by JoAnn Ross
“O-k-kay.”
Not wanting to get in the way, although it took every bit of restraint he possessed, Mac stood back, letting the two EMTs lift his daughter onto the gurney and slide her into the ambulance.
He was about to climb in with her, when Emma lifted her head, and said, “I need you to take a picture.”
“What?”
“Ms. Shepherd says that scrapbooks are a good way for being able to look back on your life. So I want this picture for the book I’m going to make.”
He knew that telling her that it was more important to get the hell to the hospital would only waste more time, so he pulled out his iPhone and snapped the shot.
“Let me see,” she insisted, sounding, he thought, a bit like the royal princess of Shelter Bay.
He showed her the photo.
“Okay. That’s a good one.” Despite the pain Emma had to be feeling, her lips curved upward in a smile. “Peggy is going to be so jealous.”
37
Annie was getting ready to leave for Memories on Main when Mac called.
“I’m at the hospital and need some help,” he said. “And you’re the first person I thought to call, but if you can’t do it, I’ll understand, so don’t feel obligated—”
His voice was stressed, ragged, and harried. Which meant he sounded nothing like himself.
“Just tell me,” she said, her concern escalating to alarm. “Are you all right?”
“Other than about to go insane, I’m fine. Emma fell and maybe broke her arm. Or maybe just her wrist. Hell, I don’t know.” She could picture him thrusting his hand through his dark hair.
“Oh, no!” Which was bad, but not as bad as she’d first thought from his voice.
“And she might have a concussion.”
“Poor little thing. What can I do?”
“Just like that? You’re not going to ask what I’m going to ask?”
“Friends don’t have to ask,” she said. “What do you need? Do you want me to come to the hospital?”
“No. I need you to go over to the house. My dad’s house. Well, I guess it’s mine and Emma’s now, too, but it used to be Pops’—”
“Mac.” He was coming as close to babbling as a guy with as much testosterone as he had could get. Which was, again, as far from the cool, easygoing Mac Culhane as she’d witnessed thus far. “I know the house. Is your father there?”
“No. That’s the damn thing. He’s off doing emergency surgery in Portland. So”—he took a deep, ragged breath—“I need you to go get Charlie’s uniform, which is hanging on the closet door in my bedroom. I ironed it this morning. Then take it to Still Waters. I’ll call Analise and let her know you’re coming and she can help him get dressed.”
“No problem. How will I get in?”
“I left my key under the mat.”
“That’s the first place thieves look,” she said before thinking. Obviously burglary was not his main concern at the moment.
“If someone breaks in and empties the place out, I’ll just have Kara arrest them and shoot them. And I hate to ask, but I need something else.”
“Anything.”
“I have to take Pops to Ollie’s memorial service by one. Fortunately, it’s looking like they’re going to be done with X-ray pretty soon; then, because the doctor who’ll put the cast on is a veteran, he’s going to move her to the head of the line. I think if nothing else goes wrong, I can take Emma home, then make it to Still Waters in time to get him to Genarro’s for the service, but—”
“I’ll go back to the house and wait for you to get home with Emma,” Annie offered without hesitation. “Then I’ll stay with her while you take Charlie to Ollie’s memorial.”
“Thanks.” The single word was said with a huge rush of relief. “I owe you. Big time.”
“You don’t owe me anything. As I said, that’s what friends are for. Now, go be with your daughter.”
As she drove over to the Buchanan house, Annie thought how, although she dreaded the idea of the little girl in pain, Mac’s daughter’s injury had just shifted her relationship with him yet again. It had also deepened it. Which could be a problem, but she decided to take Sedona’s advice about living in the now and worry about that later.
She found both the key and the uniform, just where he’d told her they would be. The house, while tidy, showed none of the warmth of a woman’s touch. As she walked to and from the bedroom, she mentally added some pillows on the oversized leather couch, hung some pictures on the bare walls, set a few decorative pieces on the fireplace mantel, and put a jar of wildflowers on the heavy wooden kitchen table that she could see from the family room.
After calling Kim to tell her that she was taking the entire day off, not just the afternoon, Annie drove to Still Waters and dropped off the uniform with the nurse, who assured her that Charlie would be ready when Mac arrived to pick him up.
Since Emma, whose X-rays showed a broken wrist and a wrenched, but not dislocated shoulder, still hadn’t begun to get her cast made, Annie took a quick detour to the shop, where she picked up some stickers, an empty scrapbook, and papers for the little girl to record her misadventure.
Although she’d offered to give them a ride home from the hospital, Mac had told her that a nurse he was friends with had offered to drive them.
Tamping down an unexpected and decidedly unwanted twinge of jealousy at that news, and trying not to wonder exactly how friendly Mac and the nurse happened to be, Annie managed to get back to the house five minutes before they arrived in an SUV driven by a thirtysomething guy sporting a Marine haircut. Annie knew that many former medics were working as nurses these days, so when Mac’s nurse friend turned out to be male, she felt a little foolish for having jumped to the wrong conclusion. It also brought home the point that she cared about this man more than she’d wanted to admit. Even to herself.
Emma, despite sporting a cast on her wrist, which was in a sling, and bandages on both knees and elbows, seemed to be taking the accident in stride.
“I was riding my bike with no hands, like Trey Douchett was doing the other day when he rode past the park, and I fell and broke my wrist,” she said as Mac carried her into the house. Her voice was slurred, as if she’d been on a bender. “And it hurt a lot.”
“I can imagine it does,” Annie said, thinking that Trey, being all boy, had probably been showing off for the girls at the park.
Mac had decided that his daughter would stay in his room, because it had a flat-screen TV. Since he had his arms full, Annie pulled back the charcoal gray sheets.
“The doctor gave me a shot,” Emma said. “So it wasn’t too bad. And I was really brave, wasn’t I, Daddy?” She looked up at him as he laid her on the bed, treating her as if she were a piece of delicate crystal that he was afraid of breaking.
His face was still an ashen shade of gray, revealing that although Emma seemed to be doing amazingly well, Mac obviously hadn’t entirely recovered from the experience.
“You sure did, sweetie,” he said. When his lips curved in what appeared to be more grimace than smile, Annie’s heart turned as gooey as a chocolate-filled truffle. “You were like a super-heroine.”
“Like Merida,” Emma said. “She’s a princess,” she told Annie.
“I know. And, as it happens, I just happen to have a stamp and some Merida stickers I thought you might like on your cast. To let everyone know how brave you are.”
“Really?” The resiliency of children was remarkable. “Can we decorate it now?”
“You need to rest,” Mac said, shooting Annie a look of desperation.
“Your daddy’s right.” Annie leaned down and brushed the little girl’s blond bangs back, revealing the Barbie Band-Aid adorning her forehead. “Why don’t you take a little nap, and—”
“I’m not sleepy,” she insisted, fighting it even as her eyelids were trying to drift shut. “It’s not nighttime yet.”
“I can read you a story,” Annie suggested.
&n
bsp; “Or I could watch Brave,” she said.
Mac briefly closed his eyes. Annie had the feeling he was counting to ten.
“That’s a good idea,” he said when he opened them again. “There may still be a line in it you haven’t memorized.”
“Daddy was just joking,” Emma informed Annie. “I know all the lines by heart.”
“I’m not a bit surprised. But I haven’t seen it, so this will be a treat for me.”
Emma scooted over. “You can sit with me and we’ll watch it together.” She looked up at Mac, who still looked miserable. “Daddy, would you get Angus from my bed?” she asked. “That’s Merida’s faithful horse,” she told Annie. “I think it would be fun to have a horse, but Grandpa said it would be impractical to keep one in the backyard.”
“I think it would,” Annie agreed as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Because horses need room to run.”
“That’s what Grandpa said. But I don’t really want a horse. What I really, really want is a dog.”
Her eyes, glazed from whatever medication they had given to her in the hospital, were limpid pools of blue as she looked up at her father. Then she whimpered, causing panic to flood into his dark eyes.
“As soon as you get your cast off, we’ll go to Dr. Tiernan’s shelter and you can have any dog you want,” Mac said.
“Really?” The little girl’s eyelids were getting heavier by the moment.
“Absolutely.”
“Not just someday, like you always say?”
“As soon as you get your cast off,” he repeated. “The doctor said, since it’s just a crack, you should be able to get it off in three to four weeks. Then you’ll be able to throw balls for a dog to fetch, and play tug-of-war.”
“A dog.” She sighed happily. “When I fell down I thought that this was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. But I got to ride in an ambulance and the nice lady even turned on the siren,” she told Annie.
“Cool,” Annie said.
“It was.” Her eyes drifted all the way closed, but apparently her mouth hadn’t yet gotten the message that her brain was turning off for a while. “And everyone at the hospital was so nice. I got a lollipop and the man who took my X-ray printed out a copy for me.”
Her blue eyes popped open again and she looked up at Mac. “Where is it?” Her voice held the first hint of panic Annie had heard.
“I dropped the envelope on the couch on the way in,” he said. “I’ll go get it. “
“Okay.”
“We can put it in the scrapbook I brought you,” Annie said as Mac left the room, presumably to get the DVD and X-ray.
“You brought a scrapbook, too? With papers and stuff?”
“All kinds of papers and stuff.” Although she knew she was just getting in deeper, Annie brushed a kiss onto Emma’s satiny cheek. “We can look at it together later.”
Emma wiggled into the sheets, as if barely able to keep from dancing. “This is my bestest day ever,” she said on a happy sigh.
Then immediately fell asleep.
The phone rang as Annie heard Mac come back toward the stairs.
“What the hell?” His voice was loud enough to hear over Emma’s soft breathing.
Moving as gingerly as she could, Annie climbed out of the bed and crept into the living room.
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
After hanging up without bothering to say good-bye, he scrubbed both hands down his already haggard face. “Fuck.” His broad shoulders slumped, as if suddenly weary of carrying the weight of both his grandfather and his injured daughter.
“What’s happened?”
“Pops just tried to beat up an orderly who was helping Analise get him into his uniform.”
38
“I’ve got to get over there,” he said. “From what Analise said, he got confused when he saw the uniform and thought they were trying to force him to go back to war. Which was when he began flailing away.
“So, it looks as if he’ll miss Ollie’s memorial service. And what the hell will we do if this gets him kicked out of Still Waters?”
“I don’t think that happens unless fighting becomes habitual,” Annie assured him. “Agitation is common with Alzheimer’s patients, and outbursts of aggression aren’t unknown as the disease progresses. Just last month I arrived there in time to see two elderly ladies rolling around on the floor wrestling over frosting tubes during Sedona’s cookie-decorating class.”
“And who knows if they’re still living there?” he pointed out. “Would you mind staying until I get back?”
“I’d already agreed to sit with Emma while you and Charlie were at the memorial,” she reminded him. “But I really think you ought to give me a shot at getting him calmed down.”
“I’m his grandson.”
“True. And family means a lot. But I still think I’m a better choice.”
“What makes you think you’d be any better at settling him down than Analise, who’s trained to handle dementia patients?” he asked as he headed toward the front door.
She didn’t take offense at his less-than-encouraging tone. Although it wasn’t yet noon, he’d already had what Emma had described as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
“I’ve been working on his war scrapbook with him for weeks. He’s told me a lot of stories, especially about the day his carrier got hit by Japanese bombs and Ollie pulled him out of the ocean before it sank.”
“Damn. How could I not know any of that? All he ever said was that he served in the Pacific with Ollie.”
When he dragged his hand through his hair again, Annie caught it on the way down and held it for a moment in both of hers. “It’s probably easier to speak with a stranger. Or,” she said, “I’m certainly no expert, but I’ve come to realize that there’s often no rhyme or reason when it comes to Alzheimer’s.
“Maybe I just happened to be there the day his memories had spun him back in time and he felt like talking. Then, perhaps once he started, it became easier to keep going.”
Something occurred to her. “Did they give him any drugs to calm him down?”
“No. They managed to get him into the sensory room without any. That’s a good sign, right?”
The sensory room, designed for when residents became agitated or had difficulty sleeping, which was common with dementia patients, was a dimly lit room with a dark-painted ceiling lit with stars.
A machine provided soothing sounds: white noise, rain, the surf, or a waterfall, which Annie knew Charlie liked best because it reminded him of the waterfall at Rainbow Lake where he and his Annie had honeymooned.
There was also a blanket—scented with lavender from Maddy’s grandmother’s Lavender Hill Farm—that could be warmed; a daybed, which the women tended to prefer; and a big vibrating recliner.
The room had been designed by experts in the psychology of dementia, and usually it took only eight to ten minutes to calm a resident.
“A very good sign,” Annie confirmed. “And my point was that because I know all the history between Ollie and him, there’s a chance that I can help him remember that it’s in the past. Because if he later realizes that his actions caused him to miss the memorial, he could be really upset.”
“He was afraid, when I told him about Ollie dying, that he might have forgotten it,” Mac told her. “He said they’d been through so much it would’ve been wrong to forget. If you wouldn’t mind—”
“Of course I wouldn’t. I can’t guarantee success, but I’ll do my best.”
She thought she saw him relax. Just a bit. “Thanks. I owe you.”
She smiled at that. “Friends,” she reminded him. Then went up on her toes and kissed his cheek.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, he hooked one arm around her waist, drew her up against him, and kissed her. Long and hard and so deep that, feeling as if she was drowning, she grabbed hold of his shoulders for a lifeline.
“This is insane,” she said as she
pulled away and retrieved her purse, which she’d tossed onto the entry table with the bag of scrapbook goodies when she’d arrived. “Crazy . . . I can’t believe with all that’s going on right now, as inappropriate as that kiss was at this time, dammit, I want more.”
“Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.” His voice was deep and bedroom-husky. Which had her mind following her rebellious body to places she had no business thinking about. Certainly not now. Maybe never.
As if to prove his point, he caught her arm and swung her around again for one more quick, hot kiss that sent her head spinning and made her knees weak and had her fluttering in parts of her body that Annie had forgotten even could flutter.
“I don’t know what you had planned for lunch today,” he said. “But I do know that we’re not finished, Sandy from Shelter Bay. Not by a long shot.”
“I’ve got to run.”
And run she did, out to the car, then waited until she was out of sight around the corner before she pulled over to the curb. Needing a moment to regroup, she took a few of the long, deep yoga breaths Sedona had taught them all.
Although Charlie and Emma’s accident had complicated their situation, Annie was really going to do it.
She was so going to do Midnight Mac.
“But first,” she said to herself, pulling back onto the deserted residential street, “I have to bail Charlie out of Time Out.”
39
Charlie was back in his room, clad in white boxer shorts, white socks, and a white T-shirt when Annie arrived. She was relieved that he was calm, but the fact that he wasn’t dressed and was sitting in his recliner with his arms stubbornly folded over his chest wasn’t a good sign.
“Hi,” she said with a warm, but not overly cheerful smile. One thing she’d discovered was that when someone was depressed, having another person invade his or her personal space by being overly perky not only didn’t help, but could actually make things worse.
