Elizabeth flopped backward onto her bed, breathing in the scent of the roses, and laughed for joy. At long last, it had begun.
When Howe arrived at the dorm lobby to pick her up Friday night, he had on an expensive navy blazer, white shirt, camel pants, and a tie. Too good-looking to live. And a subtle hint of lime came from his freshly shaven face.
Elizabeth wore a simple skirt she’d made to go with a sweater from Loehmann’s, and fake-crocodile flats. “Hi,” she said. “How did you know I’d go?”
Howe looked smug. “Because I talked to your roommate, and she said Blue Fish was your favorite restaurant.”
“She’s wrong,” Elizabeth said mildly.
Howe’s confident expression fell.
“It’s Bones,” Elizabeth corrected. “There’s nothing like a nice, thick slab of red meat to fortify a girl.” Her slow delivery had Howe hanging on her every word.
He coughed slightly, then stroked his tie. “Okay then. Red meat it is.”
Howe had one of those new radio phones in his BMW convertible, and he called the restaurant to make sure they’d have a table. That done, they settled for the drive.
“So,” he said, “how is it you’ve been in Whittington all this time, and I know so little about you?”
It was an innocent enough question, but the answer was anything but. “I don’t like to talk about myself,” she said without disapproval. “What about you? What’s it like, being the crown prince of Whittington?”
Howe laughed. “Nobody’s ever called me that before,” he said. “At least, not to my face.”
Elizabeth smiled at his good humor. “So, what is it like, being you?”
He cocked a gentle half-smile. “Not nearly as much fun as everybody else seems to think,” he confessed. “For one thing, my parents have been after me forever to come back to Whittington and take over the bank.”
Elizabeth studied him. “And you don’t want to?”
“In a word, no.” He grinned at the traffic ahead of them.
“What would you do instead?”
“I’m going to be a lawyer,” he said with a mixture of pride and defiance, “a damned good one. And I’m going to make a difference, somewhere far from Whittington, Georgia.”
“And marry a deb,” Elizabeth added with a spark of humor.
“God, no. You sound like my mother.”
“Don’t you like debs?” she teased.
“They’re all right, I guess,” he answered. “Just not for me. Society stuff is so boring.” He stopped at a red light. “What about you? What do you want to do?”
“Get my masters in poli sci and become an independent woman of means. And make a difference.” It was most of the truth. She just left out the part about marrying him.
“What? No marriage? No family?” he teased.
She looked away. “Family things have been . . . painful. I’d rather not discuss it.” Maybe she’d tell him someday, but not till they were married, or at least engaged.
Howe turned left into the restaurant driveway and stopped for the valet parking. When he came around to get her out, she looked up into his big, blue eyes and took his hand.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asked, drawing her close to his side once she was on her feet.
“You’re pretty darned good-looking yourself,” she said, lightly elbowing him in the side, then stepping ahead. “C’mon.” She pulled him toward the entrance. “Let’s have some good red meat and talk about sex, religion, and politics.”
Howe was laughing when they came inside. “Whittington,” he told the host as he kept a possessive eye on her.
Magic. This was magic, and Elizabeth could tell it was the same for him.
Her hidden hopes took flight, making her feel free and fun and flirty for the first time she could remember.
All eyes turned their way as the maître d’ led them to a secluded corner booth in the dark, cozy steak house.
When Howe slid into the booth to sit beside her, the air between them was charged with chemistry, but Elizabeth reminded herself to take her time. Their courtship needed to unfold, slowly and gently, till they could trust each other.
So instead of jumping Howe Whittington’s bones at Bones, Elizabeth talked to him about favorite books and movies. They agreed on some and disagreed on others, laughing all the way through their shrimp cocktails. Then they ate steak and talked about campus life and politics. Then they ate some more and talked of faith and philosophy. He loved a good, fair argument just as much as she did, and soon, she felt as if they’d been friends forever.
Magic.
Then she turned the topic to him, and Howe told her about his childhood sins, sneaking out of the house and escaping to play Tom Sawyer. Rubbing itching powder into his mother’s girdle. (Elizabeth wished she could have been there to see haughty Mrs. Whittington when the powder started working.) And the time Howe “borrowed” their black housekeeper’s baby because he wanted a brother. Mrs. Whittington must have loved that one!
Elizabeth listened well and kept the conversation on him, fascinated to finally get a glimpse inside the man she’d longed for all those years. He was just as wonderful as Cathy had said that day she’d first seen him. Honest. Funny. Humble. Kind. Who wouldn’t love a man like that?
They’d demolished half the huge steaks when he admitted, “I always used to wonder if I was popular for myself, or for my money. I still do.”
He was worried about her, her motives. But so frank about it.
Elizabeth took a long swig of her iced water, the only thing she ever drank. Then she placed her hand over his. “Give people some credit, Howe. Your money and your family come with the package and helped make you who you are.” Her eyes met his over the dim little light on the table. “I like who you are very much. I’m sure your friends do, too.”
Howe leaned close to kiss her, but she deftly evaded him by asking softly, “What’s good for dessert here?”
She wanted the magic to last as long as it could, their courtship evolving, slow and easy. She wouldn’t be rushed. And she reminded herself that men want what they can’t have.
For the first time in her life, she was truly happy, and Howe Whittington was the reason why. She would make him happy, too. They’d escape together, for a sparkling new life together. God willing, for the rest of their lives.
Chapter 5
The present: Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia
It was a stroke, and Howe got worse.
He let out another of those awful laughs in the chopper, but still didn’t regain consciousness. When they reached the hospital, the paramedics whisked him to Trauma One, where the doctors Howe’s mother had summoned were waiting.
In the ordered confusion of the ER, the doctors assured Elizabeth that Howe was getting the best care possible, then banished her to the waiting room, where she struggled to collect herself.
Her heart still hammering from adrenaline, she paced the dark blue carpet, oblivious to the decorated Christmas tree and the minor Sunday afternoon disasters that crowded the waiting room.
There shouldn’t be Christmas decorations in the emergency room. Not when people might be dying.
Howe couldn’t die.
But he might.
Should she call the children?
No. What good would it do at this point? They couldn’t see him. And he might pull through. No need to frighten them unnecessarily. She’d wait till she had a verdict from the doctors.
Or he died.
In all her fantasies of being respectably free of their empty marriage, she’d never imagined that losing him would even affect her, much less send her into a tailspin, but it did. Now that widowhood stared her in the face, it terrified her. Elizabeth was a wife and mother, part of a couple. She had a place in Whittington as Howe’s wife. Without him, she would lose that place. Elizabeth couldn’t be alone. Not in that huge old house that had never quite felt like her own. Not in the town her husband’s family had controlle
d for over two centuries. She just couldn’t.
And anyway, Whittington wasn’t big enough for two Whittington widows. Without Howe there to buffer her, his mother would eat Elizabeth alive.
Once, Elizabeth had dreamed of escaping, but now, she raged inside that her mother-in-law had stolen that dream from her and from Howe. And even worse, Elizabeth had let her. Where would she go if she left? What would she do?
Chest tight, she wrapped her arms across it as if to shield herself from what might happen. With every unfocused step, she marked out what she needed to do: don’t panic; think. He’s still alive. Hold on to that. He’s still alive.
Whittington men lived well into their nineties, with all their faculties intact.
Except his father, of course, she reminded herself with a jolt, who simply hadn’t woken up three weeks after his fifty-ninth birthday.
That sat her down, good and proper, a wave of nausea welling through her. She stared unseeing through the automatic glass doors into the ER parking lot, conjuring with crystalline clarity the day they’d gotten the news that Howe’s daddy had died. She might as well have buried her own hopes for happily-ever-after in the casket with him.
Howe’s mother had glommed on to her son, saying he couldn’t leave her alone to run the bank. She’d been so pitiful and so insistent that she’d worn Howe down until he’d abandoned his own dreams for his mother’s sake. His one act of defiance was taking Elizabeth to Baltimore to marry her, then showing up with her at the funeral, his grandmother’s diamond weighting the hand he gripped through the service, his mother’s pent-up outrage colder and more brittle than the three-carat stone.
Howe had leaned on her, then. Shared his sense of loss, his frustration at having to abandon his hopes of practicing law away from his mother’s interference. He’d been so close to Elizabeth. She’d loved him so, believed that their love was strong enough to weather anything.
She hadn’t realized that the Howe who had captured her heart would slowly disappear as he assumed his father’s place.
Now he was the same age his father had been when he died, and suffering the same catastrophe.
The cell phone rang in Elizabeth’s stylishly huge leather purse, sending her half out of her skin as it jarred her back to the present. Assuming it was Howe’s mother, she reluctantly rummaged past her day planner, checkbooks, makeup, coupons, lipsticks, and combs, finally locating it by the pale glow of the screen. Insufficient information showed there. “Hello?”
P.J.’s familiar voice answered with unexpected intensity. “How is he? Tell me. I need to know.”
How had he found out?
His emphatic tone grated on her. “He’s alive. For now. That’s all I know.” She caught herself casting a guilty glance around to make sure Howe’s mother was nowhere in sight. Why was P.J. calling her there?
When he’d pressed her to leave Howe the week before, she’d made it clear that there could never be more than a casual friendship between them—she would never do anything to embarrass her children—but obviously, P.J. hadn’t accepted that, despite his promise to honor her wishes. “I can’t really talk now,” she told him.
“I’m sorry,” he soothed. “I know you must be upset. I just couldn’t stand thinking of your being there, all by yourself, in the middle of this. How are you?”
He always said just the right thing, but this time, his shift in demeanor triggered unexpected suspicion. “How did you find out?”
“Howard Mason was with me at the club shooting a few holes, and his sister called and told him,” he explained. “She got it on the Baptist prayer chain.”
And so it was in Whittington. Nobody could stub a toe without the whole town’s finding out. If hospitalization was required, the prayer chains cranked up, which, in Elizabeth’s opinion, were a lot more about gossip than prayer.
Still, the good Lord knew Howe could use all the prayers he could get, but considering her husband’s coldhearted business dealings, Elizabeth couldn’t help wondering how many of those people might be hoping he’d die instead of live. She’d have thought P.J. would be one of them, but the concern in his voice had sounded genuine.
“Let me come sit with you,” he urged.
“No!” That was all she needed. The grapevine would go wild. “I thought I made it clear at lunch, I will not embarrass my children or tolerate anyone who does, including you. Caesar’s wife, P.J. I mean it.”
“Sorry,” he said without conviction. “I was only trying to help. I’ll call later to—”
“No,” she told him. “Please don’t. Howe’s mother is on her way. Everything’s crazy here. I’ll call you when the dust settles and I’m alone. Do not call. I can’t handle any more complications right now.”
There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line before he said, “Is that what I am, now, a complication? Last Tuesday, you said you wanted to be friends. Friends help each other when there’s trouble. I was only trying to help.”
Please, God. Of all times for him to get territorial. To push things. He knew perfectly well what would happen if he showed up there.
Elizabeth refused to address the issue. “I’ll call. It may be tomorrow. I don’t know. But I’ll call.” Or not.
As she closed the phone and dropped it back into her bag, a tap on her shoulder sent a shard of guilty alarm through her. She whirled to find a tall, handsome man with prematurely gray temples and wearing scrubs and jogging shoes beside her.
“Mrs. Whittington?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I’m Christopher Clare, your husband’s neurosurgeon.” His kind young face studied hers with concern. “Are you all right?”
Her worst fear tumbled from her. “Howe—he’s not . . .”
“He’s stable,” he was quick to reassure her. “I won’t minimize the situation. Our scans indicate that your husband has a tumor in his frontal cortex. The good news is, it’s small and appears to be regular and contained. But the blood supply to the tumor ruptured, causing a stroke. We need to operate. They’ve taken him up and are prepping him now.”
A brain tumor. And a stroke.
Elizabeth’s heart turned inside out.
Was it hereditary? Charles! Her son. Would it—?
Dr. Clare proffered a clipboard holding a permission form with Howe’s name printed at the top. “I know this is a lot to assimilate, but we’re doing everything we can to pull him through with as little damage as possible.”
Damage. Brain damage? Oh, God.
Dr. Clare handed her the clipboard. “This is the authorization form for the surgery. The procedure will be delicate because of the area that’s involved, but so far, all his reflexes are normal, which is good. We won’t be able to assess the full extent of any damage till he wakes up. If everything goes well, that could be in just a few days.”
Elizabeth’s pulse pounded in her ears, and everything around her suddenly seemed muted, far away. She stared at the permission form, two legal pages crammed with mouse-print spelling out reams of dire complications.
Minimize the damage.
God, no.
Elizabeth thought in black-and-white—Howe would be okay, or he would die. The thought that he might survive impaired hadn’t occurred to her.
She wished with all her being for her strong, steady son Charles to lean on, but Charlottesville, Virginia, was a day away, by air or by car. Would it be selfish to call him in? He was scheduled to take his bar exams soon.
Patricia was closer in Athens, but all she would bring with her was drama, the last thing Elizabeth needed.
Elizabeth felt the doctor take gentle hold of her arm. “Perhaps you ought to sit down,” he said, guiding her to an open seat. Then he sat with her, leaving an empty chair between them, and nodded toward the permission form. “Just sign at the X. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.”
Questions? She stared, uncomprehending, at the blocks of tiny print, and a bubble of ironic hysteria rose inside her. Was he ki
dding? Who could think of questions at a time like this, much less give informed consent?
When “the best neurosurgeon in the state” said somebody needed brain surgery, who in their right mind would say no?
Dr. Clare was being very patient, very kind. She had no right to take out her frustration on him, but really.
Brain damage. Brain damage. Brain damage.
Elizabeth had a searing vision of Howe restrained in a wheelchair, gaunt and drooling, his eyes vacant and a huge, livid scar across his shaved head.
Her breaths came in rapid pants, and she had to clamp her lips to keep from falling apart. She used to pray that he’d be kinder to her, notice her more, care for her, but all that paled to insignificance. Please, God, don’t let him have brain damage. Howe would rather die than suffer such an indignity. Anything but that.
She gripped the clipboard and did her best to sign, but her usually perfect script came out a barely legible scrawl. The clipboard wobbled as she returned it, and the pen fell off.
“Don’t worry,” the doctor said, bending to retrieve it. “I’ll get it.”
Brain tumor. Brain tumor. Brain tumor.
Cancer? Was it cancer?
“Can I get you anything?” kind Dr. Clare asked.
“Just help my husband,” she heard herself say.
“Someone will come take you to the intensive care waiting room, where you can use the phone and wait. I’ll call you there as soon as we know anything.” He scanned the crowded room. “Is anyone with you?”
“No.” She needed to call Charles. Hands shaking, she groped for her cell phone. “I have to call my children. They’ll want to know. My son Charles . . .” She took comfort in just saying his name. “I need my son.” Where was the damned phone? “He’s a senior at UVA law school,” she rattled out. “Such a lovely campus. Howe went to Emory, but never got to take the bar because his father . . .” Died. Don’t say died. “Howe had to take over the bank, instead. But Charles will practice. He’ll make a wonderful lawyer.”
She was babbling, but couldn’t help it. Where was that phone? “My daughter’s at Georgia, majoring in sorority. A freshman. She never answers when it’s me. I’ll have to leave a message.” She finally felt the elusive phone and snatched it out. “There!”
Waking Up in Dixie Page 4
