Always Dakota - Debbie Macomber [73]
“I can help if you want,” Rachel said, coming into the living room and sitting across from him. “But you really need to do this soon.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t put it off any longer,” Heath replied without enthusiasm. The retirement center had already packed up everything in Lily’s small apartment and Heath had stored it all in the large basement of his parents’ home. He’d eventually be selling the place but wasn’t ready to let it go quite yet.
“So do you want me there?” Rachel stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Heath breathed in her familiar scent and realized that having her with him was important. He not only wanted her company, he needed it.
His stepson had spent the night with a friend and wasn’t coming home until late in the afternoon, which gave him and Rachel at least half a day. They drove into Grand Forks, chatting as they went.
Midmorning they arrived at the family home. Until their wedding, he’d been living in this very house and he still maintained it, but most of the time he stayed in Buffalo Valley with Rachel and Mark.
Cartons were stacked all about the recreation room in the house’s daylight basement. “Where would you like to start?” Rachel asked, hands on her hips. She’d pinned her hair up and wore faded blue jeans, ready to tackle the work with the same energy she brought to everything else.
Heath glanced at the first stack of boxes. There was no need to keep Lily’s clothes, which he intended to pass on to a charitable organization. But he wanted to be sure he wasn’t unintentionally giving away something personal.
They worked silently for an hour before Rachel commented, “Look, this box has your name on it.”
“Mine?” Heath didn’t think he’d left behind anything of importance when he’d gone to Europe.
“Aren’t you curious?”
He had to admit he was. He lifted it down and slit open the sealed top with a knife, then peeled back the cardboard. To his amazement, he discovered an assortment of expensive leather-bound scrapbooks. His name was embossed in gold on the cover of each one.
“These are yours?” Rachel asked.
“No.” Heath had never seen them before. He opened the top book and his breath caught at the newspaper photograph on the first page. He was in his high-school basketball uniform; he and three other players were grinning wildly, clutching a trophy.
“Heath,” Rachel breathed in awe. “Is that you?”
They sat down together and flipped through the pages. Each one showed Heath. If not a picture or an item from the local newspaper, then the school paper. Every program of every game he’d ever played was there. High school and college.
“I had no idea you were a sports star,” Rachel said, smiling at him.
Heath didn’t remember being especially talented; certainly he wasn’t the star. He’d been a member of the team and a hardworking athlete, but he hadn’t sought the glory.
“Your mother kept these scrapbooks?”
Heath suspected she hadn’t. Most likely it’d been Lily.
When he didn’t respond, Rachel tucked her arm through his. “Lily?”
He nodded. The second book revealed every letter and postcard he’d mailed home. Lily had kept them all. Treasured each one. All this time, all these years, she’d loved him. It shouldn’t have come as such a shock, but it did. For much of his adult life, Heath had considered himself the black sheep of the family. The one who didn’t fit in and probably never would. Max, his intelligent, perfect-in-every-way brother, had been the Quantrills’ golden boy.
Then Heath recalled his wedding day and those few minutes when he’d stolen away to be with Lily. She’d been weak, growing more and more feeble. He remembered her taking his hand and whispering, telling him he’d always been her favorite.
Heath had listened with skepticism, considered her words the rambling of an old woman at the end of her life, holding on, clinging to her family. But she had loved him, loved him from the first, long before he was ready to accept