I originally wrote
this story in 2007, I believe, in response to a challenge by my friend
Anne, Wench of Aramink. We were to take a popular song of our choice
and write the story of that song. This was the result of that
challenge. The song is "Already Home" (hence my silly title above) by
Tim McGraw, one of my favorite country singers.
Sean
watched Lucy as she waddled over to the sink. He had been waiting all
week to ask her, and then the letter had come, and he knew he couldn’t …
again. It was too soon. Baby names could wait till after … He heard
the sob, although she tried to hide it. His heart was torn, and he
couldn’t stop the impulse that had him at her back in the next instant,
holding her, not doing anything else. When she turned in his arms, he
enveloped her as best he could, the baby in the way, and let her cry.
The letter fluttered to the ground, and the baby kicked. Sean didn’t
move, even when the tiny infant kicked her again, hard enough for him to
feel it.
She
sniffled. “Sorry, Sean!” She sniffled again, and he took a
handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her. He would have
loved to do the tender thing and mop up her face, but she would have
slapped him as hard as the baby had kicked her. She took it from him,
wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then tidily put it away in the pocket
of her maternity slacks. He bent to pick up the single sheet of paper,
neatly typed, and handed it back to her. Then he went back to his place
at the wide old wooden kitchen table.
“I
dreamed about this, you know,” she said, her back to him. “Ian was
calling to me from across the river, but I couldn’t get to him!” Her
shoulders shook, once.
Sean
waited. He knew the contents of the letter, because he had been
visiting when the tall military messenger delivered it. Ian had always
been a little bit of a joker…”a one-way ticket over here” was just the
kind of thing he’d say. What a way to describe a death sentence! His
mom had quietly wiped her eyes, her heart clearly broken, but yet she
worried about the fragile young woman whose hands she had held. They
had held on to each other like that, while he had finished the pie they
had been making together, had tidied the kitchen, and had taken the dog
for a walk. When he came back, Lucy was upstairs, resting Mrs. Johnson
had said, while she herself sat numbly in a kitchen chair, tears
streaming down her cheeks.
He
remembered playing war games with Ian when they were kids. The four of
them – Ian, Sean, Bobby, and Tom – ran around in their yards pretending
to be marines, or Navy SEALS, or foot soldiers, bringing the war to the
enemy and whipping butt. Sean had sat next to his best friend’s mom
then, as he was doing now with his wife, and held her hands, and
reminisced. It seemed to comfort her to hear someone talk about her
only son with love and honor.
It
had been a month since Ian’s military funeral, which had been a
poignant ceremony celebrating his life. They had laid him to rest,
finally, in the old cemetery on the edge of town, as he had requested, a
large headstone adorning his grave. The words engraved on it were
simple, and taken from the letter his widow now held in her hands: “I’m
in a better place. My soul is where my momma always prayed that it
would go.” His dad had read the eulogy, and sharing parts of that last
letter, his voice breaking on the words “Tell dad I don’t regret that I
followed in his shoes!” The last words of the eulogy had been, again,
words from his letter: “I’m already home. I’m up here with God, and
we’re watching over you!”
“The family is coming over for dinner,” Lucy said, her voice drawing him out of his reverie. “Will you stay too, Sean?”
He nodded, suddenly unable to speak, and watched her face relax. “Anything I can do to help?’ he asked finally.
“No,
thanks! Momma’s bringing dinner. They just didn’t want me to be
alone, and I’m not supposed to be taking long rides anymore.” She
passed a loving hand over her belly as she spoke, and sighed quietly.
“She’s tired, you know. I’d better take a nap before they get here.
Will you stay?”
“I’ll take the dog for a walk,” he answered, and watched her turn and walk up the stairs that led to the second floor bedrooms.
He
reached for the dog’s leash, which hung from a hook behind the door,
and heard the clatter of sharp claws on the hardwood floors as the old
German Shepherd, Razor, ambled in.
“Let’s
go, boy!” He whistled, and the dog padded over more quickly. Sean
attached the leash to his collar and led him outside. He followed the
dog’s lead, and eventually they made it to the old cemetery. If Sean
didn’t know better, he’d say the dog knew his master was buried there.
He let the animal off the leash and watched as he nosed around the
graves, old and new, relieved himself against a tree, and wandered down
the little slope to the pond. He and Ian used to sneak out some nights
and come for a midnight swim in “Dead Man’s Pool”, as they had called
it, on many a hot summer night. That’s where they had talked about
girls…where Ian had told him he had his eye on that shy little
strawberry blonde named Lucy. Where his own heart had been broken, when
Ian told him she returnedhisfeelings.
He
had been the one to introduce them, those many springs ago. Lucy had
been his friend, since first grade, when Ian moved into town. He had
known for a long time that she was the girl he wanted, but she had never
shown him anything but the face of a friend, and he didn’t want to lose
that. So though it hurt him every day to see his best friends as
lovers, he had left rather than hurt them in return. Now here he was
back again, walking their dog, preparing to be the godfather to their
child, being her rock…and loving her more than he had when they were
kids.
************************************************************
Lucy laughed as the little girl stumbled and fell over her feet.
Siobhan, called Shae, since so few people could say her name correctly,
was almost a year old now, and learning to walk. She tumbled around the
house, squealing with delight at the world, and bringing a piercing joy
to her mother’s heart. She had baby-fine strawberry blonde curls like
her mother, and the deepest sea-green eyes Lucy had ever seen. Just
like Ian’s. Her life was a bittersweet reminder of the man Lucy had
loved with all her heart. Now he was gone, but he lived on in the
bubbly little girl who had his eyes, his smile, and his ready laugh.
Ian would never be far away while Shae was there.
The doorbell rang and Lucy went to get it, Shae rolling along behind
her as fast as her unsteady little legs could carry her. Lucy felt her
skin flame to life when she opened the door and Sean stood there. Only
she knew the dreams she had been having lately about this tall drink of
water on her front porch. She could not meet his steady blue gaze, and
she stepped aside hurriedly to let him in.
“What? No hug for me?” he asked softly, putting his arms around her.
“Well, I’ll take it, if you won’t give it!” he continued, hugging her to
his chest and kissing the top of her head. “I’ve missed you, lil
Lucy!” If he noted that she held herself stiffly, he didn’t remark on
it. “And what have we here?” he said, loosing her to pick up the tiny
child at their feet.
He swung her around, and Shae giggled with pleasure and delight. “My,
how you’ve grown! And walking already, too! Precocious little puddin’,
aren’t ya?” he kissed her soundly on both cheeks, and Shae pressed her
soft baby lips against his mouth.
“Dada!” she said, and laughed.
Both Lucy and Sean laughed, too. The first word out of her mouth had
been “Dada”, when Sean had been visiting after his last trip abroad.
Lucy felt herself relax, and scolded herself as she went around her
daughter and her friend to the kitchen. Sean loved her, and she loved
him, but there was nothing romantic about it.
“Coffee?” she asked. “I just put a fresh pot on. Or would you prefer tea?”
Sean strolled in after her, the baby still in his arms. He looked at
Lucy and smiled, a knowing smile that brought back the jitters and a
flush to her cheeks.
“Coffee’s fine, Luce!”
She turned away to pull a mug from the cabinet above the counter, and
wished the image that sat in her head would leave before she had to face
him again. The dreams had been happening on and off for a while now,
and though she had steadfastly ignored them, there seemed to be nothing
she could do to stop the way her heart sped up every time she saw him
these days. It would never do for him to know the effect he was having
on her. She was still a new widow, and they had been best friends
forever. It was just impossible…
She remembered the way he used to look at her, in the early days after
Ian’s death, when he thought no one was watching him. She had been
afraid then of what those looks meant, and it had been convenient and
easy for her to pretend she was ignorant of any feeling between them
other than the deep friendship that they shared. Sean had been the soul
of discretion, too, never saying anything to give his feelings away.
But now, looking back, she knew. She supposed she had always known how
he felt, on some level, but it had been easier to push that knowledge
into the far outer reaches of her consciousness. Until now…
“Here you go!” she said, forcing a brightness into her voice that she
was far from feeling. She placed the big mug of coffee on the table,
prepared the way he liked it, black.
Sean put the little girl down and picked up the mug, sipping slowly.
Lucy went to go around him, and his arm stopped her short. She had
never really looked at Sean before, and the breadth of his shoulders,
the strength of his muscular body, the scent that she recognized as
uniquely his, surprised and delighted her, as they made her afraid. She
couldn’t let anything destroy their friendship.
“We need to talk, Luce!” he said. “Sit down. Please?”
He sat down himself, and drew her into the chair next to his at the
table. Lucy could hear the words that Ian had written to her at the end
of his letter: “There is going to come a day when you move on, and
that’s okay.”
She had a feeling that that day had come…
I write sappy romances, with a hefty side of erotica. And tonight, I'm in the mood... Enjoy! 
