“How?” His voice broke on that one small word, and she instantly knew something bad had happened. “I’ll be there in four hours.” He hung up, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. “I have to go.”
She laid the wooden spoon on a paper towel and stepped beside him, sliding her hand down his back. “Why?”
He hitched a finger inside the belt bands of her jeans and tugged her into his lap. “My mother’s missing.”
The despair in his voice made her ache. “I thought she was under constant supervision?”
“Apparently, she convinced one of the orderlies to let her take a walk.”
Mandy relaxed at his words. For some reason, she’d believed that his mother had either run off with another patient or been kidnapped. “If she just went for a stroll, they’ll find her.”
He winced as if he suddenly had a headache. “Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe? Of course, they’ll find her.”
Worry tightened his brown eyes, leaving them lifeless as if he were mourning. “I’ve got to go.”
She hurried off his lap to turn off the stove burner. “I’m coming with you.”
As she twisted the dial, she heard him say, “No.” She straightened and slowly turned to gaze at him. Had she heard him right?
He braced his hands against the table and, as if he’d aged thirty years, he pushed to his feet. “I need to do this alone.” His fists stayed planted on the oak, as did his eyes.
No way was she letting him go alone, not when he was this worried.
She headed for her purse. “I want to go,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Please, Mandy.”
“But we can cover more ground with two of us.” She slid the purse strap over her shoulder and grabbed a light jacket. “Your mom probably wandered out of the hospital to get some fresh air.”
He looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “I doubt it.”
“Then she fell asleep in a janitor closet. We’ll find her.”
“I doubt that, too.”
Mandy stopped and faced him, her hands on her hips, as she tried to figure out why he was being so stubborn. “Let me go with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
His fist came down on the table with a loud blow. The wood vibrated violently from the force as if it would shake apart, not from the impact of his blow, but from the aftershocks. “Leave it alone, Mandy!”
She leapt back, her hand at her throat. Stunned, she stared at him.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, an expression of regret sweeping over his face. “I’m sorry.”
“You have to tell me what’s wrong,” she said gently, though her voice quaked.
He crumpled back into his seat and buried his face in his hands. Something unspeakable was festering inside of him, like a wound that wouldn’t heal. But she knew better than anyone that keeping his pain bottled up would only make him miserable. She’d lived that life. She didn’t want Justin to live it, too.
“If it’s important to you that I don’t go, I won’t,” she whispered. “But I want you to listen to me first.” When his only movement was the slow rise and fall of his chest with each breath, she continued, “I realize now that it would’ve been easier on me if I’d told you about my cancer screening, but I was too afraid of dragging you into my world. You wanted to be there for me, and I didn’t let you.” She moved closer to him. “Please don’t make the same mistake I did.”
His warm hand clasped hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and hugged him, her cheek pressed to his.
“She’s suicidal,” he whispered.
Mandy stayed quiet for a moment, letting the gravity of his words sink in. She’d known about the dementia, the sorrow and the fits of violence, but she had no idea his mother sought death to escape. “Why couldn’t you tell me?”
“Because my family’s messed up enough as it is. I didn’t want you to know how bad.”
“Justin, believe me when I say that nothing about your family could scare me away.”
“It’s just… hard.”
“I know. That’s why I don’t want you to go alone.”
When he didn’t respond, she thought she’d lost the battle, and it hurt that he wouldn’t let her help him. She knew Justin had felt exactly the same when she’d shut him out, and that made her ache all the more acute.
God, she felt defeated, but he needed to get on the road, and she was only slowing him down. With a heavy sigh, she loosened her grip on him to grab some granola bars in case he got hungry on the long trip.
His shoulders eased slightly. “We need to leave now.”
Thank Heaven! She squeezed him tighter than she ever had before. “I’ll drive.”
* * *
Justin tapped his hands on his knees as they whizzed down the highway toward Galveston. One by one, the lights of the oncoming traffic lit up the road, casting gray breams over the car’s tan upholstery. He counted them methodically, trying to keep himself sane between calls to the hospital.
When the car became suffocating, he closed his eyes and listened to the windshield wipers and the patter of raindrops while his mind wandered to his mother’s sickness. After the shock treatments, her improvement had been remarkable. She’d even been given some liberties on the floor to visit the rec room whenever she pleased. He had to wonder if it’d all been an act to ensure her freedom and her ability to die on her own terms.
He ran his hands through his tousled hair for the twentieth time. Christ, the waiting was killing him. When it became too much, he picked up the phone and hit redial.
The nurse he’d spoken to fifteen minutes ago answered. “Nurse Becky, how can I help you?”
“Any news?”
“I’m sorry, sir. The police haven’t called.” Her voice was thick with sympathy. “The Houston Police Department’s sending a search-and-rescue dog, But they won’t arrive until midnight. They’ll find her.”
Of course, they’d find her. The question was whether she’d be dead or alive. “Call me if anything changes.” He glanced at the car clock. Ten o’clock. “We’ll be there in less than an hour.”
After he hung up, he made a mental list of all the places she might be. At the top of the list was the house where he’d grown up. The place might have been torn down to make room for a parking lot for all he knew, since he’d avoided the neighborhood for the last two decades. If the cottage still stood, she could have headed there. But if so, the police probably would have found her by now.
He continued to catalogue locations, but nothing felt solid.
At eleven, they parked in front of the hospital and hurried to his mother’s floor. In the back of his mind, he kept thinking she was hiding somewhere in the hospital. He needed to be in her room; maybe he could somehow trace her steps.
A burly police officer with thinning black hair paced in front of his mom’s door. “You the son?” he asked, tucking his thumbs inside the chunky belt around his gut.
“Yeah.”
“The nurses said the stuffed doll would have her scent.” When Mandy cocked a blond eyebrow, the officer added, “For the dog.” He pointed into the hospital room. “Is there anything else that’d be heavy with your mom’s smell?”
“Give me a minute.” He left Mandy in the hall with the officer and walked inside the room to scan her sparse belongings. Her rainbow-colored blanket was draped over the foot of the bed, untouched. He saw her red towel hanging on a rack in the bathroom. Other than that, the place was hard and colorless. For a second, he was glad she’d escaped. At least if she was dead, she’d left the world surrounded by something softer than tile and metal.
Christ, he felt like a freakin’ pothole his mother had to navigate around to get what she wanted. All those years, he’d believed he could bring her back, but he was no more useful to her than cracked pavement. His stupidity had made him believe he could save her, that he was the one person in the wo
rld who could bring her back. But, as always, he’d been wrong.
He’d really lost her, hadn’t he? In every way possible, he’d failed her.
The room began to spin, and his gut clenched with nausea. He grabbed onto the cold, aluminum chair to balance himself. His lungs labored for breath, hindered by the panic consuming his chest. She’s gone. Like a vise, cold dread squeezed the life from him.
Mandy leaned her head through the doorway, her eyes wide with alarm. “Justin?”
“I’m okay.” He had to force the words from his tight throat. Losing it wasn’t an option. Concentrate. What had the officer said? Scent. He needed something with her smell.
On the windowsill ledge lay a burp cloth with the initials CS in frayed gold thread. Since his sister’s death, his mom had dabbed her tears with Cecelia’s cloth. He strode toward the sill and took the burp rag. As he rubbed his thumb over the two letters, he remembered his mother with the rag draped over her shoulder and Cecelia fighting sleep as she laid a pink cheek against it.
God, he just wanted his mother back, the one who had a daughter and a son and a husband she loved. The one who made a coconut cake every Sunday for the church potluck. The one who sang him to sleep at night and would sing the same songs to his children.
His fingers tightened around the frayed edges of the cloth, the memories making it hard to move, though he knew time was a precious commodity if he wanted to find her alive. He startled when Mandy placed a hand on his shoulder, and he peered down at her.
“Is that what you want to give to the officer?” she asked, worry shadowing her eyes under a furrowed brow.
He nodded.
She tugged the threadbare fabric from his fingers. “I’ll give it to him.” With her palm, she rubbed his back once before stepping out of the room. He took strength from her calm, his fear easing, the vise clamping his lungs slackening. It was time to begin the search.
He turned to leave, but a shimmering mirage caught his eye, and he looked out the window toward the dancing light. Through a small break in the rainclouds, the moonlight glinted off the ocean.
“Where are you, Mom?” he whispered. The moon's rays sparkled across the rolling swells, their prism of light scattering into thousands of glittering diamonds. As he stared toward the sea, her intentions snapped into place like the last piece of a puzzle.
He whirled on his heel and ran out the door. With one hand, he grabbed Mandy’s and urged her to keep pace. As they darted off, the white walls turned into a blur, his focus on one thing only—saving his mother.
Five minutes later, Justin stepped out of Mandy’s car and onto Galveston’s seawall. The rain had stopped, and he heard the churning waves in the distance. He glanced at the nearest intersection, the same one he’d raced across twenty years ago with Cecelia in his arms. Christ, the memories were too vivid to bear. Though he hadn’t visited the beach in almost two decades, the sorrow the place invoked had never left him.
“You can stay in the car,” he told Mandy, as she moved to his side.
She shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”
If his mother was in the water, he wasn’t sure he could bear Mandy seeing how the scene played out. He pointed to the west. “Why don’t you check out the shoreline past the pier? Let me know if you see anything.”
“You’re sure?”
“Like you said, we can cover more ground with two of us.”
She hesitated, then took his hand and squeezed it before heading toward the far pier.
He steeled his nerves and descended the stairs to the beach. The swath of sand was only two miles from the hospital. His mother could have footed it in less than an hour.
The sand made a crunching noise as he headed toward the surf. Though a warm breeze blew across the water, his skin tingled with goosebumps. When he reached the waterline, he kicked off his sneakers and socks. He waded into the cool ocean, and didn’t stop until the waves broke against his knees.
Terrified of what he’d find, Justin took a deep breath and let his energy traverse the sea surrounding him. The powerful surge echoed off the sandy bottom, returning to him the murky image of seaweed, seashells, and a small school of fish, but nothing the size or density of a body.
Relief washed over him. If she wasn’t there, maybe she was still alive. Or maybe the rock piers interfered with his ability to find her. He angled his body to face the farthest pier and, like a Doppler searching for a storm, he forced out another surge of energy.
A body, rigid and motionless, drifted toward the jagged rocks, something billowing around its frame. A nightgown? He stumbled forward, catching himself before he fell face first into the surf. His mother. He knew it was her.
Stifling a choked moan, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed. “Send an ambulance to the seawall between Thirty-Fifth Street and Thirty-Seventh Street.”
He slammed the phone shut, threw it onto the sand, and dove under the water. His arms and legs churned through the sea until they burned. At the same time, he used the pull of the waves to guide the figure toward him.
Without taking a breath, he covered the distance between them and surfaced into a veil of lace. The weight of his mourning bore down on him as he pushed his mother’s nightgown aside, not sure if he tasted the ocean dripping down his cheeks or tears.
Do your job and get her out, he repeated, as his mind began to break apart. Refusing to look into her face, he wrapped one arm around her delicate neck. With his index finger, he did a sweep of her mouth. Nothing blocked her airway. The water was too deep to begin resuscitation, so he twisted around, her limp body floating behind him, and swam toward shore.
As soon as his feet touched the sand, he positioned his mother in front of him, still pushing them toward the beach, and began breathing exercises. Her lips were cold, lifeless.
When the water reached his waist, he cradled her in his arms and carried her to shore. The wind roared with the burst of a new storm, and rain fell from the sky like tears.
Swaying in the wind, he laid her on the beach, her hands to her sides, her legs straight. If an ounce of life remained in her, he’d find it. He intertwined his fingers and pushed down on her chest with his palm. Up, down, up, down.
With his fingertips, he tilted her head back and pinched her nose. He breathed into her mouth twice, then went back to pumping her chest with a manic determination. Up, down, up, down.
Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth.
She couldn’t be gone.
Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth.
Nothing. Not even a sputter of water. He knew her lungs were full of seawater, but he couldn’t stop.
Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth.
If she died, he hadn’t just failed his sister and his dad, he’d failed everybody.
Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth. Pushes to the chest. Mouth to mouth.
Warm tears mixed with the rain pelting his face and, for just a moment, he lifted up and saw her—fragile body with pale skin. A white nightgown clung to her frame, and her long black hair glistened.
“Mom! Wake up! Please.” His voice sounded thin, like a child’s. He swept his palm over her face, wiping the rain from her eyelids. She was as cold as the ocean but, unlike the sea, she was lifeless.
She’s gone.
He was helpless to bring her back. As the sirens of the ambulance wailed and Mandy rushed toward him, he buried his face in her soaked hair and wept for the mother he’d lost twenty years ago.
Chapter 14
The last time Mandy had been to a funeral was when her grandmother had passed away ten years ago. She and her mother had huddled together, holding each other while they cried and handed tissues back and forth. She hadn’t even heard the eulogy over the sound of her shuddered breaths. And when they stood over her grandmother’s grave and watched her casket being lowered into the ground, all Mandy could pictur
e were burrowing worms and skittering centipedes touching the hands that had held her.
The day after the funeral, she had gone to school and laughed when someone made a joke, smiled when someone waved, but in her mind, all she saw were bugs crawling through the soil, invading the wooden casket of a woman she loved.
That was hard, so very, very hard, but the death of Justin’s mother was worse.
His mom had died the day she disappeared inside a hospital, never to live a normal life again. Everything that had made her worth mourning, her love for her children, her loyalty to her husband, her fear of God, had long ago been forgotten, and in her passing, fewer than twenty people filled Galveston’s First Baptist Church.
Mandy wanted to run outside and find all the lost friends, family, and neighbors who would have been there if Justin’s mom had truly died twenty years ago, but Justin seemed completely unfazed. His face was stoic, and he squeezed her hand as they strode down the center aisle of the church.
If he was okay, then she should be, too. So, she focused on the stained glass windows depicting Jesus’ life and the colorful rays they cast across the ceiling and down the walls. Though the church was built of stone, massive oak timbers crossed the ceiling, spanning its great width and reminding her of an ark. It was a beautiful church, but so empty.
Half a dozen people milled around the coffin. Some consoled each other with meaningful looks and lingering hugs. Others paid their last respects by saying silent prayers.
The closer she and Justin walked to her casket, the tighter Justin gripped Mandy’s hand. By the time they made it to the end of the pews, he leaned on her heavily, and her fingers ached. She was just about to lift up on her tiptoes to whisper reassuring words in his ear, when a woman with a thick middle hidden by the folds of a flowing navy dress tottered toward them.
The woman’s face lit up like a Tiffany lamp. “Justin!” She waddled in high heels until she was a few feet away, then stopped abruptly, her gaze resting on Mandy and Justin’s intertwined hands.
“Who’s this?” she asked, her previously animated demeanor turning more subdued.
The Calling Page 14