Look to the Rainbow

by Lynn Murphy

  Mary Katherine stirred and called her name. She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “How was your exam?”

  “It was hard, but I passed. And that is so not important right now.”

  Evan helped her sit up and offered her some water, but as soon as she was upright another wave of nausea hit her. Evan had learned to recognize when she was about to be sick and scooped her up for yet another round of vomiting and laying on the bathroom floor.

  It was well past the point where she usually stopped being sick, several hours in fact. It was late afternoon the next day when Mary Katherine had started weeping and asking Evan why she couldn’t stop being sick. She was totally exhausted and Evan made the call to take her into the hospital. She was dehydrated to the point where it was dangerous. He spoke to Ted Hunter and then turned to Tara who waited anxiously in the doorway.

  Evan looked as tired, Tara thought, as Mary Katherine. “I’m taking her to hospital. She needs fluids. Where’s Casey?”

  “She ran home for a few minutes to shower and pack a bag.”

  “Can you make some calls for me?” He leaned over Mary Katherine. “Darlin’ we are going to the hospital. Hang on, okay?”

  “Who do you want me to call, Evan?”

  He sighed and closed his eyes and rubbed his head. “George. Ask him to have everybody pray. And maybe John or Skip. When Casey gets here, come to the hospital, she knows the way. I’ll tell them to expect both of you so they’ll let you come to her room.” He stood and picked Mary Katherine up. Tara picked up a blanket and followed them to the car and tucked the blanket over Mary Katherine.

  “I’ll call them right now and we’ll come as soon as Casey gets here. And I’ll pray too.”

  His eyes teared up. “Thanks,” he said, giving her a hug.

  He looked over at Mary Katherine as he drove. She didn’t appear to have any symptoms other than dehydration and exhaustion and he willed himself to stay calm. Think like a doctor, he told himself, not her husband. His cell rang and he picked it up. Ross. He answered it.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re on our way to the hospital. I should have gone before now. She needs fluids.”

  “Any other symptoms?”

  “No.”

  “If you want me to I will find a flight and leave now.” Ross could tell by Evan’s voice that he was worried and very tired himself.

  “Don’t, at least not yet. I’m hoping we won’t be there very long.”

  “The offer stands. Just call.”

  He got Mary Katherine settled and Ted Hunter came and assessed her condition and they finally both agreed that she was severely dehydrated and needed to sleep, but there was nothing to indicate anything else. Ted started an i.v. and gave her a sedative to help her sleep and by then Casey and Tara had joined him.

  At last Mary Katherine slept soundly. Evan had pulled a chair close and was sitting by the bed, holding her hand, still not able to be at ease with the fact that at least for now she was okay. His phone rang again. He looked at the screen.

  “Hey John,” he said.

  “Evan, all you have to do is give the word and we’ll scrub everything on the schedule and come to Washington.”

  Evan opened his mouth to reply and a sob came out instead. The tears and emotions he’d been holding back overflowed. He handed the phone to Casey who had come beside him and bent his head and cried into his hands.

  “Dad?” Casey took the phone and stroked Evan’s hair as she talked to her father.

  “Is Mary Katherine alright? Why is Evan crying?”

  “Evan is exhausted. He got no sleep at all last night. Mary Katherine is dehydrated, but she’s on an i.v. drip and they gave her a sedative. She’s sleeping. Her doctor thinks that’s all she needs right now.”

  “Do we need to come?”

  “Not right now. Tara and I are with him. I think what made him cry is that you were willing to drop everything and come.”

  “We still are.”

  “I know. I’ll call you in the morning, or before if there’s any reason.”

  Evan pulled himself together and leaned back in the chair. He took the phone from Casey and put it on the bedside table. He had just put his head back and closed his eyes when the phone rang again. He picked it up. George. “Case, it’s your grandparents. Can you talk to them? Tell them I love them and I’ll call them tomorrow.”

  Casey took the phone and went into the hall to talk to George and vowed to turn it off. When she came back in the room, Evan had readjusted the chair and had his feet propped up on the bed and was holding Mary Katherine’s hand. She suspected that very soon he would be asleep. She put his phone back on the table and whispered, “Do you want us to stay the night?”

  He shook his head .“You both need to sleep too,” he said. “Are you going to my house or yours?”

  “We’ll go to yours. Then if you need anything we can bring it to you.”

  “Okay.” He gave her a kiss and closed his eyes. She turned the light down and she and Tara left quietly.

  Mary Katherine woke up the next morning and her first thought was that she did not feel sick again. Then it registered that they were in the hospital. She couldn’t remember at first how they had gotten there, but slowly it came back to her. She looked at Evan, sleeping in the chair, and didn’t want to wake him just yet as she didn’t know how long he had been sleeping. She was glad to be done with the chemo and being so sick, but even more glad that he would not have to watch her be sick any longer. She had not for one moment let herself think that the tests to come would show anything but positive results. She only knew that she had to be okay because Evan had made it abundantly clear over the last seven weeks how much he loved and needed her. And she had realized how much she loved and needed him. She wanted a chance to show him. And she hoped, she really, really hoped that she would be able to. Her gaze fell on their hands, clasped together on the bed. Her hand was on top, wearing his mother’s engagement ring next to the wedding band that matched his. The ring and the gold wings were all that was left of his parents, and he had given the ring to her. It had been on her finger so long she had come to take it for granted. She never would again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kel and John were having breakfast. Because their first appointment wasn’t until ten, Kimberly and Skip had elected to get a little more sleep, but Kel had to eat on a strict schedule and he wanted to talk to John about Tara.

  “Should I call her?” He had thought she might go home to Atlanta, but instead she had gone to stay with friends he considered family.

  “I think you should, at some point, but I think you both need time to decide if you really do love each other.”

  “Absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

  John laughed. “Something like that.”

  “I keep telling myself I really blew it. But I didn’t expect her to leave before I got back to George and Lily’s.”

  John said, “No one did. Mother is still upset over it.”

  Skip came and sat at the table with them and put several grocery store tabloids on the table. “I got a tip a few minutes ago about these, so I ran down and got some. We’ll probably need to address it.” John sorted through them and handed one to Kel. Each had a picture of Tara, looking tired and grim with Casey, getting into Casey’s car. The headlines all screamed about a break-up and an ‘inside source.’ John felt as if he could place the fuzzy background as somewhere in Georgetown, but wasn’t sure where it was.

  Skip said, “I called Casey. She thinks this must have been taken when she and Tara were leaving the hospital the other night when they checked Mary Katherine in. Look at who the inside source is.”

  John opened one of the scandal sheets and read aloud. “The hot romance that was on between presidential candidate Kelly O’Brien and reporter Tara McCaffrey is definitely off, according to Senator O’Brien’s sister in law Debby Spencer O’Brien.”

  “You have got to
be kidding,” Kel said.

  “No. Here’s a direct quote. ‘ I feel bad for Tara because we all liked her, we really did. But it was always just a matter of time before she understood that there could never be someone else for him, not long term. She was never going to be more than a distraction. Alise was the love of his life and always will be.”

  Kel said quietly. “Skip, get Bobby on the phone.”

  Skip dialed his other uncle in Newport. He got a secretary who tried to put him off, but persisted until Bobby got on the line. He informed Bobby that Kel wanted to talk to him and then handed the phone to Kel.

  “Tara and Casey are on the front cover of every tabloid in the country,” Kel said.

  “I heard.” Bobby did not sound nervous, which Kel knew meant he had not read the articles yet. Good, he thought. He hasn’t had time to formulate any excuses for Debby.

  “You might want to read a couple of them.”

  “Kel, I never read those rags. That’s why I publish my own papers.”

  “Bobby, your wife gave an interview to someone and is this morning’s hottest new inside source. Let me make myself perfectly clear. I do not want Debby discussing either my relationship with Tara or my relationship with Alise with anyone.”

  Bobby said, “What could she have said that would make you so angry?”

  “What she said was a complete lie! Tara wasn’t a distraction from the campaign. I was – am-in love with her. And Alise wasn’t the love of my life. By the time she died, we had a marriage in name only.”

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “It is possible Bobby. She had been having an affair for years. Since right after Janet was born. She was flying to meet him, not Graham and Selina when the plane crashed. Selina has never cared much for me, but Graham didn’t want his daughter’s affair to hurt my career. I appreciated it, but unfortunately the Spencer side of the family has kept up this façade that we were the perfect couple. We weren’t.”

  “You never said anything .”

  Kel sighed. “You were married to Debby.”

  “But you told Ross and John and Kim, right?” Kel could hear the hurt in his brother’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t think you could trust me?”

  “No, Bobby. I didn’t want to hurt Debby. She idolized Alise.”

  Bobby was silent and for a moment Kel wondered if he had hung up. “What do you want me to do?”

  “For starters, tell Debby not to talk to the press. Talk to Molly and Ross, if you want. Or George and Lily. They’ll all tell you the same thing.”

  “I didn’t want Tara to quit, if that means anything to you. I’d hire her back if she would come. Where did she go? Washington, if she’s been with Casey, I guess?”

  “She’s staying with Evan and Mary Katherine. I haven’t talked to her.”

  “I’m sorry this happened Kel, I’ll talk to Debby.”

  “Maybe I should have told you before now. I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about, especially not when the children were little.”

  They ended the call, but Kel knew that Bobby still felt he had been excluded from information the rest of the family had. He had hurt his brother without meaning to, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it right now.

  Skip said, “There isn’t anything we can do or say that will have any impact on the story they printed, unless Kel wants to do an exclusive somewhere about Alise. And I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad idea, if we found the right venue. And I may be about to overstep my boundaries right now, but Kel, maybe you should have helped Tara more with dealing with the press. You could have at least asked them to leave her alone. I got the impression that she thought you didn’t care that they were hounding her day and night.”Skip was right, there wasn’t any argument he could offer. He should have given more attention to her situation. If he was honest, he was responsible for much of it. He was the one, after all, that had instigated every photo opportunity.

  “I did a lot of things wrong Skip. I just need to figure out the best way to try and repair the damage.”

  “Flowers never hurt.”

  They changed the subject then to the events scheduled for that day. But before they left, Kel had sent flowers to Evan and Mary Katherine’s house.

  Tara opened the front door and a young man stood there with two bouquets of flowers. She tipped him and carried them into the living room where Mary Katherine had prints spread out over the floor. She looked up as Tara came in.

  “Beautiful! Who are they from?”

  Tara set both vases down on the coffee table. One was an arrangement of lilies and tulips. That card was for Mary Katherine. The other was a vase of white roses and lavender blooms, with her name on the card.

  Mary Katherine said, “Let’s read the cards at the same time.”

  Kel had written a note of get well wishes for Mary Katherine. She smiled and tucked it back in the arrangement and inhaled the fragrant scent. “Mine are from Kel. I assume yours are too?”

  Tara nodded, reading the card. “My father used to give my mother white roses. The lavender, well that’s to match your eyes. Love, Kel.”

  Love. He had never signed the florist cards before with love. Why would he do this now? When everything was over between them?

  Casey came in just then, with an arm load of papers. “To think I used to think these were funny! But look-we’re on the front cover! Oh, flowers.”

  Mary Katherine laughed. “Aren’t you easily distracted? Kel sent us flowers.”

  “Where are mine? He will be punished.”

  Tara spread the papers on the floor beside Mary Katherine’s photos. The same awful photo of she and Casey leaving the hospital and similar headlines, all boasting of an inside source. They each picked one up and read it.

  Mary Katherine said, “I cannot believe Debby did this. I’ll bet Bobby had no idea.” She peered at the photo. “When was this taken?”

  Casey said, “It had to be when we left the hospital the other night.”

  Mary Katherine turned to some of the other pages in the tabloid she held. Did people really believe anything they printed? She had not looked at one in so long that she found the content absurd and wondered how anyone could put any stock in anything they printed. Casey had apparently done the same she had, flipped through the magazine, and she found a hilarious alien abduction story. She had Tara and Mary Katherine laughing out loud as she read it, the story about Kel and Tara temporarily forgotten. Mary Katherine’s cell rang and she saw it was from Evan, checking in to see if she was okay. She knew it would take a clean bill of health for him to stop calling every two hours all day, and she hoped that was coming next week when they got the results of all her post chemo tests back. She told him about the tabloids and that she and Casey and Tara had moved on and were reading about aliens. Evan asked if Tara was upset. “We’re all just laughing at the tabloids right now,” Mary Katherine said. “And at least for the moment the only one who’s upset is Casey, because Kel didn’t send her flowers when he sent them to Tara and I.” They talked for a few more minutes and Mary Katherine hung up. “Finish up the scandal sheets ladies and powder your noses. Evan’s taking us out to lunch.” Tara was glad for the distraction. They kept conversation light as they drove to meet Evan at a bistro in downtown Georgetown. Evan was leaning against his silver BMW convertible when they arrived, a bouquet of flowers rested on the hood.

  Mary Katherine gave him a kiss. “Are those for me?”

  Evan said, “Nope. You already have flowers, and I’m sure, being from Kel, it’s an extravagant arrangement.” He handed the flowers to Casey and got a kiss on the cheek in return.

  It wasn’t until lunch was almost over that Evan asked Tara, “Are you really just going to walk away from a relationship with Kel?”

  “I’m not sure he wants a relationship,” she answered. And she wasn’t. So many mixed signals. His comments the day she left. He hadn’t called. But he sent her the sa
me flowers his father used to give his mother and signed the card with love.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, Evan, but only if its real and he wants it too.”

  “Kel doesn’t have casual relationships. If he had one with you, then it was ‘real’ and it meant something. If he didn’t want something long term, he would have ended it very quickly. In fact, he wouldn’t have started it at all.”

  “Then why did he say he couldn’t do it anymore? Why was being with me something that he didn’t want to deal with?”

  “I wasn’t there, so I can’t put that comment in context. I’m sure if you hadn’t left he would have talked to you about it when he came back.”

  Tara wanted to believe that Evan was right, but the truth was that she had left and neither of them had made any real moves to repair the damage. She wanted to talk with him, to look into his blue eyes, hold his hand, kiss him. But her feelings were still hurt, if she was honest, and she wasn’t going to make the first move.

  Evan paid the bill and rose to go back to the hospital. He kissed his wife and said to Tara as he left, “I just have a feeling this isn’t over yet.”