Page 59 of Payback
Us.Bella loved that he was including her, as though he’d already assumed he would be sharing his dream home with her. “What did you have in mind?”
“Maybe a special place in the garden? A bench? How about a gazebo? We could plant her favorite flowers around it. Along with bird feeders. You know how much she loved to watch the birds from her rocking chair by the window.”
“That’s perfect. I can speak to the landscape architect about it today. Get him to sketch something.” Since the outdoor space was an integral part of the home’s design, Loran had hired him at the onset of the project to work closely with Bella.
“That would be great. Get him to sketch something and we’ll have a look at it. Tell him this is something we want to do to honour a special person in our lives. Make sure he incorporates all the things Stella loved. I’ll send you a list and you can add anything you can think of.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll fly out later today.”
“You don’t have to do that. The hospice will take care of things on their end.” Bella couldn’t bring herself to say ‘her body’. The wounds were still too fresh. “And since she didn’t want a service—”
“She made me executor of her will.”
“Oh, I just assumed one of her children would handle her affairs.”
“I suggested that, but she said that would only cause friction between them if she appointed one over the others. She said it would be easier this way because I was a neutral party.”
“Do you want me to call her children? I’m sure the hospice already has, but we should offer our condolences, right? Let them know how much their mother meant to us?”
“Would you mind waiting ‘til I get home to do that? I’d like for us to speak to them together.”
“Of course.” Bella was grateful he’d be there to hold her hand while she talked to Stella’s children. She didn’t trust herself not to fall apart when she told them how much their mother had meant to her. “You’ll let me know when you book your flight. I can meet you at the airport.”
“That’d be great, thanks. Yeah, I’ll text you the details as soon as I have them.”
“Loran?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, baby.”
“And thank you for introducing me to Stella. I’ll never forget her.”
“Neither will I, sweetheart. Neither will I.”
***
They rode home from the airport in silence that evening, holding hands, lost in their thoughts. Bella was happy to see him, but she felt as sad and lost as he did. They wouldn’t be going to visit Stella tomorrow, as they always had. Instead, they would be picking up a box of her things while trying to avoid looking at her favorite rocking chair by the window in the lounge.
“I got her children’s phone numbers from the hospice. Stella asked them to give the numbers to us when she passed.”
“Good. We’ll call them when we get home.”
Loran was driving her car, and he appeared to be driving in the direction of his home, not hers. Not that it mattered to Bella where they went. She just wanted to fall asleep in his arms tonight.
“I learned so much from her,” Bella said, staring out the window.
She watched a mother pushing a baby in a stroller. A cyclist stopping to take a drink from a water bottle. An elderly man taking a stroll with the aid of his walker. Life went on as though Stella hadn’t died and she realized it would be the same way when she died. Only a few hearts would break. Only a few people would be impacted by the loss of her life. She looked at the man next to her and knew if she lost him her heart wouldn’t just break, it would shatter into a million pieces.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he whispered, squeezing her hand.
“Just thinking about how fragile life is.” Her breath hitched and she experienced a tightness in her chest that felt like a crushing sadness. “Stella knew her days were numbered. She had time to make peace with it. But what about the rest of us? Our lives could be cut short and we wouldn’t even have time to tell the people who mean the most to us how we feel about them.”
Loran looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “That’s one lesson Stella taught me. Don’t hold back. If you love someone, don’t just tell them, show them. Never let them doubt it.”
