by Loree Lough
Mercy, the reason he’d wanted to meet with Griff in the first place. But how could he explain things—from therapy back in New York to the secrets and kisses they’d shared—in the middle of a crowded, noisy restaurant?
It didn’t surprise him to see Griff, squinting into a blur of cigarette exhaust as he waved from the far corner of the smoking section, far from other patrons.
“I took the liberty of ordering,” he said, pointing at two white-ceramic coffee mugs. “Got your usual. Bacon. Toast. Two
eggs over easy. Home fries. To save time. Since you’re workin’ today and all.”
“You’ve got a lot of gall,” Austin said, grinning as he slid onto the bench seat facing Griff’s. “I had my taste buds all set for French toast.”
“Yeah, yeah. And I just traded my pope dome for a welder’s mask.” He mashed his Marlboro in the ashtray and slid it under the mini-juke box. “What’s on your mind, kid?”
“Have you ever in your life beat around the bush?”
“Nope. Least, I sure as shootin’ hope not. ‘Cause it ain’t just a colossal waste of time, it’s unnecessarily hard on the shrubbery, too.” He chuckled. “You’re pretty good at it, though.”
Austin raised a brow.
“Somethin’ tells me you didn’t call just to see my pretty face.…”
If he knew where to begin, Austin might have launched into a narrative of his life these past weeks.
“Well-l-l?”
“This. That.” He shrugged. “Let’s eat. I hate to whine on an empty stomach.”
“Oh. Right. Like a full stomach will make it easier for me to listen to your whining.”
Austin lifted the mug to his lips, more to buy time than because he craved coffee. It tasted bitter, thanks to the sweet remnants of gum still clinging to his tongue. “So how’s the leg?”
Griff reflexively fluffed his graying hair, grown long and shaggy to hide the fading red lightning bolt that zigzagged from his left eyebrow to his right cheek. But there wasn’t much he could do to hide the limp. “Still gimpy.”
“Bummer,” Austin said, watching him flip open the one-ofa-kind lighter’s lid, then snap it shut again. The metallic echo drew the attention of diners at nearby tables. One old guy, in particular, looked about ready to issue a “Knock it off!” command.So Austin extended his hand, palm up, and wiggled his fingertips. “Hand it over, before you crack its hinge.”
“Careful. It was a gift from—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. From your sainted father, who served bravely in World War II and now sports wings and a halo and plays chess with the angels in heaven.”
Chuckling, Griff said, “Nobody likes a smart aleck. Besides, every word is the truth.”
Austin had been looking at the thing for years but never saw it up close before. A Marine cap sat on the bony head of the skull and crossbones, and beneath it, crossed rifles. “Mess with the best,” said the bold letters to its left and “die like the rest” gave balance to the right.
He closed it quietly and handed it back. “Is that thing the reason you haven’t quit smoking?”
A bawdy guffaw preceded Griff’s snort. “What! You think I’d rather pollute my lungs than stow this in my underwear drawer?”
The waitress chose that moment to deliver their food, saving Austin from having to reply. And once she’d topped off their coffee, Austin said, “There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”
“I kinda figured.” Griff slathered grape jelly on his toast.“What’s her name?”
“Never said it was a her.”
“Didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.”
Chuckling, Austin offered, “Mercy Samara.”
Squinting one eye, Griff used the butter knife as a pointer.“Why does that name ring a bell? Wait. I know—she was the shrink the department made you see after all those brutality—”
Austin cringed. “Sheesh, man, can I maybe get you a megaphone? Make it a little easier for everybody in Dundalk to hear?”
Griff bit the point off his toast. “Aw, don’t be so sensitive.Nobody in here gives a fig about anything either of us has to say.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t remember telling you about her.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s a minor miracle you were able talk at all back then, toasted as you were all the time.”
“All right, then, genius, why don’t you save us both some time. Tell me what you know about her. Y’know, so I won’t go over the same ground twice.”
“Good idea. Few things annoy me more than redundancy.“Austin laughed, and, leaning back in his booth seat, said “I swear, Griffin, if I didn’t like you so much, you’d be an easy guy to hate.”
“O ye master of double speak, would you be so kind as to pass the ketchup?”
After burying his home fries under a thick blanket of red, Griff repeated everything he’d learned on the night he turned Austin’s life around.
If only he enjoyed the tale as much as the grumpy old man at the next table.
22
He’d just stepped onto the walkway between his boat and the Callahans’ when he noticed her. “What’re you doing here?”
“Well, aren’t you good for a girl’s ego.“Austin laughed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound abrasive. It’s just—”
He’d barely returned from his bare-your-soul breakfast when Bud called to say Flora had just taken a coffee cake out of the oven. Griff had given him a lot to think about, and he needed time to make sense of it all.
She fell into step beside him. “I called to see if they’d heard from Flora’s doctor, and find out if they could still come to Thanksgiving dinner. I hate to say this, but seeing you here gives me a really bad feeling.”
“Well, aren’t you good for a guy’s ego?”
“Good grief, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, grinning.“I just meant if they summoned both of us over here, together, it can’t be good news, can it?”
“Hate to admit it, but I think you’re right.”
“Flor-dee-lee, our company is here, right on time!” Bud opened the screen door and stepped onto the deck. “Just pretend you don’t notice the way she looks,” he whispered as Flora called out “Don’t just stand there letting all the heat out, you silly man. Get out of the way so they can come in!”
Austin saw the way Mercy straightened her back and took a deep breath before plastering a bright smile on her face. It wasn’t easy, mimicking her expression, especially after he saw Flora in her favorite chair, looking gaunt and pale under a thick quilt. “There’s my favorite girl!”
“I think you need your eyes checked,” she said, waving Mercy closer as he kissed her cheek. “I declare, you get prettier every day.”
Mercy winked at Austin, then said “Aren’t you good for a girl’s ego!”
“Please, please,” Bud interrupted, “have a seat. I’ve got everything ready. Just need to—”
“We’ll help,” Mercy said, following him into the galley.When he started to protest, she quickly added, “I did a little waitressing to pay my way through college. It’ll be good practice, in case I ever lose my job at the high school.”
Austin knew the place almost as well as his own, and stacked plates, napkins, and forks on a big wooden tray. He helped Mercy get the cups from a shelf just out of her reach, and handed her the cream pitcher. “I’m the only one of the four of us who drinks his coffee black,” he said as she filled it.
Why he’d felt the need to fill the room with small talk was anybody’s guess, but he found himself wishing for additional inane banter to fill the endless silence as they sat around the tiny living room, sipping coffee to wash down the dry, tasteless cake. He’d never known Flora to flub up on a recipe, and this bakery fiasco was proof in his mind that Mercy had been right.The Callahans had called them here to deliver bad news.
Mercy finished her cake first—no surprise there, considering the nearly see-through slice she’d put on her own plate—and asked if an
yone needed a refill. Three echoing “no thank yous” sent her to the galley alone.
She wasn’t back thirty seconds before Bud cleared his throat.“Well, kids, I’m sure you’ve been wondering why we asked you to come over here today, and I, for one, think we’ve kept you in suspense long enough.”
“Bud’s right,” Flora agreed, sitting up straighter. “We wanted you to be the first to know that…”
Grinning, she looked at Bud, whose expression couldn’t have said “Huh?” any more clearly.
“… that I’m pregnant.”
Bud’s eyebrows slammed into his hairline and Mercy’s lips parted slightly. As for Austin, he did the only thing he could think to do, and laughed.
“Don’t mess with their heads, Flor-dee-lee. At least, not at a time like this.”
Nothing like an “a time like this” crack to sober a guy up.Austin glanced at Mercy, who’d started gnawing on the outer corner of her upper lip. The scene reminded him a bit of that day at the hospital, when it took the doctors ten minutes to say “Your mother has a day, two at most, to live.” Painful as that had been, he’d understood the legal reasoning behind their stall tactic.
“I have nasal cancer,” Flora said.
He’d heard more emotion when the traffic control gal rattled off her list of construction areas and fender benders that clogged the Beltway. As if it didn’t hurt enough, hearing it the first time, she said it again, with a little more emphasis this time. “Nasal cancer. Stage IV-C.”
Flora calmly launched into a recitation of symptoms, and admitted that her snoring had been just one of many signs of trouble she’d sloughed off as allergies, sinus infections, and head colds. The headaches and blurred vision had been harder
to explain, but the lump on the bridge of her nose is what ultimately put her in the doctor’s office. After a suspicious biopsy, CT and MRI scans were ordered. “And it appears that a tumor has invaded other tissues,” she added, “so the surgeon can’t get to it in the OR.”
Mercy’s eyes widened as her gaze flicked from Flora to Bud to Austin. “Which means they’ll start an aggressive chemotherapy-radiation treatment regimen,” she said, “right?”
“Aw, sweetie,” Flora said, patting Mercy’s hand, “don’t look so worried.”
“I’m afraid it’s way too late for that, kiddo. Too late for anything, except to wait for the Grim Reaper to find time in his schedule.” Bud gripped the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “I told her and told and told her to make a doctor’s appointment way back when the first warning signs showed up. But would she listen? No-o-o, ‘course not, because on top of being the most stubborn woman on the planet, she’s convinced herself that she’s smarter than—”
“Bud. Honey. You promised.”
He made a taut line of his lips and hung his head. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
The words didn’t sound sincere to Austin, but he did his best to contain his exasperation. If Flora were his wife? He’d have nagged the daylights out of her! Night and day, day after day, until she got so sick of it, she’d cave in and make a doctor’s appointment, if only to shut him up.
Inhaling a huge lungful of air, he clenched his teeth, because he wasn’t Bud and Flora wasn’t his wife, and he had no business second-guessing the way they dealt with important marital issues.
If only the admission had the power to tame the frustration—no, the fullblown annoyance—roiling in his gut.
“Oh, would you look at the mess I’ve made,” Flora said, breaking into his thoughts. She clucked her tongue. “Spilled coffee all over my favorite old quilt.”
Austin didn’t know what to make of her blasé attitude. How could she be more upset about a stain on a blanket than a diagnosis of terminal cancer, which would take her from all the people who loved her as if she were blood kin!
“Are you sure there’s nothing the docs can do?” he pressed.“‘Cause, I mean, think about it; we live within an hour of some of the best hospitals in the entire world. There’s gotta be a clinical trial going on at Johns Hopkins, or—”
Bud cut in with “Didn’t you hear her? It’s stage IV-C.”
Austin’s wristwatch ticked off the seconds that passed before Flora said “Would you do me a favor, hon?”
Bud was on his feet in an eye blink. “You know I will.Anything, anything at all.”
Smiling sweetly, she gathered up the quilt. “Fill the tub with cold water and put this in to soak, so the stain won’t set, would you please?”
He hugged it to his chest as she added, “And will you bring me the afghan that’s draped over the foot of our bed?”
Bending to kiss her forehead, he said, “You got it, sweet cheeks.”
Once he was out of earshot, Flora whispered “I have a big favor to ask the two of you.” Extending her hands, she beckoned Austin and Mercy closer.
“He does a great ‘tough guy’ act, but this is going to be really tough on him. Now, I know you’re both busy, what with work and volunteering and …” She snickered. “… and each other, but I’m hoping I can count on you to look in on him from time to time. Because I’m worried if he doesn’t have plenty to keep him busy, he’ll just roll up into a little ball.”
Better than rolling over, he fumed. If she was so all-fired worried about the man, then why give in to this thing? She’d fought the marina owner when he tried to sneak extra charges onto their monthly slip rental rates. Fought the fire department when they didn’t get her boy’s name added to the plaque of men and women who’d died in the line of duty. Fought the phone company when they added a “games” category to her bill, and got her way in every instance. Why not fight this with the same mulish determination to win?
Suddenly, he noticed Mercy, blinking so fast that Austin half expected to feel a draft. Having trouble coping with the gloomy news, he wondered, or staving off tears?
“Promise?”
He didn’t know which took precedence, disappointment or annoyance that she’d all but given up the ghost. Didn’t like knowing that he’d soon lose another loved one and yet again, he was powerless to do a doggoned thing about it.
“Jeez, Flora, it isn’t like you to throw in the towel this way.Stop talking this way. You’re beginning to remind me of an oxygen tank with a faulty gauge. It says ‘Empty,’ even though it’s not.” He was on a roll, and saw no point in stopping. “You’re too pigheaded to let this thing get the better of you. So don’t ask us to do your job for you, because you’ll be around for a long, long time. You can make sure Bud has plenty to keep him busy.”
Mercy’s quiet gasp and shocked expression told him he’d said too much, and made him question every word and the attitude that had inspired each. If Flora told him he was behaving like a selfcentered, spoiled little boy who’d just found out the Mattel had decided to stop manufacturing his favorite toy, well, she’d have every right.
“See,” she said instead, “that’s exactly the sort of thing Bud’s gonna need after I’m gone!” She drew them both into a hug.“Promise me,” she said, kissing Austin’s cheek, “that you’ll keep an eye on him for me?”
“Of course we will,” Mercy said as Bud walked into the room.
“Will what?”
Flora said “Will be at Mercy’s for Thanksgiving dinner at three sharp.”
And the women exchanged a self-satisfied glance.
Look at the pair of them, Austin thought, like a couple of puppeteers, gloating ‘cause they’ve got total control of the strings.
After decades with Flora, Bud probably didn’t even realize his life was being choreographed. He looked at Mercy, hovering near Flora’s side, as any caring person would after hearing that a close friend had terminal cancer. And therein lies the rub, he thought. Because Flora was no more a close friend than Mercy was normal.
Memory of the disturbing scars flashed in his mind, underscoring his beliefs, and reminding him that he’d need to tread carefully. “You’ve only had your nose above water fo
r a couple-a years,” Griff had said. “Y’don’t need a suicidal female dragging you down with her.” That advice, coupled with the “don’t yoke yourself to an unbeliever” verse in the Good Book made him more certain than ever that he needed to pray. Should he break things off—whatever things were? And if he should, when and where should he do it?
“Well, girl,” he said, standing beside Bud’s recliner, “we’re cutting into the lovebirds’ TV time. What say we head out, let ‘em bill and coo to their hearts’ content?”
She gave Flora a gentle hug and followed Austin to the door.“Call me if you need anything, OK,” she told Flora, “even if it’s only to talk.”
They walked the first few yards in silence, and then she stopped at the end of the wooden walkway that led to his boat.“You were great in there.”
“Y’think?” Austin growled. “Then what was with that whole ‘gasp and big-eyed’ show?”
Mercy frowned. “Show?” she repeated. “What’re you talking abo—” Then her brow smoothed as she pulled her jacket tighter around her and stared into the velvety blue-black sky.Austin looked up, too, wondering if maybe, instead of believing in God, who’d created the beauty above her, she found her “get out of jams” excuses written on the stars.
He’d once dated a psych major who pretty much drove him bonkers, reading nonexistent meaning and intent into every little gesture and expression. If she were here now to see his stance—one arm folded tightly over the other and shoulders rolled forward—he’d have been subjected to the “Reasons I Think You’re Closing Yourself Off from Me” lecture. Mercy was a board certified psychiatrist. Surely she’d read the same books.
Austin leaned his backside against the railing and hooked his thumbs into his jacket pockets. It shouldn’t take this much effort to appear at ease, he thought as she said “It caught me off-guard that you told Flora exactly what I might have … if I felt I had the right to.”