Darryl Lee looked at him. “What’d you do?”
“I told her she ought to forgive her mother.”
Darryl Lee considered this for a few moments. “That’s probably the very best thing she could do for herself.”
“And the hardest.”
“That’s usually the stuff that gets us where we need to go.” Darryl Lee said, and then, “So are you gonna tell her how you feel about her?”
“I’m not sure it would do any good.”
“As much as it galls me to say it, I saw the way she looked at you. She never looked at me like that.”
“You were both kids then,” Bobby Jack said.
“Love is love. Since when did it ever make any difference how old you are?”
Bobby Jack knew his brother and what it cost him to throw out this seal of approval. The strongest kind of love for Darryl Lee welled up in him.
They might not always agree on everything, but when it came to the real stuff in life, the things that mattered, he guessed they actually did.
“The moment will come, as surely as we breathe, when opportunity will disappear. Then, and only then, will we realize what we have lost.”
Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl
CHAPTER FIFTY
Grier stepped off the elevator and took the hallway to her mother’s room, her steps quickening until she was all but running past the nurse’s desk.
“Room 316!” she heard a nurse say. “Code Blue!”
Panic flared in Grier’s chest and spread through her in a wave of disbelief. She started to run outright then, a nurse right behind her with a cart carrying a large machine.
Grier came to a jarring stop at the room’s door. Two other nurses were already there, giving her mother CPR.
She lay flat on the bed, her face as white as the sheet beneath her.
The nurses worked with capable, well-rehearsed movements, their voices steady and calm.
The nurse who had been behind her pushed by with the cart, murmuring a brisk, “Excuse me.” And then glancing over her shoulder, said, “I’m sorry. You can’t be in here. You’ll have to wait outside.”
“But what’s happening?”
“Please,” the nurse said firmly, but not unkindly. “Wait outside.”
“I would rather take her pain a thousand times over than to watch her try to bear it.”
Bobby Jack to Darryl Lee after Priscilla left and Andy cried, broken-hearted,
for her at bedtime
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Bobby Jack spotted her as soon as the elevator doors opened.
Darryl Lee had brought him a pair of jeans and a shirt. After changing out of that ridiculous hospital gown, he’d slipped down the hall and into the open elevator before one of the nurses could spot him.
He walked as fast as his aching left leg would let him.
She sat huddled against the wall, her knees to her chest, her head hidden beneath her arms. He sank down beside her and put his arm around her, without giving himself time to consider that she might push him away.
“What is it?” he asked. “What happened?”
Grier looked up at him then, her face streaked with multiple tracks of tears. “They’ve been in there over twenty minutes. When I got here, they were. . .her heart must have stopped.”
She began to cry then, deep, wracking sobs that came from a place of hurt so far down inside her that he could hardly bear to hear them.
“Grier.” He folded her into the crook of his arm, holding her as tightly as he dared. She collapsed into him, as if she needed to absorb his strength, needed it to go on breathing.
He kissed the top of her head and held her while she cried. He had no idea what to say, if there was anything he could say, to lessen the pain.
People walked by. Stared at them. Shrunk away from the sound of Grier’s grief.
He just pulled her closer. Held her tighter. Wanting to take it into himself. Feel the pain for her so that she didn’t have to.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat there. It seemed like forever because he couldn’t stand knowing the agony she was in. And no time at all because having her here against him was something he never wanted to end.
“I wanted to tell her I—” Her voice broke then, sobs swallowing the words.
“Shh. It’s okay,” Bobby Jack said, rubbing her hair and sensing the recriminations she wanted to throw at herself. At the same time, he could feel her acceptance that it might be too late, that she might have waited too long.
Another nurse came running down the hall, opened the door and stepped in, her voice carrying into the hall. “She has a DNR. We were just now able to get it from the nursing home. There was a digital file of it on backup.”
A man’s voice, low and resigned, said, “Stop.”
Bobby Jack felt Grier stiffen. She jumped to her feet, ran to the door and pushed it open. “No. Don’t stop. She’s my mother! Keep going!”
Bobby Jack stepped in behind her, saw the look of sympathy on the doctor’s face. “I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “But those were her wishes.”
Grier sank onto the side of the bed, dropping her head onto her mother’s chest, sobs now pouring from her. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry. Please. Come back. Just come back.”
The doctor laid a hand on Grier’s shoulder and said, “She’s gone, dear.”
Bobby Jack looked at the doctor and the two nurses standing by the bed with downcast eyes. “Could she have a few minutes, please?”
“Of course.” The doctor turned and left the room. The nurses followed quietly behind him.
“Do you want me to stay?” Bobby Jack asked, his voice breaking on the last word.
“No,” Grier said, her voice barely audible.
“I’ll be right outside,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And as he turned and walked from the room, he thought her pain would surely break his heart in half.
“When I grow up, Mama, I want to be as pretty and good as you.”
Grier, age four, on a picnic at the lake
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Grier pressed her face into the pillow beside her mother’s still head, trying to muffle the grief rolling from her like a tsunami from the ocean floor. But it wouldn’t be silenced, and the tears wouldn’t stop. She cried like she had never cried before in her life, a child stricken by the realization that her mother was gone and was never coming back.
She laced her fingers with hers, squeezing tight as if she could infuse her with her own life force, will her back into this world, into this room, into her life.
The words rose up and refused to remain within her, silent. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry.” She said the words over and over again, until they were nothing more than a weak whisper, slipping past her lips.
Ironic that she had come to this room to give her mother forgiveness, and now, it felt as if she were the one seeking it. Only now it was too late for any words that might heal either of them.
Grier sat up on her elbows, pushed her hair back from her face and ran a hand across her tear-stained cheeks. The lines in her mother’s face had all but disappeared. She looked so much more like the younger woman that Grier remembered. She looked at peace.
“I know you never meant for anything bad to happen to me, Mama.” She smoothed the back of her fingers across her mother’s face, let them linger against the softness of her cheek. “Will you forgive me?”
But there was no answer in the silent room. She had waited too long, too late. She would have to live with that the rest of her life.
“Sometimes, all you can do for a person
is be there. Just don’t let them
convince you that they don’t
need you. They do. And they will.”
Bobby Jack’s Grandma Randall
after the death of his father
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Bobby Jack stood outside until he could no longer hear Grier crying.
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He opened the door and walked quietly across the room, putting his hand on her shoulder, and then rubbing her back, compassion a weight on his chest. “Grier, honey. Why don’t we go now?”
She looked up at him then, her eyes and face a picture of heartbreak. “You don’t have to be here with me,” she said.
“I want to be here with you.”
He could see her resistance and then watched it ebb away beneath a need to hold onto someone, to anything, to keep from drowning in the current of emotion she was trying to navigate.
He held her hand tighter, pulled her to her feet and then encircled her waist with his arms, melding her into him with an all-consuming desire to absorb it all, take the pain from her and carry it as his own.
She pressed her face to his shirt. He felt her breathe in and anchored her more securely within the circle of his arms. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “You’ll be okay.”
“I’m not sure I want to be,” she said, the words broken and full of self-blame.
“I want you to be,” he said. “I want you to be.”
AFTER WRANGLING A couple of doctors into hastening his release, Bobby Jack called Darryl Lee and asked him to drop his truck off at the hospital.
All the while, he kept Grier with him, mostly tucked inside the curve of his arm because he feared what might happen if he let her go.
He felt her fragility and how easy it would be for her to break right now. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
By the time he had completed the paperwork to check himself out and Grier had answered the hospital’s questions about funeral preparations, Darryl Lee already had the truck waiting in the parking lot.
He stood by the open door, his face compassionate and concerned. “Grier,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She looked at him, her eyes brimming again with tears. “Thank you, Darryl Lee.”
“If there’s anything I can do. . . anything at all.”
She shook her head and said, “I appreciate that.”
“Bobby Jack, are you sure you should be driving?” Darryl Lee asked.
“I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”
Under any other circumstances, Bobby Jack knew his brother would have argued. But he let him go, walked back to his own truck and waved a solemn wave.
Bobby Jack helped Grier inside and shut the door, walking around to the driver’s side and climbing in. He drove slowly all the way to the Inn.
When they pulled up in front, he said, “We could go back to my house.”
“I think I’d rather stay here.”
“Then I’m staying, too.”
He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. They walked inside and up the stairs to her room. She handed him the key and he opened the door.
Bobby Jack sat down in the chair next to the bed. “I’m here, Grier,” he said, “and I’m not going anywhere.”
“When the hurt is so big and so seemingly endless, the only thing that will ever get us through is love.”
Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Grier heard the cell phone ringing in her purse.
Bobby Jack said, “Do you want me to get that?”
She rose up on an elbow, wanting to say no, to turn it off, close out the world, but then she remembered all the responsibilities she had waiting and the fact that she hadn’t shown up for the meeting this morning at the Inn. She knew she couldn’t put it off. “Yes,” she said.
He reached in her purse and handed the phone to her.
Caller id flashed Elizabeth Arbon. Grier tapped the answer button and said, “Hello.”
“I just heard what happened last night, Grier. And about your mother. I’m so very sorry.”
Grier wondered who had told her but then realized Timbell Creek wasn’t the kind of place where anything stayed unknown for long. Even when you were an outsider.
“Thank you, Elizabeth. I just need a little time to get myself together.”
“Of course. We can go on this morning without you. That’s not a problem.”
“I appreciate it,” Grier said.
“I’ll check in with you later, okay?”
“Yes,” Grier said and turned off the phone. She dropped back against the pillow then and stared at the ceiling. “I think I need to be alone for a little while,” she said, looking at Bobby Jack.
“Are you sure?” he asked, sounding uncertain.
She nodded, biting her lip to keep the sob in her throat from slipping out.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No. But thank you. For everything.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I’m a phone call away,” he said and left the room.
It felt quiet and empty after Bobby Jack had gone. Grier felt drained of any recognizable emotion at all. It didn’t seem possible that this could really have happened. She wanted to wake up and discover that the whole thing had been a dream. That she had come to her senses far sooner than she had. That she’d taken the chance to say the things to her mother that she needed to say.
But that wasn’t to be.
Self-accusation after self-accusation circled through her mind until she felt limp with remorse.
How many times had she heard about other people who left important things unresolved in their lives until it was too late? Over the years, she’d had numerous friends tell her of regrets, things they wished they’d done sooner, not put off. But somehow, she’d never applied it to herself. Never thought, even for a moment, that she would regret not making peace with her mother. Logically, she knew that her anger had been justified. Somehow, right now, knowing that her mother was gone forever, none of it seemed to matter.
The only thing that mattered was the huge gaping hole in her heart, and the absolute knowledge that she would never again have the chance to fill it.
She thought about the days that lay ahead, of her mother’s funeral and burial and she honestly didn’t know if she could go through with it.
But then what choice did she have? She had failed her mother in the one thing that she could have given her. And she wouldn’t fail her in this.
GRIER HIT REDIAL on her phone and made the call before she could give herself time to reconsider.
Elizabeth answered on the first ring.
“I’m so sorry to ask this,” Grier said, “but can you find someone to replace me for the final judging?”
She heard the other woman let out a long breath. A couple of seconds passed before she said, “It won’t be easy, Grier, but I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing in your place.”
“I never dreamed I would be in this position,” Grier began.
“I know,” Elizabeth interrupted.
“If you could give me a few days—”
“I wish I could. But with the schedule, I really can’t.”
“I understand.”
“Just take care of yourself, okay?”
“You, too,” Grier said, before ending the call.
THE ROOM FELT too small.
She changed clothes and then walked to the parking lot where she got in her car with no destination in mind.
She cranked the music on the radio and just drove, aiming for some mindless zone where pain could not be felt. But no matter how fast she drove or how loud she played the music, there was no such place.
She felt raw to her very soul, every nerve ending blaring in protest.
She drove for two hours or more, finding herself at the entrance to Bobby Jack’s driveway, turning the car onto the gravel road as if she had no ability to deny where she needed to be. It was late, dark now, and she pulled up in front of the house, Bobby Jack’s truck the only vehicle in sight. She sat in the car and stared at the front door, telling herself if he didn’t come out in the next sixty seconds, she would leave.
But just then, the door opened, and he stood there, looking to her the way a lighthouse might have looked to a lost ship. He walked out, opened the door of
her car and all but lifted her from the driver’s seat into his arms.
He held her tight against him, her feet not touching the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the curve of his shoulder. She wanted to sob there against him, but the tears would no longer come. She felt empty and wanted nothing more than to be filled with the presence of him.
He bent and looped an arm at the back of her knees, swinging her up fully into his arms and walking into the house, kicking the not fully closed door open with a booted foot and then just as quickly shoving it closed behind them.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked down at her, his eyes saying the question he didn’t need to ask with words. She nodded once, and that was all he needed. He carried her up the stairs as if she weighed nothing more than a bag of cotton.
Grier felt as if she had been standing on the other side of a glass window where nothing but sadness existed. The thought of ever seeing through to the other side again seemed impossible, until now, until this moment when Bobby Jack’s hard, fit body absorbed some of the pain from her, his embrace telling her how willing he was to carry as much of it as she would let him carry.
He took her to his bedroom, again closing the door behind them and deftly reaching out to turn the lock. He walked to the bed then and lay her down near the center. He sat on the side and smoothed the back of his hand across her cheek.
“I think I willed you to come here.”
“What do you mean?” she asked softly.
“I wanted to come back. But I wanted it to be your choice. Coming here. Being here.”
She wanted to say the words logic prodded her to say. But she couldn’t force them past her lips. Truth, instead, won out, and she said, “I need you.”
His green eyes darkened with a look so pure and powerful that Grier felt the force of it to the core of her very being.
Jane Austen Girl - A Timbell Creek Contemporary Romance Page 22