Page 31 of Requiem for Love

As she hugged Theo close, stifling her cries, she heard Joel walk down the hallway. Next, his footsteps sounded on the staircase, and he came directly to the laundry room. There, he found her on the floor with Theo attached to her like Velcro.

She sat with her back pressed against the washing machine. Her tears dripped onto the back of Theo’s cotton shirt.

Joel kneeled in front of her, ran a gentle hand over the top of her twisted hair strands, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. Just as delicately, he took Theo from her arms, took her hand, and walked them back up to the owner’s suite, where he set Theo on the mattress next to a pillow.

Once he’d settled Theo, he walked her just outside the door and pressed three kisses against her forehead. Then he hugged her, and he didn’t speak until her cries became sniffles. The possibility of Theo suffering abuse right under her nose was the hardest thing she’d ever dealt with, and she’d lost a husband and both of her parents.

“Come stay with me,” Joel whispered. “That way, Theo knows I’ll always come home. He can count on me coming home. So can Josiah. And you too, Eesh.”

She barely forced the words through her lips. “Joel, did some…somebody hurt my baby?”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Then why…is this…happening to him?”

“I’ll find out.”

“What if somebody…touched him?”

“Eesh, you can’t handle the thought of that right now.” He leaned back, cupped her face, and wiped her tears with his fingertips. “I’m going to do more stuff with him, even if it’s just going to the grocery store. I know I always take Josiah, but I’ve had several courses in Theo-ology. I think I can handle it. I’ll find out what’s going on. I promise.”

“You’re one of the world’s foremost experts in Theo-ology,” she said. “And I don’t think I tell you enough how much I appreciate the way you love them.”

“You don’t have to. You show me.” He tucked a twisted strand behind her ear. “In every way, you show me how much you appreciate me.”

“Because your life is important to me. I enjoy making you happy.” She wanted them to be happy together for the rest of their lives. “And I want Josiah and Theo to have good childhoods. I don’t want them to grow up thinking I didn’t love them enough or that I constantly failed them.”

“You know my mother had the same fear?”

“The Italian Martha Stewart?”

He laughed. “Yep. As you know, I lost my grandfather when I was young, and my Nonna wasn’t exactly the affectionate type. With her grandkids, yeah, but not with her daughters. She thought being soft with them would leave them unprepared for a hard world, so I don’t think my mother hugged my Nonna until my sister was born.”

“But Jemma’s very affectionate.”

“Still, she always felt like she needed to do more. It wasn’t enough to make custom birthday cakes, throw birthday parties, or read bedtime stories. The funny thing is, all the memories I have of my mother are good ones. When I think about her, I think of her singing to me when I got my tonsils out. Or when she’d ‘fix’ my hair and kiss my cheek before I went to school. I remember her laughing more than I remember her being angry. Yet, to this day, she thinks she could have done more.”

“But what if they eventually need therapy to recover from their childhoods?” she asked.

“Babe, good parents worry that they’re not perfect. Bad parents either believe they are, don’t care, or only remember they have kids when they have a need to fulfill—attention, praise, money...whatever. And Eesh, I have great parents, yet look at all the shit you had to help me through. Theo and Josiah seeking therapy as adults wouldn’t automatically be because you failed them. You’re one part of this life. We can shield them from plenty, but not everything, and not forever.”

She smiled. “Look at you.”

“Learned from the expert.”

He leaned toward her.

She closed her eyes.

Then she felt his lips on her cheek.

She held her breath, waiting for the second kiss. It was simple, yet the first time he did it, no matter what she’d tried to tell herself, it had stolen nearly all the air from her lungs. It was the morning she gave him the pen, and she’d spent the rest of the week thinking about that simple yet unique double kiss.

He drew back and kissed her cheek, and when his mouth connected with hers, she sighed.

The sweet heat of his lips touching hers jarred her until she had to brace herself with two hands against his chest. He anchored her with his hands at her waist, and had it not been for his grip, she would have floated away.

Some things in life were simplyright—his mouth against hers, the flutter of his warm breaths over the delicate space beneath her nose, her fingers curling until she’d seized handfuls of the ribbed tank, and the way a slight head tilt gave her more room to offer him more of herself.

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