Random Acts of Kindness

Jessica's dreamy thoughts ended when they got home and she realized they barely had enough to eat for her and Tim. She wouldn't get her first paycheck until Monday, and she had less than ten dollars to her name, and there was no way she could possibly make anything for three, especially if one of those three was a grown man.

There was a sick feeling in her stomach as she took out her phone.

"You didn't call to uninvite me, did you?" she heard Phil tease.

"Phillip? I am SO embarrassed."

"About what?"

She explained the situation and began promising to make it up to him when he gently interrupted.

"Jessica? It's okay. In fact, I was wanting to take you out someplace special, and this is the perfect opportunity for the three of us to do that."

When he included her son, the happiness she'd felt earlier came back with full force.

"Then perhaps I should change into something a little nicer," she replied, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye.

"Nothing formal, though. Just...nice, okay?" he said in that kind, gentle way she loved.

"That sounds wonderful."

He told her when he'd come by to pick them up, and she told him they'd be ready. Tim was so happy he hugged his mom and told her he loved her. She knew he did, but she also knew it had been ages since they'd gone to a restaurant. Even fast food was a luxury of late, and now they were going to an actual restaurant.

As he went to go change Tim said, "Mom? I'm so glad you and Phil like each other!"

That, too, caught her off guard, but only for a moment as she said, "Me, too, honey. Me, too."

Her next surprise came when she got upstairs and realized that all of her dresses were badly wrinkled from the move. Fortunately, she had a small box of sweaters she'd neatly folded, and all of them were fine.

She chose one that was a light blue with long sleeves and found a pair of black pants that had survived without needing to be ironed and breathed a sigh of relief. In less than five minutes she was changed and ready to go adding only a pair of silver earrings and touching up her makeup.

When Tim came out to show her what he was wearing, she tried not smile. He'd pulled out a dark blue shirt that looked like it had been compressed into a ball and was wearing the only tie he had with it.

"What do you think, Mom?" he asked, hoping for her approval.

"I think it looks, great. But maybe you could let me iron the shirt?"

"Oh. Yeah. It's a little wrinkly," her son told her with a laugh as he pulled off the clip-on tie and then the shirt.

After pressing it out, Jessica brought it back to Tim and suggested the shirt might be enough.

"It's not formal, honey."

"But you look beautiful, Mom."

"Ah! Thank you, sweetie!"

"And Mom? Can you please not call me 'sweetie' when Phil's around?" he asked as he buttoned the shirt back up.

"Oh. Sure. I won't do that again. I promise."

She smiled at her boy then told him she wouldn't call him 'Timmy', either.

"It's okay if you forget, Mom. I'll still love you just as much."

Jessica had to look away as her eyes teared up so fast it took her by surprise.

Five minutes before the time Phil said he'd arrive, he sent a text.

"Almost there. See you in five."

She smiled and thought she must be the luckiest woman on earth. She had a new job she loved, a son she adored, and now, purely by chance, she'd found someone she thought she might possibly fall in love with one day. Yes, they'd just met, but now that she'd been able to put the age issue out of her mind, she allowed herself to dream, and dreaming felt downright wonderful after all she'd been through.

Tim ran to the door when he heard the knock. Jessica stood back and gave him room, and when he opened the door, her heart melted when her son saluted.

Phil returned the salute then said, "Nice job, young Marine! That was perfect!"

He was all smiles when he turned around to let his mom know Phil was there. Again, she only smiled before doing the same to her guest.

"Wow," she heard Phil say when he saw her.

"What? This? Oh, my goodness. It was the only thing I had that wasn't wrinkled."

He came closer, smiled at her again, then said, "Be that as it may, you look amazing."

"Thank you, but I was thinking I was underdressed after seeing you."

He was wearing a very nice shirt and a pair of black, wool pants and looked so handsome it made her aware of a warm wetness in a place she'd almost forgotten existed.

He leaned a little closer then whispered, "I'm dying to kiss you."

She smiled, put her arms around his neck then whispered back, "I believe that would be okay."

Neither of them saw Tim again. But he was watching, smiling happily, and quietly saying, "Yes!" as they kissed.

"So where are we going?" Tim asked when the adults stepped away from each other.

"Benvenuti's. Is that okay?"

The puzzled look on the boy's face answered the question. He had no idea where any restaurant was except for a McDonalds near their apartment. But that didn't matter because he'd have gone anywhere with his mom and her new boyfriend.

As they drove, Tim was checking out everything he could see in the car which was by far the coolest car he'd ever ridden in.

"Phil? Do Marines make a lot of money?" he asked.

"Honey, we don't ask about that, remember?" his mom gently told him.

"Sorry."

"That's okay," Phil said. "The answer is, 'it depends on what you mean by a lot'. I'd say I make more than enough to get by on. Why do you ask?"

Tim waited for his mom to look back and nod before saying, "This car is really cool!"

Phil laughed, thanked him for the compliment, then told him, "It is kind of cool, but it isn't exactly a family car."

He looked at Jessica when he said it then reached over and took her hand.

"Well, my mom has a car, too!"

Jessica laughed then said, "And in that case we use the word 'car' very loosely."

That went right over Tim's head but Phil laughed.

"Sometimes having a car that has problems isn't such a bad thing."

She knew exactly what he meant, smiled at him, then said she agreed completely as she squeezed his hand.

Once they were seated at a table, Jessica nearly fainted when she looked at the prices after their server handed them a menu.

"This place is expensive!" she said very quietly.

"Do we need to go somewhere else?" Tim asked, surprising Phil but not her mom.

"We...we never eat out anymore," she said, just in case Phil didn't understand.

"Well, tonight you may order anything you like," he told her while looking at Tim.

"Yes!" he said before looking at the menu.

Just seconds later he set it down then said, "I have no idea what any of this stuff is!"

Jessica was having similar thoughts but didn't want to say it out loud.

"Tell you what. If you trust me, I'll order something for you, and I'm pretty sure you're gonna like it."

Tim's head started nodding, and with that, Jessica closed her menu, and said, "Will you do that for me, too, please?"

Phil pointed to the spaghetti and meatballs then quietly asked if Tim would eat that.

"Every bite. Spaghettios are his favorite thing in the world!"

After some fried rock shrimp and truffle fries that Tim ate most of, the adults shared a rack of lamb and some red wine while the little man polished off an entire plate of spaghetti and Italian meatballs.

"You have any room for dessert?" Phil asked after Jessica pointed to the red sauce on her son's chin.

Again, he looked to his mom for the okay then said he was.

Phil ordered Triple Mousse Cake, Carrot Cake, and Creme Brûlée, and the three of them took turns sampling each one. Tim was crazy about the layered chocolate cake, liked the carrot cake, but wasn't so wild about the vanilla bean custard. That was fine as it was his mom's favorite.

When the bill came, Jessica tensed up and winced.

"I can't look," she said as she slid it toward Phil who smiled and picked it up and didn't bat an eye.

"Worth every penny to be with my two new favorite people," he told them.

The total, with a 20% tip, was just shy of $200, but Phil would have spent twice that much just to be near this beautiful, older woman he already knew he was falling in love with.

At her place, he kissed her goodnight, and Jessica didn't just thank him, she told him how special this was to her and to her son.

"I'm glad, because the two of you are very special to me."

He said it from just inches away, and Jessica felt like she was on fire. Were Tim not there, she was pretty sure she'd have dragged Phil to her bedroom and done unspeakable things to him. Instead she told him she felt the same way about him.

"So we'll see you Saturday then?" he asked.

"Yes. Definitely."

He kissed her again, told Tim goodnight, and to his very pleasant surprise the boy reach up and hugged him. Touched, Phil hugged him back and told him he'd had a great time.

"Me, too!" Tim told him as he moved back and looked up admiringly.

"Nice. And I'll see you, too, on Saturday, okay?"

"Okay! Bye Phil!"

Jessica brushed her hand on Phil's then said, "Goodnight, Phillip."

"Goodnight, beautiful," he said back before stealing one more kiss.

The next day they had lunch together at school, and it was obvious to both of them that things had changed. Kissing does that, but they understood there was something more going on here; something deeper that went well beyond a kiss. It had the air of being real, and it was definitely more than a fling even though there'd been no 'flinging' as of yet.

Perhaps that was as important as anything else. Had they hooked up it would have felt casual and even hollow. And waiting only made the longing grow stronger even as their friendship grew.

"I had a wonderful time last night, Phillip."

"Me, too," he told her as they held hands across a cafeteria table.

Jessica wanted to ask if this was a relationship and where he thought it was going. She also needed reassurance that he really didn't care that she was so much older than him. But she couldn't help but think that asking those kinds of questions would make her seem weak, and even worse, needy. And while she had needs, she wasn't needy, per se. Tim and her job would be enough if this didn't go anywhere, and yet she knew she would be deeply hurt were this to suddenly end, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen.

So when Phil mentioned her age it caught her by surprise so completely that she had to force herself to focus.

"Are you still...concerned...about the age difference?" he asked in his calm, gentle way.

"You told me it didn't matter, and that's all I needed to hear."

He smiled then said, "No. I meant are you concerned about being with someone...my age."

She looked at him and saw nothing but a mature, grown man who was intelligent, thoughtful, kind, and caring. And the fact that he was handsome enough to cause her body to react by just looking at him sealed the deal in her mind.

"I honestly never thought about that. It's not like...."

She took another look at his ruggedly handsome face then said, "It's not like you have a baby face or look...boyish."

"Hey, are you saying I'm not boyishly handsome?" Phil asked, as he sat up and turned his face to her in profile view.

Jessica laughed then told him he wasn't.

"There's nothing boyish about you, Phillip. Not one thing."

He laughed then told her he was kind of a mama's boy.

Jessica laughed even harder because she knew that wasn't true. What he was was a loving, caring son who was there for his widowed mom as much as he could be, and she saw that as a huge plus and told him so.

"You haven't told me anything about your family," Phil said, hinting but without any pressure.

"Right. Well, my mom died when I was six. After that, my dad went from weekend binge drinking to nightly binge drinking, and by the time I finished high school, he was diagnosed with liver failure. He hung on for six months after that."

Phil saw tears welling up in her eyes and told her that was more than enough.

"We...we were estranged the last two years of his life. He loved the bottle more than anything else, and I learned to live around it until I left home the summer after graduation. I'm an only child, and my only uncle lives in Michigan. The last time I saw him was at my mom's funeral. So...it's pretty much just me and Timmy."

In spite of the near-somber mood, Phil raised an eyebrow.

"Oops! Good thing Tim isn't here. I'd have caught heck for that!"

"He's such a great guy," Phil said with real sincerity.

"He thinks you walk on water, Phillip."

Phil squeezed her hand then told her he'd do his best to never do anything to change that.

"Never is a long time," she replied, knowing she was now the one doing the hinting.

"I don't want to scare you off, Jessica, but I have no intention of ever being without him...or you...in my life."

This time there were no tears. There was only this huge swelling of her heart as she leaned across the table and kissed him.

"I'm kind of crazy about you two," Phil told her as she sat back down.

"And we're kind of crazy about you."

"My mom can't wait for Saturday."

"Does she know how old I am?" Jessica asked out of the blue.

"She knows you're older than me. And I know that the only thing that matters to her is me being happy."

"Are you? Happy?" Jessica asked, now willing to risk appear weak.

"Very. You?"

"Happier than I've been in so long I'd forgotten what this feels like."

"It's pretty great, isn't it?"

"It's wonderful," she told him before also saying, "you're wonderful, Phillip."

"If I wasn't in uniform, I'd pull you over the table and set you on my lap and kiss you."

"I love the way you look in your uniform, but right now I can't tell you how much I wish you were wearing civilian clothes so you could do that. Which, by the way, you also look very good in."

He glanced at his watch then said, "Unfortunately, I have a class in ten minutes."

"And I have patients waiting for me."

"Better not keep them waiting," Phil said as he stood up.

He walked her to the clinic, and although she was dying to hold his hand, she wanted him to know that his traditions were important to her and refrained. But when it came to a goodbye kiss, that was her bridge too far. The kiss was short and sweet with the sweet part being the far more important aspect.

As usual, Phil spent that Saturday morning at his mom's house. During one of their several conversations, she asked about dinner with Jessica.

"About that. She's really struggling financially. I don't think she gets her first paycheck until early next week. So I was wondering if...."

"Yes, you can ask them to come over here. In fact, I insist. Just don't tell her why, okay?" his mom said with a smile.

Phil loved that his mom was so intuitive. She immediately understood that cooking for four cost money, and she wasn't about to take money from a single mom having a tough go of getting by.

"I'll call her right now. I just hope she hasn't gone out shopping already."

"It's 8am, honey. If she's at a store at this time of day, she's a super mom."

Phil agreed but used the excuse to call anyway.

Marsha smiled several times as she heard her son talking to Jessica. She'd never heard him 'coo' before, but he was pretty much doing that, indicating that she was special to him. And since she'd already met and liked this younger woman, she was thrilled to see her again, especially since she was so important to her only child. And when she thought of children, she thought about Tim and what a polite, well-mannered boy he was and smiled some more.

"Okay. Sounds great. See you guys at seven then," Marsha heard Phil say in that 'I'm in love voice' she'd never heard before.

"She's pretty special to you, isn't she?" his mom asked even though she already knew the answer.

"Very. Why? Do you disapprove?"

"Disapprove? Phil, I have no say in who you date or love. But in this case, I wholeheartedly approve."

"Jessica worries about the age difference. Not with me. She wonders if you maybe think it's...I don't know...too much or something."

"That's also none of my business, but if you won't mind telling me, I would be interested in knowing how much older she is."

Phil hadn't said this out loud before, and as he got ready to, he was well aware of how it might sound.

"She's uh, she's 14 years older than me, Mom."

"Oh. So...she's what? Um...41?"

"Yes. You still okay?"

"Yes. I was just surprised. Very surprised, actually. She looks a lot younger than that."

His mom laughed then said, "And I'm not just saying that. I honestly thought she was in her early-to-mid 30s."

Phil stood up, walked over to his mom who was getting breakfast ready and put his arms around her.

"You know I love you, right?"

"Of course I do. And I love you. And while I love hearing you say that, is there some reason for it?"

Phil moved back, put his hands on his mom's upper arms then told her he thought he loved Jessica, too.

"Ah, okay," his mom said with a smile. "Well, all I can say is that if you love, I'll love her, too. And that should be easy because I already like her a lot. And that boy of hers is such a sweetheart."

"He's a really good kid, and I can see myself, you know, stepping in and being a dad to him."

"He would be a very lucky young man were that to happen, and while I'm biased, I also think Jessica is very lucky to have found someone as wonderful as you."

"And that is one of the many reasons I love you so much," Phil told his mother again before hugging her one more time.

"And I am just happy as happy can be that my son is able to come home so often. That he's found someone to love makes me even happier."

"Thanks, Mom. You're the best."

She smiled then asked about Jessica's parents.

Phil repeated what she told him at lunch, and he saw the hurt in his mother's eyes.

"That poor girl. Now I think I understand a little better why she's so kind and caring. Poor thing probably didn't have much love growing up."

"I agree. And yet she's got so much of it to give, and I see that in the way she treats Tim."

"And you, right?"

Phil laughed and said, "Once again, you are spot on."

Marsha couldn't remember the last time she cooked for four and spent the day shopping, preparing, and getting everything ready. Phil tagged along with her and loved seeing his mom so happy and involved. She was independent, but he knew she'd been lonely during the years he'd been away. Yes, she had her friends, but having her son home for three years was a godsend to her, and Phil had to admit he was grateful to be nearby, too.

By the time Jessica and Tim arrived, the Sexton home was filled with the aroma of food cooking and freshly baked bread.

Marsha let Phil answer the door but was right there to greet her guests with hugs and warm welcomes.

"What smells SO good?" Jessica asked as Tim said he was starving as he high-fived Phil who said he was, too.

For the next four hours there was never a lull in the conversation for more than a few seconds as the Logans and the Sextons got acquainted. Everyone talked during dinner with a lot of the time given to Tim who loved the attention. But after everyone had eaten, Jessica didn't spend more than ten minutes with either Phil or her son.

As it turned out she and Marsha were like two peas in a pod. One thing led to another which turned up yet one more common interest. But what really got the younger woman's attention was Marsha's love of quilting. The two women disappeared into the sewing room, a bedroom Marsha had turned into a little haven where she cut fabric, sewed pieces together then quilted them.

Jessica had always loved quilts but never made one. Before she left she and Marsha had agreed to on a time and date for them to do one together. It would actually take several visits, but Jessica was almost as excited about learning to quilt as she was to spend time with Marsha's son.