Macy's Parade

by D. R. Grady

  “Congratulations,” he said, his throat so tight, he had to think about breathing.

  She nodded, her movements jerky, like Savannah when she was under the gun.

  “Aren’t you happy?” It took everything he had to ask her that. Please let her be kind to my heart, he thought desperately.

  “Yes, no,” she said, but he thought her voice sounded like she fought tears. He couldn’t take her pain and his, too, and he opened his arms. Macy flung herself into them and sobbed against his shoulder.

  “This was supposed to make you happy,” he said. Her sorrow mingled with his and eased him some. The fact that she was torn up by this decision helped.

  “It has. But I don’t know what to do.” She brushed tears from her face and avoided his eyes.

  He used a finger to tilt her face so their eyes met. “Macy,” he started, but he didn’t know how to finish.

  “That’s it, Nick, I can’t find a solution to this,” she said and sniffed, tears welling in her eyes again.

  He swallowed, trying to grope for answers, but like her, his head hurt from attempting to figure out the situation. Macy had to leave if she wanted to go to vet school. This dream was right there in the palm of her hand.

  They couldn’t stop her from pursuing it. She’d end up resenting them. Nick knew that. If she stayed, always in the back of her mind she would resent the fact that she had to give up her dream to clean toilets and run laundry.

  How could he ask that of her?

  He couldn’t.

  Nick tightened his arms and held her closer. She would leave them, he knew. Was he strong enough to let her go?

  And if he did let her go, would she come back to them?

  Chapter 22

  Later that evening Macy reread the page in her hand. Here was her acceptance letter to the one vet school she especially wanted. This should be cause for a party. It was a huge victory, yet inside she felt deflated. Like the balloon Brandt had discovered at the lake. It was limp and dirty, and had seen better days. That’s how she felt now, when she should be celebrating. Hollow and sad, and maybe even a little depressed.

  She turned to the stack of letters still unopened on her nightstand. Pensively, she slit the first envelope on the stack and read the letter. A letter requesting an interview. And at the bottom, the letter stated a phone interview would be acceptable.

  The second letter was more of the same. Another interview. Both schools were perfectly acceptable for her area of study. Three schools out of the ten she applied to requested interviews. The school of her choice had even offered her a coveted slot.

  And Macy blinked back the next flush of tears. She couldn’t seem to stop crying. Not since she’d seen the envelope from the University of Pennsylvania and knew what it contained. She had been certain then her reprieve was over.

  The moment she announced to the family that she’d be leaving in the fall, the dynamics would change. The kids would start challenging her again. They wouldn’t respect her. But then if she didn’t go, how long would they respect her?

  It would look like she had given up on herself.

  Not a worthy person for one’s respect.

  Macy shoved a hand through her hair. Her mom hadn’t helped. She hadn’t given up on her dreams because of her family. Instead she gave up her dreams because she understood her own limitations. Macy wished for some amazing clarification of her situation.

  She knew she couldn’t handle both school and this house and family. It had to be one or the other. The letters fluttered to the floor as she curled into a ball and sobbed.

  ***

  “Macy, where’s Dad?” Savannah asked as she rounded the corner of the island the following evening.

  “He had that meeting in Harrisburg. He probably got caught in traffic,” Macy answered and tried to hide her own worry as she glanced at the clock for the seventh time in fifteen minutes.

  “If he gets caught in traffic, he always calls,” Starla informed them as she rested her crutches against the island and hoisted herself onto a stool. She folded her hands and gazed at them solemnly.

  Macy turned back to Savannah. She saw her own fear reflected in Nick’s oldest daughter’s eyes. And she suspected if she looked closely enough, in his youngest as well. How did one answer this type of question? Especially when one’s insides felt like they were being gnawed on from the inside out.

  “I don’t know, ladies,” Macy finally said. Because, unfortunately, she didn’t. If she knew, she’d be happy to tell them why Nick was two hours late without having called to inform them of his change of plans.

  Savannah’s face lost all color and Macy took a step toward her. The girl sank onto a stool beside Starla and Macy watched her closely. “What’s wrong, Savannah?”

  “He’s been in a car accident. Just like Mom,” she whispered.

  “Oh, no, Savannah, I’m sure that’s not the case,” Macy replied quickly, but in the back of her mind, she feared exactly the same thing. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, because it was not like Nick to not call. But right now was also not the time to worry his family until they knew more.

  At this point, she’d give her precious vet school acceptance letter to know he was okay.

  “He didn’t call Macy. Daddy always calls,” Starla repeated. She met Macy’s gaze head on, which meant Starla was certain of her information.

  Macy didn’t doubt the accuracy, but she wasn’t willing to give in to fear yet. She couldn’t afford to fall apart. Especially until they knew for sure what had happened.

  “You both know he’s not very good about keeping his phone charged,” Macy said, groping for something comforting and true.

  “He keeps a phone recharging cord in the console between the seats. If he forgets to charge his phone here, he charges it in his car,” Savannah said flatly.

  “That was before all of you became cell phone owners. What’s the possibility that charger cord stayed in his car?” Macy countered, more because she felt she needed to than that she thought it the case. Nick would have called, even if he had to pull over and bum someone else’s phone.

  The phone rang and Macy, relieved, rose to answer it. She wasn’t reaching the girls, or herself, and the fear had risen again to choke her. Fighting it down proved harder and harder.

  “Hello?” she said into the receiver, mentally imploring the caller to be Nick.

  It wasn’t.

  It was his mother. “Macy?” Lily’s voice erupted over the phone and Macy heard fear there. It made her heart plummet sickeningly.

  “Yes, Lily, what’s wrong?”

  “Macy, please tell me Nick’s at home in his office?”

  Macy had to swallow a lump of bile and her heart. She closed her eyes as fear shook her. “I can’t do that Lily, because he’s not here. He’s actually two hours late, and hasn’t called, why?”

  She didn’t know if she could handle the answer. But she couldn’t freak out. Not in front of the girls. They relied on her to keep her cool. She had to be the adult.

  “I just heard a news report and one of the cars involved in a multi-car pileup on Route 322 looked like Nick’s car.” Lily’s fear reverberated through the phone and into Macy’s heart.

  “Oh, no,” Macy managed to utter. “Lily, he hasn’t called. He always calls,” she said in an echo of Starla’s earlier statement.

  “I’m coming over.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Macy barely suppressed a whimper.

  “The girls aren’t taking this well, are they?”

  “No, especially Savannah.”

  “What about the boys?”

  “I don’t think they know there’s a problem yet,” Macy answered, hoping fervently it wasn’t a problem. Maybe they were all crazy and just borrowing trouble. Nick would waltz through the door and laugh at them for being silly worrywarts. She’d laugh right along with him.

  Relief made people do funny things and they could use funny at the moment.

  But he didn’t walt
z through the door. Hurrying to the door when the doorbell rang, Macy frowned. “Why did you ring the doorbell?” she asked as she opened the door.

  Lily Morrison didn’t stare back at her. A uniformed police officer gazed back at her with no expression on his face. That was bad. Macy knew it before she asked.

  “Can I help you?” Her voice sounded like she’d squeezed it through a needle eye.

  “Are you Macy Beckman?”

  “I am,” she answered, a hand covering her racing heart. Macy was afraid she’d pass out. A police officer standing on the front stoop wasn’t a good sign.

  “Is this the Nicholas Morrison residence?”

  “It is.” Her voice sounded tighter.

  “Ma’am, I’ve come to inform you that he’s been in a serious automobile accident.”

  Macy heard Savannah scream behind her and turned to grab the girl. “Savannah, stop. We need details, okay? We’ll fall apart later, okay, baby? Okay?” She swept the hair off Savannah’s forehead, and held onto the girl like a lifeline. Macy said the words to reassure herself as well as Savannah.

  “Is he okay?” she asked, desperate for the information but so scared she was afraid she’d shatter into fragments too tiny to fuse together again.

  “He’s in critical condition at the Hershey Medical Center.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Macy said, and heard her sentiment echoed by Lily who came to stand behind her. Nick’s mom wrapped her arms around her and Savannah from behind.

  “What do I need to do?” Macy thought to ask, because the officer didn’t turn away and return to his car. That indicated to her shocked, denying brain that he needed something more.

  Nick was alive. She could work with that.

  But what if he died?

  Her eyes met Lily’s. “We’re going,” they said simultaneously after the police officer left with what he needed.

  Savannah didn’t wait around to ask questions. She disappeared from the room with a purposeful stride. That told Macy she was taking the news better now. Nick was alive. And that meant more to them than they could express. Right now, they needed to assess his condition and then they could panic. Falling apart had to come later.

  As she herded the kids into the van, and glanced at the taut paleness of Lily’s face, Macy felt like an orange hiding in a basket of apples. She was leaving in the fall. Nick knew that. She knew it.

  But Nick filled the hollowness that threatened to steal everything she’d ever worked for. He alone could fulfill her. His children added to that until she forgot what loneliness felt like.

  Macy refused to think about the possibility of him dying. She couldn’t handle that right now. At the moment, vet school didn’t matter. If she had to, she’d put it on hold for years if it meant saving his life.

  “Do you think he’s okay?” Lily asked from the front passenger seat. She looked like she was about to collapse, but maintained a strong front for the kids, Macy figured. Much like she did.

  “Yes, I think he’s going to be okay,” she answered. Macy had to believe that. Anything else meant she’d go insane. Not an option she wanted to consider.

  The longer it took to reach Nick, the more she felt like she couldn’t handle life without him. She’d been fooling herself into thinking she could leave him in the fall.

  All it took was a near tragic accident to make her really consider things. Right now they needed to arrive at the hospital and see him for themselves. Seeing him should help to calm all of them.

  “Macy, what happens if Daddy dies?” Starla’s tear-filled question required her to jerk the van back on the road. Losing control of the vehicle wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t want to think about that scenario or Nick’s dying. Yet that seemed to be all her brain could process.

  “He’s not going to die, Starla,” Macy finally answered in the firmest voice she could muster. Not if she could help it.

  What if he does? Do you think you have the power to prevent it? Some nasty, disbelieving voice asked in the back of her mind. Macy took little pleasure in flicking the voice to the deepest recesses of her brain. Not now, she scolded. They needed action. They needed Nick to be well.

  She didn’t care how he came, so long as he remained alive. His kids needed him. His mother needed him. She, Macy Beckman, needed him. Only she hadn’t told him that, had she?

  Would she even be allowed to see him? Because technically she wasn’t family. Since she and Nick weren’t even dating, she couldn’t claim to be his fiancée. She couldn’t claim anything other than nanny status. He hadn’t even kissed her since she received her acceptance to vet school.

  It was like that letter had made things final between them. And he began the distancing process. Pulling away from her. Would he want to see her now? Maybe he’d turn his face away from her, because she intended to leave him.

  Gasping on a sob she couldn’t utter, Macy took the turn at the traffic light a little too fast, but she didn’t think anyone in the van minded. They were as eager to see Nick as she. But they all would be welcomed by him. She on the other hand...

  Swallowing her fear and despair, Macy parked in the first available spot and clambered out with the rest of Nick’s family. Not one of them loitered. Everyone seemed edgy and focused. She didn’t have to remind the kids to look both ways. She did however scoop up Starla. It’d be faster if they carried her.

  Brandt took her crutches. She smiled her thanks at him as they hurried across the parking lot. Lily and Savannah pulled ahead and the rest of them picked up their pace to keep up.

  No one complained.

  First, see Nick.

  Second, decide what to do after that.

  They paused only long enough to find out where he was before taking the hall in long strides to reach the nearest elevator. Macy worried Savannah might reach through the wall to manually yank the car into place. She shifted Starla’s weight so she could place a hand on Savannah’s shoulder, and saw Lily do the same.

  “We need to calm down,” she warned them. “If your dad is seriously hurt, our angst is not going to help him.”

  They all nodded, Lily included, and Macy thought the tension lessened in the time it took for the doors to ding and open. Macy directed them onto the car, trying to keep the bile that kept rising from spewing from her mouth. She had too much to worry about right now, she didn’t need a mess to clean up in addition.

  Starla’s weight drained her, and her worry over Nick had already taken her to task. Macy needed what little strength she had for seeing Nick. If he was in the ICU, they wouldn’t all be allowed in to see him at the same time.

  Savannah’s eyes looked large and haunted in her face, and Macy wanted to carry her too. Her skin appeared so thin as to see through it. She didn’t know what to do other than to keep touching the teen.

  “We have to believe he’s okay,” she reminded Savannah and herself. She shifted Starla to her other hip. The little girl wrapped both arms and legs around Macy and clung.

  The teenager gave a jerky nod, like she tried, but somehow couldn’t find enough faith and instead wanted to cling like her little sister.

  “If we believe he’ll get better, he’ll have a better chance,” Macy said.

  “He’s young and strong,” Lily added and Macy tried to summon a smile so they could bolster each other’s faith.

  “Yes, he is. Plus he has some very good reasons for fighting.”

  “What?” Starla asked, fear prevalent in that one little word.

  “You and your siblings.”

  “You honestly think Dad’s gonna make it, Macy?” Bryce spoke for the first time since Savannah had informed them of his dad’s accident.

  “Yes, I do,” Macy said, realizing that every time she lied to the kids, she did actually believe he would pull through. Maybe saying it often enough could make the wish come true.

  “I believe he’ll be fine, too,” Lily added and Macy sent her a grateful, if weak, smile.

  “We have to believe. If we believe h
e’ll live, he’ll believe it too. And sometimes that’s all a person needs.” Macy didn’t know where that piece of advice came from but she thought maybe it’d help them all. It helped her.

  They stepped off the elevator and turned toward the hall where Nick’s room was located. Each step pounded in her ears, but Macy kept walking with the others. Even if he turned his face from her, like he couldn’t bear to see her, she’d still made the effort to see him.

  That had to count for something.

  If it didn’t then she was left with... nothing.

  Chapter 23

  Nick tried to focus on what the woman in white told him. But her image kept swimming in and out of focus. He frowned, trying to figure out why she’d be talking to him anyway. Couldn’t people just let him sleep in peace?

  “Nick, you have visitors,” the woman said, persisting.

  He tried to protest, but all he could manage was a weak moan. Now why was that? And why did he hurt so blasted much?

  “Dad, how are you?” Savannah asked him and he felt her shift some hair off his forehead. Good, it had been tickling him.

  Even though he knew she leaned over him, he couldn’t seem to focus on her face either. What in the world was wrong with him?

  “Wha?” he managed to utter.

  “We were scared and worried when you didn’t call home,” Macy said. He knew her voice but he couldn’t see her face. “Then your mom called and said she saw a car like yours in a multi-car pileup on Route 322. That’s the road you normally take to go into Harrisburg.”

  Multi-car pileup? Huh?

  But even as she spoke, he had visions of someone slamming into him from behind and forcing his car into the one ahead of him. He heard the smashing and twisting of metal and his own cry of alarm. Smelled fear and gasoline and burning rubber.

  An accident. He’d been in an accident. That would explain all the aches and pains.

  “Hospital?” Was he in the hospital? That would account for no one allowing him to sleep.

  “Yes, you’re in the hospital,” his mother said. Another soothing hand on his forehead. He thought he felt a little hand curled in his and thought of Starla.