The Bracelet

He saw the paper spread out on the sofa, the black circles around ads. “What’s going on?”

“You wanted to talk about something.”

Now he shifted uncomfortably. “Actually I don’t really want to. I’d rather forget all about last night. You must think I’m a coward.”

When she clasped his arm, she looked him in the eyes. “I don’t think that. I’d never think that. There’s nothing wrong with feelings, Brady. Last night, you felt everything that’s been piling up inside. You have every right to be scared.”

He winced at the word and protested, “I’m not scared. I know what I have to do.”

For a moment he studied her, then he took her hand and pulled her to the sofa. When they were seated, facing each other, he ran his hand down her cheek. “I don’t let anybody see what you saw last night. Don’t you get that?”

She rubbed her cheek against his large strong hand. “You can be who you are with me. You don’t have to pretend. I want to know you. Last night, I felt closer to you than I’ve ever felt to anyone.”

Wrapping his arm around her, he drew her against him on the sofa. He tilted his head against hers and they just sat there, their bodies touching, just like their hearts.

A few minutes later, he motioned to the newspaper. “So tell me what this is all about.”

It seemed so natural to pour out everything to him. “When I got in so late last night, Aunt Marcia was up. She said I have to move. She gave me this address for a rooming house and I went there this morning. Oh, Brady, it was awful!” Her voice quivered as she told him about the condition of the place, the man in the hall, the attic rooms.

“You’re dead-on you’re not staying there. I don’t want you anywhere around a creep like him.”

She pointed to the paper. “I have about ten possibilities circled here. I probably shouldn’t call on a Sunday, but I’m going to. I have to find a place as soon as possible. Aunt Marcia put boxes in my room—”

Brady pushed himself from the sofa and rose to his feet.

“What’s wrong?”

He headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to make a call.”

“Who are you calling?”

“No questions yet. Just give me a couple of minutes, okay?”

She gave him about ten minutes, and privacy, too. If whatever he was trying to do for her didn’t work out, she didn’t want her disappointment to show.

When he returned to the living room, he was grinning. “Let’s take a ride.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

At that moment, she’d follow him anywhere.

Fifteen minutes later, Brady had veered off North George Street, down an alley and into a small parking lot in back of a flower shop.

“Are we window-shopping for flowers?” she asked, not understanding at all what they were doing here. She’d heard of Blossoms, a shop with a wonderful reputation, especially for providing wedding flowers. Last year on her aunt’s birthday, she’d had a small arrangement delivered to her.

“It’s my mother’s shop,” Brady explained with a hint of pride.

“Your mother owns Blossoms?” His mom had talked about working with flowers, but Laura hadn’t realized she owned her own shop.

“Yep. But it’s not the flower shop we’re interested in today. Come on.”

He was out of the car and around to her door before she could even open it. When he took her hand, she followed him to the back door of the store, thinking they were going inside. But they weren’t. Instead they started up the stairs to the second floor. On the small porch, he produced a key and opened the door.

When they stepped inside, Laura saw trellises and plant stands. Then she noticed the sink, small refrigerator and gas range. “It’s a kitchen.”

“This apartment was here when Mom bought the shop. She rented it for a few years but then decided the renters were more trouble than they were worth. She’s been storing odds and ends here. So when I told her about your aunt kicking you out because I brought you home too late—”

“Brady, that’s not the reason. She’s just using it as an excuse.”

“I know that, but I wanted to keep things simple. Anyway, I asked Mom if she’d consider renting it to you. She said she would if—” he stopped and gave her a mischievous grin “—if I convince my brothers to help me move everything out of here.”

“But where will you put it all?”

“Mom’s going to pick out what we should take downstairs to her storage room. The rest she said she might donate to the Salvation Army. The apartment isn’t very big—just a kitchen, a bedroom with a sitting area and a bath….”

As Laura peeked into the other room, her chest felt tight. “Brady, it’s wonderful. But I’m not certain I can afford this.”

“Mom said you could pay whatever you were going to pay for the room in that boardinghouse.”

That wasn’t nearly enough. “Maybe I could help your mom in the shop when I’m not working at the store.”

“I’m sure she’d like that, especially during her busy times. It really gets crazy at Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter—most of the holidays.”

Jubilant over the idea of having an apartment of her own, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

His fingers laced in her long hair. “I think I do.”

When Brady’s lips captured hers, she melted into him, wishing they could start a life together right now…wishing the war waiting for him would simply go away.

A nurse came through the sliding glass doors into the OHICU cubicle, bringing Laura back to reality again—the reality that Brady wasn’t breathing on his own and seemed too ill to ever recover.

“Time’s up,” the woman informed her gently.

Laura had so many questions. How soon would it be before Brady could breath on his own? What did she need to know to make his recuperation successful? Would he look better tomorrow? Would he really be ready to go home in a few days?

Yet she understood the nurse couldn’t answer those questions. She realized that for now she’d have to take one hour at a time. For certain, she wasn’t going to let Kat or Sean visit their dad. Kat would fall apart, and Sean, even though he’d pretend to handle this scene, really couldn’t.

There were so many tubes and lines and electrodes attached to Brady she couldn’t give him a real hug. She didn’t even realize she was crying until she leaned over him to kiss his cheek and a tear landed on his jaw. The terror of seeing him like this built inside her until it was clawing at her chest to break out.

After she squeezed his arm, she said close to his ear, “I love you, Brady.” Then reluctantly she let go of him and left the cubicle.

Tears from fatigue, from worry about Brady, blurred her vision. Exiting his room, she ran into a nurse, murmured, “Excuse me,” and headed for the shelter of the hall. She had to be alone. She needed to cry out the weakness inside her so it was gone and she could deal with the rest of this.

“Mrs. Malone, are you all right?”

Having spoken with Dr. Gregano a few times now, she recognized his voice. She swiped her tears away with her palms. “I’m just—” she finally raised her gaze to his “—tired.”

“Stay here a moment,” he ordered, his brow drawn.

Where was she going to go?

To her dismay, the tears kept coming, and she scrubbed at them like a small child who didn’t want to be caught crying.

Suddenly Dr. Gregano was back, carrying a box of tissues. He offered them to her. “Here, blow your nose. Then you have to listen to me.”

She felt like an idiot, blowing her nose in front of him, but she did, and wiped her tears and stuffed the tissues in her pocket. “I’m sorry, I—”

He was already shaking his head. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. The first visit is tough. I saw my father like that. I thought I was prepared. I knew how he’d look. I knew what the machines would be doing. But to visit a loved one like that is devastating. I’m here to tell you, though, the next visit will be better and the one after that better still. Your husband’s color will improve. He’ll begin breathing with the respirator. He’ll be more alert and realize where he is. In a few hours, we’ll get rid of that tube down his throat and he’ll really start the road to recovery.”

“I’m so scared,” she admitted. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We have some family issues and—”

“Every family does. But as far as being at the worst time—” he shook his head “—this shake-up can let everyone reevaluate what’s happening in their lives.”

This doctor might be years younger than she was, but he had experience she didn’t have and there was a maturity about him. Maybe it came from dealing with life and death every day.

“How old are you?” she asked boldly.

At first he was taken aback, and then he smiled. “Forty-seven. How about you?”

“Fifty-eight,” she admitted with a sigh. “But feeling a lot older right now.”

“At times I feel a hundred and four,” he confided. “But fortunately, once I get out of this hospital, work out at the gym and eat a breakfast that counteracts everything I’ve done, I feel middle-aged again, ready to come back in here and start the war all over.”

“You fight for your patients,” she said, “even when they give up.”

“Sure do.”

Almost reflexively, she glanced at his left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

Observant of where she’d targeted her gaze, he said, “I’m not married. No woman would put up with my schedule.”

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right one.” A man like him, dedicated to his profession, determined to give his patients most of his energy, deserved to have somebody waiting for him at the end of a long day. But she didn’t say that. It seemed too…personal somehow.

“Feeling a little better?” he asked.

“Yes, and thank you for your concern. You’re busy and I know Brady’s your patient, not me. I’ll be fine. After the next visit I’ll try to get some sleep.”

“Away from the hospital?”

“Well, I was just going to stretch out in the waiting room again.”

“Go home, Mrs. Malone. Sleep in your own bed. Try to get a good night’s rest. You’ll do more for your husband that way than if he spots those dark circles under your eyes and realizes you’re dragging because you haven’t slept.”

“I just…I just don’t want to leave him. It’s crazy, but I feel that as long as I’m here watching over him, as long as I’m talking to him and touching him, he’ll get stronger faster.”

Dr. Gregano gave her a wry smile. “Mr. Malone is a lucky man. I imagine that whether you’re here or whether you’re at home, he’ll feel you pulling for him.”

The cardiologist’s pager went off. Excusing himself, he checked the number. “I have to get this,” he said with a grim expression. “Remember what I said and take my advice. Go home.” Then he was rushing toward the elevator.

Laura looked back at the cubicle she’d exited. Dr. Gregano had said Brady would be better in another hour. She couldn’t leave yet…she just couldn’t. She’d call Pat to pick up the kids, but she was going to stay. No matter what Dr. Gregano said, she wanted Brady to feel her presence. She wanted him to feel her touch.

After thirty-three years of marriage, she didn’t know what else to do.

Chapter 5

“Kat looked so grown-up today.” Brady laid down his fork and rested his head against the back of the chair Sunday afternoon, four days after surgery, feeling more tired than he could ever remember feeling. The surgery should have fixed him. Had it?

Making conversation took effort. But he didn’t want Laura worrying any more than she already was. He could see the guilt in her eyes that she’d caused his heart attack. He could see the questions. But he wasn’t ready to face problems that had been around much too long. He needed a hell of a lot more energy than this to do that.

So he concentrated on pushing his lunch around his plate and forced himself to talk just to get this visit finished. “But I got the feeling she couldn’t wait to leave.” He could still hear the rasp in his voice from being on the ventilator.

After a moment’s hesitation, during which he could tell Laura was debating with herself, she said, “She likes to spend time with you. She just doesn’t want to spend it with you in a hospital.”

“You don’t like hospitals, either.”

She shrugged. “I’m grateful to this hospital and the doctors who saved your life.”

Brady closed his eyes for a few moments. “I’m just so damn tired.”

“I hear that’s normal. You might feel that way for a while.”

When Brady opened his eyes, he studied her, a list of everything she’d had to handle since he’d been rushed in here clicking in his mind. “Sean’s been okay through all this? No signs of him drinking?”

Last summer Sean had gotten home in the middle of the night two nights in a row. They’d let the first time pass, but Brady had confronted him the second night. He’d been so drunk he couldn’t stand without leaning against the wall. Brady had grounded him for six weeks and taken away his driving privileges except for going to and from work. Their son had been resentful and angry the rest of the summer. After the fact, from talking to another parent, Brady had learned the boys partied much too often, and he’d known he’d had to be strict with Sean. It had seemed to work. When the school year started and his son had kept up his grades—knowing he had to in order to get into college—he and Brady had formed an uneasy truce. But it was a truce that could easily be broken.

“Actually, he’s been very supportive,” Laura replied. “The thing is, he overheard some of our argument. He thought we were arguing about him and that caused your heart attack.”

“The blockage in my heart was a time bomb. That caused my heart attack. Be sure to tell him that.”

“I did.”

He knew what she was thinking. He should talk to their son. She’d always expected so much of him where Sean was concerned and he hadn’t been able to deliver.

To avoid an argument he commented, “One of the nurses mentioned you had to elude a reporter when you left yesterday. Are they bothering you?”

Laura hesitated.

He hated that she was being so careful around him. He hated that she thought since his heart attack he had to be coddled or protected. She obviously didn’t know what to say and what not to say because of that videotape they’d had to watch and the suggestions in the informational binder he’d glanced at but she’d probably read cover to cover. Both had warned that a recuperating heart surgery patient should keep anxiety and stress to a minimum.

“Laura, what’s going on?”

“There was a short segment on the local news about the article,” she replied quickly.

There was more. “What else?” he prodded. “Don’t hide things from me.”

After glancing out the window for a moment, she admitted, “We’ve had news vans in front of the house and reporters waiting for us downstairs. But the ruckus is dying down now. Pat told the reporters to get lost while I was here with you. Since then, they’ve kept their distance.”

Hospital sounds—a metal cart clicking on tile, lowered voices, a laugh track on someone’s TV—filled the silence between them.

It was time to change the subject. Brady commented, “I can’t believe Dr. Gregano is going to discharge me tomorrow.”

Laura gave Brady a bright smile. “You walked up and down the hall three times today and you’re going to do it again tonight. That’s progress.”

“At home—”

“At home, we’ll take things one day at a time. I was thinking…” she began lightly. “Sean could help me bring down one of the single beds in the spare room and set it up in your den. That way you could sleep there and…rest during the day if you need to.”

The thought of being an invalid was unfathomable. “I’m going to hate this. Maybe I can just use the recliner.”

“They stopped your heart,” she reminded him softly. “Your body went through terrific trauma. You’re not going to come home and try to act all macho, are you? Because there are restrictions.”

“I read the list,” he admitted, wishing the next few weeks were over.

Edging forward on her chair as if she wanted to reach out to him but didn’t know exactly how, she asked, “How much do you remember about surgery and afterward?”

After he lifted his glass from the nightstand, he took a few swallows of water, then shook his head. “Not much. I was hoping I’d see that bright light and maybe find answers in it, but no such luck. I went to sleep, and when I woke up, that damn machine was breathing for me. I couldn’t even feel my arms and legs. It was the weirdest thing. Then little by little sensation came back and I felt I was in my body again.”

When she moved her hand, her bracelet brushed against the arm of the chair. She studied it, then met his gaze again. “I told Sean about how we met, about the demonstration, about Aunt Marcia kicking me out.”

That surprised him. “Why?”

“We spent a lot of hours together waiting to hear about your condition. He asked me about the charms on my bracelet and what you were like back then.”

After a few beats, Brady inquired, “And what did you tell him?”

“That we fell in love and it happened fast and we were connected from the moment we met. When I told him…”

He caught the glimmer of sudden emotion in her eyes.

She gave him another smile. “The memories are still so alive and real. They were comforting when you were in surgery. I could recall what I’d been wearing and what you’d been wearing. I could even smell the scent of British Sterling. Remember? You wore it the night we went dancing…the weekend before you left.”

Were the memories comforting to her because back then everything had been so easy between them and now nothing seemed easy?

She pointed to the tiny envelope charm. “Do you remember calling me from Fort Dix to make sure I’d received this?”

“I remember.” He’d known how much those charms had meant to her. That was why he’d bought another one. “I sent you that charm to remind you that what we had was real.”

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