A lone, light-colored headstone sat low to the ground.
“This is Tony. We got permission from the county to bury him here.”
She stepped closer to Jase and they stood in silence for several minutes. She could feel the tension in his body. After their talk the other night, she didn’t think his thoughts were in a good place. Tears stung her eyes and she clenched her teeth in an effort to keep them from falling.
“What’s your favorite memory?”
His body jerked next to her. “What?”
“What’s one of your favorite memories of Tony?”
He stared up into the branches of the tree. His chest heaved and she worried, until a chuckled escaped. He looked at her and a smile played at his mouth.
“We were about eight or nine and we had built this fort with Legos. We decided we needed more guards for our fort because we didn’t have enough G.I. Joes. So we took my sister’s Barbies, cut all their hair off so they had buzz cuts, and camouflaged them with brown and green marker.” His shoulders shook as he laughed.
“Shannon screamed so loud when she found us, my mom said later she thought someone was trying to kidnap her. Tony said it was his idea, even though it was mine. He knew his whoopin’ wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad. My dad still laid into me, but mostly for scaring my mom. We both had to give up our allowance for a month to buy Shannon new Barbies. We got to keep the ones we conscripted.” He flashed a smile. “They ended up being promoted to general.”
He set the cooler down and pulled her into his arms, resting his chin on top of her head. She dropped the blanket on the ground as he continued.
“Another time, our parents went out together and hired a babysitter to watch all of us. Some teenage girl who had her boyfriend come over not too long after our parents left. Tony’s house had an overhang on the back of the house, and you could climb out the window from Tony’s room and walk on it. We were always getting in trouble for doing it. The girl took her boyfriend up into the spare bedroom, which was next to Tony’s.” Jase rubbed his hands up and down Bree’s back and she wrapped her arms tighter around his waist.
“Tony had a strong sense of right and wrong, even then. He didn’t like that our babysitter wasn’t watching us like she was supposed to. He got Ms. Carol’s face lotion and we slathered it on our faces real thick, climbed out his window and walked along the roof to the other bedroom. We stared in the window, thinking they’d see us and think we were ghosts, but they were too busy, if you know what I mean. So we scratched at the glass to get their attention. When she saw us at the window, she shrieked loud enough to give Shannon a run for her money, pushed her boyfriend off her and ran out of the room.” His body started shaking again.
“She’d shoved the boyfriend so hard he rolled off the bed. Hit his head on the table and knocked himself out. Tim called 9-1-1 ‘cause the guy was bleeding. Our parents came home to a cop car and an ambulance in the drive.” His chuckle echoed in his chest. “Needless to say, she never babysat us again.”
“Did you get a whoopin’ that time?”
“Not that time,” he said. “A stern talkin’ to about safety and appropriate behavior, but our parents agreed she shouldn’t’ve had her boyfriend over. They just didn’t agree with our methods.”
“You got a lot of spankings, didn’t you?”
His chest rumbled again. “Yeah. Eventually our parents figured out the best punishment was to not let us see each other, so any time we got in trouble, we weren’t allowed to play together for a few days.”
She tilted her head back and rested her chin on his chest. “It sounds like you have a lot of good memories.”
He framed her face with his hands. “I do. Thank you for reminding me.” His kiss was gentle. “You hungry?”
She grinned. “For food?”
“What else do you think I have in the cooler?”
“Just checking.”
“Let me take you to my favorite fishing spot.”
He picked up the cooler and Bree gathered the blanket. Taking her hand, he led her a few yards away, closer to the pond.
They spread out the blanket and sat, digging into the cooler. Fried chicken, coleslaw, and a mixed salad ended up spread out between them. Charlie and Polly took up positions close by, panting and happy to be outdoors.
“Did you make all this?”
“Uh, no. I grabbed it at the store on the way to pick you up. I didn’t have time to make anything to bring with me. I thought about bringing some poles so we could fish, but didn’t want to chance not having dinner if the fish weren’t biting.”
“Good call. I’m hungry.” She winked at him and opened the container of salad.
“So, how did you get into physical therapy?” He took a bite of chicken.
She finished chewing her salad. “Whenever we’d med-evac guys out of country, I always wondered what happened to them. Did they make it? Did they recover? There were a couple of guys, kids really — probably couldn’t even buy a drink back home — who lost everything.”
