Filed to story: Love on the Sidelines (Natalie & Karl)
I checked to see if Jenna had noticed, but she was pointedly ignoring my ex-husband, and I grinned. Hugh had done a lot of changing, but Jenna wasn’t giving an inch until he shook off Helena’s hold on him. From the way he was looking at my best friend, I didn’t think she’d have much longer to wait.
For our honeymoon, Karl and I spent two wonderful weeks in a secluded cabin high in the mountains. On our return, we moved straight into the house he’d built for us, the house he’d built for me.
Two nights later, during a ferocious storm, lightning struck the old barn. Karl and I stood together on the back porch, leaning against each other for support, as we watched the futile attempts of the fire department to put it out. By dawn, there was nothing left but a blackened square filled with partially burnt timber, acrid smoke rising lazily from the ruins.
“We don’t need it anymore,” Karl told me softly. “We have each other.”
“I know,” I replied. But I think both of us felt a deep sense of loss, as though a well-loved old friend had died.
The next day, Daniel moved in with us, and he’s one of my greatest joys. He calls me Mom, hits me up for money and asks my advice about girls. I thank God for him every day.
On his sixteenth birthday, I gave him the keys and title to the old Chevy, happy to have a place for it again. Daniel was ecstatic. Gleefully, and with a raw enthusiasm that made me tired to watch, he tore it apart and rebuilt it from the ground up, adding things that were never meant to be on a car that old. But he was happy, so I was happy.
But I laid awake nights praying he wouldn’t wrap it around a tree.
Karl laughed at my fears and called me a mother hen, but I noticed a few worry lines on his face, too, every time Daniel left in the car.
That was almost a year ago. It doesn’t seem possible that Daniel is sending off for college brochures now. Karl appears resigned to our son’s leaving the nest, and is looking forward to having the house to ourselves. I hope he’s not counting on it too heavily.
—The End