CHRISTIAN FELT Beth Ann’s soft lips on the back of his hand and a warmth suddenly spread through him, engulfing the hurt, washing it away.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Beth Ann shook her head, her dark eyes seeing into him and he never felt safer.
She was so close. He could feel the heat of her shoulder against his and he released his hand so that he could cup her face. Then, he kissed her, gently, his lips feeling hers experimentally. They were softer than he imagined, plumper, their landscape so different from Caroline’s. Their tentative response evoked a whole wave of conflicting emotions, and he pulled away as an onslaught of feelings swept through him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?” Beth Ann looked confused by his apology.
“For kissing you. I didn’t mean—”
“I liked it.” Her eyes spoke of something deeper, more primal than he expected of her. “I’m not sorry.”
“I didn’t mean— It won’t happen again,” he promised, his voice stiff.
Her face flushed, Beth Ann jumped up quickly.
“Beth Ann—” Christian caught her wrist.
“I’m going to start getting dinner ready,” she said as she gently extricated herself from his hold. She walked toward the swinging door, her voice overly perky. “If I don’t have something planned by the time Iris wakes up, she wants to experiment in the kitchen. It’s too hot for experiments.”
“Beth Ann.” He followed her into the kitchen.
She whirled around, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. “Don’t,” she instructed him. “It never happened, okay?”
“Mommy, I wake. I wake,” a small, groggy voice called.
Beth Ann answered over her shoulder, “Hey, there sweetie.” She looked up at him, all traces of vulnerability gone, and asked with a quick smile, “You want to go get her?”
Christian hesitated. “Do you think she’ll let me?”
“She better let you.” Beth Ann grinned, her dimples flashing at him, making him want to kiss her all over again. “You’re going to be keeping her for the next month. Two-year-olds require routines. So ask her if she had a good sleep and about her dreams. When you pick her up, hug her really close, because even though she thinks she’s awake, she’s still coming out of it.” She fixed her smile on him. “Think about how it was when you were just waking up—how your mother would give you a big smile and welcome you to the real world.”
Christian nodded, not knowing there could be a transition between the dreamworld and the real world. He never remembered his mother once giving him a big smile and cradling him close when he woke up. Never once.
“So are you game?” Beth Ann tossed him a fun look. She lifted an eyebrow and added, “I double-dare you.”
Double-dare you. The incantations of a child’s game he rarely got the chance to play.
“I could never resist a dare.” Christian chuckled, then added as he ventured down the hall, “If she’s unhappy, it’s your fault.” Beth Ann’s laughter erased the tension caused by his kiss and he was grateful.
“Mommy, I wake. I wake,” Bernie called again as Christian pushed open the door.
He glued on his most charming smile, pushing away the feelings of panic when Bernie’s little mouth turned down. He said in a gentle voice, “Hi, Bernie. Did you have a good sleep?”
“Mommy?” Bernie looked skeptical, but was too blurry from sleep to really object.
“I’m going to take you to Mommy right now. She’s in the kitchen. Did you have a good sleep?” Christian picked her up, surprised when she offered him no resistance. Beth Ann was right; Bernie was still half-asleep. She rubbed her face into his shirt.
“Good sleep,” Bernie said and yawned. She clutched his sleeve and then snuggled into his chest.
“Did you have good dreams?” he asked softly, trying to imagine how she was feeling tucked close in his arms. A little girl raised with such security. Had his father ever tucked Christian in his arms, greeted him after a nap? He sought his first memories, trying to find his father and came up without one that was even close to tender. Instead, he remembered his father rebuttoning his little blazer when he was first going to boarding school because he’d done it wrong. He’d been so young. His mother had lied, telling the school he had turned five, when in reality, he had just turned four.
Be a man now. You’re a man now. Don’t cry. Be a man.
Christian swallowed hard, not understanding why that memory leapt to his mind. He had forgotten all about it.
“Good dreams,” Bernie murmured.
He kissed the top of her head. Her curls were so soft and smelled so clean. “Good dreams. What did you dream about, sweetheart?”
Bernie looked up at him and tilted her head in thought and then said loudly, “Bang!”
“Bang? You dreamed about bangs?”
She nodded and then started talking gibberish, each sentence ending with bang and boom and bang, bang, bang.
Christian nodded, asking her questions as they made their way to the kitchen.
“Mommy!” Bernie held out her arms to Beth Ann, who took her and gave her a big kiss.
“You woke up.”
“Woked up.”
“You want some juice?”
“I’ll get it,” Christian volunteered quickly. His arms felt empty without Bernie’s weight and he wanted to do something. “What kind of juice do you want, Bernie?”
Bernie suddenly turned shy, burying her face into Beth Ann’s shoulder, then peering at him with one eye.
“What kind of juice do you want, Bern-Bern? Apple or grape?”
“You sure that you want grape? It’s purple.”
“No purppo, appo.”
“Apple juice is the brown juice.”
“Appo.”
Beth Ann gave Christian a smile. “I think she wants apple juice. But just pour a little and see if she likes it. There’s a sipper cup in that cabinet.”
“Sipper cup?”
“The plastic cup with the lid and lip.”
“Oh.” Christian was looking hard. “I’ve got it.”
“Only a little. Sometimes, she thinks she wants grape but she gets the words confused. Believe me, you don’t want to be wearing a shirt covered in grape juice because she really wanted apple. That’s why I always tell her which is which, just to make sure she knows what she’s getting.”
Christian nodded, making a mental note, wondering for the briefest of moments if he had gotten himself in over his head. It seemed there was enough to do with just Bernie. He hadn’t even begun to learn about Iris’s needs.
“It’s not that hard,” Beth Ann said, almost reading his mind. “You can feel free to back out. We won’t be any worse off.”
“But then you can’t paint.”
Beth Ann shrugged. “What it means is that I can’t paint now. I’ve got a whole life ahead of me to paint. I’d prefer to give Bernie and Iris a stable, happy home than be the most successful watercolorist out there.”
“Did you do the mural in Bernie’s room?” Christian changed the subject and handed Bernie her sipper cup a quarter full of apple juice. She drank it all down and gave him an angelic smile.
“More peas?” she asked as she handed the sipper cup out to him.
“I think she wanted apple juice.” Beth Ann laughed.
“Appo juice,” Bernie echoed.
As he went for the juice, Beth Ann answered his question, “No. Glenn did that in water-based paints. When we finally realized Carrie wasn’t going to come back, we wanted to do something to celebrate Bernie’s place in our lives.”
THE DAY WAS one of the most pleasant Christian had ever experienced. When Iris awoke from her nap, she was in cheerful spirits and she and Christian went out to collect the laundry, while Bernie played in the garden. He let Iris take down Beth Ann’s underwear. When they walked in, Iris insisting on carrying her half of the basket, Beth Ann gave him an approving smile. Out of her sight, he sorted the laundry, taking special care to smooth out Beth Ann’s simple cotton panties, amazed that something so basic and fundamental could be so darned sexy. He had seen some of the skimpiest, raciest of French lingerie, as well as the most expensive, and nothing seemed to be as touchable as these cotton panties with the tiny flowers scattered across them. While he was trying to imagine what they looked like on her—spectacular—Beth Ann walked in. He hastily covered the pile with a towel.
Together, he and Iris put the new linen on the bed. She insisted on hospital corners and placing the pillowcases with the ends tucked in like an old-fashioned sandwich bag without the zip. She didn’t even resemble the disoriented woman of the day before. She was funny and lucid and obviously very much concerned with the welfare of her granddaughter.
“Beth Ann is a marvelous artist,” Iris said as she sat down to rest in the big leather chair in the corner of Beth Ann’s room and watched him unpack the rest of his belongings. He liked the fact that he and Beth Ann were sharing space. He put his cologne next to her atomizer. His comb next to her brush. His watch next to hers. He stared at his wedding ring and after a moment’s hesitation, pulled it off as well.
“I haven’t seen any of her work,” he remarked.
“Sure you have. That’s hers,” she said, pointing to the large watercolor that was right across from the bed.
Christian remembered noticing it earlier.
“She did that when she was fourteen.” The pride in Iris’s voice was apparent.
Fourteen. Christian whistled. Amazing.
“Glenn said she went to art school?” he asked casually. Now that he fully understood Glenn’s relationship with Beth Ann, he felt as if the other man was an ally.
“An M.F.A. program in Chicago. Very competitive. She was one of four that year.”
“Wow.”
“She’s gained a lot of depth since that.” Iris sighed as she indicated the painting on the wall. “She just doesn’t do it as much as she should.”
“No time?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Iris suddenly appeared weary. She smiled at him, her eyes far away in thought. “I think she would tell you it was time. Do you want to know what I think?”
Christian nodded, very much wanting to know what Iris thought.
Iris said carefully, “I think she worries about everything. And the worry keeps her from painting. If I weren’t an old woman and could take care of Bernie—”
“From what I’ve heard, you’ve done more than your share of taking care of people.”
Iris brightened at his words. “Did Carrie tell you that?”
Christian was at a loss for words. Then, he lied, “Yes, she did. She told me all about you. How you were a botanist before you retired. Did you paint as well?” He distinctly remembered Glenn referring to Iris’s art.
“Well, I liked to paint,” Iris said. “Until my eyes got too bad. But I was nowhere near Beth Ann’s league. She and Glenn. Two very different kinds of painters, but still very much kindred spirits when it comes to art. Carrie on the other hand.” She looked at him, as if she knew he had lied to her about Caroline, but forgave him. “Carrie and Beth Ann were never alike. Even when they were small.”
“I’m realizing that.”
“Were you happy with Carrie?” The question came out of nowhere.
Christian hesitated. She seemed too alert for him to lie outright. Then he said, “Caroline was always able to make people happy.” He felt good about his hedge.
“But was she able to make you happy?” Iris’s question was piercing.
“No,” he answered honestly and then explained. “But I’m a pretty hard person to make happy. I think I’m one of those perpetual pessimists. The glass is always half-empty.”
Iris nodded, then said, “I think Beth Ann could make anyone happy just by smiling at them.”
Christian couldn’t agree more.
THAT NIGHT, Christian lay in Beth Ann’s bed, fully expecting to stay awake. So much had happened since the day before. He’d had no idea he would be sleeping in an antique cherry bed listening to the cows moan in the distance. So much to think about, to process. The least of which was that Caroline had based her entire marriage on lies.
The heaviness of the night began to weigh on his eyelids. He stared at the painting, almost glowing in the bright moonlight, studying the scene through Beth Ann’s fourteen-year-old eyes. He rolled over, his face in the pillow, inhaling the clean scent of laundry soap and sunshine. The heat of the spring day had cooled and in addition to the rather noisy cows, he could hear the crickets chirping and the hum of the semi-trailer trucks rolling down the distant freeway. He felt as if he was a million miles away from anything real, anything unhappy....
Christian woke to a curdling scream.
Dragging his eyes open, he flung himself out of bed, wondering what it was as he stumbled in the direction of it. Highly disoriented, he banged his knee, but somehow managed to make it to the kitchen. Iris was standing frozen in the middle of the room with the flames of the gas stove flaring on all four burners. He quickly turned them off and turned the kitchen light on. Beth Ann, her hair tousled, came rushing in, her sleeveless nightgown askew at the shoulders. Christian couldn’t help but notice how her small breasts pushed against the soft fabric, worn thin from years of wear.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, panic crowding her voice, clearly unaware of her state of undress.
“Nothing. Nothing. Go back to sleep,” Christian assured her, trying the best he could to be a gentleman and look at her face and not the delicate outline of her nipple.
“Grans? What did you want?” Beth Ann asked.
“An egg.”
“An egg, Grans?” Beth Ann’s voice was soft. “What kind of an egg?”
“A fried egg.”
Beth Ann looked at the stove and then looked at Christian.
He shrugged. “They were going full blast.”
“I told you, Grans, if you want an egg, you can just wake me up and I’ll fix it for you.”
The confused look in Iris’s eyes broke Christian’s heart. How was it that after just two days with this family, he was so deeply entrenched in their lives that he felt all their breakdowns personally?
“I didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping.” Iris looked to him for help.
“Why don’t you go back to bed, Beth Ann?” Christian offered. “I’ll fix Iris an egg. I could use an egg myself.”
Uncertainly, Beth Ann studied the man before her, relaxing when he nodded. Even though he was only dressed in pajama bottoms, he looked every inch in charge of the situation. She let her gaze linger on his bare chest, then trail down his flat stomach to where a thin line of dark hair disappeared down into— Her heart fluttered in her throat.
“Are you sure?” she whispered. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Go back to sleep.” His voice was gentle, like a deep caress.
She gave him a questioning look and when he nodded again, she kissed Iris on the forehead.
“Well, Grans, enjoy your egg. I hope Christian can make them sunny-side up.”
“My specialty,” Christian said cheerfully, and his gray eyes assured her that Iris would be fine.
Beth Ann had a hard time getting back to sleep. She could hear murmured conversation punctuated by quiet bursts of laughter. She had to admit that Carrie, whether she’d intended to or not, had married a wonderful man. The ache in her soul seemed to grow larger at the vivid memory of his kiss. Even if he regretted it, it was significant to her.
CHRISTIAN AWOKE to the sound of movement in the kitchen. He opened his eyes, slowly realizing he had been asleep. He looked at his clock in surprise, hardly daring to believe he had been asleep for four hours, the longest stretch of sleep he had had since Caroline’s death. What was more amazing was the way he felt. Rested. Sort of. He peered out the window. Dawn was just breaking. A beautiful day. He pulled on a pair of comfortable jeans and a white shirt he didn’t even bother to tuck in. He reached for his wedding ring and hesitated. He grabbed instead a small leather notebook that fit perfectly in his shirt pocket. He wouldn’t be caught unprepared when Beth Ann gave him tips about Bernie and Iris. He walked across the living room and pushed open the swinging door, anticipation washing through him when he saw Beth Ann hard at work at the sink.
“Hello, there,” he greeted. He couldn’t stop his eyes from surveying her small breasts, chastely covered by an oversize T-shirt. His imagination supplied the image from the night before. “What’re you doing?”
She looked up and her elfin smile with the perfect points filled him with relief. She wasn’t going to hold the kiss against him. “Just finishing up the dishes from last night. The pan had to soak. You want to make the coffee?”
“Sure.” He crossed the kitchen and looked around. “Where do you keep it?”
“In the freezer. There are two cans. You want to put one scoop from the can with the X on top and three scoops from the can without.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Beth Ann stared at him in surprise.
“Yes,” Christian asked. “What’s the difference?”
“Oh, the can without the X has recycled grounds.”
He laughed in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not,” she said seriously. She vigorously scrubbed the pan.
“That’s why your coffee is so bad.”
“Did Glenn tell you my coffee was bad?”
“No, I figured that out myself,” Christian said.
“Beth Ann, you can’t recycle coffee grounds into the coffee you drink.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t taste good. Regular coffee shouldn’t taste bitter. Trust me.”
“Coffee is expensive,” Beth Ann muttered.
“I’ll buy you a lifetime supply of coffee,” he said. “Please, let me use four scoops of the good grounds. You can recycle the used stuff in your compost heap.”
Beth Ann thought for a minute and then said grudgingly, “Okay. Don’t ever let Glenn tell you I don’t compromise.”
Christian laughed and put four scoops of the fresh coffee into the filter.
“How’d you sleep?” Beth Ann asked as she flashed him another friendly smile—one that sent a wave of comfort down his back.
Who but his physician had ever made that inquiry?
“Good,” he answered honestly.
“Thank you for getting to Grans last night.”
“Don’t mention it. That’s what I’m here for.” He poured the water into the coffeemaker.
“Well. I didn’t mean it to be trial by actual fire,” she said ruefully.
“Have you ever thought about putting a lock on her door?”
Beth Ann frowned. “Glenn and Fred have talked to me about that. But I can’t bear to lock Grans in her room.”
“It’s better than burning the house down.”
“That’s what Fred and Glenn say.” She snorted. “You men all think alike. Is that your solution to everything? Lock ’em up. No wonder we have so many prisons.”
Christian backed down from the topic. Obviously a touchy subject.
“Mommy!”
Beth Ann instantly made a move to go get her but Christian stopped her.
“Stay and enjoy the peace, I’ll get her. That’s another thing I’m here for. Any special tricks?”
Beth Ann shook her head and put the pan upside down to drain. She started clearing away the clutter of toys on the floor. “Not anything you don’t know already.”
“Potty things?”
“We potty after we eat breakfast, because she’s already gone in the night.”
“So diaper change.”
“Diaper change would be good,” Beth Ann grinned. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Well, maybe you should do it once, while I look on.”
“Why don’t you go to her? I’ll be there as soon as I finish picking up all Bernie’s toys so she can have the joy of spreading them around the house again. Those diapers are so heavy-duty, she could wear one for three days and not feel wet.”
Christian laughed and walked down the hall, already becoming familiar with the creaks of the floor.
“Mommy!” The cry was a little more insistent.
When Christian pushed open the door, he was greeted by an anxious Bernie who was standing on her tiptoes at the very corner of the crib. With another inch of height, she would be able to scale the side of the crib with no problem.
She smiled at him and Christian felt a tug at his heart. With her eyes filled with sleep and her smooth skin the color of peaches, she was adorable. “Mommy?”
“Mommy’s in the kitchen.”
“Garden!” She bounced a couple of times, then raised her arms for Christian to pick her up.
“So did you have a good sleep, sweetheart?” he asked, not being able to help himself as he planted a kiss on her cheek. With a gentle hand, he carefully plucked the sleepy goo from her eyes. She gave him a big hug.
“Garden!”
“Garden later, sweetie,” Beth Ann said as she walked in the room. “You’re going to take advantage of your Uncle Christian while he’s here, I can tell.” She indicated to Christian that he should put Bernie on the changing table.
“Unckiss!” Bernie held one arm out to him as she lay down.
Christian felt a small spurt of pleasure. His very own nickname.
“We’re going to change you and then we can go have some breakfast,” Beth Ann said cheerfully.
Christian noticed everything Beth Ann said around Bernie was upbeat, as if eating breakfast was the most fun thing in the world. He wanted to have breakfast just because of the way she said it.
“Diapers are here,” she instructed him. “And if these run out, there’s more in the closet. If that supply is down to one package, let me know and I’ll make a trip to the store. Usually, I can find a sale before I run out.”
He had learned to be an excellent student at the military academy. He pulled out the notebook and began to scribble. “So you’ll go paint after breakfast?” he asked, watching her as she wiped Bernie with quick efficient strokes.
“Use these wipes, too, if she goes poo in the potty.” Beth Ann’s lips quirked up as he took more notes. “But these don’t flush like toilet paper.”
“Mrs. Potty!” Bernie exclaimed with a wriggle.
“Yes. Mrs. Potty. But after breakfast.” Beth Ann rubbed her nose into Bernie’s bare tummy and Bernie chortled with glee. “Toilet paper’s a little rough and she hates it.”
“Then the diapers go back on.” He made a note.
Beth Ann laughed.
“No Pull-Ups?” he asked. He watched television. He knew what was available.
Beth Ann made a face. “I don’t know. I hear good things and bad things about those. I don’t want to force anything on her. And she’s used to using Mrs. Potty every morning and every night after her bath. Maybe in a few months. We’ll see.”
Christian nodded and realized with a sinking heart that he wouldn’t be around to see that milestone. Instead of watching this little girl grow, he’d be back in San Diego, hurtling from one meeting to the next and at night, when he finally quit working for the day, he’d be alone in his private wing of the Elliott estate. He shook off the feelings, focusing on the fact he was here, not there.
When Beth Ann put Bernie down, she immediately went to grab Fluff from between the slats of the crib. Her grip on his ear was deathlike.
“Why don’t you dress her?” Beth Ann asked. “We usually do that after breakfast—saves on two clothes changes in the morning—but we don’t have to.”
“Why don’t we wait? After breakfast, you can paint. And I’ll dress her.”
“Grans will be up by then. She can help, too.”
Christian could hear Beth Ann’s unspoken words. If she’s having a good day.
“And Bernie and I will take care of her,” Christian said a little more confidently than he felt. “After all, I know how she likes her eggs.”
THREE DAYS LATER, Beth Ann stared at the man who had taken over her household with the efficiency of a Marine Corps sergeant. Not that she was threatened by how easily everyone, especially Bernie and Iris seemed to have taken to him. Of course not. He was no threat. She could trust the judgment her family had shown. Children and the aged were by far the best judges of character. Breakfast, as usual, was a lively affair, but for some reason, even though she knew Bernie and Iris were in capable hands, Beth Ann didn’t want to leave the fun. She didn’t want to go upstairs to the attic and paint while Christian got to play with Bernie and talk philosophy with Iris.
“Go paint,” he ordered her, as he started to rinse the dishes. Bernie banged on the table in her attempt to swat a fly. “What time do you want lunch?”
“About noon. Are you sure you can handle this? Maybe I should spend today with you—”
“Go paint. You’ve shown me everything you can and I think it’s time that you took advantage of the fact that I’m here.”
She was reluctant to go.
“Go paint!” Bernie ordered her.
“Go paint!” Iris echoed with a sly smile.
“It’s a conspiracy,” Beth Ann grumbled, already dreading the climb to the attic. She grabbed the baby monitor. “I’ll take this just in case.”
Christian reached over and took it from her with a soapy hand. “If it’s bad enough, you’ll hear the screams. Otherwise, you should just go paint.”
He stared at her for a long time and she felt as if she was getting lost in the stormy gray of his eyes. The transitions had been almost effortless. Iris was on a streak of good days and Christian had proved himself an adept student when it came to reading Bernie’s moods. He knew that Bernie loved the garden, so since the days were so nice, they spent much of their time there.
“Trust me,” he said now, with a slow smile that made her heart thud heavily.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I’ll call you for lunch.”
With a regretful look back, she turned and walked down the hall to the stairs.
Once inside her studio, she took stock of what needed to be done. Nothing but painting; she’d already done all the cleaning she could. She studied Party Girls and remembered what Glenn had said about the value in the corner. She’d fix that today— maybe. Tired. The response of the hotel jury rang in her head. And she saw what they saw. Even Glenn, when he was commenting on value, was trying to tell her something was missing.
She listened attentively at the door, hoping for the sounds of distress, so she wouldn’t have to face the fact that her painting had become so dull. But there were no such sounds. She dug through her files and found some reference photos, hoping to become inspired. But this was no time to be experimental. Time had already ticked away, leaving her with just a month to produce something worth showing.
She couldn’t use the excuse that she didn’t have paints. The box Fred had sent, the new tubes gleaming, mocked her, and she almost cried with frustration. She took out her slides and studied what she had done before. What was missing?
Reluctantly, she dug through the box of new paints, squeezed half of the tubes onto a clean palette and authoritatively swirled her brush through the paints. She could at least create a color chart, something to talk to Fred about. He did want a comparison. She’d been making color charts her entire life. Start with a blob of color and keep adding water.
She looked at her colors and her mind rebelled. She wanted to be downstairs with Bernie, Iris and Christian. She wanted to be anywhere but where she was. She didn’t want to do a color chart. She didn’t want to paint. So she didn’t. She covered her palette with plastic wrap and set it in the corner, feeling like a prisoner as she peered out of her window and watched Christian and Bernie play in the garden.
A knock on the door startled Beth Ann. She looked frantically around to find something to do.
“Can I come in?” Iris asked.
Beth Ann grabbed the palette and pulled off the plastic wrap, snagging three brushes from her paint can. “Sure,” she called as she put a brush between her teeth as if she couldn’t decide which one to use.
Iris walked in slowly. “I haven’t been up here in so long.”
“You shouldn’t have taken those stairs,” Beth Ann scolded, taking the brush out of her mouth. “I’ll tell Christian about that at lunch.”
Iris shook her head. “Don’t do that. I needed the exercise. Bernie’s a little fussy.”
Beth Ann’s head shot up. “She’s fussy? Do you think she’s sick?”
Iris laughed. “No, just fussy. She was denied a third fig bar, and now she wants lunch, figuring she can have a fig bar after.”
Beth Ann laughed.
Iris looked at the blank piece of paper. “Hard at work?”
Beth Ann flushed. “I’m a little out of touch.”
“Maybe if you put some paint on those brushes, you’d get better results,” Iris observed.
Beth Ann looked away.
“You haven’t lost it,” Iris said quietly.
“I feel like I have. I don’t want to paint.”
“It’s not that you don’t want to paint. You’re scared to paint.”
“What do I have to be scared of?” Beth Ann didn’t want to have this conversation with Iris.
“You’re afraid that we’ve taken every little bit of creativity you had. That you have no reserve.”
Beth Ann was silent. Finally when she spoke, her voice was raw. “What if it’s gone?”
Iris gave Beth Ann a strong hug. “It’s not gone. It’s just changed. You can’t go back to what you had. You have to forge ahead to things that are new. Movement. That’s what this life is all about. Movement.”
“Movement.” Iris fixed her faded eyes on Beth Ann and Beth Ann squirmed. “Movement.”
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”
Iris nodded, her eyes full of wisdom. “I think you do.”