“You never did anything else?”
“Oh yeah, sure-for the last few years I’ve been training other SEALs. And for a while I was Master-at-Arms.” She raised her eyebrows. “Law enforcement,” he explained, and waved it off with a gesture. “Look, it’s not that there’s nothing I can do. It’s more a matter of finding something I want to do.”
“And…?” She was giving him her undivided attention, her eyes sharp as sherry wine.
“Don’t know that yet.” He shrugged and shifted around in his chair, he was finding it unnerving, having all that passion and intensity focused on him for a change. “The navy-being a SEAL-that’s a tough act to follow. I don’t know how to explain it, except that there’s an edge…kind of a high you get, being in dangerous situations. You can get used to it, you know? Makes normal life seem pretty tame by comparison. Flat.” He was quiet for a moment, turning his paper iced-tea cup around and around, watching it make wet rings on the plastic tabletop. “I just don’t want to wind up like these guys you see-you know the ones I’m talkin’ about-they hit the high point of their life back in high school, making the winning touchdown in the big game, and nothing ever gets quite that good again.”
“Like Kelly Grace,” Charly said softly. “High school was undoubtedly the high point of her life. And Bobby Hanratty and Richie…”
Richie. It suddenly occurred to Troy to wonder if the handsome, strapping football player in the photograph he’d seen was the one who’d gotten Charly pregnant, all those years ago. Somehow, though, the kid hadn’t struck him as the sensitive type, definitely not the type to commit suicide. And there was something missing in Charly’s voice when she spoke of him…
He died.
He remembered now. There’d been the other one, the slender, sweet-looking boy wearing the band uniform. Colin, that was his name.
A little chill of intuition shivered down his spine.
“Anyway,” he said harshly, “I don’t want that to be me.” He got up, gathering trash. “You want to go back to the motel and change, or anything? Or you want to go straight back to the hospital?”
Charly got up, too. “I think I should get back to the hospital,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”
“No problem.”
Their gazes intersected as she came around the table, held for a moment and then parted almost like old friends. Troy wondered if he was imagining it, or if there was something new between them…something warmer, maybe. A little less edgy.
When they pulled into the hospital parking lot the sun was setting behind a black pile of thunderheads. The breeze had sprung back up, too, warm and brassy with the smell of distant rain.
Charly took hold of the door handle and turned to him, her face pale and tense in the twilight. “You can just let me out here, if you want to. No need for you to wait around.”
Okay, maybe he had imagined that things had changed a little bit between them, that she was finally starting to consider him a friend instead of just a kind stranger. He was surprised by how much it pained him, having her keep shutting him out again and again. What kind of person did she think he was, for God’s sake, that he’d just drop her off on the hospital steps, when for all either of them knew the worst possible news might be waiting for her inside?
Then he remembered her eyes, and the hopeful, lost little girl he’d seen locked away inside them. For a moment his throat seized up on him. “Oh,” he said, forcing words through so they sounded scratchy as burlap, “I b’lieve I’ll come on in with you for a while, if you don’t mind. Just let me get my dog squared away.”
She nodded, and he noticed she didn’t seem inclined to argue with him anymore about facing whatever was waiting for her in that hospital all alone.
Since he didn’t have the sun and the heat to worry about, he was able to park a little closer to the hospital. He left Bubba tied to the Cherokee’s door handle and walked Charly in through the emergency entrance and down the long hallway to the CICU, one hand casually on her waist, as if it belonged there.
They found Dobrina alone in the waiting room.
“Asleep,” Charly whispered, pausing in the doorway. Troy could feel her body relax.
“That seems like a good sign,” he offered.
She nodded. “I can’t believe she’s still here.” Troy gave her a quick look but didn’t say anything. She let a breath out softly, shaking her head in wonderment. “She’s been with him since I was born, you know that? Thirty-six years. I don’t know how she’s stuck by him all these years.”
“She got any family?” Troy asked.
“She had a husband once. I think he was killed in Vietnam, or something.” She paused, her head tilted to one side, thinking about it. “You know, I really don’t think I ever asked. I was a kid, you know? And as far as I was concerned, she was my family. And then…” She gave herself one of those little shakes that was more like a shudder and turned away, but not before he saw the sadness in her eyes. Such terrible sadness, it made his whole face hurt just to look at her. “I sure never thought she’d still be with him,” she said in a light, brittle voice. “I guess that’s loyalty.”
To Troy it seemed pretty obvious that it would take more than loyalty to keep that proud, elegant woman at a man’s side for thirty-six years, but it didn’t seem like the time to point that out. He’d noticed that it didn’t seem to matter how old people got; when it came to their parents’ love lives they were blind as bats.
At the ICU nursing station, they were told that Judge Phelps was in stable condition and resting comfortably.
“Can I see him?” Charly asked, her voice tight.
“He’s asleep right now,” the duty nurse told her, “but you can go in for a few minutes.” She gave Troy a warning look. “Family only, one at a time.”
“It’s okay,” said Troy, “I’m just with her.” To Charly he said softly, “I’m gonna go make a phone call. You be okay?” She nodded, her eyes unfocused. “Be back soon,” he said, and then he did something that surprised them both. He leaned over and kissed her.
He left her there and went off, jangling like an old jalopy, to find himself a phone and some badly needed privacy.
Charly had been in ICUs before, in her professional capacity, but never when the person hooked to all the tubes and wires was someone to whom she had an emotional connection. She had expected it to be an upsetting experience; she’d prepared herself for fear, helplessness, even pity. What she hadn’t expected, as she stood just outside the glass partition gazing at the man lying so inert and pale and stripped of every shred of dignity, was to feel angry. Especially since she had no idea who it was she was angry with-him, herself or God.
She went toward him slowly, the beeping of the monitors timing her own pulse, the anger like a weight around her heart.
How could you do this to me? Is this it, then, the ultimate punishment? To leave me with your death on my head, and everything between us so wrong? Will I have to find a way to live with this now, too?
She was struck by how small he seemed, this man who had loomed like such a giant in her life. This man whose love she’d craved, whose approval she’d yearned for, this man she’d rebelled against and finally tried to run away from, only to find that his specter would dog her every day of her life. This man she’d tried so hard to prove herself to that she’d actually made a success of her life against all the odds.
How many times, when the struggle had seemed beyond her capabilities, had she flogged herself onward with the thought that she could not go back, would not go back until she’d succeeded, until she’d made something of herself beyond even her father’s expectations? And that someday…someday…she’d come back here and show him?
He waited, all those years, for you to come home…
“Oh, God, how ironic,” she whispered.
How terribly ironic that when she finally did come back to show her father the successful woman and respected attorney she’d made of herself, it was to discover that all t
hat time, her greatest failure had been in staying away.
“I didn’t know…I didn’t know,” she said in the voice of a heartbroken child. “How could I know you’d do such a thing? You never even told me you loved me…”
And suddenly she knew that that was the reason for the anger. And that it always had been.
“Don’t you dare die,” she whispered fiercely, just as a tear surprised her by sliding off the end of her nose and dropping with a tiny plip onto her father’s blue-veined hand. It seemed to her a betrayal of the vow she’d made never to cry in front of him again, even though he was sound asleep and would never know. She jerked around, swiping at her eyes with a furious hand.
She froze. Her mind, her emotions, her body processes… everything stopped. Someone was there, outside the glass partition, a tall young man, watching her with familiar eyes, red rimmed now with fatigue, and fear, and fury. She knew him instantly, from the photographs on her father’s mantlepiece. He was the toddler with the floppy-eared dog, the boy with the baseball glove, the proud graduate in his cap and gown.
He was her son.
Chapter 10
October 18, 1977
Dear Diary,
Well, it was a big night for Mourning Spring High School. It was Homecoming, and we played Parksville and won. Bobby made two touchdowns and Richie even made one, which is pretty good considering he plays mostly defense. The way it happened was, he intercepted a pass and ran it all the way back for a touchdown. It was really bitchin’. Kelly Grace got junior princess-I knew she would. So she and Bobby get to be in the Queen’s Court at the dance tomorrow night. I’m going with Richie, natch.
I should be really happy, right? Well, I’m not. I’ve never been so miserable in my life. I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to anybody about this. I haven’t even told Kelly Grace. I know I have to, eventually, but…you know what? Sometimes I think I’d rather die.
I have to tell Colin. (Oh, by the way, the marching band did really well tonight, too. They did a whole medley from Grease, since this year’s theme is the fifties. It was bitchin’.) I haven’t seen much of him since school started. We don’t ever talk anymore like we used to. Guess I’m going to have to pretty soon, though, huh?
Thought for the Day: I guess there’s nothing like sex to screw up a good friendship.
She’d imagined it a thousand times. Dreamed about it. Made up romantic scenarios in her head. Especially in the early years, when she was still young and naive enough to believe in happy endings. Then had come the working years, when the struggle to get through college, then law school, bar exams and her first, dreadful job with the public defender’s office had kept her too busy and physically and emotionally exhausted to dwell on personal heartaches.
But in the past few years, when adoption stories were so often in the headlines and searches for both adopted children and birth parents seemed to have become the latest yuppie fad, she’d begun to think about it again. She’d even gone so far as to consult one of the senior partners, who had given her the names of a couple of lawyers he knew of who handled such matters, and also the names of some reputable private investigators. She’d carried the numbers around in her briefcase for weeks, waking up in cold sweats after nightmares filled with anguish, rejection and shame. She discovered that somehow in growing up she had lost the ability to tell herself those fantasy stories wherein she composed both sides of the dialogue, and could always count on things to come out the way she wanted them to. In the end she’d thrown the numbers away.
Maybe someday, she’d told herself. But first she had to go back to Mourning Spring. After that…she’d see.
But oh, God, in her wildest dreams and worst nightmares she had never imagined this.
My son. Mine and Colin’s.
Colin Stewart Phelps.
Cutter. He’s called Cutter.
The ICU nurse was talking to him now, touching his arm, guiding him away from the glass partition. Charly could hear his voice, muffled but tense with anger. She could see the tension in his strong, young body, the flush of anger on his smooth cheeks, the shadows of exhaustion and fear around his eyes-Colin’s eyes-as he twisted around to stare back at her.
Flinging her father a last, desperate look, Charly started after her son. But she seemed scarcely to be moving. Oh, God, she’d had this nightmare so many times-her body weighted and weak, her heart trying to leap out of her chest as she strained to run, to reach out, to pursue! Her throat aching with the pressure of her own voice screaming his name…and making no sound at all.
But she must have made some sound, because just as he reached the waiting-room doorway he turned his head and saw her. For a moment he seemed to freeze. Then he pivoted and came back a few steps, holding up a hand like a traffic cop to stop her in her tracks.
It worked. She halted, and a few feet away from her, so did he. Even with that distance between them, she could feel his body shaking. Her heart melted, aching for him.
Dear God, she thought, I’ve already hurt him so much. What am I doing here?
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded in a cracking voice. Such a young voice. “This is family.”
“Cutter,” Charly said in a sticking voice, trying out the name for the first time. “I’m-”
“I know who you are,” her son cut in. He had his grandfather’s voice, Charly thought. And his manner, too, as he bulldozed right over her feeble attempt to respond. “What the hell are you doing here? Haven’t you done him enough hurt? You want to kill him, is that it?”
“Cutter!” Dobrina stood just inside in the waiting-room doorway, her face the color of old ashes, her eyes shooting fire from the shadows of their sockets, a high priestess about to call down the wrath of the gods upon all their heads. “Cutter Phelps, you mind your language and your manners, you hear me, boy?”
Cutter stood his ground, his eyebrows lowering in a way that reminded Charly so much of the judge it almost made her smile. “She’s got no right,” he muttered, riled and furious. “He wouldn’t want her here.”
“How do you know?” Dobrina demanded. “He tell you that?”
“Look,” Charly began in an airless croak, “I don’t-”
Her son rounded on her then, jerking away from Dobrina’s restraining hand. “Well, I don’t want you here, okay? So you can just go back to wherever you came from. You are not needed here, understand? You are not welcome here. So you can just…go. Right now. Go on, get out of here. Leave us alone!”
I don’t want you here. The words were like a wind in her ears, drowning out even the sound of her own pain. She could see Dobrina’s lips moving, knew her own throat must be forming words in reply, but she heard nothing.
Go…now. Cold as she was, numb as she was, somehow she found a way to make her body obey. Just as she had twenty years before, Charly left her son, walked away from him down a hospital corridor and did not look back.
“So that’s about the size of it,” Troy said into the phone. He gave a half-embarrassed chuckle and lowered his voice even though there wasn’t anybody around him to hear it. “I’m tellin’ you, little brother, I’m startin’ to feel like maybe I’ve bit off more’n I can chew.”
“Well, now, that’s a new one,” said Jimmy Joe.
“I mean it. I used to think I could handle myself in just about any situation, you know? But this…ah, hell, I think I’m outta my league here, man.” He let his breath out in a hiss of frustration and ran a hand over his hair. “I don’t know what the hell’s goin’ on.”
“Goin’ on? With what? Who? You mean-”
“I mean with her-Charly.”
“Ah.”
“She’s got…stuff goin’ on here. She’s havin’ a pretty hard time with it-I don’t just mean her dad havin’ this heart attack, either. I’m pretty sure it’s more complicated than that. Anyway, I’d like to help her, you know? Only she won’t tell me much about what’s goin’ on, and I…well, hell, you know how it is. I do
n’t want to be stickin’ my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but…”
“Uh-huh,” said Jimmy Joe. And then for a few minutes there was silence, while all sorts of things flew back and forth along the wires unspoken, the way they do sometimes between guys who are close to one another but unaccustomed to expressing their deepest feelings in words.
Then there was a little throat-clearing sound, and Jimmy Joe said, “I ever tell you how I came to meet Mirabella?”
“I heard the story,” said Troy cautiously. “Picked her up in your truck, right? Somewhere out in the Texas Panhandle in a blizzard? Delivered her baby on Christmas Day and made the national news.”
His brother chuckled. “Well, there was a little bit more to it than that.” He paused. “See, I’d run into her before all that happened, over in New Mexico. I noticed her right away-hard not to, you know, pregnant as she was, and lookin’ like she does. Anyway, I kept wonderin’ about her-what she was doin’ out there like that, pregnant and all alone, so close to Christmas. The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense to me. And the more it bothered me. But I was like you-I didn’t think it was any of my business, didn’t think it was my place to ask.”
“Uh-huh,” said Troy, listening intently now.
“Well, then, of course, the more I got involved with her, the more I wanted to know about her. And I kept tellin’ myself it still wasn’t any of my business. And then somewhere along the way I came to a point where…”
He paused, and Troy prompted, “Yeah?”
“I knew it was my business,” said Jimmy Joe.
“Ah,.” And there was another of those silences, vibrant with unvoiced truths and revelations. Presently Troy let out a breath and said gruffly, “So, how do you know?” He coughed. “When you’ve reached that point, I mean.”
His brother’s chuckle was one he’d never heard before-gentle, contented and wise. “You’ll know.”
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