She smiled at him, appreciating his thoughtfulness. “You didn’t. I was the one who brought up the memory—you just asked about it.”
How did he extract himself without sounding clumsy—or callous?
“Are you all...better?” Well, that certainly was neither suave nor warm, he upbraided himself. “I’m sorry. This is none of my business—”
“That’s all right,” she assured him. “I don’t mind answering. Too many people act like you’re some kind of alien creature when you have cancer. They don’t know what to say, so they don’t say anything at all—and they just disappear out of your life. As to your question, yes, I’m all better, thanks for asking.
“And it wasn’t all bad,” she confided. “Being that sick made me appreciate everything I had, everything I was able to enjoy after I got out of the hospital. Besides, if it wasn’t for that whole experience, I would have never met Tex.”
“Tex,” Steve repeated, drawing a blank for a second. And then he remembered. “That would be your stuffed dinosaur, right?”
“Hey, who’re you calling stuffed?”
The high-pitched voice caught him off guard and he automatically looked around to see where the voice was coming from before he realized that Erin had projected it.
Erin tried hard not to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes still dancing with amusement. “I just couldn’t resist. Tex has been such an integral part of everything I do, at times I have to admit I almost feel he’s real.”
“That makes two of us,” he told her.
Even so, Steve was only vaguely aware of her apology. What he was far more aware of was that Erin had placed her hand on his wrist while she was talking to him.
The second she’d touched him, he had felt an instant connection with this animated, unique woman.
His interest engaged and heightened, Steve found himself wondering things about her. A great many things. For starters, he was intrigued by the wording she’d used in referring to the puppet that had created such a hit with the class.
“Just how did you ‘meet’ Tex?” Steve asked. Then, before she could begin to answer, he quickly added, “And if you don’t mind, I’d rather you told me the story instead of hearing it from Tex.”
Instead of taking offense, the way he was afraid she might, Erin laughed. “Sure. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable by using his voice,” she apologized.
He didn’t want her to think he was humorless. “I’m not exactly uncomfortable,” he told her, searching for the right way to explain just what he did feel. “I guess I just feel a little strange having a conversation with a suitcase—especially when the suitcase is still out in your car,” he pointed out.
“Well, at least you’re not hoarse from shouting,” Tex’s voice told him. And then Erin flashed a very endearing chagrined expression. “Sorry, I just couldn’t resist one parting comment.”
“Maybe you’re missing your true calling,” Steve speculated.
She wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “And that would be?”
“Stand-up comedy with Tex and those other toys you brought with you.” And that reminded him of something else. Sitting across from her like this had all sorts of thoughts as well as questions popping into his head. “By the way, that was very generous of you.” When she raised her eyebrows quizzically, he elaborated, “Bringing enough toys for the whole class.”
Erin raised one shoulder in a shy, dismissive shrug he found startlingly appealing. “It’s actually a little selfish of me.”
“Just how do you figure that?” Steve asked.
To her it was as plain as day. “Easy. I get back a lot more than I give. There’s nothing greater than seeing the joy bloom on a kid’s face and knowing that you were partially responsible for putting it there.” Before he could respond, she quickly changed the subject, returning to a previous comment he’d made. “And as for your suggestion about doing stand-up comedy, I do get to satisfy that whim twice a year when I pay a visit to CHOC—Children’s Hospital of Orange County.” Erin was quick to spell out the full name in case he wasn’t familiar with the facility or its common abbreviation.
“Twice a year?” he echoed. She really was serious about bringing joy to children, Steve thought. “Let me guess—around the holidays.”
“Obviously nothing gets past you,” Erin teased.
“You were going to tell me how you and—” Steve lowered his voice without realizing it “—Tex met.”
Erin stared at him. “Why did you just do that?” she asked with a laugh.
“Do what?”
“Lowered your voice before saying ‘Tex.’”
The second she said it, he realized she was right. He’d lowered his voice automatically, the way he would have if he were talking about Jason with the boy close by. Steve had no choice but to laugh at himself and the situation.
“Because now you have me acting as if that puppet of yours is actually real,” he confessed.
She took it as a compliment in part and smiled her thanks. “Then I guess I do owe you that explanation. I created Tex to keep me company. When the doctor diagnosed me with cancer, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was scary enough to frighten my poor mother. She tried not to let me see, but she did a lot of crying. Then someone told my dad about that famous children’s hospital in Memphis. My mother lost no time in getting me in. My dad stayed back home working while my mother flew out with me.
“The people there were all very kind,” she recalled with fondness. “But treatment is a long, frightening process when you’re a little kid. I missed my friends back home. They sent messages and we stayed in contact for a few weeks, but that didn’t last long and little by little, it stopped.” She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I felt like they forgot all about me. I wanted a friend who would always be there for me whenever I was scared or lonely—my mother told me I would never be alone as long as I had my imagination.”
“Smart lady,” he commented.
Erin smiled. “She is—when she’s not being a mother hen. Anyway, I was really into dinosaurs, so I created Tex. At first he was just one of my thick green socks that I drew a face on with a laundry marker. Then my mother got some green felt, and I bought sequins and pillow stuffing in a craft store. I sewed him by hand at my bedside and drew in his features.” She smiled as she remembered the early prototype. She still had him locked away in a box in her closet. “Tex wasn’t very pretty but he was very, very loyal, which was all I wanted.
“I held on to him when they took me in for my treatment sessions.” Despite the amount of time that had passed, the memory was still very vivid in her mind. “And he never left my side no matter how sick I got. After a while, I really did start thinking he was real. Since I couldn’t go anywhere, I created some fantastic adventures for us in my head. All that helped get me through some of the darker times,” she told him, trying to make the whole experience sound less of an emotional roller coaster than it actually had been. After all, she wasn’t trying to elicit his pity just to fully answer his question.
“After I miraculously got better, I started to think about other kids who had to go through what I did. Other kids who might have felt abandoned, lonely and scared. I wanted to help them get through it, just the way Tex helped me. That desire never left me, so while I was still in college, I came up with