“Whatever you need.”
“What I need…Well, I can pack up what’s left in this house. I think it will take about a week. What I’m sure of is that I don’t want to stay in this house. An empty nest is one thing, but a lonely widow is something else. I don’t want to be here as that.”
“Oh, please stay with me at Nora House. You know I have more room than I need, more room than a dozen people need.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, make Nora House your new home base. I’d love that!!”
“Now you’re looking like you’ve won something. This makes me nervous.”
“No, no, just we’re going to have a little party, just for all of us to get together, and then maybe a sun day if the May weather cooperates, and?—”
“Cool your jets. I said I’d stay for a week. Stop whatever is going on in there.” J.J. pointed to Libby’s forehead.
“Oh, no big plans, nothing at all.”
“Right.”
J.J. was going to pack this house up herself, but she wasn’t going to sleep in the bed or rifle through the kitchen remembering meals gone by.Nope, not doing it.
“I still have a car in the garage. If D.J. started it once in a while I should be okay to drive to your place.”
“Let’s check.”
The car started, the plan was in place, and Libby was happy as a clam at what she thought was her victory.
“I’m going to do some work here, see if I can catch up with D.J., and then swing by the new grocery store, much as I hate the idea.”
“I mean, it’s pretty awesome. Stone notwithstanding. Anyway, I’ve got to get to the office too. Just head to Nora House whenever. Keith’s coming over later. He’s going to check on my little outboard. It wasn’t starting the other day.”
“Is that a metaphor?”
“J.J., no!”
“Sure, sure, look, don’t worry about me. Have him check your outboard or tonsils or whatever you two geriatric love birds have planned. I’m going to be a while.”
It was fun to see how easily Libby could still blush, redhead at the core.
“I’ll put you in the old game room, side door open.”
“And Libby? You don’t have to babysit me. I’m cool.”
“Okay, okay. Let me know if you need anything. Anything.”
“Who’s the townie here, anyway?”
“I know, you’re right.”
They hugged goodbye, and J.J. was actually happy to be alone for a bit. After all these months of nomadic life, she’d gotten somewhat used to that.
“Well, Dean, you win. You made it so I’m the one who has to clean up all our stuff.” She said it out loud to no one. Unless he was hovering around like the movieGhost. It made her laugh to think that. Dean as Patrick Swayze.
Dean had been the neat one, and J.J. the pack rat. If she had gone first, he’d have had a lot of annoying chores to do. As it stood, they’d done a lot to purge over the years, but now it was the last of it. The last of them.
But before she turned a cold eye to the remains of their accumulated stuff, she had a son to wrangle.
It would be a week of trying not to be haunted by the past. The very out-of-whack present would be just the counterbalance she needed.
