Remember Only This by Shane Sawyer

Author:Shane Sawyer [Sawyer, Shane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shane Sawyer

Chapter Seventeen

At Tall Trees Retirement Village, Miles Wilson was easy to find. He was sitting in a lounge chair on the long, carefully tended lawn, wrapped in an expensive-looking embroidered robe, a plaid blanket draped over his thin knees, eyes closed, face pointed towards the autumn sun. As advertised, he was wearing an ascot. An actual ascot. Edie had never seen one in real life. The expansive yard was liberally dotted with grand old maples and oaks, thick with orange and gold rustling leaves.

He raised one hand to shield his eyes as they approached. “Maggie Greenbaum, is that you?” He squinted. “It is! As I live and breathe. Barely.” He wheezed out a laugh that seemed to shake his entire body. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t get up, even for your lovely self and your charming friend.”

Mrs. G laughed, and her hand fluttered to pat her bright red hair. “Hello, Miles. I was afraid you’d died.”

He sighed. “Not yet. The devil spit me back out for my sins. Pneumonia almost got me in the spring. Stupid time of year to get sick. Death beds ought to be on bleak November evenings, or in the howling dead of winter, not with birds trilling and flowers budding outside the window.” He shrugged. “I guess someone agreed, because here I am.”

Mrs. G lowered herself onto another chair. “There’s always next time,” she said with a wink.

He laughed again, eyes bright.

“He was a terrible rogue in his younger days,” Mrs. G said to Edie. “Still is, I bet.”

He shook his head in pious denial, but looked pleased. “I was always a perfect gentleman.” He looked up at Edie demurely from under his lashes. “Except when the lady didn’t want me to be.”

Rogue indeed.

Mrs. G rolled her eyes. “Careful, Edie. I know for a fact he wouldn’t think twice about trying to beguile a much younger woman.”

“Much, Maggie? Having a little trouble with your arithmetic, aren’t you?”

She pointed a finger at him. “Watch it.”

“You ought to feel sorry for me,” he said. “A lonely bachelor. No spouse. No children. Not a single soul to soothe my fevered brow.”

“Ha! You probably have the entire nursing staff wrapped around your finger.”

“Not the whole staff. Nurse Abbott has been stubbornly resistant to my charms.” He shook his head sadly. “There’s no explaining it.”

“Shocking!” Mrs. G agreed. “Still, it must be a relief to know that at least one of the people looking after you has some sense.”

They smiled at each other. It was nice to see Mrs. G looking so lively. It’d been a hard, sad few months for her.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. “I’m sure this young lady doesn’t want to listen to us natter about old times.”

“Maybe we’re just here performing good works. Visiting with the aged and infirm,” Mrs. G said.

Well over eighty or not, when he grinned up at Edie, an impish glint in his eye, she had no trouble believing he’d enjoyed a long career of bruising, if not breaking, hearts.

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