Chapter 11

My nightstand and the extra special contents aside, packing everything in the bedroom went fairly quickly. Obviously the bed and mattress belonged to the apartment as did the Midnight Black headboard and matching night stands. I had put up curtains for the windows because the last tenant had removed the drapes and rods, claiming the previous set as their own.

I really didn't have a use for them and I wanted the apartment better than it had been when I moved in. So I left all of the curtains in all of the rooms. I didn't know if the landlord would just toss them but it was a gesture I hoped would be appreciated anyway. Actually it had been June who had chosen them, so if anything, I had a slightly negative attachment to them.

Not that I still held anything much against June anymore. She had been a huge part of my life for a small time, now five years ago. As I have already admitted, I would have done the same thing if Lindie had appeared back then. No matter who I had been attached to.

You know, leave, like June had done, to be together for the benefit of the child ... or myself. I would have left that or any relationship behind in a heartbeat to be with Lindie.

Only a small residual of the hurt June had laid on me at the time she jilted me remained. Back then, when I was already hurting because of her, that Corvette shattered rest of my life. It does take time even for a small remnant of a hurt to heal. After all, it was less than 24 hours since I had made the releasing realization.

You see, I'd never thought about it but I was also coming to the realization I'd coupled June leaving me with the extreme loss of my father and brother. Two separate hurts melded into one. I was unconsciously coupling the two events and my ire became directed at her. I never tried to remember the name of the driver. It was an unknown that I wanted to leave that way.

That connection was finally being untied in my mind and if it is the correct way to express it, I was feeling forgiveness for June. Somehow peace was settling into me as the hurt subsided.

If you want to call it luck that I was totally single and hurting again when I got Lindie back, so be it. I just know, it ... she ... was the best thing that had ever happened in my life.

I'd also given up a few more things June had bought for the apartment, especially the bedding. You see, the Comforter, matching bed skirt, oversized pillow shams and two sets of sheets, complimented the black and yellow patterns on the drapes. Garden of the Sun was the design on the bedding.

The bedding had huge yellow flowers on a white background, with swirling vines in black contrasting with the brightness of the background and the flowers. They were magnificent and moderately expensive. Much too expensive to just throw away but too much of a reminder when June left. So I'd packed them up and spirited them away to the bottom of the closet.

As the closet emptied, I had found the box, put away, all but forgotten about. Tossing the carton containing the bedding onto the bare mattress I had announced it would be staying. Instantly after the pattern started to emerge from the box, both Lindie and Michelle showed appreciation for the not too subtle beauty of the set.

I had announced that June had purchased that set, they both understood and we three set the bed skirt and sheets in place. I gave up the pillows too as I didn't think I'd need any where I was going. When everything was assembled, Lindie and Michelle, hugged into me. The bedroom set was truly magnificent, set against a pale lemon backdrop color of the walls and outlined by the Midnight Black of the bedroom furniture.

As I stood there with my two Lindies, I loved the attachment I had for these two beauties and just how wrapped up in that is the mystique of the Tree House we all were. Everything lately seemed to be wrapped in, around and through that wonderful place. Even my little Lindie was attached to it. Her hand prints for her twelfth birthday were already there.

Actually, not quite, I thought. When she asked to put up her set of hand prints I assumed it would be for her birthday. I had just realized she had put an eleven over her first set of hand prints yesterday. I was not adverse to her putting another set up there for her actual birthday in a little more than a week. She was born on June third so there would be a good reason to go up there around that day.

For me that was a nice thought. I wanted dozens more hand prints spanning the walls of the Tree House. Hand prints that belonged not only to Lindie, Michelle and me but perhaps other additions to our family.