Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,77
on the couch, bought new plants and fresh flowers. She tried to fluff things up, and moved a few things around in her bedroom, but the house looked sad now, whatever she did. She realized now how little charm it had, even if they had been happy there. Her life was in a different place now with Paul, and she wondered if it looked shabby to Aden when he came home too, or maybe at his age he didn’t notice, and it was just home to him. Without meaning to, they had quietly outgrown it, and it seemed so small to her after the bigger spaces she had gotten used to.
She did her best, and Aden seemed happy to come home. He didn’t even see the few improvements she’d made. He liked it the way it was, and never wanted her to change anything in his room.
When Paul arrived, the only thing he saw was her, waiting in the doorway to welcome him to her home. It was a major step for them, and made their relationship seem more real.
Aden took charge of Paul immediately, and drove him to all his old haunts: the pond where he had learned to skate, both his old schools, the main street in town where all the shops were, the grocery store where he and his friends had conned someone into buying them beer when they were sixteen. All the landmarks that were important to him, and Paul loved it. He felt as though he was reliving Aden’s childhood with him, which reminded him of a better version of his own, since he didn’t have a stable family and Aden did. For a moment, he envied Aden how he had grown up, with a mother and father who loved him and each other, in a safe home where no harm could come to him, going to a normal school where kids grew up and went to college and then married and had kids. Paul hadn’t had any of that, had to fend for himself as a kid, without a father, and was on his own as soon as he graduated from high school and headed to Southern California and then Mexico to seek his fate and his fortune. It had turned out all right for him, better than that, but he would never have the happy memories that Aden did and was sharing with him now. Aden had had everything Paul had ever dreamed of and never had. Instead, Paul’s whole life had been a search for something he had never found, and it was all here with Maggie and Aden. It made him want to stay here forever with them and try to turn back the clock and start again. He was deeply moved by the tour, and told Maggie that after they got back, when she and Paul were alone. He had tears in his eyes when he told her about it.
“Aden doesn’t know how lucky he is,” he said softly, as she remembered the terrible shack Paul had lived in, in the town where they grew up, and the mother who had barely managed to make enough to feed him, and the father who abandoned them and disappeared. He had more than made up for it, but he had been struggling all his life, fighting his own demons, battling to stay alive, seeking every challenge, climbing every mountain, winning every race, and he still was. She put her arms around him and he rested his head against her as he basked in the warmth of the love and stability she gave him, which he had never had until then. For an instant, he almost wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t go on the ski trip with his friends, but they would think he was an idiot if he did that. All he wanted was to stay there with her. He didn’t say anything, but she felt the bond between them without words.
He had arrived three days before Thanksgiving, and she cooked meatloaf for them that night. He loved it. And the following night, they went to the Watsons’, so he could meet Helen and Jeff. Jeff monopolized him, but Helen got to see how loving Paul was with Maggie, and she loved him for the way he treated her and the look in Maggie’s eyes. Helen thought Maggie was a lucky woman. She had had two men who truly loved her in one lifetime. Some women never had