Sandcastles Under the Christmas Moon

by Vickie McKeehan

  It caused her to abandon her anger and soften her voice. “Charlotte is awake and asking for you. Are you okay?”

  “Not nearly. Who am I kidding? Why am I the one considering this? Charlotte needs to see an oncologist and fast.”

  “So get in touch with one. Let him guide you through what exactly you should do. But something tells me you’d be wasting your time. That sweet old lady in there won’t want to leave Pelican Pointe for a specialist in Santa Cruz. Why? Because she knows Beckham would have no one to look after him.”

  “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  On the short walk down the hall, Quentin dragged his feet, dreading the sight of Beckham’s grandmother so sick and pale. Her condition was a sad reminder that a long list of incurable diseases existed that still had no cure.

  He finally opened the door because he heard her struggling to catch her breath. The coughing was unlike anything he’d ever heard. He went over to help her sit up. “How’s it going, Mrs. Dowling?”

  “I’ve had better years,” Charlotte quipped in a raspy voice. “What did the tests tell you?”

  He rolled a stool over so he could sit beside her. “I’m afraid it’s bad news. You have Stage-4 cancer, specifically you’re suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. If that isn’t bad enough, it’s already spread through your lungs and into your spinal cord.”

  “How much time would you say I have left?”

  “It’s not up to me to say. You should see an oncologist, a specialist that knows more about the precise treatment than what I know. There are several in Santa Cruz. I’ve spent the afternoon lining up—”

  Charlotte didn’t let him finish. “Forget that. I’m not leaving my home. I want to know how much time I have. I need an answer so that I can make arrangements to have Beckham cared for. You mustn’t let him get thrown into the foster care system, not after what happened to his father.”

  “Are there other family members I could call?”

  It took a lot of strength for Charlotte to move her head from side to side. “There’s no one. That’s how Beckham came to live with me in the first place. Beckham’s father, my son, got himself involved with a woman who preferred partying to mothering. The last thing she wanted was to be saddled with a baby. She left out of here with the first traveling man who came to town promising her a good time. Beckham was about two at the time. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember her. I’ve raised Beckham. He’s a good boy. I don’t want to see him drifting in and out of foster homes because of this. He deserves better. If I must leave him, there are things I need to do to make sure he’s taken care of. And you have to help me.”

  Quinten picked up Charlotte’s hand. “I promise you I’ll do everything I can to keep Beckham out of the system via state services.”

  “Will you? Then get Kinsey Donnelly in here. I need to set things straight before something bad happens.”

  From the doorway, Sydney had been listening. She wiped tears out of her eyes. This man was not the heartless person she’d first thought.

  She waited until he came out of Charlotte’s room. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I’ll stay with her through the night. Besides, if memory serves, you have that dog-sitting thing to deal with tonight.”

  “With all this, I’d forgotten all about it. Maybe there’s a way I can keep Beckham occupied while you figure out her treatment method. I’d have to clear it with Eastlyn and Cooper first, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem if he stays with me tonight. If I have to I’ll explain that I need him there to keep me company.”

  “That’d be great if you could occupy his mind and keep him from sitting around here depressed and worried. Even if it’s just for one night, it’d give me a chance to secure the latest and greatest drugs out there for her and get the treatment started tomorrow if possible.”

  “I can do that.”

  “But make sure the kid does his homework. He doesn’t like school.”

  “I’m not an amateur, Quentin. I know a thing or two about teenagers.”

  He grinned. “Good to know.”

  At four-fifteen Beckham charged into the clinic like a whirlwind. The boy was full of energy and questions. “How is Gram? Can I see her? Did Quentin make her better?”

  Sydney sucked in a long breath. “Whoa there. She’s resting. Quentin needs to talk to you, though. He’s back in his office.”

  Beckham found the doctor hunched over his laptop. “What’s up? Did you fix up my grandmother?”

  Quentin rubbed the back of his neck. “Have a seat.” He waited until the boy turned glaring eyes on him before he started detailing what was wrong. “Maybe if she’d seen a doctor sooner…” Quentin explained. “No one knows why cancer is so devastating to one person while another can battle it with success.”

  “Lymphoma? Are you sure? Maybe you made a mistake.”

  “There’s no mistake. Your gram’s very sick.” The terrified look on the boy’s face made him instantly think of his own grandmother and how he would’ve felt at the prospect of losing her at such an early age. He bit his lip and struggled to regain control of his emotions, realizing what the implication was for Beckham. No thirteen-year-old should have to deal with this kind of uncertainty.

  Beckham was impatient for Quentin to go on. “And? You’ll make her better, right? Just do your thing and she’ll be okay.”

  Quentin decided false hope could lead to problems. Honesty was the best way to go. “The late stage cancer in her body has been allowed to progress without anything to stop it. She hasn’t been eating right or taking very good care of herself for a long time now, which probably contributed to her rapid decline.”

  “So it’s my fault,” Beckham shouted.

  “No. That’s not what I meant. Her type of cancer metastasizes very quickly if left unchecked. It’s already spread to her lungs and to her spine. That’s why she’s been coughing so much, sleeping so much. Her immune system is on overload.”

  “But there’s medicine she can take, right? There’s chemo for cancer. It’s that stuff that makes your hair fall out.”

  Quentin came around the desk and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I promise I’ll give her everything I can come up with to prolong things for as long as she says it’s okay. I’ve already found a powerful cocktail that will hit her hard, but should put a dent in her type of cancer. Just know that things will look bleak during her first round. The chemo is hard on a person’s system. Normally she’d see an oncologist in Santa Cruz. But I’ve already mentioned that and she nixed the idea. So, we’ll keep her here at the clinic after each of her treatments, then we’ll send her back home where we’ll stick close by. Either way, I’ll be with her every step of the way or Sydney will. After each round of chemo, we’ll get her through the night or however long it takes. We aren’t giving up on this, Beckham.”

  “What will happen if she…?”

  “Don’t think like that right now. Think positive. There’s no need to be afraid. I won’t let you go through this alone and neither will Sydney.”

  “How can you stop this from happening?”

  “I can’t. We’ll get through it, though, as best as we can.”

  “And afterward…after she…?”

  “I won’t let you become a ward of the state. I’m a doctor, remember? I can do all manner of things with my superpowers.”

  “Except save my gram,” Beckham concluded with the wisdom of an old man.

  “You have my word I’ll do everything, try anything, to get her into remission. But you need to understand the likelihood of that happening is a long shot.”

  “Prepare for the worst. I get it,” Beckham said. “Can she go home?”

  Sydney came into the room and put her arms around Beckham. “Your grandmother has to stay right where she is, at least for a couple of days. I already agreed to dog-sit a friend’s rambunctious puppy for a couple of days. What if you came along with me tonight and kept me company? It would take your mind off things he
re for a while.”

  “I guess. Could we get pizza for supper?”

  “That could be arranged. But you’ll have to work for it.”

  “What is it I have to do?”

  “First you hit the books and take care of your homework. Then you can take the mutt for a walk. He drags me along like a rag doll. Maybe you’ll have better luck controlling him.”

  Ten

  It wasn’t much of a hardship to spend the night at the Richmond house. More spacious than her beach bungalow, it had a unique touch of Pueblo revival mixed with a Spanish eclectic style that gave the place a nostalgic look.

  The stucco outside had been done in a hint of ginger color with its own matching adobe fence around the perimeter, walling in the front yard. A set of wooden double doors in the middle acted as a gate that led into the stone-tiled courtyard. It was Sydney’s favorite part of the house. She could have sat outside for the remainder of the night, enjoying the night sky. But there was just one minor problem. Jimmy Chew couldn’t be left alone for ten minutes without trying to eat the sofa.

  “The dog has more energy than sense,” Eastlyn conveyed as she loaded her suitcase into the car. “But don’t worry about taking him to work with you. Cooper does it all the time and Jimmy’s more well behaved at the train store than he is at home. Go figure.”

  “Sounds like he might need to go to doggie school,” Sydney concluded, studying the ball of brown and tan fur that looked more like it belonged to a husky than a short-haired Lab.

  “More like special tutoring,” Cooper added as he tossed his bag into the back next to Eastlyn’s. “We hope to tackle that issue after we get back. For now, just try to keep him off the furniture. Since you brought Beckham with you, maybe the two will run off some energy, tire each other out before bedtime.”

  “That’s the plan,” Sydney confirmed with a wink. “Thanks for letting me bring Beckham.”

  “Hey, I went through rough times at home as a kid,” Cooper admitted. “I know what it’s like to worry about things you have no control over and there’s no way of making them better. You two make yourselves at home. There are plenty of movies to watch, plenty of food on hand. Look for us back Friday morning because I have to help brother Caleb unload that truck.”

  “Beckham plans to help.”

  Cooper slammed the car door shut. “We talked about it already. We’re looking forward to having him. Let’s go, Eastlyn. It’s time we got on the road.”

  “Enjoy yourselves,” Sydney said, waving them off before heading into the house.

  It was a good thing she’d agreed to do this job here and not at her own home. Jimmy proved he preferred shoes as chew toys and could gnaw through leather faster than Lassie could rescue Timmy.

  “He’s latched onto the handle of your purse again,” Beckham pointed out.

  “No!” Sydney shouted, ripping the strap out of the canine’s jaws for the second time in fifteen minutes. “Stop eating my shoulder bag. I paid good money for that.” She tried to get him to chew on a rawhide bone instead, only to have the pooch turn up his nose at it.

  Beckham thought it was hilarious. “Come on, let’s go watch some TV,” he urged the dog.

  “Not until your homework is finished,” Sydney called out.

  “All I had was math. I’m done with it. I read my science chapters on the bus.”

  “How do you concentrate on the bus enough to do your work?”

  “It’s easy. Nobody talks to me.”

  Sydney brushed a hand through the kid’s hair. “It won’t always be this bad. Now go get your math homework and let’s see how you did.”

  “Gram never checked my work.”

  “As you can plainly see, I am not your Gram.”

  He pulled some papers out of his dingy backpack, handing them off to her as if he longed to be left alone.

  They huddled over the table checking off algebra problems while the dog lounged at Beckham’s feet.

  “Are you and Quentin getting along any better?”

  “We might be if he didn’t act like the biggest horses’s ass in the county. Can you believe he doesn’t want me putting up Christmas decorations in the office? I always decorate my station for Christmas. I start out in one area and expand. What kind of jerk doesn’t like Christmas? I had it all planned, too, a nicely decked-out tree in one corner of the waiting room, garland around the doors and windows just like I did last year. But no, Dr. Blackwood can’t stand Christmas. What a Scrooge.”

  “Quentin doesn’t like the holiday season,” Beckham told her. “I don’t blame him.”

  “No kidding.” Sydney let out a pent-up sigh. “It’s because he got shot around that time, isn’t it? Don’t you think as an adult and a physician, the man could put aside that fact and act like a grownup? Christmas didn’t have anything to do with some nut going crazy with a gun.”

  “Uh, I don’t think him getting shot is the reason he hates Christmas.”

  “Oh really. Then why?”

  “Because that’s when someone shot his dad. He got murdered and then a year later his mom committed suicide about that same time of year because she was sad about it. That’s when he went to live with his grandmother.”

  Sydney’s eyes grew wide, her mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God. I had no idea. He told you all that?”

  “Yup. And it’s a lot like what happened to my dad. Strange, huh? Our dads were shot in different parts of the state at different times by different people. I think that has a lot to do with why we clicked. And I don’t see why everyone’s so in love with Christmas. What’s the big deal? It’s all about who gets the best presents from their parents. It’s stupid. When you don’t have any money, what’s the point of putting up some ugly Christmas tree that doesn’t have anything underneath it?”

  “Beckham, I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of this, not about you or Quentin. No one told me. I feel like such an idiot. Quentin mentioned your grandmother, but he didn’t say anything about how you came to live with her.”

  “I don’t think many people know about Quentin’s dad. Just me. Here, I think people know what happened to my dad but they’ve just forgotten it.”

  “I think we need a major distraction from this kind of talk. Tell you what. Let’s call in our order for pizza and then take it over to the clinic.”

  “Have supper with Gram and Quentin? Sweet!”

  “While we’re at it, we’ll pick up some soup for your Gram.”

  “But what will we do with Jimmy Chew?”

  “We’ll have him drag us over there. Unfortunately.”

  Quentin rocked baby Eli and then handed him over to Brent. “It’s okay if you want to take River and the baby and go on home tonight. I think they’ll be fine.”

  “River’s worked up about Eli, though. She’s convinced something’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know why. Mother and baby are doing very well,” Quentin stressed. “And I’m telling you Eli is in perfect health. Staying here an extra night won’t change that.”

  “She just has it in her head that something isn’t right and I can’t get her to listen to reason. What should I do?”

  “Look, I’ve listened to his heart for any irregularities. It’s fine. I’ve gone over every inch of him. He’s perfect in every way. He’s eating. I’m not sure what else to tell you.” Quentin scratched his chin. “The results of the first screenings won’t be back until the end of the week. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll call and put a rush on the entire series of tests. That way it’ll ease all our minds.”

  “That sure would make me feel better.”

  “Good. I’ll go make the call.”

  Eleven

  Sydney and Beckham found Quentin stretched out on the sofa in his office taking a nap. But as soon as he knew he wasn’t alone, his head popped up. “Do I smell pepperoni?”

  “And Fischer’s garlic rolls with sauce,” Beckham boasted as he skidded to a halt in the doorway. “Sydney got the special and sprang for t
he works. We picked up chicken noodle soup for Gram. I’m starving but I’m gonna go check on her first.”

  “Where’s River and Eli?” Sydney asked.

  “Went home. Something’s off with River, though. She’s convinced herself that Eli isn’t well.”

  “You know, I once knew of a case where a new mother, a first-timer, delivered her son in the middle of the night like River did and by morning, I’d say seven o’clock, she’d persuaded herself that the baby could walk already. Imagine, a newborn walking. She threw a hissy fit about why her son wasn’t up and out of his bassinet walking around under his own power.”

  “That seems extreme. What happened?”

  “The next day, before going home, she went back to her normal self. The doctor called it…”

  “Postpartum hysteria or psychosis,” Quentin finished. “I looked it up and had a long conversation with Jack about it. He’s seen it before. But he had to go way back to his residency days. It seems the condition has more to do with hallucinations or delusions than with depression, although it can trigger anxiety that leads into rock-bottom mood swings. But River doesn’t seem to be down, just worried.”

  “You’re sure the baby is okay?”

  “I don’t know how many ways I can say it. Eli is a healthy, normal newborn. I put a rush on all the screenings just to be on the safe side. But to tell you the truth, it isn’t Eli I’m worried about.”

  “It’s River. You don’t actually believe she’d do anything to harm the baby, do you?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s quite that bad…yet. But that’s a judgment call. Her behavior warrants watching and monitoring. If, after the tests come back, and she’s still insistent that there’s a problem, then I’ll have to talk to her and recommend a visit to a psychiatrist in Santa Cruz.”