Page 13 of Lost and Found

“Yeah, Paige loves the color. She’s always been the free spirit.” Arden gets a faraway look in her eye.

I want to ask her more about Paige, but for now, I avoid the topic. “How did they manage to sell this house? Legally, everything should go to Paige. Your wife or husband becomes your next of kin in death.”

Arden scoffs and shakes her head. “Not with the Reynolds. It was a pre-nuptial agreement that Codi had Paige sign. I told her not to do it, but she felt like it was understandable.”

“Pre-nuptial agreement?”

“Yeah, the Reynolds’ come from old money, something to do with a tobacco farm.Anyway,as you know they never approved of Paige. She was too carefree, too much of an outside the box thinker. She wasn’t made to be part of their idea of society. Codi’s parents talked him into the pre-nuptial agreement and Paige agreed. Everything they had, wentto his parents if Codi passed away. I was so angry when she agreed to that. I was worried about her at the time, then Corey came along I worried about her and him. I always wondered if his parents would actually do that to their grandchild, but I guess now I know the answer to that,” she explains.

I shake my head in disgust. “I will never be able to understand people like that. I mean, I understand that their idea of who their son should be with was someone unlike Paige, but at the end of the day, that’s who he married.To strip her and their grandchild of everything like this is sickening.”

“Maybe, if Corey had survived…”

I scoff. “I hate to say it, but I think they still would have done it.”

Arden nods. “You’re probably right.”

“Let’s start this,” I tell her, as I motion toward the boxes. Arden leads us into the living room. She stops in front of the built-in entertainment center that encases the TV and takes up the entire wall. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. “Are these vinyl records?”

She nods and laughs. “Yes, Paige loves music. She started collecting them during high school, and then she got her great aunt’s collection after she passed.She just kept adding to it.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of music.”

“Yeah, a lot of weird music,” Arden adds. I raise my eyebrows in question. “Okay, so I’m more of a pop girl, but Paige has always loved acoustic or alternative rock. It’s just always been her thing. Oh! And 80’s hair metal bands.”

I laugh, trying to imagine Paige listening to this music. “Well, I can’t really picture that.”

“Paige was always the carefree, free-spirited, fun-loving girl. She always danced when she liked a song, she sang every song she knew the lyrics too loud and off-key, she liked to dress like a hippie and bake organic snacks for our boys. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come into this house and found her, Corey, and Gideon in the kitchen dancing around to some song while some weird organic crap was baking,” Arden laughs, before a small sob escapes from her. I watch her shoulders shake slightly and without thought, I move next to her and wrap my arm around her. “I was always the cautious, quiet, observant one. She was always so much more than that. She wasn’t afraid of people or this world. She saw the good in everyone.”

“Sounds like you two are both very lucky to have one another. Kind of like a good balance, yin, and yang if you will,” I tell her. Arden nods and pulls away, wiping her fingers under her eyes.

“I’m going to work on the bedroom. You just work on getting all those records in boxes,” she says, as she heads for the staircase.

For the next couple of hours, I move an enormous amount of records to boxes. With each one I pull down, I feel like I learn something new about Paige. What music we like can teach us so much about the other person. Once I’m done, I start to move the boxes into my SUV, before heading upstairs and collecting the boxes that Arden has accumulated up there.

As we’re heading out the door, Arden stops and runs back to the white couches and pulls off some tie-dye pillows sitting on it. “She made these herself,” she mumbles, as she walks past me. I don’t need an explanation, but I just nod my head. I follow Arden to a storage facility in town. We work on unloading everything in my SUV into the unit. Arden’s car has Paige’s clothes and what not. We’re almost done, when Arden asks, “What if she doesn’t remember any of this? Her life? Her passion? Herself?”

I walk over to her. “She will. I know she will.” It’s a lie because I don’t know anything for sure, but Arden knows that. I say it for comfort and that’s what she gets from it.

Chapter Twelve

Paige

Dr. Reid never showed up to release me like he said he would this morning, and I became worried. Something must have happened to him or me. Maybe, it was me. Maybe, something in my head was showing something was wrong. When I asked the nurse about it, she just said that I was staying another night for observation. I had asked her why, and she claimed it was protocol, but I didn’t believe her.

I guess I eventually fell asleep, but it took a good while. I woke up this morning to Annie. She wanted to take me for a walk in the hallways. At least that was one good thing. My walking stability and pace was improving. It was one small step forward, but it was a step, and at this point, I’d take what I could get. “Do you know why I wasn’t released yesterday like Dr. Reid had said I would be?” I asked Annie.

She smiles at me. “No, but I’m sure if he kept you, it was probably just to be safe. He’s very cautious when it comes to his patients. He’s a great doctor.”

Her words gave me some peace, but some part of me still felt worried. We made it to the end of the hallway, and I was taking a small break in one of the chairs by the window, when Dr. Reid came into sight. “Good morning, Paige. How are you feeling?”

I bite my bottom lip. “Worried.”

He takes a seat across from me. “Why are you worried?”

“Well, you said I’d be released yesterday, but then you never came back and I wasn’t released. Is something wrong with me now?” I ask, terrified of the answer.

“Oh no, you’re fine. You’re healing well. Your walking has improved so much. That’s a great thing. I just wanted to give you one more night of observation just to be safe. I live by that it's better to be safe than sorry motto,” he explains with a shrug, his face looks a little bashful.

---