciated the fact that I was extremely dependable, and I appreciated the fact that I didn’t have to spend what little money I was making on a car payment.

With my first paycheck, I went to the pawn shop and got my rifle out of hock. I put it in my small gun safe that was down in Hale’s basement along with the pistol and shotgun (that somehow I’d managed
not
to have to pawn) and I locked them all up carefully. Overall, Molly was a great kid and did what she was told, but I never would have taken chances with something like that.

My compound bow—a present from Noah when he was three—wouldn’t fit in the safe, but I didn’t worry because the draw weight was way too much for Molly to handle. It and the arrows—with their razor sharp broadheads that would swiftly slice apart curious little fingers—I kept in a hard plastic bow case, secured with a small combination lock.

On an unusually beautiful day in February, the five of us went down to Lee County to visit Hale’s gun range. It had once been my gun range, too, but since I’d let my membership lapse all of us were now going as his guests. That was another thing I intended to rectify with one of my paychecks in the very near future.

Emily had never shot a bow and arrow before. She could almost handle the draw weight, but it was a little too much for her and I helped her pull it back. I liked doing that. She’d never shot a firearm before either and I liked standing behind her, wrapping my arms around her, and showing her how to do that, too.

The only thing I didn’t like was that she wore hiking boots to the range.

I had never seen her wear hiking boots before, and at first I’d enjoyed how outdoorsy and athletic she looked, but then I remembered what she had told me about Ethan’s marriage proposal—
we were hiking in the Poconos—
and suddenly I didn’t like them so much anymore. The thought that Emily had probably been wearing those boots when Ethan had gotten down on one knee and asked her to marry him really set my teeth on edge for some reason. Of course, for all I knew, she’d been wearing that silky blue tank top when he’d proposed to her, too, but I didn’t
know
that. I pretty much knew that she’d been wearing her hiking boots.

A few weeks after our trip to the shooting range, we made plans with Hale and Anneka to go to the zoo in Asheboro. The night before we went, I called Emily and strongly suggested that she wear tennis shoes. After that, while Anneka was giving Molly a bath, I approached Hale, who was in his recliner, watching TV with his eyes closed.

“Hey, Hale?”

“What?” He opened his eyes.

“I’ll give you five bucks if you and your family manage to disappear when we get to the otters tomorrow.”

“The otters?”

I nodded and held his gaze.

He studied me for a moment. I tried to keep my expression nonchalant, but it wasn’t long before a look of concern passed across his face.

“Reid,” he said. “You’ve only known her for
four
months.

“Five,” I corrected.

“Okay, five. But do you really think you need to be rushing into another marriage right now?”

“You’re the one who told me I needed to move on,” I reminded him. “You’re the one who told me to go out with her in the first place.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t say you should
marry
her.”

“Is there something wrong with her?” I asked. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t marry her?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “You just haven’t really known her very long.”

“How long did you know Anneka?” I asked.

“That was different.”

“So I should get her pregnant first?” I asked. “Would that be better?”

“What’s the hurry?” he asked, ignoring that. “If she’s the right one, she’ll still be the right one six months from now, or a year from now.”

“She makes me happy,” I said. “I want to get married.”

Hale looked away and sighed.

“I just don’t want you to get yourself in a bad situation again,” he said, meeting my eyes again.

“I’m not.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know,” I said.

He looked at me hesitantly and then asked, “Have you prayed about this at all?”

Hale had started dragging me to church with him when Drew had first gotten sick. Even after she’d died, he’d continued going—and continued dragging me along. He didn’t talk to me about God a whole lot, but I knew for a fact that God was very important to him. If I had to guess, I’d say that Hale wanted God involved in about 99 percent of everything he did.

I had a percentage too, but it wasn’t that high.

“I don’t need to pray about it,” I said. “I’m pretty sure God’s not going to let me marry two psychotic women in a row.”

“I just think that before you make such a big decision, you need to be sure this is what you’re really supposed to be doing.”

“I’m sure, Hale,” I said. “Now are you going to disappear tomorrow when we get to the otters, or not?”

The bathroom door opened and Molly came running down the hall with a giant towel wrapped around her little body. Hale picked her up, gave her a kiss on her forehead, and then hugged her, looking at me over the top of her wet head.

I looked at him expectantly.

“Well?” I asked.

He pressed his lips together, obviously still concerned, but then he nodded.

The next day, Hale made good on his promise and muttered something about how otters were nothing more than glorified, swimming rats before steering Anneka and Molly out of the darkened viewing room.