Because of Joe

by Because Of Joe [Contemporary Rom. ] (lit)

  "Don't you understand, Mama? I can't just leave him alone. This is all my fault anyway."

  She used to fear that she loved Joe only because Tell couldn't. Those years in the orphanage before she'd gone to live with Linda's family had left an indelible stamp somewhere on her; she knew what it was like to be an unloved child.

  It didn't matter when. Or why. All she knew was that he was hers and she was going to lose him.

  When she closed her eyes, she saw Joe's thin face and Tell's broader one. Two sets of blue eyes twinkled at her in her mind and the pervasive ache grew unbearable.

  As the pain medication began to take hold, she imagined she could feel Tell's arms around her. His low voice whispered over her senses. "I love you more than cotton candy at the county fair, old lady."

  She'd never answered him. She'd never said, "Not as much as I love you." The fear that freedom's voice would be louder and more seductive than hers had held her silent. Heaven forbid that her pride suffer.

  The abrasions on her side screamed in agony when she got out of bed. She had to stand still for a minute, clutching the bed's side rail, to gain her bearings and wait for the room to stop whirling around. She'd walked this afternoon, but Joyce had been on one side and Marley on the other, their hands firm and warm on her elbows. They'd taken her to Tell's room, and she had watched him sleep for five minutes before they'd walked her back. She wasn't sure she could make the trek on her own.

  Her spine stiffened automatically at the thought. Of course she could. If anyone tried to stop her, she'd just give them her best business smile and say she was restless and wanted to walk a bit. That business smile was cold enough to freeze a charging bull in his tracks.

  No one interfered. A nurse looked up from the desk. "He'll be glad to see you," she said softly. "He can't sleep, either. Need some help? You're probably pretty tired from that walk."

  Rags shook her head, a genuine smile forming. "I won't set any alarms off when I go in?"

  "Nah, and stay as long as you feel comfortable. We kind of like taking care of the heart from both the inside and the outside." The nurse grinned at her. "If my numbers start jumping around out here, though, I'll come and haul you out."

  Tell's bed was propped up and he was watching television, but Rags doubted he could hear Dave Letterman over the noise of the monitors that hissed and hummed around him. His face appeared nearly as lean as Joe's, though she knew it wasn't. Joe was near emaciation, while Tell's gauntness was only an illusion due to his lack of color.

  "Hey," she said. "Old man."

  He turned his head slowly, and she saw his eyes light in the dim glow from the television screen. "Aha, I knew you'd never be able to stay away from my bed. Are you okay, Rags?"

  "Sure I am." She made her way toward him. "But I need to sit down. It's a long way down that hall."

  He scooted carefully. "Lie down with me. They may come and make you move, but I'll pay your bail if they arrest you."

  When she was beside him, lying on her right side with her hand resting on his chest, he said, "Remember another time we were in a hospital room together, facing each other across Joe's bed and wondering if we were going to lose him?"

  She nodded, closing her eyes against sudden moisture.

  "Here we are again, wondering the same thing." He brought his hand up to hold hers, stroking her palm with the pad of his thumb. "We're not going to, old lady."

  "I love you, Tell."

  "I know." He kissed her. "I know."

  ~*~

  They met in the small lounge at the end of the hall.

  "I may look like the last rose of summer," Tell told the hovering Micah sternly, "but I can still whip you. Now, let's get this over with so I can go back to bed and rest up."

  "Good idea." Joe sat at the end of a couch. "You know, of course, that I can refuse to have this surgery. I am an adult, Dad, though you could probably whip me, too, if you put your mind to it."

  He grinned at his siblings, flinching at the universal scowl he received in return. "I've gotten these three raised with a little help from you and Mama, Dad, and I think I'm due for a break."

  His gaze met and held Tell's, and he reached for Rags' hand. "You two gave me the best life that could be had, all the while I was wrecking yours. I don't want to wreck it again. I am, honest to God, at peace with dying. This isn't one of those TV movies where someone runs in at the last minute yelling, 'We have a kidney.' And I'm not taking yours. Okay?"

  Rags looked down at where her hand lay in his. "You changed our lives," she corrected, "but any wrecking was done on our own."

  "Sorry, Mama, it won't wash." He shook his head at her. "You and Dad played the game by the rules, but as soon as I entered into it, you both lost."

  She pulled her hand free and got up, unable to sit still despite the pain in her side. She went to the windows and looked out at the distant mountain vista without really seeing it, her thoughts racing.

  Exactly how did one demand that her adult child have invasive surgery? Surely there was some legal means. She quailed at the thought of having him declared incompetent, which there probably wasn't enough time for anyway, and tried to think of illegal means.

  A deck of cards lay on the windowsill, and she picked it up, shuffling it idly between her hands. For a hysterical moment, she considered asking her family if they'd like to play cards. So many things had been worked out that way. The boys used to cut the deck to determine who had to dry the dishes another of them washed. Rags and Marley had played game after game after game of gin rummy when things had gone wrong in Marley's adolescent life. Rags and Tell had enjoyed hilarious and sensuous games of strip poker. After their divorce, she had played so much solitaire the kids had taken to buying her decks of cards and battery-operated shufflers for her birthday.

  The cards still in her hands, she turned around. "Joe."

  He tilted his head toward her. "Yes, ma'am."

  She held up the cards. "I'll play you for it. Dealer's choice. If I win, you have the transplant. If you win, I won't say another word to you about it." She smiled at him, willing her lips not to tremble. "I can't speak for other family members or the medical community, of course, but-" she had to stop and gather strength to force the words out "-I'll let you go."

  The accusing looks of the other children followed her as she went back to the couch where Joe sat. They were aware that she'd beaten him at poker exactly one time, that inauspicious occasion when he'd referred to her as "just a girl."

  Tell was silent, but she saw his hand grip the arm of his chair. When she met his eyes, though, they were calm. He nodded, just slightly, and she understood that he trusted her to know what she was doing.

  Joe's mouth quirked into the familiar half-smile. "Do you promise, Mama?" he asked gently. He looked at his frowning brothers, at Marley with tears on her cheeks, and back at his mother. "I know what I'm asking of you all is difficult."

  "I promise." She made her voice firm, and hoped she wouldn't have to go and throw up before the game was over.

  He pushed himself to his feet and went to the table and chairs that sat near the window. "Cut the cards."

  One by one, the others gathered at the table. Joe looked around. "Where's Kenny Rogers when you need him?" he complained. "This would be a much better scene with 'The Gambler' playing in the background. Or at the very least, Bret Maverick sitting in."

  Joe Maguire had taught his mother well. When she won the cut, she chose five card draw, the game she'd come nearest to winning in past contests. She held her cards close so that no one could see what she had. She "knew when to hold 'em."

  And she never had to fold.

  Although it seemed much longer, less than ten minutes had passed when Joe laid down his cards and lifted his hands in surrender. "I suppose," he said, "it would be foolish of me to ask just exactly how you did that."

  "It would indeed," she said, beaming at him, "but Ben's boss was most helpful."

  "Well." Joe looked past her at h
is father. "You have to swear you won't die."

  Tell, whose hand was holding Rags' in a death grip, smiled. "I will if you will."

  Later, Rags rummaged in her purse for a calling card and placed a couple of long-distance calls. That same day, a case of wine, two cases of beer, and a huge bouquet of flowers were delivered to the Hamilton County Senior Center.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Where do we go from here?" Tell's voice came from above her and Rags looked up from where she sat on the floor painting the last of a stencil around the door to the master suite in his house.

  Down the hall, Joe was packing. Like Tell, he was nearly recovered from surgery. He took his medication religiously, and was healthier than he'd been since high school. Rags rejoiced every time she looked at him.

  "Well," she said past the brush between her teeth, "Joe's going off to California on a shoot for the book on wineries. I believe you're going somewhere else for the same book. I'm going home."

  "Why don't you go with me?"

  She'd known he would ask, would in fact have been disappointed if he hadn't. But now she had to answer him. She had to make him understand that Rags Maguire had come full circle.

  "I'm back." She lifted the stencil carefully from the wall and leaned away from it. "What do you think?"

  "I like it. The stencils light up the whole hallway. What do you mean, you're back?"

  "All the talk about changing, about being different people-in the end, we're not. You still like being on the road, doing exciting things and taking pictures of anything that stays still long enough for you to shoot it. I still like being at home, keeping a house." She gestured toward the wall. "Painting amateurish stencils and cooking pinto beans."

  "I thought-" He helped her to her feet and they started down the stairs together. "You put your house on the market, Rags. What did that mean?"

  "It meant there's nothing left in Indiana for me. I'll always want to see Linda and her folks, but we can travel to see each other. The twins are in college there, but they come here on their holidays most of the time anyway, and they have no intention of ever living there again. There's even been some mention of transferring to Florida State." She made a face. "When they graduate, Micah will undoubtedly go on the road with his brother and Marley wants to teach in the south somewhere. She doesn't like winter."

  In the kitchen, Tell poured coffee for them and carried it into the breakfast room. "I don't see a problem. You can stay here. You don't have to travel with me and I don't have to travel as much." He gestured toward the windows. "You'd have the beach."

  "I know." She stared out at the sand and the gray sea. It was a desolate day, with sporadic rain and no break in the clouds. "But the beach doesn't mean anything without you and if you stayed home to be with me, you'd end up resenting me. With good reason," she added honestly. "And if I went with you when I'd rather be at home-wherever that is-I'd resent you."

  He didn't respond, and she knew he saw the truth in her words. When Joe came in a few minutes later, they were sitting in unhappy silence.

  He dropped his duffel bag and came to the table. "Christmas is in three weeks," he said. "Where are you cooking, Mama?"

  "You mean you'll be home?"

  He reached for his father's cup and took a long swallow, answering Tell's scowl with a grin. "Hey, you gave me your kidney. What's a little coffee?"

  "Joseph." Rags inserted a long note of warning into his full name.

  "I'll be wherever the largest gathering of Maguires is," he said. "We're so spread out that we can't always all be together, but I'll come wherever you're cooking."

  The doorbell interrupted, and Tell went to answer it, coming back carrying a letter with a green sticker on its front. "Certified from Esther Yoder," he said. He handed it to Rags.

  She tore it open and scanned the hand-written missive. When she looked up to meet two sets of curious blue eyes, she was smiling. "I'll be cooking in Plumfield, Pennsylvania. I'm the new proprietor of the Plumfield Inn."

  Tell's first reaction was anger. Why hadn't she said anything? He'd known she loved the inn in Pennsylvania, but she'd never indicated an interest in buying it. He'd have helped her. Hell, he'd have bought it for her.

  That thought, just in the nick of time, stopped him from speaking. She didn't need for him to hand her a house as a gift with strings attached. "Here's your house," he could imagine himself saying. "Now, get somebody to run it and let's live my way."

  That was how it had always been, wasn't it? He'd buy her anything she wanted as long as she didn't get in the way.

  Joe's voice brought him back to the present.

  "I'd best be getting on the road." Joe finished off Tell's coffee and got to his feet. "There are things to see and pictures to take."

  They walked him to the back door. "I know you e-mail your dad," said Rags, "but I'd like it if you'd call me once in a while."

  "I can do that." Joe hugged her and gave her a noisy kiss on the cheek. "More than cotton candy at the fair, Mama."

  "I love you, too, much more than that." She smiled at him, her eyes a little brighter than they should have been, and Tell knew how much it was costing her to let this child go once again. "Take your medicine."

  "Will do. I'll see you in a few weeks."

  Joe turned to his father. Tell felt a jolt of pleasure from seeing color in the thin cheeks and more weight on the rangy frame. He also felt whatever it was that was making Rags' eyes too bright.

  "I'll be helping your mother move. I'll get winery shots at the same time." He was no more comfortable saying goodbye to his children than he had been in the days of taking them to the airport to send them back to Rags. Shaking hands wasn't enough, but the male Maguires weren't great huggers. It was the way Tell had grown up, and he'd evidently passed the love-but-don't-touch attitude on to his sons.

  "Great." Joe opened the door. "You want to help me carry this stuff?"

  "Sure." Tell picked up one of the duffel bags and followed him to the car. "You're flying to California, right?"

  "Eventually. I've got a stop or two first." Joe loaded the trunk and pushed its lid closed, then leaned against it. He looked toward the house. "Don't let her go this time."

  "I don't want to, but I don't really know how to keep her, either. If I stayed home full time, I'd be miserable. If she travels with me, she's miserable."

  "You know what?" Joe crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. "I hate diabetes. I hate checking my levels every day and shooting myself with insulin and never being able to eat all of everything I want. I hate what it's done to this family time and again, from comas when I was a kid to needing a kidney. I'm never going to forget that because of diabetes, Marley cried. Jesus, Dad, she didn't even cry when we decapitated all her Barbies. All of them."

  He looked away, squinting toward the sullen Gulf. "But I was raised to get past it, you know? My parents always let me know I was special, but no more special than anybody else. If I had to take a few detours to make my dreams come true, well, so be it."

  Tell mirrored his son's crossed-arms position. "Do you have a point?"

  "Yup. My point is that my dreams have come true-most of them, anyway-and the detours have made the trip more interesting." Joe's slight shrug was embarrassed. "Micah and Ben are the ones with the words. I just take pictures." He pushed away from the car. "I gotta go."

  Tell nodded. "I love you, Joe."

  Joe looked past him, his gaze distant. "I remember the first time you said that to me. Do you?"

  "No." He couldn't imagine not loving Joe, though he knew there was a time when he hadn't.

  "It was after I got that first roll of film developed. The pictures were awful, and I said I couldn't truly be a Maguire because I'd never be good at anything. You said all I had to be was Joe and you and Mama would always love me."

  "Still goes."

  "Then maybe you should love each other the same way." Joe extended his hand. "Love you, too, Dad."

  Tell took the l
ean-fingered hand and hauled his son to him. "Take care of yourself," he said.

  Joe held him hard. "You, too." He drew away and nodded toward the house. "Take a few detours."

  ~*~

  "I was afraid you'd talk me out of it," Rags admitted when Tell asked her about the decision to buy the inn. "It was such a sudden thing, the knowledge that it was what I wanted, and I didn't want you to tell me all the pitfalls." She looked at him across the roof of his new Monte Carlo-red this time. "But I didn't expect you to help me settle in."

  "I wanted to go to a couple of wineries in Indiana anyway," he said. "Moving you is just a detour."

  He grinned at her before he slid behind the wheel of the car, and she shot him a narrow glance, not at all certain she liked being thought of as a detour.

  ~*~

  Ten days later, Rags accepted the keys to the inn from Esther. "There'll always be a room for you when you come home," she promised.

  "Not if you're doing your job," said Esther, "but I'll be back in the summer. We'll decide how to work it out then." She gave Rags a hug. "You taking me to the train station?" she asked Tell.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Then let's hit the road. Like John Wayne said, 'we're burnin' daylight.'"

  He grinned at her. "Okay, pilgrim. Let's go."

  While Tell was gone, Rags took a solitary tour of the big old house. She admired the roomy pantry, the cubbyhole powder room under the stairs, and the elegant old woodwork with her philodendron making itself at home climbing up it. The Amy suite and the Jo, Beth, and Meg rooms were exactly as she remembered them from her previous visit. The sign on the door to the added-on living quarters downstairs made her laugh. "Marmee's Room," she read aloud, and went in.

  The suite was large and cozy at the same time, and her own furniture fit well. She straightened the photographs on the dresser before pulling on a coat and going outside.

  Tell found her there, standing near the back of the property. His feet crunched on the frosty grass, and she tossed a welcoming smile over her shoulder. She'd felt his presence even before hearing him.

  "I was thinking a guest house," she said, "for the kids. Four bedrooms with a central living room and kitchen. It could be rented out for family reunions or some such when none of them are here. What do you think?"