Free Johnny Angel by Danielle Steel Page B

no one ever comes in here.”
    “I do,” she said sadly, looking around the room and then at him. It was so good to see him back in it.
    “How come you didn't put any of it away? I was afraid it would all be gone, or packed up in boxes somewhere.”
    “I couldn't do that,” she said as her eyes held his.
    “Maybe you should,” he said sensibly. “It's kind of sad seeing it all sitting here like this … even though I'm glad you left it for me.” She smiled at what he said, sat down on the bed, and looked up at him.
    “I never thought you'd be back here. But how could I take apart this room? It would be like losing more of you than we already had.”
    “The room isn't me, Mom. You have me here,” he said, pointing at his heart, “and you always will. You know that.” He sat down next to her on the bed and put an arm around her. “I'm not going anywhere, even after I go back again. I'll always be here with you.”
    “I know. But I love all this stuff … your pictures … your trophies.” The room still smelled of him, even more so now that he was sitting beside her. He had a fresh clean smell, of soap and boy and aftershave, that always made her think of him, and lingered in the room.
    They sat there talking for a while, and eventually he went back to her bedroom with her, and the room was so warm he took his jacket off and dropped it on a chair, as they went on talking. Charlotte came in once, and looked at her oddly. She'd heard her mother talking again, and was beginning to wonder about her. She wanted to borrow a sweater to wear to assembly the next day, and Johnny scolded his mother when she left them and went back to her room.
    “You shouldn't let her wear your stuff, Mom. All she wants to do is show off for the boys in her class, and the upperclassmen. Let her wear her own stuff.”
    “She's only got one mother. And I only have one daughter, Johnny. It's okay for her to borrow my ‘stuff,’ as long as she returns it.”
    “And does she?” He raised a cynical eyebrow at his mother, and she laughed, and looked at him sheepishly.
    “Not always.”
    “Be careful if she borrows my varsity jacket. I don't want her to lose it.” They had already agreed that it would go to Bobby eventually.
    And after a while, he went back to his own room, to look around again, and she was putting on her nightgown when Jim came upstairs, and he looked startled, and frowned, when he saw Johnny's varsity jacket on the chair where he had left it.
    “What's that doing here?”
    “I… I was just looking at it,” she said, turning away from him, so he wouldn't see her expression. Jim always knew when she was lying to him, which she rarely did.
    “You shouldn't go in his room,” he said firmly. “It'll just upset you.”
    “Sometimes it feels right to just sit there, with his things, and remember him,” she said quietly, and he shook his head as he walked into the bathroom to put on his pajamas. He was a fairly modest man, but she had always liked that about him. In the days before he drank too much there had been a lot she had liked about him. And for some reason, in the last two days, those memories had come to mind more and more often. It was as though she was not seeing who he was, but remembering who he had been.
    And when he came out of the bathroom, Jim reminded her to put the jacket away the next day, and leave it in Johnny's closet. “Don't let the kids play with it,” he admonished her, “they'll just lose it. And it meant a lot to him.”
    “I know that. I promised him I'd save it for Bobby,” she said, not thinking how it sounded.
    “When did you promise him that?” He looked puzzled.
    “A long time ago. When he first got it.”
    “Oh,” Jim nodded, satisfied with her explanation. He hated even seeing it there. It just reminded them of everything they had lost and would never have again. If he could have, he would have put it back in Johnny's room then, but he didn't want to go in there.
    Jim got