His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3)

by Anna DeStefano

  “The floor’s covered, too,” Shandra added. “So don’t worry.” She grabbed a brush and smeared paint on the transparent poncho she wore, identical to the kids’. “You can’t mess up your clothes. You have the images you’ve practiced. Now all you have to do is paint them on the wall.”

  “This is your day,” Bethany said. “Show us what means the most to you in your life, your neighborhood, your family. Ready. Set . . .”

  “Go!” screamed the kids in her youngest class, ages six through eight.

  Their eardrum-splitting enthusiasm rang through the Midtown Youth Center’s common area, where Bethany had commandeered a wall for this quarter’s curriculum. She let herself take a few moments to enjoy the mayhem that followed. It was exactly what she’d hoped for. Kids enjoying being kids and enjoying art the way they did other games. The project was her brainchild, and what she’d written her Artist Co-op residency essay about.

  She’d give anything for Mike to be there, seeing it come to life. A reality that was still possible, since as far as she knew the mural would stay up indefinitely for the kids and their parents to marvel at each time they came to the center. She could bring him by, assuming that she and Mike kept seeing each other. Their first date was tonight, once he finished working with Joe and she dropped Shandra off at her foster parents’.

  But Bethany had another pressing matter to attend to first, as she watched Shandra kneel beside Darby Parker. One of their youngest painters, Darby had been an enthusiastic, budding artist the first few weeks of class. And she’d quickly attached to Shandra as her teacher of choice.

  She hadn’t wanted to paint, though, the last Sunday Bethany and Shandra had taught together. And when she eventually had picked up a brush, the images she’d created as she’d practiced for her piece of the mural had concerned Shandra enough to show them to Bethany before they’d headed home. The volunteers who’d subbed for Bethany and Shandra last weekend had said Darby didn’t come to that class at all. And today, as the kids had practiced one more time, Darby had painted the same thing as two weeks ago.

  Now she was sitting at a worktable instead of rushing to the wall with her friends. She didn’t look up when Shandra slipped off her poncho and sat next to her. Bethany inched closer, easing out of the vinyl protecting her own clothes.

  “Can you tell me what you’re going to paint?” Shandra asked, her voice low and soothing, the way she and Bethany had discussed.

  Each of the kids had been allowed to select three cups of paint to work with—most of them opting for bright primary hues like green and red and blue. Darby had wanted only red and black the last time, and she’d asked for the same today.

  “Is this where you live?” Shandra asked. She smiled at Darby’s nod, even though the girl hadn’t looked up from her work.

  The outline of the room was red. Big brushstrokes. Layers of the same color swiped on with a natural eye toward texture and dimension and depth. It could have made for a cheery result, if it weren’t for the black.

  Black outside the window. Black to represent the taller stick people inside. A black caption cloud beside the tallest of the adults. Black, angry-looking swirls inside the cloud, presumably depicting whatever one grown-up was saying to the other—a smaller adult figure wearing a skirt, her arm in a sling while the taller one held a stick or something else raised as if he were going to hit her.

  It could have meant almost anything or possibly nothing at all. Except Shandra had watched Darby labor over the same image two Sundays ago. And just before the little girl had run across the room to leave with her single mom as soon as Ms. Parker arrived, Shandra had said she’d seen Darby slash a huge black X across the tall, angry figure, as if erasing it from the picture.

  “You said . . .” Darby threw her brush on the table. “You said to paint what we wanted.”

  Shandra nodded. “Whatever you like best about your family.”

  “I don’t,” Darby insisted. “I don’t like my family anymore.”

  “That must be really hard,” Shandra reflected back to her young friend. “I remember not liking a lot of the families I’ve been with.”

  Darby finally looked up. The students had been told Shandra was a foster child and what it meant. Darby crawled into Shandra’s lap now, hugging her, the noise and craziness around them fading for Bethany as she watched her little sister, who’d needed love so badly when she’d come to the Dixon family, become another child’s hero.

  “Did people ever get . . . hurt in your families?” Darby asked.

  “Sometimes.” Shandra stared at Bethany, wide-eyed and a little scared, but she held on so Darby wouldn’t know. “And it was hard for me to talk about. For a really long time. Until not talking about it got even harder. Is someone hurting you?”

  “Not . . . me.”

  You are so wrong, my friend, Bethany thought. She caught the glint of tears in her foster sister’s eyes, proof that a young child’s pain could last forever—even in the strong, brave, beautiful adult they could become.

  “Who’s getting hurt, Darby?” Shandra asked.

  “He said not to tell. Me and my mom don’t tell anyone. He’ll get mad. That’ll make it worse. But he’s so mad again anyway, and he said he wouldn’t be anymore, when my mom said he could come back.”

  Shandra turned Darby until they were looking at her painting together. She pointed at the taller stick figures.

  “Who hurt your mommy?” Shandra asked.

  Shawn Carlyle, the youth center’s activities director, stepped to Bethany’s side.

  Other volunteers were seeing to the now madly painting kids, while Shandra and Bethany and Shawn created a protective semicircle around Darby. Shandra and Bethany had shared their concerns with him. He’d told them to keep a close eye on Darby, but that he couldn’t speak with her mother in an official capacity, or contact the police or family services, unless there were visible signs of abuse, or Darby gave them more details.

  “My mom . . .” Darby turned her face into Shandra’s shoulder. “Her arm hurts. He doesn’t mean to, but he gets so mad.”

  “Is he a friend of your mom’s?” Shandra looked like she was going to cry or scream or hit someone herself, while she gently stroked Darby’s baby-soft brown hair.

  Darby didn’t answer, quietly rocking in Shandra’s arms. Bethany knelt next to them, so proud of her sister’s courage, of the volunteer work Shandra was doing with her free time. She checked with her sister to see if she was okay. Shandra nodded.

  “Are you afraid of him?” Bethany glared up at Shawn. No way was he keeping her from talking with Ms. Parker now, whether or not Darby said another word. “Are you worried that if you tell, he might hurt you?”

  Darby nodded, practically curling into a ball in Shandra’s arms.

  “Your mom is scared, too?” Bethany asked.

  Another nod.

  “Adults can be scary sometimes,” Shandra said, imparting teenage wisdom that Bethany wished to God her sister didn’t have. “And it can feel like there’s no way we can stop them, when you’re small and everyone else is big and no one knows what’s happening. But I’m big now. So is Bethany. We can help if someone’s hurting your mom.”

  Shawn knelt and rubbed a comforting hand down Darby’s back. “We’d all like to help.”

  Darby stared at him, quiet and serious, looking so lost the rest of them fought even harder to keep their rage from showing.

  “Tell us how to help you and your mom,” Bethany said, realizing anew how lucky she was to have had the love Marsha and Joe had thrust into her life. “We’ll do everything we can, Darby. You’re not alone in this.”

  “Can you help . . .” The last of Darby’s control crumbled, making her words hard to hear as her tears fell like cleansing rain. “Can you help my brother stop being so mad?”

  “Like we discussed.” Mike was wrapping up his latest ninety-minute session with his frustrated therapy patient. “Your best bet at this stage is to walk as much as you can.
Twice a day is the ultimate goal.”

  “I’ve been walking.” Joe struggled to a sitting position on Mike’s portable massage table. He swung his legs over the side.

  “Twice a day? Every day?”

  “Is that really the expert advice my insurance premiums are paying you to give me? It’s been two weeks, and you’re still mostly taking my pulse and pressure, when you’re not twisting me into a pretzel.”

  “Yoga, floor exercises, light weights, massage . . .” Mike looked up from the clipboard, where he recorded Joe’s steady but slow progress. “Your flexibility and range of motion are improving.”

  “Because you’ve got me doing the same damn exercises in between our sessions, too. What do I need you for, if this is all we’re ever going to do?”

  “Once we improve your core strength, we’ll up your cardio work. It’ll be less of a challenge to your balance then. You’ll get more benefit for your respiration and stamina. Walking more will help that process along faster. Walking also works a different set of muscles than the more contained exercises we do together. And fresh air can be a miracle drug for some people.”

  “Are you telling me if I walk, I can nix the blood pressure meds and the other scripts that are making me feel like I’m moving in slow motion?”

  Joe mopped at his forehead with a towel, sweating profusely despite the air conditioner running constantly, its thermostat set to arctic. He walked to the antique bed in the Dixons’ master bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress, workout clothes soaked through with exertion.

  “Then I’m in,” the man sniped. “The side effects of the drugs they’re giving me are worse than the symptoms. How am I supposed to work and live like a normal person while I’m taking them?”

  “You’re determined not to take an extended leave of absence?” Mike folded the massage table.

  Voluntarily taking time off work to focus on his recovery remained a non-option for Joe. Just as, despite Mike’s recommendation, his patient had insisted on having their sessions indoors. Mike’s eye was on the back patio for future workouts—assuming Joe kept at his recovery. And assuming his embarrassment ever eased at the thought of his family watching him struggle.

  “I’m already missing more days than I’m showing up to do my job,” Joe said while Mike packed his exercise bands in his duffel, along with the foam brick he’d shown his patient how to use to modify basic yoga poses. “When I am at the office, I’m heading home early in the afternoons. I’m tired, grumpy. I can’t focus on anything. I need you to help me stop that from happening. Instead, you keep telling me to take my meds and take leave until I get better.”

  Mike nodded. “The symptoms you’re describing could be from the drugs.”

  “So this is just the price I pay,” groused the gentle, patient man everyone in Chandlerville adored, “for following my doctor’s orders so I won’t have another heart attack?”

  Mike sat on a vanity bench—its fabric upholstered in an ultrafeminine floral pattern—careful not to jostle the dainty table behind him. A rainbow of pastel perfume bottles perched on top, plus a deeply patinaed silver brush, comb, and mirror set. The entire thing reminded him of something from a classic movie.

  “The problem is,” he said, “your doctor can’t reduce your medication until your vitals improve.”

  “Or maybe you’re all just making excuses. Things are getting worse, not better. I’m even more tired since you and I started. More sore. My HR manager at work keeps popping in to check on how I’m doing, like she’s afraid I’m going to collapse. She started talking about early retirement the other day—which isn’t something I can take and be able to support my family.”

  Mike consulted his records of Joe’s progress.

  “Your pressure’s too high,” he said. “Your oxygen levels and lung capacity are low. Your body’s not processing fluid properly, hence the diuretics. Your balance issues and the tremor in your hands and legs are likely a result of both of those factors. And you’re right. The medication could be a contributing factor to the lack of concentration, fatigue, and loss of muscle mass. But those symptoms are also likely due to your overdoing it, trying to get back to your old life.”

  Joe’s hands dug trenches in the edge of the mattress. “If I take long-term disability, my position will be filled while I’m away. My responsibilities transitioned to someone else. There’ll be no job to return to, even if I do get better.”

  “Then your best option is to accept your current limitations, take a few weeks of leave while it’s still a choice, and really focus on the things that will improve your chances of a better recovery.”

  “Things?” Joe bit out.

  His chronic anger was out of character, according to his friends and family. He was worried about his loved ones, like many of Mike’s patients, wanting to provide for them, protect them, love them, and not let them down.

  “Things,” Mike said, determined to help his patient get where he needed to go, “like working with me during our sessions and between them, instead of resisting my recommendations.”

  Mike and Joe had gone as far as they could, until Joe came to grips with his limitations. Mike laid his clipboard on top of his duffel and braced his forearms on his thighs.

  “Your life is different from the one you knew before,” he continued. “You’re fighting the body you have now, instead of accepting it. That’s where your energy’s going. You might not be able to get back everything you had, but we can make sure you have a full, active life. Assuming”—Mike knew it was past time to confront the elephant in the room—“you believe that I’m the right physical therapist to help you.”

  “Why don’t you tell me, son?” Joe slapped his towel over his shoulder. “Why are you, of all people, the right therapist for me?”

  Mike scratched the side of his head. He thought of Bethany and the date they’d set for tonight. The risk it felt like they were still taking, opening their hearts and lives to each other because neither of them were able to stop.

  He and Joe hadn’t discussed any of it.

  Mike had kept showing up for their sessions, after his and Bethany’s run-in at the loft, and after his showing up at Dru and Brad’s and spending time with Bethany and her art in her studio. And Joe had kept grousing about aches and pains and pointless exercises, and never letting on what he knew about his daughter and Mike.

  “I’m good at what I do, Mr. Dixon. I’ve been run over by life a few times myself. I know what it’s like to feel powerless to stop the fallout. And . . . I’ve seen how worried your daughter and the rest of your family are. I’d like to help Bethany and all of the people you care about, by doing everything I can to help you.”

  “And exactly how is Bethany feeling about you helping me? You’ve evidently won Selena and Camille over. Oliver’s loving that, by the way. Watching him bristle whenever your name comes up is the most fun I’ve had in months.”

  “I’ve enjoyed getting to know your granddaughter and daughter-in-law.” Mike grinned. “Riling up Armani is a nice bonus. As for your daughter and me . . .”

  “Spit it out, son.” Joe sopped more sweat from his face and neck and arms. “I’m melting here.”

  “Bethany blew me away,” Mike admitted. “The first moment I saw her, I lost my head. I’ve stumbled around ever since, messing things up. But she’s . . . amazing. I want her in my life, I can’t seem to steer clear of it, and I’ll do my very best by her, too. Still, that shouldn’t be adding to the strain of your recovery.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow. “Do you love my daughter?”

  A part of Mike wished he could say yes.

  The Dixons, watching them these last few weeks, had come to mean more to him than just another patient and recovery support network. He admired everything they stood for. He envied them, the way only a man with his dysfunctional family history could. And he wished he could put Joe at ease now and say what the man wanted to hear for his daughter’s sake.

  But Mike hadn’t been ab
le to make sense of love in a very long time.

  “I care about Bethany,” he said. “Very much.”

  Joe frowned, a concerned father contemplating a man who could potentially break his little girl’s heart. Then something about him eased, the grim set of his mouth softening.

  “When Marsha and I first met at the University of Georgia,” he said, “I practically ran her over, not watching where I was going. I knocked her schoolbooks everywhere. She should have been pissed, but she smiled at me instead. She laughed at the goofy grin on my face. And I was just standing there staring at her, brain-dead, with my mouth open . . . I’m not entirely sure I’ve had a coherent thought since, without Marsha by my side helping me figure things out. So I know a little something about grabbing hold of a woman and not being able to let go, even when you’re not sure what to do with her.”

  Mike kept his silence. This moment had been coming since he’d hunted the man’s daughter down after their run-in at Mike’s studio. He and Joe needed to settle things.

  “But I also know my daughter,” Joe said. “She needs to be home for good. She needs to feel at home. And she’s never let herself do that with us, not completely. Seems like maybe she’s ready now. Problems between you two can’t mess that up for her. I’m worried more about that than I am my recovery. My kids are more important to me than anything.”

  “Your daughter’s happiness is important to me, too, Mr. Dixon.”

  “Joe,” the other man said. “Please.”

  “You have my word, Joe.” Mike gave a quick nod. “I’ll be good for Bethany and her life here, or I’ll remove myself from the situation. Just like my work with you is either going to be a productive solution, or you need someone else to guide you through your recovery.”

  Joe exhaled, rubbing his eyes with the base of each palm. He frowned at Mike’s clipboard.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything in your bag of tricks that’s a silver bullet for fixing my recovery.”

  “No, sir.” Mike sat forward, relieved that the conversation was veering back toward Joe’s therapy. “I tell my clients that I’m only going to give them about a tenth of what they need. The rest they already have inside them. Our time together is meant to show you how to pull the pieces of your life together yourself.”