year?”
I giggled and shrugged. “Just a personality quirk, I guess.” I became serious. “Really, Brad. I don’t want to leave you. But I have to do this or live with more regrets.”
“I know, Tish. I have plenty to keep me busy while you’re gone. I’d like to walk my wife down the aisle after our wedding, if it’s okay with you.”
A rush of love washed through me. “I’m going to hold you to that. No more talk of marriage until you’re back on your feet.”
“Then you’ll marry me?”
I swatted him. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice tickling my ear. “When it comes to you, I just won’t give up.”
“I’m flattered. Now if we can just get you to say that about yourself.”
He nuzzled me with his mouth. “I won’t give up on myself. How’s that?”
His lips tickled and I laughed. “That’ll do.”
I stayed all day and late into the night, hating to leave him, wanting to take back my promise to Koby that I’d be on the plane to Del Gloria, and instead stay and get married and wake up in Brad’s bed come morning.
41
But instead of staying, I left him. Again. I drove my rental car to Sawyer International and got on the flight back to California. And by late afternoon, I was there, taking the bus to Portia’s apartment complex, the place I’d call home for the rest of my college career.
She hugged me when I walked in the door, a clingy embrace that said everything without words. By the time I stepped back, we both had tears running down our faces.
“Look at you. You’re all bandaged up.” I held her armdistance away. White pads were taped to the side of her face and head.
“Just had surgery a few days ago,” she said. “But the prognosis is good. Professor Braddock paid for the best plastic surgeon Hollywood has to offer. There won’t be any scarring.”
“You’re so beautiful,” I said. “I’m glad you’ll be okay.” She gave a shy smile, a charming look for the once- hardened woman. “The doc was pretty torn up when he found out his housekeeper was the guilty party. Can you imagine finding out you’ve been harboring a former terrorist?”
I turned a shoulder to her, staring at white linoleum. “What about Celia?”
“She’s in the burn unit in Sacramento,” Portia said. “At first, they only gave her a few days to live. But that girl is invincible. They expect she’ll be fully recovered by summer.”
“Thank the Lord,” I whispered. “Now, let’s get that Covenant Award. Celia deserves it.”
With winter break over, classes began. I filled my days with homework and houses as the team forged ahead, working long hours to meet project deadlines.
As we repaired, prepped, and painted, I shared the details of my trip to Churchill Falls.
“I knew Simon Scroll was a scum bucket,” Dagger said, his gang clothing covered with paint. “You could tell by looking at him he was up to no good.”
I arched an eyebrow his way. “Careful. Turns out you’re right about Simon, but I’ve been wrong about people over and over when I try to sum them up in one glance.”
Dagger hiked up his dropped waist. “Even without him we can finish in time. Some of my people said they’d help out.”
“If they’re anything like you, your people are the best.” I smiled his way.
Koby edged the woodwork with white paint. “So this guy Brad. He’s pretty messed up now, huh?”
I looked at Koby, with his two artificial legs. At Portia, with only one hand. At Maize, with her nervous energy. Dagger, with his persecution complex. Timid Gwen, with her obsessive perfection disorder. And of course, me with my hang-ups and letdowns.
A shake of my head. “Nope. He’s not messed up. He’s got a few challenges ahead,” I shrugged, “but he’s pretty much just like the rest of us.”
Koby seemed disappointed at my answer. “So you plan on getting back together with him?”
“We never broke up.”
He went back to painting. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, Tish, just say the word.”
“Thanks, Koby. You’re a good friend.”
As we completed individual homes, families began to move in. I helped coordinate the process, lining up strong backs from the college and the community to haul furniture and boxes for the new inhabitants of Rios Buena Suerta. In return, many of the grown-ups pitched in with the finishing touches on the project. The possibility of meeting our May deadline was becoming a reality.
A month had passed since my return before I got up the nerve to visit Professor Braddock. We’d seen each other in the halls and in various classrooms, but averted our eyes, both suffering too much to discuss our losses.
I knocked on the door of his office at Walters Hall.
“Come in.” His voice sounded weary.
A turn of the knob, a push of the door, and I faced the birth father of the man I loved.
“Hi.” I barely knew what to say.
He gestured toward a chair. “Sit. Please.”
I made myself comfortable, refusing to back down or chicken out. “I’m sorry about your housekeeper.”
He smiled sheepishly. “And I’m sorry about your bodyguard.” Our mutual misfortune brought a chuckle from us both. The tension broken, I leaned toward him, pushing an embossed book across his desk. “Thank you for lending me this.”
He picked up the volume and rubbed the leather cover. “
“I took it home to finish.”
His voice was husky. “Did you enjoy the story of a man who exacts vengeance from those who ruined his life?”
“I didn’t care for the ending.”
Denton flipped the pages at random. “Ah. The ending. You wanted him to reunite with the fair Mercedes.”
I nodded.
“An impossibility. You must have realized it in advance.” “The romantic in me never gave up hope.”
“Life is so different than we expect, isn’t it?” His eyes misted over. “We spend so much time chasing after what we think we want, only to have it turn to ashes in our hands.”
I leaned forward. “But the Count ends up getting better than what he wanted. Just not in the way he thought.”
He sighed and looked out the window. “And so the story becomes just another fairy tale.”
I studied his pained profile, my heart reaching out to him. “Don’t give up on Brad. He loves you. He wants you in his life. There can be a happy ending.”
His face crumbled. I went to him, gripping his hands in mine. “I know what Brad’s feeling. I felt it with my father too. Of course Brad is angry with the way things happened between you. Call him. Talk to him. You can work things out. I know you can.”
The professor sat a moment in silence. “So,” he said, “the student becomes the teacher.”
“Just think about it. Anyway,” I gave his hands a final squeeze, “thank you again for lending your book.”
He nodded, looking bereft.
I left him to his thoughts, my feet echoing in the empty hallway as I walked to the elevator.
The semester was almost over, the deadline upon us. We pulled some all-nighters in order to finish before graduation ceremonies. As we put the final touches on the last home, I couldn’t believe I’d survived. There would actually be a college degree with my name on it. All the years of disappointment over not having a diploma were over. Now I could cheer for the MSU Spartans again.
