by Bart Hopkins
“Oh.” Her rapid change of subject caught him by surprise. She’d always been aggressive—no foreplay—straight to the main event. A tigress.
“I gave you an ultimatum. I left you no option except to reject me, and you did, and then I acted like it was your fault. I told myself I’d never talk to you again.”
“What happened to change your mind?” he asked.
“I guess I never really stopped thinking about you, Greg. I dated. I tried marriage once. And I thought I gave it everything, but I see now that I didn’t. Not even close. You were always dancing around the periphery of my world. You were the one that got away.”
“Candy … I don’t know what to say. We haven’t seen each other in twenty years, and—”
“Shhh.” She pressed her fingertip to his lip. “Don’t say anything, Greg. I never loved anyone like I loved you. Like I still love you.”
She pressed herself up against him, and even though he felt an incredible warmth spread through his body, he shivered, closed his eyes, and swayed for a moment. When he opened them again she was looking intently at his face—through him—and he was struck by the sudden calm that surrounded them.
“You and I in silence, with nothing else to say,” she whispered, then pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.
Chapter 26
Martin and Zoe
“Hello, Martin, Zoe!”
“Doc,” Martin replied, grasping Dr. Reynolds’s hand in a quick double-pump.
“Hello, Doctor Reynolds.” Zoe hugged Reynolds, who appeared only marginally unused to physical contact with patients.
“What’s the good word, doc?”
“There’s more than one good word. But, first, I just want to make sure you’ve been feeling okay. Have you been sick at all? Tired?” Reynolds pushed his glasses up his nose as he asked, bringing his watery eyes into focus.
“The first week or two, I was tired, but then everything seemed to start improving all at once. My energy returned—”
“He’s gained weight, in a good way,” Zoe chimed in.
“Ha! I noticed that, and you’re right, it is in a good way. Of course, you want to eat the right foods.” The glasses got pushed up again. “Any skin problems, rashes, or anything?”
“Nope. Apropos of nothing, I haven’t been this good in years, doc; I feel very much alive.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say there’s no reason for it, Martin … what about HELP 101?”
“Hmm.” Martin studied Zoe while he considered it.
“What’s HELP 101, Martin?” asked Dr. Reynolds.
“It’s an organization that Martin started to help people—mostly people like us—raise the money and awareness they need to get better,” she said. “Jack, I’ve never seen such a sparkle in Martin’s gray eyes. He was always passionate about teaching, and English, but this fire is burning hotter than anything I’ve seen.”
“Martin, that’s wonderful!” Jack Reynolds looked genuinely awed as he pushed his glasses up, happy for his patient and friend. “I can’t think of a better way to spend your time. Some doctors would say it doesn’t matter; but I believe that recovery is just as much mental as it is physical.
“The blood work I ordered came back clean. I knew it would. Heck, I used to not get those tests done for follow-up appointments, but they’re so easy to do, I figured why not. Looks like you’ve earned a stamp in your good health passport. You look great, and your gains in weight are positive gains, not junk weight from overeating bad foods. My friend … you are doing wonderfully.”
“Oh, that is great, Jack.” Zoe hugged Dr. Reynolds.
“Whoa, hey, I’m right here,” Martin remarked facetiously. Zoe giggled, moved over, and hugged him.
“You’re so silly, Martin.”
Jack Reynolds watched them, amused. His years with the Langes were culminating in a pleasant way. “Sure is a pleasure to see you both,” he said.
“Likewise, Jack.”
“You’re doing great. Really great,” he said, nodding his head and hugging his clipboard. “Well, I’ve got to get back on track with the patients. Once we get behind, it’s an uphill struggle, both ways through a foot of snow, to get caught up.”
Just then there was frantic knocking at the door. Dr. Reynolds opened it, and in burst Susan, his nurse. Without so much as a glance at the Langes, she grabbed Jack Reynolds in a bear hug.
“He’s awake, Dr. Reynolds! Oh my God, he’s awake, and they’re bringing him to Texas tomorrow,” she said, the words tumbling out on top of one another.
“Fantastic news, Susan!”
“Can you believe it? I thought I might go crazy if something didn’t change soon.”
“Um, you remember the Langes?” Jack asked. Martin and Zoe stood quietly to the side, briefly forgotten in the ruckus.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry, Professor. I just couldn’t help myself. It’s my husband,” she began, her eyes bright and glassy. “He was hurt, in a coma, but he woke up—“
Before she could finish the thought, Zoe was hugging Susan as tears streamed down her face; but this time, they were happy tears.
“You poor dear, you’ve been through so much,” Zoe cooed.
“He’s okay though. He called me, just now, from his cell phone. The guys in his unit put the phone in his things, and he found it and called, and it’s probably going to cost us a hundred dollars for that phone call, but who cares, right? My baby’s alive and he’s okay, and I got to hear his voice, and that’s all I care about. I had just finished Mrs. Peterson’s vitals when my phone vibrated, and Jason’s name came up on the screen, and at first I thought, can it really be him? But who else would have his phone … oh! I forgot about Mrs. Peterson! Oh, no, you know how she gets.” Her words had hit them like water from a firehouse, and then just as quickly she was laughing, and it was addictive, and they all laughed.
Dr. Reynolds spoke up first, before she could bolt from the room. “I’ll go take care of Mrs. Peterson, Susan. Why don’t you help the Langes finish up?”
“Sure, doc.” She lit the room with her smile, face aglow like Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring painting.
“Great. Martin … Martin?” asked Zoe.
“What? Yes! Sorry, I got lost in thought for a second.” He glanced sideways at his wife, who raised an eyebrow and wondered what he was up to now.
“See you next time, and, oh, as long as you still feel good, keep doing the HELP 101 work.” Another round of quick handshakes went down, the glasses got pushed up once more, and Reynolds was off to soothe Mrs. Peterson.
“I’m so happy your hubby’s okay,” Zoe said.
“Yeah, it’s crazy. It was only a week ago or so that I heard he had been hurt, and then that was from another Marine deployed with him, and everything was horrible. But now it’s good again. Well, except he has some injuries…”
“But he’s okay?”
“He is, but he has some things he didn’t want to worry me about until he got here. They’re flying him in from Germany tomorrow.”
“Oh, good.”
“Yes.”
Zoe and Susan continued talking while Susan punched in some additional notes on the examination room computer and verified their future appointments. Zoe cast the occasional look at Martin, who smiled in (almost) all the right places in conversation while he rubbed his chin. Zoe knew the look—she could almost hear the cogs in motion inside her husband’s head.
He was definitely up to something, and she had an idea what it might be.
<<>>
Later that afternoon, while the Langes busied themselves in their new office in downtown Austin, Martin finally let it spill.
“I want to do something for veterans.”
Zoe had been busy organizing supplies at each of their six workstations, while Martin set up their donated computers at five of them. She turned around, looked at him, and nodded slowly. He pushed the all-in-one computer they’d gotten into its cubby and plugged in the single cord.
“Yes,” he repeated. If he were one of his own students, he might have asked if there was a parrot in the room.
“Yes. Martin, you’ve been pondering something all day and, well, this makes perfect sense. That friendly girl that works for Dr. Reynolds—Susan—it’s her husband that got those wheels spinning in there.”
She walked over and tapped her forefinger lightly against Martin’s head.
“Right in there, in that oversized cranium of yours,” she said, and smiled.
“You knew. How silly of me to think that I could ever keep an idea secret from you. Of course, you could have saved me some time if you had just told me what I was trying to think.”
They laughed.
“That wouldn’t be nearly as fun,” she told him.
“Naturlich! So, tell me, what do you think about the idea. Good? Bad?” His voice had that I hope she approves tone he reserved for Zoe. He was an intelligent man, but not frail; she found it touching that her acceptance meant so much to him.
“I love it,” she said. “Doing something for our military guys.”
“Great. I’ve already been thinking about a way we can—”
There was a knock at the office door and they both looked up. Before either could reply, it opened, and a teenage face looked inside.
“Professor Lange?” A shaggy head of hair adorned the head poking through. When the boy spotted them, he smiled.
“Joshua! Glad you could make it,” Martin said, standing up and moving over to welcome him.
“Yessir. I would have been here earlier, but my dad started telling stories about college, and your class, and you know … he wouldn’t stop.”
Martin laughed, loud and boisterous, and patted the young man’s shoulder. His dad, Dane Porter, was a big, red-headed guy that had looked like he should be UT’s starting linebacker. Except, he didn’t play football. Sometimes he played Frisbee, but like Martin, his passion lay between the pages of the next good book—the written word. He devoured novels, contemporary or classic, it didn’t matter; he could most often be found lounging in the grass around campus, his big, meaty paws nearly blotting out the entire cover of whatever it was that he was reading.
Dane’s friends had called him Clifford back then. Like the big red dog in the kids’ books.
“Been a while since I saw Clifford. Your parents doing well?”
“Yessir, they’re both doing fine.” Josh hadn’t even flinched at the nickname. Martin was pretty sure that his wife even called him Clifford after a few glasses of wine.
“I noticed your father has been writing more these days. Articles in Texas Monthly, Huffington Post—the New York Times … very nice. When is he going to stop horsing around and write the next great novel?”
“Right, Professor Lange, well…,” Josh began, but trailed off, and instantly Martin’s ears perked up.
“Has he already begun?” It came out abruptly, a hoarse whisper. One ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them!
Josh turned a light shade of red.
“Nobody’s supposed to know,” he said. “He didn’t want Mom or me to tell anyone.”
“Secret is safe with me,” Martin told him. “No worries. I wouldn’t want to do anything to turn him away from this. I’m not sure I’ve ever told you, but your father was one of only a handful of students, out of thousands, that I believed could be another Hemingway. Powerful, terse sentences were his calling card. But, every now and then, a little like Dickens seeped through in a long, lyrical line of prose.”
“Cool,” Josh replied.
“Cool, indeed. But you’re not here to talk about writing. You’re here to help us with something. How much did your parents tell you?”
“They said you were doing some charity work and, you know, I need volunteer hours for my college applications. So this seemed like a win-win.”
“Are you applying to U-T?” Martin asked.
“Of course.”
“Excellent. I thought I might have to ask you to leave.”
They laughed. Martin saw Zoe shaking her head across the room at his antics. In some ways, he’d never fully mature.
“All right, Josh. This is our new baby. It’s a non-profit organization designed solely to help people. We’re going to focus on people with terminal illnesses, and disabled veterans, but we’ll help anyone. Friends Indeed is our motto here at HELP 101.”
Josh nodded, taking it in.
“Sounds awesome.”
“It is awesome, Josh. Clifford tells me you’re good with computers. Graphics. That sort of thing.”
“Sure, Professor. That’s my passion.”
“Come with me, my young friend. I have a very important job for you.”
Martin put his arm around Josh and walked him to the best computer in the office. It was the only one they’d purchased; the graphics and processing power were top-of-the-line. Zoe pulled up a chair as Martin started talking.
“Josh, this is what I’d like you to work on.”
Chapter 27
Rose and The Connors
Rose was true to herself and her promises. She was devoted to her previously estranged daughter and the family that she’d never met. It might be true that time didn’t heal all wounds, but it sure as hell put a big Band-Aid on them. The very next weekend, she was free from work and drove back to Fredericksburg.
An extra-large bag of mixed emotions cycled through her as she parked in the driveway at the Connors’ house and got out of her car. She glanced down the street at the place she’d been parked a week earlier, Rose P.I., running surveillance on her daughter. So much had changed since then; she had received yet another undeserved but renewed lease on her life.
“Hey, Aunt Rose!”
Rose opened her arms wide for Chelsea’s embrace. Kid hugs were her new drug of choice.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
“Look, Mommy painted my nails this morning.” She held her hands up proudly for Rose’s inspection.
“They are beautiful, just like you.”
They gathered in the living room and shared time together. A cartoon, one Rose had never seen, played softly in the background—something about a green ogre and a donkey going on a whirlwind adventure. Ryan had figurine versions of the characters in his hands and ran a parallel story of the movie in his stubby little boy fingers.
Both kids laughed a lot.
“Would you like some tea?” Mary Beth asked.
“Sure,” Rose replied, following her into the kitchen.
She watched while her daughter did things the old fashioned way, filling a kettle with water, and moving it to the stovetop. She prepared cups while it heated, and brought out some containers from the corner of the counter. The words “sugar” and “cream” were written across the sides in playful, mint green letters.
“So, how did you find out where we were?”
The question caught Rose by surprise. She had assumed they would eventually discuss things in more detail, but she hadn’t known if it would be today or ten years from now. The most important conversations in life usually come unbidden, when you least expect them, like winning the lottery after twenty years of buying tickets.
Or like a prowler in the darkness of your living room at 3:00 a.m.
The kettle whistled just then, and Rose felt her heart leap against the inside of her rib cage. “Oh!” she cried out softly and put a hand to her chest. She watched Mary Beth turn to the tea, and within a minute or two there were steaming cups in front of them on the countertop.
Rose added a cube of sugar and stirred her tea. Focused on the tea. When she finally looked up, Mary Beth was watching her, waiting expectantly.
“Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you, but it’s embarrassing,” Rose said.
Mary Beth raised her eyebrows and sipped from her cup.
“I work with these two ladies.”
“The Amigas?”
“Right,” Rose said. She’d already told them about her
job. “The Amigas, Sara and Melinda, well, they’re always using Facebook. They share pictures, they message their husbands, and they keep up with all kinds of people … even from high school and all that.”
Mary Beth suppressed a smile. For being so worldly in other ways, her mother was stereotypically behind in technology. She nodded at Rose to continue.
“So, they described how easy it was to find people using Facebook, and I sort of became obsessed with the idea that I could find you using it. And I did, and it was so easy, too.
“At first, I wasn’t going to contact you. I just wanted to see you. See your family. I didn’t think you’d ever forgive me,” she said and paused for a moment, squinting into the caramel-colored liquid. “Okay, that’s a lie. I think I was always going to try to talk to you. Eventually. I knew I was only trying to fool myself into thinking that seeing some pictures would be enough. I guess I was just going to stalk you until I worked up the courage to do more,” she finished and stole a look at her daughter.
Mary Beth nodded and looked at her, then stirred her own tea. She added a cube of sugar, then another, and poured in cream on top of it. Stirred. Sipped.
Rose waited for a response, while Mary Beth methodically added, stirred, and sipped. Then Mary Beth seemed to come to some conclusion, and she put the cup down and looked at her mother.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
“What?”
“What took you so long … to look for me?” Mary Beth’s eyes filled up and she smiled. “I left all that on Facebook on purpose. I was hoping you would go looking for it.”
Rose felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. “What?” she repeated.
“It was strange. I wasn’t into Facebook. Not at first. I was last to the party getting a smart phone. Wasn’t sure I saw the value … in the phone or social media. Neither Tom nor I have much family to share anything with.
“Then, sort of like with you, my friends were always using it. Liking, sharing, laughing … always on their phones. So I made an account. Just for kicks and grins.