Her Very Own Family

by Trish Milburn

  “I know, and I’m sorry that I didn’t have this conversation with you then. I…” Thomasina shook her head. “I felt like I wasn’t even in my body before, like all of these things were going on around me and I was watching them from a distance. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I felt as if I hadn’t actually been me in a long, long time.”

  “What about now?”

  Thomasina laid her head back against her pillow. “I’m more at peace, especially since I’ve talked to you. I don’t expect people’s forgiveness. I know it’s hard to forgive another person when that person has betrayed your trust. I have no problem with serving my sentence or with dying first if that’s my fate.”

  Fear gripped Audrey at the thought of her mother’s death. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Death is nothing to fear, not when you’ve made things right.” Thomasina sounded like she had in the early days of her ministry, tender and reassuring. “And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve arranged for what’s left of the estate and all my holdings to be sold and the money to go back to the people it came from. I’m sorry, but there will be nothing left for you.”

  Audrey sat back and crossed her arms. “I don’t want money.”

  “I know, dear, but it’s a sad thing that I messed up so much that I have nothing to pass on to my only child.”

  Audrey took a deep breath, released it slowly as she looked out the window toward a cloudless blue sky that had appeared in the wake of the rainstorm. “You have given me something.” She paused, marveling at what she was about to say. “Honesty.”

  “You believe me, then?”

  She looked back at her mother. “Yes. I’m not saying all the hurt is magically gone. I lost a lot because of what happened. But I’m tired, Mom. Tired of being angry, tired of always looking over my shoulder like the past is going to sneak up on me. Just plain tired.”

  The door to the room opened, and Holly walked in followed by the guard. The clock on the wall revealed an hour had already passed.

  “Time for your vitals,” Holly said in a chirpy voice that reminded Audrey for some reason of a bright yellow finch.

  The guard stood in the corner and watched as Holly checked Thomasina’s blood pressure and temperature, then all the various tubes and IV bags.

  “Well, looking good.” Holly squeezed Thomasina’s hand. “You need to get some rest soon, you hear. I know you’re anxious to catch up with your daughter, but I bet she won’t mind if you snatch a few winks.” Holly glanced at Audrey with meaning in her eyes.

  Thomasina seemed on the verge of arguing. But when her mom shifted, Audrey noticed how pale and drawn her mother’s face was. Like the past hour had drained her of what little color she had to begin with.

  Audrey stood. “I’ll go grab a bite, make a couple of phone calls. Be back in a little while. We’ll talk more then.”

  Her mother’s eyes were drifting closed even as she nodded.

  The guard followed them out of the room. Audrey faced him as he shut the door behind them.

  “Do you think she’s going to get up and make a run for it?” Defending her mother after all this time felt strange, like stretching a muscle that had been allowed to atrophy.

  “It’s policy, ma’am.” He didn’t say it in an ugly way, just matter-of-fact.

  Audrey could understand that for murderers, gang members, people who posed a genuine flight risk. None of those things applied to her mother, but she said nothing further and fell into step alongside Holly.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  Audrey shook her head, almost too tired to do so. “I don’t drink coffee. I think I’ll go for a walk.”

  “She’ll probably be awake again in an hour or two. It’s critical that she get plenty of rest now.”

  Audrey nodded. “I understand.”

  Once outside the hospital, though, she didn’t know which way to go. Kind of like her relationship with her mother. She’d imagined screaming out her feelings at her mom so many times, but when she’d faced her, it hadn’t seemed worth what it would cost her mother. Her mom seemed truly apologetic. While Audrey was still hurt by everything that had happened, she found the anger slipping away. It had been a part of her for so long that she now felt like there were empty holes all through her.

  Holes you can fill with love.

  Brady’s face came to her. She ached to feel his arms around her again, a pillar of strength and positive human contact. As she headed down the street, she wondered what he was doing right now. Was he with his dad or back in Kingsport taking care of necessary business? Was he thinking about her? Did she dare hope he was missing her as much as she was him?

  After getting a chicken-salad sandwich from a shop a couple of blocks from the hospital, she crossed the street to a park and sat on a bench after wiping off the leftover raindrops with a napkin. As she chewed, she thought back to the dinner they’d missed together. Maybe they could have a romantic meal alone when she got back. She smiled at that and savored the anticipation.

  Had she ever experienced this jittery, euphoric feeling when thinking of Darren? Now that she looked back, he fell more into the category of comfortable. Yes, she’d loved him, but now she wondered if she’d been in love with him. What she’d felt for him at the height of their relationship paled in comparison to what she felt toward Brady here at the beginning of theirs.

  She hurried through the rest of her sandwich then pulled her cell phone from her purse. A smile tugged at the edges of her mouth as she dialed Brady’s number.

  “Hello,” he answered, sounding distracted.

  Audrey pushed away the doubt demons that whispered to her. “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Oh, hi,” he said. It sounded as if he stopped walking. “How are you?”

  “Okay.” She was surprised when she realized that was true. Things weren’t perfect by any means, but she was doing better than she’d anticipated while walking to the hospital that morning. “You?”

  “Busy as heck, but that’s a good thing.”

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?” He’s not avoiding me, he’s not avoiding me.

  “No, it’s fine.” The sound of rustling in the background was followed by that of an opening and closing door. “How’s your mom?” he asked with what sounded like heartfelt concern.

  The image of her mother in her hospital bed dimmed Audrey’s mood. “Tired, drained.” She raised her hand and pressed against her forehead. “I haven’t talked to a doctor yet, so I don’t know any specifics other than she’s doing some chemo treatments. The nurse did tell me they caught it in time if Mom responds well to the chemo.”

  “Have you had time to talk to your mom?”

  “Some. It…hasn’t gone as I expected.”

  “So you’re feeling unprepared.”

  Audrey smiled a little. “Are you sure you’re not a shrink?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  Her smile faded as she watched the traffic passing by the park. “She’s been very apologetic, but it’s hard to turn off everything I’ve been feeling for the past year and go on like nothing happened.”

  “You don’t have to. It’s one of those one-day-at-a-time things.”

  “How’d you get so wise?”

  “Good clean living.”

  Audrey laughed. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Just being there. Letting me talk your ear off.”

  “Anytime.” The way he said it made Audrey dream of forever, a forever with Brady. What would he think if he could read her thoughts? Would he run for the hills, or was it possible those types of thoughts had occurred to him, too?

  “I miss you,” she said. The words revealed so much of what she felt for him that it left her feeling exposed and vulnerable.

  “I miss you, too.”

  Tears welled in Audrey’s eyes because she wanted him next to her so badly, wanted to feel his arms around her, giving her strength to face the coming days.

  But thi
s was something she had to do on her own. This wasn’t Brady’s gauntlet to run.

  BY THE TIME SHE WALKED around downtown Denver some more, thinking about her life, Brady and what her mother was facing, and returned to the hospital, half the afternoon was gone. After the guard searched her purse again—in case she’d gone out to buy a gun—she walked into her mom’s room to see she was awake again and nibbling on some crackers.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Right up until I had to puke my guts up.”

  “The chemo?” Audrey heard the sympathy in her voice, which revealed she was at least on her way to forgiving her mom.

  Thomasina nodded.

  “What has the doctor said? I haven’t seen him.”

  Her mom tossed a half-eaten cracker on the table situated across her legs. “It’s stage three, but they think the chemo will work to get rid of anything the surgery didn’t remove. At least there’s a decent-percentage chance of that.”

  “You had surgery?” What else did she not know?

  “Yeah, three days ago. Actually, I’m surprised I’m still here. I figure they’ll transfer me to the prison infirmary as soon as Dr. Sandefur says it’s okay.”

  Audrey sank into the recliner. “A prison doesn’t seem like the best place for you to get well.”

  “Well, honey, I’m a convicted felon. That’s how it works.” Thomasina seemed so accepting of her fate, like she’d come to terms with it.

  Audrey thought she had, too, long ago when her mother had been led from the courtroom after her sentence was handed down. But now she wasn’t so sure. An older woman with cancer in prison seemed so cold and heartless.

  “Don’t look so upset, pumpkin,” her mother said, using the childhood nickname Audrey hadn’t heard in years. “I’m fine with it, really. I made mistakes, and I have to pay for them. And if it’s my destiny to die from this disease, I will accept that.”

  “Don’t, Mom.” Her mom might be ready to accept that fatal destiny, but Audrey wasn’t.

  “It’s a possibility we have to face. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.”

  “Well, I don’t want to face it unless absolutely necessary.”

  “Okay.”

  Silence settled on the room until Thomasina said, “So, tell me how you’ve been. I’ve wondered so many times where you were and what you were doing.”

  Audrey sat without speaking for several moments, again staring out the window. Did she want to open up about her new home, to bring her mother into that life?

  She imagined Brady’s voice, telling her that the past was in the past, that she could carve out her future on her own terms. Just because her mom knew about her new life didn’t mean the ugliness of the old one would seep in and taint it.

  “I moved to the mountains,” she said.

  “Oh, you always loved it up there.”

  Audrey didn’t hold anything back. If she was going to share her story with her mother, that story was going to include the bad as well as the good. It was the only way she felt she could purge the negative feelings that still lingered toward her mom, the only way she could truly move forward and start rebuilding their relationship.

  She divulged all the details about the weeks after her mom’s trial—the inability to get a job, the loss of friends, the suspicion in everyone’s eyes and the breakup with Darren. She was glad to get that part of the story out and move on to her new life in Willow Glen. To help her mother visualize the setting, she pulled out her digital camera and sat on the edge of the bed. As she scrolled through the pictures, she kept up a running commentary about the mill, Willow Glen, her plans for the café, even Nelson and Brady.

  “This Brady, he’s quite the hunk,” her mom said as Audrey stopped on a photo of Brady posing with his dad, both of them covered in sweat and sawdust.

  Audrey jerked her gaze to her mother. “Mom!”

  “Well, he is. I’ve got eyes,” she said in a playful way.

  Audrey laughed. It felt odd and strangely wonderful to laugh with her mother again.

  They talked about all the renovations the mill had undergone, Audrey’s plans for the future, the upcoming opening.

  “I’m sure it’s going to be beautiful and very successful,” Thomasina said. She sounded tired, like the conversation had drained her again.

  Audrey touched her mother’s arm. “You need to get some rest.”

  Thomasina started to argue, but Audrey squeezed her mom’s arm gently. “I’ll stay here, don’t worry. We’ll talk more when you wake up.”

  Thomasina placed her hand atop Audrey’s. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being here. I didn’t expect you to visit, but I did long for it.”

  Overcome with a love she hadn’t felt toward her mother in a long time, Audrey leaned forward and kissed her mom on the forehead. “Sleep now.”

  AUDREY SLEPT in small snatches. A hospital had to be the absolute worst place to get any decent rest. Except a prison, perhaps.

  After leaving the room briefly to get some dinner in the hospital cafeteria, she returned to find her mom still sleeping. Not wanting to disturb her but not able to face the uncomfortable recliner again, she instead slid onto the wide windowsill. She watched as the last vestiges of daylight disappeared behind the Front Range and night descended.

  If she got away from Denver’s lights and traveled toward those mountains in the distance, she’d bet she could see a sky full of twinkling stars. The same canopy of stars that watched over Brady back in Tennessee.

  Wanting to see his face, she pulled out her camera and scrolled through the photos until she came to the one of him and Nelson outside the mill. She smiled when she remembered their good-natured argument about who stank the most after that particular day of work. She ran her thumb over his picture as if she could feel the man behind the image.

  “You care about him a lot, don’t you?”

  Audrey jumped. “You’re awake.” She sounded like a squeaky teenager caught sucking face on the darkened front porch.

  “Yes, and it seems I’ve been asleep a long time.”

  “That’s okay,” Audrey said, recovering her normal tone of voice. “You need your rest.”

  Thomasina raised her hand and pointed at the camera in Audrey’s hands. “If his picture can make you smile like that, I can only imagine how the real man does.”

  Audrey turned off the camera and dropped it into her purse. “How do you know I’m looking at Brady?” She wondered if she sounded as casual as she hoped.

  “As much as you love your new place, I doubt it causes that goofy smile I just saw.”

  “I didn’t have a goofy smile.”

  “Yes, you did. And that’s a good thing. After what you’ve been through, you deserve a wonderful man to make you happy.”

  “I can make myself happy.”

  “To some extent. But trust me, there is nothing like the feeling of loving and being loved, truly loved, by a man.” Thomasina twirled the modest wedding band she still wore two decades after she’d lost her husband. Even with all the money she’d had at her disposal, she’d never replaced it with something more expensive. Perhaps that fact said more about her mom than anything else. It warmed Audrey’s heart to think about the love her parents had shared, but she still wondered about the loneliness her mother had endured after her husband’s death.

  She turned more toward her mom. “Why didn’t you ever get married again?”

  “Because I never found a man who could live up to your father. I still love him and think about him every day.”

  “I think he would have wanted you to be happy.”

  “He would have wanted you to be happy, too. Nice redirection of the conversation, by the way.” Her mom shook her finger at Audrey, still able to read her without much effort.

  Audrey turned her gaze out the window. “Yes, I like him, okay?”

  “Does he feel the same?”

  “He acts like it.”

  “Then w
hat’s the problem?”

  It felt weird to talk to her mom about Brady. She hadn’t had another woman to talk to in a long time, so despite the weirdness it also came as a relief.

  “We haven’t known each other very long, so I don’t know if what I’m feeling is real or if I’m grasping at…at the first person who hasn’t looked at me like I might be a criminal.”

  “Does it feel real? Are you all giddy inside, like you want to dance all the time because you can’t contain the joy?”

  Audrey sighed, afraid to admit the truth. “Yes.”

  “But?”

  “After Darren, it’s hard to believe I won’t turn around to find Brady gone one day. And the thing is I couldn’t blame him. He and his father are well respected in the community.” She shook her head slowly. “Brady’s working on a big project, a Christian retreat center. I don’t want to endanger that or their reputations.”

  Her mother caught her gaze and gave her one of those looks that was one part love, one part mother knows best. “I know you’ve lost friends because of what happened, but not everyone is so fickle. And all men aren’t like Darren.”

  “I know.” She really did. Even if things didn’t work out with Brady, she’d never put him in the same category as Darren. She couldn’t imagine him being that cold and unfeeling in the wake of some very nice times together.

  “It’s more than a simple crush, isn’t it? You love him.”

  “I don’t know. I think so, but how can I be sure? How can it be possible when we haven’t known each other very long?”

  “I’ve never seen a manual that says two people have to know each other X amount of days or weeks or months before they can fall in love. It took me exactly one date to know your father was the man for me. Nothing had ever felt so right.” Her voice sounded dreamy, like she was floating back through time to those long-ago days.

  “You didn’t think it was merely infatuation?”

  Thomasina shook her head. “No. I’d felt that before, and this was different. Deeply different.”

  Audrey looked up at the sky and thought she could see some of the brighter stars beyond the city’s lights.