Chapter 26 Lorna Now
One late afternoon when seth returned from work, he found Lorna in the backyard with Bean and Aggie.
She was sewing Bean’s accomplishment badges crookedly onto the blue vest she’d ordered.
Bean and Aggie were working on the hole, making it bigger for a reason that Bean had explained in detail, but Lorna had lost the thread of his logic.
Remarkably, she didn’t care. She cared only that Seth had come out to join her, putting his hand on her shoulder as he moved past her to take a seat.
They sat on the steps outside the main back door, the length of their legs touching. “Those look familiar,” he said, nodding at the vest. “Unless you’ve been earning badges, those must be Bean’s.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Lorna said. “It just seemed like a real need. The only problem is that I’m not very good at sewing.” She held it up and showed him. Some of the badges were crooked. Some were not.
Seth studied it a moment. “I think you’re amazing at sewing, Lorna, and far better than me. Thank you.”
“No need,” she said crisply. “It’s my pleasure.” Surprisingly, it did give her pleasure. She could think of nothing more worthwhile to do with her time.
Bean had been arranging her Precious Moments figurines into different villages.
Each village had its own rules for entrance.
If a figurine couldn’t meet the requirements, it was put in a box until Bean could decide what to do with it.
His method had the surprising effect of clearing out her apartment.
Which was a good thing, as her apartment had looked more like a museum of broken dreams than a home. She at least owed him the vest.
“I have a question for you,” she said to Seth.
“Shoot.”
“I’d like to take Bean to visit Cho’s Drugstore. I worked there as a teen.”
“Mm,” Seth said. “Apology tour?”
“Yep.”
“What did you do there?”
“I mostly stocked and swept. But sometimes I was lucky enough to get to make ice cream cones when it was busy. The ice cream there is amazing. So are the baked goods. I thought I might treat Bean to homemade pecan pie, if that’s okay with you.
You know, for his fieldwork. I’m not sure I’m the person to help him bake a whole pie if he chooses that, but he should at least know about the option, right? ”
Seth frowned. “I don’t know... sounds like a lot of sugar. Tell you what—I’ll allow it if you will allow me to treat you and Bean to pizza. Strictly to counterbalance the sugar with cheese, you understand.”
Lorna grinned. “A proven scientific fact. But, as you know, I’m not very social.”
“Not at all,” he agreed.
“So, it would be kind of hard for me to just, like, take a slice of pizza.”
“Sorry, that’s the deal. You want Bean as a ride along, you need to commit to pizza.”
Lorna’s smile widened a little. Was this flirting? It felt a little like flirting. “Wow. Well, the pecan pie at Cho’s is amazing, so... I guess I will make the sacrifice.”
Seth grinned. “Thank you for your service.” He nudged her shoulder with his, and when she glanced up, he was smiling at her. Their gazes held for a long moment, until Lorna could feel her blush turning hot.
She was the first to look away, of course, because she was a pansy.
But she was feeling less cowardly every day.
They sat companionably for another hour or so, watching Bean and Aggie play and talking about little things.
This and that. Nothing important, just.
.. talk. Lorna knew this sort of activity existed, the sharing of one’s daily thoughts with a friend.
She couldn’t say she’d ever actually experienced it.
But that early fall evening, she did. She felt relaxed.
She felt social and, dare she think it, likable.
She felt like a person, a woman, capable of having friends, of being less awkward. She didn’t think once about her hair or what she was wearing, or fret about every word that came out of her mouth.
That’s what she told Micah the next day.
“Wow,” Micah said, nodding solemnly. “This is amazing, Lorna. I hope you appreciate how much you are opening yourself up and how far you’ve come.
Everything starts with a little introspection, and then a release of negativity, and then, before you know it, you are living in the moment and not in the past.”
“I don’t actually live in the past; I live in a bomb shelter,” Lorna corrected him.
“Ta-may-toe, ta-mah-toe, the past,” Micah said breezily. “Now the trick is to keep opening yourself up. You’ve got more work to do on your vision board,” he said, consulting his notes. “And we’d like to get you started on body meridian work this week.”
“Body what?”
Micah sighed. “Do you ever read the materials I send home with you?”
“No.”
“We’re going to do a little acupuncture and release some of the good chi in you. And then we’ll talk about attainable goals for beyond your wellness sabbatical. Sound good?”
“You know... it kind of does,” Lorna admitted.
Micah grinned. “Montreal will take you to the studio for your body meridian assessment.” He rang a little bell, and the next moment, Montreal entered the office.
Lorna hopped out of the beanbag—wearing appropriate clothing to Bodhi did seem to help her mobility—said goodbye to Micah, and followed Montreal out. “Have you ever done acupuncture, Montreal?”
“Many times,” he said cheerfully.
“For what?”
“Anxiety. Same as you.” He smiled at her. “I see that you braided your hair today.”
“So?”
“So, first came the yoga pants. Then the braid instead of the bun. I don’t know, Lorna, I think you’re loosening up and letting go. After this assessment, I predict you will really let go.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“My advice? Go with the flow,” Montreal said, and practically shoved her into the body meridian studio.
The “assessment” was conducted by an overweight woman with gray hair who remained mostly silent as she probed Lorna’s body through a thin cotton robe. When she’d finished probing, she made several notes, then announced, without preamble, “You have a lot of bad energy.”
“I do?”
“You’re very tense,” she said with a grimace. “It will require a lot of needles.”
“I don’t think I like that,” Lorna said, alarmed.
“You’ll be fine. Sign here, here, and here,” the woman added, pointing to three places on the white iPad.
Lorna hesitated.
“Sign,” the woman said firmly. “Trust me, you need this treatment.”
“Okay, fine,” Lorna said. She signed with the rubber-tipped pen.
Every time the woman—Sarah, she finally said—inserted a needle, Lorna yelped. Sarah was right. She was tense. And every time Lorna yelped, Sarah sighed as if she was being intentionally squeamish. Lorna fully intended to report her to Montreal for being less than sympathetic about this treatment.
But forty-five minutes later, when Montreal came to get her for her vision boarding, Lorna felt as easy and free as the wind. “How was it?” he asked.
Lorna laughed at the question.
Montreal’s brows rose with surprise. “We have a winner,” he said.
“We’re all winners, Montreal.”
“Okay,” he said. “This is a new side of you. She wasn’t serving drinks in there, was she?”
Lorna laughed again.
Amazingly, by the time she made it home, she was still feeling light and breezy. Like something heavy had been lifted from her. She wasn’t entirely sure where the lightness came from, but honestly, she didn’t care. The feeling was too good to question.
She walked Aggie around the block and then tossed a ball for her until Bean came home. She told him where they were going, emphasizing the pecan pie.
But Bean was confused. “Was the drugstore mad at you?” He was moving some Precious Moments figurines to their correct villages.
“Not the store, but the owner, Mr. Cho, was. Unfortunately, he died.”
Bean’s eyes widened. “Was he murdered?”
“Murdered! No, it was a heart attack or something. Why do you go straight to murder?”
Bean shrugged. “But if he’s dead, how are you going to apologize?”
“I’m going to apologize to his daughter. She runs the drugstore now.” Or she had, the last Lorna heard.
Bean frowned. “Does that count? Maybe you could apologize to his ghost.” He gasped. “What if he’s a ghost? Ja-nay’s grandmother is a ghost, and she haunts their house!”
“Yikes. I think I would move.”
“I’d make friends with a ghost. Is his daughter mad at you too?”
“Well, she was. I don’t think she likes me much.”
“Yeah,” Bean said, nodding, as if that was a given. He was a quick learner.
“But I’m still going to apologize. And get some pecan pie while we’re at it.”
“Okay,” Bean said. “I have to go to my room and get my compass.” But he paused on his way there and turned back. “What did you do?”
“Huh?”
“What is your apology for?”
“Oh. That.” Lorna bit her lip. She didn’t want Bean to be disappointed in her. “It’s sort of a long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Okay!”
When Bean had his compass, his ranger backpack with necessary supplies, and his new addition—an explorer’s hat—they gave Aggie a chew stick and set off for the fifteen-minute ride across town.
As she drove, Lorna filled him in on the night her sister took some things that didn’t belong to her and put them in Lorna’s purse.
She didn’t get to the part where she was arrested, because Bean had a lot of questions about what she’d taken and why she didn’t give everything back.
“My dad says if you do something wrong, you should try and make it right. And if you take something that doesn’t belong to you, you should give it back. ”
“Your dad is...” Lorna didn’t finish her thought. She lost the thought altogether when she realized Cho’s Drugstore was not where it should have been.