Keep Forever by Alexa Kingaard

Author:Alexa Kingaard [Kingaard, Alexa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781947392816
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Published: 2020-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Two years after Rex was born, Paul and Elizabeth welcomed their second child, a daughter they named Lily. It wasn’t a difficult decision to name her after Paul’s mother. Lily rounded out their lives and brought another dimension of joy to their growing family. They had long since settled into their cozy little bungalow by the beach. When Paul played with Rex in their massive backyard, Elizabeth would wrap Lily in a papoose-style blanket and hold her close to her chest, which freed her arms to do chores around the house. Sometimes she joined her boys on the back porch and rocked Lily into a peaceful slumber.

“This is all I ever wanted,” she would think as she watched Paul and Rex chase each other in and out of the bushes, hide behind trees, and see who would win the race to the back fence. Elizabeth never doubted she was the luckiest girl in the world.

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One afternoon Elizabeth noticed she hadn’t heard a peep from Rex for at least ten minutes. After settling Lily into the baby swing in the living room, she called him, “Rex, where are you? Where’s my little guy?”

Rex had managed to open the door to their bedroom and pull a cardboard shoe box off the dresser, scattering its contents on the floor. It was the box that was the depository of Paul’s daily treasures: watches, glasses, pens, receipts, and anything else that would fit. To him it was simply an easy way to keep everything in one spot, even though the box was overflowing. In the corner of the room, Rex tried to balance his father’s glasses on his nose while he twisted them with his chubby little fingers. She saw one of the bows had broken off and, after being held together with white adhesive tape for years, held out little hope they could be repaired.

“Why don’t you throw these old, useless things in the trash? They’re from Vietnam, for crying out loud. The prescription can’t be any good anymore.” Elizabeth questioned Paul on more than one occasion, and his answer was always the same.

“You never know when I might need a second pair. Please, Elizabeth, leave them alone. Don’t throw them out.” Paul refused to throw anything away, and the stacks of “keepsakes” were getting increasingly higher and more unmanageable. Elizabeth could only hope this accident would prompt Paul to throw out the old glasses, but knew that even if he did get a new pair, these would never be abandoned.

“No, no, Rex. I have to take those from you and your daddy’s not going to be happy you broke his glasses.” Rex looked over with his beautiful, big blue eyes that matched his father’s, and handed them to his mother. Simple as that. No tantrums, no tears. Not much upset their little boy. She set them on a closet shelf, put everything back into the shoe box, and led Rex into the dining room. At the same time, Paul pulled into the driveway, and she allowed Rex to tug at the front door to open it for him.

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