by Marta Perry
He looked up. His eyes were filled with the same pain and longing that was tearing her heart to shreds. “Yes.”
“When?” She took a step inside the room.
“I’ve got a flight out of Cincinnati at two o’clock. I can make it if I hurry.”
“Today?” He heard the despair in her voice because he stopped packing and came to take her in his arms. Huddled against his chest, she said, “I don’t want you to go.”
If she told him that she loved him, would he stay? Did she have the right to ask him?
He whispered, “You could practice as a CNM in Hawaii. It’s a beautiful, special place.”
Those were the words she both longed and dreaded to hear. “There are no Amish in Hawaii.”
The strength ebbed out of his embrace. “Why are they so important to you?”
“I don’t really know—except I believe this is where God wants me to be.” She looked up. “Why don’t you stay? You know Harold could use the help.”
“Not according to him. He’s in a rush to get back in the saddle. I’m in the way. I’ve changed things.”
“He’s bluffing. He does need help, especially now. He can barely walk.”
“Even if I didn’t have commitments in Hawaii, I wouldn’t stay longer.”
“Of course. It was silly of me to ask.”
He held her at arm’s length. “Let’s not make this any harder than it already is. We knew from the start that I was only here for a short while.”
Her throat ached with unshed tears. “Somehow, I forgot that.”
Gently, he stroked her cheek. “So did I. I never meant to hurt you, Amber.”
“I know that.”
“You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met in my life. Knowing you has been an honor. I’ve learned so much from you about the Amish, about birthing babies and a great deal about myself. If you ever change your mind, you’ll be welcome in Hawaii.”
“I thought we weren’t going to make this harder than it already is?” Her voice caught on the last word and she pressed a hand to her lips as she struggled not to cry. “I’d love to see your island, but Harold is going to need me more than ever. I can’t run out on him now.”
“No, and I shouldn’t ask you to do that.” Defeat laced his words. She stepped away from him and wondered why life had to be so difficult.
Just then, her cell phone rang. As much as she wanted to ignore it, she couldn’t. One of her patients needed her. The longer she stayed with Phillip the harder it became to say goodbye.
Holding up the phone, she said, “I have to take this.”
She silenced the ringing and put the party on hold. Taking another step away, she said, “Have a wonderful flight. I know you’ll be a great doctor in Hawaii. Send me a postcard of the ocean.”
She turned and ran before the tears started falling again.
* * *
Phillip pressed his fingertips to his eyes to ease the burning pain behind them. Why had God allowed him to find the most perfect woman in the world only to put her out of reach?
A tap at the door made him look up. Harold stood in the doorway. “May I come in?”
“It’s your office.” Phillip turned away to finish putting his few personal belongings in his carry-on case. The last item to go in was Doctor Dog. Phillip drew his hand over the puppet’s silky ears before putting him away.
Harold cleared his throat nervously. “I’m hearing good things about what you did while you were here. I’m a little sorry now that I rushed back.”
Phillip glanced at his grandfather with concern. “Are you well enough to be back to work?”
Holding out his leg cast, Harold said, “I’ll need some physical therapy when this comes off, but they tell me I’ll be as fit as ever. The old noggin gets headaches. Hopefully, those will fade.” Stepping close, Harold said, “I know you didn’t have an easy time here, but I’m proud of the way you handled yourself. Your father would have been proud of you, too.”
“I hope someday I can become as good a doctor as he hoped to be.”
Harold drew back, a puzzled frown on his face. “Your father never wanted to be a doctor.”
Stunned, Phillip stared at his grandfather. “Wait a minute. What are you saying?”
“My boy wanted to be a musician from the time he could reach the piano keys. I know you idolized him, but he drifted from club to club playing his saxophone and guitar. He was always broke, never had a decent place to live. I prayed for him. I paid for his college but he blew that, too.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me this?” It was like Phillip’s world had tipped off its axis.
“Was it your mother who told you Brendan wanted to be a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“What else did she tell you about him?”
“That he loved baseball.”
“I wouldn’t say he loved it, but he enjoyed Little League.”
“And did he surf?”
“As far as I know, he never tried it.”
Phillip sat down, his knees suddenly weak. His entire life he’d done things because he believed they were the things his father wanted to do. It had all been a lie. Why?
He thought back to those times. When his mother wanted him to play ball, he refused at first. Telling him his father had loved the sport had changed his mind. Shortly after that, she began dating his coach.
She’d never brought up the subject of surfing until they moved to California. She had hooked up with more than one beach bum during those years.
He looked up at Harold. “Why did my father join the Marines?”
“Your mother should tell you that.”
Phillip stood and picked up his bag. “This time she will.”
He started to leave, but Harold grabbed him in a fierce hug and clung to him as if for dear life. “I’m going to miss you, my boy. I love you, more than I thought possible. I loved your father, too. Remember that and don’t think badly of me.”
“I could never think badly of you.”
Sniffing once, Harold straightened. “It was great getting to know you. Thank you for everything you’ve done to keep this practice going. It’s all I have left in the world.”
Pulling a card from his pocket, Phillip handed it to him. “This is the number of a young doctor who’d like to go into practice with you. You should give him a call. The Amish deserve to have someone here after you’re gone. Hopefully, that won’t be for many years so you can train him up the way you want.”
Harold took the card. “God bless you, Phillip.”
“And you, too, sir.” With a nod of goodbye, he walked out to the lobby. Wilma rose from her desk and came around to shake his hand and wish him well.
Out in the parking lot, he tossed his bag on the front seat of his car, then glanced toward the building once more. Amber stood at the window in the first exam room. She raised her hand and pressed it to the glass.
He raised his hand briefly in return, then got into his car and drove away.
* * *
His flight was long and tedious, giving him plenty of time to rehash every decision he’d made in Hope Springs. Right or wrong, he still wasn’t sure. He put his pain and unhappiness in God’s hands. The Lord had a plan for his life that he couldn’t see yet. He had to believe that.
After seventeen hours in a cramped airline seat, he was more than happy to get off the plane. To his surprise, his mother was waiting near the gate.
“Mom! I wasn’t expecting you.” He gave her a quick hug.
“When my baby is gone for two months, do you think I wouldn’t want to see you the moment you got off the plane? Tell me about your stay in that frightful place.”
Petite, with an artfully styled riot of red curls that wasn’t her natural color, Melinda Watson tried never to look her age, yet tonight she looked much older than he remembered. There were carefully disguised dark circles under her eyes.
He wasn’t ready to talk about his time in Ohio. “Mom, what I want is a
hot shower and to sleep for a week.”
“I thought you could use a lift back to your apartment.”
“I could have grabbed a cab. Where’s Michael?”
“I didn’t tell him you were coming today. I thought you and I could visit for a while.”
“All right. Let me get my bags.” He was tired, but he didn’t want to dampen her happiness. Besides, he had questions he needed to ask her.
“Marvelous.” She clapped her hands together. “Why don’t we have dinner at the Maui Fire? I hear it’s the hot new place.”
After catching his bags off the carousel, he followed his mother outside into the warm, tropical evening air. He could smell the sea. For the first time in his life it didn’t make him want to pick up his board. It reminded him of Amber…and her sea-green eyes glistening with tears.
How was he going to function if he couldn’t cross the airport parking lot without missing her so much his heart felt like a jumble of broken glass?
His mother continued to chat aimlessly on the drive. Watching the familiar sights of high-rise hotels and waving palm trees, he couldn’t help comparing the glitter and glitz to the simple rolling hills and plain white farmsteads of the Amish countryside.
“You’re very quiet,” she said, sneaking a peek at him.
“I’m tired.”
“A good dinner will perk you up in no time.”
He didn’t want food. He wanted answers. “Why did you tell me my father wanted to be a doctor?”
“Because he did!”
“Was that before or after he wanted to form his own rock band?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she slowed the car and turned into the parking lot of one of the popular beaches, stopping the car where they faced the ocean. The waves came sweeping in, each topped with a whitecap of foam. His stomach was churning in much the same fashion.
After rolling down the windows, she turned the car off. Gripping the steering wheel, she stared straight ahead. “Phillip, I wasn’t a very good mother when you were young. I know that. I do.”
She turned to gaze at him. “But I’ve been a good mother since I met Michael, haven’t I? I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
“You’ve always done your best, Mom. I love you, too.”
“I know how excited you were to find your grandfather, but he isn’t a good man. Believe me, I know.”
Phillip drew a deep breath. Was he finally going to get to the bottom of this? “He is a good man, Mother. He’s kind and devoted to the Amish and his community.”
“Well, he wasn’t always that way. Your father and he never got along. Nothing Brendan did was good enough for Harold. Finding out that Brendan and I were planning to get married infuriated him. I wasn’t good enough for his only son.” Scorn dripped off her every word.
Phillip wasn’t sure he liked where this conversation was leading. “Some parents have trouble accepting their child’s new spouse at first. It normally changes over time.”
“Harold didn’t want his son tied down with a family at such a young age. He knew Brendan couldn’t handle it, that it would destroy his life. We were only nineteen and I was pregnant. We were as poor as dirt, living in Brendan’s van half the time. Oh, Brendan’s father had plenty of money. He could have helped us but he wanted his son to earn his own way.”
Phillip tried to imagine what his mother had gone through back then. “I’m sorry things were so difficult for you. I never knew.”
“And I never wanted you to know but there’s no point in hiding it any longer. Your grandfather came to me and offered me a lot of money.”
Phillip’s heart sank. “He paid you to leave my father?”
“He paid me to get rid of you.”
The blood rushed to Phillip’s brain and sent his head pounding. “I don’t believe it!”
Calmly, she replied, “It’s true. When Brendan found out, he flipped. He and your grandfather had a terrible fight. Brendan told his old man he’d find a way to support his wife and a child. Then he stormed out of the house and stopped at the first recruiting station he could find.”
“That’s why he joined the Marines?”
“Yes. We were married before he shipped out and he was killed three months later. It’s your grandfather’s fault that your father is dead.”
Leaning his head back against the seat rest, Phillip listened to the waves and struggled to digest all the information he’d been given. Had he wanted his grandfather to be a wonderful man so badly that he’d been blind to Harold’s faults? Perhaps that had been true, at first.
Phillip realized that he’d spent his life longing for something he could never have. He’d never have his father watch him at a ball game or sit in the audience at his graduation. Maybe he’d gone to medical school because he thought that was what his father would have wanted, but medicine was where Phillip belonged. It was his vocation.
Images of Amber slipped through his mind, quieting the turmoil inside him. Amber knew where she belonged in life. Now he finally did, too.
He couldn’t stay in Hawaii. He had to confront his grandfather, to find out if this was the truth or more of his mother’s manipulations.
Then he needed to tell Amber that he loved her. He’d been a fool to leave without telling her how he felt. If she returned his love, somehow he would to find a way to keep her in his life.
He looked at his mother. “Thanks for telling me this, Mom. I’d like to go to your house now. There are some important things I want you and Michael to hear together.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Phillip got out of his rental car in front of Harold’s home late on a Saturday afternoon. It had been almost three weeks since he’d left Hope Springs. Because it was the weekend, Phillip was reasonably sure Harold would be in. He hadn’t called in advance. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say now that he was here. After knocking, he waited outside the door.
Thumping of crutches and grumbling on the other side alerted him before Harold yanked it open. The elderly man’s annoyed expression changed to happiness, then to guarded surprise. “Phillip. What are you doing here?”
What was he doing here? What did he hope to learn? The truth? Or more carefully crafted secrets? “I need to talk to you.”
The light died in Harold’s eyes. His face went ashen. “Your mother told you, didn’t she?”
“I want to hear your side of the story.”
The man seemed to grow older in front of Phillip’s eyes. “Then you’d better come in. I can’t be up long or this miserable leg begins to swell.”
Following his grandfather inside, Phillip sat on the sofa and waited until Harold settled himself in his recliner. He sighed loudly as he grimaced and leaned back. “Thought you might like to know that Martha Nissley got to come home.”
“That’s great. How is she doing?”
“She got all the feeling back in her legs. Looks like she’ll make a full recovery.”
“That’s great to hear.” Phillip nodded toward Harold’s walking cast. “How are you managing at the clinic?”
“I get around in a wheelchair for the most part. That young whippersnapper, Dr. Zook, is helping a lot.”
“I’m glad to hear he took the job.”
“He’s got his head on straight, but don’t tell him I said so.”
“I’ll leave that to you. I’m sure he’d like a little encouragement.” Any would be more than Harold had given Phillip.
Harold dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “I don’t need to give him pats on the back. Amber and Wilma do it for me.”
“How is Amber?” Phillip was almost afraid to hear the answer but he was dying for any information about her.
“She has changed. She’s not herself, although she tries to be. Some of the light has gone out of her.”
Phillip dropped his gaze to his feet. He was to blame. “She’s a wonderful, strong woman. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t come here to talk about Am
ber, did you?”
Raising his head, Phillip stared at Harold. “I came to get some straight answers.”
“All right. Ask away.”
Phillip hesitated. His mother had lied to him and manipulated him so many times in the past. Why should he trust what she’d told him about Harold? Would it alienate his grandfather to be accused of such horrible motives? Was that her plan all along?
Well, he hadn’t come all this way for nothing. “Is it true you tried to bribe my mother to get an abortion and to leave my dad?”
Harold closed his eyes. “Stupidest mistake I ever made. I had no idea how much Brendan loved her. What a terrible fight we had when he found out.”
“At least they wanted me.” Phillip couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.
Harold folded his hands across his abdomen. “Did your mother tell you she took the money?”
Phillip blinked hard. Why wasn’t he surprised? No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to contact Harold. “She left that part out.”
“I never dreamed Brendan would enlist. I always thought we’d be able to mend things between us. Then he was killed. You are so like him. Looking at you is like looking into my past.”
“Why didn’t you take care of us after he died?”
“When Brendan was killed, your mother blamed me. At his funeral, the only time we saw each other again, she told me she’d gone through with the abortion and she never wanted to see me again. You have to understand. I held her responsible for my son’s death instead of accepting my share of the blame. I didn’t know and didn’t care where she went after that.”
Phillip struggled to find the words for what he was feeling. “We lived a hard life. She drank heavily. She got into drugs. I can’t count the times we were evicted from one rattrap or another. I can’t count the number of men she brought home. If it hadn’t been for Michael, I don’t know what would have happened to us.”
“Believe me when I tell you I’m glad your mother has found some happiness. I came to realize Brendan’s death and the loss of his child was my punishment for putting my own desires ahead of his love. In spite of what you think, I was doing what I thought was best for my son. Had I known about you, I would have moved heaven and earth to find you.”
