Page 97 of Years in the Making

“You seem to be a bit more like yourself now,” Nelly observes as we sit across from each other on the rocks. Her water-shoe-clad feet resting alongside my bare ones.

“I’m with you, in nature, and Zoe isn’t bugging me about my health,” I say after a long sip of coffee.

Nellie sits up straighter, leaning toward me, concern etched across her beautiful face. “Your health?”

Setting my coffee down, I mirror her body position. “Let me preface this by saying that I am fine, and I have the tests to prove it.” Her eyes widen, but she says nothing. “Zoe has an aneurysm, unruptured.” I tap the back left side of my head,showing where it is. “They found it three years ago after she gave birth, but it’s small and so they opted to monitor rather than do surgery. But she insisted that Will and I get blood pressure monitors and check periodically as well as keep track of headaches.”

“I can understand that. Between your mom and now her, I’d be doing the same thing,” Nellie says. “And so far you’re good?”

“I am happy to report that my blood pressure is award-worthy, I have an MRI scan proving my brain is clear, and the only headaches I tend to get are from eye strain from reading in low light.”

“You know they have these nifty things called lamps right? They can help with things like low light.” Then she holds up a finger and reaches into her bag. “Also, these are great.” She pulls out a long U-shaped thing and clicks a button. “Well, you can’t really tell in daylight, but you wear it around your neck and there are lights here and here.” I watch as she demonstrates how this very simple reading light works, and my imagination goes to work.

Nellie, next to me in bed, reading well into the night, far too enthralled by whatever adventure she’s on to sleep. Nellie, reading to me in bed, doing all the voices like she does when she reads to kids. Nellie, wearing only that thing, moving above me. The lights pointed down, illuminating just part of her body, acting out one of our favorite scenes in The Forest of Despair series.

Cold water hits me, and I’m shocked out of my daydreaming. “Were you imagining me in just this reading light, EG?” she asks innocently.

“No!” I protest. “I was imagining you reading… in nothing but the light.”

She smiles back shyly. “Maybe if you’re a good boy today, I’ll read to you tonight in nothing but this light.”

“Don’t tease, LG,” I warn.

“I’m not teasing,” she assures me. “You.” She shifts so she’s on her hands and knees. “Me.” I freeze as she crawls slowly towards me. “No clothes.” I remain motionless even when she’s between my legs, hands resting on either side of my hips. “And a book.” Her lips are a millimeter from mine. “Heaven,” she breathes out, and I strike, grasping her head and claiming every part that I can reach.

“Teddy,” Betty calls the minute I’m out of the truck. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Have fun, kid.” George winks as he heads to the house. He’s been talking about coffee all morning, and I’m trying to figure out if he’s interested in coming to keep Joshua company or for the Nespresso.

Betty and I take a walk out to the dogs. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been helping her plan out an outdoor space where the dogs can socialize safely. When we round the corner of the barn, I see she’s been busy. Bright orange spray paint has been used to outline where future fencing will go, deep into the ground so dogs can’t easily dig their way out and nothing can easily dig its way in.

“This is going to make a huge difference,” I say, hands on my hips as I take it in, already imagining the space full of dogs.

“I spoke to Bennett last night. About this and about something else.” I look over at her and see she looks excited and nervous.

“What else?”

“You.”

“Me?”

She nods and turns back towards the house. “It’ll be winter before we know it, and Joshua’s nurse told us two days ago that she’s done traveling after October tenth.”

“That means you’ll have a lot more work.”

“It does. The thing is, Teddy, I’m not sure I want to do it.” She looks over at the dogs and back at me. “I love it, but Joshua needs to be my priority right now, and our daughter suggested we move to Timmins for a few months so we can be closer to the hospital.”

I’m starting to put the pieces together. “Is that what you talked to Bennett about?”

“I was curious about the possibility of him loaning you out for the winter. If you want to, of course. I just wanted to make sure it was something he’d be on board with before I asked you. Don’t wanna step on any toes.”

“I’m guessing he said he’d be fine with it?”

“If you were, he would be,” she says calmly.

I look over at the dogs. I could be useful here. “When would you need to know by?”

“In a couple of weeks. If you can’t, I’ll have to figure out something else. Possibly send the dogs to other rescues.”

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