by Peggy Webb
“What do you think about this?” Emily asked.
She’d put some of the gardenias in those little individual plastic containers florists use for shipping, and now she stood with her back to her family stuffing the flowers around the wall clock all of them hated. One by one they’d stared at it ticking off the minutes and hours and days of this strange suspension.
“Anything is an improvement,” Hannah said. “Here, let me help.”
“Emily, why don’t you come over here and say something to your father?”
“Let me just get these gardenias arranged first.”
“Hannah can do that.”
Emily felt like a prisoner being led out to the brick wall to be shot. Every time she saw her father, she heard her own voice on the telephone. Talking to Jake.
Sure, tell Dad you need him on Everest. Tell Dad. Tell Dad.
She’d give everything she owned to take it all back. She’d give a million dollars, if she had it, to relive that moment. Just that one moment.
She would say to Jake, “Don’t you dare mention a mountain to my Dad. He’s through with that. After all those years he made it safely home. Let him alone so he and Mom can finally have some time together.”
They were together, all right. But in a hospital room where the only thing they shared was the air they breathed.
Anne leaned over the bed and brushed Michael’s hair back from his face. It was getting long. Emily wondered if they should bring in a barber. Would the doctor allow that?
“Look, darling, here’s our Emily.” Anne motioned her daughter to come closer, then whispered, “Take his hand, Emily. He likes that.”
How do you know? she wanted to shout. How can you tell?
“Hi, Dad.” She reached for his hand, picked it up, lifeless and waxlike.
And suddenly the monitors went crazy.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Anne leaned over her husband. “Michael? Michael.”
The door burst open and a nurse came running to the bedside.
“Out of the way.”
Emily squeezed between the nurse and the wall, but Anne wouldn’t go that far from Michael. She went to the other side of the bed and hovered anxiously there, saying over and over, “What’s happening to my husband? Please, tell me what’s happening.”
“Code Blue! Code Blue!” The hospital’s speaker system blared out the chilling answer to Anne Westmoreland’s question.
Her husband was dying.
Jake thought long and hard before he decided to talk to Emily’s brother. He liked Daniel. It wasn’t that. The problem was that he didn’t know whether to approach Daniel from a professional or a personal standpoint.
In the end Jake decided to play it by ear. He found Daniel in the den browsing through the bookshelves.
“Daniel? I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”
“Not at all. I was just looking for a good book to take with me when I go to the hospital this afternoon. If I can I’m going to talk Mom into coming home and letting me stay there tonight.”
How easy Daniel made it all sound. How natural. As if he were planning for a picnic in the park.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“Good. Have you had lunch yet?
“Not yet.”
“Let’s go scavenge in the kitchen. I think there’s a pizza in the icebox and I know there’s beer in the fridge. Talk’s always easier with food.”
Over beer and pizza, all Jake’s reservations vanished. It was no wonder that Daniel had risen through the ranks so quickly. He was one of those rare people who not only put you immediately at ease, but who gave you his full attention. He had a way of listening with his head tilted and his eyes alight, and he exuded a warmth that invited confidences.
Daniel didn’t prod, didn’t push. He merely waited for Jake to open up. And finally he did.
“I suspect you know what this is about,” he said.
“I can guess, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
“This is not about Emily. Let me make that clear. Whatever happens between us will be strictly our own doing.”
“As it should be.” Daniel smiled. “Besides, Em doesn’t take kindly to interference in her life. Even from her well-meaning brother. Can I offer a word of advice, though?”
“Certainly, but at this point I think it’ll take more than advice. I think it will take a miracle.”
Daniel laughed. “I can’t help you there, but I know somebody who can.”
“Put in a good word for me, then, would you? I need all the help I can get.”
“You probably don’t need as much as you think you do. Now, about Em…don’t rush her and don’t push her. She may not look like the fiercely independent type, but underneath my baby sister’s lovely fragility beats the heart of a tigress.”
Jake smiled. He’d seen that tigress firsthand, both in and out of bed.
Would he ever see it again?
Until the matter pressing on his mind was resolved, that question was moot.
“I came to you to talk about Michael.”
“Yes. I gathered as much.”
“The bottom line is, he wouldn’t have been on that mountain if I hadn’t called him. He would still be with his family if it weren’t for me.”
“There’s a certain logic in what you’re saying. My dad is in a coma and somebody has to be blamed. So you’re the logical one, because you made the call and you were there. Right?”
“Right.”
“Wrong. Nobody is to blame. Dad’s accident was caused by an act of nature, which can be either benevolent or fearsome, but is never personal. If you have to cast blame, rail against an impersonal nature. Which, by the way, is totally out of your control.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“As for Dad being there, it was his decision. He would never have gone back unless he’d wanted to. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone back so soon if it hadn’t been for the IMAX film, but sooner or later he would have gone back. Perhaps to a fate even worse.”
He clapped Jake on the shoulder. “If you want absolution from the Westmoreland family, you have it. I don’t blame you for Dad’s condition, and neither does anybody else in our family.”
“Even Emily?”
“Most of all, Emily. I think what’s happening with the two of you is life’s problems getting in the way of romance.” Daniel laughed. “And by the way, I like the idea of you romancing my baby sister. I know you had Dad’s approval, and you have mine, too.”
“Thanks, Daniel, but it takes two to make a romance, you know.”
“Never having been down that primrose path, I don’t. I’m what’s known as that rare beast, an eligible bachelor.” Daniel’s big booming laugh filled the room. “I reckon the Lord’s got other plans for me right now, or else he’d put somebody in my path besides Susie June Crump.”
“Who’s that?”
“The organist. A pillar of the church. Wears so many pink ruffles on her clothes you wouldn’t be able to tell one end of her from the other if it weren’t for her bleached-blond corkscrew curls.”
Jake roared with laughter. “I can picture her. The earnest type?”
“Extremely. She gushes for about ten minutes every Sunday about my sermons. Even quotes me. Sometimes I suspect she’s taking notes… More pizza?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Jake delved into the box. “Have you ever done any climbing, Daniel?”
“No. Never wanted to. I played a little baseball in high school and college. Wasn’t very good at it. I guess I’m the bookish type.”
“I’ll bet you’re hell at Scrabble.”
“Yep. Don’t mind bragging.”
“I’m pretty good myself.”
“You shouldn’t have said that. Wait right there. I’ll get the board.”
Daniel came back in a few minutes, and they set up the board on the kitchen table.
“Prepare to have your socks beat off,” he said.
> “Never issue a challenge to a man who’s been to the highest peak in the world.”
“Why?”
“Beating you has now become a mission.”
Daniel laughed. “Careful there. You’ll be treading in my territory.”
They were well into the first game when the phone rang. Daniel picked up the receiver.
“Hello…Emily…Emily, slow down,” he said. Then, “I’ll be right there.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Jake.
“It’s Dad. They called a Code Blue.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Thanks.”
As they raced to Jake’s car, he asked. “How bad is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Daniel’s on his way,” Emily told her sister and her mother.
The three of them hovered in the hallway outside the room where frantic activity swirled around Michael Westmoreland. Hannah had her arm around her mother, as much to keep her from rushing back into the room as anything, while Emily was terrified and trying not to show it. Probably the only thing that kept her from falling apart was that Dr. Larry Crane was in the room with her dad. Bald, brilliant and kind, he was not only the best doctor on staff but an old family friend.
Emily had raced to the phone as soon as the Code Blue was called, and now she questioned Hannah about their father.
“What’s wrong with Dad? Did you find out?”
“Pneumo thorax is what Dr. Crane called it. Collapsed lung.”
Emily glanced at Anne’s pale face, then asked the question, anyhow. “How bad?”
“Nobody knows that yet, Em.”
“Did I cause it?”
“God, no. What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. He was fine, then I picked up his hand and everything went crazy.”
“A rapid pulse rise is the first signal. It had nothing to do with you. With any of us. Let’s just hope Dr. Crane got there in time.”
“He got there in time,” Anne said. “I would know if…”
She fell silent, but both her daughters understood what she was saying. Anne’s bond with Michael was so strong that if his heart stopped beating, hers would know.
“Mom.”
Daniel strode toward them, big, confident, full-of-faith Daniel with Jake in tow, and all of a sudden the world seemed a brighter, more hopeful place. Emily’s brother had always made her feel that way, and yet today it was Jake who held her attention. Jake whose presence pulled at her like a magnet. Jake whose face was the one Emily most wanted to see.
The realization came as a shock. She’d felt so empty standing in the hallway, so alone. The sight of Jake changed all that. It gave her a sense of standing on solid ground once more. A sense of having found something she hadn’t even known she’d lost.
He came and stood quietly at her side. Not touching. Not saying anything. Just being there.
Emily wanted to reach out and touch his hand. I’m here, her touch would have said. I care.
And she did. That much she knew.
The part she didn’t know, the part that scared her out of her wits was the future. What was going to happen to them next? And how much of it depended on her father? How much depended on her, on Jake?
Emily didn’t know, and she guessed it was the uncertainty that held her back.
For now, though, she didn’t want to think about it. She simply wanted to be in the moment, to be fully there, her best and strongest self so that all of them—Michael, Anne, Hannah, Daniel and most of all Jake—would know that she was a woman, whole and complete, and that no matter what happened she would survive. No. Not merely survive. She would triumph.
Standing among the tense family, Jake felt all his guilt come back. Daniel’s theories notwithstanding, he sensed that if he didn’t leave soon, he would bring an even greater calamity on the heads of this family, who had been nothing but kind to him, nothing but generous.
What would Michael Westmoreland say if he knew he’d taken a viper to the family’s bosom? Unfortunately it looked as if he would never say anything.
Dr. Crane came to the door, and the family crowded around him. Jake stood back, close enough to hear, but not close enough to signal him as a part of the family.
An outsider. That was what he was, after all. And getting more so by the day.
“How is he?” Anne asked.
“The worst is over. I inserted a chest tube, which will reinflate the lung.”
Hannah and Emily started talking at once, but it was Daniel’s quiet voice that was heard above the rest.
“Will Dad be all right?”
“Yes, barring further complications. The healing process should take about three days, perhaps longer, then I will remove the tube.”
“I want to see my husband,” Anne said.
“By all means. As soon as they finish cleaning up.” Dr. Crane put his arm around Anne. “But be prepared. He has a tube in his chest now, as well as the intravenous feeding tube.”
“I can handle it.”
“I know, Anne. But I also want you to know that right now Michael looks a lot worse than he is.”
The door opened and a nurse came into the hallway. “The family can come in now.”
They all crowded through the door, everybody except Jake. He would have gone if Emily had given any sign she wanted him to. But she hadn’t. Not by glance or gesture or word.
Jake could picture them hovered around Michael, surveying the latest damage and willing it not to be so.
He’d wrecked them, then stayed to try to repair the damage and only succeeded in making it worse.
It was time to be moving on. Daniel was home. The Westmoreland family didn’t need him anymore. Emily didn’t need him.
Nor want him. And that was the thing that lacerated Jake’s heart.
He could live with that. Maybe he needed that. Maybe it was just punishment for what he had done.
Tomorrow he would crawl back to Atlanta and lick his wounds. He would leave this family he’d been a part of for a short time, and they would band together in healing. Without him.
They would be better off without him. All of them. Even Emily.
Especially Emily.
“If there’s nothing else I can do to help you, I’ll be heading home to Atlanta tomorrow.”
The voice was Jake’s. Emily couldn’t believe her ears. She stood in the downstairs hall, riveted. Eavesdropping.
It had been late when they came home from the hospital. Everybody except Anne, of course. They couldn’t have blasted her away from Michael with dynamite.
They’d all said good-night and gone to their rooms, too tired to do or say more. The only reason Emily was downstairs was that she couldn’t sleep.
Apparently neither could Jake.
Who else was in the den with him? Certainly not Hannah. In spite of her conciliatory remarks at the dinner table, she still merely tolerated him for the sake of the family.
It had to be Daniel. As if to confirm Emily’s belief, her brother spoke.
“You’ve been more than generous already. I don’t know how we’ll ever thank you.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, Jake.”
“Thanks, but I need to head on back.”
Was he leaving now? Without saying goodbye? Emily was torn between racing back upstairs and hiding in her bed or storming into the den and confronting him.
Instead, she did neither. She stayed at her listening post.
“We’ll see you at breakfast?”
“No, I’d like to get an early start.”
“Take care, then.”
It was Daniel’s way of saying goodbye. Soon he’d be out in the hall, and Emily would be found out as the cowardly sister who didn’t have enough spunk to speak her mind.
“You want to bet,” she whispered, then she stormed the citadel.
“Em?” Daniel gave her a s
tartled look, but it was nothing compared to the look on Jake’s face. The look on his face made her want to cry—after she got finished being scared to death. Scared she was losing him. Scared she’d already lost him. “What brings you down here?”
“The same thing that brought you, big brother. Couldn’t sleep.”
“Join the club.” Daniel’s glance swung between Jake and Emily. He was nobody’s fool. “I’m leaving it to the two of you. Night, all.”
In the morning Emily would thank her brother. For everything. But right now she had other things on her mind. And she wasn’t fixing to be bashful about saying them.
“So, you’re leaving.”
They stood facing each other like two gladiators. Emily was glorious in her rage, and under any other circumstances Jake would have kissed her thoroughly, then tossed her over his shoulder and carried her to the nearest bed. But these were spirit-sapping, dangerous circumstances. And from where he was standing, relief was not just over the horizon.
“You heard?”
“Yes. I was eavesdropping.”
He caught himself before he laughed. No telling what that would do to an already volatile situation.
“I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t mean for you to find out that way.”
“How did you mean for me to find out? By carrier pigeon?”
“I was going to leave you a note.”
“Isn’t that a little impersonal, considering what we’ve been to each other?”
Her use of the past tense to describe their relationship slammed Jake in the gut. Harder than he’d expected.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I see.”
That tone of voice. He’d never heard her use it. But then, what did he expect? She’d been through hell and back.
And he was the one who had put her there. He had to keep reminding himself of that. If he didn’t he would give in to the almost overpowering urge to hold her. Hold her and not let go.
They stood staring at each other, a million unspoken words between them. And then she marched up to him, bold and dry-eyed, and hugged him. It was not the kind of hug you gave to a lover, but the kind you gave to somebody who was not quite friend but more than acquaintance. Brief. Impersonal. Not too tight.
