by Rebecca York
“My head is okay. Let her sit,” Alicia begged. “Tell me, baby, how is school?”
Unbelievable—Alicia was chatting. With clear words and complete sentences.
“School’s fun. I told Ava you’re in the hospital. Ava’s grandma came to the hospital and died. You don’t die, please, Nana Licia?”
Startled by the child’s words, Aidan couldn’t suppress an intake of breath. “Stella, don’t talk—”
“I won’t die. I want to be with you when you grow up. Aidan won’t let me die, right?”
“Yes, I’m doing my best to make you feel better. You have to help too.”
She sighed and nodded. “Where’s your mommy, Stella?”
“In Aidan’s room.”
“Ah...” She closed her eyes for a few moments and sighed. “She didn’t visit me for so long. She must have guessed the truth from my gibberish.”
“Listen, Alicia,” Aidan started.
“Don’t try to pacify me, Aidan. I know Melody well. She’s like me. I never forgave her father for refusing to let me see my daughter. She’ll never forgive me for abandoning her. But I have Stella’s love to sustain me.”
“Love you, Nana.” With a frown on her forehead, Stella listened to every word.
“Melody will stay with you tonight, after Stella goes to sleep in my on-call room. Better not talk too much. Huh...we tired you out.”
Her mouth twitched into a sneer. He wouldn’t fool her as far as Melody was concerned. “You can be sure I won’t say anything that could upset her.”
“We’ll let you rest now.”
“Bring Stella again tomorrow, please.”
“I’m coming, Nana.” The little girl bent and kissed her grandmother’s hand. “Nighty-night.”
“Goodnight, my little sunshine.”
Aidan lifted the child off the bed and led her out of the room.
In his room, Melody sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for them. Her rigid posture hadn’t changed.
“Is she still blabbering about the past?”
“She hadn’t for a few days. It was more of an intermittent coma, but when she heard Stella’s voice, she snapped out of it and held a normal conversation.”
“Glad my daughter helped your patient improve.”
Frustrated by her attempt at indifference toward Alicia, he arched his eyebrows without responding. There was no need to start an argument when she was being so stubborn. “I’ll let you put Stella to bed.” He squatted and hugged the little girl. “Goodnight, little doll. I’ll be at the nurses’ station.”
He left them and went to correct the assignment board. Betty stood behind him, reading. “So, Melody is staying with Alicia Loren. What about me?”
“You replace Heather at the monitors and take care of the young man in ICU.”
Melody strode toward him, her forehead wrinkled with concern.
“I was waiting for you to go to Alicia.”
“Thanks.” She’d lost her icy posture.
“Is everything all right?”
“Stella said something strange. She said, ‘You’re like Nana, Mommy. You never forgive.’ Where on earth did she hear these words? Was it Alicia saying them?”
He nodded. “Alicia said, ‘I know Melody well. She’s like me.’ And she explained that she never forgave your father for refusing to let her see her daughter. And she assumed you’ll never forgive her for abandoning you.”
“My father?” Her face lost its color. “She said something about my father?”
“Alicia said she’ll never forgive your father for refusing to let her see her daughter.”
Her jaw sagged and her eyes opened wide. “My father didn’t let her see... I thought it was her husband.”
“Apparently, when she mentioned the name John, she meant your father, not her husband, who didn’t know anything about her baby.”
“Ah.” Dejection spread on her features. Her head lowered and she walked next to him without uttering another word. He respected her silence.
They entered the ICU. “Heather,” he called. “Betty will replace you at the monitors and Melody will stay with Alicia.”
“It’s about time, Melody. She’s been asking about you every time Betty or I sat next to her. We told her some bullshit about hospital regulations not allowing nurses to treat their friends. Not sure if she believed us. She kept calling for you.”
“Heather,” Aidan interrupted. “You can go home now. Thank you.”
“Goodnight, Dr. Olson.” Obviously relieved to be able to leave, Heather gathered her things and left.
He continued to Alicia’s room with Melody, and she sat next to her bed.
“Alicia,” he said. “We’re here, Melody and I.”
Her eyes closed, the patient didn’t answer.
Melody held her wrist. “Her pulse is weak.” They both turned to study the numbers on the monitor. “Quite weak.”
Aidan put his stethoscope in his ears and listened to her heart. “She fell back into a temporary coma. She may become delirious later. You sure you want to spend the whole night at her side?”
“Yes.”
“For almost two weeks you didn’t want to hear anything about her. Why the volte-face?”
“Call it professional duty toward my patient.”
He didn’t believe her but didn’t protest.
“Aidan, thank you.”
“For what?”
A weary smile wavered on her lips. “For allowing me to stay away and sort out my emotions, and for trying to shield me from more hurt.”
He drew her against him. “You know I care about you, Melody. I wish you could forget the past, let me replace your pain with joy, let me take care of you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can survive on my own. I don’t need pity.”
“Hell, who’s offering pity?”
Forgetting the surveillance camera and the sleeping patient, he crushed her mouth with a passionate kiss that had nothing to do with pity, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I’m the one who needs pity for surviving your cold shoulder in the past days.”
“I didn’t mean to. Really I—”
“Take care of Alicia. I’ll check on my other ICU patient.” He threw a look at the surveillance room. “We’re lucky Betty hasn’t arrived yet, or we’d never hear the end of the gossip.”
“Aidan, I care about you too.”
Chapter Twelve
Invigorated by Aidan’s kiss, Melody sat next to Alicia.
“Aidan is a good man.” A quivering voice pierced through Melody’s daze.
Melody jolted out her chair and bent over her patient, scrutinizing her pale face and partially open eyelids. “Alicia, you heard?”
A weak chuckle answered her shocked exclamation. “Every word. I also watched.”
“We thought you were in a coma.”
“I was...sleeping but heard...your voice...and Aidan’s.” Alicia seemed out of breath, but she was totally coherent. “I ask about you...every day.”
“I was...busy. Couldn’t come.” Aidan had reminded her that Alicia wasn’t aware of Melody discovering the truth.
“No...you know… And you can’t forgive.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Alicia...” The patient had closed her eyes. Worried, Melody felt her pulse. Too weak, and here she was, draining her patient’s feeble energy. “Alicia, don’t talk. Rest now.”
Silence fell over them. Unsure whether Alicia was too tired to keep chatting or she’d decided there was nothing else to say, Melody turned to study the monitor. Strange, the numbers on the screen were better than she’d expected. Maybe her patient needed a break to recover.
“Melody, you here?” Alicia asked a moment later.
“Yes.”
“I understand you can’t forgive me—”
“Alicia, don’t torture yourself with assumptions. You need to rest.”
“Just listen. You have the right to hate me, but don’
t deprive me of Stella,” she said in one breath, as if afraid she wouldn’t have the energy to finish her sentence. She closed her eyes, her respiration labored.
Unsure if Alicia had lost consciousness, Melody held her hand.
“I promised Stella that I will not die. I will live for her,” Alicia continued, tears rolling from the corners of her closed eyes.
“I’ve been deprived of love. I would never deprive my daughter of her loving grandmother.” Her own eyes filled with tears as Melody remembered that in her initial anger, she’d yelled at Aidan that she’d keep Alicia away from her apartment, away from Stella and her.
“Thank you.” Alicia squeezed Melody’s hand.
For the next hour, Alicia didn’t say anything. Melody assumed she’d drifted off again.
Aidan arrived around eleven o’clock. He stopped to examine his other patient, and a moment later, walked into Alicia’s room.
“Not sure what you did to her, but her vitals are the best I’ve seen in two weeks.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Did you two chat?”
“She saw us kissing.”
“Ah. For a woman in a coma...” He burst out laughing.
“She told me she promised Stella that she won’t die now.”
“I know. I was there.”
“And I promised I won’t deprive her of her granddaughter.”
“Thank you, Melody. I think that’s why her morale and vitals improved.”
“Do you think she can answer a few questions?”
“Not yet.”
“Which questions, Melody?” Alicia said.
They both spun toward her, and Aidan chuckled. “We’ll have to watch our words around this lively not-so-comatose patient.”
“Can you give me something to keep me awake long enough to explain a few things?” Alicia muttered.
“I’d rather not. You drift off to sleep when your brain gets tired and needs rest. It’ll stop with time, as your recovery progresses.”
“Melody, I wrote you a letter with a full confession. I can’t tell you now...”
“About my father...how...” Afraid of tiring their patient, Melody looked at Aidan.
“John Parker was my boyfriend in high school,” Alicia started in a firmer voice. “But he knew my father had already arranged with Mr. Loren, his business partner, that I would marry his son. John Loren and I got engaged as soon as I graduated. John Parker started dating his neighbor, Rachel.”
To Melody, the story held nothing of interest. “Then how—”
“John Loren was a handsome boy who loved nothing more than women and gambling. We had a big fight. I called my best friend, John Parker. He left everything to console me. We spent the night together. I went back to my fiancé but later realized I was pregnant and panicked.”
“Alicia, if you’re tired, stop talking,” Aidan warned, although her numbers were improving steadily on the monitor.
“I’m good.” She didn’t sound out of breath, as if unloading her secret lightened her soul and body. “I told John Parker about my pregnancy. He offered to marry me right away. My parents raised hell and insisted the wedding to John Loren should take place. John Parker wanted his child and decided to marry Rachel, who claimed she’d raise the baby as her own. My mother took me away to the mountains for a few months under the pretext the fresh air would help my fake cough. I delivered a baby girl.”
She lowered her head and tears burst out of her eyes. “I wanted to hold her so badly. John and Rachel took her and didn’t let me see her. My mother said it was better. I married John Loren. We fought a lot. A year later, I called John Parker and begged him to let me see my daughter. He refused. His wife had just had a baby and he didn’t have time. I tried again a year later. Same answer.”
Alicia swallowed and averted her eyes, staring at the ceiling and withdrawing into her past. Melody respected her silence.
“Then I had the twins and stopped calling,” Alicia continued. “Ten years later, my father died, leaving his whole inheritance to my brother, knowing my husband had wasted our money gambling. My mother secretly gave me the Russian jewelry and valuables. I hid them. That’s what you stored at the bank, Melody.”
As if she cared about some Russian valuables. Her heart twisting with fresh pain, Melody shrugged. Her father had refused to let her mother see her.
“I concentrated on my boys, and raised them to be good men. But it didn’t happen. After their deaths, their unworthy father left me and died three years later. John Parker called me to give his condolences. You were twenty, Melody, and about to graduate from college. He said that things had deteriorated between you and Rachel. To protect you, he’d bought a duplex under your name. A year later, he called again. He was sick and had you move into the duplex. He suggested I rent the free apartment if I wanted to get to know you. I didn’t hesitate.”
Visibly exhausted, Alicia closed her eyes. Melody did the same, sorting and analyzing her emotions. Like mother, like daughter. Alicia had suffered even more than Melody. Yet she’d survived and bravely tried to find some happiness in her life. In the last ten years, she’d been a loving mother to Melody and later a doting grandmother to Stella, without ever expecting anything in return. Not even the love of her daughter.
Melody raised her head and caressed Alicia’s cheek. “Thank you for telling me your sad story.”
Alicia didn’t answer.
“She’s sleeping again. I’m surprised she managed to talk for that long.” Aidan considered her with a professional look.
“She made a special effort to tell me her story. So different from what I imagined all these years.”
The woman she’d spent her life hating had nothing to do with the one suffering in this hospital bed. Where was the unworthy mother who’d abandoned her child to marry a wealthy man? The selfish woman lavished with love and money by her husband? A product of Melody’s imagination.
Nothing of the sort here. Only a distressed woman, victim of the males around her. A fighter who had built her own happiness her way—like Melody.
She bent over Alicia and kissed her cheek.
***
While Alicia’s related her story, Aidan had been observing Melody with as much intensity as he’d monitored his patient, ready to interrupt if one of them became overwhelmed with emotion—Melody with anger, Alicia with desolation. Fortunately, the unexpected confession had brought them peace.
Alicia had relaxed after confessing her difficult secret. Melody had accepted Alicia’s explanation without arguments or questions, trusting the plain facts given without excuses or sentimental details.
“We’re not so different,” Melody mused.
“Now that you mention it, I noticed you have the same blue eyes and the same profile as her.”
“I’m not talking about physical resemblance, but about our lives and problems. We were both victims, and became fighters. On our own.”
“Except that...” Aidan began. He didn’t like her last words. How often had he reassured her she was no longer on her own? She had him, damn it. She could count on him. How often had he insisted he’d be at her side with a supportive hand?
She arched her eyebrows.
“Except that Alicia never had a loving man at her side to support her,” he mumbled with a frown.
“What are you saying?” Why was she looking at him as if he’d spoken Chinese? Wasn’t he clear enough?
“I’m saying you have a loving man at your side who would do anything for you, Melody.”
“Ah.” With her head tilted, she stared at him.
“Don’t you know it, Melody? Haven’t you seen me running to your side every time you needed me? Please don’t say you’re on your own. Not when you said two weeks ago you were afraid to lose the only two adults you loved and trusted, Alicia and me.”
“I said that?”
“You shouted it. I’m glad you did. Because I love you too, Melody. I don’t want you on your own. I want to be a
t your side. Always.”
She opened her eyes wide. “I don’t understand. Are you—”
“He’s proposing, Melody,” Alicia grumbled.
“What?” Melody’s gaze flitted from him to Alicia and back to him.
“Of course I am, sweetheart. I thought I was crystal clear.”
“Say it, Aidan.” Alicia’s tone had never been as forceful. “Pop the question, for heaven’s sake.”
“Ah... Now? Here? Without a ring?”
“Please,” Alicia said.
“Sure. Would you marry me, Melody? I love you and I adore our little Stella.”
“Yes, Aidan. I love you too. I don’t want to be on my own.”
“Kiss her, son. You’re good at that.”
“Alicia,” Melody protested.
“Anything you say, Alicia.” He pulled Melody into his arms and kissed her slowly, ardently, lavishing her mouth with tenderness and passion.
***
Two days later, Aidan discharged Alicia from the ICU and Melody wheeled her bed to a regular room. Stella’s daily visits worked wonders to enhance her recovery, yet her relationship with Melody remained questionable.
Melody provided their patient with her best dedicated nurse’s care, but she refused to dwell on the past or discuss any possible mother-daughter bonding. Alicia didn’t ask for special treatment, and their rapport returned to its previous neighborly association. A week later, Aidan had his patient transferred to the rehab center on the hospital’s seventh floor, and she applied herself to her therapy with determination.
Four days later, when he came to examine her, he found her sitting in a chair near the window, dressed in a lounge robe, her glasses on her nose and a few papers on her lap.
“You look...huh...back in business,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“You can say that again. I have too many things to do to waste time.”
“Ah, what things?”
“First order of business, Melody’s birth certificate.”
“Her birth...” Stunned, he tilted his head, not understanding Alicia’s meaning.
As usual, the petulant woman didn’t waste time explaining. “Thanks to your excellent skills, I’m alive and doing well.”
