24. Jaxson
TWENTY- FOUR
Jaxson
B en and I and enter the house with determination, ready for anything, but find Rachel and Shelby gone.
Sylvia rushes over to us and whispers, “They went outside to the jacuzzi!” scanning Ben’s dry body and having no clue where he was or what to do. I shoot a glance to the arts and crafts room and find Laura standing in its doorway.
"Where is Willow?” she asks with a friend’s worried frown.
I answer for my son, "I don't know. Ben was in the shed, getting some tools he needed. You haven’t seen her?”
She looks at his empty hands. “No.”
Ben swears under his breath, and I cover for him, “He put them in his truck."
"That girl is crazy," Dax snaps, racing down the stairs into the main room. "She rifled through my suitcase! I think she thought it was Willow’s!”
My wife and I heard Shelby's car racing up to Sunflower, and we got dressed as quickly as we could, but not fast enough. We arrived right as she was coming downstairs so she must have investigated Willow's room first. She didn't know if Willow had a private room or not, and since Laura is the only one with the private room and was downstairs in the arts and crafts room, she probably investigated both the rose room and the one Laura is in, the lavender orchid room — both with their doors open in all probability. I’m sure she wouldn’t have had the balls to knock on doors. Or did she? “I’m sorry to have to say this, but you might want to go and check out your room.”
Laura disappears upstairs in a flash as Dax walks up to us, heavy eyeliner fixated on Ben. "Is she okay? Is my roommate okay?”
I answer, “She's relaxing in the jacuzzi. Why wouldn't she be okay?”
"Because Michelle and Marco were in there probably getting some action, so I don't think that she would've gone back out! Are you saying she went back out to the hot tub when they were clearly interested in each other and we all left them alone to give them some space?"
Now it's my turn to want to swear under my breath, but I keep it together. Dax has an aggressive nature that spurs my own. "I didn't see her. So I don't know where she is. It was a guess. ”
Sylvia offers, “Maybe she went out to build a fort like Ben and the kids used to do when they were little."
Ben starts laughing, the tension of the moment and her sarcasm getting to him. Suddenly, the front door flies open behind us and in rush my daughter-in-law and wife, the latter looking more relaxed than when we arrived. It must have gone well out there. Our plan to divert attention, successful.
"Where were you?" Shelby demands.
Ben grunts, “Let's take this outside."
"I don't wanna go outside!"
Dax uses their irritation as fuel. “We’re having a retreat here! Stop being such a crazy bitch!”
“How dare you talk to me like that!”
“You went through my things! Every time you’ve shown up, relaxation has ceased to exist!”
“What are you, a poet?”
“Nothing rhymed in that.”
I hold up my hands between them, cutting off Ben from saying something we never get a chance to hear. “Okay, no need to call our daughter-in-law names.”
Rachel quickly adds, “They’re going through an ending and?—”
“—I don’t want to go through an ending!”
Dax snaps, “You’re clearly alone in that!”
Sylvia groans, “Oh my God.”
Rachel takes Shelby’s hand, guides her to the door. “This isn’t the place. Outside. All four of us.” She shares a look with me and Ben, and we follow as Shelby releases curse words that would have made Grams blush. As soon as we’re on the porch we’re joined by Michelle and Marco, both wrapped in their own towels, followed by Willow in a wet robe. I note that her towel must’ve been taken upstairs, earlier, and hope that Shelby doesn’t put two-and-two together. She does.
“Where’s your towel?!”
“I forgot to bring one.” Willow says, adding, “Why, did you want to borrow it?”
I hold back a smile.
“You folks go inside. Sweet dreams,” My wife says to her guests, adding, “We’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and Sylvia is inside if you'd like some tea to bring up to your rooms."
Willow smiles, “Tea sounds nice, thank you,” and follows the other two guests in. We wait until the four of us are alone, and Ben is the first to speak as soon as the door gently shuts. "Shelby, what do you think you're doing?”
“Me? You left our son at home alone!"
"We're out in the middle of nowhere, and I left him a note to call me if he needed anything. I just came back to return Dad’s tools.”
She glares at him. "Is that why I didn't see you? You were in the shed? "
"Yeah I guess so! And I didn't check in with you. Because it never occurred to me that I would have to. Or that you would be here. I already told you that they refunded everyone’s money because of what happened between us. Why did you come back here? Do you have no regard for their business? For everything they've built?”
My wife takes over, “Shelby, Ben, go home.”
“Good idea!” Shelby says.
“I mean to your mom’s, Ben to his house. Our son has made it very clear it’s over and your antics, while seemingly designed to keep him, are having the opposite effect.”
“What do you know about it?”
I answer, “She has eyes.”
Shelby stares from me to Rachel. “You hate me. Why do you hate me? You’re the reason he wants a divorce!”
Ben growls, “You’re the only reason!”
I step in, literally walking up to her, lowering my volume and the depth of my voice to authoritative don’t-mess-with-me. “You can spin this in your own mind any way you want but for years you have kept our son and our grandson from us and the entire Cocker family and if you can’t hear it’s over from him, hear it from me. It’s over. Your free ride is done. You have nothing left here.”
Rachel grabs my arm, and corrects me, “If you keep this up, Shelby! If you keep this up, you’ll have nothing left! Is that what you want? You want to be completely ostracized? These tactics are blowing up in your face so you can either change them or keep blowing up our connection to you with every action you take until there’s nothing left for holidays, for Jonny’s graduations, wedding, everything that will come! Be reasonable. See someone if you have to.”
“See someone? My attorney?”
“A therapist,” Rachel gently offers.
“I don’t need a therapist!”
“When enough people think you might, might you not consider it?”
“Fuck you!”
“Okay,” I growl, lifting Shelby up and carrying the little nut-case to her car. “Never, and I mean never, swear at my wife again!”
I set her down and Ben is at my side. “I’ve got this, Dad.”
“You need a restraining order for this one.”
“For this one?!” Shelby shouts, and Rachel rushes up.
“Shelby! Look at yourself!”
Our daughter-in-law is stunned at the sharpness in Rachel’s voice, the anger in my own, and she is completely speechless now, the idea of a restraining order sinking in. “Fine! I’m going! And I’m taking my son with me!” She jumps into her car, the keys having been left in the ignition since we're in the country, so it starts up in a flash. Ben is already at his truck, intent on stopping her, and the two make so much dust fly on their exit any tornado would be jealous.
Watching them and waving the dust from her eyes, Rachel sighs, “I wish I could go back in time and not give him my blessing to marry her. I knew back then that he was rushing. That it was a knee-jerk reaction to what it happened with him and Gabriel. He was trying to prove himself, that he had found the one. But she is not the one. Oh Jaxson! What's going to happen?"
Alone now, I confide what I saw to her. “When I found them, they were making out in the shed.”
“They were?! Oh thank God you thought to look!”
“They had two sunflowers in their hands. They weren’t cut with scissors. Roots and all, Rachel.”
"Two sunflowers pulled from the ground? Do you think they were both from him?"
“Yeah. Of course. She doesn’t know the story.”
When Rachel and I were little kids, on the day of our first kiss, I had yanked a sunflower from the hard soil and handed it to her, roots and petals bouncing as we ran away from some guy who caught us. Because of this, sunflowers were her bouquet at our wedding, and then the name for this place — our favorite flower.
Ben knows the story, so that he would give them to Willow tells us all we need to know.
"He never gave one to Shelby," Rachel reminds me. But there's no need because I'm very aware of it. I always thought, back then, because he loved that story so much, that he would give a sunflower to his bride. To the woman he loved. I remember thinking it when we were met Shelby, but he didn't tell me the story of doing that, because he didn’t ever give her one that I know of. I didn't press because I figured he had forgotten.
Thoughtfully, Rachel says, “He just met Willow!”
"When I first met you, I told Jimmy that I was gonna marry you one day.”
My wife's beautiful eyebrows rise. “You did? You never told me that"
"I did."
"Did you tell Jett?”
“Remember, he was Jerald then, and no. I thought he would've laughed at me. Which he would’ve.” I pull my wife close, feeling hopeful for our son. "I don't know how he's gonna make this happen, but I hope he does. I like her."
"So do I.” But Rachel adds with a sigh, “I'm worried, Jaxson. Shelby isn't in her right mind.”
"Let's go home. We have to trust he has this.”
"I wish we could help.”
“Me too. We’ll do anything we can.”
“Yes.” She takes my hand and I lead her to our truck, open the creaky passenger door, and let her use my hand for support as she climbs up. “I wish I knew what was happening over there. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.”
I shut her door, feeling the exact same way. Willow appears on the porch, tip-toeing. Upon seeing us, she stops cold.
“Oh! I heard cars leaving. I thought…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Willow,” I tell her. “It’s just us.”
“I just wanted to get our sunflowers.”
My head cocks to the side. “ Our sunflowers?”
“Yes, the ones you put on the shelf. I want to put them in some water.”
I repeat, confused, “ Our sunflowers?” believing they were for her.
“Ben and I both picked each other one.” Tightening her robe, self-consciously, she adds, “I hope it’s okay. I did it on a whim and didn’t realize I shouldn’t just yank out flowers that don’t belong to me.”
Rachel has opened the window to listen, and asks through it, “Willow, are you saying you picked them together? Why would you wonder if you could? If Ben did it, you know it’s alright. And of course it is. We have hundreds of them!”
Our guest, and the object of our son’s as-yet-unknown intentions, steps forward to the edge of the porch to be heard better, her pretty grey eyes glancing between me and my wife. “After he threw pebbles at my window, I ran down to meet him and I picked one. But then when I saw him around back, he had picked one, too!”
I look over to see Rachel covering her mouth with her hands. “He threw pebbles!?” She throws the door open and jumps down, saying to me, “Honey, I think Silvia wanted to have some tea. Remember how she said that. Won’t you join us, Willow?”
She gives my hand a quick squeeze, passing me with excitement to learn more about the girl who brought an old romantic story back from the past to bring hope to our future.