Black to White by TarnishedPenny
It was my first dress like this – my first really ladylike black dress. I’d had dresses before, as a kid, but not like this one. They were school, for playing, for church, for good times and for less good ones.
This one was for mourning.
I was 12 years old and my best friend’s mother had just died.
As my parents and I and about 50 other people stood at the graveside, I was ashamed that what I remembered most about Devon’s mom was her always-welcoming smile and the ever-present smell of cookies in her house.
Devon was sobbing and her father looked haggard, as if all the weight in the world had just fallen on him, and all I could think about were Jessica’s cookies. A shrink might talk about associative memory or something. To me, at 12, it was something to cling to, something to take my mind off what lay inside that too-shiny box in front of us. It was hard to believe that the friendly, gracious, beautiful Jessica was inside that thing.
Devon and I had been best friends since just about forever, like sisters without the inherent nasty sisterly competitiveness. We’d spent a lot of time at each other’s houses. Well, probably more at her place – her dad was rich and the place was a lot bigger, with an indoor pool, even.
And puppies. Devon always had a dog or three and dog privileges were one of the serious perks of visiting.
But Devon was never spoiled, never played rich-bitch at school. In that respect, I think she took after her mom.
Jessica Moir had been just about the nicest woman I’d ever met. She listened patiently to the two of us spouting off like we were old enough to know anything and actually took the time to talk and discuss things with us as if we were adults. She always had time, always had a kind word.
So, Devon had had a pretty good grounding in nice. And she could have gone to some thin-lipped prep school in Boston or Switzerland or something, but there she was on the bus with us every morning, dressed like everybody else, carrying a packed lunch like everyone else.
Then a holidaying Jessica got over-confident at Jaws Beach in Hawaii and a mountainous wave mugged her, enfolded her into a seething wall of jealous green water and spat her out a minute later, a large surf-board dent over one temple. Paul helped carry her body out of the water.
Devon told me she’d never heard him weep, had never heard him complain. Some men would have grown more distant from their daughter. Some might have become overly protective. Not Paul Moir. He carried on with loving, solid parenting as if Jessica had just gone away on a business trip and was expected back next week. There was a large, professionally-taken photograph of the two of them over the main fireplace and he spent a lot of time sitting in his easy chair, a drink in his hand, just looking at it. There was a smaller picture by Paul’s bed, too, a boudoir photo of Jessica wearing what I can now see as a fairly chaste blue negligée. We could see that her smile in that one was very different from the one over the mantelpiece, but it was years before we understood why.
And Paul never raised his voice to anyone that I ever heard. One time, I was there when Devon did something really, really stupid; it doesn’t matter what now after all these years. Paul just looked at her and said mildly, “Devon, I don’t think your Mom would have liked that.” Those few soft words hit her like a solid blow, a physical slap. Her face melted, collapsed in tears before he pulled her in for a long, comforting, forgiving hug. He never mentioned it again and she never did it again, either.
He was a very patient man, too, and as hospitable as Jessica had been. There were endless pool parties and sleep-overs. Looking back, how any normal man could handle being in the house with a dozen perpetually-giggling teenage girls is beyond me, but he was always there, always friendly, always keeping us within the lines without ever making us resent them. When we got old enough for boys and booze to enter the equation, a patient, smiling Paul seemed to be everywhere in the house at once, collecting car keys at the door and somehow keeping unwanted pregnancies off the menu. The other parents knew their girls would be safe at Devon’s.
So.
So, when a heart attack took my father a few years later, Devon and I had adolescent hopes…
But that only happens in Hollywood and Mom married Jimmy two years later. Jimmy was a nice man and treated me well, doing his best to be the male parental unit in the house without trying to be Dad. After some initial adolescent resentment, I started learning from him and grew to like him, even respect him. It worked out. When he got promoted at work, he and Mom moved across the country. I’d already been accepted for nursing school in another city in the other direction and that was the end of my time as a live-in. Jimmy’s a good guy and has done well for Mom. We still talk when I call home, hug when I visit.
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Paul had never remarried. Devon told me once that he’d never even dated. I thought that so sad.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I dunno. I’ve told him that I wouldn’t be mad, that Mom wouldn’t him want him to be lonely for the rest of his life, but he won’t even discuss it.”
“He must’ve loved her very much.”
“Yeah,” she said, almost in a whisper.
I wondered about it. Yes, Jessica’s death had been a tragedy for him and for Devon, but he wasn’t the first man to lose a wife. How long was he going to mourn, cut himself off from the world?
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t have found somebody. The man had charm, dressed well and heaven knows he was handsome enough. True, his forehead was a little higher than it once was, but he hadn’t quietly surrendered to middle age. His mornings when I visited were early ones, lap after lap after relentless lap in the pool. Devon and I swam, too, but Paul was a machine. About a mile every morning, he once told me, a mile and a half on good days.
I believed him.
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As we became adults and Paul’s supervision became less necessary, we were left more to ourselves. If not actually present, Paul was always around though. He was an available resource, but never a lurking presence or overt chaperone; we cherished his trust. The sleep-overs became less frequent, but the pool parties endured, especially on special holidays. It was a chance to get the old crowd together.
And now it was February and who can pass up Valentine’s Day? The Saturday before the 14th of the month became reserved for Devon’s Legendary St. Valentine’s Day Saturday Bash. Couples could have the Day to themselves, but the Saturday before was a crowd event.
Devon had of course sent me an invitation and I showed up the day before to help prepare for the party. I’d been there often enough that it was almost like coming home. I tipped the Uber driver with an unreportable bill, carried my suitcase to the front door and rang the bell. Paul’s face broke into a broad welcoming smile when he opened the door.
“Samantha!” he said brightly and pulled me in for a deep hug. I let myself melt into the hug — and then, to my surprise, into him. It had started out like hundreds of similar hugs over the years, a greeting between old friends, but I very suddenly became aware of the solid chest against my cheek, of the heartbeat under my pressed ear and of the strength of the arms around my shoulders. He suddenly smelled like Paul, too, his own special masculine aroma.