Love Me Forever

Sandy felt a jolt of excitement. Crazy for Coffee! The cart just off the Astoria-Megler Bridge was where she bought coffee most mornings on her way back from dropping the girls at daycare. Bjorn made the best caramel-vanilla latte she’d ever tasted. She always had to wait in line, so “money maker” was probably not an exaggeration.

A coffee cart! She felt another jolt of excitement, then drew herself back, thinking logically. Long hours on her feet; early, early start to a day that involved children and a daycare that didn’t open until seven o’clock; and... She couldn’t think of anything else negative.

The positives. She could afford it. She could learn to do it. She could set her own hours. She could handle the long hours on her feet by wearing comfortable shoes. Maybe her mother would help her with the girls in the morning.

She had to know more. Pushing her coffee aside, she dialed the number.

* * *

HUNTER SAT AT his mother’s kitchen table, sorting through her tax receipts. Stella Bristol made a space in the middle of the piles he’d created and set down a cup of black coffee.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

He dropped the stack of brokerage statements in his hand and leaned back in his chair to frown at her. “It’s a good thing I filed for an extension for you, Mom. I can’t believe that the woman who encouraged me to be an accountant, who helped put me through school, who works for my boss, also an accountant...” His voice rose. “Would keep her tax documents and receipts in a shoe box!” He’d been sorting for three hours, and he barely had her paperwork organized enough to assess where to begin. “This is the bad joke of all accounting offices. Didn’t I buy you an accordion folder last year?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but the apology didn’t ring true. “I do have a full-time job, you know. I haven’t had much time to get organized. And it’s not a shoe box. An elegant pair of candlesticks came in that box.” She pointed to a low table behind the sofa, where they stood with yellow tapers in them. “And I have recipes in the accordion folder.”

Of course. “Mom, you’re missing the point.”

“No, I’m not. I hired you to do my taxes because I don’t have a brain for numbers. Therefore, I don’t have a brain for organizing the things in which you put numbers.”

He thought about that a moment, and when it still didn’t make sense, he shook his head. “You hired me? You mean I’m getting eighty dollars an hour for this? Because that would make the job much easier to take.”

She patted his shoulder as she walked away. “Don’t be silly. You’re doing this because you love me.”

He caught her wrist to prevent her escape. “Not so fast. Tell me about these checks to Toads and Frogs. Is it a bar? A conservation group? What?”

She sat down opposite him, her manner suddenly defensive. “It’s a yarn shop. Why? I had a little extra from my investments so I decided to bet on a friend.”

Looking at her blankly, he repeated, “Toads and Frogs is a yarn shop.”

“Yes. A toad is a knitting project you really wanted to do but never finished, and frog means you’ve quit a project. Like “I frogged that hat because the pattern was too hard.”

A moment of silence followed, then he asked patiently, “So you’ve invested your hard-earned money in a woman who named her shop using two words that suggest failure?”

“No! You know Glenda. She was my neighbor when I first moved here after your father died. That little rental on Alameda? She’s really very good at what she does. Her goal is to provide a place where customers won’t give up on projects, because she’s there to help them figure out how to complete them. So, you’d go to Toads and Frogs to succeed, not to fail.”

Glenda. He had met her a couple of times. A formidable woman with a single gray braid. Made a great banana bread, as he recalled.

Drawing a breath for patience, Hunter nodded. “Sometimes, you scare me, Mom. But, okay. So these checks are investment in a business?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a partner?”

“No. Just a sort of...capitalist. I give her capital when she needs it.”

“Does she pay you back?”

“She will when she’s on her feet.”

“Does she have a business plan? Something that tells you when that might be? Do you two have a contract?”

“A verbal one. We’re playing it by ear.” She smiled in the face of his disbelief.

“You don’t play business by ear, Mom.”

“Maybe in banks and accounting offices, you don’t. But in yarn shops, you trust your friends and play it by ear.”

He sat back in his chair, frustrated with trying to protect her financial interests. “Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation? You worked hard to get some financial stability after Dad died. Now you keep giving money away. You lent me money to resettle here after I closed the business.”

She sat across the table from him and covered his hand with hers. Her joking responses suddenly took a serious turn. “Hunter, you can get your debts paid without putting your entire life on hold. You know, the guilt you feel is completely unnecessary. No one blames you for what happened. I understand that you feel responsible to your father and me because we wanted so much to help you. But, if your father were here, he’d be the last to criticize you or to regret giving you the money. Please, please, let yourself be happy.”

“I’ll be happy when I’ve paid all my debts and returned your investment.”

She growled and punched his arm playfully. “You are so much like my father. Stubborn through and through.”

“Mmm. I think he passed that quality on to you, and that’s how I got it.”

“Okay, let’s go with that. Stop thinking like an accountant. Toads and Frogs is a wonderful place to put my money, and you know why?”

She required an answer. He looked up. “Why?”

“Because while money is a sometimes-you-win-sometimes-you-lose investment, love invested is always a win-win. Glenda is always there for me.” She put a hand to his face maternally. “You are a bean counter, darling. You have to start counting—I don’t know. Flowers. Stars.”

She patted his cheek and turned toward the kitchen. “You need a sandwich.” She disappeared and left him with her scary accounting.

Count flowers and stars. Good Lord.

By the time he had the rest of her paperwork organized, all the things he couldn’t fix at the moment he pushed to the back of his mind.

He decided the world was lucky Stella Bristol had chosen to invest in a yarn shop. Anything more serious and she could have undermined Wall Street in a week and a half.

By nightfall, he’d finished a Reuben sandwich, had agreed to fix a sticking cupboard door and was setting the water heater in the basement up a notch because the stairs were steep and his mother didn’t feel safe on them.

She provided him with a large envelope to put her documents in so he could take them home. “You’re sure you don’t want something more to eat before you go?”

“Thanks, but no. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

He had one foot on the porch when she said his name. He knew the tone. Reluctance overcome by the lioness-guarding-her-cub syndrome. This would have to do with Sandy. He’d been so close to escaping.

He stopped reticently and faced her. “Yeah?”

She put up both hands to ward off the protest she seemed to think was imminent. “I’m just worried and want what’s best for you, so I have to ask.”

How many times in his life had he heard her say that?

“You’re sure you’re right not to let Sandy help you with a little money? Especially since you won’t take help from me, and you gave Nate his money back.”