Destiny by chance: A Contemporary Romance Fiction Novel (2 page)

The second morning after burying her son and husband, Destiny woke up to a silent house.  It felt like she was in a fog.  Usually, the house was bustling at this hour; either Phillip was running on the treadmill or Rhett was playing video games in his room.  She looked around, disoriented.  The water in the bathroom started running.  Then she heard it abruptly stop. 
Thank God.
 
It was all a horrible dream.
  Destiny smiled slightly, closing her eyes again. 
Thank God. 
“Phillip,” she murmured in a raspy voice.  The bed moved around her.

“Good morning.”

Destiny opened her eyes, slowly focusing on the voice as she swallowed hard.

Lisa lay on the pillow beside her, facing her.  Her delicately colored locks of turquoise, blue and purple made it look like she was laying on a bed of peacock feathers.  “Good morning, Dee.”

Destiny focused on the person before her as her smile faded.

Lisa brushed her hand over her friend’s face, a sad smile on her own.  “Hey, Honey.”

A single tear slid onto Destiny’s pillow.

“You have to get up, Dee,” she smiled, brushing the hair from her friend’s cheek.  “You have to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” she replied meekly.

“Either I feed you here, or I haul your butt to the hospital, and we hook you up to an IV,” Lisa stated matter-of-factly.  “Your choice.”

Destiny blinked once.  “I’ll eat,” she whispered.

“Good girl.” Lisa raised her eyebrows.  “Oatmeal?  Biscuits and gravy?  Cream of Wheat?”

Destiny nodded.

“Cream of Wheat it is.  Now get up.  You need to take a shower.”

“I don’t feel like taking a shower,” Destiny moaned.

“It’s been three days, Honey.  Trust me, you need to take a shower.” Lisa rolled off the bed before disappearing into the hallway.

Destiny turned over slowly, then crawled out of bed and dragged to the bathroom.  As she stood before the mirror; it was a stranger looking back at her.  She didn’t recognize herself.  Small scratches and cuts on the right side of her face were healing well.  Fading remnants of bruising still blotched her cheek and arm.  The brown eyes in her reflection blinked back at her.  All she saw was an older version of herself.  A much sadder version of herself.  Destiny moved her hand to her toothbrush and hesitated. Phillip’s still stood beside hers in the ceramic holder.  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then brushed her teeth and took a shower.

Lisa was just adding the finishing touches of butter and sugar to their bowls when Destiny walked into the room in a t-shirt and sweat pants.  She watched her best friend hobble to the table and then set the steaming bowl before her.  They sat in silence, Lisa casting glances at Destiny as she ate.

Feeling Lisa’s eyes on her, she cut her eyes upward.  “I’m eating,” she remarked defensively.

“I’ll feel better when I know you’ve put a few pounds back on.”

“Only because you want me to stay out of your clothes.”

“You look good in my clothes.” Lisa rose, carrying her dishes to the sink and rinsing them.  She poured herself and Destiny each a cup of coffee before sitting back down beside her.  “However, I would like that chic blue cap dress back.”  Lisa smiled behind her coffee cup.  “I have a date Saturday.”

“Is this the restaurant guy from Austin or the Dellionaire from Round Rock?”

Lisa rolled her eyes.  “I should be so lucky.”  She sipped, then set down her coffee.  “No, this guy is a marketing exec for a one of the leading-edge tech companies in the world.”

Destiny smiled weakly.  “Was that his sales pitch?”

Lisa crinkled her brow.  “Pretty much.”

Destiny stood and carried her bowl to the sink.  “Is he cute?”

“Mom seems to think so.”

“Your mom met him?”

Lisa walked with Destiny back to the master bedroom.  “Yeah, she invited him over to lunch after church and surprisingly, he said yes.”  Then she plopped herself on the end of her friend’s king-sized bed.

“What’s his story?” Destiny asked as she disappeared into Phillip’s closet.  As she looked around at all the reminders of her late husband, she sighed. 

“Divorced.  Raising his six-year-old daughter on his own while his ex-wife works a hundred hours a week to further her career.”

“Role reversal.” Destiny carried out a handful of clothes to the bed.  “The new family dynamic,” she added, placing the clothes on her bed, then turning and going back into the closet for more.

“What’s this?” Lisa asked, curiously.

“What does it look like?” Destiny tossed more of Phillip’s clothes onto her bed. 

Lisa followed her into the closet, moving quickly out of the way as she grabbed more and walked past again.  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Destiny stopped on the way back to her closet and stared at her friend.  “No, I’m not,” she confessed, before turning and grabbing another armful.  She stopped in front of Lisa again.  “So?  You going to help me or what?”

Lisa sighed sadly at Destiny before she reached in and grabbed an armful of dress shirts.  Within twenty minutes every piece of clothing Phillip had owned lay on or around the bed.  Destiny wrinkled her lips and blew them out as she faced the pile before her.

Andy walked up behind them.  “Well, that’s a mountain of clothes.” His face betrayed his confusion.  He crossed his arms.  “Was there a plan when you started this?”  Lisa met him with a shrug when he looked at her before turning to his sister.

“No plan,” Destiny exhaled.

“So—” Andy was mystified as he walked around the mound of clothing.  “Did it occur to you that your little brother, who I might add, is up to his eyeballs in student loans and can’t afford a seersucker suit, has just entered the job market without a dinner jacket in his wardrobe?”

Lisa smiled.  “You wear a lab coat.”

“Yes,” he agreed.  “I wear a lab coat.  But I anticipate that I will need to have a suit, or two, or three, at some point, in the event,” he stumbled over his words, “that I might have a business meeting.”

“You’re a virologist,” Lisa teased

“Or a date,” he added quickly.

“Highly unlikely,” Lisa quipped.

Destiny dropped to the armchair in the corner, and leaned back, staring at the clothes.  As she turned to her brother, he kneeled beside her, his hand on hers.  “You sure you’re ready for this?”

Destiny drew in a deep breath.  “Yes,” she replied to Andy before turning to Lisa.  “I’m sure.”  Standing, she walked to their dresser and began taking out the rest of his clothes.  “I can’t look at his stuff every day.  I just can’t.”  Her eyes lowered as did her voice.  “I can’t.”

Lisa and Andy looked at each other, drawing in deep breaths together and then turned back to Destiny. 

“I’ll go to the store and get some boxes,” Lisa offered.

“And I’ll pick out my new wardrobe.” Andy began lifting hangers of clothes from the pile.

Destiny opened Phillip’s tie drawer, and it gave her pause.  As her hand lightly brushed over the silky material, she closed her eyes.  When she opened them, she picked up his favorite tie and pressed it to her chest.  A wry smile grew on her lips.  She remembered picking it out for him and giving it to him in the same way that Julia Roberts had given one to Richard Gere in
Pretty Woman
.  Of course, she didn’t look anything like Julia Roberts, but she always called him her Richard Gere.  Phillip had the same incredible eyes, and when he smiled, his whole face smiled.  Slender and fit but prematurely gray at thirty-five.  And no matter how many times he wanted to, Destiny would never let him dye his hair.  She told him it made him look sexy.

Destiny glanced up at her brother as he held suits and shirts in front of himself.  After selecting two ties, she held one of them up to the suit and shirt combination he was holding in his hands.  Destiny smiled.  “He usually wore this tie,” she began, having to catch herself, as she placed the tie next to the collar, “with this suit.”  Destiny looked into his eyes.  “He was proud of you, you know.”

Andy continued to hold the tie in place as he looked down.  The emotions caught in his throat again as he nodded.  When his eyes met hers, she smiled again, brushing his cheek with the palm of her hand. 

“And,
I’m
so very proud of you.” Destiny dropped her forehead to his, nodding until he was nodding with her.

Andy stepped away and sniffed, holding the tie up against the shirt again.  “So this works, huh?”

Destiny nodded.  “You can have anything you want.  The rest I’ll donate.”

“Really?  Anything?”

Destiny smiled.  “He would have wanted you to have them.”

“Well, I’m not wearing his underwear,” he said pointedly.  “I don’t do tighty whities.”

Destiny moved back to the dresser.  As she looked down at the ties, then back up to her reflection, the stranger in the mirror smiled back. 
You’re going to be okay;
it told her.  Destiny’s smile faded.  In her heart, she knew it would never be okay again.  Ever.

Day three.  Philip’s side of the closet now sat empty, as did his drawers.  And yet, he was still there.  In every corner of the house.  In every room.  In the plates, he had personally selected from Pottery Barn.  His great-grandma’s silverware.  His grandmother’s crocheted afghans draped over the back of the couch.  There wasn’t a part of the house in which she didn’t feel his presence.  Destiny walked past
‘his’
chair in the living room and each of the plants he had so lovingly tended.  In the days to come, she would personally give them all away because she didn’t do plants.  That was Phillip’s thing.  Ever since she could remember, she killed plants.  She even tried to grow aloe vera and cactus because you weren’t supposed to be able to kill them.  But they also died.

Destiny hadn’t entered Rhett’s room since the accident, nor had anyone else.  She didn’t even open his door.  Destiny had covered all their pictures with her black dinner napkins.  Anything of Rhett’s that she found anywhere in the house she put into a box in the garage, and donated, along with Phillip’s clothing, the Monday following the funerals.  Lisa and Andy were perplexed, not to mention concerned, by her avoidance, by her calmness.  She had gone from devastated to composed in three days’ time.

Destiny rolled over in their California king bed, sliding her hand across to the side where Phillip usually slept.  She pulled his pillow to her face and breathed in deeply before hugging it to herself.  The water was running somewhere else in the house.  Destiny expressed her wish to stay in her home, at least until she determined it was time to sell. After much discussion, she agreed, albeit reluctantly, for Andy to move into the guest room, semi-permanently, so that she wouldn’t be alone once she was back home.  Her house was closer to work than his apartment, so it was a win-win for him.  Andy moved in on the day they returned from California. 

Destiny hugged the pillow closer to her chest and sighed.  When she opened her eyes she could see Phillip beside her; she could feel him there.  First, her fingers reached for his, gently teasing his strong, masculine hands.  Destiny smiled as her hand traced the firm, strong muscles in his arms and his chest before moving to caress the early morning stubble on his cheeks.  Destiny’s hands remembered every part of his body, every minor flaw, every perfection, and imperfection.  Her mind had memorized years ago, his sounds; the small snorts he made when he rolled over in bed, his murmurs, his snores.  Her hand traced his face, every line, every wrinkle.  As she brushed back his hair, her fingers played with the softening gray, his light receding hairline.  Destiny breathed in the scents on his pillow again.  She could stay here forever, and never let him go again.  If only… If only.

There was a light tap on the door.  Destiny opened her eyes and her heart suddenly sank.  It was like waking from a beautiful dream.  Her eyes traveled to where her hand had been, on the empty sheets beside her.  How long would she remember his smell, the touch of his skin?  What would happen when the smell dissipated; when the memories faded?  The tap came again.  Louder.

“Destiny?”

“I’m awake.”

The door slowly opened, and her baby brother peered around the corner.  “I was about to make some breakfast.”  Andy stepped inside and smiled.  His sister was still in her pajamas on top of the covers.

“I’m not hungry,” she whispered.

Andy walked to the bed and crawled onto it beside her, propped up on his elbow next to her.  “You have to eat, Destiny,” he insisted.  “I’m not going to take no for an answer.” His sister didn’t move, curled amongst the pillows.

She smiled weakly.  “I’ll eat.  I promise.”

Andy reached over and brushed the hair from her face, grabbed a pillow to his chest and lay on it, looking at her.  “I thought we could go to the bank today, and the Social Security office,” he offered.  “And the cemetery.  I don’t have to go back to work until Monday, so I can go with you.” 

Destiny reached over and squeezed her brother’s hand.  “You need to go back to work, Andy.  I know you want to take care of me, but, I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will,” he smiled reassuringly. “We’re Herings!”

Destiny looked down, still holding his hand.  “You know what my biggest fear is?”

Andy leaned lower on the pillow.  “I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything.”

Her eyes met his.  “I’m afraid that they’ll fade with time.  That I’ll start forgetting,” her chin trembled.

Andy crawled from the pillow to her side.  “Aw Destiny.”  His hand lightly brushed across her cheek.  “They’ll always be with us.  We’ll never forget them.  Never.”

A tear escaped from her eye, but she didn’t even have the strength to wipe it away.  “It’s what everyone says,” she said, faintly.  “It’s what my heart wants.” Destiny cried softly.  “But it’s those precious moments, the seconds of time when we do or say something spontaneous, the funny things Phillip would say, or Rhett’s laugh.  I close my eyes and I—I’m afraid that if I don’t focus on their faces, and think about the things I don’t want to forget, that I’ll forget those things.”

Andy moved closer, wiping her tears.  “Destiny,” he began.  “You’ll never forget.  I promise.”

Destiny looked into his eyes, blinking out more tears as she sniffed.

Andy stroked her hair.  “Remember, after Mom and Dad died, how hard it was?  I was always afraid of what I’d forget.”  His eyes focused on the wall behind her, staring at nothing in particular.  “I was so sure that since we were so young when they died, we didn’t have enough memories to hold us.  Do you remember what you told me?”

Destiny shook her head just slightly.

“You told me that as long as we had breath in our bodies, that we’d never forget.  That as many stars as there were in the sky, as many moments as there were in time, we’d have that many memories.”

“I was trying to help you feel better.”

“So you’re saying you lied?”

“I told you what you needed to hear.  Much like you’re doing now.”

“You think I’m telling you what I think you want to hear?”

Her eyes averted his gaze.

“Destiny.  I’m not lying to you.”  Andy lifted her chin with his finger.  “Everything you told me was true.  You were right.  You may not have realized it when you said it, but you were right.”  When her eyes met his, he nodded.  “In fact, there are memories of times with Mom and Dad that just come to me, even now.  Sometimes when I want to remember, and other times when I least expect it.”  Andy smiled.  “Remember how Mom used to bake something, like every week?”

She nodded.

“Close your eyes.”

Destiny looked at him, perplexed. 

“I’m serious.”  Andy held his hand in front of her eyes.  “Close ‘em.”

Smiling through the tears, she slapped his hand away, then slowly closed her eyes.

“Okay, now remember when Mom would bake those apple pies.  Can you smell them?”  Andy closed his eyes as well.  “I can.”

Destiny breathed in and smiled faintly.

“I can smell the oranges when she would zest them for that breakfast casserole she used to make.”  Andy opened his eyes and looked at his sister.  “Do you remember?”

Destiny nodded.

A small smile grew on the corner of his lips.  “Do you remember how Dad would never wear a belt, and he’d walk around all day with his jeans slipping?  And he’d walk into whatever room we were in, and he’d have the most annoying plumber’s crack.”

Destiny opened her eyes and grinned.

“And it’s like he never even realized it,” Andy laughed, remembering.  “And he would bend over to do something, and all of our friends would make faces or laugh.  He didn’t have a clue what we were laughing at,” he added.

Destiny chuckled.  “And you would shoot tiny pieces of paper at his crack,” she shook her head.

Andy laughed out loud.  “I wonder if he ever wondered why he had these little pieces of paper in his underwear or if he ever even noticed them.”

“Probably not,” Destiny laughed.  “Or he’d have gotten onto you.”

“Me?” he teased.  “I remember a couple of times that you tossed some paper down there, too.”

“Maybe when I was little,” she smiled.  “When I was a teenager, it started to become gross.”

“Those were good times. Glad he never caught on.”

“He would have been so ticked.”

““Yeah, he towed the line,” Andy remembered, smiling at his sister.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For everything.  For being here.”

“I’ll always be here for you; you’re my favorite sister.”

Destiny nestled deeper into her pillow.  “Mmm.”

Andy smacked her on the bottom.  “Now get your butt out of bed.  I’m making oatmeal, and you’re eating some.”

“Oatmeal?”

“I can cook.”

“It’s not the packaged stuff, is it?”

Andy cut his eyes at her.  “Maybe.”  Then he walked out of the room.  “But whatever I make, you’re gonna eat, Missy,” he yelled from the hallway.  “Right?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured to herself as she crawled from the bed.  Destiny looked at Phillip’s side of the bed again, smiled a sad smile, then walked into the bathroom and closed the door.