Forgivin' Ain't Forgettin' (11 page)

Trevor resumed a reclining pose, his long legs extended beneath the desk as a conversation he had with Kregg a few weeks before sprang to mind.On the way home from a City Champions meeting, they’d stopped at the market to pick up beverages and snacks to go with the boxing matches they were planning to watch on television. Two young ladies walked by, one whispered something to the other, and both burst into giggles.The women smiled over their shoulders at them, and Kregg nodded and smiled back.

“I hope they don’t think we’re a couple,” Kregg said.

“What does it matter? I thought you only had eyes for Rave,” said Trevor.

“Maybe I’m looking out for you.” Kregg grinned. “Helping you get back in the game.”

Trevor passed on a wisecrack and resumed the task of deciding between sour cream-and-onion or plain potato chips.

“Do you think you might want to hook up with us sometime?”

Trevor frowned. “You mean double-date?”

“Maybe even get a good-night kiss out of the deal,” Kregg said, and patted him on the back.

Trevor had to admit he missed kissing and all the good feelings it entailed. But he only wanted to kiss Brenda, and she was gone.

Slightly swiveling the chair, he thought more about dating. The opportunity had presented itself if he’d been interested. His church sisters began pushing up on him a week after his wife’s burial.

Lynette Graham, her grandmother leading the way, stopped by his house without calling. Said they wanted to make sure he was okay. Lynette barely offered more than a complete sentence of conversation, whereas her grandmother prattled incessantly, and by the time they left, Trevor had a throbbing headache and more information about Lynette than he was comfortable knowing.

Then there was Judith Long, who believed candor paved the way to love. She came right out and admitted she was alone and lonely; while her twin sister, Edith, seemed to think the way to a man’s heart was through food poisoning. She showed up at his job with two covered casseroles and a roast. He hadn’t had a bout of diarrhea that deadly since he was seven and accepted Kregg’s challenge to a worm-eating contest.

Priscilla Barnes, missing a front tooth and armed with a body odor that lingered well after she’d left the room, also made his diet a priority.

“Have you eaten?” she asked one evening, pushing her way into his foyer.

“No,” he croaked. Depressed over Brenda’s absence, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast that day. And he didn’t want to eat dinner or anything else with Priscilla, who’d flounced into the kitchen, planted a brown bag on the table, and withdrawn two TV dinners.

“I got you a Hungry-Man,” she announced in a husky alto.

Trevor stared, voiceless and numb, as she rummaged through drawers and shelves in search of tableware, running her uninvited hands over Brenda’s things. It seemed unholy and it made him angry. While he was in the process of devising a tactful way of asking her to leave, she accidentally shattered the cup Brenda had sipped coffee from each morning. A rock of pain weighting his chest, he overlooked politeness.

“You need to go,” he said.

The glower Priscilla flashed him could have sharpened all the knives in the knife block, and Trevor wondered if she was entertaining throwing the hot dinner she’d pulled from the microwave in his face.

Honestly, Trevor didn’t understand all the hoopla women made over him. He considered himself as ordinary as the next guy and as flawed. His eyes were too dark, his nose larger than average, and at certain angles, it seemed his ears stuck out.

Trevor closed his eyes, but not the subject. If he were to date, whom would he ask? And what could he offer a woman when he still craved Brenda? He pondered how Brenda might feel about him dating. They had never discussed what one would do if the other died. He’d just taken for granted, as she probably had, that they would be together forever.

chapter ten

C
assidy popped straight up and grabbed at her throat in a plea for air as her speeding heart geared to drive through her chest. After so many years, she thought she’d be immune to the nightmare that commonly bruised her nights. But she was as rattled as she’d been the first night she bolted out of sleep like this, back when she was a student at Tilden.

Cassidy refused to crumple in despair. “
When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock,”
she whispered. She shoved aside the covers and switched on the bedside lamp, erasing the darkness. Sticky with cold perspiration, an extra-large T-shirt clung to her skin. She went to the bureau and pulled out a clean shirt. This one had the name “La Salle” across the front. After walking out on a four-year scholarship to Tilden, she completed her undergrad and grad courses at the locally based La Salle University, funding tuition and books with loans, part-time jobs, and ultimately a chunk of Odessa’s life savings because Odessa wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cassidy sat on the bed and plowed her shaky fingers through her hair. The scarf she’d used to contain her hair had come off during her fitful sleep. She tied the scarf back on her head and stared at the bold red clock numbers. It was after one o’clock. Concerned she might slip back into the lair of the nightmare, Cassidy wouldn’t attempt to sleep again, not right away. Sometimes a warm drink helped her mellow, and she eased into her all-season robe and trod downstairs.

No chamomile available, Cassidy chose a peppermint tea bag and dunked it into a mug of hot, bubbling water. As the unsweetened liquid cooled, she switched on the radio, finding shelter under an umbrella of classical music. She lifted the mug and settled at the table. She and Odessa had shared many good times in this room, at this table, especially when Cassidy was of elementary school age. On any given afternoon, while waiting for a pie to bake, a pan of bread to rise, or a bowl of beans to soak, they sat and had tea parties or clipped coupons or did cross-stitch patterns. Cassidy looked up at the wall above the table. A large wood-framed stitching, sewn by Odessa when her eyesight had been sharper, read, “As for me and my house, we will eat a home-cooked meal.”

Cassidy swallowed a first sip of tea, and the warm flavored water kissed the length of her throat. She peered around the room, finding additions to the quaint kitchen setting tonight—vestiges of Trevor Monroe. Several boxes of cereal, sugar-sweetened brands she’d never consider buying, lined the top of the refrigerator. And on the counter, a jar filled with jelly beans set her face in a grimace.

Stroking one bare foot with the other, Cassidy gazed through the vapor and into her tea. Her mind returned to the nightmare.

She jumped in the river, joining the little boy. They laughed as they smacked the water with their hands, splashing each other. Suddenly, the boy’s laughter turned to cries as the river pulled him away. “Help, help,” he wailed, his small arms thrashing like the wings of a bird that couldn’t get off the ground.

Cassidy began swimming toward him, but the faster she swam, the larger the distance between them grew. “I’m coming,” she cried. “Hold on, hold on.”

“Help me, please, help me.” The child’s pitiful calls sounded more like echoes now.

“Hold on,” Cassidy screamed, although the child had disappeared.

Trevor and Brenda were barefoot, the beach sand filtering between their toes. A light wind whistled under the hem of Brenda’s long white dress, and the fabric billowed like a sail. The same friendly wind wafted through Trevor’s open white shirt. Laughing, hands locked, they cantered to where shore met sea, and the waves lapped at their ankles.

Trevor pulled Brenda into his arms. As their bodies molded, he became oblivious to the sand, waves, and wind. He was conscious only of Brenda, an angel, warm against him. He closed his eyes as his lips caressed hers. The tender trail stretched to her jaw, her neck, her shoulder. Trevor couldn’t keep his lids shut any longer. He had to see her. Had to behold the beauty he was about to cuddle with on the sand. He opened his eyes . . .

Trevor came awake, shooting from the chair with enough force to send it rolling into the wall behind with a powerful punch. Decayed paint loosened from the wall and rained to the floor, sounding like the patter of a million tiny feet. Trevor gripped the edge of the desk, his fingertips stinging from the pressure while he reluctantly rewound to the final frame of his dream.

He had been kissing Brenda, but when he opened his eyes to see her lovely face, it wasn’t Brenda he held. It wasn’t Brenda he desired.

“Cassidy,” he whispered.

Someone had turned the light off. Forced to feel his way up the darkened basement stairwell, Trevor groped through the blackness, stumbling along the way, smacking his knee on the wooden stair, then scratching his hand on something unidentifiable. “Ouch,” he hissed. Displeasure tightening his face, he rounded the doorway to the kitchen and found Cassidy. Her eyes flashed aggression as she stood holding an aluminum bat, poised to take a swing at his head.

A perceptible sigh rushed through her lips, and she relaxed her arms, lowering her weapon. “Oh, it’s just you,” she stated, leaving him to speculate on whether she was relieved he wasn’t an intruder or disappointed it was him. “I would have left the light on if I’d known you were down there.” Her expression showed complete disregard, yet her tone had softened, and he decided she was telling the truth. She returned the bat to its place between the baker’s rack and the microwave cart and tied another knot in the belt of her robe before approaching the table.

Trevor filled a bowl with milk and cereal, then moseyed in Cassidy’s direction. Her gaze was fixed on her cup, and he presumed she would prefer he take his bowl upstairs or at least sit at the island on one of the two stools. “I’ll take this seat,” he said, then pulled out a chair and placed his bowl on the vinyl tablecloth. Cassidy slid her mug closer to herself and straightened her back, and Trevor lowered himself to the chair thinking he’d seen mannequins less tense than this woman.

He dipped his spoon and brought up a hill of cereal. He chewed with his mouth closed, but the room was so quiet he was sure Cassidy could hear him crunching. Poopie brushed against his ankle, and Trevor scratched her between the ears, keeping his scrutiny within the boundaries of Cassidy’s face. Some of her features Trevor had noticed before, like the slightly pronounced cheekbones many models would date the devil for. Other features, like the pencil-point mole on the bridge of her nose, he was discovering for the first time. “Are you all right? Your eyes are red.” There were several crinkled napkins on the table, and Trevor believed she had been crying.

“I’m fine,” she said to her unfinished tea.

“Well, if you want to talk,” he said smoothly, “I’m a good listener. And if you want to pray, I’ve been successful in getting a few through.” He bounced his eyebrows and noted that his ploy to lighten her load had elicited from her only a sealed-lips smile.

Cassidy spoke to the tea again. “No. But thanks.”

Trevor put down the spoon, reached the short distance, and slipped his fingertips between her hand and the cup. He felt a tremor pulse through her palm as she watched him through large, baffled eyes. Considering the dream he’d just awakened from, he thought he would want to stay as far away from Cassidy as possible. But here he was, holding her hand. It had been a bold move, but one he could honestly say felt right as he said a short, silent prayer for her.

In a voice that lowered with each word, she said, “I think I’ll go upstairs now.”

“Before you go, there’s something I need to say.”

“Daddy,” Brandi called out, bringing the moment to an abrupt standstill. Cassidy ripped her hand from his as his little girl trudged toward the table, accompanied by a stuffed sandy-brown bear, half her size, led by its ear.

Trevor backed his chair away from the table and hurried to meet his daughter before she tripped over the hem of the nightgown that once belonged to Brittney and was still a bit big for Brandi. He lifted her into his arms. Brandi rested her head on his shoulder, retaining a grip on her bear. Trevor caressed Brandi’s back, cognizant of the smile in Cassidy’s expression as she watched them.

“Can I get in
your
bed, Daddy?” Brandi whined. “I’ll tell you a sleepy-time story.”

“Okay.” He smiled and kissed her nose.

Cassidy transported her cup to the sink as he offered Brandi warm milk. “I want you to wait upstairs,” he said, putting Brandi on the floor. He filled her Snoopy mug with milk and placed it in the microwave.

“I’m going that way.” Cassidy smiled at Brandi. “We can walk together.”

Brandi looked as if she were about to pop with approval. “Do you want to hold my bear? His name is Sammy.”

Cassidy’s posture was perfect as she passed Trevor without a glance. “I’d love to hold Sam . . .”

Her voice dwindled to silence as Trevor reached and circled her wrist, slowing her hurried exit. She sent a derisive gaze to the hand on her arm, then threw the same to his face. Trevor uncurled his fingers and mulled over why a woman who only a few minutes prior had accepted his touch suddenly found it repulsive. “Sweetheart,” he called to Brandi, “take Sammy on up and tuck him in. Daddy needs to speak with Cassidy.”

“Will you come and say good night to Sammy and me?”

Cassidy cradled Brandi’s chin. “I’ll be up soon.”

His baby out of the kitchen, Trevor gave Cassidy his full gaze and said what he had been on the brink of saying at the table. “It’s a week late, but I owe you an apology. Brandi and I had no idea you were in the bathroom. We didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I wasn’t frightened,” Cassidy asserted a bit too frantically for it to be believable. She put calm in her next sentence. “I was surprised.”

“Then . . . I’m sorry we surprised you.”

“Well, I am accustomed to the privacy of
my
bathroom.”

“You don’t have a problem with me using the same bathroom as you, do you?”

She raised her face to him. “Actually, I do.”