Romantic love story

Chapter Thirty-six: The House by the Bay

It was a wide white house set against trees with a magnificent view of Lake Ontario. It didn't feel real to him, and yet she was in there. He'd seen those little girls. How many sets of triplets could there be in Three Mile Bay? They'd been exactly as Terry had described. This was the place. He had the right house.

Tim fisted his hands when they didn't stop trembling. All those childhood dreams, all those wishes, and now he was here. His sister lived here. It wasn't the grand mansion he'd pictured as a boy, but painted with the sunlight filtering through the clouds, it still took his breath away. The picture moved with the clouds and he could see autumn lightly touching the trees, only to darken again as the sun went back into hiding. The leaves were turning where he lived, making it finally feel as though it were autumn. To Tim, it just didn't feel like autumn until he could see it in the trees, on the sidewalks, and on neighbors' lawns.

He looked down at his hands and wondered how much longer he could stall. He wasn't up to this. Maybe he should get Connor, see if Connor would go up to that house and knock on that door for him. Better yet-- Tim started the minivan-- he would return Terry's missed call and hopefully talk to Madison from the safety of home. If she was back by now.

Something moved at the house. A door. The front door opened, and Tim's heart slammed against his chest. A tall woman came out, and looked across the road where his van was parked. He swallowed as their eyes met.

For one long moment, time stood perfectly still. When he was small, no one could see her but him, she'd been his protector, a pretend but real big sister he could run to when there was nowhere else to go. His childhood memories felt dim now, for now, he could see her. This was no pretend, no wishful thinking, and yet he'd been waiting for this moment for so long, he almost feared it. She might disappear.

She had an otherworldly look to her, delicate and almost fairylike, her oversized sweater and blue jeans hanging loose on her frame. As she stepped from the door and came to the edge of the road, he could see she was very real, and very determined.

She waved to him but he couldn't move. A car sped between them and she waited for it to pass. She wrapped her arms around her middle, then limped across the road with an urgency he couldn't understand. Was something wrong? She came to his van and looked at him through the window, and it wasn't until then that he thought to turn off the engine. At once, her face turned into a smile. She looked back at the house, then at him, as though waiting.

"Tim?" she called.

He couldn't help thinking of all those things he'd heard about that day, and that all those things had happened to this one person, and that this one person was his sister.

Gulping, he got his hands to work.

She smiled as he unfastened his seat belt, then opened the door.

"It's Tim, isn't it?" she asked, and Tim nodded as he lightly shut the door and tried to find his tongue. "For a moment, I thought you were leaving. It's me. You found the right house."

"I thought I had." Tim stood with his arms at his sides, not knowing how best to greet her. He looked at the hand Madison put out to him, and his heart sank. It seemed not enough, out of place, even awkward. Even Grandma had always hugged him "hello," though she'd never meant it and it had always left him feeling cold. The smile that came with Madison's hand though, didn't leave him feeling cold. Madison meant it. Her grip wasn't much, but she didn't let go until he was smiling and feeling really and truly welcome.

"I can't get over how much you look like our mom."

"Really?" An undercurrent of pain crossed Madison's features. "John said I looked like you."