Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (17 page)

Dru brushed her fingers across Vivian’s memory book. She’d found it in the bureau beside her friend’s bed at Harmony Grove. She couldn’t believe she’d never seen it before. When Sally’s father mentioned it earlier, from the look on Brad’s face, neither had he. His picture was on the cover, dressed in his Savannah PD uniform, smiling and shining bright with his new beginning far away.

For a woman who’d shied away from outward expressions of affection, Vi had gone all out making a careful record of how much she’d cared.

You’re as much family to me now as my grandson.

Dru had already flipped through the pictures and news clipping–filled pages. Vivian had been so proud of Brad . . . and of Dru. Both of their accomplishments had been privately celebrated—Dru’s in Chandlerville and Brad’s in Savannah.

“Horace told me,” Brad said from the doorway to Vivian’s hospice room.

Dru looked up, staying put on the carpeted floor beside Vi’s Christmas tree, loaded with the vintage ornaments Vivian had loved so much. Each treasure had been carefully stored away each January, wrapped in tissue and sorted by size and color. Vivian had had a blast a few weeks ago, bossing around Dru and Brad and anyone else who’d play along, telling them where to hang each ornament on the tree. And then having them reposition things over and over, until she’d been satisfied. It had taken days. She’d only been up for a few minutes of it at a time. But she’d loved every moment of it, remembering out loud to anyone who’d listen how each ornament had come to her.

Brad knelt in front of Dru. He covered her hand where it lay over his photo. “Horace said there are as many pictures and stories about you in here as there are of me.”

Dru nodded, and she loved Brad for understanding, for knowing where to find her. She loved him, period. There was no way around it, no matter what she’d said last night about not wanting forever.

“I guess I never really believed I was that important to her.” She opened Vivian’s memories, flipping to news articles about both of their radKIDS programs. “I never realized . . .”

He sat beside her and eased the book closer. The two halves of it rested on their side-by-side thighs. “It’s easier not to look too closely sometimes. But it’s clear how much she loved you. Throwing us together and leaving you the house wasn’t just about matchmaking to her, or business or one last run at making mischief. Vi was proud of you, and she wanted you to know it. She wanted you to be happy.”

Dru sighed. “I’ve had weeks to get ready for this, but I think that makes it harder somehow.”

“For us,” he agreed. “Not for Vivian. She finished everything she’d started in this world, mostly thanks to you. You got me home. You’re why I stayed. She knew I would. Giving her what you did by agreeing to her crazy scheme for us was an incredible gift. She may have manipulated us into it, but she died knowing she’d given us a second chance.”

Dru leaned her head against his shoulder.

But a second chance for what?

“Did you really stay away from Chandlerville,” she asked, “because you thought it would make things better for me?”

“At first.” He started flipping pages, studying each one the way Dru just had. “Then it got to be better for me not to see you doing so well, and not caring that I wasn’t a part of it.”

“I cared.” Why else would she have worked so hard to be everywhere he wasn’t, each time he came home? “So did Vivian.”

“So it would seem.” He flipped the book closed and set it under the tree. “What about now, Dru? We know we can do this together, the work part anyway. Does that make things easier for you, or harder? You didn’t let me hold you this morning, when Horace called about Vivian. You left the hospital without me. Did we get it right, keeping our distance so things wouldn’t be this difficult for you?”

“Not being friends was easier for a long time,” Dru said. “But now . . .”

She kissed him. She’d always want to when he was this close. She smoothed her hand down the stubble he hadn’t shaved away before driving to the hospital.

“You belong in this town, Brad. You’re good for it, just like Vivian and your grandfather were. I’m so sorry I’m the reason you gave it up.”

“I’m not.” He kissed her back. She could taste his tears, mingling with hers. He rested his forehead against hers. “It gave us time to grow up and figure out what comes next.”

She watched him stand, leaving her and Vivian’s memories beneath the tree.

“What?” She watched him walk to the door. “What’s next?”

“What Vivian and my grandfather would have made for themselves, whether they’d stayed in Chandlerville or not.” He turned back, the hallway lights casting him in morning shadow. “What I think Vi and Horace had at the end. I know where my home is now. It will always be you, Dru. No matter how far away I live, or how long we stay gone from each other again, it will always be you. All I need to know is if you can love me enough again to take that same chance on me.”

They gazed at each other, across the room where they’d cared for his grandmother together.

And then he was gone, leaving the decision about their future together up to Dru.

Chapter Eleven

“You can’t do that,” Sally said to Lisa Sunday morning. “You don’t even know who he is.”

Lisa shouldn’t have said anything about meeting Matthew. She’d promised him she wouldn’t. He’d said no one would understand. Like his parents hadn’t, and that’s why they’d never driven him to Chandlerville the way he’d promised they would. Now he was coming on his own. And if Lisa’s foster parents knew, they’d keep her from meeting him. Just like Sally was trying to keep Lisa from going now.

“I do know who he is,” Lisa insisted.

She and Matthew had e-mailed back and forth forever.

They’d instant messaged, but only when Lisa could on the computer at home, because she didn’t have a phone that would do it. She’d seen his photo. She’d scanned and sent him hers from the place in town that let you pay to scan and e-mail. That way the Dixons wouldn’t see her doing it. Not like the spoiled kids in town who had all kinds of computer stuff in their own rooms, and no one ever bothered them about what they used it for.

That’s what Matthew called the kids like Simon who would never be Lisa’s real friends because she was different. They were spoiled and thought they were better than kids like Lisa, kids who could never do or have everything perfect the way everything was for Simon and his perfect friends.

Matthew didn’t think he was better than Lisa. She’d been so scared when she’d sent her picture that he wouldn’t want to meet her after he’d seen what she looked like, and after how long it took her to send it to him. But he’d said she was pretty. He’d said it was cool, her breaking the rules and finding a way to do what he’d asked her to. She was mature, he’d said, not spoiled like the other girls in her class and his in Atlanta.

That’s why he’d finally found a way to get to Chandlerville this morning, even without his parents’ help, so he could see her for real. All Lisa had to do was slip away from the Dream Whip and meet him.

“I know Matthew,” she said again. She finished wiping the sticky stuff off the last of the ketchup bottles. It was her job every Saturday morning.

“You know who he
says
he is online,” Sally argued.

She’d stood up for Lisa after the football game. Which Lisa had thought was so cool, until Sally started sounding so stuck-up and spoiled, talking bad about Matthew.

“He’s my friend.” Lisa shoved the tray of ketchup bottles away and dragged the gross-looking mustard ones in front of her. She’d clean those, and then she was leaving. “And he’s my age. What’s the big deal?”

Sally was jealous—that’s what Matthew had said a lot of girls were when they treated each other bad. Sally wished she had a guy like Matthew coming all this way just to meet her—not the same boyfriend she’d had since she was in elementary school, who kept fighting with her about the same things. Matthew had never fought with Lisa. He never made her feel stupid, the way Sally was now.

“He
says
he’s your age.” Sally slid the mustard tray away. “He
says
he’s coming from Atlanta. For all you know, it’s another kid in your class, some boy like Simon, playing a joke on you. Or worse.”

Lisa slammed down the mustard bottle she’d been cleaning. A squirt of yellow shot out and landed on her new white sweater—the one Mrs. Dixon bought for her to wear for Thanksgiving dinner and had said to keep special for Christmas, too. Lisa had wanted it to be special for Matthew. Now it was ruined, because Sally wasn’t her friend at all.

“So I’m a joke?” Lisa wiped at her sleeve with a napkin and smeared the mustard more. “I’m so weird and so stupid and in trouble all the time, why would a boy want to come see me?”

It made Lisa feel like she was going to throw up.

Actually, she’d felt that way ever since Matthew had said he was really coming. He was supposed to be studying at the library all day. Instead, he was taking MARTA and then a bus to Chandlerville, as long as Lisa promised not to tell her parents. She had to come alone, so she didn’t get him into trouble.

Or was it because he was embarrassed to be seen with her? Or was he really someone she knew, like Sally said—some kid, waiting to make fun of Lisa and then tell his friends, so they could all laugh at her?

Sally leaned across the table. “I don’t think you’re stupid or weird or messed up. I’m just worried. I want you to have friends.
I’m
your friend. And I’m telling you, this isn’t okay.”

“What’s not okay about meeting in the bank parking lot!”

Lisa stood up, needing to go to the bathroom, needing to cry and be sick and totally lose it, she was so freaked.

She knew not to do this. Parents said not to, and schools did, too. In radKIDS, Dru had gone over and over how kids shouldn’t put themselves at risk doing things like Lisa was going to. But if she didn’t meet him today, would Matthew keep being her friend and think she was pretty? Would he stop talking to her online because he thought she was spoiled, too?

“What bank?” Sally stood, too. She looked like she’d chase after Lisa if she had to. “When is he supposed to meet you? Tell me, Lisa.”

“So you can keep me from going?”

Sally crossed her arms and looked angry, the way she did a lot with Cade. She was tapping her toe on the ground, like she did when she was thinking. Sally was one of the smartest girls in middle school. Lisa wanted to be just like Sally one day: pretty and funny and popular and smart, and everything so easy for her. She wanted to believe Sally wanted to help her now.

But Lisa had never had anyone want to be with her the way Matthew said he did when they talked online. The Dixons and the people at Family Services said Lisa could fit in anywhere, with anyone, if she’d try hard enough. But they didn’t have ADHD like her and Matthew. They hadn’t been in four foster homes already.

They didn’t know what it was like to be a kid and never make friends because she was the one always in trouble. And who wanted trouble for a friend?

“If I don’t tell,” Sally said, “will you let me come with you?”

“You . . . You’d go with me?” Some of the sick stopped swirling in Lisa’s stomach. All morning it had scared her a little—a lot—thinking about doing this alone.

“We’re friends. Friends take care of each other and don’t let anything bad happen. That’s why I don’t like that Matthew’s trying to get you to not tell anyone and not bring anyone and not do any of the safe things I know you’re wanting to do, even though you say you don’t want to, because you’re afraid of what he’ll do if you don’t do what he wants. If he really liked you, he wouldn’t make you do that. A real friend doesn’t make you do things that scare you.”

“I’m not afraid.” Lisa tried to make her legs stop shaking. There was nothing to be afraid of. “He’s nice to me. Nicer than anyone in my class at Chandler.”

“Then let me come,” Sally said, like she really wanted to. “If Matthew’s really that nice, he won’t mind. And if he’s what he says he is, I’ll leave you guys alone. But if it’s someone from Chandlerville playing a prank on you, then you’ll have me there to help make them sorry, just like after the football game.”