Jim moved behind the bench, resting his hands on his father’s shoulders.
“I was thinking,” James said, “that your mother would have liked Aubrey. I think Aubrey would have liked her.”
“I think so, too.”
“Aubrey didn’t have dialysis last night. I thought the two of you would go out.”
Jim took a deep breath, letting it out slowly in an attempt to control the pain. “Aubrey dumped me.”
“Why would she do something like that?”
He tried to explain it to his father, not all that easy when he didn’t really understand it himself.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life without her?”
“No.”
“Then send her some roses. Go to her apartment, sweep her off her feet and let her know how you feel.”
Jim studied the roses in the stone vase. “I sent her a dozen roses the day after she dumped me. She sent me a polite text saying thank you but her feelings hadn’t changed.” He stared out across the cemetery.
“Dad, there’s something Aubrey and I never told you.”
His father turned his head, staring up at Jim. “She’s not married, is she?”
“No, of course not. It’s about her health. We told you she was on dialysis but there’s more to it than that. Apparently some people can stay on dialysis for a decade or more, some can’t.”
Sorrow touched his father’s brown eyes as understanding dawned. “Aubrey can’t.”
Jim shook his head. Tears clogged his throat. He had to swallow several times before he could speak. “Her doctor told her she had a year to live, unless she got a transplant. That was over six months ago.”
“I’ve got two good kidneys,” his father said. “Maybe I could give her one.”
Jim offered a weak smile and gave his father’s shoulders a little pat. “I already tried that, Dad. My blood type is B negative, same as yours. Neither of us can donate to her.”
James shook his head. “It’s not right. Beautiful young woman like that. Her life’s just beginning. It shouldn’t be ending as well. Your mother, God rest her soul, was sixty-two when she passed away. That’s too young to die, but at least Beth had the time to marry and raise a child. Doesn’t Aubrey have someone who can give her a kidney?”
“Her parents are dead and she refuses to take a kidney from either of her brothers.”
“Why on earth not?”
Jim explained Aubrey’s reason to him.
“And what do they think?”
“I don’t think they know that she’s down to months.” Could he find her brothers and tell them how short her time was? Surely if they knew, one of them would give her a kidney even if it meant giving up their career.
A light breeze caressed him. He caught a whiff of Aubrey’s perfume. Jim looked around. No Aubrey. The only woman in sight was an elderly lady some distance away.
Jim frowned. He couldn’t have imagined her scent, could he?
“Dad? Does it get easier, being without Mom, I mean.”
“Easier? I don’t know that it does. I still wake in the night and reach for your mother. Her robe is still hanging from the hook on the bathroom door. Sometimes I hold it to my face and imagine I can still smell her. Even though she’s gone, the last words I say each night are ‘Goodnight Sweetheart, I love you.’” His voice grew thick. “I don’t think there’s been an hour go by that I haven’t thought of her a dozen times. I hold conversations with her in my mind. I know she’s gone, but here—” He slapped a hand over his heart. “I feel her with every breath I take.”
Jim hung his head and closed his eyes. Even if Aubrey didn’t want to be with him anymore, could he take the job and leave his father alone for weeks at a time knowing just how alone his father would be?
“Was it worth it, Dad? If you had it to do again, was loving Mom worth the pain of losing her?”
Chapter Seventeen
She almost ignored the phone call. Jim had called her several times and each time she refused to answer, knowing that if she heard his voice her resolve would break. It wouldn’t be fair, she told herself over and over, to let him give up his dream just so he could watch me die.
“Shit fire.”
“Einstein!”
“Aren’t you going to answer your phone?” the lady looking at the antique doll house asked.
With a sigh Aubrey pulled the cell phone from her pocket.
Transplant Center. The name blared at her from the tiny screen. Gasping she hit answer.
“Aubrey Rae? This is Stacey with the transplant center. Are you sitting down?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t speak, not when her heart had climbed into her throat.
“Aubrey?”
“I…”
The frog let out a ribbit as Tess walked in the door. Aubrey held the phone out to her.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook the phone at Tess who took it from her and put it to her ear.
“Hello?”
She watched Tess’s eyes expand. “Oh thank God. We’re on our way…No, no it doesn’t matter. Anything she needs I can bring her later. We’re leaving right now.”
The customer looked up from the doll house. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is wonderful,” Tess said. “Everything is perfect. We have to go. The store’s closed. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later.” She turned to Aubrey. “Grab your purse and your keys.”
“Einstein,” she said. “Can you take care of him for me?”
“I’ll come back and get him. The boys will take care of him. Let’s go. We have to get you to the hospital.” She grabbed Aubrey’s coat and purse. “Where are your keys?”
Aubrey pulled them out of her purse. “I have a bag. When you’re on the list they tell you to keep a bag packed. It’s a blue gym bag under my bed. I’m supposed to bring it. It’ll just take a second. Start closing for me.”
She stopped, hands pressed together as if she were praying, and perhaps she was. “I’m getting a kidney, Tess. I’m getting a kidney.” The tears flowed down her cheeks and down Tess’s as well.
“I know,” her friend whispered. “Not just a kidney. A future.”
****
It seemed to Jim that his father had been silent for hours. He was starting to wonder if his father had fallen asleep when he heard him speak. “We were married forty-three years, but even if I’d only had her for forty-three days it would have been worth it.”
Jim moved around until he could see his dad’s face. The look on the older man’s face took him by surprise. He expected to see sorrow, but his expression was serene, a hint of a smile curving his lips.
“When Beth died I wanted them to bury me in the grave with her. At first I kept going because I knew it was what she would want. That first night I slept in my recliner. I couldn’t stand the thought of lying in the bed without her.”
Jim remembered that first night. He’d come home when his father told him his mother didn’t have much longer. Those last five days of her life his father refused to leave her side. He was holding her hand when she passed away shortly before dawn.
When they returned to the house that night his dad refused to sleep in his own bed. When he’d gone to sleep in the recliner the second night, Jim worried about how to handle it, but woke in the morning to find the chair empty and his father asleep in his own bed.
“That second night,” his father continued, “I was asleep in the chair when I heard your mother calling my name and telling me to come to bed. I got up out of the chair and I was halfway down the hall when I realized what I was doing. I knew your mother wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life sleeping in a chair or grieving.” He gave a little nod as if confirming something within himself.
“I miss your mother every day, but I try not to grieve. I’m grateful you came home to help me through her death and the weeks that followed. Yo
u can stay as long as you want. I’m glad to have you.” Mischief sparked his eyes. “Your mother and I always wanted grandchildren, you know. How are we going to get any if you’re staying home looking after me? I’m an old man, Jim, but not ancient. I’m not senile and I’m in good health for a man in his sixties. I have friends and I have my church. I’ll be all right.”
For just a moment he imagined Aubrey holding a newborn baby in her arms. Then he remembered why he wasn’t with Aubrey right now. There wouldn’t be any children for her. She might not live long enough to celebrate another Christmas.
He let out a bitter laugh. When his father raised an eyebrow Jim merely shook his head. The doll was cursed all right, he thought. It had brought him to the one woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. A woman at the end of her life.
He studied his mother’s headstone for a moment, then clapped a hand on his father’s shoulder. He knew what he had to do.
Chapter Eighteen
The sign said closed. Jim tried the knob. Locked. He leaned close to the glass in the door, cupping one hand against the side of his face and peering in. The lights were off, except the one over the old candy counter and the one at the back of the store; lights Aubrey left on when she closed. It was barely three o’clock. Why would she close?
He walked around to the back of the store. Her car, a small hatchback, was parked next to the outside stairs that led to her apartment.
He took the steps two at a time. Was she sick? Hurt?
Jim knocked on the door and, when she didn’t answer, pounded it with his fist.
Pulling out his cell phone he tried calling her again. The phone rang a few times then went to voicemail.
“Aubrey,” he said, “will you please talk to me? The shop’s closed and you’re not answering your door. I need to know that you’re all right. I love you. Please baby, even if we only have a few months together, I want those months.”
He hit end and stood for a few more minutes outside her door. When she didn’t answer he headed to his car.
“Mister Tanner!”
He looked across the street to see two teenaged boys. It took a minute to place them; Tess’s two sons.
“Is Aubrey all right?” he asked them. “The shop’s closed and—”
“She’s at the hospital,” the younger of the two said.
“What happened? Is she all right? Which hospital?”
Amazingly the older of the two laughed, holding up a set of keys hanging from a sparkly red heart. Jim hoped the key ring belonged to Tess.
“Mom sent us to get Einstein and take him over to our house. Aubrey’s going to be in the hospital for a few days.”
“Is it the shunt?”
“No,” the younger one said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “This time it’s something good.”
****
Aubrey opened her eyes just a sliver. The light seemed too bright. Her belly hurt and for a moment the pain confused her.
“Your sister’s here,” a nurse said. Sister?
“I told her and your fiancé they can only stay a few minutes.”
Fiancé? Okay, now she was really confused.
Tess came in, smiling from ear-to-ear. “Hi, sis,” she said with a wink.
Aubrey touched her belly with light fingertips and raised her eyes to Tess.
“It went perfectly,” Tess said. “The doctor said it was making urine in less than a minute.” Tears poured down her cheeks, dark circles framed her eyes but Aubrey didn’t think she’d ever seen her friend look happier.
“Guess who else is here?”
Aubrey turned her head to see who Tess was motioning to. Jim stepped into her view, took her hand in his and held it gently.
“How’d you know I was here?” Her voice was rough, her throat scratchy and sore.
“He went to your apartment,” Tess said. “The boys saw him and told him where you were.”
“We need to let her get some rest,” the nurse said. “We’ll be moving her up to ICU. She’ll be allowed visitors in the morning.”
Jim’s head snapped around to look at the nurse. “Intensive Care? I thought everything went well?”
“It’s just a precaution.”
Jim leaned over the bed, pressed a kiss against her forehead and gave her hand one last squeeze. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
****
He was true to his word. She woke in the morning to find him sitting in a chair next to her bed, reading a photography magazine.
“Morning, Beautiful.”
She offered him a weak smile. “I doubt I’m even presentable, let alone beautiful.”
“Trust me, you’re the most beautiful woman I know. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been kicked in the stomach by a team of mules. And since that means I have a brand new kidney, I feel wonderful.”
“I love you,” he said suddenly. “I want to marry you.”
She shook her head.
He leaned closer, reaching for her hand, holding it in both of his. “You just lost your excuse,” he said. “You’re lying there with a functioning kidney. You’re no longer living under a death sentence. Marry me.”
“It’s not the first time,” she whispered.
“You’ve been married before?”
“No. I had a transplant before.”
He gave a little nod. “I remember. You told me on Valentine’s Day.”
He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss upon her knuckles. “You’re not scaring me away, Aubrey. I love you and God willing we’ll have a long life together. If not, I’ll take what we have and be grateful for each day.”
“What about kids? There are women who have gotten pregnant and had healthy babies after a transplant but—”
He shook his head. “A pregnancy would put a strain on your kidney. We don’t need to risk that. There are plenty of kids out there looking for parents.”
“You’d be willing to adopt?”
His face creased in the widest grin she could ever remember seeing. “Most people assume I’m named after my father—”
“Aren’t you?”
He shook his head. “My first name is Jimi. With an i on the end. Mom couldn’t have kids, so she and Dad adopted me when I was two, after my birth mother died.”
He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “Give me another excuse. I’ll shoot that one down, too.”
She laughed, pressing a hand to her incision when the motion jiggled her belly.
“I’m fresh out of excuses.”
Epilogue
One month later
“Don’t you dare overdo it,” Tess warned as Aubrey stepped into the store. “Half-a-day. That’s all you’re working for now.”
“Tess, I feel fine. Honestly. I don’t think I’ve felt this good since I was sixteen.” There was no sign of trouble with her new kidney and she and her doctor were both optimistic.
“The boys come in after school to help. School ends in another week and they can help out fulltime. You’re still recovering, no matter how well you feel, and you have a wedding to plan. Don’t push yourself. As long as you’re getting along with Jim’s dad there’s no rush to move back into your apartment. Especially with Jim getting ready to leave on this trip.”
“This is a short one. He’ll be gone about two weeks.” And she’d miss him every minute.
“Actually, James said he wouldn’t mind having us stay with him permanently.”
Aubrey laughed at the shocked look on her friend’s face. “I love James dearly, but Jim and I both want our own home. Still, I might spend some time there when Jim’s gone.”
She looked at the antique Jack-in-the-box in the display case. “Where’s the scrimshaw doll?”
Tess glanced at the case. “I’m sorry, I should have told you. While you were in the hospital after your transplant, someone came in and bought the doll. Paid cash. Said it was just what they had been looking for.”
Aubrey looked at the
spot where the doll had been. She’d miss it, but she had a feeling it was time for the doll to move on.
A word from the author...
I lived on both the Pacific West Coast and the Gulf Coast before following my husband to Oklahoma. I attended Florida State University when I lived in Tallahassee.
I've been blessed with a mother who taught me to love reading and a husband who's a real-life romance hero. I find it difficult to sleep if there are not books close enough to touch.
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