by Jill James
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It had taken several false alarms, but he'd soon seen what Darcy's cousins had been talking about that Christmas. Margaret Bennett used her illness to control her only child.
"Darcy, if she were really sick do you think your father would be here? He's waiting to walk you down the aisle."
"But she called me. She's having blurred vision."
"She still managed to call you, didn't see?" he muttered to himself. "She saw the phone clearly enough."
"Darcy Elizabeth Bennett," Stephen Bennett roared over his shoulder. "This young man has waited long enough. This wedding should have taken place months ago."
The man shot him a quick wink and a smile before he went into the room and shut the door. He heard muffled voices through the wood. His deep and hers high and crying. His pacing was cut short as her father came out of the room with a thumbs-up. "We're good to go."
Stephen walked to the end of the hall and waited. Chase leaned against the door. "Darcy, I love you."
"I love you too, Chase. I'm ready."
"I'll be waiting for you in the chapel. I'll be the nervous guy in a tuxedo."
Her soft laughter filled him as he walked past Stephen and made his way to the small chapel nestled in the forest outside Lake Tahoe. The windows framed towering pines and a gorgeous view of the mountains. It wasn't the enormous cathedral in San Francis that Darcy and her mother had wanted, but after the third cancellation Father Victor told them no more. It wasn't filled with hundreds of guests, but after a comical issuance of invitations and regrets, their friends had had enough. So, the small room of folding chairs held his uncle at the front of the room as his best man. Darcy's cousin, Roni would walk in before her and the other cousins filled the front row of chairs.
As he stood beside his uncle, the music started and the doors opened. For the rest of his life he would never be able to remember what color dress Roni wore without looking at the videotape, but when the woman stepped to the side of the podium he saw Darcy and he would remember how she looked until the end of time.
Her white gown dripped with lace at her neck and wrists. She was an angel in white. Her face glowed with happiness and her smile stabbed him in the heart as he fought to catch his breath. The material of her dress clung to her curves and swirled at her ankles as she walked toward him. Stephen stopped and the minister started to speak. The words went in one ear and out the other as he gazed at Darcy who looked back at him with happiness and love shining in her deep brown eyes.
Her father took her hand and placed it in his. His hand tingled where they touched. Darcy bowed her head for a prayer and the scent of strawberries and cinnamon wafted over him with the swirl of her hair. The curls fell forward and tickled his hands. He took a deep breath as the idea of a lifetime with this woman finally felt in his reach. Uncle Dimitri nudged him and handed him the rings, which he passed to the minister.
"Darcy, you make me complete. I will be by your side through good times and bad, through sickness and health, until death do we part." He took the ring from the minister and placed it on her finger.
"Chase, you make me complete. I will be by your side through good times and bad, through sickness and health, until death do we part." She took the ring from the minister and placed it on his finger.
His mind begged the minister to stop rambling and pronounce them husband and wife already so no one could take her away from him.
In what seemed eternity, the man finally got to that part. When he said if anyone objected, he half-expected Margaret to show up at the back of the chapel in her nightgown, having risen from what she'd proclaimed was her deathbed. When not a whisper was heard, he took a deep breath.
"By the power invested in me by the state of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."
Darcy's smile brightened the room as he leaned in and took her lips with his. He could have kissed her forever if her cousins hadn't cheered and whistled and she pulled back with a laugh and a bright-red blush on her cheeks. His uncle thumped him on the back as the cousins swarmed Darcy and kissed and hugged her.
The ringing of Stephen's cell phone cut through the celebration. Everyone stood still as he took the call, mumbling as he turned away. He shut the phone and turned back to the group, his face ashen.
"What is it, Daddy?" Darcy's voice rose.
"They've taken your mother to the hospital. I have to go. I'm so sorry, Darcy." His gaze locked on them all. "Go to the hotel and celebrate. I'll let you know what is going on as soon as I can."
Chase shook his head. "Of course not. We'll get changed and meet you there."
Darcy gazed at him as if he'd just won a contest he didn't know he'd entered. His chest puffed out. He would do whatever it took to see that look of love and belief for the rest of his life.
An alarm on the machines yanked him back from memories he could revel in forever. From the happiest day of his life to a foreshadow of how the rest of his married life would commence. If he had known then that Margaret and her hypochondriac ways would destroy each important event in their lives, would he have changed anything? He squeezed Darcy's hand and tears fell. He wouldn't change a thing. Unless it meant he'd have more than twenty years with his wife.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chase walked from the nurse's station to the door to Darcy's room and back again. The room was a sea of white jackets and machines and alarms. He glanced at his watch. Midnight. It was Christmas Eve. Looking up, he spotted Mrs. Macgregor walking toward him.
"Nurse Ann said you were here." She patted the bag hanging on her arm. "I've brought you some food."
"I can't eat right now," he said, pointing to the busyness of the room.
She grabbed his arm. "You will eat. Darcy is going to need you. This could go either way. You have to be strong."
"What?" His mind whirled with the woman's words.
"Never you mind," she whispered and patted his arm. "It will all go how it is meant to be."
Maybe he was too tired, but Mrs. Macgregor's words tumbled in his brain. Hell, maybe she had a direct line to God. He would take all the help he could get. He placed his hand on hers. "I'll eat, but we have to make it quick."
He let the woman pull him to the Family Room down the hall. She pulled things out of the bag and had him set up with soup and a sandwich in no time. She reached in the bag and came up with yarn and knitting needles. As he ate, she plied the needles with the click of metal and a growing square of red and green knitted yarn.
By the time he took the last bite of sandwich and wiped his mouth and hands on a napkin, Mrs. Macgregor handed him a blanket just the right size to bundle a baby. His eyes burned with unshed tears. His voice choked up as he whispered around the lump in his throat. "We don't have any children. We can't have any children."
She folded the blanket and put it beside the empty bowl and plate. "Some people make children, willy-nilly, with a snap of their fingers and some people are gifted with them when they find the one who is meant to be with them."
"Thank you for the kind thoughts, Mrs. Macgregor, but Darcy is going to die and I won't have anything left to her to remember her by."
"Tsk, Mr. Thanos. You will always have a piece of Darcy. In your heart, with your love for her and in your mind, with your memories of her. Those we love are never truly lost. Just out of our sight for a while until we are together again. My Neville is just over the hill. As I get older, he is clearer and clearer to me. I know we'll be together soon."
"Did you and Mr. Macgregor get along all the time?"
"Oh, goodness no." Her eyes twinkled as she gazed at him. "We had some awful arguments. But by the time we made up we had totally forgotten what we'd been fighting about."
Chase stared back at her, fighting tears and a burning in his throat. "I will never forget what Darcy and I fought about during that last argument. It drove her away and landed her here. It’s my fault she's in the hospital, in a coma, dying. All my fault."
* * *
"You are not a child, Darcy," he said, gritting his teeth until his jaw cracked. "You are almost forty years old. Don't you think it is about time to stop running to your mother every time she calls?"
Tears shone in his wife's eyes as she put her phone in her purse but he refused to let it sway him yet again. This was too important. They'd been at Margaret Bennett's beck and call for twenty years now. Even on their wedding night her mother had managed to be an invisible ghost in their bed. When they’d finally found their beds. He'd had enough.
"What if she really is dying?" Her lip trembled and he turned away.
What if she were? At least she would leave them alone. He refused to take the thought back. They'd had this argument a thousand times and in the thousand times nothing had ever been wrong with the woman.
"Darcy, your mother is going to outlive us all." He grabbed her hands.
She yanked them away. "The doctor found a dark spot. What if it’s a tumor? She said her vision is blurred and the sunshine is killing her."
"It's one weekend. We've planned this for months. The limo will be picking us up in less than thirty minutes. We'll be back home by Monday."
She crossed her arms on her chest and stared at him. "She's my family too. It's not as if we have a house full of kids. I have my parents and you."
His shoulders slumped and he lowered his head to stare at the hardwood floor. He couldn't win an argument once Darcy mentioned children. The lack of them sat solely with him. A fact Margaret brought up every Christmas at the Bennett mansion while the cousins and their screaming hordes rampaged through the house. Stephen just stared at him and sighed, shaking his head at the lack of grandchildren.
He ran his fingers through his hair and yanked on the strands. "I refuse to have this argument again. Not today. The MOMA is honoring my work and I will be there for the showing of Misty's necklace." Who would have thought the simple necklace he'd carved for his friend's girlfriend would be placed in a museum as an example of American Folk Art?
His blood pressure rose at the thought of all the events they'd missed over the years due to Darcy's mother's hypochondria. He had to put his foot down this time or it would never end. They’d be old and gray and still rushing to her bedside.
"Enough is enough, honey. She wasn't dying on our wedding day. She wasn't dying on our anniversary when we came home early from camping. She certainly wasn't dying when we had to include them in our anniversary trip to Paris because she might die while we were gone. Did I complain about the extra money? No. Because she is your mother and we are family. But enough is enough. You just saw her last week and she was fine. She'll be fine until we get back."
A horn beeped out on the drive and he snatched up his briefcase. "Come on, we can't miss our flight."
"I'm not going," she whispered.
"What?" He tossed the briefcase on the chair. "I'm not missing this."
"Don't miss it, Chase. Go by yourself."
Tears rolled down her face. "Don't make me choose. I can't do it anymore."
He wanted to fold her in his arms but his nails dug into his palms as he held them against his sides. His jaw tightened as she gathered her purse and coat and headed to the door. She stopped, her hand on the doorknob.
"I love you, Chase. Good-bye."
His heart skipped a beat as she opened the door and walked through. He rushed to the doorway.
"Don't do this, Darcy. There's no coming back from this."
She turned at her car's door. "I know."
He stood there as she drove down the driveway and disappeared over the hill. How could his heartbeat be pounding so hard in his head when he was sure it had just been ripped out of his chest? Somehow, he pulled himself together and got his stuff and into the limo. He sat in the back, leaned his head on the soft leather, and closed his eyes.
Was he wrong? Should he go after her?
"Hell, no," he murmured to himself. "I should have done this years ago."
"Then what happened, dear?" Mrs. Macgregor's voice broke into his memories.
"I went to New York. Spent the weekend with Misty and Jason and celebrated my great accomplishment," he spat out in disgust with himself.
She patted his hand. "It's not so great when you don't have the one you love to celebrate with, is it?"
"Then the hospital called and said Darcy was in a car accident," he said, his gaze locked on the chipped Formica table, his vision blurred with tears.
"Oh, no," Mrs. Macgregor gasped out. "So, you had to rush back from New York?"
He looked up at her and shook his head. "No, I was back for a month when they called."
The older woman grasped his hands in her soft clasp. "Mr. Thanos. Chase, you didn't do anything to cause her accident. She didn't speed away in anger and not pay attention to the road. It was an accident. It's why they call them accidents. They happen accidentally."
His voice broke on a sob. "It's my fault. If she had been home where she should have been it wouldn't have happened."
"Bullshit."
His mouth dropped open and he gazed at her in wonder. Did that curse word just come out of this sweet, old lady?
"It could have happened anywhere at any time. People get in car accidents on the way to the store, to soccer practice with the kids, on a trip to an amusement park. Every day and every place."
She smiled at him. "Forgive yourself, Chase. Darcy needs your support, not your self-pity." Mrs. Macgregor tilted her head as if listening to a sound he couldn't hear. "Now more than ever."
He stared at her, his brow furrowed, deep in thought as footsteps ran down the hospital corridor and a man slid to a stop in the doorway. Looking up at the sound he spotted Larry Whittaker, his lawyer. The man's face was flush and dripping with sweat. He leaned over and grabbed his knees as he inhaled and exhaled loudly in the silent room.
"I've been looking everywhere for you," he finally gasped out. Papers crinkled in his fist as he held them out to Chase. "The divorce papers are fake. They were forged."
"Does that mean...?" He didn't dare hope.
Larry nodded. "You aren't divorced. You are in control of Darcy's care and final wishes."
He let the tears fall as Mrs. Macgregor squeezed his hands. "Go to her, Chase. Do what is right for Darcy. Do what is right for both of you."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"I guess you'll have us thrown out of the hospital and arrested now?"
Chase looked up at Stephen Bennett's whisper that barely sounded louder than the hiss of the ventilator. When he'd rushed into the room just after midnight he'd dreamed of demanding they take Darcy off of the machine, but with the midday sun shining into the room, his demands were as empty as his hopes of letting his wife go in peace.
"Where's Margaret?" His voice broke. He was done being angry. All that was left was Darcy.
"They sedated her. She's upstairs," Stephen told him.
Chase pointed to the seat across the bed. "Sit with Darcy."
The man's eyebrow lifted in surprise, but he pulled out the chair and fell into it.
They both jumped in their seats at the sound of singing down the hall. Christmas carols in childish voices rang out softly.
"What day is it?" Stephen's voice broke as tears fell down his wrinkled cheeks.
Chase noticed for the first time in a long time that Darcy's father had aged far more than simple years in the last few months. He didn't know what it felt like to sit by your child's bed and wait for them to die. Hot tears burned his eyes and a lump formed in his throat. They should have been there for each other through this, not fighting a war over Darcy's bed.
"Christmas Eve," he whispered to Stephen. "Darcy's favorite day."
The man laughed softly as he groped for his daughter's hand. "Even when she was a little girl, she loved Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day. She said Christmas Day comes and we open presents and it's over, but Christmas Eve is the world waiting for a miracle to happen."
"I'm done
waiting for miracles." Chase's voice came out rough and harsh.
Stephen's gaze swept to Darcy's face hidden under the tubes of the ventilator. "I thought you would remove that as soon as you could."
He sighed. "Believe me. I wanted to. But they did another scan and her brain waves have increased. Whatever in the hell that means."
The older man sat up in his chair, his fingers trembling on the bed.
Chase shook his head. "Don't get your hopes up. It's probably nothing."
It's not nothing. I'm here. Can't you hear me? I'm here.
Darcy's fingers twitched in his grasp. His heart pounded in his chest as he peered into her face. Nothing. Just like all the times before. Nothing.
The sunlight traveled across the window as the men sat there, each with their own thoughts, their own memories of the woman lying still in the bed. The glass door slid open and the doctor came in.
"Sorry to interrupt. But I'd like to run some tests. The readings coming in are most unusual."
Chase pushed himself out of the chair and came over to Stephen's side. He placed his hand on his shoulder. "Let's get a cup of coffee."
The man groaned as he stood. His face gray and tired-looking. With a shock, Chase remembered the man had turned eighty years old this year. A big party had been planned with hundreds of guests. Margaret Bennett had gotten one of her migraines and the party had been canceled. He shook his head. In his self-pity, he'd forgotten the woman inconvenienced more than just his life. Stephen had been married to her for more than fifty years.
Once they got to the waiting room, Chase poured two coffees and gave one to Stephen. "Are you going to sit?"
"I think I'll move for a while. Get some circulation in the old legs, if you don't mind?"
"No problem, Mr. Bennett. I need to call the Lake Willowbee hospital and check on Uncle Dimitri."
Stephen stopped in his pacing and placed a hand on Chase's shoulder. "I didn't know about your uncle."
"It just happened. He'll be fine. Just needs some rest and meds to help his heart."