Page 31 of Rescue Them

“Noted,” Lyle told her.“Now, can we talk about something else?Have you planned anything fun while you’re home?Did you take up knitting?Metal working?”

“Metal working?”James asked.

“Sure.I could see Mom doing some of those huge sculptures you see outdoors that always look like either phallic symbols or fertility gods.”He giggled before his mother smacked him on the arm.

“That’s enough out of you.As it happens, I’ve taken up weaving, and I’ve turned the extra room upstairs into a studio.It’s therapeutic.I get my threads from an alpaca farm outside of town, and I really enjoy it.”

James cleared his throat.“If you don’t mind my asking, when do you have time?”

“I don’t much, right now.But I’ll retire in a few years, and I’d love to hit the craft show circuit.Right now I make tartan-pattern scarves, and I’m experimenting with additional patterns.I figure by then I’ll have a good amount in stock, and I can hit the road for half of the year and go wherever the sales take me.”

She really was an interesting person.“That’s cool.”

“But what are you going to do with all this?”Lyle asked as he motioned around him.

“I’ll stay here in the spring and fall, but head north in summer and south in winter.That’s the lovely thing about being retired.I have the resources to go just about anywhere I want.So I thought I’d enjoy it.”The delight in her eyes didn’t last long.

“And you should, Mom.You really should.Why do you think I’m worried?”Lyle sighed and turned away.“You always play it like you’re the strongest person in the room, like you have everything together and that’s going to make it better.But I’ll still worry the entire time you’re gone and wonder if you’re okay.”He wiped his eyes, and James wanted to hold him and tell him that everything was going to be okay, though maybe in this instance, his mother should be the one to do that.

“I’m going to be fine.The doctors tell me that it was caught early.This surgery is performed many times a day all over the country.I’ll be laid up for a few weeks while I recover, and then, if I’m lucky, that will be it.The doctor said he didn’t think chemotherapy will be necessary, and that should be that.It will be over and we can go back to our lives.”She took Lyle’s hand.“I really don’t want you to worry, but I understand.So you can take me to the hospital, and I hope you’ll be there when I wake up.”

Lyle smiled, genuinely smiled, for the first time since his mother told him she had cancer.“Okay.Growing up it was just you and me….”

“Yes.And now you have someone special in your life.”

“So do you,” Lyle told her.“You know it will hurt him if you don’t tell him.”It was wonderful how Lyle could care for someone he had never met.It warmed James’s heart.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.“Now, I didn’t bake because Lyle knows I could never bake for shit, so I got a cake from the Downtown Bakery.”She cut pieces and brought plates to the table.It was a white cake with coconut that was pretty good.Thankfully, it seemed the drama portion of the evening was over.

Chapter 13

“DO YOUwant to stay?”Lyle asked when they were in the car getting ready to leave his mother’s house.The evening had gone better than he had expected.

“I wish I could,” James said as he lightly cupped Lyle’s cheeks and then kissed him.“I really do.But I have hours of work that I have to do tonight to make sure I’m ready for tomorrow.I have to review my paper one more time before submitting it, and then there’s some more case work.”

“Oh,” Lyle said softly.He really knew he had no reason to be disappointed.

“If I get this work done tonight, then I’ll be able to get the rest of my work done during the week and we can have the weekend together.”

Lyle groaned.“I have to work until noon on Saturday.There’s a bunch of shipments that need to go out.They got behind a little because of the inventory we needed to do.”

“How did it come out?”James asked.

“It seems with the losses we calculated and what they recovered from the house, we aren’t missing all that much inventory.So they are considering dropping the charges so they can get the merchandise back and go on with business.But the district attorney is having an issue with that plan, because it seems the thief is wanted in another state.It’s all a real mess, and because of that, I have to work on Saturday.”

“How about a picnic?We could take the dogs and go out to one of the parks.The dogs could run and have fun, and we could have some time in the sun before it gets too cold.”

“Nice.”He really didn’t want to think too much about what his mom was going through.Though it was already right there, just under the surface.“That would be great.”He pulled away from the house and began the drive through town.

It wasn’t too late, but the roads were largely empty.He dropped James at his place and said good night before taking the dogs home.Lyle parked and approached the front door, and the dogs began to growl.He checked all around before unlocking the door and getting the dogs inside.

As soon as he let them off the leash, they raced downstairs, barking and making a ton of noise.Lyle turned on the lights and peered down the stairs.“Hey, guys, come on,” he called nervously, but all four dogs came back up.He carefully went down the stairs, expecting someone to jump out at him, but everything was quiet.He checked the back door and thought that someone might have tried to get in.But they hadn’t succeeded, and he was glad he’d bolted that door closed.

This was one of the things he didn’t like about living here.Corky hadn’t either.Each of the units had a door on the ground floor that faced the path to the park.That side of the buildings had minimal light after dark and was an invitation to people who might want to try to get inside.

The dogs seemed to have calmed down, and Lyle made sure the door was still well secured before returning upstairs.He thought of messaging James to let him know what he thought had happened, but didn’t.James was working, and he didn’t need to be interrupted with something he could do nothing about.Instead, Lyle went back upstairs and took the dogs outside for night-night potty.Sticking to the sidewalk, he checked around the side of the building, but didn’t see anything at his door other than that the dog enclosure had been pushed aside.

He sighed and took the dogs over, folded up the enclosure, and set it beside the door.He’d take care of it in the morning.He probably should have known that it wasn’t going to be left alone.It sucked that people just couldn’t let other people’s things be.