Danny Ray (Ray Trilogy) (10 page)

They left Danny at the hospital on Thursday afternoon by himself for the first time. Art didn’t feel comfortable leaving his business in Fred’s hands for any longer. He knew there were bills to take care of that only he could handle. Laura had a few
odds and ends also which needed her attention. On Saturday, she traveled back to New Orleans to care for Danny. She planned to transfer him back to her home or to Tulsa where he would be closer to home as soon as possible.

Laura walked into the hospital room on Saturday afternoon to see Danny
smiling and holding hands with a beautiful young woman. Her oval face framed by long flowing black hair displayed a creamy perfect complexion. Danny watched Laura as she walked to his bed with an animated expression, “Mom, I would like for you to meet Lisa Marvel. Isn’t she marvelous?”

Laura trying to swallow her surprise, smiled and said, “I’m sure she is,” as she reached to shake her hand. “My name is Laura Bailey. I’m glad to meet you.”

“She brought me another bouquet of flowers, see them over there?” he indicated toward the extra table that the nurses had brought in to hold his excessive amount of bouquets. There in the center stood an urn with a dozen red roses with other assorted flowers included.

“That’s very pretty,” Laura agreed. She didn’t ask him how he felt. Right now she didn’t think he hardly knew his name. She visited a short time and excused herself to get something to drink in order to give them some privacy.

The next time she encountered Dr. Barnes, she asked the question that continually lodged in her throat, “Doctor Barnes, will Danny be able to play football again?” Laura asked fearing she already knew what his answer would be.

“That would be highly unlikely, Mrs. Bailey?” he answered.  “With a break like this, he may have trouble with it for the rest of his life. I hope in his case it heals well. We did the best we could to set it straight. Now, we have to wait and see how well he
heals.”

“I apologize for taking your time, Dr. Barnes, but is there a possibility that Danny could be transferred to Tulsa to complete his treatment?”

“Not at this time, Danny shouldn’t be moved. It would be very painful and very expensive. I don’t recommend it.”

Laura watched the nurse
’s work with Danny. A physical therapist visited his room every day rubbing his muscles. They made him cough which hurt his broken ribs tremendously. He took a breathing treatment twice a day to help keep his lungs expanded and help promote good pulmonary circulation. Every time they came in Laura had another question for them. Soon she began to understand his treatment and they agreed for her to assist in any way she wanted in addition to what they were doing. Laura hated to just sit there when there was something that she could do to help her son heal.

Danny appreciated her administrations. H
e told her his back hurt from lying in the bed all the time. Both of his legs hurt, one because of the fracture but also from being in traction and the inability to bend his knee, the right leg hurt from inactivity. She had trouble getting him to eat and knew he was losing a lot of weight.

A few weeks later
, the lowest blow came to Danny when a tall, silver haired man with a serious face wearing a well cut business suit entered the room with another man. He introduced himself to Laura wearing a big smile, “I’m Jerry Jones, the manager of the Cowboys.” He shook hands with Laura and Danny.

“It’s so good to see you again, Danny. I hate it like everything about this accident.” 

Laura stretched out on her recliner under the large oak tree and drifted off to sleep. That’s where Danny and Art found her at the end of their ball game.

CHAPTER
TEN

He received a call that the baby chicks he had ordered were in. When he got home with them, he placed them in the little shelter he prepared for them in the milk room. He turned the red light on over them to keep them warm.
He spoke softly to them, “Now little chicks, all you need to do is eat, drink, and grow.”

Frisker followed him out of the milk room
recently converted into brooder house. Danny turned to secure the Dutch doors he placed there so he could leave the top door open and still keep the other door closed. That way he could look in on them without having to go in and they also could have fresh air.

On the way back to the house he saw a squirrel standing under a tree munching on something in his front paws. Danny squatted by Frisker
and pointed toward the squirrel. Frisker raised his ears and came to attention with his tail straight out. He knew he was getting important instructions. Danny said pointing, “Over there. See it? A squirrel. Go get it.”

Frisker took off running fast, but he ran in the wrong direction. Danny stood up and shook his head at him. The squirrel ran up the tree as soon as Frisker took off. Danny walked over to the tree where the squirrel sat looking at
him from the limb overhead. After searching all around and smelling of the tree trunks Frisker walked up to Danny and looked up at him like ‘what was it you wanted?’ Danny pointed up the tree, Frisker looked up. He smelled all around the tree but never saw the squirrel.

Danny shook his head at him and said, “You’ll have to do better than that if you become my hunting dog.”

He went around the barn to check on the pigs. They were all stretched out in the shade resting. He walked over to the calves and decided it was time to enlarge their pen. Soon he would need to get started with that project. He headed to the house remembering an old adage, ‘Work is never done on the farm.’ He might be lacking in human companionship, he decided but he never had to worry about nothing to do.

He called Angela in the evening, to ask her to the movies Friday night. It was still hot summertime in late August so they chose to go the Allred Theater so they could sit inside and enjoy the air conditioned atmosphere
rather than go to the drive-in theater. When they got there on Friday evening, the theater was packed. They found a seat only about three rows back from the screen and had to walk over a half a dozen people’s feet to get to their seats, not an easy feat carrying two glasses of cola and a large bag of popcorn. They watched
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Katharine Ross.

They leisurely strolled hand in hand in the park after the movies. The park was well lit along the walking trail. The lights around the park
sent shafts of shimmer that danced over the water caused by the fountains in the center of the pond. On the tiny island in the center a statue of a boy sat fishing in the water.

They stopped to sit on the bench to relax and enjoy the scene. A soft breeze blew out of the south which cooled the air causing a pleasant reprieve from the heat of the hot summer day.

Danny commented, “I remember my mom and dad sitting out late in the evening enjoying the coolness of the day just like this. I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.”

Angela asked softly, “Do you miss him much? Your dad, I mean?”

Danny cocked his head to the side while he thought, “I do miss him, but I was just ten years old. I think what I miss the most is that I lost the opportunity to grow up with him being there. He never got to watch me play ball. He never knew that I played in the Orange Bowl, or watched in the stands as I played for the Dallas Cowboys.”

“People tell me that you look like him. I know he’s proud of you. He might see more from where he is than you know,” she consoled him.

He held her slender hand in his big hand and brought it to his cheek. “Thank you for understanding that. I’ve had surrogate dads like Aaron’s dad, Harold Roberts who mentored me. There is Uncle Art who has been through the thick and thin with our family since I was twelve or thirteen. I love them and appreciate all they have done for me, but I still picture my own dad looking down on me from above.”

“Then you bought the home place back.
He’s got to be proud of that,” she said softly.

“I hope you don’t think I’m silly when I say this,” Danny admitted, “but I felt his presence so strong that day when I bought the place, then also when I saw it again that first day when I returned home. I could have almost turned around and talked to him.”

Angela nodded in understanding, “I lost my Grandma, my mother’s mom, when I was fourteen. When I’m sad, I can still feel her comforting me.”

Danny stood up and pulled her up with the hand
which he had never let go. “Let’s walk. Let’s enjoy a beautiful night like this.”

The next night they went back to the barn dance again. This time he danced in moderation giving his leg and knee resting periods occasionally.

Danny enjoyed how comfortably they got along together. It surprised him how he could talk about anything to her and she understood. It became expected that on Friday and on Saturday nights, they always found something fun to do.  

Summer turned into
fall. The school bus traveled by every day, morning and evening. Danny could set the clock by when he saw or heard the bus go by. The chilling winds blew against the old farmhouse so that Danny wondered if he needed to set up the old wood stove to supplement the little gas heaters he had installed. He realized that during the summer he had made it okay by opening windows to catch whatever breeze blew in but the cold penetrated the old house. He began to think about his new house he wanted to build.

Angela complained one day to
her mother while they were alone in the kitchen, “Danny and I enjoy being together. We’ve dated for some time now but it seems like our relationship has gone nowhere.”

“Do you feel like you love him?”

“It’s hard to love someone when you aren’t sure what the other person feels,” Angela replied as she frowned into the pot of potato soup she stirred.

Aimee could feel the pain that her daughter felt
and wished she had the answer that would remove the anguish she knew her daughter was feeling. “The best advice I know to give you, and I know that its inadequate right now is, follow your heart.”

Angela nodded her head. The only thing her heart had been telling her lately was that it was in pain. It had felt so right to date Danny. She had a big crush on him in high school, but Danny only had football on his mind at the time. Nobody had measured
up to her perception of Danny since then. This had been her second chance; she didn’t want to mess it up. She had been so delighted when he moved into the old farmhouse next door. Her heart thrilled when Danny invited her to be his date to the barn dance that first time. Looking back she remembered that first kiss when she came on a little too strong. She could see that Danny had been surprised by her response and she had kept her feelings a little more reserved since then hoping his affection would grow to match hers. Frankly, she felt a little discouraged at the moment.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Eve Bancroft, reporter for the
Pryor Daily Times
, hit the heel of her hand against her forehead chastising herself for her negligence. She had been wracking her brain trying to come up with a human interest story for two days when some little niggling thought that she had put back for later came to surface. They had a celebrity right in their midst that she had let slip from the radar because at the time of Danny’s accident she had felt a rare moment of sympathy.

She checked her calendar and realized he had been home for
five months. She really had let this one slip out from under her limelight way too long. She checked around and got his address and phone number. She had heard when he first came home that he had bought back the old home place.

She licked her lips in anticipation, the information she received gave every indication of a really great story. She contemplated whether to call to ask for an interview or just show up. In the end she decided to just show up, at least he couldn’t tell her not to come.

As he walked back to the house from the barn, Danny was thinking about checking with Jim, the man who ran the feed store. He needed to purchase some hay for his calves, and he would appreciate a recommendation from Jim about where to purchase it. The weather had turned cold in the last few weeks and today the wind drove the chill right through Danny’s jacket.

Frisker started barking and Danny heard tires rolling along on the new gravel he had just spread over his old dirt driveway.
A nice clean blue and white Ford Fairlane convertible came into view. He wondered if that car had ever seen unpaved country roads before.

The car door opened and a young woman Danny figured to be about his age stepped out of the car. She showed a big smile that went almost ear to ear exposing perfectly formed teeth framed by bright red lipstick.
Her short, curly, dark brown hair complimented her perky smile. She wore a white starched shirt over a short red flared skirt that almost reached to her knees over her slim figure. A matching short red leather jacket complimented her ensemble.

Danny couldn’t help but smile back in response to her infectious greeting. She held out her hand and said, “Hi, Danny. It’s good to see you. I enjoyed watching you play during college and with the Dallas Cowboys.”

Danny almost hesitated wondering if she was a crazy fan who had tracked him down but he saw that she had a local car tag, so he gave in to the impulse to invite her into the house to get out of the chilly wind.