AllFreeNovel
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I scoot on my knees until I’m next to him and start to undo the buttons on his shirtsleeve.
“It’s going to be strange,” he mumbles, his free hand stroking my leg, “coming home and not racing up her porch steps, excited to see her.” He rubs his eyes, not to rid the tears, but to fight the exhaustion. Inhaling deeply, he stands up and starts stripping out of his clothes until he’s standing in his boxers. I watch, because there’s too much beauty in his presence to look away. I seriously could watch him forever. But I don’t have forever. I have the next two days until I go back home and back to the internship, back to double sessions with Dawn three days a week. And Josh goes back to work, all while the world continues to spin with one less wonder in its population.
I move to the top of the bed, lean against the headboard, and pat my lap, returning the smile he offers me before he lies down, his head where I wanted it, his eyes on me.
I stroke his hair with one hand and type on the phone with the other.
“Did you pay for all those people to come from St. Louis?”
Josh shakes his head slowly. “Does it matter?”
He did pay, but he’s also right. It doesn’t matter at all.
“Will you tell me about her?” I ask.
His brow creases. “About your Grams?”
I nod, still stroking his hair. “I feel like I don’t know her… not like I should. And by the time I realized that and wanted to ask, it was too late. She’d didn’t really know herself anymore.”
He stares blankly at the ceiling. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything, really,” I have Cordy say. “Like, what did she do for work?”
His head lifts a little, as if surprised by my question. “She was a nurse,” he says after a beat.
“Really?” I mouth.
“You didn’t know that?”
I shake my head, trying to imagine Grams in a life before my time. “Tell me more.”
Josh’s lips curl at the corners. “You know what…” he says, sitting up. “I can do one better.”
After slipping on a pair of shorts and handing me a pair, Josh checks in on Tommy, and then leads me down his apartment stairs and toward his garage.
He starts moving boxes around, and I do the same, though I have no idea what I’m looking for. “So I was in here the other day and remembered what you said—about handing out the clothes and shoes at the shelter.” He drops one on the floor and turns to me, his hands on his hips.
“Sorry. We got a little carried away,” I sign.
He shakes his head. “No, I was actually thinking that we should do that. My mom—she runs the charity side of the business—the Henry Warden Foundation—maybe we could make it a thing, you know? We could do something under Chaz’s name. Maybe get some sponsors involved.”
“Grams would love that,” I sign. “And I’d love to be a part of it… if your mom’s okay with it.”
“Oh man, my mom would flip if you joined her on it.” He kicks a box out of the way so he can get to me. “My mom loves you, Becs. She loves you as if you were her own. You know that, right?”
I didn’t know that. Not until he said it. But then again, I’m not really sure what a mother’s love is supposed to feel like. Still, I find myself smiling up at him with yet another lump in my throat.
“You’re so cute.” He the mess of hair on my head. Then he spins on his heels and continues to search through boxes while I stand there, wondering if I’m worthy of his mother’s love.
“Here it is,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts. After grabbing the cardboard box from the top shelf and placing it carefully on top of a pile of shoes, he points to it. “Open it.”
I bite down on my lip as I lift the flaps, one after the other, treating it like treasure.
Albums.
Photo albums.
A whole pile of them.
All dated.
“Maybe you can find more about her in those,” he says, his voice quiet.
I pick up the first one and flip the solid red cover with 1986 scrawled on the top. The first picture is of Grams with two other women. She would’ve been in her mid-thirties. They’re sitting on a bench, all in the same nurse’s uniform.
“I told her I’d convert them to digital and store them in the Cloud for her—in case there was ever a fire or something,” Josh says, and I look up at him. He shrugs, his eyes distant. “I guess I never got around to it.” After a beat, he clears his throat, his gaze moving to mine. “Maybe you can make a timeline of her life from all of them. Plus, we have the Internet, maybe we can find more there?”
