“I don’t know. He’s burning up.”
A wisp of worry crossed her features as she pulled the cart with its high-tech thermometer bedside. She took his temperature. “Lay back for me, baby.” Judy lowered the bed and tucked Cole in with a mother’s touch. “Likely an infection. We’ll get some antibiotics going and run some labs.”
Her words rang clear and sure—but David knew better than to trust clarity in the darkness.
Chapter 56
As Grace drove out to the Coultrie farm, the moon ghosted in the late afternoon sky. A common sight as the seasons shifted into one another with the earth’s tilt. Her little world seemed to have tilted too.
Away from Patrick as the sun.
His voice no longer echoed in her every thought, every decision. Instead, the truth Jeanna had spoken filtered through, reminding her to everything, there was a season. She parked and waved to Liam’s group, swishing nets in the water and making notes. In Lou’s freezer, she nested the lasagna between a chicken casserole and pot roast. Down in the creek, Liam’s baritone carried out over the buffer of vegetation, lecturing about living shorelines and environmental sustainability.
“If you don’t believe me”—he tossed a grin her way when she walked onto the dock—“just ask Mrs. Grace Watson. She’s lived on Edisto how long now?”
He might be baiting her to guess her real age, but she gave him the true answer anyway. “Thirty years.”
One of the girls sighed. “I couldn’t imagine living all the way out here for that long.”
“Sure you could. I had everything I needed. Family, friends, church.” She nodded to the water puddling in the pluff mud. Tide coming. “Half my groceries once came from these creeks.”
“How’d you know what to do with it all?”
Grace’s brows puzzled together. She shot Liam a look. These poor kids memorized facts, but they didn’t know anything that mattered. “When I needed help, I read a cookbook. Or asked a friend.”
“We roasted oysters, remember?” A boy with impish features elbowed the girl. “It wasn’t that hard.”
“Did you really dig the oysters out of these creek banks?” Her persistence made Grace laugh.
“Oh, honey. You aren’t from around here, are you?” Patiently she told them how Tennessee caught crab and flounder. How they netted shrimp and dug oysters, and that once, a friend had shown her how to make terrapin soup.
“Terrapin?”
Another student leaned over and whispered to the girl.
Her mouth gaped. “You made turtle soup?”
The group laughed, and the sound was like balm to Grace’s soul. Liam winked at her as he gave instructions for gathering the equipment. She wondered what it would have been like to have a professor like him, one passionate about his study.
The students still asked her questions as they loaded up, so she reached in her purse and dug around until she found a business card for The Hideaway. “Here, this is the best restaurant on the island. Go there, ask for Ben, and mention Grace sent you. He’ll tell you where everything on your table came from and exactly how they prepared it.”
“Sounds like a semester end celebration to me.” Liam leaned against his car door.
Amidst the echoes of affirmation, Grace felt her purse buzz in her hands. She dug around for her cell phone. Tennessee. “Hey.” She listened, face tightening with the words.
Liam must have noticed because as soon as she clicked off, he said, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Cole.” She explained what he’d told her. “Tennessee says they’re moving him to ICU.”
“Well, get in. You can ride with me. I know how to avoid the rush hour traffic.”
“You’ll have to bring me all the way back out here.”
He shrugged. “I can think of worse ways to spend an evening.”
So could she. It had been a long time since she’d spent an evening with a man.
Guilt nagged a bit as they drove. She shouldn’t be planning how to make this worth his while. But her mind shifted through possibilities. Shrimp chowder maybe. Homemade biscuits. A bottle of wine.
Liam talked about living shorelines and marsh migration as though she understood the terms. She had only memories of Patrick mentioning similar ideas, and she knew it had to do with keeping the creeks and waterways healthy and fertile.
“How’d you become interested in all this anyway? It’s very …”
“Niched? I know. The powers that be remind me all the time.”
“But important.”
“Maybe not as much for those who aren’t going to live and thrive here.”
She shrugged. “Maybe more so. People want places like this to last, at their disposal for vacation. Patrick said we were like the land’s mother, and the tourists were like the aunt we have to invite but can’t wait to send home.”
Liam laughed. “He’d have been a great guest for my class.”
“He’d have been great for a good many things.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
She raised her brows. Figured she knew what was coming. Always did, sooner or later.
“How’d you let the grief go? Enough that Cora Anne will be your daughter-in-law.”
“There’s no such thing as letting go. There’s just forgiveness, plain and simple. Sometimes every day, over and over.” She moistened her lips, chapped with the spring winds, and glanced out the window. The landscape faded from the sanctuary of Edisto into the outskirts of Charleston. But still rural and rough. Gentry didn’t live here. Real people did, and these people carried ancestries of forgiveness for afflictions far worse than hers. She turned back to Liam.
“It wasn’t her fault. She was a child. Lou and David—” She bit her lip before she said something that had been hammering around inside for a while.
“They should’ve been there.” His hand slipped off the wheel, found hers in the middle of the seat. “I’ve noticed. This thing with them—they’ve let it cloud for a long time.”
She said nothing in return, unwilling to betray the friendship she’d worked hard to carve from the hardened history.
Liam squeezed her fingers. “Maybe this time they’ve finally let the truth filter though.”
He couldn’t have known her earlier thoughts, but when he spoke, she heard the echo, loud and clear. As if Pat were right there, whispering in her ear, telling her it was time to embrace the new season.
Chapter 57
Lou’s whole life reminded her of riding with her daddy up and down those tidal creeks. Easy trolling at high tide when the water rushed in to fill all the shallows. But if they stayed out too long, the motor might sputter against the muck, and what had been a peaceful afternoon turned sour as the smell of pluff mud.
She laid the back of her hand against Cole’s forehead. Even though the nurse said the fever was down, his skin still warmed hers. By the time she and Cora Anne had returned from lunch he’d been lethargic, barely opening his eyes when she bent over him. She hadn’t been this frightened since he lay in that incubator wearing more tubes than he had limbs.
David stood behind her, his touch feather-light on her shoulders. “Why don’t we let him rest? There’s folks out in the waiting room who’d like an update.”
When the results came back with sepsis, Cole had been moved down a floor into the ICU. The room’s walls, all laden with machinery and wires, closed her in already. But she wouldn’t leave him. Not alone. Not like when she’d had to leave him in that NICU.
Her chest heaved with a shaky breath. David rubbed her arms, his hands sending a gentle message. “I’ll stay, Lou. He’s not going to be all by himself. You go get a breath of fresh air.”
Fresh air. She wasn’t sure the last time she’d breathed air that wasn’t tainted with memories or medicine or death.
“Just for a minute.”
She pulled away from David’s arms. She wanted to let him be her rock, but what if she slipped again? Another fall would kill her spirit.
She had these boys to raise. Boys who deserved a strong mother like she’d had.
Who deserve to believe love conquers all. She shook the thought away. Love sometimes brought about the fall.
J.D. and Mac were hiding around the corner from the waiting room, sitting on the hospital floor, backs against the wall, as if waiting on an all-clear from a tornado drill at school. They were bent over a game, but she wasn’t fooled. Her boys were only still and quiet when worried.
“Mama?” J.D. scrambled to his feet. “Can we go back there?”
They were thirteen. Old enough by the hospital policy, even if not by hers. But she’d learned long ago, when they squirmed in her arms, being together contented her boys.
“It’s two at a time and Dad’s back there. Y’all have to take turns.” She tucked J.D. into her side. “Who are you hiding from over here?”
Mac jerked his head toward the waiting room as he stood. “Cousin Gloria just showed up. But Ms. Grace intercepted her.”
Gloria. Mercy, she didn’t have the patience for that right now. Lou bit her lip hard. She hadn’t wished for her mama in seven months. As if even thinking the thought would be a betrayal to her mother’s dying hope that she’d find her own contentment. But in this moment, she’d have given anything for Annie Coultrie to be at the helm.
“Can I go first?” J.D. moved a step down the hall.
“As long as I don’t have to go in there with all those people.” Mac turned pleading eyes to her—and his back to the waiting room.
She nodded. “I’ll let everyone know how he’s doing. Really he needs to rest and let the antibiotics kick in.” How confident she sounded.
J.D. scurried away, and Mac followed. Lou squared her shoulders. Her mother would have thanked everyone for coming and sent them on home. She could do that. And if they didn’t go … well, David wanted to be helpful, so she’d send him out. He’d be less genteel, but these were desperate times.
The crowd quieted as she turned the corner. Of course they’d stop talking about her when she came in the room. Lou scraped her bottom lip, searching for words, when she realized they hadn’t quieted for her. The heads in that tiny room were all bowed and folks were backed up against the walls, hands joined in an infinity circle that twisted all the way around to the center of the room, where Tennessee had knelt with Cora Anne at his side.
“Father God,” he prayed. “We ask first and foremost, always, for Your will to be done. For You to make our hearts open and soft toward whatever that may be. But we ask, for this family right here, that You lay healing hands upon Cole …”
Tears swelled, blurring the scene before her. In the corner of the room she saw her brother Jimmy and his wife, Susan. They’d brought the boys over from school. She saw Cousin Gloria, her hand linked with Jeanna Townsend’s, her lips moving with prayerful words of her own. She saw Ben and Hannah, shoulder to hip, and her sister Carolina and brother-in-law John. Which meant Caro had shut down early—or left someone she only half trusted in charge.
Across the room, she recognized Liam’s head bent toward—Grace’s? Lou’s breath caught at the sight, and she nearly laughed aloud, interrupting the reverence of a moment meant to cloak her family with love. But how perfect, and why had she not thought it before?
She rubbed her temples as Tennessee interceded on her behalf—as he asked God for strength and—oh, heavens—patience. She’d asked for that once, too. The triplets were no doubt an answer.
“We thank You, Lord, for first loving us. Loving us in our failings and shortcomings and mistakes. Loving us in our stubbornness …”
Her own eyes cast heavenward. Way to call her out without saying her name.
“We thank You for Cole, for the gift he and his brothers are to all our lives. Amen.”
The room echoed and rustled as one, and Lou found herself enveloped in arms that passed her one to another. For once, she didn’t long to run away, to find someplace new. Finally, her roots had reached out and taken hold and anchored her right here, to these people and this purpose.
Even Cousin Gloria’s presence was welcome, as she pressed Lou’s nose to her silk blouse, near the base of her throat, where the scent of White Roses lingered. Mama had worn the same perfume, a touch to her throat and wrists, every Saturday night date or Sunday morning. She’d been wrong. She’d never been alone.
Her mama’s presence was all around, in these people, in this place.
Right where she belonged.
Chapter 58
J.D. hesitated in the doorway, so David motioned for him to come on in. Hard as it might be, the boys needed to see their brother. Might be time to bend the rules a bit, though, since Mac peeped over J.D.’s shoulder.
Two visitors surely only applied to adults. After all the boys had shared a womb, so David figured that made them a three-for-one deal. Not to mention, a moment ago there’d been some flashing lights and scurrying of nurses somewhere else, so now was a good time.
He waved again. “Shut the door.”
J.D. and Mac slipped in, clicking the door so softly behind them, it edged back open an inch. David chuckled. “Y’all might want to learn to do that with your mama’s screen door.”
Mac shrugged. “We’ll work on it.”
J.D. moved to the other side of the bed, staring at Cole’s arm wrapped completely from fingers to shoulder. “Tell us the truth, Dad.”
If only it were that easy. David shook his head. “He’s pretty sick, guys. Infection likely came from the mud, and his body’s been too weak to fight it off. But give him a few days and a few bags of that medicine, he’ll be good as new.” His voice trembled. Maybe the boys wouldn’t notice.
“No, he won’t.” J.D. quaked over the words and crumpled beside his brother. “Should’ve been me.”
What was he talking about? “Listen, son. This was an accident.”
“No, Dad. I saw the rope fraying and that the limb was cracked. I was going to tell Mom, but we thought—”
“Cole and I thought, not you.” Mac interrupted, squeezing J.D.’s shoulder. “You’re the safe one.”
“I shouldn’t have let him get on that tire. I had a bad feeling …” J.D. bent his head again. “And now he’s hurt so bad he might not get to play. It should’ve been me. I don’t even care if I can’t play baseball. I just do it because—”
When J.D.’s voice hitched on the words, Mac finished for him again. “He just plays because we like it and so do you, Dad.”
“Oh, son …” David moved between the bed and the machines, doubting he’d held his boys this close since they’d been infants. “You never have to do anything to please me.”
“I pushed him extra hard.” His son’s sobs broke his own heart. “To prove my point we shouldn’t be on it. I thought it would crack more and he’d get off—I didn’t think—”
“I pushed him, too.” Mac wouldn’t let his brother take all the blame, and David was grateful. They had each other, someone to lean on. Unlike him growing up, which was why he’d always found solace in a team.
“Boys, no one is to blame. Maybe it wasn’t a great choice, but what happened wasn’t intentional. And Cole,” David glanced at his son’s narrow form, so still under the white sheets. “He’s going to be just fine.”
“Don’t lie, Dad.”
“I’m not lying.” He stood, arms crossed. “I’ll tell you a story, okay, but don’t tell your mom?” They nodded.
He’d tell her himself, eventually. “That night your sister almost drowned—and Tennessee’s dad did—I blamed myself. I should’ve been there to go in after her. But I made us late getting home because I wanted to walk. Your mom wanted to ride with Carolina and John, but I needed to talk to her.
“By the time we got to the beach house, Cora Anne had already gone in that water and the accident had already happened. But if we’d been sooner—” His breath caught over confession.
“But it was an accident, Dad. You’ve all always said so.” J.D. snagged a paper towel to swi
pe at his nose.
David clapped him on the shoulder. “Exactly. I spent a long time hating myself for letting it happen, but truth is, Pat saved me too. What if I’d gone in after her? What if I’d been the one to hit my head on those rocks and drown? I’d have left your mother with four kids—three of them you rascals”—he cuffed Mac playfully under his chin—“and how would that have been? Certainly not better, I’ll tell you that.”
J.D. leaned against him, as if he was five years old again and they were reading before bed. “Think it’s okay if we pray for a miracle?”
“I don’t know a lot, son, but I know asking for a miracle is always okay.” He hugged his boys close again. “But you have to understand, if it doesn’t happen our way, if Cole can’t ever play again, that doesn’t mean things aren’t working together for good. Just takes a while, sometimes, to see it.”
~~~
Outside the room, Lou stood, her temple pressed against the coolness of the metal doorframe. The door hadn’t caught and through the inch-wide crack, she’d heard David’s deep, strong voice over her boys muffled ones. Enough she could piece it all together. Her sweet, tenderhearted J.D. … she wouldn’t let this drag him down like she’d let herself—and Cora Anne—drown under grief all those years ago.
Then she heard David’s admission, and she pressed knuckles to her mouth, holding in the words she should’ve already said. Had she ever had the thought? That he should’ve saved their daughter?
No, her only thoughts all that time had been selfish. That she’d never really told Patrick how much he’d meant to her. She’d let him die believing she never really cared. But the truth—that murky truth that was never clear and never seemed right? She’d loved him because he let her go, rather than make her stay.
And in that moment, leaning against the doorframe of her son’s ICU room, she realized why she’d been so insistent David leave.
She needed to see if he’d come back.
Chapter 59
Edisto Beach, July 2001
The Bridge Between Page 22
