She nodded. “I have a friend who sleeps with every guy who asks her out. She’s not happy. I have another friend who’s saving herself for marriage. And she’s not happy, either. Neither is her boyfriend.”
A slow smile slipped across Brady’s lips. “So what’s your philosophy?”
“I don’t have one. I just know I have to be careful, I have to be cautious and I have to be sure that whatever I do is right for me.”
“Of all the girls I could have found at the demonstration, I had to choose one with common sense.”
Although she smiled, she asked, “Is that why you were there? To find a date?”
His expression sobered. “No. I’m not sure why I was there. I guess I had to get a feel for both sides. I wanted to know that going to fight over there was the right thing for me to do.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. My dad said he has a friend who could pull strings so I don’t get sent to Nam. That’s what my mother wants. But I can’t let him do that. I have a classmate who came back without his leg. I have to help finish what the guys before us started.” His sober expression changed. “But in the meantime—”
He was waiting for some sign from her that they should take whatever was happening between them further, that she wouldn’t back away.
She pictured him in uniform, imagined him leaving, thought about him fighting in a war he felt he had a duty to fight. In spite of the warning voice in her head, she let her fingers follow her heart. She lifted her hand and traced a line down the side of Brady’s face. She felt his jaw tense and his body go taut.
Her caress was obviously the sign he’d wanted. He kissed her until she was dizzy.
Eventually he murmured, “I’d better go. When can I see you again? I’m going back to school tomorrow night, but I can pick you up after church and you can meet my family.”
“Won’t they mind if I barge in?”
“They won’t mind. You can stay for dinner. Mom cooks enough for an army.”
“Oh, Brady, I don’t know. You’re just going to take me home—?”
“Yeah, I am, unless you’d rather not meet everyone.”
All day this man had projected confidence and self-assurance, but now he seemed uncertain. “Unless you’d rather I just go back to college and forget today ever happened.”
“No! I want to see you again. And I’d like to meet your family. But I don’t want to feel like an intruder.”
“You won’t.” He removed the daisy from her hair. “I think you might need to replace this tomorrow. This one looks as though it’s had a long day.”
She laughed and it felt so good.
He laughed, too, hugged her and then kissed her again.
With effort, Brady opened his eyes and became aware of his surroundings in CICU. Laura was stroking his hair. She loved to touch. She’d always loved to touch.
Laura.
She’d stood by him through everything. And now she’d probably saved his life. More that he owed her.
An oxygen tube was at his nose. He moistened his dry lips. “What happens next?”
“Brady. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you—”
Pushed him to tell the kids. To tell Kat, whom he’d never had a problem loving. But most of all to explain to Sean. Laura had loved their son from the moment he’d been settled in her arms by the caseworker. His own lack of response to his adopted son had made her especially protective of the child she’d loved instantly.
“It’s okay,” he managed to say hoarsely. His mouth was so dry. “Did you do CPR? I thought I heard a medic say you did.”
“Sean and I did.”
“I guess I might not make that Orioles game,” he said, trying to joke. She’d gotten him tickets for the Orioles third home game for their anniversary.
“Maybe not that game. But another one soon.”
Laura’s forced optimism wasn’t going to do either of them much good if he didn’t pull through this. “You were right,” he murmured.
“About what?”
Right about driving himself too hard, working too much, caring little about his health as long as he’d gotten everything done in a day that he’d planned. “I should have signed up for that gym membership you suggested.” He attempted to give her a smile but didn’t quite pull it off.
She looked surprised, as if that wasn’t what she’d expected.
Keep it on the surface, he warned himself. Don’t make matters worse. “What happens next?” he asked again.
“You have a catheterization in the morning. Till then, you need to rest. Don’t think about anything you shouldn’t.”
Like reporters in their front yard? Like the condemnation he’d surely see in Sean’s eyes after his son read the article?
Don’t think about it. Bury it. Like the past.
As Brady floated in a fuzzy haze, he knew he wasn’t going to dig everything up again. It didn’t matter what anybody thought, including his son. As he’d told Laura, Sean would prefer to believe the worst. If they just let everything die down—
Today’s news was tomorrow’s garbage. Vietnam was old news. He was not going to unearth memories better off left buried, unearth feelings so claustrophobic they choked him.
His heart was beating harder. Laura wasn’t quite in focus….
The sliding glass door opened and a nurse hurried in. “Ten minutes are up,” she said kindly. “But you can return in an hour.”
“Our son or daughter will be visiting then.”
Brady squeezed her hand. “You come back.”
“It’s important the kids see you.”
“Kat,” he agreed.
“Sean, too. It’ll be okay, Brady. I promise.”
Okay? He didn’t believe that for a minute.
Laura leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips.
He was almost relieved when she left. Closing his eyes, he willed his heart not to hurt any more than it already did.
Chapter 3
When his mom entered the waiting room, Sean stopped pacing. “What’s going on?” he asked, anxious to know his dad was still alive. No matter what his mom said, his dad’s collapse was his fault.
She mustered up a little smile. “Your father opened his eyes a couple of times and he even talked to me. We have to believe he’s strong enough to pull through. He’s going to need our support and—”
“Aunt Pat!” Kat jumped up from the sofa where she’d been paging through a magazine and ran to her aunt. “Did you hear? Dad had a heart attack!”
In the doorway Pat put her arms around her niece and gave her a long hug. At the same time, she glanced at Laura. “Has anything changed since you called me? I just got your message.”
Aunt Pat, his dad’s sister, was a real estate agent. Divorced, she’d never had kids, but she was nice enough, even if she did have silicone boobs and sprayed hair. She was supernice to Kat, had even invited her on a shopping trip to New York last summer. She’d given him a hundred dollars his last birthday, and that was way cool.
“He’s scheduled for a catheterization at 7:00 a.m.,” his mother responded.
“Can anyone visit him?”
“Ten minutes on the hour.”
“I won’t take that time away from you. He’ll know I’m pulling for him. I always have.”
Sean wondered what that meant. The realization dawned that he really didn’t know a lot about his parents—not really. Apparently they had secrets.
“If you’re going to be here through the night, I can drive the kids back to your place and stay with them until morning if you’d like,” his aunt offered.
Sean didn’t have to be told that a heart cath was serious stuff. “I’m not leaving. I’ll stay here.”
Aunt Pat studied him as if he were a kid. “There’s nothing you can do here.”
“I’m staying.” When he checked with his mother, he saw she understood.
She understood a lot of things his dad didn’t. But even his mom couldn’t imagine e
verything he kept inside. He was a disappointment to his parents. He’d never lived up to their expectations. Until he’d been diagnosed with dyslexia, his dad had thought he was lazy, that he didn’t care, that he didn’t try. After all, he wasn’t their real son. Their real son had died, and his father would never forget that. When he looked at him, Sean always felt small, as if he’d never measure up. Maybe he wouldn’t.
After all, his biological mother had given him away. He’d had the guts to finally ask questions when he was around ten. He’d learned she couldn’t care for him, and she hadn’t even known who his father was! He had no desire to find her or meet her. He had a mother. He didn’t need another one. And since his father’s identity was a mystery…Brady Malone was his dad and they were stuck with each other.
“Mom, should I go with Aunt Pat?” Kat asked.
“That’s up to you, honey. You’ll only be five to ten minutes away. I can call if anything happens.”
“What do you mean if anything happens?” Kat sounded afraid. “Dad’s not going to die. He’ll be all right, won’t he? You said he will.”
Laura went to Kat now, too, and draped an arm around her shoulders. “We have to believe he will.”
Sean felt as if he were standing in the middle of nowhere, all alone, the way he always was.
Kat’s eyes were wet now and tears dripped down her face. “I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to smell these awful smells and see all these sick people.”
Usually he tolerated his sister. But sometimes…“You’re such a spoiled brat,” Sean muttered before he could help himself.
Kat’s “I am not” protest and Laura’s warning “Sean” hit the air at the same time.
Aunt Pat held her hand up like a referee. “Whoa, everyone. Take a deep breath. Kat, it’s okay if you don’t like the hospital. I don’t, either. If you come home with me, we’ll gather some things for your dad, your mom and Sean. Was this about the article?” she asked, staring at his mom as if what had appeared in the paper was no secret to her.
“Yes,” his mother said softly. “Don’t answer the phone if it rings. I’ll sort through the messages eventually.”
Aunt Pat gave a knowing nod, clasped Kat by the elbow and led her down the hall.
After a few seconds of silence, his mom suggested, “Try to be a little understanding with your sister right now. She’s only fourteen.”
“And most of the time she acts like ten.”
His mom’s face was drawn as she told him, “We all have our own way of coping. Yours and Kat’s are different.”
His way of coping started with shots from those bottles in the toolshed. “How do you cope, Mom? How have you coped all these years knowing what Dad did? How have you lived with that?”
He hadn’t meant to bring the matter up again now, but the questions were doing a slow burn in his stomach. Gary had shown him the article in the paper at baseball practice. Maybe his dad’s heart attack was really about the article being published. But what did he have to do with that?
“Was that article in the paper true or was it a lie? Did he kill women and kids?”
For once in her life his mother was at an absolute loss for words. Finally she answered him. “I know you need to talk about this. I know you have questions. But there are two sides to every story and you have to hear your father’s.”
Maybe a part of him was glad this had happened. Maybe a part of him wanted to kick the pedestal out from under his dad’s feet. But another part…
Sean suddenly realized Kat wouldn’t be here and he’d have to visit his dad alone. Panicked, he asked, “What am I going to say when I go in to see Dad?”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just be with him. Let him know you’re there. If you do want to talk, just tell him you’re sure he can fight through this.”
When his mom’s voice cracked, Sean felt something breaking inside him. He glanced away and told himself his dad would be all right. His dad had to be all right.
As the monitors beeped, Brady floated, trying not to think or even feel. There had been times over the years when he’d blocked out all feeling. In Nam, for sure. As well as after he returned home. After Laura’s miscarriages. After Jason died—
He didn’t want to go there.
He wished there was a clock in the cubicle. But doctors probably thought patients shouldn’t think about time or count the minutes until their next visitor. Would Laura come back? Or would Sean or Kat visit?
In spite of his struggling to stay in the here and now, his mind wandered. To the day he and Laura had moved into their first house—one with a mortgage instead of a landlord. She’d discovered she was pregnant one week and they’d found the split level the next. They’d been so happy…so ready to prepare a nursery.
But then he’d returned home from work one night and—
“Laura! Laura, are you home?” he’d called as he’d set his briefcase in the kitchen. There was no answer. Yet her purse sat on the counter.
Returning to the living room, he called up the short flight of stairs. “Laura.”
A sixth sense urged him to climb them, even though she didn’t call back. At the top of the stairs he heard her crying coming from the bathroom.
Rushing in, he found her on the floor by the bathtub, with blood on her white summer dress. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? What happened?”
She was sobbing now. “I lost our baby. Oh, Brady. I lost our baby.”
He had to get her medical attention. But her tear-stained cheeks, the sense of loss in her eyes, had him holding her and rocking her. “It’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll have another baby.”
“I wanted this one. I wanted this child. What if I can’t get pregnant again?”
“You’re young and healthy. You’ll get pregnant again. We’ll have lots of kids. You’ll see. I love you, Laura.”
Then he scooped her into his arms and carried her to his car to drive her to the hospital.
The doctor had performed a D&C. Visiting Laura and holding her through her grief had been difficult for him. He’d tried to bury his. When she’d returned home, they’d talked about trying again as soon as the doctor said they could. He’d brought her daisies. He’d bought her her favorite perfume. He hadn’t bought a charm. Charms were for the happy times. The times they wanted to remember.
Eventually her smiles had become natural again.
Until the next miscarriage. There had been a third. Then she’d become pregnant with Jason.
His son.
“Mom?”
An hour later, Sean’s strained voice told Laura she’d been staring into space for at least ten minutes. “How’d it go?” she asked.
Her son dropped down onto the sofa beside her and raked his hands through his hair. “He was sleeping. He didn’t know I was there.”
“He might have.”
Now Sean stretched out his legs and slouched against the cushion. “Tell me something about Dad you’ve never told me. Not about now, but—” he pointed to her bracelet “—tell me what he was like when he was in college. He wasn’t that much older than me.”
“He was twenty-one when I met him.”
“Did he always want to make robots?”
She smiled. As an engineer, Brady had been ahead of his time. “Yep. When he took me to meet his parents, he showed me his workroom. Uncle Matt and Uncle Ryan had an HO train set up year-round.”
“They would have still been in high school.”
“Right. Your dad did all the electrical work on the trains, but on his side of the room there were electronics kits.”
“What about Aunt Pat? Did she have a space in the workroom?”
Laura laughed at the thought of Pat playing with trains or experimenting like Brady. “No. She wanted no part of it. She liked it when her brothers were busy down there because they weren’t annoying her.”
“That sounds like Aunt Pat.” Sean was quiet for a couple of seconds, then murmured, “When you talked earlier about th
e way you and Dad met and all, he seemed so different from the way he is now. Was he?”
How much should she tell Sean?
Maybe that was the problem. She and Brady had always filtered everything they’d told the kids, instead of just laying it all out. At eighteen, Sean could vote, he could enlist, he could fight in a war. When should parents stop protecting children from heavy truths that would color the rest of their lives if they understood them?
“When I met your dad…”
Her voice trembled and tears blurred her eyes, but she blinked them away. “He wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever met. The first time I looked into those blue eyes, I wanted to stay there. When he took my wrist and dragged me from the demonstration, I felt safe being with him. He knew where we were going even if I didn’t. It was so odd, really, because I’d learned not to depend on anyone. I’d learned I had to make my own way.”
“You were only twenty.”
She nodded. “Losing my parents made me feel so alone. Even though my aunt Marcia took me in, I still felt…abandoned. Your dad changed that. He opened this great big window for me. He let in light and love and warmth. He had this amazing sense of humor and he knew how to relax. We’d sit for hours—”
“Making out?” Sean asked with a smile.
Her cheeks warmed. “Just being together. Before he left, we took walks in the park and fed the squirrels. We flew kites. We went to a party with his friends.”
“Before he left?”
“Before he went to basic training at Fort Dix. Before he got sent to Hawaii. Before he went to Vietnam.”
If she told Sean about that night with Brady’s friends, he’d learn an important truth about his dad.
Six weeks into her dates with Brady—he’d come home every weekend—they’d gone to a party at Jack Crawford’s. His apartment was small, on the second floor of a row house on West Princess Street. Jack had gotten a medical deferment because of a heart murmur and sold shoes at Thom McCann.
When Brady had introduced her to Jack, his buddy had said in an aside, “I guess we have to watch our language tonight.”
The Bracelet (Everlasting Love) Page 3