by Ben Marney
Her eyes were wide open. “Melissa’s vision!” she said. “I told you about it, remember? It was right before Jerry took her. Melissa told me that she was having nightmares about her liver failing, and seeing you and me walking on the beach with Molly between us. We were all laughing and holding hands.” She locked eyes with me. “Grant, this is exactly what she saw. All of her premonitions have come true.”
I stood there looking at her for a moment, thinking about what she had said. “Her liver did fail, she was right about that, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t exactly the vision she saw in her dreams.”
“Of course it was!” she retorted. “It’s exactly was she told me she had seen. That’s why she was so insistent that we were supposed to be together.”
“That’s sort of my point,” I said aiming my finger at her belly. “If this was her exact vision, do you think she would have missed seeing that? She would have told you about it, wouldn’t she?”
Annabelle looked down and rubbed her baby bump with her hands. “I see what you mean,” she said, laughing. “It’s kind of hard to miss this.”
With Annabelle on one side and me on the other, we lifted Molly up the steps. As we all walked on the sandy, wooden walkway over the dunes toward my house, I heard Marshall’s voice.
I looked up to see him and Brenda standing on my back-deck waving. “Our plane was delayed, but we finally made it,” He called down to us. “But I guess that was a good thing, because look who we found at the airport.” Drake stepped out onto the deck and waved.
Annabelle shrieked. “DRAKE! YOU’RE FINALLY HOME!” She took off running.
Drake ran down the stairs and met her halfway. When he reached her, he lifted her off the ground and spun her around as they kissed.
Then he gently sat her down, dropped to his knees and kissed her belly. “How’s my baby boy doing?” he said, grinning up at her.
Molly ran up and wrapped her arms around him. “Welcome home, Uncle Drake!”
Drake lifted Molly up and put her on his shoulders. With her giggling, holding on to his head, he took Annabelle’s hand and they slowly climbed the stairs back up to my deck.
When I made it up the stairs and joined them, I opened the refrigerator and grabbed three beers and two Cokes. I handed a beer to Drake and Marshall and sat the Cokes down in front of Annabelle and Molly. I looked at Brenda. “Red or white?”
She smiled wide and said, “I think I’ll have a Coke, too.”
I tilted my head, surprised. “Seriously? You don’t want wine?”
She glanced over at Marshall and smiled. “No, I can’t drink any wine for a few more months.”
“You taking medication or something?”
Still smiling wide, she said, “No, nothing like that. It’s just that I’m not supposed to drink in my condition.”
“No!” Annabelle screamed.
“Yes!” Brenda said, nodding her head.
Totally confused, I looked across the table at Marshall. He was grinning from ear to ear. “What’s so funny? What’s she talking about?”
Marshall raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. “Are you really this dense? Think about it, dumbass!”
It was so obvious, but it was the last thing I was expecting to hear, so I just stared back at him like an idiot.
“Daddy,” Molly said, rolling her eyes at me, “she’s gonna have a baby.”
“Who’s gonna have a baby?” I yelled.
Brenda reached across the table and grabbed Annabelle’s hand and held it up. “We are!”
After Annabelle and Drake had left, Marshall, Brenda and I remained on the back deck, listening to the crashing waves and watching the sun go down. I lifted my beer. “I’m not sure I said this earlier, but congratulations, you two. And I pray if it’s a girl, she looks like Brenda.”
Marshall laughed and lifted his beer. “As long as she gets my brains.”
She whacked him on his arm. “Ignore him. I’m not even sure it’s his. It could be the mailman or that cute UPS guy.”
Marshall rolled his eyes. “What about the pool guy?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh yeah, I forgot about him. You never know.”
“I used to kid Melissa about her lawn boy,” I said laughing, “but she always said that he was too young for her, but maybe in a few years.” My voice cracked. I could feel my emotions building up inside me, so I turned my head, looked at the ocean and fought them off.
You haven’t called and talked to us in a while,” Brenda said. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Better, I guess. I’m finally sleeping again without those pills.”
“That’s good,” Marshall said. “I saw the article in Architectural Digest about your project. It was great. I bet that article got your phone ringing. Are you staying busy?”
“The Beverly Beach Project is almost sold out because of that article,” Grant said with a smile. “I’ve already taken on a new project. So yeah, I’m staying busy.”
Brenda frowned. “You’re not still working around the clock, are you?”
“Believe it or not, I’m keeping regular hours. I get home around five. I want to spend as much time as possible with Molly.”
“You’re doing a great job with her,” Brenda said. “She seems so happy.”
“I’m trying, but I think most of the credit should go to her child psychologist. She really loves her and she tells me that Molly is doing great.”
I lifted my beer and took a sip. “Wilson and Connie have been a Godsend. They’ve become her adopted grandparents and are always there when I need someone to watch her. I think she’s gonna be just fine.”
“What about you?” Brenda asked. “Have you even considering dating again?”
I looked at her and frowned. “No, not yet.”
Marshall glared at me. “Why not? You know that’s what Melissa would want you to do.”
“Yeah, I know, but I can’t do it, not yet. Besides, I seem to be bad luck to the women I get involved with.”
“That has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Marshall snapped.
Brenda reached across the table and took my hand. “I can see how you may feel that way, but honestly, you don’t really believe any of this was your fault, do you?”
I let go of her hand and looked away. “That’s not really why I’m not dating. I just keep praying that someday…”
“Grant, look at me,” Brenda whispered. “I know what is in your heart for Melissa. We all want her to wake up, but you know in your heart that’s not going to happen. Not after all this time. Grant, you can’t wait forever. You know she wouldn’t want you to…for your sake and for Molly’s.”
“I know, I know,” I said, looking away.
The glass patio door slid open. “Dad, he’s done it again,” Molly said, reaching out and handing me a puppy.
I held him up and looked him in the eyes. “What did you do this time?”
He lifted his lips, exposing his tiny front teeth. “Woof,” he said in a high-pitched squeak.
“He messed up your bedroom again,” Molly said.
Holding the redheaded little jerk in my arms, I walked to my bedroom and looked around the room. The floor was covered in confetti. Tiny pieces of paper that used to be a rolled-up blueprint.
“You little bastard!” I yelled, sitting him down on the floor. “Did you do this?”
He raised his head and lifted his lip again. “Woof.”
I heard a noise behind me. It was Donna with the three other puppies, standing in the door way. The three puppies’ colors had changed as they had gotten older, from white to a light golden brown, the exact same color as their mother. But the little devil standing in the middle of the confetti was a dark mahogany red, just like his father.
I looked down at him. “Sir Charles Radcliffe the third, what have you got to say for yourself?”
He growled. “You don’t like that name, do you?” He growled again. “Well t
hat’s too bad, cause that’s what I’m calling you from now on. Sir Charles!”
Defiantly, he raised his head, lifted his lip and growled again. “Arrrr, arrrr, arrr, woof woof.”
“Molly walked in the room and put her arms around my legs. “What are we going to do with him, Daddy?”
I looked down at her and smiled, “We’re not gonna do anything, someone else is.”
Holding the puppy by the loose skin behind his head, I walked to the living room and set him down next to Charley’s bed. “You’ve laid around long enough. It’s time you get out of that bed and do something about this monster you sired. He’s destroying the house!”
Charley raised his head and looked at the puppy. It took him a few tries, but finally he slowly pulled himself up to his feet, standing over the puppy. He lifted his lip. “Woof.”
The puppy looked up at him, lifted his tiny lip and squeaked, “Woof,” back at him.
Then they turned, looked up at me, and both of them, at the same time...gave me those stupid smiles.
34
It’s Time
Over the months, Little Charley and the rest of the puppies had grown like weeds. Little Charley wasn’t so little anymore. Because they were Charley’s puppies, I wanted to keep them all, but it soon became obvious, that six large dogs, two nurses, Molly and me, all living in a small beach house was never going to work. No matter how hard we all tried to keep the place neat and picked up, the house always looked like a tornado had just gone through it. And carrying fifty-pound sacks of dog food up those steps every couple of days was not only breaking me, it was taking its toll on my poor back. After several long tearful discussions about it with Molly, who was now nine going on twenty-one, she finally agreed to let me find three of the dogs a new home.
I’m not sure Donna and Charley knew what was going on when I left them with Molly in the house and loaded their babies in my truck and drove away, but I’m pretty sure Little Charley did. On the way, he snuggled close to them and licked their faces constantly. When I pulled up to Jake’s house, it took me a few minutes to get all the leashes attached to the dogs and get them headed in the right direction toward the front door. When I rang the doorbell, Detective Reynolds answered it. When the dogs saw her, they all started barking excitedly and began running in circles, wrapping their leashes around my legs, tripping me.
When I fell on my ass, tangled in the leashes, she burst out laughing. “Grant? Is that you?”
I looked up at her and smiled. “Yep, it’s me.”
Jake stepped out of the door, ran over and began rounding up the dogs. “What the hell happened? Why are you sitting on the ground?”
I stood up and brushed the dirt off my butt and smiled. “I was doing pretty good until she came out and got them all riled up.”
She laughed. “I had nothing to do with this. Is this Charley?” she said, dropping to her knees, petting him. “Wow, he looks great!”
I nodded. “Charley IS doing much better. He’s finally walking again,” I said, “but that’s not him. That’s his son, Sir Charles the third. And he is just as much of a pain in the ass as his father!”
“I bet he is. He does look like trouble,” she said, laughing as she scratched his belly.
“So, what are you doing here?” I asked. “Dropping off another dog from one of your crime scenes?”
She was dressed in her usual dark drab pantsuit and gun, with her hair pulled up into a bun. She lifted her eyebrows and smiled. “No,” she said, “I was on my way to work when Jake called to tell me you were bringing the puppies over. I hope it’s okay, but I want one of the puppies.”
“Really? You’re going to take one of them? That’s fantastic. I really didn’t want to give them away. I love these little girls, but six large dogs in a small house isn’t gonna work. But knowing that you have one, well...that’s just great!”
“Detective Johnson is on his way over as well,” she said with a grin, “he wants one, too.”
“Even better!” I said. “Now if we can find the last one a good home...”
She started laughing. “I guess Jake hasn’t told you.”
“Told me what?”
She lifted her eyebrows and grinned. There was another reason I came here this morning. Jake wanted me to come by to meet...” she paused, shrugged her shoulders, looked up at me and smiled, “his new boyfriend. I think they want a puppy, too.”
My jaw flew open. “Boyfriend?” I whispered.
She nodded her head. “Jake’s a great guy and thank you for trying, but you were right, he’s gay,” she sighed. “I guess I’ll just have to keep looking.”
While Drake finished serving his last year in the Marines, Annabelle moved back to Boone with her parents to have her baby. It was a healthy 8-pound, 10-ounce boy they named Albert, after her father.
Two months later, at three in the morning, Marshall called to tell me that I was an uncle. Thirty minutes earlier, after five hard hours of labor, Brenda had given birth to a 7-pound, 4-ounce girl.
“She wants to talk to you,” he said, putting the phone up to Brenda’s ear.
“Grant,” I heard her whisper, “She’s so beautiful. You have to come see her soon.”
“We’re on our way,” I said. “Molly has been counting the days.”
“We wanted to ask you something,” she said.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“We’d like to name her Audrey…would that be okay with you?”
My heart jumped and my eyes filled with tears. “I would love that.”
Molly fell instantly in love with Audrey and didn’t want to leave, but I had booked a flight to Boone to visit Annabelle to see her little boy, and once we got there, she fell instantly in love with him, too. When we finally arrived home from our two-week trip, Molly ran into Melissa’s room and began telling her every detail about it.
Leaning against the wall in the hallway just outside the door, I listened carefully to her talking to her mother as if she was listening. My heart ached with every word she said.
During our week-long visit with Marshall and Brenda, I had gotten quite an earful. Brenda, being who she was, just couldn’t help herself and had spent hours talking with Molly, evaluating her psychological health.
The night before we left, Marshall had called to let us know that he had to attend to an emergency and would be late. When Molly started yawning, I told her to go to bed, opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses.
“I had no idea how much I would miss this,” Brenda said, leaning back in the chair and taking a long sip of her wine.
I took a swallow, set my glass down on the coffee table and looked at her. “So, how is she doing?”
She lifted her brow and nodded her head. “Overall, pretty good.”
“But,” I said with a smile, “she could be doing better, right?”
She leaned forward and set her glass down. “Marshall is a brilliant man. He has the quickest and most logical mind of anyone I’ve ever known. That’s one side of him. But he has another side. The non-logical, loving side. If you want to know the truth, I think he may love you just a little bit more than he loves me. But the problem is, because he loves you so much, he allows that love to block his brilliance and logic. I hope that after all this time and everything we’ve gone through, you know that I love you, too, but maybe not as much as Marshall.”
She lifted her glass and took another sip. “It’s time, Grant, “Melissa is not going to wake up and I think you know that. I wish she would, I miss her, too, but that’s not going to happen. You are being selfish and it’s time to stop this! Remember what she wrote in her DNR? ‘Under no circumstances do I want to be kept alive in a vegetative state.’” She repeated it again, slowly, “Under no circumstances.”
I nodded and leaned back, but didn’t respond.
“It’s time. Let her go and do what you know in your heart she would want you to do. You can’t possibly believe that this is the life she wanted for Molly...for
you…for herself.” She took another sip and locked eyes with me. “At the very least, move her to a home. Please, Grant, for Molly’s sake. Let her go or at least move her out of your house. It’s not healthy for either one of you. It’s time, Grant.”
After listening to Molly talking to her mother the night we got back for our trip, I knew Brenda was right. It wasn’t healthy for Molly or me, and I was doing exactly what Melissa had feared. She was being kept alive in a vegetative state and no matter how hard it was going to be to let her go, I had to do it…she deserved better. The next morning, I contacted the hospital and talked to her doctor, letting her know of my decision.
“Mr. Nash,” she said, “This will not be a pleasant thing to watch. For you and your daughter’s sake, I think it would be best to bring her here to the hospital, so I can monitor the process. This is something you don’t need to do at home.”
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“There’s no way of knowing for sure, but usually anywhere from three to seven days.”
I didn’t tell Molly why her mother had to go back to the hospital and vowed to myself that I would never, ever tell her. I was sure she would never forgive me if she knew the truth.
I was asleep when my cell phone rang at 3:15 a.m., four days later. I didn’t have to look at the caller ID; I knew it was the hospital.
“Mr. Nash, I am the attending nurse at The Flagler Hospital. The instructions I have for Mrs. Hollingsworth are to call this number if her vital signs show she is entering her final stages. Unfortunately, I am seeing those signs now. Her oxygen levels are dropping quickly, and I suspect she will pass soon.”
I jumped up, threw on some clothes and rushed to the hospital. When I walked into her room, she was surrounded by nurses holding her hands, stroking her hair and talking to her softly.
It was a sight I’ll never forget - a beautiful and graphic image of how wonderful nurses truly are. Looking at them reminded me of a flock of angels. An image of the stained glass in the chapel flashed in my head. It was the picture of several angels surrounding Christ’s body in the tomb, taking him back to heaven. Seeing the nurses around her calmed me down and gave me a feeling of strength and peace. When the nurses saw me, they quickly left the room, leaving me alone with Melissa.