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“Please, Mom?” Carly asked. “We could come back next weekend.”
Anita stared at her in surprise. “You want to come back next weekend?”
“I have to beat Mr. Davis at Scrabble,” she said, as if it wasn’t any big deal.
“Well, okay, we’ll bring one of my projects that I’m working on.”
Mr. Davis and Carly grinned at each other.
Anita’s heart tugged. What was happening here? Carly was becoming...her old self. And it was due to Mr. Davis.
“Here you are,” an aide said—the same one from the day before. Ginny. “These are faux stained-glass projects. You paint each piece, then glue them together. Putting them in a window or by a light source will bring out all the pretty colors.”
“That sounds fun.” Carly jumped in before Mr. Davis could say something negative.
It was written all over his face, and Anita held back a laugh. Maybe these two were good for each other. Maybe she didn’t need to date a guy like Glenn and wonder if he’d be a decent father figure to her daughter. Maybe Carly would benefit more from being around a grandfather stand-in.
Her own parents were long gone, and Bobby’s parents had never been in the picture much. They thought she was the temptress and the seducer of their precious son. There hadn’t been any bonding between them and Carly as a baby, and once Bobby took off, that door had completely closed.
The next hour was actually fun. Carly and Mr. Davis both laughed at their conversation, which bounced from painting their project and stories of selling furniture to “tight wads” and crushes both of them had in elementary school. Anita had heard about Carly’s, of course—back when she told her mother everything—but Mr. Davis’s story was interesting.
“It was always Susan from the moment I saw her,” he said, dragging a brush with a careful hand over the plastic shape on the table before him. “I was fascinated by her bright red hair. Much like Pippy Longstocking’s. Ever read those books?”
Carly’s eyes brightened. “I did—my mom read them to me when I was little. Until I learned to read them myself.”
“Then you know what I’m talking about,” Mr. Davis said with a wink. “We both planned to attend the same college, then get married. But the world had other plans.”
Carly’s brow furrowed.
“The war?” Anita asked. Obviously Mr. Davis had survived it, but what about Susan?
“The economy struggled,” he said, dipping his paintbrush again. “It wasn’t the Depression yet, but after World War I, a lot of people were out of jobs. Her dad lost his job, and her family moved during our junior year of high school. Her father had found a job with her uncle’s company in Carson, Nevada.”
Anita was surprised by the pain still in Mr. Davis’s voice. Had he never seen her again? Had his childhood crush been that strong?
“Did you write letters to each other?” Carly asked.
“We sure did,” he said. “We called a few times too, but they were very short phone calls. Long distance was very expensive.”
“But surely when you both graduated, you had more freedom?” Anita asked, becoming invested in the story.
“We made plans, but they fell through.” Mr. Davis set his paintbrush down and met Anita’s gaze, then looked over at Carly. “We were going to see each other over Christmas break. I was in my first year of college, and she was training to be a hairstylist. That was December 1920. But her mother died of the Spanish flu, which ran rampant through Nevada.”
He dipped his paintbrush into the green paint. “I couldn’t expect her to come to Seattle, and not many were traveling for fun or taking vacations. Too many deaths going on.”
He painted a few strokes, then paused. Both Anita and Carly were staring at him, waiting for him to continue.
“By the time the scare was over, Susan had found another fellow.” His hand trembled slightly as he continued to paint. “I met Norma a few months later, and we raised a daughter together. Norma was a wonderful woman, and we had a good life. She died a few years ago, and I miss her every day.”
Anita didn’t know why her eyes were burning with tears. Maybe it was the way that Mr. Davis obviously missed his wife, or maybe it was the forlorn way he looked when he spoke about his first love.
“Did you ever see Susan again?” Carly asked.
Anita winced, wondering if the question was too personal.
“I didn’t,” Mr. Davis said, his tone brighter now. “She stopped writing letters, of course, and we both moved on. I don’t even know how many children or grandchildren she has now. Although...”
“Although what?” Carly pressed.
