Lou fiddled with a packet of chamomile tea as she chose her words. “David is like you. Kind to a fault.”
“I didn’t know kindness could be negative.”
“He takes care of everyone else.”
Grace caught her breath. “Except you.”
She lifted one shoulder. “I gave up my plans, followed his because I thought one day they’d intersect.”
“He followed you here, Lou. What about that?”
“And I thought …” She twisted the teabag’s string around her finger. What had she thought? “I thought I could do this without him, but he’s made me need him—want him—all over again.”
“So give him a real chance.”
“Maybe we’re already past that.” Lou gave Grace a small smile. “Maybe, instead, he deserves the chance for someone new.”
Grace shook her head. “You’re crazy, Lou.” She said it with a hint of laughter to take away the sting. “Sometimes I think you’re just looking for excuses. Like you’re punishing yourself because Patrick died and you grieved.”
Her fingers stilled on the wrapper. All the years of prayers and therapy, yet no one had ever said those words. And the moment they landed in the space between her and Patrick’s wife, Lou knew they were true. “He went after her because she’s my daughter.”
“I know that.”
“And he died.”
“No greater love than a man lay down his life for his friend.” Grace wrapped her fingers around Lou’s wrist. “I don’t come by my love for Cora Anne easily, Lou. But I’ve lived in a world where everyone takes the easy route out—the running away believing something’s better on the other side. I’ve chosen to remain right here, to make my life here better. But sometimes,” she let Lou go and reached for a napkin to wipe her eyes. “Sometimes I forget how loved I truly was, and that’s what happened last night. Charlotte hurt my feelings—”
“Oh, she’s good at that.”
Grace snorted. “Yes. But she also apologized.”
Lou wouldn’t have thought Charlotte even knew how. “Impressive.”
“You ever think how we’re all just living in the wake of someone else’s choices? You chose graduate school, and Patrick chose me. Charlotte chose anger for a long time. Cora Anne chose guilt.”
Lou flicked her gaze out the kitchen window. The boys must’ve finished with the boxes because they were giving the tire swing a whirl. Liam’s Range Rover pulled in.
“There’s another good man. Not sure what you did to deserve two of them.” Grace’s eyes crinkled at the edges, and Lou found herself smiling back. Teasing between girlfriends. Not a concept she knew well.
But maybe she could learn. “Grace, I—”
The crack sounded like a gunshot. For the briefest moment Lou thought some hunter had strayed into their pasture.
J.D. screamed Cole’s name and Mac shouted hers.
Wrenching open the screen door, she ran outside. That wide, sturdy limb of the oak—where the tire swing hung for decades—had split and lay in a heap on the soggy ground. Sticking out the tangle of splinters and Spanish moss were Cole’s feet. He wore his new sneakers and her wildest, fleetest thought was she’d told him not to.
Lou grasped one of the branches, trying to see her son’s face. At her side, Grace reached for another.
Liam ran across the yard from the barn. “Don’t move it yet.” He skidded to his knees in the mud, felt underneath the debris, sweeping aside leaves until Lou could see Cole’s face. Liam’s hands probed his neck and splayed the branches to expose his chest. “There’s no puncture wounds, so let’s move it off him gently.”
The thickest section of limb lay across Cole’s midsection. Liam wrapped his arms around it and heaved as Lou and Grace pulled. The boys ran over to drag the rest off their brother. Cole splayed atop the tire. Bile burned her throat with a glance at his right arm bent at an unnatural angle. The splintered bone poking through a gash. His head lolled back, eyes closed and still.
Lou bent over his face. She touched his cheeks—only now losing their little boy roundness. His skin was clammy. His lips tinged blue already. The rain started again, splattering him with drops, and she could barely feel his shallow breaths against her jaw. “Get me an umbrella or something to keep him dry.”
“Lou, honey …” Grace knelt beside her and swiped at her cheeks with her fingers. “It’s not raining.”
Liam paced at Cole’s head, a phone pressed to his ear. J.D. and Mac squatted on their brother’s other side. The triplets were not identical, but in that moment their ashen faces mirrored one another.
“Mama, he’s going to be okay, right?”
She couldn’t answer.
~~~
Now she was the one who called four times. Twice from her house to his while the paramedics loaded Cole onto a backboard in the rain.
Again from the ambulance, leaving yet another message, this one on his cell. The fourth from the hospital waiting room, just before Grace came in with the other boys. “Please, David,” she whispered the words to the sterile walls. “I need you.”
Liam brought her coffee, while Grace told her Tennessee and Cora Anne would track down David and be on their way. She nodded and tried to sort out what the paramedics had told her. Concussion definitely. Bad break to that right arm, looked like the elbow. Spine hopefully all right. Would need an MRI to know for sure. A nurse brought her paperwork to sign. She stared, the letters and sentences swarming together like a hive of bees around her mother’s rose bushes.
Liam took it from her hands. “Where’s your insurance card?”
She dug it from her purse and handed it over, aware she was the one who’d become catatonic. The words Liam told the nurse barely registered. “Her husband will do the rest.”
Husband. These were the times she needed him to be that, but they’d erased it all with signatures on another line, another paper of squiggles that had swam before her eyes.
Chapter 51
The parking deck at MUSC was a maze, and by the time he wound his way to the waiting room on the third floor, he’d muttered more curse words than he’d used in the last year. Surely God forgave overwrought fathers.
Surely wives forgave idiot husbands. Even ex ones.
Lou sat limp and pale in the corner. He crossed the room in three strides and swept her up. She crumpled against his chest. Next to her, the frightened faces of Mac and J.D. told him plenty.
“Shhh, it’s going to be okay.” He pressed his lips to her hair, breathing in the scent of rain and lavender.
She pushed her hands between them. “Where were you, David? I called and called.”
“I went for a run. I’m sorry.”
Lou started to say something, but shook her head. “Thank you for being here.”
As though he’d want to be anywhere else. But they couldn’t deal with that right now. “What happened?”
J.D. and Mac slipped between them, both talking at once.
“We’re sorry—”
“We didn’t know the tree—”
“Mama, Daddy.” Cora Anne rushed off the elevator. “How is he?” Her arms stretched around them all, knitting their family together—if not whole.
~~~
“Concussion, but not too bad. Lucky he didn’t snap his neck, and spine checks out all right.” Dr. Woods was all business. David wasn’t impressed. “But it’s this,” the doctor snapped an x-ray onto the wall and flicked a light switch. “That has me worried. Compound fracture to the elbow. Broken through right here.” He tapped the image where the skin below Cole’s elbow would be.
David whistled softly between his teeth. One didn’t need a medical degree to decipher that picture. The bone had snapped in two places and stuck out at odd angles. “How long until it heals?”
“Not going to without major surgery.” The doctor flipped off the switch. “Swelling needs to go down first. Have him on the schedule first thing tomorrow.” He continued giving details in a brisk, precise ton
e. “There’s also a risk of infection, especially given where he landed, but we debrided the wound as well as we could. We’ll keep a close eye on him for symptoms—fever, chills, the usual.”
Nothing about this was usual.
His son slept, thanks to the pain meds, head turned to the side on his hospital pillow. They’d have to get his down-filled one from the house. That kid had been particular about pillows since he was three and Lou finally got over her fear of SIDS. Jaw slack, his whole body relaxed by the medicine pumping in through the IV, but all David could see was Cole on the mound. Chin tucked into his shoulder, eyes squinted at his target, lips curled in concentration—and an attempt to intimidate. Letting loose a curve ball so sweet he had the best pitching record in their region.
“Thank you, doctor.” Lou nudged him. David managed a nod of acknowledgement as Dr. Woods left.
She crossed her arms. “Thanks for checking out.”
“I heard every word he said.”
“Really?”
He ground his teeth. “I heard him say they’re going to fill our son’s arm with pins and bolts, that he’ll need weeks of physical therapy, and it could be at least a year before he has full-range of motion again. If he gains that back at all.”
Bending over Cole, Lou brushed the honey-colored hair back from his forehead. “He’s tough, remember? He was the smallest but had the most fight.”
“He could’ve had a chance to go all the way. Best arm I’ve ever seen in a kid his age.”
Her fingers lingered on Cole, as if healing him with her mother’s touch. When she spoke, her voice hollowed. “That’s all that matters? He could’ve broken his neck, and you’re upset he may never throw a baseball the same way again?”
If she didn’t understand, he couldn’t make her. This wasn’t about him or his expectations. When their son woke up and realized what had been lost, his devastated dreams would be harder to set back together than that bone.
Like trying to fit together the pieces of their marriage. Sometimes, the fragments just couldn’t be found.
Chapter 52
Edisto Beach, July 1993
Lou never lost her temper like she had that afternoon when Cora Anne threw a fit—and all the babies’ new toys out into the ocean.
She’d slapped her, and when her own mama grabbed her wrist, Lou expected another smack across her own face. Which she deserved.
David was certainly no help. He sat in the kitchen most of their last afternoon, on the phone finalizing next season’s schedule. Lou wanted to scream like their daughter had—“You never pay attention to me.”
But she was a grown up, not a child.
“Go out to dinner with Carolina and John,” her mother suggested after Cora Anne was sent to the room she shared with Hannah. “You need a little break.”
“I need a little help.” The beach bag straps scraped her sunburned shoulders, and she trudged to the house, where an eruption of baby wails echoed across the dunes.
They went to the Dockside for dinner. Only because Mama took over as soon as she came in the house. As they left, Lou saw her father press a folded bill into David’s hand. Her husband pushed it back, but Daddy refused.
“Did you tell them we need money or something?” David whispered, jerking open the back door of John’s car.
“They have eyes, you know. Ears too.” The thin walls of Still Waters hadn’t disguised their nightly arguments, though usually she fell into an exhausted sleep before fully voicing her frustrations.
Dinner improved Lou’s mood. No one spit food in her face or knocked over a drink. David softened after a beer and a plate of fried shrimp. He ordered key lime pie with two forks and offered her the first bite, which he knew she liked best.
Carolina, eyes shining with excitement, explained her new wedding planner business. “I’ve already booked the rest of the year. Can you believe it?”
John hooked his arm around her sister’s neck and smacked her cheek. “I’m so proud of her.”
A quick glance at David showed Lou a hint of regret in the slump of his shoulders. When they stood to leave, he slipped his arm around her waist. “Can we walk?”
Would keep them away at least another half-hour, but surely her mother could handle it. So long as Cora Anne didn’t add to the tears again.
David snagged her fingers as they strolled away from the restaurant and veered onto the bike path. “I think we need to talk about some things.”
Finally. She breathed out, the humid air comforting and quiet. “Yes, we do.”
“I know I’m busy and it’s hard for you to balance work and the kids.”
Lou smiled. He had noticed.
“So maybe we should consider a change.”
She wanted to leap in the air and shout, the way he did once he’d won a game. But she held herself in check, just to be sure. “You’d consider it, then? It’s a big move.”
“If you’re sure it’s what you want—”
“Yes. Yes.” She flung her arms around his neck. “I know it’s going to be hard for you, but you’ll get another job and everything will be so much easier—”
He untangled her arms. “What are you talking about?”
She stepped back. “Moving here. So my parents can help us, and then, later, I can go back to school.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He scrubbed his hand over his head. “Lou, I … I thought you might want to stay home and not work for a little while.”
Swimming in the ocean, waves broke over her head. Drowning out all sounds and sense of stability. Every time, she lost her footing. That reason, more than any other, was why she didn’t go in the water and swim with her daughter. Now, standing on the narrow path as the sky overhead darkened, the same sensation swept over her.
All grounding gave way.
“Working is the only thing I’m good at.” She put more distance between them. “The only time I ever finish anything. How could you ask me to give that up?”
“Daycare eats every penny you make, Lou. You know that. This would just be temporary—”
“No. I already gave you what you wanted. Another baby, remember?”
“Don’t cast that up to me. Neither of us had any idea we’d get triplets.”
“And only one of us understands how hard it is. I need my mother’s help.”
He reached for her. “I’m supposed to help you.”
“When, David? Because you are never home. Someone or something else is always more important.”
“I coach kids from underprivileged families. They need a father figure.”
“Well, you know what? Your own kids need one, too.” She turned, shoulders back. Done. Shortcutting through backyards, Lou left David to follow. Wondering, if she had the courage to pack them up and come without him, he’d follow her then too.
She heard the screaming as soon as she turned onto the block Still Waters anchored.
“Patrick!” Her father’s voice.
“Dad!” Tennessee Watson’s.
She broke into a run, and David streaked past her. By the time she made it down the access path over the dunes, he and Daddy were dragging a limp body from the ocean’s edge. David flipped Patrick Watson over.
Blood seeped from his head, coloring the clean sand dark. David knew CPR. Years before, when life glowed rosy at its edges, he’d come home from coaches’ training and joke he needed to practice mouth-to-mouth.
He pumped Pat’s chest.
Pat, who had once cradled her face and called her beautiful. Promised her this world if she wanted to stay.
David counted. “One-two-three—” He lowered his head, gave back life.
But Patrick’s chest didn’t rise.
Lou crumpled to her knees. Grit and shell pieces bit her skin. Her vision and hearing tunneled. All she could see was her husband desperately trying to save another man who’d once made her promises she knew he couldn’t keep.
And she felt the life she knew shatter like fragments in the sa
nd.
Chapter 53
Grace knew there were plenty of things she didn’t do well. Punctuality, for instance. Balancing her checkbook. Organizing events.
Come to think of it, having Cora Anne for a daughter-in-law might be like having a personal assistant.
While they waited out Cole’s surgery, they made a list of meals to stock in Lou and David’s freezers. While Cole should be able to come home the next day, there would be a lot of back and forth for follow-ups and eventual physical therapy. Grace figured Lou wouldn’t turn down homemade meals.
She also rolled out four dozen sugar cookies and made a chocolate cake. Which depleted her flour stock and required her to call up The Hideaway and order a dozen cheddar biscuits to go along with the shrimp chowder she was taking over to David’s tonight.
Foresight. Another lacking trait.
In The Hideaway’s kitchen, Jeanna piped mashed potatoes into something special and clucked like a mother hen as Grace selected the fattest biscuits from the warmer. “You know that man’s still in love with his wife.”
“I don’t know why everyone keeps supposing I’d go after my daughter-in-law’s father.”
“He fits your—what’s that the kids call it?” Jeanna snapped her glove-covered fingers. “M-O.”
“My what?”
“Vulnerable. Needy. You fill a void. Right now with food—maybe later, emotionally. You can’t save every stray, Grace.”
Her friend’s words stung. “I’m not trying to save anyone. We’re all friends helping each other out.” She folded the lid of the box. “Family, really.”
Jeanna stripped off a glove. “Honey, I know this is hard with Tennessee getting married. You must miss Pat something awful.”
The box’s lid refused to cooperate. Too many corners for her stiff fingers.
“But you’ve waited all these years, saying you didn’t need another man. That he was enough love for a lifetime.” Jeanna’s voice thickened. “I’m worried you’re going to get hurt when David and Lou finally work this out.”
She quit fumbling with the ridiculous box lid and let Jeanna squeeze her hands with all their years of friendship in her touch. “I’m not attracted to David. I’m just—” Heavens, could she even say it? “I’m lonely.”
The Bridge Between Page 20
