The Greatest Risk

by Cara Colter

  “Yeah, she was my roommate for a long time, but you can have her now.”

  “Wow.”

  “That’s a ’94 Harley Davidson Fatboy she’s leaning over, just like mine.”

  Billy was obviously just too tired for the whole back-door thing, so Luke brought him through the front. The ward was in chaos, until Billy was spotted, and then he was surrounded by people who were so glad to see him.

  “I just went for a motorcycle ride,” he said importantly. “On a Harley Fathead with my friend Luke.”

  Luke didn’t correct him about the proper name for the bike. He folded his arms across his chest, and then noticed a presence beside him.

  “I don’t suppose you could have let us know Billy was going on an outing,” Nurse Nightmare said through pursed lips.

  “I will next time. I promise.”

  “He looks very happy,” she said, and Luke heard the tiniest note of approval in her voice. “Mr. August, sometimes I think there might be hope for you.”

  That meant she hadn’t found out he had ditched Maggie yet. He thought he’d better leave on a good note, and that meant before Billy posted Amber in his room.

  Still, he asked the question he had been afraid to ask all this time. He took a deep breath and braced himself for the worst possible answer. “Is Billy going to die?”

  The words sounded so stark and so real. And while the question made his own problems seem puny, it also reminded him of mortality and time limits, of things left undone, of experiences not had, of the road not taken.

  “Of course,” Nurse Nightmare said, so matter-of-factly that Luke wanted to choke her. But then she went on. “Mr. August, Billy is going to die and so are you and I. It’s the wrong question. The right question is how are we all going to live? Today? This moment? Billy needs to seize his moments, but so do you and I.”

  Luke blew out a breath. What was it about him lately? Why was he attracting all this advice about how to live his life?

  Why was he seeing people in a different light? For instance, when he cast a sideways glance at Nurse Nightmare, today he did not see a battle-ax. It was true she was no beauty and had aged gracelessly, but Luke saw a woman who had chosen to give her life to a very hard vocation, and who had made her peace with it, been open to the lessons it taught her.

  Could he say the same?

  “You’re a wise woman, Nurse Wagner.”

  “I didn’t know you knew my name,” she said. “I understand you call me Nurse Nightmare.”

  “The mistake was mine. And I meant it about you being wise.”

  “Oh, pooh. I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. Haven’t you ever watched ‘Living Airy with Dr. Terry’?”

  “Good God, no.”

  “You should.”

  “What does that mean, Living Airy?” he said doubtfully.

  “I interpret it as meaning living with lightness and joy.”

  He didn’t want to tell her if that was her goal, she had forgotten to pass it on to her face. Instead he said, “Is he anything like Dr. Strong?”

  She sniffed. “Imitation is the poorest form of admiration.”

  He thought he’d leave her on that cheerful note. He checked his watch. He was a lucky man. He could just make lunch with his mother.

  She was fifteen minutes late. She walked in, still beautiful despite her nearly sixty years. Of course, she had access to a good plastic man and wasn’t afraid to use him.

  She was way overdressed for Marcy’s and didn’t have a clue, picking her way through the tight tables on impossible heels. The earrings, her last gift from his father before he had passed, dripped from her ears. The suit was pink and looked like it was made of some kind of soft fur.

  He got up when she came to his table and kissed her on both cheeks, European style.

  “This place is…cute,” she said uncertainly.

  “Good food. Mom, it’s July, aren’t you hot in that getup?”

  “It’s angora,” she said with pleasure as if that made it worth the trouble.

  “And those earrings. You shouldn’t wear them without a bodyguard.”

  “Nonsense. No one would ever think they were real.”

  That was his mother’s logic in a nutshell.

  “So, do you have holes in your hands? From making concrete yesterday?”

  “Pouring,” he corrected her, and yet still felt a small bit of surprise. There had been a time when she wouldn’t have had any idea what he’d said to her an hour after a conversation.

  Of course, since he’d pretty much given up talking to her, she probably listened more carefully.

  No, it was more than that. His mother actually looked good. None of that discontent radiating from her as it had done in his childhood. Her eyes had always been restless, skipping here and there, always looking for something more interesting than what was right in front of her. Today her eyes were steady and serene.

  “No, no holes.” He held up his hands for inspection. “I wore gloves.”

  “Good for you. I hope this means you’re going to start looking after yourself. It’s distressing how you’re always hurting yourself. I know it’s my fault. It’s the only time you ever got attention when you were young. I’m sorry, Luke.”

  “Mom, you’ve got to quit apologizing for how it was. It embarrasses me and it can’t change anything.”

  “I just want to own my part in it. I was a dreadful mother.”

  “Hey, I was fed and clothed. I don’t recall ever being beaten.”

  “By me,” she said softly. “You found a way to beat yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Stop it, for Pete’s sake,” he said desperately.

  “I just want to say one more thing, and then I will never mention it again, Luke, if it makes you uncomfortable. I promise.”

  It sounded like an okay trade-off, not that her promises had ever been worth anything, but he rocked his chair back and folded his arms over his chest and listened.

  “I drank too much. So did your father. We cared about appearances. We cared about achieving. We cared about how we looked. All because we couldn’t care about anything real. The more everything inside me was falling apart, the more I tried to fix everything outside of me to look perfect.

  “And you kept defying me by refusing to be a perfect child, by reminding me that the outside world I was so busy creating was such a lie. You kept reminding me I would never be in control of the world, and least of all you. You kept trying to show our poor, pathetic family something was drastically wrong.

  “I missed every single thing that was important,” she said softly. “I had the maids and the swimming pool and the house and the memberships.

  “But I don’t know what happened to the first tooth you lost. I missed the time you played Fonzie in the school rendition of Happy Days. I missed your cries for help and love and attention. I missed every single thing that was important. I was entrusted with the care of the most beautiful and wondrous miracle in the whole world—a small boy—and I was not worthy of it. And for that I am truly, truly sorry.”

  “Okay,” he said uncomfortably and let his chair drop back down. “Now it’s over, right? The shrimp special looks pretty good. Or the steak.”

  It was too much to hope that it was over, of course.

  “I just want you to know, Luke, that I am very proud of the man you have become despite the obstacles put in your way. I see you as strong and successful and independent, and that says quite a lot about your character that you would become those things, given the lack of parental guidance and approval you had.”

  “Great. Let’s order.”

  But her hand covered his. “I guess what makes me sad, Luke, is that I see how alone you are as a result of the lack of warmth and caring in the way you were raised. Once, you found a dog. It was a dreadful creature, but it loved you so sweetly and unconditionally, and I even took that away. It didn’t fit in my perfect house.”

  “Stinkbomb,” he said. “She really was stinky. I dou
bt if I’d allow her in my house now, either.”

  “Well, Luke, what do you allow in?”

  He studied the menu intently, hoping she would get the hint. He didn’t want to talk about this!

  She went on softly, relentlessly, “Now I see how afraid you are to be intimate. I see your wariness, your lack of trust in the whole process of relationships.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” he said. Wasn’t that what he’d spent his whole life proving? That he was not afraid? But had he not looked this very fear in the face last night and blinked first?

  “Yes, you are,” his mother said softly. “You’re afraid to take the greatest risk of all.”

  He wanted to challenge her. He wanted to say, And what would that be?

  But he knew she would tell him. And he knew she would be right.

  “What about Amber?” he said. “That’s a relationship.” He wondered what corner of hell was reserved for men who lied to their mothers, even if it was in self-defense.

  His mother looked at him shrewdly. “I may have been a lousy mother, Luke, but I could still always tell when you were lying.”

  “I think I’ll have the shrimp,” he decided, looking at the menu. “How about you, Ma?”

  It had always ticked her off royally to be called Ma, so of course he had done it all the more often.

  But when the waiter came, she set down her menu and said, “Ma will have the shrimp, too, please.”

  And for the first time Luke understood it was real. His mother was really changing. And she was trying so hard to bring him with her.

  And it was just too damn late. Wasn’t it?

  In the span of less than two days, three different people had told him, in different ways that it was time to take a good hard look at his life and decide what was really worth having.

  It was a message from the universe, and he didn’t have to watch “Living Airy with Dr. Terry” to know it.

  But that didn’t mean he had to do anything about it. And he was not at all sure that he would.

  “Hi, Billy,” Maggie said softly from the doorway. Billy was kneeling on his bed, taping something to the wall above it.

  When he turned and looked at her, Maggie noticed he was pale and tired, but even more noticeable was the sparkle in his eyes and the welcoming grin.

  She was pleased with herself. Obviously allowing him to deal with some of the issues he was having about his illness was a great help to him.

  “Luke took me out on his motorbike today,” he said. “We went to Scappoose for breakfast. It was so awesome.”

  So much for the idea she had had anything to do with the happy light shining in Billy’s eyes! Still, how could she not be happy for the boy?

  Luke must just have a gift for that—turning the light on in people.

  “That was nice of him,” she said, and she meant it, even though there was a little worm of envy in her.

  Luke had never invited her to ride his motorcycle with him.

  But of course he wouldn’t have. That might have involved some sort of explanation to the girlfriend, or about the girlfriend, and it was very clear that he was a man who didn’t care for the complications of making explanations.

  “Look what he gave me,” Billy said, sitting back on his haunches to admire whatever he had just posted over his headboard.

  Maggie stepped closer to the bed and peered at what Billy had just hung there.

  It was an absolutely disgraceful picture of a girl posed suggestively over a monstrous piece of shining chrome, rubber and metal. Redheaded, the girl in the photo was exquisitely beautiful in an edgy way that complemented the black jacket she wore and the motorcycle she leaned over.

  She was spilling out of the jacket, and her expression was warmly seductive.

  “Luke gave that picture to you?” Maggie asked, trying not to let her disapproval be too overt.

  “Yup. A souvenir of our ride today. That’s the kind of motorcycle he has, a Harley Fathead. Just like the one in Terminator.”

  Billy’s newfound expertise on motorcycles was demonstrated with a certain endearing pride.

  “What is Terminator?” she asked him.

  Billy groaned, and she found out quite a bit more about the movie than she wanted to know.

  “So, the picture on your wall is simply about the motorbike. Neither you nor Luke even notice—” She leaned closer to the picture and squinted at the scrawled signature. “Amey?”

  “Maggie, you can’t be a guy and not notice her. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” Billy said it worshipfully.

  Maggie managed to grunt, even as she registered that being in possession of the picture made Billy feel like one of the guys, an exclusive club she was fairly certain he had not felt included in in the past.

  She wondered, as she had before, if there was more to Luke than met the eye.

  “Her name’s not Amey. It’s Amber.”

  “I see,” Maggie said and then frowned. Amber? Wasn’t that an odd coincidence? That was a name Maggie was never going to be able to forget, or hear without cringing!

  Billy chuckled as if he was now a major player in a private male club.

  “Luke said she used to be his roommate, but now she’s all mine.”

  Maggie tried to digest this information.

  “Are you saying Luke shares accommodations with the woman who modeled for this picture?”

  Billy looked at her, baffled. “I don’t think so. Sheesh. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “It would indeed,” Maggie said a little tersely.

  But it was all making sense now. He had said he was going home to his roommate, Amber. He had not ever said he had a girlfriend.

  And when Maggie had tried to get the specifics out of him, how had he worded it?

  As if she didn’t have every word of that conversation committed to memory. Luke had said of Amber, “She hangs around.” He had neglected a fairly crucial piece of information. Amber hung around, all right.

  “On a wall,” Maggie said.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.” She sat on the edge of Billy’s bed. “So, tell me all about your adventure with Luke,” she invited.

  And without any prodding at all, Billy told her. In between sound effects and high drama, Maggie heard what was not being said in words. Luke was the man her heart had always told her he was.

  She visited with Billy for a while longer. He gave her a sealed envelope with his private wishes in it before she left. Crossing the parking lot toward her Beetle, she saw a stream of people going into the Healthy Living Clinic. She realized there was a B&B seminar tonight. She had told Kristen she would not be attending, but that was before this new development.

  She changed directions, slipped in the door and found an empty chair behind Kristen.

  “He lied,” she said, leaning forward in her chair, her lips almost on Kristen’s ear.

  Kristen jumped, and then twisted in her chair, and gave her a sympathetic look. “I know. You told me. The girlfriend. Snake.”

  “I mean he lied about the girlfriend. I don’t think he has one at all.”

  Maggie felt the woman next to her elbow her gently in the ribs.

  “Shhh,” the same woman said to Kristen, bringing her finger sternly to her lips. Kristen, not near the people pleaser Maggie was, ignored the woman completely.

  “No live-in lover?” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  At the mention of the lover, Maggie’s neighbor’s disapproval had turned to interest that was just a bit too avid. Maggie stood and nodded at the back door. Seconds later they were standing out in the hall by the coffee machine.

  Maggie told her about going to see Billy and the horrible poster he had inherited.

  “I think Amber the poster girl was the roommate he was referring to,” she concluded.

  “Are you sure that you aren’t just seeing things as you want them to be, Maggie?” Kristen said gently. “You seem to have fallen pretty hard
for this guy.”

  With a sudden lift of her eyebrow, Kristen flicked out her cell phone. “His number?”

  Maggie wanted to pretend she didn’t know it, but Kristen would know her well enough to know she had memorized it out of the phone book by now. She had also memorized his address. He lived in Boring, which Maggie would have thought was a hilarious irony, if she was laughing about anything these days.

  Reluctantly, she gave the number to Kristen, who, with no reluctance at all, punched it into her cell phone. Maggie heard his deep voice answer, and felt that quiver of longing.

  “Amber, please,” Kristen said crisply. “No? Sorry, wrong number.” She clicked off and studied her phone for a moment. “Nice voice. Kind of has that raspy edge. Gave me shivers in the nicest way.”

  “But why did he do that?” Maggie said. “Why did he tell me he has a roommate when he doesn’t?”

  “There’s only one reason a guy would make something like that up,” Kristen told her, an expert on matters masculine.

  “And what is that?”

  “Honey, are you sure you don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Well, when you figure it out, let me know.” Kristen was smiling at her with the dewy look she usually reserved for smarmy movies.

  “You think he cares about me? So much he’s scared himself?”

  “I think.”

  “Kristen, he’s gorgeous. You heard him. His voice gives women shivers. Wait until you see the whole package. He’s not the kind of man who would ever go for a girl like me.”

  “Why can’t you see what the rest of the world sees so clearly, Maggie? You are so beautiful. Oh, not like Britney or Shania. Heart beautiful. Genuine.”

  “Oh, let’s go see what Dr. Richie is saying,” Maggie suggested, embarrassed.

  “I hope he has a dynamite homework assignment this time,” Kristen said, holding open the door and letting Maggie go through ahead of her.

  And he did. They took their seats just in time to hear the assignment.

  “Take a risk,” Dr. Richie encouraged them. “Not just any risk, take the greatest risk of your lives.”

  “Ooh,” Kristen said approvingly, turning in her chair to wink at Maggie, “now that is what I call a perfect homework assignment.”