by Liz Flaherty
She straightened from the open refrigerator door. “They’re hardly even polite on the telephone and they don’t come to see their mother. I don’t really think about them at all. Why?”
He looked pleased in an absurd way that reminded her of the little boys at the library. Whichever one gained her lap for the telling of the Magpie story wore the same expression Steven did now.
“I made such a big deal about you being my sister no matter who gave birth to you,” he said quietly, peeling the label from the beer bottle with the same kind of care she imagined he used with a scalpel. “I guess I wanted to know I was your brother even if you do have the misguided opinion that I’m—”
“A screwup?” suggested Grant.
“A pompous ass?” Dillon added helpfully.
“—wrong sometimes about certain things,” Steven continued doggedly.
Grace smiled at him. He was as irresistible as the little boys who sat in her lap, too. “You’ll always be my brother,” she said, closing the door to the refrigerator and moving toward the back door, “but you’re still wrong about Promise helping at school. It’s done more to make her better than all the chemo in the lab.”
Faith and Promise appeared at the door before Grace could get it open. “It’s time,” Faith said, slightly breathless. “I’m afraid Maxie will get tired if things are delayed. Grace, where are your shoes?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Grace admitted, wriggling her bare toes against the wood floor. “I may have mixed them into the chicken salad. I was in kind of a hurry.”
Faith looked aghast for a moment then she said, “I hope you chopped them up fine, at least. Some of these guests have trouble chewing.” She held Grant’s arm and began unbuckling her shoes.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She grinned, putting her shoes on the bottom step of the staircase. “Making a fashion statement. My sister is a trend-setter, you know. Dillon, turn your back. These pantyhose have got to go.”
Promise placed her shoes beside Faith’s and peeled off her stockings behind the shelter of Steven’s body. “There. Never let it be said that I’m not a trend-follower. Let’s go.”
The bride sat on the rattan love seat from the front porch with Jonah, resplendent in a suit, at her side. Reverend Deacon Rivers sat in a chair facing them. He began the marriage ceremony traditionally, but when it came time for the couple to recite their vows, he said, “Maxie, do you have promises to make?”
Maxie’s eyes, which Grace had come to recognize as mirror images of her own, glowed in her fragile face when she looked at Jonah. “There’s not enough time,” she said softly, “to say all I want to say, to give you all I want to give, to make your wishes and dreams into realities. With this known, I nonetheless promise you all my love for the rest of my days. When those days end, I offer you the memory of that love. Make it a building block with which to build a new life as splendid as the one we are about to share. I will walk a hidden path at your side and in your heart.”
Grace blinked hard, and when Dillon’s hand bumped hers, she slipped her own into it.
“Jonah,” Deac said, “do you have promises to make?”
Jonah’s voice was strong, his gaze steady on the woman at his side. “I accept your love and pledge you my own. For as much time as we are given, I offer you the moon and the stars and the magic of the Tennessee sunrise. I will share with you the family we have gathered, the memories we create, and all the joy we can muster between us. When we’ve seen our last sunrise together, the memory of that joy will accompany us both in our journeys onward. Although one of us may walk a hidden path, it will remain the same one. I will zig when you zig, zag when you zag, and we will be together again. I promise you this with all my heart.”
Dillon released Grace’s hand and pulled her in front of him to place his arms around her waist. She tilted her head to smile up at him, remembering the night before, when he’d helped Maxie and Jonah with the vows. He’d sat cross-legged on the floor so she and Faith had tripped over him every time they walked across the kitchen during their food preparation marathon.
“Why did this matter so much to you?” she asked him later, when they were loading card tables into the back of Steven’s truck to be returned. “I know you care for Jonah and Maxie, but what made it so important that they be married?”
He hoisted himself into the truck bed and reached for the table she held. “See them?” He laid the table flat and pointed in the direction of the other family members.
Grant and Faith were dancing, so close together in the fading evening light that only the floating pink of Faith’s dress distinguished them as two figures. Steven and Promise shared the rattan love seat. It was obvious they were arguing, but their legs touched full-length. Between emphatic gestures, their hands held. When Promise spoke, Steven leaned closer, his cheek touching her temple.
“I want that for Maxie and Jonah, and they don’t have time for a twenty-year courtship.”
The colors of evening were soft and muted, blurring the edges of the scene, but did nothing to reduce the clarity of the picture they framed. The love between the members of the two couples was as obvious as a full moon. It shared the moon’s throat-clogging ability as well.
Grace blinked hard for what seemed like the tenth time that day, and said, “What I see is that they’re not working and we are.” It took her two tries to say because her voice wasn’t working quite right. She lifted another table and thrust it in his direction.
“Uh-huh.” He laid the table down and squatted so that his eyes were level with hers. “You know what, Grace Elliot?”
She sighed. He was going to call her a pain in the ass. She could see it coming.
Instead, he framed her face with his hands and kissed her, a long mingling of tongues and souls that left her even more befuddled than she’d been. Not to mention weak-kneed.
“What?” she said hoarsely, when he drew away. She clung to the side of the truck.
His hands covered hers, sending warmth coursing all through her, and she heard the smile in his voice when he spoke.
“You’re a fraud,” he said, “that’s what.”
Chapter 22
“Bless you,” said Grace.
“Thank you.” Promise sneezed again. “I hate lesson plans,” she said happily, making neat notes in purple ink.
“Sure, you do. Just like Steven hates surgical instruments and Dillon despises computers.” Grace flexed her messy and cold fingers. “Whereas I simply love squishing my hands through stuff that looks like guts.”
Dillon, sitting across from Promise with his omnipresent notebook, peered over his glasses at Grace. “You have a way with a metaphor, Grace. Have you ever considered writing?”
She was still glowering at him when Steven came into the room, fax in hand. He cadged a bottle of water from the refrigerator and peered over Grace’s shoulder at the contents of the bowl. “Oh, good. Guts,” he commented, and sat beside Promise.
She sneezed.
“Was it something I said?” he asked, and placed a hand on her forehead. “You feel warm.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, pushing his hand away. “Grace, do you want me to peel potatoes?”
“No.” Grace slapped the meat loaf into shape and squirted catsup on it. “I’ll do them as soon as I get the gut loaf into the oven.”
She sat in the backyard to peel the potatoes, Louisa May sprawled in a splash of sunlight near her feet.
It was, Grace reflected, nearly a flawless day. Maxie seemed to have suffered no ill effects from the excitement of the wedding the day before. Promise was ecstatic about helping at school. Steven was relaxed, Dillon absorbed in his writing. Grant and Faith had been in their usual pew in church, perfect as ever.
The wind rose, a rush of cool air that struck the back of her neck and turned her skin to gooseflesh. She paused, knife in hand, her gaze falling on the gazebo that sat like a threatening sentinel across the yard.
She w
as afraid, she realized, tearing her glance away from the shabby structure. It wasn’t the kind of fear she’d known when Promise had surgery or when Maxie had been in the hospital. It didn’t paralyze her or move her to tears or sit inside her chest like a cold stone, but flitted around the periphery of her mind the way mosquitoes buzzed just outside the line of one’s vision.
She sat for a long time, the wood hilt of the paring knife clutched motionless in her hand. She closed her eyes and held her elbows close to her sides.
In the attic of her mind, the fear couldn’t find her.
“Pneumonia?” Grace echoed.
Steven nodded, his face grim.
“Damn!” Promise muttered from the bed.
“You shouldn’t have gone back to school at all,” he said. “Even without the kids there, it’s a breeding ground for every infection known to man and a few that aren’t. Your resistance is nil because of the chemo, so what do you do but go swimming among those germs? And don’t you even tell me to get a life. I’m not in the mood to hear it.”
“Great bedside manner,” Grace commented. “What did you do, skip that class?”
“Get her things together,” he ordered. “She’s going to the hospital.”
“No, she is not!” Promise struggled to sit up, but had to lie back again when coughing overtook her. When the paroxysm eased, she said, “Call Jake and ask him for some medicine. Tell him I’m opposed to going to the hospital and will go into a decline if I’m forced. I’ll be like Beth in Little Women and die slow instead of just getting it over with all at once.”
Grace went to the bed. “Here, drink some water. Steven’s going to call Jake, and he won’t make you go to the hospital unless he has to. You’ll do what he says or I’ll go to the school and tell all the kids you’re incorrigible and a bad example.”
Jake stopped on his way home. He gave Promise an injection and consulted with Steven over coffee in the kitchen.
“We should admit her,” Jake told Grace, “but since she’s so adamant she doesn’t want to go, I’m not going to force the issue if you think you can handle it.”
“I can handle it.” Grace ignored Steven’s scowl.
Jake listed things for her to watch for and scrawled out prescriptions. “I’ll stop by each day on my way home, but you can call the office if you’re worried.” He set down his cup. “Let me check on Maxie, then I’d better go. My wife will be after me with a meat cleaver.”
Grace grinned at the idea of Kate Sawyer wielding a meat cleaver, but the smile slipped from her face when she met her brother’s angry eyes.
“I’m holding you responsible.” He picked up the prescriptions from the table and left the house.
Late that night, Grace sat and watched Promise as she slept. The turban she wore to bed accentuated the pallor and thinness of her face, and she moved restlessly in her sleep. The coughing sometimes forced her into a sitting position and Grace would hold her there until the spasm ended, then ease her back down.
“Dying would be easier,” Promise muttered once, half awake.
“Shut up and sleep,” Grace said.
She dozed, jerking awake when Steven came into the room. He made noise, and she wanted to tell him to be quiet, but when she saw his still-angry face, she heard his words again. I’m holding you responsible. And remained silent.
Once, Promise kicked the covers free, and Grace tossed them back over her, going still and frozen when she saw the slender bare feet.
Bare feet. Oh, dear God, bare feet. If Grace had only worn shoes to the wedding like a sane person would, her best friend wouldn’t be lying there with shallow breaths rasping through her lungs. If Promise hadn’t set her sandals beside Faith’s on the stairs and gone barefoot in a laughing show of support. If she hadn’t danced without shoes in the cool September grass.
“Sit on my feet a little, baby. You keep them so nice and warm.”
Not again. Please, God, not again. Not Promise.
Grace didn’t nap again, but sat bolt upright in the chair. Steven came in every hour or so. At two o’clock, he crawled into the empty twin bed in the room. “Go on to bed, Gracie,” he muttered wearily, and fell into a sleep as restless as Promise’s own.
At three o’clock, Promise woke long enough to swallow medicine. At four o’clock, she coughed until she was sick and Grace feared she was flushing the healing agents of the medicine down the toilet.
Dillon came into the room at five, his tread nearly soundless. He set the tray bearing three cups of coffee on the bedside table. Then he lifted Grace and sat with her in his lap. When Steven sat up, Dillon handed him a cup.
Like night-duty sentries, they watched Promise as she slept. They breathed when she breathed, moved restively when she did, gripped their cups with white knuckles when she coughed. When her turban came loose, Grace leaped to adjust it again, laying her hand gently on Promise’s hot forehead.
Please, please, please. The litany was all the louder because it was unspoken.
They drank their coffee in silence, but Dillon’s hand stroked slowly through Grace’s hair. When she set her cup down, he laid a hand on her cheek and pressed her head to his shoulder.
“Just sleep a little,” he whispered. “I’ll watch.”
His heartbeat was steady under her palm, his skin warm through the T-shirt he wore, his gaze sure and unwavering when it met hers. She relaxed deeper into the safety of his arms and slept.
“The oxygen will keep her more comfortable.” Steven met Grace’s panic-stricken eyes, his own features impassive.
Dillon knew how much the emotionless stance cost Steven, knew that when he was alone he would press his face into his hands and take deep, steadying breaths. This was how Dr. Elliot coped with that which he could not control. It was, Steven had told him once, preferable to blowing up at everyone in his path the way his father had. It protected patients, hospital personnel and innocent bystanders from the rage that frightened Steven more than anyone.
Anyone except Grace. She was fearless with Dillon, shouting and ranting and arguing with his every word, but Steven’s anger shut her down instantly. She withdrew into the hidden place where the rage couldn’t find her. Dillon remembered her telling Maxie that she couldn’t even get mad at Steven and Faith for fear of losing their love. The statement had torn a ragged fissure through his heart then. Remembering it now exacerbated the hurt place.
Though Steven hadn’t heard Grace’s words, he knew his sister couldn’t bear his fury when it was unleashed. What he didn’t know was that his coldness frightened her just as much. “Elliot,” he said, “come on and have a drink.”
Steven’s sable eyes were like holes burned into his thin face. “All right.”
When they sat in the lawn chairs on his porch with tall glasses in their hands, Dillon said, “Grace isn’t a stranger, Steven, that you can fool with that businesslike act. She knows you’re mad and it’s killing her.”
“I’m not mad at her,” Steven said instantly. “Well, maybe a little because she supports Promise in this insane refusal to go to the hospital. Mostly I’m mad at disease, and at being helpless.” He lifted his glass and took a long swallow. “I can’t talk to Grace because I’ll start yelling and I can’t stand it when she gets all silent and scared. She thinks I’ll hurt her like the old man did, and I don’t know how to convince her I won’t.”
“Into the attic…” Dillon murmured.
“What?”
“That’s where she hides. Figuratively if she can’t really go there. I don’t think she’s afraid you’ll hurt her. She knows you’re not your father. I think she’s afraid if she fights back, you’ll hate her.”
Steven gave him a look of disbelief. “Hate her? Hell, I’d probably kiss her feet.”
Dillon smiled. “Uh-huh. But you’re a doctor, you know all about conditioned responses and deep-seated fears and memories that go bump in the night.”
“I’m a cardiac surgeon, not a shrink.”
“Uh-huh.”
Dillon raised his glass in salute. “You still deal in matters of the heart, boyo. It’s time you learned more than the clinical side.”
Steven kissed Promise’s forehead and extended his hand to Grace. “She’ll be okay by herself for a while. You need to get some rest.”
She accompanied him down the back stairs. “I can’t sleep now.”
“Me, either,” he admitted. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Sure,” she said, surprised by the invitation. She got a sweatshirt from the laundry room and drew it over her head, ignoring the baskets of laundry sitting there. She hoped Mrs. Willard would understand.
They headed toward the cemetery, eschewing the confinement of the cobblestone path to walk in the street.
“The mayor wants to put curbs on Lawyers Row,” she said idly.
“Next thing you know, he’ll be suggesting they paint advertising on the benches and there goes the neighborhood.” Steven nodded at one of the green-painted park benches that had lined Lawyers Row their entire lives.
They grinned at each other and trudged on. When a car approached them on the street, Steven drew her to the inside and left his arm draped over her shoulders.
“I forgot flowers,” she said, and he promptly stole some of Mrs. Rountree’s chrysanthemums.
“Don’t tell Mama I swiped ’em.”
“She wouldn’t believe me if I did. Not her golden boy.”
“You think she believed you when you told her Faith had a tattoo?”
“Probably not.”
They turned onto Main Street and proceeded toward the cemetery.
“The nice thing is, even if she believes you, she doesn’t care. If she was alive, she’d just assign me to yard work until my fiftieth birthday and suggest Faith get a nice little rose put on the other cheek to balance things out if she’s so determined to mutilate her body.”
“She’d be really mad. Really mad for Mama, I mean.” Grace picked up a dented soda can and dropped it into a litter receptacle.