Silk and Stone (32 page)

Sam froze. “Don’t talk that way.”

“If something happens to me … I put it in my … will. She’ll be Charlotte’s legal guardian.”

Sam’s knees buckled. Bitter protest failed under the tide of fear.
I have plans
, she wanted to shout.
Jake and I have plans
. Sam braced herself against the bed’s metal railing. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

A nurse appeared in the cubicle’s doorway. “Time’s up, hon.”

“Mom, promise me you’re going to fight to get well.”

“Tired, so tired,” Mom answered. “Love you.” Her eyes closed. Sam gripped her hand. “Mom. Everything’s going to be all right. I have something I have to tell you. Maybe it’s what you need to hear.
Mom
, we don’t have to go on the way we have. Please, wake up and listen.”

“Let her rest,” the nurse whispered, waving Sam out.

Sam stared at the slow, labored, rise-and-fall of Mom’s chest. “It’s steady,” she said, nodding hard. “You’re going to be all right. I’ll tell you later. Remember that. I’ve got something very important to tell you.”

When Sam continued to hold her mother’s hand, the nurse gently pulled her away.

The next thing Sam knew, she was back in the hall outside the stern double doors, dazed, not quite certain how she’d gotten there, tears blinding her. She had her head down, watching her hands as she rubbed Mom’s wedding band between her numb fingertips, as if for luck.

A broad, big-knuckled hand closed carefully over both of hers. She jerked her head up. Jake gazed at her with stark intensity. For the briefest moment his attention flickered to the doors of the intensive care ward. His hand tightened convulsively on hers. The sympathy and alarm that swept into his expression frightened her. Mom was going to be fine. There was no reason for him to look as if he thought otherwise.

She opened her mouth to protest, but the words wouldn’t come. The moment had finally arrived when neither of them were children anymore, and all the brief, furtive encounters over the years had always, without rhyme or reason, seemed destined for the stark, nearly desperate way he was looking at her now.

He knows. Somehow, he always finds me when I need him. But I can’t need him. Not yet. Maybe not ever
.

“I’m scared,” Sam admitted. “She’s really sick.” Her throat worked painfully. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Jake exhaled softly and pulled her to him. They stood there, holding each other, her head resting on his shoulder. His lips moved against her temple. “You haven’t talked to her about us yet,” he said.

“No. I knew it’d upset her. I wanted to wait until she was stronger. I tried to tell her just now—she was saying awful, morbid things about the future—but she fell asleep.” Sam drew her head back and looked at him desperately. “She made me take her wedding ring. She claimed she’s worried about losing it while she’s in the hospital. But the way she talked about it—and, God, she told me to take care of Charlotte, and”—Sam could barely say the next words—“she told me she put a note in her will.
If anything happens to her, Aunt Alex will become Charlotte’s guardian.
”

Jake looked shaken. “Your aunt drove your mother to this point,” he said urgently. “Why didn’t I see it coming? Your mother’s got to fight. She’s got to do it for you and your sister.” He paused, his expression becoming even harsher, more urgent. “Your sister,” he repeated. “She’s only fourteen.” He took Sam by the shoulders. “We can’t let her be turned over to Alexandra like property. No judge is going to take her away from Alexandra.”

“My mother is going to be
fine,
” Sam told him, but his insight had shaken her so badly she knew she didn’t sound convinced.

“You don’t have to pretend with me. I know what you’re scared of, and I’m scared too.”

“My mother is fine,” she repeated, swaying.

“I’m not going to walk away this time. You won’t have to go through this alone.”

The nurse shoved a door open and stared at them. “Where’s your aunt, hon?”

Sam took one look at the careful expression in the woman’s eyes and wanted to bolt past her into the ward. “In the cafeteria.”

“You wait right here till she comes up, okay?” The nurse quickly withdrew, letting the door swing shut.

Sam followed her. Jake leapt ahead, pushing the doors open with his shoulder but taking her by one arm.
They stepped inside and Sam halted, horror flooding her. Nurses were hurrying in and out of Mom’s cubicle with unfathomable bottles and syringes and implements in their hands. A door opened across the way, and a man she recognized as Mom’s doctor strode swiftly toward Mom’s room. He gaped at Sam and Jake for a split second. “Out. Out of here, please,” he called, but disappeared into the cubicle without looking to see if they complied.

Sam lurched forward, and through a fog of shock and terror she knew Jake was beside her. But he pulled her to a halt just outside the cubicle’s door, and when she struggled against his hold, he wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close, her back against his torso. “You can’t help her by getting in their way. Let them do their jobs,” he said hoarsely, bending his head close to hers. “Hold my hands. Hold on the way you always have, and I’ll never let you down.”

His voice was the only rational landmark she had. Her fingers were woven tightly in his before he finished speaking. Every nerve strained to its limit as she craned her neck, fixated on glimpses of the medical staff working on Mom. The few words they spoke were all medical jargon; the only thing that registered was the worst.
Cardiac arrest
. She was too numb to care whether her rubbery knees kept her standing or not; but Jake was holding her up, and his cheek was pressed tightly against the side of her face.

She realized she was saying “Don’t give up. Mom, don’t give up,” like a chant.

But after a while she noticed that everyone was slowing down—the nurses, the doctor, all moving slower and slower, and no one was talking any longer, except Sam, who continued whispering, fiercely, brokenly,
Mom, don’t give up
.

“Dear God, what is
he
doing here?” Aunt Alex said loudly as she rushed past them. “I left Charlotte in the waiting room. Go try to calm her down.” She gave Sam and Jake one tortured, outraged glance before she pushed her way into the cubicle.

“I have to go in,” Sam said, and Jake not only let go of her, he propelled her forward, one hand raised in front of her to clear people from her path.

“I’m sorry, hon,” the nurse said, putting an arm around her. Sam gave a raw cry of grief. Someone had thrown Mom’s pillow aside. Her head lay at a strange, limp angle, and her half-open eyes were empty. She was naked from the waist up, until someone hurriedly pulled the sheet over her breasts.

Crying, Aunt Alex bent over her, cupping her ashen, relaxed face in shaking hands. “Frannie,” she said in a broken voice. “
Don’t leave me
. You’re the only person who loves me no matter what I do. Goddammit, you come back. I mean it. I need you.”

Sam moved to her mother’s side and clasped her limp, cooling hand. Deep and unstoppable sobs racked her. For the first time in her life she felt sorry for Aunt Alex. She placed her other hand on Aunt Alex’s bowed back. “
No,
” Jake said, close by and urgent.

Aunt Alex cried out, then straightened and pulled Sam into her arms. Sam held on to her tightly, wishing she were Mom, clinging to an irrational hope that none of this was really happening. “I loved her so much,” Aunt Alex cried. “I’ll take care of them for you, Frannie. I’ll take care of Sam and Charlotte.”

“You’ve got what you’ve always wanted,” Jake said.

Aunt Alex moved convulsively, sobbing, a sound of rage and shock exploding from her throat. “Get him
out
of here,” she told the nurses, pointing at Jake. “Call security if you have to.”

Sam wrenched herself away from Aunt Alex. “
No.
” She gave Jake a tortured look. She wanted to be in his arms, not Aunt Alex’s. She reached out, then caught herself.
Charlotte. I have to think about Charlotte. Oh, God. There’s no way out now. “Go
on. I don’t want you here.” That lie took all her willpower.
If he stays, it will tear me apart
. “I don’t want you here,” she repeated.

He reached toward her, and she drew back, but his fingers grazed her cheek gently. His hand dropped to his side. She feared he’d argue, and when he didn’t—when
he turned and left without another word—she felt empty and, this time, so hopelessly hidden inside herself he’d never find her again.

Sarah hurried into Hugh’s office, cold air gusting in behind her, the brown paper bag containing Hugh’s lunch crushed carelessly under one arm. “Is he free?” she asked the receptionist without stopping, who nodded but peered at her disheveled state curiously through the window of the records area. Sarah had already opened the door to the suite of examining rooms. She strode down the narrow hall, jerking at her heavy cloth coat. The door to Hugh’s office stood open, and Sarah rushed inside. He was standing before a small window with his back to her, staring into the brick alley of the antiques store next door, his hair rumpled as if he’d been running his hands through it. He pivoted, and she saw the troubled expression on his face.

“You heard,” she said, unceremoniously dropping the lunch bag on his cluttered desk and tossing her coat across a chair. “You already heard about Frannie Ryder.”

He exhaled. “Yes.”

“It’s so damned unfair. She was too young. How could somebody her age die from pneumonia?”

He shook his head slowly. “It happens. It’s a damned shame, but it does.”

“I stopped by the florist’s to buy some silk roses for my table arrangement, and she told me about the funeral. It was in Durham
this afternoon
. I feel terrible—we should have gone.”

“I doubt Alexandra would have let us within a mile of it.”

“I don’t care. I would have tried for Frannie’s sake. Oh, Hugh, what about her girls? Sam must be what—barely out of high school?—and the younger one’s still just a child. I wish I could say
something
to them.”

“I doubt that’s ever going to be an option now. Oscar Talbert came in to have a checkup this morning, and he said Alexandra already had the girls’ belongings packed.
She hired him to go up to Asheville and get them. He was on his way.”

“God, she didn’t waste a minute. I can’t believe Frannie would want it this way.”

“I’m sorry, but she did. She gave Alexandra legal guardianship of Charlotte. Put it in her will.” When Sarah groaned, he shook his head. “Where else could the girls go? Alexandra is their aunt. It makes sense.”

“How can you stand there and look so reasonable when you
know
what kind of ‘guardian’ Alexandra will be? She turned poor Tim into a swaggering cretin who’s so afraid of her that he has to prove his manhood by bullying everyone else. She’ll mash those girls under her thumb too.” She hesitated, thinking hard. “Sam’s old enough to walk away, but I expect she won’t do it. She won’t leave her sister.
Damn.
”

Hugh came over and took her in his arms. He looked at her with sympathy but also rebuke. “Nobody understands your feelings about Alexandra better than I do. But after William died, you made the decision to have nothing to do with any of Alexandra’s relatives. Maybe we could have made a difference to Frannie—we could have helped her some way. Now it’s a helluva mess. Are you trying to tell me you want to get involved?”

Sarah shivered and looked at him with defeat. “You’re saying it’s a little late for me to play Good Samaritan. All right. I feel appropriately lousy. Thank you.”

He kissed her forehead. “No, I’m saying you better get your armor on.”

Sarah stared at him, mouth open in silent, dawning comprehension. “Hugh Raincrow, you better diagnose this situation for me
precisely
, and don’t mince any words.
Why
didn’t you call me about Frannie the second you heard?”

Hugh looked at her steadily, as if trying to predict her reaction. “Jake was never cured. He’s a chronic case, and there’s no vaccine for it. It’s highly contagious too. Sammie Ryder’s got it just as bad.” He gazed at her for another second, then concluded, “Love, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, my God.” Sarah wound her hands in his shirt and tugged. “Where’s Jake?”

Hugh looked away, his expression bearing the regret of the only secrets he’d ever kept from her. “He went to the funeral.”