Chapter 40 Wesley
WESLEY
Ihad planned on coming over and telling Rosie I could watch Lionel while she went out.
In fact, Megan had told her she was busy, so I would have the chance, but she was still not reading my messages.
My plan went to hell when Megan informed me that Rosie’s neighbor was on Lionel duty.
I thought that maybe, if I made my way over there for something, I could make it work in my favor.
But I sat in my car, watching her leave, and there wasn’t a single thought I could come up with to get her to stay. So I watched her go.
I didn’t know how much time passed as I sat, unsure of why exactly I was still there.
“You gonna stay out here all night?” Larry, Rosie’s next-door neighbor, asked. I’d met him in passing multiple times over the years, but we’d never really had a conversation.
“I’m unsure,” I told him honestly, still looking at the space where Rosie’s car used to be.
“Right, then. Why don’t you come on in? I’d rather not have the cops show up tonight.”
I started to argue that there was no way that would happen, but he just walked away into the dark of the night. Front porch lights and street lights were on, and I was shocked at how much time had passed.
Rosie still isn’t home. Dread curled in my gut as I followed blindly behind Larry. I kept checking over at her house, wondering where she was, not wanting to go with the obvious answer.
“Let’s have a nightcap,” he told me as we made it to his front porch. “Lionel also wants a nighttime snack that you can give him.”
“Lionel’s at your place?” I figured he was at Rosie’s by himself, and I found that it made me happier that I could at least get some bonding time with him.
“Yup. He likes the dandelions that grow in my backyard, and he’s welcome to them.”
We made our way into his house, and it had basically the same layout as Rosie’s.
The difference was in the decoration. The walls were lined with pictures of him and his wife.
Them together, them with their kids. I’d never met her, and I vaguely remembered Rosie saying something about her passing before she even bought her house next door.
“Pam,” he said.. I suddenly felt like I was intruding on private moments.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean…” He dismissed my concerns with a wave before I could finish. “I keep her memory alive the best I can. I’m happy to share her with anyone who wants to learn about her.”
“She must have been something special.”
“She was everything.” The reverence in his voice was evident.
“How’d she…” The words were out before I could suck them back in.
“Cancer. Crazy, really. Here and healthy one day, stage four the next. She fought hard, and then she just wanted to go peacefully.” Tears were evident in his eyes as he placed his fingers to one of the pictures.
“She was the better one of us. Always knew what to say. She’d know exactly what to tell you right now. But all I can offer you is a glass of whiskey, and not even the good kind.”
“I’ll take it,” I told him as I continued to look at the wall, smiling through the shared happiness that leaped from the prints.
I had an overwhelming urge to take my phone out of my pocket and flip through the pictures I had with Rosie to make sure I had enough of them.
Because the wall was a shrine to her, to her life, and it was devastating and mesmerizing.
“Here you go.” He handed me the drink as I started to feel heat build at the backs of my eyes. And I was glad for the distraction. I took a healthy gulp, thankful for the burn that radiated from my throat now. “You seem to have gotten yourself into a bit of a pickle.”
“I thought you said the only thing you could offer me was crappy whiskey.”
“And snacks for a tortoise. They are in the bottom crisper of the fridge.” I moved away from him and into his kitchen, and while it was my first time there, it was the exact layout of Rosie’s, so I had no trouble finding it.
“You love her, yeah?” Larry asked me.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” I heard the desperation in my voice. “But I really fucked it up.”
“Love isn’t about the easy. It’s about the hard, about choosing each other, even when you don’t want to.”
“I thought you said the only thing you had to offer me was this whiskey.” I continued getting Lionel’s snack ready as Larry followed me, taking a seat at the kitchen table.
“Good foundations take time to settle into what they should be, but good bones, Wesley? Those exist from the start. And when you find them, it’s often the kind of thing that only happens once in a lifetime.”
“Did your marriage have good bones?” I already knew the answer because I could see and feel the love he had for her still. Even though she was gone, it radiated in his space and any time he spoke of her.
“The best. The once-in-a-lifetime kind.” He brought the glass of whiskey up and cheersed the space between us before taking a sip.
“Cheers to that,” I told him, and I did the same. “I don’t know how to make this right,” I confided in him.
“With the foundation.”
Before I could ask him exactly what he meant by that, I heard a car coming down the street.
The lights that flickered through the windows let me know it was Rosie getting home, and I moved to where I could see.
I pulled back the curtain obscuring my view to a car that wasn’t hers making its way up her drive.
“Who’s that?” I said to the window I all but had my nose pressed up against.
“I’m going to assume Rosie. It’s her house.”
I didn’t bother responding to him, just continuing to stare out the window.
“Will you knock that off? I’m sure what you’re doing is a felony in some states,” he reprimanded.
“I’m just looking,”
“In someone else’s windows.”
“They are outside. He’s walking her to the door!” I explained to him since he couldn’t see.
“There is no need to shout. Pull yourself together.”
“I can’t see her front door from here. Do you have a window upstairs with a better vantage point?”
“Wesley, that is a felony. I’m sure of it.” I turned to look at him for a few seconds so he could see exactly how serious I was.
I turned my attention back to where I just left Rosie and her date. “I can’t see them! Where did they go?”
A knock sounded before either of us could say anything.
Rosie’s voice floated through the entryway and into Larry’s place.
I hadn’t yet had time to move from where I was looking out the window.
Rosie saw me first. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and I dropped the curtain like my hand was on fire.
“Wesley?” she questioned. I was frozen, like a kid who had gotten his hand stuck in the cookie jar.
“Oh. Uh, Wesley here was looking at my foundation…”
“Inside? At almost midnight on a Friday?”
“Cracks! There are.. Uhm… cracks…Here, in the foundation.” I pointed at a chip in the paint.
She shook her head, like she couldn’t believe the conversation she was having. And Larry was just calm and steady, drinking his whiskey. “So can you fix it?” She wanted to know.
“Yeah. Yeah, I can fix it.” I looked right into her eyes as I said it, not looking away until she did.