Lie to Me

by McAdams, Molly

  “Just a few minutes ago.” His lips twitched, a slight hint of encouragement tilting them when I sighed in relief. “But we’ve been running tests and scans, and I’ve spoken with some of her other doctors.” He cleared his throat and took another few steps away from Nora’s room, his voice lowering when I followed him. “I know you haven’t been here long, Ms. Wade, but are you aware your grandmother had a stroke a couple Christmases ago?”

  I nodded, my stomach knotting tighter and tighter. “Did she have another one? Is that what happened today?”

  “No,” he said quickly, but there was no assurance in his voice. “But when she was here for the stroke, we found a mass on her brain during one of her scans, so I referred her to an Oncologist.”

  I stilled.

  My heart felt like it was beating so hard and so loud that it was drowning out every other sound.

  “I just spoke with that doctor . . . your grandmother refused a biopsy after the first meeting and hasn’t seen her since.” He cleared his throat and said, “We ran the same scans and tests, and the mass has grown and multiplied.”

  “She has brain cancer?” I asked, the words coming out slow and sounding so confused because it didn’t make sense.

  The doctor hesitated. “I can’t say for certain, but the tumors seem to be very aggressive.”

  My head shook, unable to accept it even though I knew in my gut because Lala knew. She’d known all along. “But she’s . . . she’s so strong. She’s constantly going and cooking for people.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all he said. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to convince her that a biopsy is needed so she can start receiving the necessary treatment. It looks like your grandmother had a seizure today while driving, and that is a common symptom of brain tumors. She could have more in the future.”

  I nodded at the warning and concern in his words.

  “However, your grandmother is . . . a very strong-willed woman,” he said after a moment of thought, an affectionate laugh leaving him. “As her closest family, I need you to be aware of what’s going on with her so you can best take care of her. Things like driving, being alone, and going up and down stairs . . . she can’t do those anymore. Well . . .”—he gave me a meaningful look—“she can, and I have no doubt she’ll try since she’s adamant she’s capable of doing all those things and more. But it isn’t safe for her or others anymore.”

  “I understand,” I muttered and looked across the hall. “Can I see her?”

  “Of course, but we would like to keep her here overnight. I think Reed should be able to take Miss Nora home soon though.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I started for Lala’s door. My steps slow and heavy as the weight of the news pulled at me.

  By the time I slipped into her room, I was a confusing mixture of struggling not to cry and half-formed shields.

  I looked over her bruised face and arm, my chest aching as I went to the side of her bed so I could grab her good hand.

  She tsked before I reached her. “Don’t you come in here like you’re walking into my funeral,” she said, voice weak but still managing to hold plenty of that Lala bite.

  The corners of my mouth tilted up even as my throat tightened with tears. “Hi, Lala.”

  She finally opened her eyes, only looking at me for a moment before letting them shut again with a deep sigh. “Nora?”

  “Reed has her, and she’ll be fine.”

  Her jaw trembled and she sucked in an unsteady breath when I slipped my hand around hers. “Well, my truck probably looks worse than me.”

  “Lala—”

  “That poor beast has been with me forever.”

  “Lala—”

  “Enough of this nonsense. Let’s get me on out of here before I go out of my mind.” She opened her eyes and looked around. “Nothing to do in a place like this.”

  “I wish I’d come back sooner,” I said before she could try to stop me. “I wish I’d been here for so many reasons, but I hate that I missed all those years I could’ve had with you.”

  “I am still alive,” she admonished, complete with a weakened scoff.

  “I know you are, and I’m incredibly thankful for that,” I said gently. “But why didn’t you get the biopsy done, Lala?”

  Her expression fell and her stare drifted away from me, her voice nothing more than a tremor when she said, “Don’t let that silly doctor fill your head with nonsense.”

  “You wouldn’t have made sure Reed had custody of Nora if it were nonsense,” I said confidently. “I figured out that much, but I can’t figure out why you refused the biopsy.”

  “Well, it’s my right not to have one.”

  I pulled my hand from hers, my voice rising and cracking with my pain. “Lala, that’s bullshit. You wouldn’t just leave something like that up to fate when you have Nora.”

  “I chose what I did for her,” she snapped, then let out an aching breath, her eyes filled with tears as my own slipped down my cheeks. “With where it was located and the size of it, that specialist doctor said it needed to be removed—the entire thing. Said if I left it alone, the stroke I had was just the beginning, but that I probably had five years, if not more. Surgery . . . she said the surgery was a very complicated one and suggested chemo instead.” Lala slanted her head. “I’m not living my last years that way, and I’m not putting Nora through that.”

  “So, you’d rather her watch you go through this?” I asked shakily.

  “I don’t need you criticizing my decisions. I’ve made them, and that’s that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. You can still change your mind.”

  “I’m not going to,” she said definitively. “Now, get me out of here.”

  I studied her for a while as the tears continued falling. “They’re keeping you overnight.” When she scoffed, I reminded her, “Lala, you were just in a major accident because you had a seizure, and you were unconscious for almost eight hours. You just woke up.”

  “And I’m fit as a fiddle.”

  “No, you’re stubborn because you’re a Wade.” When she turned her exhausted but irritated stare on me, I repeated, “I wish I’d come back sooner.”

  Her tears finally fell as she weakly squeezed my fingers. “Me too, child.”

  “Now, I know you like bossing me around, but I’m telling you that you’re staying here and you’re going to rest. And whatever the doctors and nurses say, try not to sass them too much.”

  A huff of a laugh left her.

  “Reed and I will take Nora home, and I’ll be back tomorrow, all right?”

  “Well,” she said with a muted sigh, “seems I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “That’s right.” I leaned over her bed to kiss her cheek, my voice cracking as I said, “Bye, Lala.”

  “Walking right on back out of here like it’s my damn funeral,” she tsked, pulling a soft laugh from me that did nothing to ease the intense aching in my soul.

  “Emma.”

  I looked up as I shut the door behind me, and that pain seemed to fall away when I saw Reed standing outside Nora’s room. All worry and exhaustion playing across his face as he started toward me.

  “She awake?” he asked at the same time I slipped my hand into his and asked, “What’s going on with Nora?”

  “They’re getting her ready to discharge her,” he answered, then pulled me into his arms. “Is Lala awake?”

  My head bobbed quickly before I let it fall to his chest as I desperately tried to swallow back the building sob.

  His hands clenched around me tighter, gripping me with the fear we’d been sitting in all day, silently begging me to tell him what was happening with the woman I’d just left.

  “Did you know?” I asked around the glass in my throat. “About Lala—did you know?”

  He leaned back, one of his hands shifting to lift my chin so he could search my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “When she asked you to take custody of Nora . . . did she
say why?”

  Confusion poured from Reed. “What? Yeah, babe, I told you last night. She wanted—”

  “No.” My head shook, stopping him from continuing because I could already see in his eyes and the way he was speaking that he didn’t know. “She had a seizure today. But that and her stroke . . . it’s because she has tumors on her brain.”

  Reed’s confusion slowly melted away to shock and denial.

  “After her stroke, they found a mass. Today . . . the doctor said it’s grown and multiplied aggressively. She refused chemo and the surgery to have the original mass removed.”

  After long seconds of silence, Reed released me and stepped back to lean against the wall. “It wasn’t a just-in-case thing,” he muttered, then clarified, “Nora.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  His eyelids shut and a deep sigh left him. “Does she know if it’s cancer?”

  “She doesn’t. But after the stroke, the Oncologist said she could have at least five years as she was.” I hesitated and fought the newly-building tears. “But if it’s aggressive and if it’s spread the way this doctor said . . .” When Reed nodded, I asked, “If you’d known, would you have made a different choice with Nora?”

  “No.” His eyes were glassy when they opened. Roughing a hand through his hair, he let out another deep sigh and pushed from the wall. “This fucking day.” He glanced at Nora’s room and then turned to me, reaching out for me and teasing my hip with the tips of his fingers. “Can you see how they’re doing with Nora? I’m gonna check in with Lala before we go.”

  “Of course.”

  I watched him go for only a moment before hurrying off to the door a few rooms down, peeking my head in and offering Nora a smile when I found her very obviously ignoring the nurse who was helping her.

  “Good timing, sis,” the nurse called out, trying to be excited for Nora. “We’re all unhooked and dressed and ready to go!”

  Nora’s eyes shifted from the nurse back to me, her little face scrunched up with apprehension from being around a person she didn’t know.

  The nurse handed me a stack of papers as she began explaining everything she’d apparently already told Reed, using her hands wildly as she spoke. “But if something seems off, just bring her right on back. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good, thank you.”

  “But what about my Lala?” Nora asked when the nurse left.

  “I just saw her,” I said as I gently helped Nora off the bed, minding her arm and side and wincing when she did. “She’s awake and wanting to go home, but the doctor’s going to keep her here tonight.”

  I saw it hit Nora in an instant. The utter look of fear and being lost within her exhaustion—and it shattered something inside me.

  “You’re coming home with Reed and me,” I said quickly, dropping to a crouch to be on her level. “Then hopefully tomorrow, Lala will come home.”

  “My Reed?” Nora asked, shaking out of her panic just as quickly as it had consumed her. “I get to go home with my Reed?” When I hummed in confirmation, she put her good hand in mine. “Okay, let’s go.”

  I stared at the tiny fingers in mine, my heart swelling as I straightened and led her from the room just as Reed was coming down the hall.

  A smile broke across his face when he saw us. “There’s my favorite girl. You ready to go?”

  Nora bounced and cried out when she landed.

  “Be careful,” Reed and I admonished at the same time, but her excitement shone through her pain.

  “My Emma said I get to go home with you tonight!”

  “Yeah, but if you keep jumping around and hurting yourself, we’re all gonna have to stay here,” he said gently. When Nora went comically still at my side, Reed jerked his head in the direction of the exit. “Let’s get out of here. We have a surprise for you.”

  I widened my eyes at him because I knew absolutely nothing of a surprise, but he just offered me a warm smile as he lifted my hand to press a kiss to my palm.

  “When I look at you . . .” he whispered, the incomplete thought holding so much meaning and making my spirit soar in the midst of all this worry.

  “Forever,” I vowed.

  “Long day.” Reed’s deep voice met me a second before his arms curled around me. Pulling me against his chest and holding me like he needed me to keep standing.

  “Longest,” I agreed as I turned and rested my head against his shoulder, my hand finding the steady beating of his heart as we stood in his kitchen late that night.

  I thought the surprise he’d mentioned to Nora had been a booster seat for his truck that was already in place and ready to go when we’d left the hospital—thanks to Leah and Peter. But then Reed had driven us back to his house instead of Lala’s, where they’d been waiting along with Nick and his wife, Jenn.

  Almost all of Nora’s favorite people, ready to welcome her to a new place and make her feel completely at home.

  They’d had Nora’s favorite dinner ready and had turned Peter’s room into something out of a fairytale, complete with some of Nora’s stuffed animals and clothes from Lala’s.

  I’d been stunned by the love that poured from the house and the sense of family weaving through those friends, so different and somehow so similar to what I’d just witnessed in Florida.

  And instead of that flare of unwelcome resentment I’d become used to, I’d been so thankful Nora had their love and support—that she would continue having it no matter what happened to Lala—that I’d nearly been brought to my knees in gratitude.

  “Did you check on Nora?”

  Reed’s acknowledgment rumbled against my ear. “Out.”

  I sucked in a shocked gasp when his hands curled around my hips and lifted me onto the counter I’d just finished cleaning. “Thanks for the warning,” I muttered against his playful smirk before falling into the kiss.

  All soft and teasing with an underlying tone of carnal need.

  I pulled back slightly when Leah’s laugh reminded me we weren’t alone yet, and Reed groaned, his forehead dropping to my collarbone.

  “Think if we go to bed, they’ll notice?”

  I glanced over to where she was talking animatedly to her brother and sister-in-law while Peter sat, fully absorbed in each word she said, and decided against answering that. “Where’s Peter sleeping tonight?” I asked instead.

  “Couch.”

  A sound of discontent crept up my throat. “That isn’t fair to him. You should’ve let us go back to Lala’s.”

  A soft laugh left him as he leaned back to look at me. “If you knew any of the places we’ve slept over the years, you’d know he’s gonna be great on the couch. And it was his idea anyway—I told them to give Nora my room.”

  I nodded and slid my hand up his chest to wrap my arms loosely around his neck, contemplating talking to him about what I’d been thinking of ever since the doctor and nurses described Nora’s meltdown that day.

  “Something’s going on in that head of yours,” he mumbled softly, pulling me closer to the edge of the counter and him.

  My lips parted, but I just studied him for a moment before glancing over to where his friends were at the table. “I wanted to talk to you about something, but I don’t know how you’re going to take it,” I said as I looked back at Reed.

  His dark brows knitted together as he waited.

  “Because I could be wrong and crossing the line and offending—”

  “Just say it,” he said gently. “If you are, we can deal with all that once I know what’s going on.”

  My tongue darted out to wet my lips, my stomach swirling with nervousness as I thought about what I’d been told and what I’d read while we were waiting in the hospital.

  “You told me about Nora,” I began. “You explained her learning delay and how she was when we first met, and you explained more last night, but I don’t think I fully understood until today when the nurses and doctor were describing it. And then I kept thinking about what I’ve seen—ho
w she avoids so many people and how she reacts to the people she doesn’t trust. How she gets possessive over the ones she does. So, I started researching it while we were waiting for her to be released today.”

  I searched Reed’s gray eyes for any sign that I was stepping into a place I shouldn’t, but he was just watching me. Seeming to expect something as he waited.

  “Reed, I think she might be on the spectrum,” I said softly, my body tensing as I waited for his reaction.

  But he just dipped his head and mumbled, “Yeah, I know.”

  I sat there in stunned silence for a moment before asking, “What?”

  He let out a heavy sigh, his hands moving down my thighs and then back up to my hips. “I did the same thing after the first time I saw her break down. Researching . . . looking into it further when everything pointed to it. Started watching her more closely when I started doubting myself because there are days when nothing even hints at it, but she had a lot of the signs.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  His face did that adorable scrunching thing, all hesitant apologies before he explained, “Again, it’s something I figured Lala would’ve mentioned, but it also isn’t something we really talk about because she’s just Nora.” He lifted one of his hands off me in a helpless kind of shrug. “But Lala and I got her into therapy to help with her speech and social skills. And we help her in the ways that we can—getting her around other people and encouraging her to talk to them, like on Thursdays and at church. And other little pushes to get her out of her comfort zone . . .

  “If Nora had her way, I would be there every day at the exact same time. And I’m there because I wouldn’t miss that time with her, but I don’t show up at the same time, and I don’t stay the same amount of time each day. It drove her crazy at first, but she’s used to it now.”

  “Helping her be okay with change and the unexpected,” I said in understanding, and he dipped his head before slanting it to the side.

  “Now, why did you think you were going to be crossing a line?”