Legacy, page 14
You made time for the ones you loved, she thought as she went outside, picked up the big orange ball that put a light of joy in Sadie’s eyes.
If her childhood had taught her anything, it was to make time for her passion, her responsibilities. And for the ones she loved.
CHAPTER TEN
Through the summer after his wife’s death, Raylan worked almost exclusively from home. And almost always at night. Sleep hadn’t been his friend since Lorilee’s death, so he turned nights into work time, and snatched some sleep in the early morning hours.
He napped when—if—the kids napped.
He couldn’t handle the idea of a nanny, couldn’t stand to bring yet another drastic change into his children’s lives. And he couldn’t bear the idea of leaving them with someone else.
And since for the first few weeks Bradley often woke up crying in the middle of the night, sleep became more luxury than priority.
He’d never forget the help, the comfort, the attention his mother and sister had provided, but they couldn’t stay forever.
He had responsibilities, first to his kids, then to his work. And the work not only provided for his family, but kept his company solvent and employees who counted on him paying their bills.
For snatches of time, he could lose himself in the work, or in the needs of his kids. The laundry, the grocery runs, the food prep, the attention, the trips to the park. The everything that added up to trying to give them a sense of security, a sense of normal.
He’d always wondered how single parents managed.
He found out a lot of the managing involved desperation and exhaustion—and a complete lack of self-anything-at-all.
He lost weight—a pound here, a pound there, until he went from lean to gaunt. He barely recognized himself whenever he caught a glimpse in the mirror.
But he didn’t have time to do anything about it.
In the fall, he went into the office after he took the kids to school, before he picked them up again.
He worked out a routine that included hiring a weekly housekeeper to handle the cleaning chores he and Lorilee had always managed to deal with.
At Christmas, when he simply wanted to close himself in the dark and grieve all over again, he forced himself to put up a tree, to string lights.
And broke down, thankfully alone, when he started to hang the stockings and unpacked Lorilee’s. The grief simply rolled through him, a dark, terrible wave that dropped him to the floor.
How could he do this? How could anyone get through this?
As he clutched the stocking, Jasper padded over to him, crawled into his lap, and laid his head on Raylan’s shoulder.
He pulled the dog in, held on and held on until the worst passed.
He would do it, and he would get through it. Because his kids slept upstairs, and they needed him.
But instead of having Christmas morning at home, then driving to his mother’s for the holiday dinner and Boxing Day, they had their little family Christmas the morning of Christmas Eve, then made the drive down.
Santa brought the presents and filled the stocking early, he told the kids, because he knew they were going to Nana’s. Because Santa knew everything.
New traditions, he told himself. He had to make them so the old ones didn’t break him into pieces he’d never put together again.
So he got through the summer, the fall and winter, and on the anniversary of Lorilee’s death, he sat alone in the dark, his kids asleep, and dreamed of her.
She slid onto his lap as she’d often done in their quiet, alone times. He smelled her, that soft floral fragrance she’d used. It filled him like breath.
“You’re doing fine, honey.”
“I don’t want to do fine. I want you.”
“I know. But I’m here. I’m in the kids. I’m in here.” She laid a hand on his heart. “You just have to keep going. I know today’s hard, but you’ll get through it to tomorrow.”
“I want to go back. I want to stop you from going to work that day.”
“Can’t.” She nuzzled at his throat. “And if I hadn’t gone, that boy would be dead. Don’t say you don’t care, because that’s not true. Who knows who he’ll grow up to be, what wonderful things he might do?”
“He came to see me,” Raylan murmured. “With his parents. I didn’t want to talk to them.”
“But you did.”
“They wanted me to know … they just wanted me to know how sorry, how grateful. I didn’t want to care.”
“But you did.”
“They got permission to plant a tree on the school grounds. A dwarf cherry—the ornamental—that you can see from your classroom window. They wanted me to know they’d never forget you.”
“We can’t know what other good and kind things he might do with his life. And if I hadn’t been there, maybe whoever took my class wouldn’t have gotten the other kids to safety. We can’t know, honey, we just can’t know.”
“We can’t know what you’d have done with yours. What we’d have done with ours.”
“Oh, Raylan, I did what I had to do with mine, and I guess what I was meant to do. You know that. Now you’re doing what you need to do. Remember how we talked the night before it happened, about how to tell the kids about Sophia?”
“We were going to tell them she had to become an angel, and she’d be looking out for them, for others who needed it.”
“It seemed the right thing because they’re so young. But you can think of me that way, too. Because I’m always with you, Raylan, honey. Looking out for you and our babies.”
“Adrian wrote me. She said you were an angel.”
“Well, there you go, right?” She kissed him, so soft, so sweet. “I love you, Raylan. And you have to let the grief go now. It’s not the same as letting me go, the memories, the love. Let the grief go now, and turn it into something else. For me, for our babies.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I know you can. I know you will.”
She kissed him again, and then he sat alone in the dark.
He got up, turned on the lights in his office. Though it was nearly midnight, he sat at his workstation.
He began to sketch her, his Lorilee. First her face—so many expressions. Happy, sad, angry, amused, seductive, surprised.
Then her body, full front, profile, turned away. He filled pages of drawing paper before he added wings.
He drew her with them folded, spread, with her flying with them, spinning with them. Fighting with them.
At first he drew her in a long white dress, and immediately knew he’d gone wrong.
White wings, yes, large, beautiful, and somehow ferocious. But her outfit should be bolder, stronger, fiercer than angelic white.
He tried again, sketching her in a snug one-piece, slim boots, considered a halo, rejected it as too clichéd. He brought the long sleeves into a point on the backs of the hands, dipped a V on the front of the boots.
Simple, strong, and when he reached for his colored pencils, he chose blue. Like her eyes.
She’d died saving others, he thought, but before her time. A mistake in the order of things. So … she’d been given a hundred years to live as human, but only if she continued to fight for others, to save them, to work for right, for the innocent.
Lee, she’d be Lee Marley—part of her first name, a combo of their kids’ names—in human form, in her alter ego. An artist.
And when she spread her wings, when she was called to protect, she became True Angel.
He pinned the sketch to his board.
Before his kids waked in the morning, he had the outline of her origin story.
He’d done what she asked, he thought. He’d let a little of the grief go, and made it into something else.
He got the kids dressed, hunted up the sparkly pink sneakers his daughter had to wear to preschool and couldn’t find. Since that ate up time, he made Eggos for breakfast—got some cheers for that.
Bundling them and his night’s work in the car, he did the drop-offs and headed into the office. And for the first time in a year, with real purpose, real excitement.
He snagged Jonah first.
“Jesus, Raylan, you look like hell. Like hell on uppers.”
“All-nighter. I need a meeting with you and Bick.”
“She just went up. Look, I need to round up Crystal for the lettering on—”
“After.” To save time, he dragged Jonah to the freight elevator.
“I know yesterday was rough on you, but did you seriously do a bunch of drugs?”
“Coffee, too much coffee.”
While the elevator started its moaning grind, Raylan texted Bick.
My office, right now!
“You hardly ever drink coffee.”
“I did last night. I’ve got something.” He patted his bag. “I need you guys to see it, give me your honest take.”
“Okay, sure. But no more coffee for you. We’ve got a partners’ meeting this afternoon anyway. Why don’t you catch a nap, and we’ll—”
“No. Now.”
He clamped a hand on Jonah’s arm again, pulled him to his office. Opening his bag, he took out sketches, started pinning them up. Ignoring the half-finished work on his desk, he added the outlines, chapter by chapter, of the origin story.
“She’s beautiful.” Jonah spoke quietly. “It’s Lorilee, and she’s beautiful.”
Raylan shook his head. “She’s Lee Marley in human form. She’s True Angel, guardian of the innocent.”
“Where’s the fucking fire?” Bick demanded as she came in. “I’ve got … Oh.” She stopped, studied the sketches. “Those are fantastic, my man.”
“I need you to look these over, I need you to listen to the story line. Then I need you to tell me if it’s a go. Not because you feel sorry for me. Not because you loved her, too. But because it’s right. No, it has to be better than right if we go with this. If you see flaws, I want to know. If it doesn’t work, I need to know. It’s her face. It’s her heart. So I need to know.”
Jonah had already moved to the board, already started scanning the outlines. “You already know it works. You already know it’s more than right. An homage to her, sure, but …”
He broke off as his voice shook. “Take over,” he mumbled to Bick.
“I’m reading.”
“I can tell you where it’s going,” Raylan began. “I’ve already fleshed out the outline in my head.”
Bick just wagged a finger at him. “Quiet. Move her from Brooklyn. Put her in SoHo. Give her a loft in SoHo. She works in the gallery downstairs to afford it.”
“Okay.” Raylan nodded as he thought it through. “Okay, and that keeps her in Manhattan. That’s better.”
“You’ve got her saving this woman in a store robbery. Could it be a kid? Like a ten-year-old boy? Street kid. It’s more poignant.”
“Could be better. I can work with it.”
“I’ll tell you what. Having her code in the ambulance, them trying to bring her back while her spirit goes to what you call the In-Between? That could be magic. How they’ve just called it when she’s sent back, breathes. Yeah, could be magic.”
She turned to him. “How hard is that going to be for you, to write and illustrate all that? Bringing her back?”
“It’s going to be solace.” It already was. “It’s going to be making something positive out of losing her. But only if I can make it matter.”
“It’s going to matter. Jonah?”
He’d pulled himself together, smiled now. “Here’s to True Angel. Long may she fly.”
They launched True Angel on the second anniversary of Lorilee’s death. Raylan pitted her against Grievous, the half-demon who infected human hosts until their ordinary resentments and frustrations turned to crazed violence.
The work kept Raylan busy, involved, and the reader reception to his Angel boosted his spirits, and his company.
But by summer, and the end of another school year, he accepted he needed to make a change. For his kids, for himself, for the quality of his work.
He took a long overdue vacation, a beach week with just the kids.
With even the thought of work left behind, he tossed the rules on bedtime, on breakfast so the world turned on sandcastles and sunscreen slathering, hot-dog grilling and clambakes. He woke to the sound of ocean waves and kids bouncing on his bed.
At night if he hadn’t succumbed to a sun-and-sea-day coma like his kids, he sat on the little deck, watched the stars shower over the dark sea.
When he dreamed of her, she wore a long white dress covered with purple flowers. He remembered the dress, one of the last he’d finally made himself pack up for donation.
She stood at the deck rail with the ocean breeze streaming through her hair and the moonlight bathing her.
“We always loved coming here. We talked about buying a cottage or bungalow one day.” She smiled as she looked over. “We never got around to it.”
“Too many things we never got around to.”
“Oh, we got to the important ones. They’re sleeping inside right now, all curled up and sun-kissed, with Jasper on guard.”
“He loves the beach as much as they do. I could buy a place now. True Angel’s kicking serious butt. I could look on Cape May, it’s closer to home, but …”
“It’s hard, even for a good daddy, to do everything.”
“I worry I let some of it slide. Baking two dozen cupcakes—gluten-free—for Bradley’s class, making sure Mariah has the right color hair ribbon to match her outfit—that kid is fierce for fashion. How did you do it?”
“Honey, I had you, so if I couldn’t get to the cupcakes, you picked them up at the bakery. If I couldn’t find the hair ribbon, you found the hair clip with the flower on it that did the job.”
She sat beside him, a comfort, picked up the glass of wine he’d barely touched. “There’s no shame in needing help, Raylan.”
“It’s not that. Every time I start down the road of looking for a nanny, it just feels wrong. For them. For us. I don’t know why, but it feels wrong.”
“Yes, you do know why.” She patted his leg as she sipped his wine. “Just like you know what you should do, need to do, and, in your heart, want to do.”
“And that feels like leaving you, turning away from everything we had, that we built, that we wanted.”
“Oh, Raylan, honey, I left you. I didn’t want to, I didn’t mean to, but I left you. Now you have to do what’s right for our babies, for yourself.” After setting down the wine, she kissed his cheek. “I count on you for that.”
Then she rose, spread her white wings, and flew into the night.
When he got back to Brooklyn, he made the painfully precise arrangements to set up a playdate for both kids, then made the much simpler ones for a partners’ meeting.
This meant using the third-floor conference room and ordering in Chinese for lunch.
Jonah, clean-shaven after his winter beard experiment, scooped up sweet and sour chicken. “Marta just got me the sales reports on Angel, and Snow Raven—preorders for Queen’s July issue. I’ll shoot them out to both of you, and put them up in here so we can eat real hearty. ’Cause we are kicking it, pals.”
“Good to know.” Deftly, Bick manipulated chopsticks in her noodles. “Because I peed on a stick this morning. Pats and I are going to have another mouth to feed next spring.”
“Holy crap.” Jonah pointed at her while Raylan sprang up to round the table and hug her. “You’re knocked up?”
“That’s affirmative. Keeping it down low for now, and we’re going into the clinic for the official test, but you guys should know.”
“How you doing?” Raylan asked her. “How’re you feeling?”
“Five by five right now. May it continue. And really happy. Stupid, crazy happy. Look, I don’t want to tell anybody else until I go to the doc’s, get the all clear, make sure everything’s baking right. That means keep it zipped, Jonah.”
He looked offended. “I can keep it zipped.”
“Usually we have to weld it shut, but this is important. Zipped until I give you the green.”
“How come you’re not ragging on Raylan?”
“Because he doesn’t blab.”
“Blab!” Jonah huffed. “I do, too.”
Bick laughed, punched his shoulder. “A wise man knows himself.”
“This is great news, Bick. I’m happy for you and Pats.”
“I’m happy for us, too, Raylan. Now, you called the meeting. Is this to tell us how you spent your summer vacation?”
“I can sum that up pretty easy. Pretty damn perfect. The kids loved it. I have to confess, Bradley continues his Dark Knight obsession.”
“You have to do something about that kid,” Jonah told him.
“An icon’s an icon, but I had to make the difficult decision to help him re-create Wayne Manor out of sand.”
“What? What about Snow Raven’s Aerie! It’s cooler!”
“He’s only seven, Jonah.” Nearly eight, Raylan realized with a jolt. “Give him time. Now, before we see the numbers, and deal with any other business, I need to ask you both—as partners, not friends—if me working from home puts any hitches in the company, in production, in creativity, and in the division of responsibilities.”
“You were working from home when you came up with True Angel,” Bick reminded him. “That’s the opposite of hitches.”
“And we’re already set up for you to work remotely over the rest of summer, or the bulk of it,” Jonah put in. “We’ve got the tech, Ray-Man. Yeah, it’s great when we can all be in the same building and brainstorm, or make decisions, or argue about decisions. But we’re doing all that, when we need to, by videoconference.”
“How would you both feel if it wasn’t just over the summer, or school vacations, or kid-home-sick days?”
Bick sat back. “Is something wrong with the kids?”
“No. But I feel I have to do better for them. I’m not enough. They need more. They need family and a steadier routine than I can give them on my own. I put it off, for me, and I can’t keep doing that. I decided to move back home, back to Traveler’s Creek.”
