What the fuck did I do?
I didn’t want to regret what had just happened. Regretting it would mean it was a mistake, that we’d done something wrong. And what happened between Charlotte and me . . . felt the opposite of wrong. Nothing had felt that right in longer than I could remember. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t stupid.
One night.
Charlotte was not a one-night type of woman, and even though that’s what we’d said, I’d only be hurting her more in the end. Now that the blood had left my engorged cock and returned to my brain, I was painfully aware of that.
For the last nine nights, since the first night I’d held her until she’d fallen asleep, I’d made a point of going to bed after Charlotte. No matter how exhausted I’d been, I’d waited until she was out cold and then pretended to fall asleep on the couch. It was the least I could do to keep the small distance between us. But picking up my laptop and pretending to work after what we’d just done felt like a shitty thing to do. Awkwardness hit after we both finished changing for bed.
Stalling, I took a towel to my wet head as Charlotte climbed into one of the two queens in the bedroom. When I started rummaging through my suitcase to buy more time, she sighed loudly.
“Are you going to take all your clothes out and refold them in order to avoid coming to bed with me?”
Of course, she knew.
I chuckled and grabbed a T-shirt before going to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know where I should sleep.”
She grinned. “You don’t say . . .”
“Wiseass.”
“Get into bed, Reed.” She pulled back the covers. “And in case there’s any doubt . . . I mean this one.”
There was actually no place else that I would rather have been in the world. And screw it—one night was more than an hour in the bathroom. She didn’t have to ask a second time. I walked over to the light switch and flicked it off before joining her in bed. Positioning ourselves felt as natural as touching her always did. I lay on my back, and Charlotte snuggled into the crook of my shoulder. My arm wrapped around her, and my hand stroked the top of her hair.
After a few minutes she said, “Do you believe in God, Reed?”
For months after my diagnosis, I’d contemplated that exact question. I wasn’t sure I did. But then I’d realized I was afraid to not believe, which meant that I actually did believe there was something to be afraid of.
“I do.”
“Do you believe in heaven?”
“I think so.”
“Do you think dogs are there?”
I smiled in the dark. Typical Charlotte. I’d figured we were entering into a philosophical discussion about the existence of heaven and hell, and she was worried about where dogs go. “I do. Is there a particular one that you’re worried about?”
“Who?”
“My old dog. He died when I was seventeen. His name was Richard Stamps.”
“Was he named after someone?”
“Sort of . . .”
From her reluctance, I knew there was a story there. One that would be uniquely Charlotte. “Spit it out, Darling. Where did he get his name?”
“Would that be a capital D or a small d?”
“After the bathroom, we’re not going to mention anything involving small d.”
She giggled. God, I love that sound.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” she said.
“Absolutely not.”
She swatted at my chest. “When I was in kindergarten, we learned the Pledge of Allegiance. Since we were just starting to read and a lot of the words were big, the teacher taught it to us one line at a time. I was really proud that I’d memorized it. So one night, I unscrewed the flag my parents had in a flagpole on the porch and stood after dinner to show off how smart I was.”
“Go on . . .”
She sat up in bed. It was dark, but I could see her hand go to her chest. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for Richard Stamps, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
I cracked up. “You thought for which it stands was Richard Stamps?”
“My parents thought it was amusing, too. It sort of became our little inside joke. Whenever my dad would say to my mom, ‘What was that guy’s name we met at the party the other night?’ my mother would say, ‘Richard Stamps.’ So when my parents surprised me for my seventh birthday with a puppy, his name was obviously meant to be Richard Stamps.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you mocking me?”
I laughed. “Richard Stamps is in heaven, Charlotte. I’m pretty sure all the other dogs with names like Spot and Lady are jealous of his cool name, too.”
Charlotte lay back down. This time she rested her head over my heart. “I hope he’s with Mom.”
“He is, beautiful. He is.”
She was quiet for a long time after that. I’d started to think she’d fallen asleep. But she’d apparently been thinking about more than Richard Stamps. “Why would God let someone so young die?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that very question. And the answer is, I have no idea. I’m not sure anyone really has that answer. But I like to think that maybe heaven is a better place than here and death isn’t always a punishment, but sometimes it’s a reward to put people out of their pain.”
Charlotte tilted her head up to look at me. “Wow. That’s a beautiful way to think about it.”
I cupped her cheek with my hand. “Lydia is in a good place. It’s harder for the people who are left behind.”
“I can’t even imagine what my brothers are going through. I feel like there’s a hole in my heart, and I didn’t even get to make memories with her.”
Her sentiment lingered in the air.
I kissed the top of her head and squeezed her. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll make arrangements, and it’ll be a long day.”
She yawned. “Okay.”
Right as I started to doze, she whispered, “Reed? Are you asleep?”
“I was . . .”
“I just want to say one more thing.” She paused. “I think it’s better to spend years treasuring a memory that might hurt sometimes than to never make one at all.”
People loved her. Men, women, young, old, it didn’t matter.
I watched from the back of the reception room as Charlotte spoke to an older couple. The only people she’d met before the wake began had been her two brothers. Yet today, as people came to offer their respects at the funeral parlor, everyone knew her and walked away with a smile after a couple of minutes of small talk.
I’d started the day standing by her side, wanting to be near her if she needed my support. But after a while, I wandered off to give her privacy with her newfound family. Charlotte’s adoptive mother had flown in last night to support her daughter. We’d had a late dinner and then dessert at a different restaurant that her mother had read about in a magazine on her flight, which was enough time to realize that Charlotte’s quirkiness came from nurture in the nature versus nurture battle.
Nancy Darling walked over to the row that I sat in. She slipped an untied silky scarf from around her neck and used it to wipe off the clean, empty seat next to me before sitting—something I’d noticed she’d done before she took any seat.
I pointed my chin at Charlotte. “She seems to be doing well. How are you holding up?”
“It’s odd to be here, but I’m fine. I’m glad that I got a moment alone with Lydia before it got too busy. I had a lot to thank her for.”
I nodded. “I wasn’t sure how Charlotte was going to handle today. She had a tough week. But she seems good, too.”
“Ah. Rookie mistake. You’ll learn,” Nancy teased, only she wasn’t really kidding. “Don’t let the smile on my daughter’s face fool you. It’s not the emotion she shows during a trying time that makes me worry about her.”
I squinted at Charlotte, watching her smile yet again. It looked like she was okay. “What do you mean?”
Nancy hesitated. “You two seem close, and since you work together, you’ll be around her a lot more than I will. So perhaps you can keep an eye on her for me.”
“Okay . . .”
“I’m not sure you’re aware, but Charlotte has some latent abandonment issues. It’s not uncommon in adopted children. But how each person’s anxieties manifest can be very different. Abandonment is a trauma and causes post-traumatic stress disorder—most people don’t realize that.”
“I didn’t realize she suffered from any long-term issues,” I said.
“Everyone has issues. Charlotte just has a tendency to bury hers and then act impulsively to avoid feeling what she’s really feeling.”
Fuck. Impulsively. Like going from crying to wanting to have sex in the shower.
“The hardest time for people who suffer a loss is usually after everything is over,” Nancy said. “No more hospital vigils or family bonding together. Everything gets buried—literally and figuratively. Then everyone around you goes back to normal, and you’re not ready yet. That’s when I’ll worry most about Charlotte.”
“What can I do to help?”
Nancy patted my leg. “Just be there for her. When the person who is supposed to be there most for you in life leaves you behind, you tend to be a little skittish. Her relationship with that jackass, Todd, didn’t help reassure her that people stick around, either. The best thing we can offer Charlotte is continuity—be reliable when she needs us most, in whatever form that may be.”
