by Lee Wardlow
She smiled and nodded. Soon she was asleep, so I settled back in the chair and closed my own eyes.
Thursday Dad and Lorna came and sent me home to shower and check out what they had done for Caz. Brodie and Lacey were with them to take me home since I had ridden in the ambulance, Brodie was going to take me home while Lacey visited with Caz.
We walked towards the garage silently. I was lost in my thoughts. Tired from sleeping in the recliner that was comfortable at first but when you couldn’t turn too many ways, so it didn’t provide a good nights’ sleep.
Caz had awoken earlier but was right back to sleep because of the amount of pain meds she was on. They wanted to get her out of bed later today. She wasn’t used to the drugs, so they were talking about cutting back on them to get her mobile. Hopefully, we could take her home by Saturday.
“Is this too much for Lacey?” I asked.
Brodie glanced at me. “No, you know her. She’s pretty, strong but she knows when to cut back if she gets tired.”
I nodded. “It won’t be long, Brodie.”
“No, it won’t.”
He sounded uncertain.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s exciting. I never thought this would happen to me but scary at the same time. I’m going to be responsible for two people, Lacey and our son.”
I didn’t understand. Financially, Brodie was secure. He had no worries there. “What are you worried about Brodie. You’re secure. You can provide easily for them.”
“The shooting showed me that even in Severe we aren’t safe. It just makes me aware I’m responsible for their safety. I want to protect them both.”
I patted my brother’s back. “Brodie, Stacy shooting you was a fluke. Severe hasn’t had a crime like Donny’s murder or your shooting in over twenty years. There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t get caught up in it and smother them.”
He chuckled. “Like I did you guys, when Mom left us.”
“Or like you did Greer when she was begging us to let her die?”
He dropped his head. “I had a difficult, time with her after that. I was always worried that she would do something stupid.”
“She didn’t see what you were doing. Only we did.”
“I’m glad.”
He had checked on her without being obvious. Offered her rides to places to be sure he knew where she was. He was worried. Begged us for months to tell Lorna and Dad but Ewan and Fin thought it best to let her go.
She had changed after that night that she was almost raped. She wasn’t quite as reckless, so he let it go but he never quite let it go completely. He still worried about her. That was Brodie’s nature, a worrier.
“Caz wants a baby right away,” I told him.
He glanced at me. “And you don’t.”
“I’d like to wait six months to a year,” I replied. “Enjoy my wife then try.”
“Is she okay with that?” He asked.
“I think disappointed but understanding. She’ll have your son to play with, so we’ll see how long we actually wait before she wears me down.”
Brodie laughed at that statement.
We got into his truck. “How’s the leg really, doing, Brodie?” I noticed he limped a little more today than yesterday.
“I did a lot of walking yesterday so it’s weak today. My right leg is fine. I don’t know why they both aren’t as strong. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“But you keep working out and trying to get back to normal,” I declared.
“I do,” he agreed. “I want to be as strong as possible when my son gets here.”
“You do know he won’t care,” I told him.
He glanced at me then back at the road. “That’s what Lacey says.”
“She’s right.”
“Davy, I just want to be a father like Dad has been to us.”
“I know man. After everything he went through with Mom, you know he could have fallen apart on us like Caz and Lacey’s mom did when their father moved out, but he didn’t. He came through for us.”
“He did.”
“So, in October it will be three years since he issued that ultimatum to us.”
Brodie laughed. “Yeah, all of us are married or will be in our case but Ewan. Do you think Ewan is serious about Tasha? If anyone knows it’s you.”
“I’m not sure. He cares for her, but you know him, he doesn’t like to be alone. She might just make him less lonely.”
Brodie nodded.
“I wonder if he’ll ever settle down. Maybe Greer was the one for him?”
“I don’t really think so, Brodie.”
“You would know,” he glanced at me again and back at the road.
I looked out the window, watching the fields pass by us. “Greer is where she belongs with Fin and the girls,” I told him. “Even Mac thought so from what Georgie told me about the videos she left behind.”
“How’s Caz take you two being such good friends?”
“She was concerned that I still had feelings for her,” I replied.
“Do you?”
I looked at my brother quickly then back at the fields passing by. I love Georgie, but we got caught up in the relationship not the true feelings. I would always love Georgie. She was one of my best friends from the time Ewan and I were little, she was with the two of us.
“You know how I feel about Georgie. She and Ewan were my best friends growing up. They got me.”
“Like Caz does.”
“She does,” I agreed. “She lets me ramble about productivity and I know she cares less about it but because she loves me she listens.”
Brodie chuckled. “She forgives you for your dumb shit like at the plant the other day when she got all dolled up just for you and you were too dumb to tell her how beautiful she looked.”
I scoffed at my brother. I wasn’t too dumb, just shocked. Then concerned that she needed a change that included me but beautiful did not describe how she looked right now.
Caz just didn’t know how beautiful she was. Maybe I did get caught up in my work and the numbers too much and needed to tell her more often. Maybe I did need to do things with her like taking bubble baths with something on the floor, so she didn’t fall when she got out of the tub, but I did love her. I couldn’t wait for us to be husband and wife.
I wasn’t like my brothers. I wasn’t afraid of commitment like they had always been. I just wanted to find the right woman. Caz was her. Like Georgie said, I would find her.
I knew when I met her at the Labor Day celebration that I had found her. I didn’t waste any time. I moved quickly after a month. Asking her to move back home. She had grown up around Severe too.
When she agreed, I asked her to move in with me. I remember her being shocked at the fastness of my request, but she did it. It was natural, us living together. We were comfortable together. So much alike that we could read each other’s moods well but enough different that it was interesting.
She was smart. She challenged me when I needed it. I loved to tease her about her OCD tendencies. Sometimes, Caz just needed somebody to tell her to leave it alone like the towel on the floor the other night.
Leave it on the floor, step over it and put it out of her mind. Later, she could pick it up and put it in the laundry bin.
“Why are you grinning?” Brodie asked me.
“Just thinking about Caz,” I replied. “Relief that the surgery is over. It was weighing on me, after what happened to Mac, I’m glad we’re through the worst of it.”
He chuckled. “You aren’t through the worst of it, my friend,” he declared. “Wait until therapy starts.”
Chapter 9
Caz was up on crutches by Friday morning. She was awkward and uncomfortable on them, but the therapist and I walked with her short distances up and down the hall.
Her pixie cut had become a spikey do. She wanted a shower desperately. We settled on a sponge bath which I gave her. Nothing erotic about that when you know how uncomfortable yo
ur woman is.
The leg was itching inside the cast. The nurses told her to try to think of something besides the leg and the itching sensation would go away.
Lacey called her at one to let her know she was on the way to pick up Eddie at the airport in Northern Kentucky. He landed at two-thirty. She expected to be at the hospital by four. Caz wanted ice cream, so Lacey promised to bring her some to the hospital.
An aide came to the room to help me get her dressed in her own clothes that Lacey brought to the hospital yesterday.
We were all trying to help her feel as comfortable and normal as possible. The pajama shorts were the easiest thing to get over the cast. She had on a tank top too. The young girl was sweet and fixed her hair for her too. She showed Caz in a mirror that she had in her bag of tricks.
When I looked away from the window to see what the girl had done, Caz had tears in her eyes. “Thank you, so much. I was feeling awful.”
“You’re welcome,” Cassie replied. She was studying to be a nurse and volunteered at the hospital as an aide, three times a week. “Can I do your make-up? I know your uncle is coming this afternoon.”
Caz nodded with eagerness. She just wanted to feel pretty, today when Eddie arrived.
“I’m going to head down to the cafeteria,” I told them while they worked on Caz’s make-up.
I headed downstairs and grabbed a sandwich and a soda. I sat at a table by the window and was eating when my phone rang.
“Hey Georgie.”
“Hi, I came to see Caz. Is that okay?”
“Sure. She’s getting dolled up because her uncle is coming later today but she would like the company. I’m sure she’s tired of me.”
“I brought some of my calming lotion that Bear, and I have been working on.”
“She needs that, trust me. Caz is just a little grumpy from being cooped up in the hospital with her leg in a cast.”
“Good, then I’ll head up to her room.”
“I’m in the cafeteria eating. I’ll see you later.”
“See you,” she told me.
I laid my phone by my drink. The Bairds and the Stewards had been friends for decades. Our fathers were friends. The kids were friends. When things were rough, we came together and supported each other like when Donal died. It was hard on the girls, I remembered Georgie being sad and he had been hard on her.
I took a sip of my soda and gazed through the glass at the garden by the cafeteria window. When my mother left us. My father was devastated. So were we. The Bairds supported us as we had supported them.
Then Mac died. That was probably the most terrible thing we had gone through as a family. My brothers and I carried her coffin to the gravesite. Twenty-six was too young to die. Her babies left motherless. My brother a widower at twenty-eight.
“Are you done?” I glanced up at the lady standing beside me. She wanted to take my trash for me.
“I am. Thank you.”
Her eyes were hazel like my Brodie’s eyes. Her hair silver and her hands were weathered by hard, work and time. She patted my shoulder. “You’ve been here a few days,” she said.
“I have.”
“Your family member doing okay?” She asked. She kept her hand on my shoulder.
“She is. I’ve been staying with my fiancée. She had a compound fracture in her thigh.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. I’ll keep her in my prayers tonight. What’s her name?” She asked.
“Caz.”
“I hope she’s better soon.”
She took my trash and started to walk away. “Thank you,” I told her.
She turned and smiled at me. “Not a problem, honey. You take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
I looked back at the window and sipped on my soda. Sometimes, I forgot human kindness was more obvious than I saw. I tended to be closed off. Not stuck up as some people thought just introverted. Quiet. Withdrawn. Ewan talked for both of us for so many years; it was easier to not come out of my shell.
I rubbed my hand across my face. I thought about Greer and how far she had come since the wild, teenage years. We had almost lost her, probably on more than one occasion.
I was sure it was still hard for her as a recovering alcoholic but probably only Finlay knew just how difficult it truly was. She would talk to him but that was the way it always was.
I glanced at my watch. It was nearly three-thirty. I had been here for close to an hour. I tossed my soda bottle in the recycling bin and headed towards the elevators. I saw the lady who had taken my garbage for me. I stopped and told her to have a nice, day.
“You too, honey.”
Upstairs, in Caz’s room my fiancée was sitting up in bed with her huge cast propped up on pillows suspended from bars overhead. She looked beautiful.
Cassie had spruced her up and made her feel better with just a little make-up and fixing her hair. Georgie was standing by her bed, rubbing the calming lotion on her arms. They were talking quietly.
I stood in the door and just watched for a moment. This was how I liked things. Quiet. Calm. Drama-free. My Caz happy even with the uncomfortable cast on her leg.
She looked up and saw me. She smiled. “What are you doing just standing there?” She asked.
“Looking at how beautiful you are,” I told her.
Georgie smiled too. Then she put the lotion on the tray by Caz’s bed. “I’m going to head out now that Davy’s back. I really enjoyed visiting. When you’re home and he’s back at work, I’ll come visit you at the house.”
“I’d like that,” Caz replied.
They hugged, and I realized that it made me happy the two were becoming closer. Georgie would always be an important part of my life. It could be awkward, but she would never let that happen just like Hunter and I didn’t let it be awkward either.
She stopped by me on her way out the door. “Let me know if you need anything.” Then she tugged me down and kissed my cheek. I wasn’t sure how Caz would react to that but then I saw that she was no longer unsure of herself or me with Georgie.
I waited for the door to close and I went to Caz’s bed and perched beside her. I touched her cheek. “How are you?”
“Excited to see Eddie.”
“I’m glad sweetheart.”
I thought maybe I should tell her about what she said under the sedation. I didn’t want them to surprise her. So, I explained what had happened before surgery. She was as horrified as I thought she would be. Caz liked to keep her feelings buried. I pulled her into my arms and held her.
“Maybe this is best, Caz. It’s been eating at you for a while.”
“I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be.”
She leaned back and held my hands, looking at me. “That’s why he’s coming early.”
“Probably but he wants to spend time with you too and fix things.”
“There’s nothing to fix,” she replied. “They’ll just say I overreacted.”
I caressed her face. “I didn’t get that impression.”
“That is always the way it was with Eddie and Lacey,” she told me. Then she looked up at me. “I was the dramatic one and Lacey the laid back, easy going one. Eddie used to tell me I could create drama where none existed. He thought I thrived on it.”
“I’ve never seen that side of you,” I told her.
“I was terrified, Davy.”
“Of what, baby?” I asked her.
“Dad would leave and not come back for days. When he was gone, Mom would go to bed and stay drunk. I was as young as eight when this happened. I don’t think Eddie realized how insecure it made me, not dramatic.”
I held her hand. “So, if I panicked a little too quickly when he or Ricky were late to something it was because I was afraid that they were going to be like Mom and Dad and leave us. No amount of reassurance would help.”
“Have you ever told him that?”
“No.”
“He was panicked when he called me while you were i
n surgery. He said that’s why he hated moving so far away.”
She shook her head at me like she didn’t understand. “He hated the waiting and not knowing. Caz, he felt helpless. You and Lacey mean the world to him. I saw him with you when he was home. He’s excited about giving you away too.”
“I know it’s just that I feel Lacey has always been his favorite.”
“No way,” Eddie said. I glanced over my shoulder. Neither of us had heard them come in. “If I made you feel that way, I’m sorry, Caz.” I moved aside so Eddie could sit beside her.
I stood next to Lacey and we watched them. She leaned on me surprising me. I wrapped my arm around her and she smiled at me.
“I have always loved my girls, both of you. I do realize the amount of responsibility that was put on you when I wasn’t around to take care of you and Lacey and I’m sorry I couldn’t be there more.”
“That was the only time I felt secure, Eddie,” Caz told him. “When you weren’t there I worried that you would never come back, and something would happen to Mom and Lacey and I would be separated. I worried about that all the time,” she told him.
He tugged her against him and held her close. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going through your head? I could have reassured you. Ricky and I would have always taken care of you and Lacey if something happened to both your parents.”
“It wasn’t fair that it fell on you,” she told him.
“Maybe not but what could I do? Let you fend for yourselves? Ricky felt the same way. I was lucky he was so understanding, or we wouldn’t still be together. If he had made me chose between you girls and him, I would have chosen you.” He kissed her forehead. “I love you, girls so much. I didn’t mean to hurt you when I lied to you about where Lacey was. She was confused and angry. She didn’t want anyone to know where she was. I was just trying to give her time not hurt you.”
“She didn’t want me to know, Eddie?”
“I know. We’ve talked about it, Caz. We weren’t thinking about how you would take it. You, two had your disagreement right before Christmas. There was a lot going on in Lacey’s life. We were only thinking of her feelings. Not yours and how you would feel.”