Chapter 16
August came in riding a heat wave and went out on much the same. It really passed by uneventfully. After Dana’s phone call concerning Heath, I decided cooling those tickles were for the best at least until I found out if he was a criminal! After all, I had more than just my welfare and my heart to protect. I had to protect Sam from hurt, both emotionally and physically, which he would be in danger of, no matter if Heath turned out to be a good man or a cop turned drug dealer.
Calling a halt to the tickles really took very little effort as Heath only called once to make a date and was, in my opinion, too easily put off. He had called the Monday after he broke our date. If I had not had the call from Dana on Sunday morning, I would have been thrilled. Instead I was terrified.
My voice sounded plastic to my ears as I cheerily answered his call, “Hi, Heath! How have you been?”
His rich, deep voice sounded strained as well as he answered, “I’m fine, Miranda, just a little tired.”
I tried to sound nonchalant as I innocently asked, “Work?”
I heard the tension that entered Heath’s body and voice at my simple query, “Um, yeah. I have been busy with work. It is taking up a lot of extra time these days, but I hope that will be over soon.”
I nodded trying to keep my reactions normal. “You know, I don’t even know what you are working on these days or rather working as. What are you doing with yourself?”
Silence greeted my questions. Silence that stretched until I finally checked to see if he was on the line, “Heath, are you there?”
Finally his voice came over the line, but instead of the kind timbre I was accustomed to, his voice was savage in its intensity. “Don’t ask me that, Miranda. I can’t tell you right now. My business is confidential.”
I was taken aback by his words but most especially by his tone. “Oh! I wish I could say I understood, but honestly, Heath, I don’t.”
He sighed into the phone, “I’m sorry, Miranda, but that is all that I can tell you.”
My anger began to rise, “You mean that is all you will tell me.”
I heard his frustration in his answer, “If that is what you want to think, Miranda, then I can’t stop you.”
I breathed out shakily, “Maybe it would be better if we took some time off, Heath.”
His voice sounded angry, “If that’s what you want. Is that what you want?”
Tears leaked out of my eyes, but my voice was firm, “Yes, for now that is what I want. I need to be able to trust you, Heath. I don’t understand why you can’t or won’t tell me anything about what you do?”
Heath groaned, “It’s safer that way, baby.”
“Then it will be even safer for both Sam and me if we stay away from you until you can be upfront and honest with me, Heath. I hope you can understand that I need to protect Sam,” I pleaded.
Heath’s voice was hurt as he asked one final question, “Is it Sam you are trying to protect or yourself, Miranda?”
Before I could answer, the line had gone dead.
That short phone conversation had gone a long way to crush my self-delusions about our long fated love affair and my apparently groundless hopes for a future with the man. I hid my disappointment easy enough due to the start of school and the restart of my teaching job at the zoo.
While Sam could not say that he had missed school, I could definitely say that I was glad to be back at work. It was nice to return to a routine of the familiar and the happy. Sam and I slipped right back into our routine of school and work. I dropped Sam off at school and then went to work. After school, Sam took the bus to my parents’ house and stayed with my mother until I could pick him up after I got off work.
Thank God for my parents. This was a mantra that had played in my mind for years, but played with even more fervor since I had a child that needed more care than a working single mother could give. Sometimes Sam and I stayed for dinner, and other times we went home and fixed dinner for just the two of us. There was homework in the evenings for Sam and lesson plans and research for me. After the work, came the play which could be anything from TV to video games, to bonfires in the backyard. It was a settled and happy life for the two of us. If at times, I wished that we shared our happy routine with a third member, then it was my problem.
We’d been back into our normal lives, as I often thought of the school year, only a few weeks, when Sam asked me, “Mom, could Matt come over on Friday to spend the night?”
I glanced over at him as he’d waited until we were in heavy traffic to ask me this particular question. “Well, I don’t know, Sam. What have the two of you cooked up?”
I could not see him as I kept my eyes on the road, but I was pretty sure he rolled those beautiful blue eyes of his. “Mom, why do you always think that Matt and I have these crazy plans?”
I laughed at that. “Because son, I have known you and Matt since you were born, and the two of you have been coming up with these crazy ideas since you both could walk and talk.”
Sam gave a long suffering sigh, “MOOOOOMMM! So can Matt come over or not?”
I chuckled at his exasperation…so typical. “I’ll call his mother after dinner tonight and see if she thinks it’s okay. If she says yes, then I say yes too.”
Sam punched his fist into the air. “Yes!!! Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re quite welcome. Besides if Matt comes over, then he can entertain you, and I can have a little alone mom time. Who knows? Maybe I can watch a movie or read one of the books that I’ve been dying to read?”
I felt the eye roll…uh oh. “Mom, that’s so boring. I was thinking that maybe you could-you know have a date or something.”
If we had not been jockeying in bumper to bumper traffic, I would have stomped the brakes and glared. But as the real world was as it was, I just kept my eyes on the road and crept along. “Sam, how would I go on a date when I’m responsible not only for you but also for Matt? There is no way I would leave the two of you alone in the house or anywhere else for that matter.”
“I know, Mom, but maybe you could invite Heath over to eat dinner and watch that movie with you?”
I cleared my throat. “Uhhhh, well, it’s nice of you to offer Sam, but I think that I’ll pass. If I wanted to go out, I have plenty of sitters who could keep an eye on you. So if it’s all the same to you and Matt, I think I’ll stay home with just the two of you on Friday night.”
Sam slumped farther down into his seat and grumbled, “I guess, if that’s what you want.”
I nodded thinking yes that’s right; it’s what I want.
Sam’s miffed attitude lasted all of about 20 minutes after we got home. I broke him down when I popped a sheet of chocolate chip cookies into the oven while I whipped up sliders for a quick dinner.
I turned from the stove to look at Sam, who was seated at the kitchen table and bent over his homework. It amazed me how even at his age, there was so much homework to do. This year he was in the first grade. How could time be moving so fast when once a single day had seemed endless? Tonight Sam had a story to read for literature, a worksheet on parts of speech, five math problems, and he had to take in a family heirloom to talk about in class the next day which also happened- thank goodness- to be Friday.
“How’s the homework coming little man?”
Without looking up, he shrugged, “It’s okay. I’m working on math right now, and I’m almost finished. Will you check them for me when I’m done?”
“Of course, I will if I can check them after we eat.”
Sam looked up then with a grin on his face. “Sure, Mom. Besides I’m hungry!”
I laughed, “Of course, you are! What’s new about that?” I reached in the oven and pulled out the cookies as we continued to banter back and forth. I put the cookies on a plate and put the plate on the table.
Sam looked at the cookies and then at me with hopeful puppy eyes. “Can I have one?”
I held up my finger. “Just
one for now; then you can have some more after you eat dinner. Deal?”
“Deal,” Sam chanted even as he reached for a still warm from the oven cookie.
That night after the food was eaten, the kitchen cleaned, and the sleepover arranged, Sam and I were still trying to finish up his homework. We were stuck on his last assignment, to take in a family heirloom.
“Sam, what’s wrong with taking a piece of the silverware? It’s been in our family for five generations…you will be the sixth. That’s a pretty good heirloom,” I campaigned.
Sam looked at me with disdain. “Mom, I don’t want to take a fork and tell everyone how that’s so important to our family. That’s so lame.”
I pretended to think about this. “Well, our family has always really liked to eat.”
“Mom! Don’t we have anything else?”
“Well, I do have some heirloom jewelry, but that is way too expensive and delicate to take to school.”
Sam looked dejected. Then I had a stroke of brilliance. “Tell you what, buddy; let’s go up to the attic. It’s still filled with lots of my Grammy’s things, and I am sure there are lots of family treasures up there.”
Sam jumped up with renewed enthusiasm, “Awesome, Mom, a treasure hunt!”
Of course, we would be searching for buried treasure, and who knew? Maybe we would find some. The attic stairs had been fixed up with the rest of the remodeling projects, and better lighting had been installed. Thank you, Mike, for those suggestions; otherwise the two of us would have been in a world of trouble as we headed up to the attic at this time of night.
The attic was full of trucks and boxes of things. Sam dove right into the trunks; I suspected because they resembled treasure chests. I chose another trunk near him. We plundered through the boxes, and every once in awhile, Sam stopped to question me about something he had found. The chest I was going through held old photos and some old baby clothes that had belonged to someone long before my father. I moved things around until I came upon a box at the bottom of the trunk. I pulled it out. I really could not tell why except that it seemed important to me that I look inside the box. Something important was in that box; I was sure of it!
The box itself was carved with images that were difficult to see under the layers of dust that had aged the box. It appeared to be made of some type of wood and in pretty good condition. There were no hinges on the box, so I ran my fingers around the lid and found a groove that allowed me to work the top off the box. I held my breath somehow desperate for the contents that would soon be before my eyes, and then, “Humph.”
Sam paused in his digging and looked up at me, “What’s wrong, Mom?”
I shook my head at my own foolishness. “Nothing, Sam, I just thought this box might be something special, but it’s only some letters.”
The letters, there looked to be about six, were yellowed with age and tied together with a length of frayed and faded blue ribbon. The letters had been special to someone once, and now for probably generations, they had been tossed aside into the great abyss of unimportance. That felt wrong to me, and I resolved to take those letters down with me and to read them when I found the time. After all, it would be like having a conversation with a family member from the past. Who knew what things I might learn about the family? My musings were interrupted by Sam’s victory cry. I looked up and saw that he had come up with military medals. Upon future inspection of the trunk, we discovered that they were my grandfather’s medals from his service in France during World War II. Sam had hit upon his treasured family heirloom, and it was fitting that they came from my grandfather, a man of whom I too had only ever heard stories about. He had died a rather young man. So with each of us carting our spoils of treasure, we made our way back downstairs and into the bright light of modern history and present day hearth and home.