“Oh, yeah. Just hungry, that’s all.” Her eyes traveled across my body. “I see you don’t smell like a sewer anymore.”
My hands ran through my still damp hair. “Yeah, I took a quick shower and a quicker nap.”
She nodded and walked over to me. “Want to feed her?”
“I—no. She doesn’t…”
Lucy nodded me over to the glider chair. “Sit.” I started to protest, but she shook her head. “Now.”
I did as she told me, and when I sat, she placed the baby in my arms. The moment the exchange happened, Talon started to cry, and I tried to quickly give her back to Lucy, but she refused to take her.
“You’re not going to break her.”
“She doesn’t like it when I hold her. She’s not comfortable.”
“No, you’re not comfortable, but you can do this, Graham. Just breathe and calm your energy.”
I grimaced. “Your hippie weirdo side is showing.”
“And your fear is showing,” she countered. She bent down, placed Talon’s bottle in my hand, and helped me feed her. After a few moments, Talon began to drink and calm down, her tired eyes closing. “You’re not going to break her, Graham.”
I hated how she could read my mind without my permission. I was terrified that each touch from me would be the one that would end Talon. My father once told me everything I touched, I ruined, and I was certain that would be the case with my baby.
I could hardly even get her to take a bottle, let alone raise her.
Lucy’s hand was still wrapped around mine as she helped me feed Talon. Her touch was soft, gentle, and surprisingly welcoming to my unwelcoming soul.
“What’s your greatest hope?”
Confusion hit me at her question. “What does that mean?”
“What’s your greatest hope for life?” she asked again. “My mother used to always ask us girls that question when we were kids.”
“I…I don’t hope.”
Her lips turned down, but I ignored her disappointment in my reply. I wasn’t a man to hope; I was a man who simply existed.
When Talon was finished with her bottle, I handed her to Lucy, who burped her then laid her back in her crib. We both stood over the crib, staring down at the resting child, but the knot that had been in my stomach since Talon was born remained.
She twisted a bit with a tiny grumpy look on her face before she relaxed into a deeper rest. I wondered if she dreamed while her eyes were shut, and if someday she’d have a greatest hope.
“Wow,” Lucy said, a tiny smile on her lips. “She definitely has your frown.”
I chuckled, making her turn my way.
“I’m sorry, did you just…” She pointed a finger at me and poked me in the arm. “Did Graham Russell just laugh?”
“A lapse in judgment. It won’t happen again,” I said dryly, standing up straight.
“Oh, how I wish that it would.” Our eyes locked as we stood inches away from each other, no words finding either of us. Her blond hair was wild with tight curls, and it seemed to be her natural state; even at the funeral, her hair had been a mess.
A beautiful mess, somehow.
A loose curl fell over her left shoulder and I reached out to move it when I saw something caught in it. The closer my hand got to her, the more I noticed her tensing up. “Graham,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
I combed my fingers through her hair, and she shut her eyes, her nervousness plain to see. “Turn around,” I commanded her.
“What? Why?”
“Just do it,” I told her. She cocked an eyebrow, and I rolled my eyes before tossing in a “Please.” She did as I said, and I grimaced. “Lucille?” I whispered, leaning in closer to her, my mouth inches away from her ear.
“Yes, Graham Cracker?”
“There’s vomit all over your back.”
“What?!” she exclaimed, twisting around in circles, trying to view the back of her sundress, which was covered in Talon’s spit-up. “Oh my God,” she groaned.
“It’s in your hair, too.”
“Oh, fuck me backward.” She realized her words and covered her mouth. “Sorry, I mean, oh crap. I was just hoping to not go back into the real world covered in vomit.”
I almost laughed again. “You can use my shower, and I can loan you some clothes while I toss this into the washer.”
She smiled, something she did quite often. “Is that your sly way of asking me to stay to help with Talon for a few more hours?”
“No,” I said harshly, offended by her comment. “That’s ridiculous.”
Her grin dropped and she laughed. “I’m just kidding, Graham. Don’t take everything so seriously. Loosen up a little. But, yes, if it’s okay, I’d love to take you up on your offer. This is my lucky dress.”
“It can’t be that lucky if it has vomit on it. Your definition of luck is off.”
“Wow.” Lucy whistled, shaking her head. “Your charm is almost sickening,” she mocked.
“I didn’t mean it in…” My words died off, and even though she kept smiling, I saw the small tremble in her bottom lip. I’d offended her. Of course I’d offended her—not on purpose, but still, it had happened. I shifted around before standing taller. I should’ve said more, but no words came to mind.
“I think I’ll head home to wash it,” she said, her voice lowering as she reached for her purse.
I nodded in understanding; I wouldn’t want to stay near me either.
As she walked outside, I spoke. “I’m bad with words.”
She turned around and shook her head. “No, I’ve read your books, and you’re great with words—almost too good. What you lack are people skills.”
“I live in my head a lot. I don’t interact with people very often.”
“What about my sister?”
“We didn’t speak much.”
Lucy laughed. “That makes for a hard relationship, I’m sure.”
“We were close enough to being content.”
Her head shook back and forth, and her eyes narrowed. “No one in love should ever be anything less than content.”
“Who ever said anything about love?” I replied. The sadness that flooded her stare made me shift.
When she blinked, the sadness was gone. I appreciated the way she didn’t live too long in the emotion. “You know what will help your people skills?” she asked. “Smiling.”
“I do smile.”
“No.” She laughed. “You frown. You scowl. You grimace. That’s about it. I haven’t seen you smile once.”
“When I encounter a valid reason to do so, I’ll be sure to notify you. By the way, I am sorry, you know—for offending you. I-I know I can come off as somewhat cold.”
“Understatement of the year.” She laughed.
“I know I don’t say much, and what I do say is normally the wrong thing, so I apologize for offending you. You’ve been nothing but giving to Talon and me, which is why I’m a bit thrown off. I’m not used to people giving just to…give.”
“Graham—”
“Wait, let me finish before I say something else to ruin it all. I just wanted to say thank you for today, and for the hospital visits. I know I’m not easy to deal with, but the fact that you still helped means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
“You’re welcome.” She bit her bottom lip and groaned as she muttered the word maktub repeatedly before she spoke to me again. “Listen, I might really, really end up regretting this, but if you want, I can stop by early mornings before work, and I can come help afterward. I know at some point you’ll have to get back to writing your next bestseller, and I can watch her as you write.”
“I…I can pay you for your services.”
“It’s not services, Graham, it’s help, and I don’t need your money.”
“I’d feel better if I paid you.”
“And I’d feel better if you didn’t. Seriously. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”
“Thank you, and, Lucil
le?”
She raised an eyebrow, waiting for my comment.
“That’s a very nice dress.”
She slightly twirled on her tiptoes. “Vomit and all?”
“Vomit and all.”
Her head lowered for a moment before she looked back toward me. “You’re both hot and cold all at once, and I cannot for the life of me figure you out. I don’t know how to read you, Graham Russell. I pride myself on being able to read people, but you are different.”
“Perhaps I’m one of those novels where you have to keep turning the page until the very end to understand the meaning.”
Her smile stretched, and she started walking backward toward my bathroom to clean off the vomit. Her eyes stayed locked with mine. “A part of me wants to skip to the last page to see how it ends, but I hate spoilers, and I love a good suspense.” After she finished cleaning up, she headed to the foyer. “I’ll text to see if you need me tonight, otherwise I’ll stop by early tomorrow morning, and, Graham?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget to smile.”
The next few weeks revolved around flower arrangements and Talon. If I wasn’t at Monet’s Gardens, I was helping Graham out. Whenever I went to his house, we hardly spoke. He’d pass Talon to me then head into his office, where he’d close the door and write. He was a man of very few words, and if I’d learned anything, it was that his few words were harsh. Therefore, his silence didn’t bring me any harm.
If anything, it brought me peace.
Sometimes I’d wander by his office, and I’d hear him leaving voice messages for Lyric. Each message was an update on Talon’s life, detailing her highs and lows.
One Saturday evening when I pulled up to Graham’s house, I was somewhat surprised to see a brown station wagon sitting in the driveway. I parked my car, walked up to the front door, and rang the doorbell.
As I waited, swaying back and forth, my ears perked up when I heard laughter coming from inside.
Laughter?
From Graham Russell’s home?
“I want you to have less fat and more muscle next time I come back,” a voice said seconds before the door opened. When I saw the man, I smiled wide. “Oh, hello there, young lady,” he said cheerfully.
“Professor Oliver, right?”
“Yes, yes, but please, call me Ollie. You must be Lucille.” He extended his hand for a shake, and I gave him mine.
“You can call me Lucy,” I told him. “Graham just so happens to think Lucy is too informal, but I’m a pretty informal girl.” I smiled at Graham, who stood a few feet back, not speaking a word.
“Ah, Graham, the formal gentleman. You know, I’ve been trying to get him to stop calling me Professor Oliver for years now, but he refuses to call me Ollie. He thinks it’s childish.”
“It is childish,” Graham insisted, grabbing Ollie’s brown fedora and handing it to him pointedly. “Thank you for stopping by, Professor Oliver.”
“Of course, of course. Lucy, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Graham speaks very highly of you.”
I laughed. “I find that hard to believe.”
Ollie wiggled his nose and snickered. “True, true. He hasn’t said much about you. He’s a bit of a silent asshole in that way, isn’t he? But you see, Lucy, if I could let you in on a secret.”
“I’d love to hear any secrets and tips I can get.”
“Professor Oliver,” Graham said sternly. “Didn’t you say you have another engagement to be off to?”
“Oh, he’s getting testy, isn’t he?” Ollie laughed and continued talking. “But here’s a clue for dealing with Mr. Russell: he doesn’t say much with his mouth, but he tells a full story with his eyes. If you watch closely, his eyes will tell you the complete story of how he’s feeling. He’s truly an open book if you learn how to read his language, and when I asked him about you, he said you were fine, but his eyes told me he was thankful for you. Lucy, girl with the brown doe eyes, Graham thinks the world of you, even if he doesn’t say it.”
I looked up at Graham, and there was a frown on his lips, but also a small spark of softness in his eyes that melted my heart. Talon had that same beauty in her gaze.
“All right, old man, I think we’ve had enough of your mumbo jumbo. It’s clear you’ve overstayed your welcome.”
His grin stretched far, and he was completely unmoved by Graham’s coldness. “And yet you keep asking me back. I’ll see you next week, son, and please, less fat, more muscle. Stop selling yourself short with average writing when you are far above it.” Ollie turned to me and bowed slightly. “Lucy, it was a pleasure.”
“The pleasure was all mine.”
As Ollie walked past me, he tipped his hat, and he whistled the whole way to his car with a bit of a hop in his step.
I smiled at Graham, who didn’t smile back. We stood in the foyer for a few moments in silence, simply staring at one another. It was awkward, that was for sure.
“Talon’s sleeping,” he told me, breaking his stare from mine.
“Oh, okay.”
I smiled.
He grimaced.
Our usual.
“Well, I can go do a bit of meditation in your sunroom if that’s okay? I’ll take the baby monitor with me, and I’ll check in on Talon if she wakes up.”
He nodded once, and I walked by him before he spoke again. “It’s six in the evening.”
I turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, it is.”
“I eat dinner at six in my office.”
“Yes, I know.”
He cleared his throat and shifted around in his shoes. His stare fell to the floor for a few beats before he looked up at me. “Professor Oliver’s wife, Mary, sent me two weeks of frozen dinners.”
“Oh wow, that was sweet of her.”
He nodded once. “Yes. One of the meals is in the oven now, and she made each pan enough for more than one person.”
“Oh.” He kept staring at me, but didn’t say anything. “Graham?”
“Yes, Lucille?”
“Are you asking me to eat dinner with you tonight?”
“If you would like to, there’s enough.”
A moment of uncertainty hit me as I wondered if I was dreaming or not, but I knew if I didn’t reply quickly enough the moment would be gone in a flash. “I’d love to.”
“Do you have any food allergies? Vegetarian? Gluten free? Lactose intolerant?”
I laughed, because everything about Graham was so dry and serious. The look on his face when he listed each item was so stern and intense, I couldn’t help but giggle to myself. “No, no, whatever it is will be fine.”
“It’s lasagna,” he said, his voice heightening as if it might not be okay.
“That’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
I snickered. “Graham Cracker, I’m sure.”
He didn’t display any emotion, only one nod. “I’ll set the table.”
His dining room table was ridiculously large, big enough to seat twelve people. He set the plating and silverware at each end of the table, and he motioned for me to take a seat. It was hauntingly quiet as he served the meal, and he took his seat at the other end.
There weren’t many lights in Graham’s home, and oftentimes the shades were drawn, not letting much sunlight through at all. His furniture was dark too, and sparse. In his whole home, I was certain I was the brightest item to exist with my colorful clothing and outrageous, wild blond hair.
“The weather’s nice outside, ya know, for a spring day in Wisconsin,” I said after several minutes of uncomfortable silence. Weather talk was the blandest of bland, but it was all I could think of. In the past, that flavor of small talk had always helped ease any situation.
“Is it?” he muttered, uninterested. “I haven’t been out.”
“Oh. Well, it is.”
He didn’t comment at all, just kept eating his dinner.
Hmph.
“Have you thought about putting a garden outside?” I aske
d. “It’s the perfect time to start planting stuff, and you have such a beautiful backyard. All it would need is a bit of a trim and you could really brighten the place up.”
“I’m not interested in that. It’s a waste of money.”
“Oh. Well, okay.”
Hmph.
“Ollie seems sweet,” I mentioned, trying one last time. “He’s quite the guy, isn’t he?”
“He’s fine for what he is,” he muttered.
I tilted my head, watching his stare, applying the tip Ollie had shared with me. “You really care for him, don’t you?”
“He was my college professor and now serves as my writing coach—nothing more, nothing less.”
“I heard you laughing with him. You don’t really laugh with a lot of people, but I heard you laughing with him. I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”
“I don’t.”
“Right, of course,” I agreed, knowing he was lying. “But it did seem as if you two were close.”
He didn’t reply, and that was the end of our discussion. We continued dinner in silence, and when the baby monitor alerted us of Talon crying, we both leaped up to go check on her.
“I’ll get her,” we said in unison.
“No, I—” he started, but I shook my head.
“That’s why I’m here, remember? Finish your meal, and thank you for sharing it with me.”
He nodded, and I went to check on Talon. Her eyes were wide and she stopped crying, the tears replaced by a small smile on her face. It was what I imagined Graham’s grin would look like. As I prepared a bottle for her and began feeding her, Graham entered the room and leaned against the doorframe.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“Just hungry.”
He nodded and cleared his throat. “Professor Oliver has a loud personality. He’s forward, talkative, and full of nonsense ninety-nine percent of the time. I have no clue how his wife or his daughter put up with his ridiculousness and wild antics. For a man in his eighties, he acts like a child, and oftentimes appears like a well-educated clown.”
“Oh.” Well, at least I knew he disliked everyone equally as much as he seemed to dislike me.
Graham’s head lowered and he stared at his fingers, which he latched together. “And he’s the best man and friend I’ve ever known.”