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Bo's Journey Home - Chapter 32   Bo and Nora both looked over towards the foyer, surprised to see their young son standing there, holding the door open, a look of amazement on his face. Neither one of them had heard him come in. Matthew repeated his question. “Is this the surprise?”   Bo spoke first. “Hey bud.” He put his arms out and started towards Matthew. Matthew ran over, leaping into his arms. “What are you doing here?” Bo asked him. “I thought you would stay at the party until we came to pick you up.”   Matthew looked into his father’s eyes. “Harold told me when he dropped me off at the party to call him on his cell phone when I was ready to leave. I was ready, so I called him.”   Nora looked over at her son, confused. “Who’s Harold?”   Bo and Matthew looked over at Nora at the same time, both responding in unison, “The limo driver.”   Nora shrugged her shoulders, muttering sarcastically to herself. “Of course; the driver. I would know that.”   Bo and Matthew looked back at each other, ignoring Nora’s mutterings. “Weren’t you having a good time at the party, son?” Bo asked him.   Matthew looked at his father. “I couldn’t. I wanted to be with you and mom.”   Bo had his arms cradled under Matthew. He shook him slightly. “I told you I would be back for you when I was finished talking with your mom.”   Matthew dropped his head down, feeling he had disappointed his father. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay at the party.” He glanced back up at Bo. “But I did what I was supposed to do. I went to the party like you asked me. I stayed and sang Happy Birthday, watched Hector open his presents. I just couldn’t have a good time. I kept thinking about you and mom. You both looked mad when I left you.”   Nora started over to where Bo was standing with Matthew in his arms. She caressed his head gently. “Sweetie, we weren’t mad.” She glanced at Bo quickly before continuing. “We just had some things to talk out.” She quickly changed the subject. “I hope you said thank-you to Hector’s moms. Did you even get to swim? You love to swim.”   Matthew shook his head no. Bo hugged him slightly, shifting him in his arms. “You like to swim?” Matthew shook his head yes. “Then I have just the thing for you. You can swim over at Asa’s. He has a pool that has a glass house over it.”   Matthew looked up at Bo confused. “Who’s Asa?”   Bo looked at him with pretend amazement. “Who’s Asa?” he echoed him. “Why, he’s the King of Llanview.”   Matthew laughed out loud. “There’s no such thing.” Nora rolled her eyes. “Tell him that.”   Bo smiled at Matthew’s laughter, glancing over at Nora with raised eyebrows. “I’m just kidding, Matthew. Asa is someone very special who’s been looking forward to meeting you.”   Nora echoed Bo’s last statement. “Looking forward to meeting Matthew?” Her look was one of playful annoyance. “Bo?” She exaggerated his name, drawing it out and accenting the ‘O’. “Does Asa know about Matthew?”   Bo’s face was full of guilt. “I may have mentioned it to him, in passing.” Nora folded her arms across her chest, staring at him in disbelief. Bo shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry I told Asa without you.”   Nora looked away from Bo, suddenly realizing she had told Renee without him. Maybe she could shift the blame onto Asa. “Well,” she began, stammering just a bit. “Then I’m sure Renee must know. Asa can’t keep a secret.”   Bo’s remorse had him trying to reassure her. “Asa never would have told Renee. I told him not to. Besides, he loves keeping secrets from Renee. I know Asa almost as well as I know you.” When he looked over at her, he recognized her own look of guilt. Bo’s remorse suddenly turned into interrogator. “You all ready told Renee, didn’t you? And now you’re trying to implicate Asa.” Her look of guilt was all of the confirmation he needed. He got a smug look on his face. “Once an attorney, always an attorney.”   Nora shrugged her shoulders innocently, her smile just as innocent. “I might have mentioned it to Renee, in passing.” Bo was still smiling at her and Nora continued her self defense. “It’s a girl thing. We tell each other everything.”   Matthew watched his parents banter with confusion. “Who’s Asa? And what’s he know about me?”   Nora was glad for the distraction from Matthew. Bo looked back at Matthew with a smile. “Asa is my father.”   Matthew looked at Bo with a thoughtful look. “That would mean he’s my grandfather, right?”   Bo nodded as Nora rolled her eyes, the realization of Matthew’s simple statement hitting her much the same way as when she realized that Asa had become her father-in-law. She moved away from them, muttering. “The grandfather of all grandfathers.”   Bo chuckled, hearing Nora’s mutterings. “Yes, he’s your grandfather. And he very much wants to meet you.” Bo turned and looked at Nora. “They both deserve that treat.”   Matthew looked at both of his parents. “It will be cool to have a grandfather that lives near me. But you haven’t answered my question.” Matthew looked around the house from his father’s arms. “Is this the surprise? Are we going to live here?”   Bo looked over at Nora before looking back at Matthew. “Umm, your Mom and I are working on it.” Bo dropped Matthew onto his feet, stooping down in front of him. “Why don’t you go and take a look around. I’m still talking with your mom.”   Matthew looked over at his mother who seemed to be lost in thought. Then he looked back at Bo who smiled and winked at him. “Go on, son. Go check the place out. Let me know what you think.”   Matthew smiled at his father before taking off for the upstairs.   Nora suddenly swatted Bo’s shoulder playfully. “I can’t believe you told Asa without me.”   Bo responded quickly, cowering away from her, holding his arms up to ward off any more swats from her. “It just kinda slipped out. It’s hard to avoid Asa and his questions when I’m living in the same house with him. But you could help me avoid him by saying yes.”   Nora feigned ignorance. “Yes to what?”   Bo gave her a sarcastic smile and she returned it. “About what we’ve been talking about for the last two hours; about us, living here, together. What do you say?”   Nora continued to walk around the living room, trying to keep her distance from him, the seriousness returning to her voice. The necklace was still enclosed in her fisted hand. “I don’t know, Bo. I just don’t know.”   Bo was confused. “What don’t you know? What’s holding you back?”   She shrugged, struggling with a battle within herself. “Me. I’m holding me back.”   Bo tried to convince her. “Well stop holding back. I want a second chance for us. And living here together is the perfect opportunity for us to try again. I thought you wanted the same thing.”   She nodded. “I do. More than you can know. But there’s something I need before that can happen.”   Bo heaved a sigh, trying to understand her reluctance. “What is it that you think you need? We’ve all ready talked through the forgiveness thing. What’s left?”   Nora’s statement was simple. “I need to be good enough.”   Bo’s response was incredulous. “What?!”   Nora nodded. “You heard me, Buchanan.”   Bo nodded back. “I heard you but I’m not sure I heard you right. Good enough for who?” He held his hand against his own chest. “I hope you don’t mean for me.”   Nora shook her head, trying to explain something she wasn’t sure she totally understood herself. “What I did to you, what I did to us, haunts me. All this time, I thought I needed forgiveness to get my life back. Yours, mine, even Matthew’s. But even forgiveness hasn’t been enough; because I lost more than just you to what I did. I lost myself, Bo. I lost my self respect. I committed the greatest of sins against the one person I loved most in this world and I’m not even sure who I was when it happened. I don’t even know that Nora. I need to find the Nora who first came to Llanview. I need to find the person that I respect in myself before I can allow you to love me.”   “Allow me to love you?” he echoed her. “Well, it’s a little too late for that Nora. And as far as finding the person in you that you can respect, I see her in the woman standing right here in front of me. Look in the mirror.”   Nora shook her head slowly. “That’s not good enough for me. I need to find her for myself. I need to find the real me.”   Bo countered back. “I know the real you. And I never stopped loving you.”   She echoed his sentiments. “And I never stopped loving you.” And then she countered those sentiments. “But is love enough? I thought we had it all and look what happened. I made choices that left you with none. I caused you to walk away from us.”   Bo interrupted. “And I’m sorry for walking away. If I could go back.”   Nora shook her head, unconsciously reaching out to touch his cheek. “No. I’m the one who’s sorry. You didn’t knowingly walk away. I left you no choices after what I did. I know that now. The most painful thing I ever had to do was let go and try to live my life without you. I had to learn to live with what I did. And if you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t been doing such a good job at that.”   Bo reached up and placed his hand over hers. “I’m the one who left. We had a child and a life that I walked away from. Now I want a chance to earn back the present and the future; the child we have right now and the life we can have together.” He looked right into her eyes. “I want a second chance with you, Nora.” He was disappointed when she pulled her hand gently away from his and moved from him. He took a step towards her. “Tell me you don’t want the same thing.”   She couldn’t look at him. She was trying to hold back the tears. “I do.”   Bo nodded. “Okay then. If we both want the same thing.”   Nora cut him off. “Wanting the same things isn’t always enough.” She heaved a quick sigh, consciously opening her fist, gently caressing the heart between her thumb and forefinger, feeling the scratches etched in the gold. “Wounds,” he had called them. Both their hearts were full of scratches. “You say you want to earn back what you gave up. Well, there’s something I need to earn too. Not only my own respect, but yours.” She held the heart up between them. “And this. So until I do…”   Bo closed the distance between them, sensing what she was trying to do, using the last bit of emotional ammunition that he had left to convince her. “We need to earn our wants together.” He pointed to the stairs where Matthew had just gone. They could hear him walking around. “What about Matthew? Don’t you think I have some things to earn with him, a bridge to build with him? I walked away and he knows that. But I still want a chance to be a real father to him, even if I don’t deserve it; because he deserves it. We need to do this together, because we brought him into this world together. Do you remember when we talked about having a baby? You asked me why people have children. What was the reason you gave me, do you remember? Out of love, or lust or whatever you called it, a person is made; a real person; who laughs, and loves and can look at a sunset. Our person is Matthew. We can have everything we talked about back then, right now. We can have Matthew and we can have our future.” Bo closed his hand over hers holding the heart. “That’s what this is all about; finding our way back from the past, together.”   Matthew came bounding down the stairs at that moment, stopping to stand beside Bo. “Mom! Mom! You gotta come check this out!”   Nora pulled her hand away from Bo’s, fisting the heart necklace out of sight, crossing her arms across her chest. Bo tugging at her heart using Matthew as bait was the first time he hadn’t fought fair. She looked at Bo and then to Matthew beside him. They were mirror images of each other. “What is it, Matthew? What’s wrong?”   Matthew’s face was full of excitement. “I looked out the window to the backyard. You should see what’s back there. There’s a jungle gym, and soccer net, and a basketball hoop. I think there’s a bike, too.” He looked up at Bo. “Can I go play with all of that stuff?”   Bo nodded, placing his hand gently on Matthew’s head. “I would think, since it all belongs to you.”   Matthew’s eyes lit up with excitement, Nora’s with shock. “Do you mean it?” asked Matthew.   Bo nodded and Matthew’s face lit up with a smile. He ran through the livingroom to the hall that lead outside, yelling back at them, “I love this house.” Nora was still staring at Bo.   “Don’t look so shocked,” Bo answered her look. “It’s a typical kid’s backyard.”   Nora’s voice was full of sarcasm. “Typical of what kid; a Buchanan kid? The only thing missing is the horse.”   Bo nodded smugly. “The horse is in the garage.” She gave him a soft smile and then he got serious. “Come on, Nora. We can do this. Remember what I told you, when we got stuck in the toy warehouse on New Year’s Eve?” He looked at her and saw she remembered. “I’m in your life, Red; yours and Matthew’s. No matter what arguments that defense attorney in you throws at me, I’m not leaving again. And I won’t let you leave me, either.”   Nora smiled back at him, remembering the warehouse vividly, blinking back the tears that had started with Bo’s last attempt at persuasion. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”   Bo grinned at her, knowing he had won. “You couldn’t pry me out of it if you tried. Besides, no one knows you better than me. I can help you find that person you’re looking for inside yourself, because I know who she is. And you can help me build that bridge with my son. You just have to say yes,” he spread his arms out as if encompassing the house, “to this.”   She tried her last excuse. “What will everyone think if we move back in here, together? What will our families and friends say?”   Bo shrugged, making a smirk. “Who cares? This is about us, not them. Let ‘em talk. They talk about us anyway, so let’s really give them something to talk about.”   She opened her hand to stare at the necklace before closing her hand over it again quickly. “We can start out slow?”   He nodded, moving close to her again. “As slow as you want.” He reached for her arms with his hands. “I’m a patient man.” He pulled her into him, sliding his arms around her waist, resting his cheek against hers. He closed his eyes as he held her. He had missed her. Nora’s arms instinctively went around his neck, taking in his scent, playing gently with the hair at the base of his neck. She had missed him. Impulsively, he brushed her lips with his and then pulled back, never taking his eyes from hers. He could see she was unsure, that she had doubts. He wanted to erase them. He closed his eyes and kissed her again, his mouth slightly open, waiting for her response. She didn’t disappoint him as she met his tongue with hers. He moved his hands up her back to her neck, increasing the intensity of the kiss.   “Is this a yes?” he mumbled through the kiss.   She pulled her lips from his just long enough to answer. “Definite yes.”   To be continued…