by Morgan Henry
Derek joined her.
“Hey,” she greeted him as she looked for a glass. She was really thirsty.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Not great, but not as bad as before. Where are my pain meds? Is it time for more? It feels like time for more.”
“They were by the bed. Didn’t you see them?”
“No,” Mary answered slowly. She still wasn’t seeing great. The vision in her right eye was definitely worse than the left. She could see fairly well with the left. Aside from the spots.
“I’ll get them.”
She heard him head down the hall and return with the bottle.
Taking it from him, she took a couple. “My eyes don’t seem to want to work right,” she complained. “Maybe they’ll get better when this kicks in.”
“What do you mean?” Derek’s voice was a little sharper and sounded more focused than the soft, concerned tone she had got earlier.
“It’s fuzzy, and there are some spots too.”
He was in front of her, peering into her eyes closely, not that she could focus. “I think we had better take you to the office and let me have a look. It might be nothing, but I’d rather take a peek and be sure.”
“Can’t we go tomorrow? I don’t need to see perfectly right now.” Mary was still feeling sore and tired. She just wanted to curl up and zone out.
“I don’t think we should take the chance.” Derek gently pulled her down the hall. “I’ll help you get dressed, and we’ll all go to the office.”
A short time later, Mary was sitting in the patient chair in the office, being peered at by Derek while Logan leaned against the counter.
When Derek pulled back, he took her hands gently. “I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve detached part of your retina on the right side and torn it on the left. That’s what’s making your vision all funny. This is really serious, Mary. I’m going to make some calls to get you to an ophthalmologic surgeon in London right away.”
“What? Will I go blind?” Mary’s heart started to race.
How would she work if she were blind? She couldn’t be an accountant if she couldn’t see. How would she support herself? A thousand ugly scenarios rocketed through her head, including her moving back in with her parents. She thought she might vomit.
“Sunshine, it is highly unlikely that will happen. We will get you into surgery as fast as we can, and they can re-attach it. Most people have vision afterwards. In your case, the tear on the left is small, and the detachment on the right is also relatively small and is in a place where two out of three people regain vision for reading.” Derek’s voice was soothing. “Let me make the calls, and then I’ll answer your questions as we head to London, okay?”
“Okay.”
Logan pulled a stool over to sit with her. He took her hand and held it on his chest. “Take some deep breaths with me, Mary,” he cajoled. “Just concentrate on breathing, in and out.”
She realized she was practically panting and shakily complied. Her heart rate slowed a little as they breathed quietly together. Her anxiety eased as she focused on just moving the air in and out of her lungs and listening to Logan’s voice.
“That’s right, sunshine,” he said calmly and quietly. He kept talking to her for a few minutes until Derek came back.
“So, this is what’s going to happen. Logan’s going to take you to London while I get your medical records together and sent down electronically while you’re travelling. Then I’ll pick up some clothes and stuff for us and head down in an hour or so. That will get you there as fast as we can manage so we can get your eye fixed.”
“What will they do?” Mary asked.
“They’ll likely use a combination of laser to tack the retina in place, and then they put air in your eye to push it back where it belongs. It sounds weird, but that will hold it in place. You’ll be on eye drops for a while, and we’ll have to go back to have you checked again fairly frequently for the first month or so, but your vision should get back to normal over a period of a few weeks. Unfortunately, you’ll have to be face down a hundred percent of the time for the next one to two weeks.”
“What? Why? How do you do that?” Mary couldn’t imagine how to keep her face down.
“It’s to keep the bubble in place, and we’ll help. We can work out the details as we go along, okay? But I want you two to get going. It’s a long drive.” Derek hugged her close. “It will be okay. We just need to get moving. The specialist is waiting.” He kissed her gently.
They were off. It was a three-hour trip to London, Ontario, where there was an entire wing of a hospital devoted to eye repair. She was whisked from place to place with Logan at her side as she was evaluated, prepped, had the procedure discussed with her, and signed the consent forms. She was a good candidate to regain her vision, but there was no guarantee.
It was, however, better than leaving things as they were, in which case it would not get better at all and she would have zero chance at regaining her vision.
The procedure itself was painless and weird since she was awake the whole time.
She couldn’t see anything but bright lights, thank goodness. She wasn’t sure she wanted any view of the instruments they were using on her eyeball. Afterwards, they made her keep her head down, looking at the floor all the time.
Logan and Derek were there to pick her up.
“We’re in a hotel tonight so the doctors can check you tomorrow morning. I’ve bought some things to make life a little easier for you. Just keep your head down. The better you are at looking down, the less time you’ll have to spend like this.” Derek had ducked his head down to look at her awkwardly.
“How are you feeling?” asked Logan.
“I still can’t see very well.” Mary couldn’t help the little tremor in her voice. “But otherwise, I’m okay.”
“That’s normal. You won’t see properly for a few days or more,” Derek reported. “How does your face and nose feel?”
“They’re sore but manageable. How bad do they look?”
“You put MMA fighters to shame,” reported Logan.
“Great.” Mary could just imagine. “Let’s go. I would really like a shower.”
They checked into the hotel. Derek did have a few things to make life a little easier for her. He had donut pillows so she could lay facedown to sleep. He had borrowed a massage chair with a spot to put her face so she could sit and have her head and neck supported. They both helped her shower and wash her hair, and she couldn’t deny it felt good to have their hands on her, caring for her.
She got the all clear to head home the next morning.
They stopped in at Karen’s store so her sister could give her hugs, moral support, and chocolate.
“I’ll come visit lots,” she promised. “I’m so sorry I didn’t go to London with you. Derek didn’t tell me until he was leaving!”
Mary was a little surprised at how distressed Karen sounded. “It’s okay,” she assured her sister, looking at her shoes. “I had pretty darn good help.” She couldn’t help but tease Derek and Logan a little.
“Yes, but when you were in the hospital with the ulcer, no one came to visit you, and I didn’t want you to feel neglected by your family again.” Karen grabbed Mary’s hands. “I tried to head down, but Derek promised you would only be there overnight.”
Mary was touched. She hadn’t realized how upset Karen was that she hadn’t known Mary was ill with an ulcer. “Seriously, it’s okay. It was basically an outpatient thing. I wasn’t even anaesthetized.”
Karen gave her a very awkward hug. “I’ll be out to visit a lot. So will the other women. We’ll keep you company, and we have this for you.”
Karen handed her an envelope, and she opened it to find what she thought was a gift card for what she suspected was an online book retailer. Or so her fuzzy vision estimated.
At her silence, Karen laughed. “It’s to buy audible books, silly! We know you can’t see, so we thought we could help
you pick out some books to listen to while you’re lying with your head down.”
Now it was Mary’s turn to laugh. “I thought you had lost it for a minute. Thank you all very much.”
Chapter 22
Derek alternated between being very worried for Mary and optimistic about her progress.
It could not have been easy, but Mary followed her post-op instructions faithfully. She was face down more or less one hundred percent of the time. Eating, showering, walking around the house—she was face down.
She listened to a lot of books. Her friends came over and visited to relieve the boredom too. Mary had enough vision to be able to play cards with the extra-large set he bought her. They joked about saving the cards for when she was old and “in the home.”
By the fifth day, she had recovered some vision. All of them were relieved. She could read if the text was at a certain angle and was a large enough font. Derek put very strict limitations on her time, and she pouted, but complied. Mary was certainly motivated to do anything she needed to give herself the best chance of regaining her vision.
After her one-week check, the surgeon gave her the all clear to have her head up for a maximum of six hours each day, but they needed to be spread out. If all were well when Derek checked her in a few days, she would be allowed to return to normal. She would still have to return in another two weeks and a few more checks after that, but things were looking very good.
She had begged to be allowed on her computer to check her email, so he brought it in, and together they managed to set up the laptop so she could see it and respond.
When he went back upstairs, he noticed her phone on the kitchen counter. Since Karen seemed to be calling ten times a day, he went to get it and take it to the basement for her.
It rang, and he answered, thinking it was her sister.
“Hey there!” he greeted her enthusiastically.
“Who exactly is this?” came the answer, its frostiness chilling the phone in his hand.
“Derek, who is this?”
“LeeAnn Winsor. You must be one of the deviants my daughter has hooked up with.”
Well, the future mother-in-law had gotten his back up in less than five seconds. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m one of the deviants who places your daughter’s happiness foremost in my thoughts, unlike her parents.”
The woman gave a derisive laugh. “Oh please, you’re a passing experiment. One that she’ll look back on in shame in a year or less.”
Derek leaned back on the counter, interested to see where this was going. Just how crazy was Mary and Karen’s mother? He gave his own derisive laugh. “That’s hard to see when she’s so happy staying here with us and enjoying having a sister again.”
“Her leave of absence is up in a couple of months, and the firm wants her back. Her condo is here, her fiancé is here, and her career is here. She’s not staying with you.”
“She quit her job, and her condo is on the market. And there is no fiancé.”
This laugh actually sounded amused. “Is that what she told you? Well, be prepared for a shock. She has not quit, her condo is not on the market, and she will take Bob back. He’s obviously so much more suited for her than some uneducated, hick-town denizen.” There was iron in LeeAnn’s voice.
Unease floated up from somewhere to prickle its way into Derek’s chest. “I don’t believe you.”
“I can forward you the most recent email my dutiful daughter sent. She clearly is coming to her senses after spending a few months slumming in cottage country.”
“Fine.” He gave the woman his email address.
“We’ll see if you’re so sure of yourself after you read it.”
“Well, I’m afraid I don’t really have time to continue chatting. I need to go and perform deviant sexual acts with your daughter’s enthusiastic participation.” Derek wasn’t sure whether it was wise to piss her off further, but she had riled him enough that his mouth overshot his brain.
“You’re disgusting. I’m sure your own mother is ashamed of you.” Dial tone followed.
Derek did feel a moment of chagrin. Would his mother be ashamed of what he’d said? No, if she heard the whole conversation, she would likely laugh.
He took Mary’s phone down to her and went up to the loft to check his own email.
According to the email, what LeeAnn had said was true. Mary had not quit her job. She was merely on a leave of absence. And she was not planning on staying in Hardwick Bay but returning to her parents’ lives and possibly Bob’s as well. And she hadn’t put her condo on the market. It wasn’t even rented.
So what the hell was Mary doing?
Was this why she had been resisting a relationship with them? Because she knew she was here for only a short time?
He wasn’t sure what to do or how to handle the whole situation.
The three of them were sleeping in the master suite together, sort of. It was awkward with Mary facedown, but neither Logan nor Derek wanted to be apart from her. At least, they hadn’t until he read this.
Derek delivered her phone to her and left Mary listening to another book. He went and found Logan in his workshop.
Logan paused in his current creation, and they sat and shared a beer. Derek filled him in on the phone call and the email from LeeAnn.
“I’m not proud of it, but now that we know, we can’t un-know. I knew she had issues with her parents controlling her, but this is ridiculous.” He was disgusted and angry. “What kind of woman would play us along like this, planning to ditch everything in a month or two?”
“I find it hard to believe,” Logan started. He held up his hand when Derek opened his mouth to protest. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but it just seems weird.”
“Weird that she’s going back to a great job?”
“No, I just don’t think she’s played us. I know she has issues with her family’s hold over her, but she seemed to genuinely want to break from them.”
“Maybe the mysterious slasher has sent her running back?”
“She was pretty upset about the cat.”
They were both silent for a few minutes, contemplating Mary’s behavior.
“Whatever the reason, she’s played us and she’s leaving. I’ll make sure her eyesight is on the mend, but after that, I’m done with her. I’m not going to wait around for her to decide she’s had enough playing ménage with us.” He crushed his beer can. “I’m surprised. You were the one who didn’t want to get involved with her.”
“But now I realize how special she is. This just doesn’t make sense. I think there must be more going on.” Logan drained his can.
“Like what? She’s got yet another guy on the side somewhere and he’s the one for her?”
“You are not rational about this.”
Derek wanted to hit his brother for a second. No, he was not rational.
Really, he was pissed at himself for snooping after the conversation with Mary’s mother. He knew he should have talked to Mary first. He hated that he’d invaded Mary’s privacy by reading the forwarded email. And yet, he was angry with Mary for her deception and he felt unable to confront her since he had gained the information somewhat illicitly. If she had been a guy, he would have just told her and they could have thrown a few punches and settled things, but how the hell was he supposed to deal with a woman who did this?
Why couldn’t she be honest with them?
“I think we should talk to her,” Logan said.
“And say what? Derek talked to your mom, read your private emails, and found out you’re planning on ditching all of us and running back to your shitty parents?”
“I don’t think I would phrase it quite that way.”
“Fuck this.” Derek threw the can in the recycle bin and stalked out of the shop.
He got in his truck and drove off. He meandered around the back roads, not really paying attention to where he was headed, just trying to clear his head. He wound up at the Barbers’. He and Logan had been
friends with Mike and Craig for years, but he wasn’t sure why he ended up here.
He sat in the drive, feeling like a fool.
He was just about to leave when Mike’s truck pulled in behind him. Mike edged his truck around Derek’s in the large laneway and parked. He got out, and so did Derek.
“What’s up?” asked Mike affably, politely refraining from asking what the hell he was doing sitting in the laneway like a dead gopher.
“Women.”
Mike laughed long and hard. “Oh yeah. I know that tone of voice. C’mon. Let’s have a beer and talk about it. Lisa and Craig are at a dentist conference overnight, so it’s just me here.”
Derek spilled the whole story to Mike, winding up with, “I just want to tell her to fuck off and stop lying to us, her sister, and the rest of the people she knows in Hardwick Bay.”
“How do you know that she’s lying to her sister? Maybe she’s told Karen the whole story.”
“I find it hard to believe that Karen would be up for deceiving us like that. She’s been behind Mary’s plans to stay here from the start.”
“But it’s a recent email. Maybe things have changed. Maybe her stalker has scared her enough to leave, and she hasn’t been able to tell anyone yet. You already know she’s not great at confrontation. Look at how she’s dealt with her parents her whole life.”
That made Derek think. “Maybe. It’s still a shitty way to handle things.” But he could acknowledge that avoiding confrontation was all Mary had known when it came to her family.
* * * *
Her most recent emails were sitting in Mary’s gut like rotten fish. They stank and were making her queasy.
The one from work wished her well and a speedy recovery so she could get to work on the accounting they sent her way. They were also starting to make plans for her return and discussing how to restructure the department, as they wanted to keep Angela on.
Her mother was smug and happy that Mary appeared to be capitulating.
Bob sent her a missive that was, at times, grateful, and at other times, smug and condescending. He was sorry about her troubles in Hardwick Bay and glad she was returning. He also said he was sorry about Sammy and that he knew she would miss him.
