The Parting Gift(19)

Blaine raised his head to meet her eyes gazing down at him. Her words washed over him like a balm. Fifteen years was such a long time – a long time to be without love. And Blaine knew if he had only one wish that would be his too. He scanned her face for hope that what she said was true, then murmured, “I want that too.”

Mara gazed back at him, eyes glistening with her own ripe emotion. Her soft smile warmed his heart. She moved her hand to his face, caressing his cheek and tenderly brushing away his tears.

The sound of her name floating down the stairs from David’s room broke the spell between them. Mara jolted as if from a dream and stepped away from him. “Excuse me, Captain.” The next moment she was gone, leaving Blaine cold, empty and alone with his thoughts.

She was right, of course. He wasn’t being fair to his father. No matter how Blaine missed his mother, he knew his father had grieved even more. The letters were proof of that. Line after line expressed heartache in living color, to a depth Blaine wasn’t sure he had ever known, having never been in love with anything other than flying.

His father had lost a baby, someone Blaine had never known. He had lost a wife – his soul mate, according to the letters. And then he had lost his son, a completely different kind of loss, because this loss came through a choice Blaine had made. A choice which had seemed just at the time and had felt like his only option to escape the pain of home.

Selfish. That’s what it was. He had run to escape the sorrow and the loneliness he felt at home, but he had left his father with a fresh wound in his soul. If anyone should still be angry, it was the sick old man lying upstairs. Why wasn’t he? What had made forgiveness possible?

None of the letters had addressed it. In fact, the first several of them were written very differently from the more recent. His father had been angry and hurt and still grieving all of his losses. Blaine had almost given up and thrown the whole bunch of them into the stove. The guilt was so unbearable at one point, he had crumpled up the letter he was reading and threw it at the wall, cursing the old man who insisted on blaming his son for the problems between them.

At that point, Blaine had stopped reading altogether and hid the letters under his bed, allowing his own resentment to build even more – a phenomenon which made it necessary to avoid interactions with the other members of the household whenever possible. Unfortunately, there were few places in the house other than his own room to escape them, and in his tiny room there were two things to do: sleep and read those cursed letters. Reluctantly, he returned to them after three days.

Somewhere in the middle, the tone of the letters began to evolve from accusation to regret and finally, to repentance.

Having spent more than half of his life wallowing in his own misery and self-pity, the repentance was difficult for him to digest. So he had worked hard to elude Mara’s judgmental lectures, but she was nothing if not persistent. And that is what brought him to this final breaking point. Somewhere deep in his heart there seemed to be a flicker of light, growing into a slow but steady flame of hope that he could have his father again, even if only for a short time.

His father, the man who had taught him to throw a baseball in the back yard, who had carried him on his shoulders on their hikes in the mountains, who had ruffled his hair and beamed with pride when he brought home a good report card.

Blaine strode to the window and gazed out at the fresh blanket of snow. It was time to let this go. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Behind him, he could hear the creak of Mara’s return down the stairs. Her presence brought with it a peace he hadn’t felt since he was ten years old. An idea unfurled in his mind as he turned to face her.



****



The butterflies in her stomach seemed to dance more vigorously as she descended the stairs to the living room. Their unsettling conversation a few minutes ago had muddled her.

Captain Graham was standing by the front window. One of his favorite thinking places, apparently. But as she neared him, he spun around with a twinkle in his gray eyes and a broad grin, something she hadn’t seen once since he’d arrived. The sight took her breath away.

“I have an idea. How long will it take you to be ready to go tree hunting?”

“Tree hunting?”

“For a Christmas tree. It’s the eighteenth! We need one, don’t you think?”

“Well, um… I don’t know. I would have to find someone to stay with Mr. Graham. I could call Mrs. Smith, I suppose. She was planning to do the shopping today, I think.”

“Yes. Give it a try. I’m going to take the pickup into town to fill up. Can you be ready when I get back?”

“I… I think so,” she stammered. His sudden excitement about Christmas took her by surprise. This was a far cry from the man who had entered her life two short weeks ago.

He was gone in a moment, remembering for once, she noticed, to grab his coat from the kitchen as he rushed out the back door.

Smiling in bewilderment, she walked to the kitchen to use the phone. In all the upheaval of the last couple of weeks, she hadn’t thought much about Christmas approaching.

“Arlington-4277, please,” she spoke into the receiver, unable to keep the anticipation from framing her voice.





Chapter Seven





The unexpected uh-ooga of the Model A’s horn made Mara jump. It had been awhile since she’d been honked at like that. She had never been out with anyone other than Michael – not that she believed this was a date. Her stomach flip-flopped at the thought. Pull yourself together. A couple sentimental moments, and you’re turning into mush.