“It was okay, but I felt a little guilty,” Janie admitted.
“Guilty?” Marley’s brows shot up. “What did you do?”
“It’s not so much what I did, but I got to thinking about my own son off at Princeton. I was wondering if I’d make it to his parents’ weekend.”
“Did he invite you?”
Janie shook her head. “Matthew kind of played it down this time, saying it was something parents only do during freshman year. Do you think that’s true?”
Her friends agreed that it was probably true.
“Think about it,” Marley pointed out. “Did you want your parents coming to visit you at college every year?”
Janie considered this. “Not when I was actually in college, but maybe I would now.”
The phone rang, and Abby excused herself to answer, but Janie could tell by the tone of Abby’s voice that something wasn’t right. So Janie shushed Caroline and Marley and nodded in Abby’s direction. She was holding the phone with a shaking hand.
“Where did it happen?” Abby looked desperately at her friends. “Is he—is he alive?” Then Abby’s eyes closed, the phone dropped to the floor, and Abby slumped over with a gasp. In the same instant, all three friends gathered around her, helping her to a chair. Janie grabbed the phone from the floor.
“This is Janie Sorenson, Abby’s friend. Please, tell me what’s happening,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Abby’s husband is being transported to the hospital right now.”
“What happened? A car accident?”
“He collapsed on the job,” the man told her. “We think it’s his heart.”
“His heart?”
“Or a stroke. He wasn’t breathing. One of the guys gave him CPR, but it didn’t seem to work.”
Janie took in a sharp breath. “But paramedics came?”
“Yes. They just left with him.”
“Thank you,” Janie told him. “We’re on our way.”
“Is he … is he dead?” Abby asked in a tiny voice.
“No,” Janie told her firmly. “Paul’s being transported to the hospital.” She took Abby by the arm. “You come with me.”
“We’ll follow,” Caroline called out as they all rushed to gather their things and head out the door.
“Everyone, drive carefully,” Janie warned. “See you there.”
Abby was silent as Janie drove away from the house. “He’s in good hands,” Janie assured Abby. “We’ll probably get there, and he’ll be sitting up having a soda.”
“I don’t know.” Abby shook her head. “Tom said Paul wasn’t breathing, wasn’t conscious. I keep thinking about Cathy Gardener at our reunion. She never recovered.”
“Cathy is not Paul. And Paul is not Cathy.” Janie knew that was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was all she had at the moment. After all, she did know what it felt like to lose a husband. Abby wasn’t ready to go there yet.
“He hasn’t been feeling well,” Abby said weakly. “He hasn’t been himself. I should’ve known something was wrong. It’s all my fault.”
“There’s no point in blaming yourself, Abby. You know as well as I do that hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“If I hadn’t been so focused on buying the house, so self-absorbed …” Abby started crying.
“He’s going to be okay,” Janie told her. “You have to believe that, Abby. You’re the one who’s been talking about faith lately, about how you’ve been praying a lot more. You need to hold on to that now.”
So, as Janie drove, Abby bowed her head and began mumbling some words that Janie couldn’t make out, but she seemed to be praying. That had to be worth something. At least Janie hoped so.
Chapter 27
Abby
Abby stared down at Paul lying there motionless and pale, his eyes closed, tubes and wires invading his face and body. He looked like someone else, so much older than she normally thought of him … so tired … worn out … fragile, even. This was nothing like the young man she’d fallen for so long ago, back when they were both sixteen and naive enough to believe that their passion and youth and love would last forever.
For all these years—their entire adult lives—their lives had intermingled, meshing together as they shared meals, beds, children, good times, hard times … and everything in between. In all reality, Paul was the one person Abby knew almost as well as she knew herself. Now she couldn’t even make a connection with him. It was like he was in another world, already gone, and it was killing her.
“Oh, Paul.” She sighed as she pushed a strand of gray hair off his forehead. He was overdue for a haircut … overdue for a lot of things, including that doctor’s checkup she’d meant to schedule for him whether he wanted it or not. Why hadn’t she done it? Why hadn’t she listened to her instincts?
She choked back a sob, willing herself to remain strong for his sake. “I’m here,” she said quietly, placing her hand on his, tightening her grasp, trying to infuse warmth, love, life. “Please, come back to me, my darling. I love you so much. I know I say silly, selfish things sometimes. We both say things we don’t mean. I’m sorry. Please, come back to me.” She felt hot tears streaking down her cheeks. “I need you so much, Paul. I never tell you that, but it’s true. I really, really need you. Please, come back to me.”
She gently laid her head on his chest, not putting any weight on him for fear of hurting his already damaged heart. But she wanted to feel his closeness, his warmth, and breathe in his scent. She had always loved his scent, even those times when she’d nagged him to take a shower. She silently pleaded with God. She was ready to beg, bargain, or sacrifice whatever it would take to get him to spare Paul.
“I’m sorry, but you must keep your visits to a maximum of fifteen minutes.” The nurse placed a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “ICU rules.”
“Yes.” Abby stepped away, slowly removing her hand from his. “I’m sorry.”
The nurse nodded, then began checking the monitors and tubes and injected something into the IV. Abby slipped out of the room with trembling knees. Walking down the brightly lit hallway, she felt confused, wondering how this had happened. How had they been blindsided like this? Today had started out like such a normal day. This morning when she’d called Paul to tell him the good news about the house, he actually sounded happy for her. Now they were here, life hanging in the balance. So surreal.
“How’s he doing?” Janie asked as Abby rejoined her friends in the waiting area.
Unable to say the words, Abby pressed her lips together, then shook her head. Just like that, the three of them wrapped her in their arms, and she let the tears flow freely. “This feels like it’s my fault,” she blurted. “Like my selfishness is what killed him.”
“But he’s not dead, is he?” Caroline looked at Abby with wide eyes.
“No, he’s not dead.” Abby pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes. “But he’s not really alive either. It’s only the machines … keeping him going.”
“He will pull through this,” Marley said firmly. “I have a very strong feeling he’s going to be okay.”
Abby stared at her. “How do you know? How can you say that?”
Marley pointed to her chest with a sincere expression. “I sometimes have a sixth sense about things. And I’ve got a strong one here.”
Abby wanted to believe her, but a sixth sense? It just seemed a little far-fetched.
“Did you get hold of the girls?” Abby asked. She’d left her cell phone with Janie, asking her to call family while she was with Paul.
“Just Jessie,” Janie told her. “She’s on her way here. She and little Lucy promised to call Laurie—”
“And your mom’s trying to reach Nicole,” Marley added.
“Which won’t be easy. What time is it in
France?” No one seemed to know. Abby wondered if it might not be better to shelter Nicole from this for the time being. Really, what could she do from the other side of the world? Abby didn’t want her to feel pressured to drop everything and come home.
“I asked your mom to swing by your house and make sure the stove’s turned off,” Marley told her.
“Thank you.” Abby shook her head in embarrassment. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’ve never left a stove on in my life. Paul would kill me if I burned the house down.”
Caroline put an arm around Abby’s shoulders and squeezed her. “No, he would not, Abby. Do you know how much that man loves you?”
Abby let out a jagged sigh. “What just hit me … in there … is how much I love him. How much I need him. I can’t believe how much I’ve taken him for granted.” She felt the lump in her throat coming back. “I’m still afraid that I’m the reason he’s in there right now. It’s … it’s my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Caroline insisted. “How can you possibly say that?”
“Because I’ve been so stubborn about getting that house and starting up the bed-and-breakfast. Paul’s been against it, right from the start, but I just kept pushing forward, rolling along like a steamroller, insisting on my way when all the while Paul’s been worried about his business and our finances. I’m sure I’ve completely stressed him out. It’s no wonder he’s in there … dying.” Abby was sobbing again. Once again, her friends gathered her into their arms, this time walking her over to the seating area and easing her onto a sofa.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I wanted to keep it together, but it’s just so hard.”
“Go ahead and cry as much as you want,” Caroline urged. “I usually feel better after a good long cry.”
“But you must quit blaming yourself,” Marley injected. “You are not responsible for your husband’s health. Anyone can have a heart attack, Abby. It’s not always stress-related. You do not get to own that.”
“That’s right,” Janie agreed. “Blaming yourself for Paul’s heart attack makes as much sense as me blaming myself for Phil’s cancer. It’s just pointless and wrong. You have to know that.”
Abby considered this as she blew her nose. “I’d like to believe that’s true.”
“It is true.” Janie nodded firmly. “Phil had a friend—not an attorney either—who seemed to have this perfect life. He took care of his health and jogged every day and was happily married with kids and loved his job. And one day he just dropped dead from a heart attack. The only reason was a congenital heart defect. You just never know.”
“Besides,” Marley said quickly. “Paul is not going to die. I really have a strong sense that he’ll be okay.”
Abby hoped Marley was right, but what if she wasn’t?
“We’ve been praying,” Caroline told her. “I have to go home to relieve Darlene now, but I’m going to keep praying. I’m going to pray nonstop until Paul pulls through.”
“And I’m going over to your house,” Marley said, “to clean things up from our little party.”
“Sorry you guys didn’t get any lunch,” Abby said.
“Oh, Abby.” Janie shook her head. “Don’t be silly.”
“I know,” Marley said. “I’ll pack up the food and bring it back here.”
“If the quiche isn’t ruined.”
“Well, if it’s ruined, I’ll just pick us something up,” Marley promised. Then she and Caroline left.
“I don’t want you to feel you need to stay here,” Abby told Janie. “I’m sure you have things to—”
“The only thing I have to do is to be with you.” Janie patted her back. “So don’t try to get rid of me.”
Abby looked at her watch. “Is it really only two o’clock? It feels like it’s been hours … days … since that phone call.”
“It’s probably going to be a very long day. How about if I get us some coffee or tea or something?”
Abby just nodded.
“I’ll be back soon.”
Then Abby was alone. Sitting and waiting felt impossible, so she stood and before long was pacing and praying. She wandered toward the ICU, peering into Paul’s window to see that the nurse was still with him, and he still looked exactly the same. Only family was allowed to visit in the ICU, and only for fifteen minutes every two hours. Abby wasn’t sure that anyone was really tracking these visitations, but at the same time she didn’t want to do anything to impede Paul’s recovery. And yet she wanted to be in there, to be by his side, to keep talking to him. Really, how could that hurt?
“There you are.” Janie handed Abby a paper cup. “Green tea with a bit of honey. Hope that’s okay.”
Abby nodded. “Perfect. Thanks.”
“Any changes?” Janie nodded toward the ICU.
Abby shook her head. “Not that I’ve heard. I just wish I could sit with him.”
Janie frowned. “I really don’t understand their visiting restrictions here. Some hospitals encourage family members to remain with ICU patients because it helps in their recovery.”
“What could they do to me if I broke their rules?”
Janie’s brow creased. “I doubt they’d resort to any legal action. But, having been in this position before, I wouldn’t encourage you to antagonize the people who are caring for your husband.”
“No, I suppose not.”
They walked back toward the waiting area just as Abby’s mom came rushing in. She hugged Abby and inquired about Paul. Abby gave her a quick update, and her mom said that Laurie was trying to get off work and catch a flight up here. “She probably won’t arrive until tomorrow.”
Abby blinked. “Laurie is coming home?”
Her mom nodded. “Won’t it be wonderful to see her?”
Abby just nodded. She wished the circumstances were different, but at least Laurie was coming. That was something. Abby hoped Paul would get to see her and talk to her.
“I left a message for Nicole to call you,” her mom told her.
“I was wondering how much I should tell her, Mom. As badly as I want her to come home, I thought maybe I should play this down a bit.”
“You need to be honest, Abby. Nicole deserves to know exactly what’s going on with her father.”
Abby swallowed against the hard lump in her throat. “I don’t even know exactly what’s going on.”
They talked awhile longer, and then the three of them went to the small chapel and just sat there quietly. Abby knew her mom was praying and Janie probably was too. But the only prayer Abby could manage was a silent plea for God to spare Paul. Over and over, she begged God not to take her husband.
Chapter 28
Marley
As she drove home from the hospital Monday afternoon, Marley wished there was more she could do for Abby, something more helpful than saying she had a strong feeling that Paul was going to be okay. But the feeling—that confidence that something would turn out a certain way—was real, and it was something she’d experienced only a few times in her life. One time it was in regard to her best friend’s daughter, who’d been seriously injured in a horrible car wreck. The doctor was fairly sure that Brianna was going to lose her legs. Even if they could prevent amputation, he said, she would be unable to walk again. Marley, though, had the strongest impression that Brianna was not only going to walk, but dance. A few years later, Brianna and her new husband were dancing at their wedding.
It was when Marley had been driving to the hospital, right after Abby received the bad news, that she got the impression Paul was going to be okay. Marley had actually expected Paul to be perfectly fine by the time they arrived at the hospital. But, even though that wasn’t the case, Marley still felt relatively sure that her feeling was right. And that’s just what she’d told Abby before she left.
&n
bsp; Marley felt a little guilty for leaving, even though she’d taken a meal back to her friends and stayed to help eat it. Abby had Janie, her mom, her granddaughter, and her daughter Jessie. Laurie would be there in the morning. Really, Marley just felt like extra baggage. She still had a painting to finish by the weekend, so she decided to head for home.
She felt a strange sense of loneliness when she parked in front of her beach bungalow. Doris’s lights were off next door, because she was with Abby. The fog had rolled in, and the sound of the ocean, which Marley usually loved, seemed strangely haunting tonight.
Marley went into her house, flipped on the lights, turned on some music, and even lit a small fire to take the damp chill out of the air. But when she got set to paint, her creative juices had been sucked dry. So she put her painting things away, puttered around a bit, and eventually crawled into bed with a book. Although she was trying to focus on the story, she was keenly aware of how alone she felt … and lonely. She closed the book and turned off the light and just listened to the sea, wondering where this heavy sense of loneliness had come from.
Certainly, she was concerned about Abby and Paul. Despite her conviction that Paul would be all right, she knew that Abby would be very lonely without him if he did die. Marley supposed that she might be superimposing those emotions onto her own life, but that didn’t really seem to be the situation. This was a heavier sort of loneliness, almost spiritual in its depth. As Marley listened to the sea—pondering its never-ending tides and rhythms, she became profoundly aware of her own mortality. Although she’d assured Abby that Paul wasn’t going to die, she knew that eventually he would die. They all would die. It was inevitable. For some reason this concept just seemed to devastate her, right in the center of her soul.
She sat up in bed and stared into the darkness. She, Marley Phelps, was going to die someday. And then what? Marley had always believed in God—a higher spiritual power, a creative force in the universe. But her convictions had never been much more substantive than that. Unlike Caroline and even Abby and sometimes Janie, too, Marley had never claimed to have a personal relationship with that higher power. In a way, it seemed presumptuous for anyone to make such a claim. Not that she’d ever said as much to her friends.
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