Rachel Lee (3 page)

"Well," said Hannah briskly, "this calls for a celebration. Let me get you a glass of Drambuie, Witt. What about you, Joni?"

"No thanks, Mom." She hated to drink. Besides, something about this didn't feel right. Witt was looking strange, and Hannah was looking disturbed, and there was suddenly an undercurrent so strong in the room that Joni could feel her own nerves stretching.

But she'd had that feeling before with her mother and her uncle. It had been there ever since she could remember, the feeling that things were being left unspoken. It was so familiar she hardly wondered about it.

But all of a sudden it seemed significant. And just as suddenly, Witt's news didn't feel like anything to celebrate.

The chill settled over her again, this time a strong foreboding. In her heart of hearts, she knew nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Hardy Wingate sat at his mother's bedside and tried not to give in to the anxiety that was creeping along his nerve endings. Barbara was better, they told him. She'd passed the crisis. But he couldn't see it. She was still on oxygen, she still had tubes running into her everywhere, and the only improvement he could see was that she wasn't on a respirator anymore. Her breathing was still labored, though, and he knew things could change in an instant, no matter what they told him.

He touched her hand gently, hoping she could tell he was there. Since last night, when he'd brought her in, she hadn't seemed to be aware of much. Which was probably a good thing. He hoped she wasn't suffering.

But he was going crazy, sitting there with nothing to occupy him but worry and guilt. And memories. God-awful memories of sitting beside Karen Matlock's bedside twelve years ago, just before she died. Just before Witt Matlock threw him out.

He didn't blame Witt for that, but it had hurt anyway. And sometimes it still hurt. Like right now, when he was reliving the whole damn nightmare because he had nothing to occupy his thoughts.

He'd picked up a paperback novel at the gift shop earlier, some highly touted thriller, but it hadn't been able to hold his attention.

Either

J.

W.

Killeen was losing his touch or Hardy Wingate just didn't have the brainpower left to focus on it.

So he sat there holding his mother's hand, trying not to think about how frail it felt, trying not to think about Karen Wingate and that hellish night twelve years ago. But trying not to think about things only seemed to make him think about them more.

Or maybe it was talking to Joni Matlock earlier in the cafeteria that was making him think so much about Karen. Back in high school, when he'd been dating Karen, he'd gotten to know Joni because the girls were close. But since Karen's death . well, he hadn't had a whole lot to do with the Matlocks since then. *"

And even in a small town like this, it was possible to avoid people if you really wanted to. Right after the accident, he'd gone away to college. By the time he got back, Joni had gone away to school, and since her return three years ago, the most he'd seen of her was across the width of the supermarket or Main Street. Which suited him fine.

But then today, out of the clear blue, she'd come up to him while he was having coffee in the cafeteria and had joined him. What had possessed the woman? She knew what her uncle thought of him. And she must have noticed that he'd been working on avoiding her. Hell, the reason the width of the street was always between them was that he was perfectly willing to cross the damn thing to get away when he saw her coming.

Then, like nothing in the world had ever happened, she plopped down with him at the cafeteria table. Weird. And he'd been within two seconds of jumping up and walking away when she'd asked about his mother.

Now, he couldn't ignore that. He couldn't be rude in the face of that kind of politeness. His mother had raised him better than that. So he'd been stuck, and he'd had to talk to her.

And all the time he'd been itching to get away. He supposed it was stupid, after all this time, but he didn't want any more trouble with Witt Matlock. That man hated him.

Well, why the hell not? He hated himself.

He froze suddenly, his heart stopping in his chest as he realized that his mother was no longer breathing. Caught in a vise of fear, he lifted his gaze to her face. Then, just as he was reaching for the call button, she drew a long, ragged breath. Then another. The tortured tempos of life resumed.

He waited breathlessly for a long time, but Barbara seemed to have taken a firm grasp on life once more. The tightness in his chest eased a little, but as it did, he felt the burn of unshed tears in his eyes.

"Hang in there," he heard himself tell her in a rough whisper. "Hang in there, Mom."

Even as he spoke the encouragement, he wondered why. Maybe she was as tired of it all as he sometimes felt. As he felt right now. Sometimes it just didn't seem worth the effort.

But he wasn't ready to lose her yet. He probably never would be, but she was only fifty, and he figured he shouldn't have to be losing her for a good long while yet.

As soon as he had the thought, bitterness rose in him, burning his throat like bile. Karen had been too young, too. Only seventeen.

Life and death didn't care about things like youth.

But Barbara kept breathing, difficult though it was, and the heart monitor kept recording her steady, too rapid beats. He watched the lambda waves form on the display, one after another in perfect rhythm, checked the digital readouts and saw that her blood pressure Whs steady, her pulse a constant eighty-five. Too fast, but strong.

Strong enough. Not like it had been with Karen.

For a few seconds he was suddenly back in the I.

C.

U twelve years ago, watching the monitor, all too aware despite his lack of knowledge that the ragged pattern of Karen's heartbeats wasn't a good sign. Aware that the rattling unsteadiness of her breathing was terrible. Aware that those low numbers on the blood pressure monitors were dangerous.

Aware that no one was doing anything for her just then. Wondering why, ready to go grab someone and demand they help her. Sensing that they had done all they could.

Then Witt had come into the cubicle behind him.

"Get out!"

He jerked, as if the words had been spoken behind him right now instead of twelve years ago. He came back to the present with the feeling of someone who had just taken a long, rough journey. His heart was pounding, and his face was damp with sweat. God!

There was a rustle, and the curtain was pulled back. Delia Patterson entered, giving him a slight smile and a nod as she approached the bed.

She checked the IV and made a note on a clipboard.

"How is she?"

Delia, a slightly plump woman with the champagne-blond hair that a lot of older women adopted to cover the gray, looked at him. She'd known Hardy all his life. "You can see for yourself."

"Delia..."

She shook her head. "I can't make any promises. And I'm not the doctor. But..." She hesitated. "We might see some difference by morning. Maybe. The doctor put her on some pretty powerful antibiotics, Hardy. But no one can say for sure, understand?"

He nodded, hating the uncertainty. He'd always hated uncertainty, but life seemed to deal out very little else.

"You staying all night?" she asked.

"I plan to."

"That waiting-room couch is mighty hard." She glanced at her watch.

"And you've been in here longer than the allowed ten minutes."

"For God's sake, I'm just sitting here holding her hand."

She nodded. "Okay, I'll give you another ten."

"Thanks."

On the way out the door she paused and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"If she's more alert in the morning, she's going to need you then, Hardy. You might consider getting some serious sleep tonight."

"I want to be here. In case."

She nodded. "But I can call you if ... anything changes. You could be here in ten minutes."

"That might be too many minutes. Thanks, Delia, but I'm staying."

"And probably catching pneumonia, too." She shook her head. "We're overflowing into the hallways. Have" you been immunized? "

"Who, me?"

She shook her head, muttered something and walked out. Hardy felt a faint smile curling the corners of his mouth, but it faded as he turned back to his mother. She was fighting for her life, and if she could summon the energy to do that, then he could damn well stick it out with her.

After ten more minutes Delia kept her word and banished him to the I.

C.

U waiting room. Much to his relief, there were only two other people there. Given Delia's description of patients overflowing into the halls, he'd figured the waiting rooms would be getting full, too.

There was one couch. It didn't look too healthy, as if it hadn't been cleaned in a long time, and it didn't offer any extra padding for comfort. In fact, he thought minutes after he'd stretched out on it, the floor was probably more comfortable.

So what? He could handle it for forty minutes until Delia would be obliged to let him back into the I.

C.

U.

But as soon as he closed his eyes, Joni Matlock filled his mind's eye.

Everything was determined to torture him, it seemed. There couldn't be a worse possible time to start thinking about the Matlocks. Thinking about Joni inevitably led him to thinking about Karen, and tonight he didn't want to remember how the best medical treatment in the world hadn't been able to save Karen, not with his mother at death's door.

But good time, bad time, right time, wrong time, it didn't make a bit of difference. His thoughts wouldn't leave him alone, and they seemed bound and determined to focus on Joni.

Okay, he told himself. Think about Joni. Think about her until you're bored and your mind decides to go somewhere else.

So he thought over their conversation earlier. It had been brief. He figured she'd picked up on the fact that he really didn't want to talk to her. She'd been polite, concerned the way any stranger would be.

Nothing more. Nothing to get all bent about.

Except that he couldn't forget those blue eyes of hers. It wasn't just that they were pretty, though they certainly were. It wasn't just that they were as arrestingly blue as a clear mountain-morning sky. It was the way they seemed to speak to him. They'd only talked for three minutes, if that, but when he'd walked away, he'd had the feeling they'd shared an entire subtext, her eyes to his.

But those eyes had always made him feel that way. They'd always drawn him and spoken to him. If life had treated them all differently, he might have gotten to know her better. Instead, he avoided her the way he avoided Witt. Because some things were better left buried, and there was no way he could talk to Joni Matlock without remembering Karen Matlock.

As easy as that, his thoughts turned on him and began to twist into dark corridors. Swearing under his breath, he sat upright and forced himself to remember where he was. Me had to stop beating himself up over the past. He knew that. It was done, and he couldn't change any of it.

But when it got dark, on nights when he couldn't sleep, he could still hear Karen's scream as the other car swerved straight at him, could still remember her screams as they lay in the mangled wreckage of his car. Could still remember Witt looking at him out of cold, dead eyes and saying, "You killed her, boy. You killed her."

The sounds and smells of the I.

C.

U had brought it all back to the surface, bubbling up like explosive gases in the swamp of his brain. His hold on the present, he realized, was getting mighty tenuous.

Shoving himself to his feet, he went out into the brightly lighted corridor to pace. But that, too, was familiar, and he realized with a sickening plunge of his stomach that yesterday and today were starting to fuse in his weary brain. He wasn't sure from one minute to the next which year it was and who was lying in the I.

C.

U near death.

God, he thought he'd gotten over the worst of this a few years ago, but now here it was again, rearing up to bite him on the butt. He deserved it; he knew that. But deserving this kind of torture didn't mean he had to like it.

He passed his hand over his face, trying to wipe away the images that seemed to be dancing at the edges of his vision, horrific images that were burned forever into his mind. Feeling desperate, he glanced at his watch and realized it was only two minutes until they would let him in to see Barbara one last time before they shut down visiting hours for the night.

Stupid, he thought. Family members ought to be able to visit patients in the I.

C.

U round the clock. What difference did it make if it was midnight, 2:00 a. m. or 8;00 a. m?

But they were strict about it, and he didn't want to squawk too loudly right now, especially since he'd been pushing the limits all day and the nurses had been letting him.

He was standing right outside the I.

C.

U door when Delia opened it.

"Last call," she said, pursing her lips. "Ten minutes and you're outta here, Hardy. Then you're going to go home and get some sleep. With this pneumonia going around, we ain't got no room for exhaustion cases."

He gave her a wan smile and made his way to the cubicle where his mother lay. No change. At once relief and disappointment filled him, but he reminded himself that he'd been told not to expect a miracle.

Morning. He'd been told again and again that she might be better in the morning. It was so hard to believe right now, though, as he stood at her bedside, holding her hand gently and murmuring nonsense to her.

Ten minutes later, when he was evicted, nothing had changed. He had the panicky feeling that his mother was slipping slowly away from him, so slowly that it was almost undetectable. And he couldn't really blame her.

Life had been hard on her for a long time. First there had been his drunken bum of a father. Then, when Lester had left, there had been the two jobs she worked to keep Hardy and herself clothed and sheltered. She'd even continued working two jobs so he could go to college. Then she'd helped him start his construction firm, working the endless hours right beside him as they built the business. Now that things were finally going good, it seemed somehow so unreasonably unfair that she should be at death's door.