by Lenora Worth
“Did you?” Tomas stood, stretched. “We do have a showplace, don’t we?”
“Yes. You should go out there and enjoy it yourself.”
Tomas smiled. “I guess so.”
But after Eunice left, he couldn’t move. If he walked out into that beautiful garden that smelled like Callie, he’d probably find a rock to sit on and then he’d start ranting at the cruelty of life.
But then, as the reverend had reminded him, he needed to thank God for this suffering. After all, he was a blessed man in many ways. He had a beautiful old historic home and he had the most amazing garden in all of Louisiana, according to many people who’d seen it. And yet, he felt empty and drained and lonely. He felt defeated and helpless and inefficient.
“Maybe I do need to get some fresh air,” he said to himself.
So he worked his way toward the back door and opened it to the humid summer night. He’d been here close to six months now, and while he’d become more relaxed with the people of Fleur, he still didn’t feel as if he belonged. He was an interloper, sneaking around in this house full of lost memories. He wondered what his father had said or done in the office that was now his. He thought about how his life might be different now if he’d grown up here at Fleur House. Would he be running the shipyard, the heir to the Dubois legacy? His father had no other children. Only distant relatives who were just waiting for him to die.
Isn’t that what you’re doing, too? Waiting for your father to die?
Was that just? Was that in God’s plan?
Tomas made his way to the gazebo, memories twinkling around him like fireflies. He stared out into the dusk, thoughts of Callie with him here. He’d held her close on that night all those weeks ago, held her and fell in love with her all over again. He’d fallen for her on sight, but getting to know her had only added to that first foolish infatuation. The infatuation had turned into something real, something life-changing.
Are you ready to change?
That doubt again.
Tomas stared at the gazebo and saw the shadows of his hopes, the scents of gardenia, jasmine and honeysuckle intoxicating him with dreams. Somewhere off in the swamp, an owl hooted to the moon. The wind played a soft dance across the trees, bending the Spanish moss into silvery threads of lace.
And he missed her.
She wants you to change, he reminded himself. Do you want to change for her?
Tomas wanted her to love him. That much he knew.
But was he willing to change in order to have that love?
* * *
Callie sat at a far table near the back door of the fellowship hall. Partly in case she couldn’t make it through dinner, but mostly to avoid germs. Although she’d been feeling a little under the weather all day, Alma had suggested she come over to the church for the meal, and her sister had fixed her a plate with protein and healthy foods—baked chicken and brown rice, leafy greens and a fruit and yogurt parfait Alma had created just for Callie.
“Greek yogurt, blueberries, strawberries—lots of super foods,” Alma had announced with a hopeful smile.
Everyone was trying to save her, Callie thought, her stomach already churning, her skin clammy and hot. But she nibbled at the food in front of her because she wanted her body to stay healthy. And she wanted to keep fighting against the constant fatigue and the dark fears clawing at the joy in her heart. She wouldn’t give in to the fear. There was no fear in loving Jesus. She’d be safe, no matter in this life or in heaven. She sipped her ginger tea and smiled and chatted through her paper mask.
Don’t think like that, she told herself. She wanted to survive, to see the sun rise over her nursery, to hear the birds sing in her garden. To dance with Tomas again in the gazebo. She would survive this.
She looked up and saw him standing across the room. Callie’s heart did a bump, bump, bump against her chest. Tomas was here. She hadn’t been to Wednesday potluck in a while, but she’d heard he came often. He saw her and started walking toward her.
Callie felt clammy all over again, her vision blurring, a light-headed dizziness causing her to feel not so good. Okay, so she was glad to see the man but this was ridiculous. Hot chills laced her spine, tightening against her skin until she couldn’t breathe.
Alma rushed over to her. “Are you okay? You look so pale.”
“I don’t know,” she said, putting a hand to her forehead. “I feel a little hot. Is it hot in here to you?”
Alma placed her palm on Callie’s forehead. “Your skin is warm. You might have a fever.”
“I guess I am in love then,” Callie quipped. “Tomas is here.”
“Are you kidding me or do you really feel bad?” Alma asked in a curt tone, her concerned gaze moving over Callie’s face.
Callie tried to smile, tried to nod. “I...I don’t feel so great either way.” She tried to stand but had to grab the table. “I mean, I really don’t feel so good.”
Alma held Callie, an arm wrapped over hers. “I shouldn’t have talked you into coming over here tonight. I’ll take you home. But, Callie, you need to call your doctor.”
Callie tried to nod, tried to respond, but her body was on fire and her stomach shifted and roiled with each step toward the nearby door. “I’ll be fine. Just need to lie down awhile. Guess I’ll go to bed early.”
And then strong hands took over where Alma left off. She looked up and into Tomas’s face and felt herself go weightless as he lifted her into his arms. “I’m taking you home,” he said into her ear. “Just hold on. It’ll be okay.”
Callie stared up at him, grabbed his shirt collar. “Don’t take me home. Take me to the hospital.”
* * *
Tomas sat along with Callie’s family in the large E.R. waiting room at the New Orleans hospital where he’d brought her two hours ago. It was late now and the E.R. had settled down.
But his heart and his stomach were both still bouncing and shifting. He put his head down, his hands templed at his knees.
He didn’t know how to pray.
Mr. Blanchard walked over and sat beside him. “Dis is de same hospital where we brought her mama.”
Tomas sat up and saw the pain in Ramon Blanchard’s dark eyes. He didn’t ask the obvious. Had Lola died here? He didn’t ask because he didn’t want to put that into words—nothing about death should be said tonight. Callie wasn’t going to die.
“Febrile neutropenia,” Alma said from her spot across the aisle. “That’s doctor-speak for she’s taken on an infection somehow. But she’s been so careful. She stayed away from the picnic at Fleur House—” She stopped, gave Tomas a wide-eyed glance. “She didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but the doctor told her to stay home.”
Tomas wondered what else they hadn’t told him. But then, he wasn’t really family. Yet. “But will it go away?”
Alma nodded. “We hope so. They’ll treat her with certain medicines and antibiotics. Hopefully, that will zap it.”
Hopefully. Tomas got up and paced. Julien passed him with fresh drinks—water, coffee, soda.
“Did you call Brenna?” Papa Blanchard asked.
“Yes, Papa,” Alma replied. “She’s waiting to hear the latest. She sends her love.”
“I can have them flown home,” Tomas offered. “Brenna and Nick.”
“Thanks, but not yet,” Alma replied.
Tomas was beginning to read the unspoken things. Not now, Tomas. It might get worse. Much, much worse.
He hated death. Hated waiting in hospitals. But he also remembered wishing when he was young and helpless and afraid that he could take his mother to a nice, clean hospital. He hadn’t been able to do anything then and surprisingly, he couldn’t do much for Callie now.
He’d worked hard, so hard that he’d forgotten how to do anything else, just so he’d never be in t
hat situation again.
And yet, here he stood, supposedly rich and powerful and ruthless at times, but right now, completely helpless and poor in spirit.
* * *
Callie woke out of a lace-covered sleep. She tried to sit up, tried to remember where she was. Glancing around, she realized she was at the hospital. When she noticed someone covered in scrubs asleep in the chair next to the window, she blinked and tried to focus.
“Tomas?”
He jumped, his head lifting. “Are you okay? Do you need something?”
“Tomas, what are you doing here?”
He pushed at his dark hair, shook his whole body awake. “They moved you to a room. I wanted to stay.”
Stay.
He’d stayed with her. Again.
“Where are Alma and Papa?”
“Out in the waiting room. They came in to see you, but you were sleeping.”
“What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Three in the morning.”
“You need to go home.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Callie lay back, too exhausted to argue. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You have a low-grade infection.” He pointed to her left hand. “You have a cut on your left palm. They think it started there.”
Callie lay still, closing her eyes. “I worked in my back garden last week. I didn’t wear gloves.” Her voice shook. “I got a little prick from a thorn somehow. Tomas, I didn’t wear gloves.”
He got up and came to the bed, his gaze telling her he wanted to touch her. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”
“I knew better,” she said, tears blurring her eyes. “But I wanted to feel the dirt in my hands. I miss that, miss the sun on my face. Miss the rain on my skin. I...I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Tomas took her hand and held it in his. “You were being you, Callie. It’s okay.”
Callie wanted to believe him, but she was so tired. “I planted a Gerber daisy. I love Gerber daisies. They were blooming a bright red. For my back porch.”
“I’m sure they’re very pretty.”
“Someone will need to water them for me.”
“I’ll make sure your daisies are taken care of.”
“And Elvis. He’ll wonder where I am. He likes to go out early in the morning.”
“I’ll make sure Elvis is safe.”
She stared up at him and saw the anguish he was trying so hard to hide. Callie wanted to kiss Tomas, to hold him, to tell him that she loved him so much. But...she might not be able to hold to that promise. She wouldn’t tell him that, not until she could stand on her own two feet and hold him in her arms.
“You should go,” she said, anger and frustration coloring her tone. “I don’t need you staying here all night. I have nurses, and the doctors probably don’t even want you in here.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You have to go and check on Elvis.”
Tomas let out a sigh. “I will do that, and I’ll water your daisy, but later.”
“And you’ll make Papa and Alma go, too.”
“Yes. Now rest.”
She closed her eyes. But she was wide-awake now. “Tomas, will you do me one more favor?”
He smiled a tired, sleepy smile. “Anything.”
“Go and see your father.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Tomas stood at the double doors of the long elegant hallway, his gaze centered on the door at the end of the hall. This would be the longest walk of his life.
But he’d promised Callie.
She was weak and in pain, the infection taking over her body. And she’d asked this one favor of him.
It didn’t matter that he’d quietly brought in specialists and experts to save her. It didn’t matter that Tomas had prayed, had thought over his own miserable life. It didn’t matter that he loved her and wanted a chance with her.
It only mattered right now that he had to do this for Callie. To tell her he’d done it for her.
Do it for yourself.
Tomas ignored that voice and started walking the long, tiled hallway. His gaze swept over the tranquil paintings by local artists, some by the residents here. Nice and probably good for morale. Pretty and pleasant in spite of the antiseptic smell. This wing was new and clean and soothing.
He should know. His money had built it.
At the time, he’d thought the joke was on his dying father, Gerard Dubois. Now, ha-ha, the joke was on him. He couldn’t save any of them, especially himself.
Callie thinks you’re salvageable.
Maybe God thinks you’re worth saving, too.
He stopped at the set of wooden doors that would take him into his father’s suite of rooms. Tomas swallowed, closed his eyes and knocked.
A private nurse he’d interviewed and hired but only spoken to on the phone since, opened the door, her gaze going wide at seeing him here. “Hello, Mr. Delacorte.”
“Hello, Beth. How is he?”
“Restless. It’s hard to know if he’s in the here and now or...reliving a long-ago memory.”
Tomas thought that sounded a lot like his own days, too.
He nodded to the nurse and walked past the den-and-kitchen combo to the big bedroom at the end of the suite. A set of bay windows offered a view of the secluded courtyard full of azaleas and dwarf magnolia trees. A palm tree swayed in the wind near a fountain that constantly flowed in a soft, melodious pattern down into a small lily pond.
If only the old man in the bed could see that view.
Tomas stopped at the foot of the bed and stared at his father. He could leave now and he would have fulfilled his obligation. He’d come here and he’d seen his father.
It was enough for him.
But not for Callie. She demanded all of him. She wanted all of him for God, too. Grace, love, hope, redemption. Those were Callie’s whispered words to him.
“Go, Tomas. Go and see him and forgive him before he dies. It’s not for his sake. It’s for your sake. You can’t know love or hope or redemption until you’ve given someone else the grace of Christ. It will heal you.”
Tomas closed his eyes, determined to keep the tears at bay. He didn’t need healing. He needed to understand.
“What are you doing here?”
Startled, he opened his eyes to stare into his father’s face. And saw his own reflection there.
“I...wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m dying. What’s to see?”
“Are you being treated well?”
“Better than most. But if I could, I’d get out of here and never come back.”
Tomas had once relished this gilded prison. When he’d first heard the old man was living in a dirty corner of an unkempt nursing home, he’d felt a sense of vengeance followed by a twinge of humanity. So he’d visited other retirement centers and found this one and moved the old man here. Then to really turn the screws, he’d built a whole new wing in his father’s name. After he’d had Gerard Dubois settled nicely into his new suite, Tomas had introduced himself. Just to show the man that he was now a prisoner in his son’s life.
That meeting had not gone over very well.
His father had not been repentant.
Now he had to wonder why he should show this selfish man any mercy.
“What do you want?” Gerard asked through a gurgling cough.
Tomas wondered that himself. “I don’t know,” he said, honesty his shield. “I’ve met a wonderful woman and I’m in love with her, but she’s gravely ill.”
“Your track record with women isn’t so great is it, son?”
Tomas almost shouted “Don’t call me son,” but i
nstead he laughed. “I guess not.”
His father gazed up at him with sunken eyes. “So you’re in love and you’ve come here to gloat? Or maybe you’ve come here to tell me to just go on and die?”
“I’m in love and I came here because she thought it might help me if I...finally forgive you.”
His father stilled on the bed, his expression full of shock and hope. “Can you do that?”
“I’ve been trying to do that for most of my life, sir.”
Gerard grunted, clutched at the covers. “Me, too, son. Me, too.” He cleared his throat and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how to explain what I did to your mother and you. I was young and married and stupid. I had this image to uphold, you know.”
“Yes, I know all about your image.”
“You’ve become a man of means and I have to say, while I didn’t have anything to do with it, I’m still proud of you.”
Once, long ago, that kind of recognition from his father would have pleased Tomas. Now it only left him empty. “You had nothing to do with my life, so you don’t need to praise me now.”
Gerard reared up then fell back against the pillows. “I take that back. I had everything to do with your life. You just didn’t know it. Margie and Bob? I asked them to watch after you and your mom. Tried to pay ’em but they turned me down flat on that.”
Tomas couldn’t speak. “I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care what you believe. It’s too late for convincing now, anyway. The man who took you under his wing and gave you a job in real estate? I knew him from some early dealings. I had him reporting to me on your schooling and your salary, and while I never had to pay your way, I was always there waiting in the wings. Watching out for...my only son.”
Tomas moved toward the bed, ready to lash out. But when he saw a single tear slipping down his father’s wizened face, he stopped and thought of Callie. He should be with her right now. Not with this man he didn’t even know. So he softened his reaction and planned to end this and hurry back to her.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t you acknowledge me?”
Gerard shook his head. “I was too proud and stubborn. But...that’s the past. I’m glad you’re in love. Make the most of it. Go, and don’t worry about me. I’ve more than paid for my sins.”
