Chapter 10 #2
Having recently turned seven and eight years old, Kyle and Jackson were now in second and third grades.
Both were missing teeth, and Kyle had a scab on his chin.
They were blond and freckle-faced, just as he and Jess had been at their age.
They reminded him so much of him and Jess, giving him a pang of regret and longing for the brother he’d lost so senselessly.
Kyle saw him first and came running over. “Mr. Jace, look at the picture I drew in art class today. It’s Burpy!” The little boy held up the paper with the drawing.
“I can see that. It looks just like him.”
Kyle looked up at him with big golden-brown eyes that reminded Jace of Lisa. “You really think so?”
“I do. For sure.”
Kyle ran off to find Jackson, yelling as he went. “I told you it does, too, look like him. Mr. Jace said it!”
“You really saw Burpy in that drawing?” Seamus asked, brow raised.
“I saw the start of what might eventually be Burpy.”
Seamus grunted out a laugh. “Well played, mate. Boys! Get your backpacks and go inside to do your homework and get a snack.”
With much grumbling about the stupidity of homework, the boys returned to Seamus’s truck to get their backpacks and ran inside, with Burpy following them.
“They’re like an energy tornado after being trapped in school all day.
” Seamus gestured for Jace to follow him to a barnlike structure about a hundred yards from the main house.
He rolled open a huge door and flipped on overhead lights that illuminated a vast space used for storage.
A musty smell filled the air. “Caro and I have had good intentions about cleaning out all this junk, but with the two tornadoes underfoot these days, that job is taking a lot longer than it should’ve.
We figured we should do something with the boxes that came from Lisa’s place, though. ”
He pointed to them. “The ones on the left have your name on them. The rest are hers. Caro went through it all and set aside some clothes, photos and other personal items the boys might want someday. Do you know of any family that might want the rest of her things?”
“She was estranged from her family after they told her not to marry me.” He glanced at Seamus. “Turns out they were right.”
“I wonder if they’re aware that she passed. Dan Torrington would know. He handled her estate.”
“I met him in town earlier. I could check with him and see if there’s anyone who might want her things.”
“That’d help. Thanks.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out.” Jace opened one of the boxes that contained clothes he hadn’t seen in years.
“We can put them in my truck, and I’ll give you a lift to town when I go back to work.”
“Thanks.” The two men carried the ten boxes to Seamus’s truck. “Can I ask you something?” Jace said when the last of the boxes had been loaded.
“Sure,” Seamus said, a little wary, as he always was around Jace.
“Do you know where Lisa is buried?”
Seamus nodded. “She’s in the town cemetery. I could show you if you’d like.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Let’s spend a few minutes with the boys first, if you have time.”
“I do, and I’d love to hang with them.”
They went inside to join the boys, who were seated at the kitchen table. Carolina supervised snack time, which consisted of carrot sticks and cheese cubes with milk for Kyle and water for Jackson.
“What’s this?” Seamus asked. “No cookies?”
Carolina gave him a withering look. “Not until they eat the healthy stuff.”
“Should we help them out, Jace?” Seamus asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he snagged a carrot from the napkin in front of each boy.
Jace did the same as the boys grinned at them.
“Look, Caro, the boys ate all their carrots,” Seamus said as the boys giggled. “I think that earns them a cookie.”
“You guys think you’re so sneaky,” Caro said as she gave each of the boys a chocolate chip cookie that they devoured.
“What about us?” Seamus asked of himself and Jace. “We don’t deserve cookies, too?”
“I suppose you can have one since you ate their carrots.”
“We did not!” Seamus said, making the boys giggle madly.
Their laughter was such a wonderful sound.
“You’re like an evil leprechaun,” Carolina told her husband.
“She likes to give me sweet compliments,” Seamus told Jace.
“I see that,” Jace said, amused by them.
“It’s how she tells me she loves me,” Seamus said, stealing a little block of cheese from Kyle.
“You have to be on top of your game when you’re married to an Irish charmer,” Carolina said.
“Indeed, you do, love. What’s the homework situation, lads?”
“I have a massive math worksheet,” Kyle said glumly.
“I have to do spelling,” Jackson said.
“I’ll trade you math for spelling,” Kyle said.
“No trading,” Seamus said. “Just get it done so you can play outside for a while.”
“Are you going back to the office?” Jackson asked.
Seamus nodded. “For about another hour or so, and then I’ll be home to wrangle boys.”
Jace envied him fiercely, but he’d never let on to that. How he wished he’d made better choices so he could be the one to wrangle his own sons.
“Will you come back to play again soon, Mr. Jace?” Jackson asked.
“I’d love to. You let me know when, and I’ll be here.”
“We’ll tell Seamus to text you,” Kyle said.
“Perfect,” he said, unreasonably touched that the boys wanted to spend time with him.
“Welp, we’d better get going. Mr. Jace needs to get to work, and so do I.” Seamus ruffled two blond heads and kissed Carolina on the way out the door.
“I’ll see you again soon,” Jace said to the boys.
He tossed the bike into the back of Seamus’s truck and got in the passenger side. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Woulda taken you a while to get all that stuff home on a bike.”
“For sure.”
“You got a place to keep it?”
“I just rented a room in a house in town for the off-season. I’m living with Cindy Lawry.”
“She’s good people. All the Lawrys are.”
“She’s great. We’ve known each other awhile from her coming into the Beachcomber.”
Seamus glanced over at him. “She’s to be handled with kid gloves. You know what that means, right?”
“I do.”
Seamus shook his head. “No one in this town would take kindly to someone hurting her.”
“I like her a lot. I’d never hurt her.”
“See that you don’t.”
The comment put Jace on edge, but he supposed he ought to expect a warning like that from one of the people on the island who knew his story—and Cindy’s. Right before they reached town, Seamus took a left turn that led to the cemetery. He drove through the gates and hung another left.
Jace took note of two other turns before Seamus parked along a row of headstones and got out of the truck.
“Are you coming?” he asked Jace before he closed the driver’s door.
“Yeah.” Jace followed him through several rows of stones before Seamus stopped next to a flat stone with Lisa’s name, the dates of her birth and death and the words Devoted Mother engraved below the dates.
The sight of her name engraved in stone brought tears to Jace’s eyes as he squatted for a closer look.
With his left hand, he brushed away some dirt.
“Did a lot of people come to the service?”
“Hundreds.”
“That’s good. She deserved that.” He pulled a couple of weeds near the stone. “Do you bring the boys here?”
“We’ve come a few times, but only when they’ve asked. We don’t force it on them.”
Jace stood. “They seem to be doing really well.”
“They are. Still have a rough moment or two, usually at bedtime, when the grief catches up to them. Jackson told me he’s afraid he’s going to forget her.”
“God, what did you say to that?”
“I told him he’ll carry her in his heart for the rest of his life, and even if he can’t remember every detail, he’ll never forget how much she loved him.”
“That’s nice, Seamus. Did it seem to help?”
“For that moment, but there’ll be others, and we’ll keep reminding them that their mum loved them more than anything. Because she did. They were her only concern after she was diagnosed.”
“I hate that I wasn’t here with them when that happened, that I haven’t been there for them at all.”
“I’m sure that’s a bitter pill, but you’re here now, and that’ll matter to them.”
“You have no idea what it means to me to be able to see them, even if it’s just as a friend.”
“I think I know. They’re great kids. I’d be bereft if I couldn’t see them every day.”
“You and Carolina are just what they need right now. I wouldn’t have had an answer as good as yours for Jackson.”
“I appreciate you saying so. They mean the world to us.”
“I understand this arrangement of ours is a lot to ask of you—”
“It was at first, before I had the chance to get to know you. I’m not losing any sleep over you anymore.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I wouldn’t want you to worry about me. I’m not going to disrupt their lives or yours, but I’m deeply grateful to be able to see them.”
“Their fall baseball league is starting up soon if you want to come to the games.”
“I’d love to. Thank you for asking me.”
“No problem. I’ll text you the schedule.”
“Thanks. Will they think it’s odd that a friend of yours is coming to their games?”
“I don’t think so. They like you. I could say I invited you to come, and that would be enough of an explanation for them.”
“Is it going to bite us both in the ass someday that we weren’t straight with them from the get-go?”
“I really hope not. I’m trusting my gut that this isn’t the right time to tell them the truth about you, so soon after their lives were upended. I hope I’m right about that.”
“I think you are. The truth will keep until they’re old enough to handle the full story about why I disappeared from their lives—and their mother’s.”
“Let’s hope we’re both right about that.”