“Maybe not,” Gage replied, looking away.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear this,” Libby said, standing.
Gage nodded, but didn’t reply.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she added, smiling gently.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said, half smiling, too.
She started to close the door, but then turned back. “It was such a gift to have Dutch smile yesterday . . . and recognize you!”
“It was,” Gage agreed. He paused, carefully considering his words. “I know it’s easy for me to just say this and leave it in your lap—especially after I didn’t do anything to help with Dad—but I wish you could move Dutch home . . . and find someone to help take care of him. It would be so much better for him to be here than to just sit by himself all day in a place that isn’t home. I know you visit him every day, but when he’s just sitting there, he doesn’t get any kind of mental or physical stimulation, and if he was here, there’s always so much activity—kids and dogs . . .”
Libby smiled. “I am going to think about it, Gage,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for showing me what a difference music can make.”
Gage smiled. “I really can’t take the credit—Maeve’s the one who told me about that.”
Libby nodded. “I wish I could thank her, then,” she said with a sad smile.
Gage nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Would you be willing to go with me tomorrow morning and see if Dutch is up to going to the service?”
“Absolutely,” Gage said, sitting up. “What time do you want to go?”
“Well, the service is at eleven, but we should get there early, so I was thinking nine?”
“Okay,” Gage said.
She smiled. “Thanks, hon. That would be a tremendous help.”
“No problem,” Gage said, smiling, too.
“Good night, then. Love you . . . and love having you home, even if it is for a sad reason.”
“Night, Mom,” he said, standing to give her a hug. “Love you, too . . . and I love being here.”
Libby closed the door, and Gage undressed, hung his clothes over the chair—just as he’d done when he was a boy—turned off the lamp, stretched out on his old bed, and listened to the sweet summer breeze whispering through the curtains. A moment later, he heard Chase and Liam come up the stairs, talking quietly as they washed up and got ready for bed. He listened as the door to Chase and Grayson’s old room clicked closed, and even though it was set up the same way as his room was with two twin beds, he was surprised his mom let them stay in the same room—and he wondered if she’d let Maeve sleep in the same room as him. He smiled, realizing how much she had mellowed.
In the quietness, he heard the sound of the train whistle in the distance, and then he heard Chase—ever the clown—calling, “Good night, Mama! Good night, Liam! Good night, Gage!”
When his mom replied, he could hear the smile in her voice. “Good night, Chase . . . good night, Gage . . . good night, Liam!”
Next, Liam replied, and in the darkness, Gage smiled, wondering if he should pretend to be asleep, but then he chimed in, and in the spirit of the Walton family, called out, “Night, Mama . . . night, Liam . . . night, John-Boy!”
He heard Chase snicker, and then the old house grew quiet, and except for the ticking of the alarm clock and Gus snoring, the only sound he heard was the haunting call of the loons.
47
“THANKS FOR THE RIDE and FOR HELPING ME MOVE IN,” MASON SAID, AS he came in with the last box.
“You’re welcome,” Ali said, looking around his dorm room. “You didn’t bring very much, though. It’s pretty sparse in here.”
“I have my extra-long sheets,” he said with a grin. “That’s all I need.”
She shook her head. “I think you should’ve gotten more than one set.”
“There’d be no point. I hate folding sheets. Especially fitted ones—they always ends up being a balled-up mess. So I’ll just wash ’em and put ’em back on.”
Ali shook her head. “When’s your roommate coming? Is he a runner, too?”
“He is . . . and I don’t know. I thought he’d be here before me.”
“What time is your meeting?”
Mason pulled out his phone and looked at the time. “In an hour.”
Ali nodded. “You’re here first, so you get to pick which side you want.” She eyed the bed on the left. “I think you should take that one.”
Mason frowned. “Why?”
“It’s closer to the window.”
“Works for me,” he said, setting the box on the desk.
“Want help making the bed?”
“Sure, if we can find the sheets.”
“I think they’re in that bag over there,” she said, pointing to a bag in the corner.
“I think you’re right,” he said, pulling out the package of gray, stretchy cotton sheets.
“I thought you got the blue ones,” she said, frowning.
“Nope, I liked these better.” He eyed her. “Don’t you like them?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Um, gray?”
“Luckily, you don’t have to sleep on ’em,” he said, as he unzipped the package.
“Thank goodness,” she said, shaking her head. “Where’s the mattress pad?”
“Oh, right,” he said, looking in the bag again. “Good thing I brought you.”
“I know! I don’t know how you’ve managed on your own all these months.”
“I don’t know, either,” he said, laughing.
She reached for a corner of the new snow-white extra-long mattress pad and stretched it around the corner of the flimsy mattress. “Ideally, all of this would’ve gotten washed first.”
“What the heck for? It’s clean. Why make more work for yourself? It’ll be lucky if it gets washed once a month!” he teased.
“Good grief,” she said. “I hope you wash your bedding more often than that!”
She finished helping him make the bed, and then as she was slipping on his pillowcase, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a tattered, floppy teddy bear. “You brought Travelin’ Bear?” she asked in surprise, touched by the unexpected appearance of Mason’s longtime stuffed animal—a gift she’d given him for his birthday one year
