Page 8 of A Mother’s Love

Thanksgiving was only seven weeks away. She knew the time would fly while she was writing.

She lost track of time and the days. Robert had always been very understanding about it, and kept himself occupied while she was writing.

He had worked until the last month of his illness, until he couldn’t get to the office anymore.

She had spent his final days sitting quietly with him while he slept.

He would wake up and smile when he saw her there, and they talked for hours.

Sometimes she got into bed with him and held him, and then he’d drift off to sleep, as she’d try to wish the angel of death away.

She didn’t want to lose him, and could no longer imagine life without him.

On his last night, she had fallen asleep holding him, and when she woke up in the morning, the sun was streaming into the room and he was gone.

He had breathed his last breath peacefully during the night, in her arms.

She put the computer away finally, turned off the lights, and lay in bed thinking about him.

They had had so much fun together when the girls were young.

He said he’d arrived for the best time, when they were old enough to be interesting and fun to be with, and good company, and all the messy part was done.

They were twelve when Halley met him, and fourteen when he moved in.

They had called him their Step-Fabulous and Step-Wonderful, and he took an interest in everything they did.

He had encouraged Olivia to start painting and took her to the Art Students League, and helped her with her homework.

He suggested law school to Valerie and she fell in love with the idea.

He helped her prep for her LSATs and she had passed with high scores, which she said was thanks to him.

The twins had been as heartbroken as Halley when they lost him.

He was such a good person, and it seemed so unfair to all three of them.

They had wanted him to adopt them, but he thought it would be disrespectful to their father.

Locke was erratic and often inattentive when he had a new woman in his life, but he loved them, and Robert had the best of them anyway.

Sometimes they pretended he was their father to their friends, or people who didn’t know them well.

Halley drifted off to sleep, thinking about him as she did.

The dreams she had of him now were always peaceful.

They didn’t have that terrible raw ache she’d had in the beginning, when she thought she wouldn’t survive losing him.

But somehow she had. The last three years had been lonely without him at times.

She wrote more to fill the void, and there was an empty space in her heart that she knew no one else would ever fill, and she didn’t want to try.

—

When Olivia left for the airport in the morning, it was in a mad rush. She was always late for planes if Valerie wasn’t with her to get her up and out of the house on time. She flew into the kitchen, drank a quick cup of coffee, hugged her mother, grabbed her bags, and ran out the door.

“See you on Thanksgiving,” she called over her shoulder as the elevator came.

“I love you,” Halley called after her, as the elevator doors closed.

She heard Olivia’s answer and smiled as she closed the front door.

She was happy they’d had the extra day together after the wedding.

She liked having time alone with each of the twins.

They still shared their hopes and dreams with her.

She walked into her study and sat down at her desk then, in her bathrobe.

She glanced at the outline she had been working on for months, on a big yellow pad.

The story was all laid out and the research was in good order, as she picked up a pen and began to write on a fresh legal pad.

It was exciting starting a book. She loved the smell of the new pad.

She had written twenty-six books by then.

This was going to be twenty-seven. Within half an hour, she was lost in the story, as she wrote line after line and page after page, laying the groundwork, sharing her characters’ histories, and by the end of the first chapter that afternoon, the characters were real to her.

Until the book was finished, they would be closer to her than anyone she knew.

She didn’t bother to stop for lunch, not wanting to interrupt the flow.

She grabbed an apple from a bowl in the kitchen, some crackers, and a cup of coffee, and she kept writing until it was dark outside.

She helped herself to some of the leftover curry at dinnertime, took the plate back to her desk, and ate there, as the characters she wrote became flesh-and-blood people on the page.

She fell into bed, smiling, at midnight.

It had been a very good first day, and she hoped that it would be a good book.

Robert used to read the pages sometimes before she finished.

She had never let anyone else do that, but he was so unobtrusive, offering few but helpful comments, that at first she thought she wouldn’t be able to write without him.

But she had. Just as she had adjusted to living with him, she had adjusted to living without him, and she could still hear his voice in her head when she wrote a passage she really loved and knew was good.

She could always tell from the look in his eyes if he liked the book.

And even now that he was gone, she still wrote them for him, or with him in mind.