Hold on My Heart (19 page)

“Okay, but if you were me, what would you do?”

She laughed at that. “You know it doesn’t work that way. But I will say this. You can’t be the father you want to be for Rachel as long as you are still wounded yourself. Guilt is a destructive force, and it’s not productive. Take what you know now and move forward. I know your main goal is to do what’s best for Rachel, and that’s commendable. But it starts with your own peace of mind. So in an ironic way, you owe it to Rachel to take care of yourself first.”

Tom took the long way home, the way that took him past the curve in the road where Connie had died. He’d driven by that awful spot at least a hundred times since the night of the accident. The scars on the tree had weathered, so much so they couldn’t really be seen unless one knew where to look. Lots of scars were like that, it seemed.

He pulled into his driveway a few minutes later and went inside. He turned on all the lights and looked around his little farmhouse like he’d never seen it before. It was full of tiny, impractical rooms he’d once had big plans for, but now he couldn’t really remember what any of those plans were. He stood in his kitchen and let his thoughts rove over the past, through old hopes and faded dreams. There were some good ones in the mix, memories of their old house and Connie and Rachel putting on makeup together, or the three of them having pancakes on a Saturday morning and watching cartoons. Those moments he’d cherish, always, but just as Dr. Brandt had told Rachel, he could keep them, but he couldn’t hide in them. Not anymore.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and another memory flooded his senses. A recent and delicious vision of Libby on his lap. The sound of her breath and her laughter. That was where he wanted to live now—but there were things he needed to do first.

He picked up his phone and dialed Connie’s sister.

“Hello?”

“Kristy, it’s Tom. I was hoping to ask for a favor.” He could hear the television and her kids playing in the background.

“Of course. What do you need?”

“I was wondering if you could come over tomorrow and help me sort through all of Connie’s stuff. Rachel doesn’t want to, and, well, I can’t really blame her. But I could sure use the help.”

The long pause on the other end left his palms sweaty.

“I will absolutely help you do that. You could’ve asked me sooner, you know.”

A pressure that had taken root and wound around all the muscles in his shoulders a lifetime ago began to unwind. This was the right thing. “I know. I wasn’t ready. I am now.”

“Can I ask you something?” Kristy said.

“Um, sure.”

“Does this have anything to do with the pretty blond from the talent show?” Her voice was light and teasing.

“If I said no, would you believe me? Because it really doesn’t. It’s just time. It’s past time.”

Kristy chuckled into the phone. “It is past time. I’ll be over first thing in the morning.”

“Thank you. This means a lot to me, Kristy.” He exhaled, not realizing he’d been holding his breath.

“I know. And Tom?”

“What?”

“Connie would be glad to see you finally clear all that stuff out of your house. Donate it to charity or something so someone can benefit from it.”

“You think?” He looked at a stack of cardboard boxes that had been lined up behind the sofa for more than a year.

“Of course. And for what it’s worth, I think she’d like the blond, too, even though this has nothing to do with her.”

Tom caught himself chuckling back. “You met her for two minutes, and you think you can make that assessment?”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “Rachel likes her. She told me so. That’s all I need to know. See you around nine.”

Tom hung up the phone.
Rachel likes her.
He hoped that was true.

“D
addy, are you going to eat your pudding?” Marti asked as she leaned over her father’s hospital bed. She bumped against some random button, setting off a high-pitched beep.

Their father was not a model patient, and Libby and Marti had been tasked with entertaining him while their mother visited with Ginny and sweet baby Teddy.

“You may have my pudding if you go find me a pot roast and some real mashed potatoes,” her father answered. “I’ve had three days of nothing but cardboard meat and gritty mashed potatoes. No wonder the Pilgrims thought potatoes were poisonous. They must have been using this same recipe. Honestly, how do they expect me to recover?”

“You’re coming home tomorrow, and Nana is going to make you the biggest and best meal you’ve ever had,” Libby told him. “If Mom doesn’t stuff her into the oven first. Now stop being so grumpy, because I have some pictures to show you.”

“What sort of pictures?” he asked. “And what is that infernal beeping? My God, everything in this room is rigged with an alarm.”

A plump nurse bustled in and flipped a switch. “Please stop touching all the buttons, Mr. Hamilton.”

“I’m looking for the one that ejects me out of here, Nurse Ratched.” He smiled at her as he said it.

She smiled back, weary but obviously not insulted. “I sure will miss your special sense of humor when you leave us. But in the meantime, please stop touching all the buttons. And I can take that tray for you, if you’re all finished with lunch.”

“That wasn’t lunch. That was leftover POW rations from World War Two. Say, speaking of World War Two, it’s rumored that Hitler only had one testicle. Do you know the medical name for that?”

Marti scooped up the pudding cup and a spoon as the nurse lifted the yellow plastic tray from the bedside table.

The nurse chuckled. “No, Mr. Hamilton, I don’t, but I’m sure you can tell me.”

He nodded as he readjusted his covers. “Monorchidism.” She took a Styrofoam cup from the table and added it to the tray. “Fascinating. Please stop touching the buttons.” She turned and left, shaking her head.

“Really, Dad,” Marti said as she scooped pudding from the container. “Why would she want to know that? Why would anyone want to know that?”

“Anyway,” Libby interrupted, desperate to never learn how her father knew so much about missing testicles, “I wanted to cheer you up, so I printed out some pictures of possible décor for inside the ice-cream parlor. Window treatments and little bistro tables and stuff like that.”

He frowned. “How am I supposed to get that place finished with this bum leg? The doctor says I can’t put any weight on it for two months. I can’t believe I fell off a chair.”

“Well, you did. And we are all very grateful you didn’t break your neck. Because trust me, I saw you, and you looked like you had a broken neck.”

Sympathy would only make her father feel worse and act grumpier. The best way to perk him up was with no-nonsense gumption. He was usually a very big fan of gumption.

“Do you suppose if a giraffe broke its neck, its head would drag on the ground?” Marti asked.

Their father’s eyes perked up, and he pointed at Marti. “Actually, what’s especially fascinating about giraffes is that they have the exact same number of vertebrae in their necks as humans. Just seven. Can you imagine? Of course each vertebra is huge, ten inches, and weighs nearly eighty-five pounds.”

“Eighty-five pounds? That’s crazytown. So two of them would weigh more than my entire body. Right?”

Libby was losing them. Fast. “Do you want to see these pictures, Dad?”

“What? Oh, pictures. Yes. Say, have you talked to Tom? He’s still working, isn’t he?”

Libby nearly dropped the pictures on the tiled floor. Her lungs wobbled together like bowling pins teetering from a strike.

“I talked to him for a few minutes the day after you got here. He said he needed to do some work at his own house for a couple of days, but he’ll start back at the ice-cream parlor next week.”

Her conversation with Tom had been short and cryptic, in that monosyllabic way he had. He wasn’t one to emote in person, and he definitely didn’t do it over the phone, so she’d tried to read the sound waves in his voice to get some sense of what he might be thinking. At the end he’d sounded moderately upbeat and said, “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

It wasn’t much to pin her hopes on, but it was all she had.

“Oh, before I forget,” said Marti, tossing the empty pudding cup and spoon into the trash basket. “We’re supposed to go have a bridal fitting tomorrow afternoon, Libby. Can you do that? My wedding is coming up soon, you know.”

Peter tried to adjust in the bed, tugging at his hospital gown impatiently. “You know, I can’t walk you down the aisle for at least two months, Martha. How would you feel about postponing this wedding thing until springtime?”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Nice try, Daddy. Dante says if you’re not mobile by the wedding we can just launch you from a catapult into your seat. But he called it something else. A treble clef or something.”

“A trebuchet?”

“Yes. How did you know that?” Her voice squeaked in amazement.

Their father pointed at his chest. “History teacher, remember?”

Marti nodded as she pulled her vibrating phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. “Oh, yeah. Okay, well, anyway, looks like I have to go help Ginny now. She just texted me to say Nana is driving her crazy and she’s about to lock her in the bathroom.” She turned to Libby. “So, are we on for tomorrow?”

So many awesome options. Hang out at the hospital with her grumpy dad, go to Ginny’s and listen to her argue with Nana about baby-rearing, or get trussed up in the most absurd version of a bridesmaid dress ever.

“Yep, I’ll go with you,” she told Marti.

“Perfect. I’ll pick you up at two.”

Marti left, and Libby took a seat next to her father. “Ready to look at these pictures?”

He looked at his leg and sighed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen this way, Liberty. I wanted to fix up that old schoolhouse with my own two hands. I wanted to be the one to transform it into an ice-cream parlor.”

“I know, Dad. And I’m sorry. I guess you could tell Tom to postpone the work until you can join him again.” Even as she said it, she prayed he’d reject that notion.

“I can’t. I’ve sunk too much money into that place, and I need to start turning a profit as soon as possible. I’m up to my shoulders in debt already, and your mother didn’t speak to me for two weeks after I bought it. I have to prove it was a good idea. But falling off that chair just proves she was right.”

Libby leaned over and hugged him. “She’ll get over it, Dad. As soon as she sees it full of happy little kids all excited about their ice cream, she’ll jump on board.” She sat back down in the chair.

Her father shook his head. “If I can get her to go. She still hasn’t set foot in there, you know. And now that I’ve broken this leg she thinks the place is cursed. Maybe it is.”

“It’s not cursed. It was just an accident with a wobbly chair and some old, weather-weakened wood. But we do need to get her inside to see how cute it’s all turning out. I was just thinking that if I invite her and Nana to go out to lunch, I can offer to show it to them. You know Nana will say yes, and then Mom will have to go, too.”

He pursed his lips for a moment before speaking. “That’s quite devious.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not if it helps my cause.” He smiled, but it didn’t last. “What about another job for you, Liberty? My ice-cream parlor is taking up all your time, and I haven’t heard you mention any interviews in quite a while.”

Libby looked down and fidgeted with the pictures in her hands. “I have been thinking about that. My unemployment lasts a couple more weeks, and until your ice-cream parlor is finished I kind of feel like that is my job. I do have a few résumés out there, but everybody is cutting back, and companies just aren’t hosting big events like they used to. Plus, I’m not so sure about Chicago anymore.”

Libby hadn’t really admitted that to herself, but there she was, saying it out loud.

“Really? Well, that’s quite a shift in thinking. What brought that about? Or should I say, who?”

She looked into her father’s dark blue eyes, the same shade as her own. He looked small in that industrial hospital bed, frail, with plastic tubes jabbed into his veins. His leg would heal and he’d be fine, but the fact remained that her father was getting older. Someday he would go the way of that anglerfish and just fade away. For those long moments when he’d been unconscious on those steps, she’d thought it might have already happened.