Darling, your son called late last evening just as I was leaving. I tried waking you but you were sleeping too soundly. Too much wine, darling. He said he needed you to bail him and his sisters out of jail. It seems they were arrested. I don’t know where they are because he didn’t say. He was rather surly but I guess that’s understandable considering his predicament. I tried calling you when I got home but you didn’t answer the phone. He was terribly upset. Much love, Alexandra.
Jonathan sat down on the edge of the Jacuzzi. “Son of a bitch! Arrested!”
Twenty minutes later he was shaved, dressed, and in the kitchen, the telephone in his hand. It wasn’t until an hour later, when he had nothing to show for all the calls that he had made, that he realized all he had to do was scroll back the caller ID, and the number Sam called from would pop up. He raced into the bedroom. The only call that came in after seven-thirty was a number he didn’t recognize. He looked down at the note Alexandra had left him. She’d said she tried to call after she got home. Her number wasn’t there. Was that because she hadn’t left a message? Damn, I can’t think straight this morning.
He gulped some more aspirin before he called the number on the caller ID. He felt light-headed when he heard the words, “Laurel Hills Police. Sergeant Lomax speaking.”
Jonathan identified himself and stated his reason for calling. “Can you connect me with the arresting officer?” Damn, the Trips said they were heading back to school, and instead they’d gone to Laurel Hills to see Cisco. He listened, his shoulders sagging. He thanked the desk sergeant before hanging up. He needed to think. How in the hell did it come to this?
How?
The Laurel Hills Assisted Living Facility came to life at five-thirty in the morning. The triplets woke the moment the front door opened, bringing a cold draft swirling into the room. They looked up to see a cranky-looking nurse and an aide who looked even crankier. The nurse peered down at the three young people, and said, “Overnight guests are not permitted. We have rules here.”
Hannah was about to tell her what she could do with her rules when Cisco appeared with Freddie. “It was a bit of an emergency,” Cisco said apologetically.
“C’mon, dog,” the aide said, yanking Freddie on the leash that Cisco was holding on to. Sam was unzipped and on his feet in a heartbeat, pulling Freddie’s leash out of the aide’s hand. “I’ll walk her.”
“Suit yourself. Walking dogs at this hour of the day isn’t my cup of tea.”
“I hate this place,” Hannah said, beating at the sleeping bag with her closed fists.
“All right, Loretta, let’s take our shower. And let’s not be difficult this morning. I had a bad night last night with all that went on around here,” the nurse said snidely.
“I’ll tell you what,” Sara said. “My sister and I will help our grandmother. You can go now and recover from your bad evening. Like right now,” Sara added, her voice ringing with cold steel. Hannah was on her feet and holding the door open.
“This is irregular and will have to go on report,” the nurse blustered.
“Oh, well,” Sara said.
When the door closed behind the nurse, Cisco laughed. “I wish I had the guts to do that. She’s a real curmudgeon.”
“Do you need help when you shower?”
“No, actually, I don’t. I have a waterproof sleeve that fits over my cast. I know where everything is. I’d like to be able to take a shower without someone watching me. Thanks, girls.”
“Take your time. Yell if you need us,” Sara said.
When the door closed behind Cisco, Hannah looked at her sister. “I hate even thinking this, but do you think once we leave, the people at this place are going to take their anger out on Cisco? We haven’t been the ideal visitors, if you catch my drift.”
“I was wondering the same thing. The long and short answer is, I don’t know.”
Sam and Freddie sailed into the room just as the phone rang.
The Trips looked at one another. They mouthed the word, “Dad,” at the same time.
No one made a move to pick up the phone.
“He’s just going to keep calling,” Sam said. He played with Freddie’s leash, swinging it one way and then the other before he looped it over the doorknob.
The phone continued to ring. They all ignored it. Finally, it stopped ringing.
“We can stay till Sunday afternoon, but we’re going to have to go to a motel if the rules say we can’t sleep here. Once Cisco is asleep, we can leave and be back here by five-thirty when she wakes up. We need to make some kind of plan. There must be a dozen motels in the area, so that’s not going to be a problem,” Sara said.
Hannah looked around the tiny apartment. “This place looks worse in the daylight than in the dark. Oh, look, Freddie is waiting outside the bathroom door. Thank God for that dog’s devotion. Listen, let’s take Cisco out today. I say we head for town and get that second opinion we were talking about. Since this is a holiday weekend, doctors might not be too busy. I’ll call the AMA and see if they can recommend a good eye surgeon. What do you say, gang?”
“Let’s go for it,” Sam said. “There goes that pesky phone again.”
The cranky nurse with the wiry gray hair barged into the apartment, a breakfast tray in her hands. “Answer the phone!” she ordered.
“We don’t want to,” Sam said. His tone clearly said she better not want to either.
“Smart-ass,” the nurse said under her breath. “Is she still in there?” She gestured to the bathroom.
“Yes, she’s still in there,” Sara said.
The phone stopped ringing just as Cisco appeared, fully dressed, her hair brushed back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, a rosy glow to her features. She looked wonderful.
“I brought your breakfast, Mrs. Cisco,” the nurse said as she prepared to set it up.
“Oh. What is it?”
Sam lifted the dome off the plate and frowned. “It looks to me like a cold scrambled egg.” He touched the yellow glob with his index finger. “Yep, a cold scrambled egg. Four cooked prunes. You hate prunes, Cisco. One slice of…yep, cold toast. Some kind of spread on top of the toast that leads me to believe it’s artificial. A cup of coffee. Now, why did I know it was going to be cold, too. A packet of powder for cream and one sugar packet. I wouldn’t eat this. Would you guys eat it?” he asked his sisters.
“Nope.”
“Let’s see if Freddie’s interested.” Sam set the plate on the floor. Freddie sniffed it, looked up at Sam as though to say, “you’re kidding, right?” She walked away.
“We’ll be going out to breakfast,” Hannah said, picking up the plate.
“Cisco, how does blueberry pancakes, eggs over easy, crisp bacon, hot toast, warm syrup, soft butter, and fresh-squeezed orange juice sound? Not to mention pots of hot coffee, “Sara asked.
The phone started to ring again. The cranky nurse looked like she was about to pick it up, but Sam’s scowl stopped her.
“You can’t take patients away from the premises unless the guest has a pass. All the office personnel are off for the holiday, so no passes can be issued. These matters have to be taken care of in advance. We have rules!”
“Oh, well! I guess we’ll leave it to you to explain when the office personnel get back. We’re going out!”
“You can’t do that! We have rules. They’re for the patient’s benefit,” the cranky nurse grumbled.
“I’m sure they are, but we’re just going to ignore those rules for now,” Hannah said.
A knock sounded on the door before it opened cautiously. A young girl, a volunteer by the look of her uniform, stuck her head in the door, and said, “Mr. Cisco called and said he’s been calling his mother and there’s no answer. He wants to know if something is wrong. He’s on hold. What should I tell him?”
Hard-Hearted Hannah marched over to the door. Her voice was syrupy-sweet when she said, “Tell Mr. Cisco the Trips have the situation under control.”
Sar
a held the door open for the nurse, who was carrying the breakfast tray. “We won’t be needing you anymore today, Nurse. We’ll be back at some point. I’m just not sure when that will be exactly. You have a real nice day now,” she added as she shut the door.
Cisco clapped her hands. “Oh, you don’t know how I’ve wanted to do that. Thank you.”
“You know, Cisco, part of this is your own fault. You should have called us. We would have dropped everything and come here. I know, I know, you don’t whine, and you don’t complain. But there are exceptions to everything, and this is one of those times when you should have made an exception,” Sam said.
The phone rang again. The Trips looked at one another. Hannah nodded as she picked up the receiver. “This is Hannah Cisco speaking. How may I help you?” She made a face as she held the phone away from her ear to listen to her father’s tirade. She waited until her father paused to take a deep breath before she spoke. “I think the question should be, what’s gotten into you, Dad, not the other way around. You washed your hands of us, remember? You got yourself a new life. We prefer the life we’ve always had. Mom must be spinning in her grave at what’s going on. No, I’m not going to let you speak to Cisco. Not after what you did to her. Sara, Sam, and I are going to make this right. Our arrest? Cisco took care of it for us since you couldn’t be reached. We can take care of ourselves. I don’t hear you saying you’re rushing here to check things out. We are not screwups!”
Sam snatched the phone out of his sister’s hand. “Listen, Pop, your squeeze said you were sleeping and couldn’t be disturbed. She said she’d tell you in the morning. I’m just damn glad it wasn’t a life-or-death matter. Stop pretending you care. I know what you care about, and it isn’t us, or Cisco. You’re just trying to make yourself feel better. You told us a man or a woman is only as good as their word. You also said a promise is something to be honored and never taken lightly. The three of us talked about that, and, you know what? Those were Mom’s words. You just repeated them. Mom was always as good as her word, and she never, ever broke a promise. You have a nice day now.”
“Wow!” Sara said.
“Oh dear, now your father is going to be upset,” Cisco murmured.
“That’s a good thing,” Hannah said. “Maybe he’ll finally wake up to what’s going on. We didn’t want you to worry about us, Cisco.”
Cisco made her way to the couch and sat down. “He really hurt you three, didn’t he? You led me to believe everything was all right between you and your father. Why didn’t you tell me how unhappy you were?”
The Trips clustered around her. “At first we thought he was just working too hard and didn’t have time for us. As you know, it all started when he didn’t show up at our high school graduation. That was his way of telling us we were on our own. He was going to start living his own life. A set of teenage triplets didn’t help his image,” Sara said.
“When we’d ask to go to New York, he would always say it was a bad time. I guess it was because of his different girlfriends. We called, he was never there. He never called. As you know, holidays were the only time we saw him. We just gave up. You never said anything either, Cisco. We all just sucked up the hurt. It’s not that we begrudged Dad a life of his own. He was there every step of the way after Mom died, just the way you were, Cisco. He took what we consider a wrong turn on the road. Who knows what he thinks. Come on, this is getting us nowhere. Let’s just go out and have a nice, productive day,” Sam said, reaching for Freddie’s leash.
There wasn’t a happy face in the group as they trooped out to the Rover. Except maybe Freddie, who loved to ride shotgun. She yipped her pleasure, dancing around Sam’s feet until they finally arrived at the car.
Jonathan Cisco stared at the phone for a long time. The headache was still pounding away at the base of his skull. He looked around the new modern kitchen, hating it. He missed the old wooden table with the claw feet and the chairs with the red-checkered cushions. Cisco’s rocking chair that she’d kept in the corner by the pantry was gone, too. In the past, she’d sit in it, rocking contentedly while she waited for a pie to bake or a stew to finish simmering.
She’d never really liked the apartment, though, preferring to live back in her cottage in the mountains.
He tried to clear his throat. The last time he felt this bad was the day of Margie’s funeral. A part of his life had died that day. Another part of his life died yesterday when the Trips tossed what they called the promise list at his feet.
Head pounding, he made his way through the apartment to his mother’s bedroom. Inside, with the door closed, he went straight to the old-fashioned dresser filled with photographs. He picked up a picture of Margie smiling into the camera. He remembered the day it was taken. They’d picnicked at the lake, played Frisbee, eaten too much, canoed, and rolled around on the spiky grass. When the sun set, and the temperature dropped, they’d built a fire and toasted weenies and marshmallows. Margie had looked up at him, and said, “Even when they grow up and leave us, we’ll still worry about them. We’ll be forever parents.”
Margie would have been a forever parent. He’d dropped the ball. His eyes burned unbearably as his fingers traced the outline of his wife’s face. God, how he’d loved her. Even now, just looking at her picture, he could feel a stabbing pain in his chest.
Jon sat down on the edge of the bed, aware suddenly of his mother’s scent. The Trips always made a point of saying she smelled wonderful, just the way a grandmother was supposed to smell. Margie had had a special scent, too. There were times when he had literally felt drunk just being in her presence.
Margie would not approve of what was going on in his life. Margie with the laughing eyes. Margie who only saw good, never bad. Like his mother, she’d been the wind beneath his wings. Everything she did and said during those wonderful, far-too-short years, was an indication of her love for him. And the Trips, of course.
She always packed him a lunch even though he could afford to buy it on the outside in those early days of their marriage. He never knew until later that the reason she discouraged him from buying his lunch was so she could put notes in from the girls and always one from herself, too. Sometimes they would be silly little notes, sometimes serious, always loving. He’d never wanted to give that up. More often than not if there was a client in town, Margie would pack a picnic basket.
She ironed his shirts, too, saying no Chinese laundry was going to take care of her husband. She saw to every side of him, the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. Margie was all things. God, how he’d loved her. How he missed her.
No, Margie would not approve of Alexandra. She would say she was shallow, all facade and no substance. Margie would have stayed in the cottage with Cisco, seeing to her wants and needs until it was time for cataract surgery. She would not tolerate what was happening between him and the Trips. Not for a second. He could hear her now. “You make it right, Jon, and you make it right, now.” If Margie were here, alive and well, none of this would be going on. He’d stepped off the path and gotten lost.
An unforgivable sin. One that hopefully could be rectified.
He didn’t stop to think; he barreled out of the room in search of his car keys and heavy jacket. He swallowed a handful of aspirin before he headed for the elevator. Maybe he could still make it right.
Maybe. Such a little word for such a monstrous problem.
4
Larkspur, a small residential town nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, had one claim to fame—a small, private, top-notch hospital staffed with Pennsylvania’s best doctors, surgeons, and nurses. The Trips eyed the pink brick structure with the stately columns by the front entrance before Sam swerved the Range Rover off the main road to follow a winding brick road to the main entrance of Larkspur Community Hospital. “You guys go in. I’ll park and take Freddie for a long walk. Run up the flag if you need me.”
“Why are we here?” Cisco asked nervously, as Hannah helped her down from the car.<
br />
“We’re getting a second opinion on your eyes if we can, Cisco. Our thinking is the hospital won’t be busy the day after Thanksgiving, and we might luck out and be able to get you an appointment with a good doctor. Just think of it as another checkup. By the way, when was the last time you had a medical checkup? Why did you wait so long once your sight started to go?”
“I waited because Harry Nathan said I had to wait. I had shadowy vision and could get around, so it wasn’t really a problem. Harry said the cataracts had to be ripe before they could be removed. My last checkup was cursory at best, but to answer your question, it was done when Jonathan brought me to Laurel Hills. Jonathan said Harry Nathan was too old to be practicing medicine and couldn’t see any better than I could. They did tell me my arm was healing nicely. The therapy helped a lot. The soft cast comes off in three weeks. When you’re older like me, your bones take longer to heal.” Her voice sounded so sad, Hannah and Sara cringed.
“We’re more interested in your cataracts than we are in your bones, Cisco. I just wish you had told us how bad your eyesight was,” Sara said gently. “Look, this might not even work. It seems these days you need to make appointments months in advance. I look at it this way: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“I didn’t want you to worry. When you get old and you say you’re starting to fall apart, you tend to believe it. If you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t seem so bad. Then there’s the fear factor. You are absolutely right, nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Cisco said smartly.
They had reached the lobby, and ushered Cisco to a seat next to a luscious-looking ficus tree. The furniture was tasteful as well as comfortable. Seasonal paintings of the famous mountains decorated the walls. The carpeting and drapes covering the plate glass windows were lightly tinted with restful colors that were easy on the eyes. An enormous fish tank with colorful tropical fish covered one entire wall. All in all, it was a homey, comfortable lobby.
No Place Like Home (Holiday Classics) Page 5