First Responder on Call

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  Celia’s own face was warm. And she still felt a little clueless. Wendy was obviously someone Remo had recruited for assistance, and she was also clearly someone who knew him well.

  “A pretty woman is always relevant, dear,” the older woman said.

  And then it hit Celia. As she looked from Remo to Wendy, she actually kicked herself a little for not immediately clueing in.

  They had the same squarish jaw. The same defined cheekbones. And even though her irises were coffee-colored rather than azure, there was no denying that the shape of them was identical. The matching height and strong, hold-the-weight-of-the-world shoulders were a dead giveaway, too. “Nana Wendy” absolutely had to be Remo’s mother.

  * * *

  Remo spied the sudden understanding in Celia’s face, and for some inexplicable reason, knowing that she knew made his neck heat. He had an urge to loosen a tie he wasn’t even wearing.

  It wasn’t that asking his own mother for help was embarrassing. He wasn’t the kind of man who thought relying on family was a source of shame.

  It also wasn’t the fact that his mom had pointed out Celia’s good looks. Twice. Remo was already more than acquainted with that particular fact.

  This was something else. He felt like a teenager, about to introduce his high school crush to his mom. Which he supposed he was doing. Minus the teenager part, of course.

  Remo shifted Xavier from one hip to the other, and noted that his mom was staring at him with a single raised eyebrow. It was a look Remo knew well. She was waiting. With impatient mom-patience. It made him realize that he hadn’t actually done any introducing yet.

  He cleared his throat. “Celia, this is my mother, Wendy. Mom, this is Celia Poller.”

  His mom’s eyebrow went up a little more—a final chastisement—and then dropped as she smiled widely and stuck her palm out. “It’s absolutely lovely to meet you, even under the circumstances.”

  Celia’s face was flushed, but she took his mom’s proffered handshake. “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “And you met my new buddy earlier,” Remo added.

  His mom shot a wink toward Xavier. “The pudding monster.”

  “That’s me!” the kid agreed enthusiastically. “Are you really Remo’s mom?”

  “I sure am.”

  “But you’re not that old!”

  “I like you better every second.” She poked him in the stomach, prompting the kid to let out a giggle. Then she turned her attention back to Celia. “Are me and the little guy ready to get going to my place?”

  “You and the little guy?” Celia echoed, turning a concerned look toward Remo. “What’s she talking about?”

  “I didn’t get quite that far, Mom,” Remo said.

  “Quite what far?” his mom replied. “You mean as far as letting her know that I’m the resident getaway car?”

  Celia drew in a sharp breath, and Remo fought a groan.

  “Mom, seriously,” he said. “My goal is to make her feel safe. Not like an escaped convict. I was going to explain the plan before you got here, then you were going to arrive and be your kind and sweet self.”

  His mom lifted her eyebrow again. “Oh. You wanted me to turn on my grandmotherly charm?”

  “It couldn’t hurt,” he replied.

  She let out a sigh, then dropped her voice into a phony-sounding quaver. “All right, sonny boy. Hand over the kid.”

  Rolling his eyes, Remo lifted a giggling Xavier off his hip and held him out toward his mom, who took him with a grin.

  “Well, thank you muchly,” she said, then spun to carry Xavier to the couch, speaking in a pseudo whisper as she moved. “I think your mom and my son need to have a chat out in the hall.”

  “They already talked for a long time in the hallway,” Xavier informed her. “What else can they say?”

  “Who knows? Grown-ups are weird.”

  Remo fought another eye roll, then gestured for Celia to follow him out the door. Once they were safely out of earshot, she spoke first.

  “You want me to let your mom take Xavier?” she said.

  “It’s our best option.”

  “I can probably think of six better ones off the top of my head.”

  “But how many are you sure would work while still making sure no one gets hurt? You said no collateral damage, remember?”

  “And you think your mom isn’t collateral?” she replied, her voice shaking. “And you also think that separating from my son is something I’d even consider?”

  He reached for her hands, and was grateful when she let him clasp both rather than pulling away. “I think you’d do whatever needed to be done to keep him safe. And this is it. Your ex or his men or whoever’s watching the hospital...they don’t know who Xavier is, do they?”

  She bit her lip, then exhaled. “No, I don’t think so. Xavier’s never met his dad.”

  “Which means they’re looking for you. They won’t notice a grandmother and her grandson. Especially since they’re just going to walk out the front door like they’ve got nothing to hide. Trust me on this, Celia. Nothing—no one—could be a safer choice for getting Xavier out of here without incident.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Remo closed his eyes for a long beat, then sighed and opened them again. “Do you remember when I told you about my father?”

  Celia’s gaze softened. “Yes, of course.”

  “The day that it happened, my mom brought me here. We went through Emergency, got my arm set in a cast, and then...we stayed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We had nowhere to go. My mom’s parents died when she was younger, and she had no siblings and no aunts or uncles. We sure as hell couldn’t go anywhere near my dad’s side of the family. My mom told me later that she thought about going to a shelter, but she was so tired, and she had access to everything she needed here. Stolen, of course, but still...” He smiled; he couldn’t help it.

  Celia’s expression, though, was incredulous. “You stowed away in a hospital?”

  “It was easier than you’d think. Although that might’ve been because my mom was—still is—pretty resourceful. She found a resident’s room and rigged it so she was the only one who could open it, then stuck an out-of-order sign on the door.”

  “But...how long did you live like that?”

  “If you ask my mom, she’ll tell you a couple of days, but I’m sure it was weeks. I swear we were here long enough for me to actually get my cast taken off.”

  “So what happened? You didn’t get caught?”

  His nodded. “Oh, we did get caught. A doctor found us. But lucky for us, she’d been in the emergency room when we came in, and she’d seen the havoc wreaked by my father. So she didn’t turn us in. She helped my mom get a job in the cafeteria, where she still works now. She put us up in a room in her house until we could afford our own place. She’s an admin here now, actually.”

  “That’s pretty incredible,” Celia said.

  “Things could’ve turned out worse,” he agreed.

  “And what happens after they leave?”

  Remo didn’t let his relief at her implicit agreement show. “We stay here for another half hour while a misdirect is created on our behalf. Tanya—the administrator I mentioned before—is giving us a hand. She’s ‘officially’ moving you to a different room, and in thirty minutes, she’s going to make an announcement over the speaker on your floor that will tell anyone who’s listening that’s what happened. But a little bit after that, she’ll let your new nurses know she made a mistake, and that you were actually discharged. And I’ve got a doctor friend coming by with a round of antibiotics and some bandages and stuff so I can keep you from keeling over.”

  “I’m not going to keel over.”

  “Yet. But if you get an infection...”

  She
made a face, then sighed. “It’s all so complicated.”

  “And it will work,” he assured her.

  “So then we walk out the front door, too?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Should I be worried?”

  “Not unless you hate riding on a gurney,” he replied. “You become a body under a sheet, I become your transporting attendant.”

  “Great. So in order to avoid death, I pretend to be dead.”

  “Oldest trick in the how-to-escape-a-hospital book.”

  Her gaze dropped to their still-clasped hands, and when she spoke again, her voice was nearly a whisper. “I’m scared, Remo.”

  He let her hands go and pulled her into an embrace instead. “I know you are. And my mom knows, too. That’s how you can be sure that she won’t take a risk.”

  Celia continued to rest her head against his chest for a long moment before she leaned back and looked up at him. “All right. Let’s get it over with before I change my mind and decide your mom’s plan to live in hiding in the hospital is a better idea.”

  He bent and gave her a light kiss, then released her. “Ready when you are.”

  She smiled and turned back toward the room where her son waited. Before she could get more than a step away, though, Remo called out to her.

  “Celia?”

  She paused and swung her face his way. “Yes?”

  “Please don’t ever tell anyone that story about us living in the hospital. The only people who’re aware of it are me, my mom, and Tanya. And now you.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” She put her hand over her heart in a seemingly unconscious gesture, then turned away again.

  Remo watched her for a moment, then lifted his own hand to his chest in a move that mirrored hers. There was a warmth there, just under his rib cage. And he was strangely certain it was only going to grow.

  Chapter 9

  Celia would’ve been lying if she didn’t admit that sending her son away with a stranger—or an almost stranger’s mother, in this case—didn’t make her nervous. She trusted Remo. More than she should have, maybe. And what he’d told her about his childhood in the hospital reinforced the fact that Wendy would know just how to get Xavier safely out. But when it came down to it, he was her son, and Celia didn’t like being separated from him, especially under the current circumstance.

  I miss him when he goes to kindergarten, she thought. How am I expected to feel at a moment like this one?

  But as she gave him a twelfth kiss goodbye—he’d counted them and made an announcement about it—Wendy shuffled Xavier to Remo one more time, then pulled Celia aside. Feeling awkward and defensive at the same time, Celia waited for a speech. What she got instead was a hug. The older woman pulled her into an embrace and gave her a squeeze. It was strange only for a moment. Then Celia leaned in and took the offered comfort. It was different to receive it from another woman. From another mom. There was an understanding in the hug. Palpable empathy. And that alone was enough to ease some of Celia’s discomfort.

  “I know you’re going through hell,” said Wendy as she finally let her go and stepped back. “And to top off your unpleasant circumstances, my son told me that you’ve got a memory block.”

  Celia nodded, then answered in a soft voice. “I think my mind is trying to protect me. Except it’s just making things worse.”

  “I get it,” the other woman replied. “There are times when I wish I could forget everything Remo’s dad put me through. It would feel so good not to have that heartbreak always on the periphery of my past. But the thought of the memories not being there is scarier. As counterintuitive as it might seem, I think the memories might be the safety net.”

  “Exactly.” A slightly bitter laugh escaped Celia’s lips. “Now could you convince my brain that’s true?”

  Wendy reached out and swiped a thumb over Celia’s forehead. “I wish I could, sweetheart. For your sake, and for your son’s. But being patient might be your only choice.”

  “That. And sending Xavier with you is a choice, too.”

  “Yes, it is. And I appreciated the trust. I’ll take good care of him, and in a half hour or so, we’ll all be eating breakfast in my kitchen.”

  Celia closed in for another hug, then called Xavier over for a thirteenth kiss. Then a fourteenth, just for superstition’s sake. She made a joke about it to cover her worry, then promised to see him soon, and with a heavy heart and a thick, knotted lump in her throat, watched him and Wendy disappear into the elevator. Tears threatened. Then became an inevitability. But as they came, Remo wrapped his arms around her and guided her back to the family room. He closed the door, pulled her to the couch, and held her while she shook with the sobs she couldn’t quite control. And he didn’t let go until it had all tapered off into shaky breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” Celia said, when she was at last able to speak. “You were just driving along, minding your own business tonight—or is it last night, now? God. I don’t even know. But somehow, I dragged you into this mess.”

  His hand slid back and forth over her shoulder. “You didn’t drag me. I dragged myself.”

  She sat up a little and tried to smile, but it felt watery. “Sure. If you call pulling over to the side of the road at the scene of an accident dragging yourself into something. I don’t even know where you were going.”

  “I’d actually just finished the somewhat embarrassing task of watching a movie at the theater.”

  “Why is that embarrassing?”

  “It wasn’t, until you forced me to admit that I was alone.”

  Celia’s smile became genuine. “I did not force you to admit that.”

  He winked. “You see it your way, I see it mine.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Action flick?”

  “Is that a question?”

  He sighed. “See? Now you’re forcing me to tell you another embarrassing thing.”

  “What is it?” Celia asked. “I’m dying to know.”

  “It wasn’t an action flick at all.” His expression was one part sheepish and one part amused. “It was that movie about the dog with the missing leg.”

  In spite of everything, a laugh burst from Celia’s lips. “You’re kidding. Xavier has been begging me to take him. You really went to see it?”

  “What can I say? I’m a sucker for puppies.”

  “And you couldn’t, like...borrow a friend’s kid?”

  “Honestly?” He trailed a finger up her arm, his eyes dropping to follow the motion. “I don’t have all that many friends.”

  “Says the man who’s best friends with my kid,” she replied.

  He lifted his gaze, and Celia was surprised to see true uncertainty and sadness there as he spoke again. “Kids are easy. It’s grown-ups who’re hard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you meet another adult...start to get to know them...they think they want to know all the gory, complicated details. But when they hear those details...they realize they didn’t want complicated, after all.”

  Celia leaned her head against his chest. “Actually, Mr. DeLuca...you don’t get to tell me what I want.”

  His responding chuckle vibrated pleasantly through her whole body. “Is that right?”

  “A hundred percent. I don’t buy your excuse, and I demand a messy, complicated explanation.”

  “Okay. But when you hear it all and you run screaming in the opposite direction, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  His tone was light, but under the lightness was a strain, and Celia wondered if she should backpedal and tell him he didn’t have to share anything he didn’t want to. The last thing she wanted was to make him feel uncomfortable or pressured. Especially considering just how much he’d done for her and Xavier in the last few hours. But he started to speak b
efore she could retract her request.

  “I probably owe you a bit of an apology,” he said.

  Puzzled, she tipped her head back, trying to see his face. “For what?”

  “A lie of omission. I left something out before when I was telling you about me and my mom.”

  “I’ll forgive you for not disclosing all of your secrets in the first five minutes of knowing me if you’ll forgive me for not even knowing my own secrets.”

  “Deal.” He kissed her forehead, then smoothed back her hair, and she settled against his chest again, and he went on with his story, his voice low. “Seven and a half months after my mom finally left my dad, on my eighth birthday, my sister was born here in the hospital. I only had the most basic thoughts about where a baby came from. But I knew a man had to be involved somewhere. I thought Indigo was a miracle.”

  He went on, explaining how she was a hellion from the beginning. Colicky as a newborn, and a Tasmanian devil as a toddler. Their mom was constantly at a loss for what to do with Remo’s little sister. Indigo didn’t care if she was given a time-out, or if her toys were taken away, or if she was banned from watching Sesame Street.

  “You know how some people have a zest for life?” he asked.

  She nodded against his chest. “Yes.”

  “Indigo had that zest, so long as her life included getting into trouble. And the older she got, the more wild she got, too.”

  Celia listened as Remo described an increase in the severity of her antics. How his sister practically lived in the principal’s office through elementary school. How she was kicked out of first one high school, then another, before she was finally sent to a remedial school.

  “My mom used to wonder if it was really a good idea to send a kid like Indigo to a place where she’d be surrounded by like-minded kids,” Remo said. “But I don’t think it affected her in the slightest. She acted the way she did because she wanted to act that way, not because anyone influenced her. She hit her most dangerous moment when she was fourteen.”

  He told her about how Indigo stole their mom’s car and totaled it. Then he added that the theft and the accident weren’t even the biggest problem. Because just three days before it happened, Wendy had decided to let the insurance lapse in order to save a bit of money. Then the bills rolled in. And there were plenty. There was their wrecked car and the fence Indigo had destroyed. There were the vet fees for the dog who’d had the misfortune of having a paw crushed under a tire as the car rolled to a stop. And last, but by no means even close to least, there were medical costs. Indigo’s broken arm and concussion and three days in the hospital. Eighteen stitches for the guy who was joyriding beside her.