Page 109 of The Calendar of New Beginnings
“Why don’t we sit in your parlor?” he suggested. “You can open it there.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, but she went ahead and sat down.
He sat down beside her, putting more space between them than usual to set her at ease.
She unwrapped the orange wrapping paper from the large white box he’d selected to disguise the shape of the gift. When she pulled back the purple tissue paper Moira had thrown into the box, she pressed a hand to her mouth.
But he heard the soft exclamation of air escape from her mouth.
He shifted on the couch. “I couldn’t reach you the other day, so I thought I’d try to speak your language. Don’t you always say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’?”
She turned and stared at him.
“Lucy, these photos are my words to you,” he told her, wanting to take her hand. “And Danny’s. He helped contribute too.”
The graceful line of her throat rippled with emotion. “You called it The Calendar of New Beginnings,” she said, tears filling her eyes.
He cleared his throat. “I thought it was a pretty greattitle, and since it’s only for you, I knew it would be okay if I used it. Our moms wouldn’t care.”
“But this is yourhouseon the front!” she said, puzzlement washing over her face. “And you and Danny sitting on the front porch? How did you do this? When?”
“I asked Moira to help me. I had some photos, and she took the ones we were missing. There are plenty of online calendar makers in case you didn’t know. I couldn’t get it finished and printed yesterday, so that’s why it had to wait until this morning.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry I put you off, but I…needed to have this ready before we talked. Lucy, I want you to understand what I’m saying about the future.”
She touched the cover then and started flipping through the calendar. “I remember this photo of us,” she said, tracing the edges of the photo he’d selected for January.
Their teacher had caught them napping together in kindergarten.
“Mom had this one,” he said, remembering how moved she’d been by his request to go through the old albums for photos of him and Lucy. “She said Mrs. Hanover thought it was the cutest thing she’d ever seen in all her years of teaching, the way we’d cuddle up together, forehead to forehead, holding hands while we napped on our colored mats.”
Her head was nodding as she sniffed. “We really were the best of friends. Even then.”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to hold it together. They were only on January.
She finally flipped the page. February put the first brush of a smile on her lips. “I always was shoving you up a tree when we were kids.”
“It’s a medical fact girls have more upper body strength than boys before puberty.”
There was a decided snort beside him. “Keep telling yourself that. I liked that you climbed trees with me.”
“You liked to, so I had to keep up. It’s what friends do.”
She sniffed again and turned the page. March showed them doing math homework on her bed when they were in sixth grade. “I think you spent more time with me in my room growing up than I did by myself.”
“That’s because we hated to be apart,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder.
“My mom took this picture,” she said, turning and narrowing her eyes at him.
Busted. “I had to go to your mother for some of the photos I had in mind, but I swear we didn’t speak. Neither of us wants to get into any more trouble with you.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder like she used to when they were kids together. “You’re not in trouble. I’m sorry you thought that. I just…had things to work out.”
He bit his tongue to keep from asking for more clarification. She turned the next page. April showed them hanging out at a high school football game.
“Personally, I don’t know what you were thinking with your hair,” he said dryly.
