by Con Riley
“I have it right here, Peg. But you can’t wear it over that dressing. You’re beautiful anyway without it.” He steps close again, and this time he holds her wig, and he murmurs in answer to her sobs. “They took it off because they were worried you’d bumped your noggin, that’s all. It’s been here the whole time. No one wants to steal it, sweetheart, although that wouldn’t surprise me, what with you looking so gorgeous when you wear it. Have to admit, I’ve been tempted to steal it myself a few times.”
It’s watery all right, but Jon clearly hears her weak giggle.
“So I don’t want to put it on you right now. How about…. Look, there’s a headscarf in your purse.” They’re both quiet for a moment. “And now you look amazing.” Tyler leans close, as if Peggy’s whispered something to him. “What’s that? Jonathan? Yes, he’s here, and he can’t wait to see you.”
When Tyler says, “He came right away when I called,” Jon wishes with everything he is that he could promise that for longer.
Chapter 21
JON HAS a moment of dislocation early the next morning when he gets to the airport empty handed. Even if he’s not about to use his return ticket, it’s strange to be back here again so much sooner than he expected. He ignores that unsettling feeling and instead heads for arrivals instead of departures. People pass him in a steady stream as he enters, already on their way out. A glance at an arrivals board confirms it; the flight Peggy’s niece was due in on landed ahead of schedule. He’s not late, but still he hurries, trying to form a mental picture of the woman he’s here to collect. It’s sketchy at best, based entirely on decades-old photos on Peggy’s walls that he’d taken a close look at last night before making sure the house was locked up. None of them were recent, and none of them exactly gave him much to work on. Without Peggy there to fill in the gaps in his understanding, the photos simply showed random strangers.
He stops as the tide of new arrivals thins out and looks around for anyone even vaguely resembling Peggy. There’s no one here fitting that description, no one obviously sharing her genetics. He’s about to text the contact number Tyler gave him when his phone buzzes in his pocket. When he pulls it out to read it, someone close by asks, “Jonathan Fournier?”
“Lorna Holzer?” He glances at his phone where a text from Tyler reads She arrived early. Will wait at Information. Jon extends his hand to the woman—well dressed and maybe fifty—who stands only a few feet away, exactly where the text said. They shake hands, her grip firm, and Jon takes stock. She’s taller than he imagined, wearing the kind of sharply tailored suit favored by female execs at Bettman, like she’s here for a business meeting rather than to visit family. “It’s good to meet you,” he says and then abruptly stops before he can add something inane like, “Peggy told me all about you.”
That would be a complete lie.
This person might be Peggy’s closest living relative, but she’s a complete stranger.
He feels that very strongly when she repeatedly says Aunt Margaret each time she mentions Peggy, like she doesn’t know the name her own aunt favors. It sounds so oddly formal—nothing like the woman he knows who opens her heart and home to strangers.
Jon shuts down that train of thought and directs her to his rental. Wasn’t he a stranger to Peggy a couple of months ago? At least this woman dropped everything to fly across the country. It’s a lot to ask on short notice, he has to acknowledge, for someone with a career. He settles on small talk instead, after reassuring her that, according to Tyler, Peggy’s doing okay for a woman of her advanced years.
The journey to the hospital slows when traffic snarls behind an accident on the I-5.
“Someone else not having the best start to their morning,” she murmurs as the flashing lights on cop cars come into view.
“Yup,” Jon agrees as traffic crawls past a messy fender bender. He hopes Peggy’s having a better morning at least. He goes ahead and says so, adding detail of how they usually started each day by sharing breakfast or touring the backyard for an early morning check on their garden’s progress. He’s midway through a description of how well their tomato plants have done—fruit starting to ripen already on the early-season crop—when she interrupts him.
“I….” She hesitates, carefully considering her words. “It’s been years since I last saw Aunt Margaret. We… our families lived on opposite coasts. Mom was my only connection with her, and they had a falling out before I was born. It wasn’t something anyone in the family spoke about. Mom would get this look if Aunt Margaret was mentioned. I guess that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“No. No it does.” Not mentioning people who were absent was something he’d grown up with.
“I divorced around the same time as Mom passed away and was free to spend more time overseas on business, so I did. I lived in London for five years.” She looks out her window rather than at him. “These aren’t excuses. They’re facts. But I feel bad I haven’t seen too much of her. She’s not getting any younger.”
She sounds composed, but when Jon looks across, her hands are clenched tight around her seatbelt, knuckles white, like they’re traveling far too fast rather than crawling along.
It’s a sign of human worry that warms him to her.
They converse more easily for the next few miles; her business dealings overseas fascinate him, and she’s as intrigued by his reasons for being in the city. That earlier moment of warmth dissipates when he drops her off at the entrance to the hospital.
“Thank you for the ride, Jonathan,” she says as she opens the car door. “There was really no need, I could’ve gotten a cab, but Tyler was insistent when he called.”
“It was nothing. I’ll be back after lunch once I get done with my meetings. I can give you a ride to a hotel later.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” she says. “I’ll stay at Aunt Margaret’s house while I’m here. But seriously, there’s no need to put yourself out, especially if you took time off work already. You’re not responsible for her welfare. Tyler isn’t either. I’m here now to get the wheels in motion.”
“Wheels in motion?”
It’s not that her smile is cold exactly, it’s more that she’s coolly decisive—business attributes he’d admire in another setting. But here, outside the hospital where the two people who mean the mo—
He cuts off that thought by leaning across the console as far as his seatbelt will allow. “What do you mean by that?”
“I have to be practical, Jonathan.” Understanding that it’s not personal doesn’t make it any better when she says, “I need to get the wheels in motion to get her settled into a nursing home, of course.”
Cool might only be the way she sounds, but it isn’t a strong enough descriptor for the effect of those words. When she straightens up from the car door and adds, “The sooner I can get that organized the better,” something inside Jon freezes.
A MORNING at work doesn’t do much to thaw Jon’s mood, and he’s short with Peggy’s niece when he next sees her.
“You really didn’t need to take time off,” she says as he pauses at the threshold of the hospital room.
He’s brusque when he says, “It’s fine,” too busy looking at Peggy to give her his attention. It’s clear she’s dozing when he gets to her bedside. Her breathing barely lifts the sheet, her complexion almost matching its pristine whiteness. In contrast, her wig is a splash of vivid color that she clutches like she’s still worried someone might take it. It’s a sight that softens him some. “Besides, I promised Peggy I’d be back to see her as soon as I could. How’s she doing?” he asks, keeping his voice low. “Can she come home soon?” He turns when her niece doesn’t answer right away. “Is… is something wrong?” Maybe Tyler’s texted updates had been overly optimistic.
“No. As soon as they’re satisfied that she’s over the shock, she can be released. Likely tomorrow, they think. But I don’t know if ‘home’ is a valid option.”
“Jonathan?” Peggy’s voice is hoa
rse. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, I just got in.” She squints, so he leans over the bed to shade her from the overhead light. When she reaches to her forehead to check her curls are in place, eyes widening in panic, the same place inside him that froze earlier thaws. “Hey,” he says. “Your wig is right here.” Her lips look dry when she smiles with relief. “You want a drink? Here,” he says as he retrieves her glass of water and holds the straw steady as she takes tiny sips. That simple act exhausts her. She slumps back against her pillows and then tries to stifle a wince. “You hurting, Peggy?” He looks over his shoulder at where her niece sits. “When did she last get some painkillers?”
“I’m fine, Jonathan,” Peggy insists, her voice sounding clearer. “I just have a headache is all. I’ll be right as rain in no time.”
“Of course you will.” Jon squeezes the fingers she’s slipped into his hand. “Who else will keep an eye on my tomato plant while I’m at work or water the spinach if you don’t?”
She’s chuckling when Tyler appears in the doorway, rumpled like he slept in his clothes. His smile at hearing her laugh is relieved and gorgeous. Jon can’t stop watching it spread, which is how he notices the moment it shuts down tight.
Tyler glances at Peggy’s niece, and while he’s polite when he speaks to her, that’s about all he can manage. “Thanks for staying while I slept, Lorna,” Tyler says, stilted, like he has to try particularly hard to use his manners. “If you want to go take a break, I’m good to take over.”
She already has her phone out. “I think I will get some fresh air and make a couple of calls.”
As soon as she’s gone, Tyler crosses the room to kiss Peggy on the cheek she offers and then bumps his hip against Jon’s. “How’re you doing?” he quietly asks. It takes a moment for Jon to grasp that it’s him he’s asking, not Peggy. “Yesterday was quite the day,” he continues, and he squeezes Jon’s hand where he still holds onto Peggy’s. It’s a simple three-way touch that loosens all Jon’s tension. He exhales in unconscious relief as Tyler asks, “You get caught up okay at work?”
Peggy watches them both, her hand held safely between theirs. Then she nods, like what she sees is greatly pleasing.
“I’m good,” Jon says. “I asked Eric to take my place in all the meetings I was scheduled to sit in on. I expected him to take notes for me, but it looks like he decided to roll with being a hired gun for the whole day.”
“That the guy who can’t stop talking?” Tyler’s laugh is low but genuine. “Oh, boy.”
“Yes. He annexed the meeting room I’ve been using, set up camp in there with all the interns, and went ahead and told the accounting department that they’d all been requisitioned for a special project. Now they’re working on a task I set my first week here. They all looked bummed to see me this morning.”
“Did you send them back to the accounting department?”
“Nope.” Finding the interns happily working so hard on the project had been good. A couple of them had reached out to the legal department to learn more about zoning, while another had secured a ride along with a site foreman for the day to explore a construction project from the ground up. “It’s exactly what they should do if they want a real picture of the whole organization. Eric’s doing great with them.”
“Yes?” Peggy yawns and blinks. “You should bring him home for supper.” Her next yawn is huge right when her niece returns to the room.
Tyler doesn’t look up as she enters.
It almost seems deliberate.
Instead he says, “How about you hold that thought until you get done with an afternoon nap? I’ll stay right here while you do. Maybe even catch another forty winks myself before I have to go walk Princess.”
“Let me do that for you,” Jon blurts. Tyler might’ve said that he slept already, but Jon knows what dog-tired looks like on him by now. He glances over at Peggy’s niece. “Did you want me to take your bag back to Peggy’s? If I’m going back to walk the dog, I can do that for you, or—” He tilts his head toward Peggy. She already has her eyes closed, and Tyler’s taken the seat next to her bed. “I can give you a ride back right now. You could catch up on your work before coming back this evening.”
“I do have some international calls I need to make, and I need to hire a rental. This isn’t the easiest place to do any of that.” She glances at Tyler again. “I… listen, Tyler, I didn’t realize you were a professional. I just saw one of the nurses. He mentioned that you’re a health aide.” She lifts her chin. “And he says you’re very dedicated. I-I’m sorry I disagreed with you earlier. I didn’t realize that you had some idea what you were talking about.”
Ah.
That explains the coolness of the atmosphere between them.
The temperature drops even further when she insists, “Of course, I’ll have to pay you for your time.”
The look Tyler levels her way right then is utterly blank. It’s such an alien expression, rigid for once, instead of easy going. “This isn’t work.” He speaks quietly, but for the first time since he’s known him, Jon sees what fury looks like when Tyler wears it. “This is nothing like work. I’m here because it’s what she needs. No one ever has to pay me for that.”
Peggy’s niece is almost silent on the drive back.
Jon’s only a couple of blocks away from home when she says, “She’s much frailer than I remember.” It’s only concern that makes her sound so uptight, Jon tells himself. She’s likely feeling guilty right now that Peggy’s managed for so long on her own. Then he clamps down on that thought real quick when they pull into the drive, and she says, “She’s frailer, and this place doesn’t look much better.”
“This place isn’t so bad.” Jon defends the house he’d first thought of as a dump. “It’s just tired, that’s all. Nothing that some TLC can’t fix,” but she’s already unfastened her seatbelt, and she faces the street by the time Jon gets out. The strip mall opposite looks particularly rundown now that it’s turned cloudy, and she flinches when a cop car screams past.
“It doesn’t exactly look like a great neighborhood.”
Jon holds in an instinctive retort when he sees that she’s biting her lip like she’s worried. He comes to her side of the car and tries to reassure her. “It is great here. Truly. Besides, everyone around here knows Peggy.”
“You mean they know she’s elderly and vulnerable?” Horror widens her eyes, which, he notices for the first time, are the same shade as her aunt’s. “Anything could happen.”
“She’s not though,” Jon tries to insist. “Vulnerable, I mean. Not here. Not at all when she has—” He stops himself from saying, “us.” Instead, he says, “Tyler.”
Her silence is heavy, like the cloud cover overhead, and she crosses her arms while musing. “Maybe I need to find somewhere closer to me instead of someplace around here. Sell this place and get her relocated to a facility in Philly. At least that way I can see her whenever I’m home.”
That sounds fucking awful.
How on earth can that be any better than what Peggy has here?
The word facility sounds clinical compared to the warmth of Peggy’s established friendships. And whenever I’m home sounds infrequent at best, stark contrast to sharing her space, day and night, with a man she clearly views as family. He eventually gets out a strangled, “Come see where she spends most of her time.”
Maybe the backyard will cast the same spell over her as it has him and shine a different light on Peggy’s living situation. He unlocks the garage door. “She’s safe here,” he says, trying not to wince at the old door’s pained creak. He leads the way through the garage to the back door, but Peggy’s niece pauses by the potting table. When he turns, she holds a long shard of glass warily between two fingers. More fragments litter the table surface, sharp, and clearly jagged.
She drops the shard back into one of the plant pots containing smaller pieces. Instead of a merry tinkle as it lands, it shatters, sounding deadly. “What is this exactly?”
What is it?
Jon swallows.
It’s the result of Peggy being left to her own devices and almost toppling from a ladder.
It’s chilling to remember, and knowing, as he does now, that a small stumble over a paving stone was enough to hospitalize her, God knows what could’ve happened if he hadn’t been here to catch her. “It’s… uh… it’s a craft project.” It’s not exactly a lie. He also tells the truth when he says, “Some old ornaments got broken. Peggy loves them, so Tyler’s trying to fix them. They belonged to—”
“To her grandmother. I know.” Broken glass is the strangest thing to soften her expression. “Mom had some too. I remember finding some in storage after she passed.” Then she draws in a quick breath and admits something that Jon’s not sure she means to. “Aunt Margaret married my mom’s first boyfriend. They eloped.” She shakes her head. “I’d probably know her much better if that hadn’t happened.”
“Maybe,” Jon says, and he opens the door to the backyard. “Families aren’t always easy, I guess.” It’s an understatement that he mulls as he gives her a tour, finding it hard to imagine a world where this garden wouldn’t have existed. And it wouldn’t if Peggy hadn’t fallen in love so hard she cut herself off from her own family. “She spends so much time out here.” He crouches to examine the tomato plants, carefully turning leaves to examine them for any shriveling or blackness. Their fruits really are starting to ripen, and his pride in their success makes him honest. “She needs to garden. She loves it so much.” Just like he’s come to, as well. “I’m not sure she could be happy if she couldn’t be out here.”
“I have to think about her safety.”
It’s a single sentence that sounds final.
When Jon straightens, she’s standing next to the same rosemary bush he did on his first visit, staring back at the house. “Look at this place,” she says. “Are all those window frames rotten?” She points at peeling paintwork he’s not sure when he stopped noticing. “And how long has that roof needed new shingles?” He doesn’t need to follow her gaze to know she’s spotted the reason his bedroom ceiling is so stained. “Can she even afford to make repairs?”