Lakeside Reunion

Realizing she was staring, Lindsey pulled her attention away from the woman and hurried to the registration desk. A woman with a white cardigan draped over her shoulders looked up from a computer screen and smiled. “May I help you?”

“My mother, Grace Porter, was brought in by ambulance with a broken leg.”

The woman set her glasses on the bridge of her nose and clicked a few keys. “Please have a seat, and I’ll get someone to speak with you.” She left the desk and disappeared behind a closed door.

Lindsey turned away from the desk and perched on the edge of one of the rose-colored vinyl chairs. The same chairs formed a horseshoe around the same glass table as they had five years ago. Dog-eared Sports Illustrated, Good Housekeeping and Parents magazines lay tossed on the chairs like missing socks. A morning show played on the wall-mounted TV, but the woman’s perky voice grated on her nerves.

“You gotta go potty?” A little girl about four with lopsided ponytails, a dirty face and a heart-melting smile stood in front of Lindsey holding a worn Dr. Seuss book.

“Excuse me?”

“When I hafta go potty, I do that.” She pointed to Lindsey’s knee.

Lindsey looked down and realized she had been bouncing her knee. She stilled her leg and shook her head. “Oh. No, I’m fine. Nervous habit.”

“What you got to be nerbous about?”

“My mom broke her leg. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“That musta hurt. My mommy drinked too much and had a accibent. My daddy yelled at her and she cried. I don’t like my daddy. I’m sposta stay with Nana, but she’s talking to Jesus. Do you talk to Jesus?”

At one time, she did. Thinking she had a direct line to Heaven, Lindsey prayed for a miracle. But apparently, God screened His calls.

Instead of answering, Lindsey tapped the book cover. “I like your book. My mom has Daisy-Head Mayzie and reads it to her class.”

The little girl looked at the front of the book a minute, then hugged it against her chest. “My teacher read it to us, too. Mommy buyed it for me. She likes daisies. She said I was special like Daisy. I like my mommy. She’s nice when she don’t smell funny.”

Smell funny? Booze? Drugs? Worse?

If life hadn’t taken a sharp U-turn … well, maybe Lindsey would have had a child by now. Possibly about the same age as the little girl. She couldn’t dwell on the way reality derailed her dreams.

She tucked her hands beneath her thighs to keep from pulling the girl into her lap and cradling her against the unfairness of life. Of course, after she burned that stained polka-dot dress and dunked the child in a tub full of bubbles.

The girl should be watching Dora the Explorer, playing dress-up and serving tea to bears and pink unicorns. Not wandering the emergency-department waiting room, trying to decide which parent she loved more.

“Molly! Get on over here. Don’t bother that nice lady.” The elderly woman with the crocheted hat slapped the empty seat beside her. “Sorry ‘bout that. Molly’s a little chatterbox.”

Lindsey held up a hand and smiled. “She’s no bother. Really.”

Molly shuffled her grungy yellow flip-flops to her grandmother and hopped onto the chair beside her. “Nana, my tummy’s hungry.”

“Well, you will just have to wait. I ain’t got no money. Who knows how long your worthless mother is going to keep us here? Why, I have half a mind to—” The woman mashed her withered knuckles against her lips and stared out the window.

Lindsey dug through her purse and pulled out a blueberry cereal bar. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to intrude, but I have a granola bar. Molly’s welcome to it.”

Molly’s eyes sparkled. She slid off the chair, but Nana grabbed the child’s arm and pulled her back. She shook her head, causing the crocheted rose on her hat to flop around like a hooked trout. “We don’t take charity. We ain’t got much, but we got our pride.”

Lindsey wanted to argue. To let her know it was no imposition. But Nana’s thrust chin and crossed arms left little room for debate. Molly’s bottom lip protruded. Lindsey’s heart pined for the child. How many times had Dad given food to needy families? Even strangers.

Whatever you did for the one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

Maybe she could slip the nurse a twenty and ask for food to be brought to Molly and Nana.

A hand settled on her shoulder. She jumped to her feet and whirled around. She found herself looking into kind brown eyes set in a weathered face as lined as a topographical map.

Her grandfather, Graham Matthews, smiled and opened his arms.

“Granddad!” She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. The softness of his red-and-black checked flannel shirt caressed her cheek. The faint odor of cow manure and hay settled in the threads of the fabric, whisking Lindsey back to a place where problems were solved with hugs, homemade oatmeal cookies and lazy walks along the creek. “How’s Mom? Where is she?”

“One question at a time, sweetness. Come with me and then we’ll talk. Did you grab that quilt she asked for?”

Lindsey thunked the heel of her hand against her forehead. After the fiasco with Stephen, stopping to pick up the quilt slipped her mind. “I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. I’ll get it as soon as I see Mom.”

“No worries, sweetness.”

No worries. Right. Something as simple as a blanket to bring her mother comfort, and she couldn’t even manage that. One more way of letting Mom down. Definitely out of the running for Daughter of the Year.

Granddad tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and tightened his hold as if he knew she wanted to bolt. She trailed behind as he guided her around the registration desk, past the nurses’ station. Each footstep plodded, yet her brain screamed, “No! No! No!”

She must have spoken out loud because Granddad turned to her. “No what?”

Her stomach gurgled and pitched. Bile slicked her throat. She swallowed hard. “I can’t do this.”

“Being in this hospital again is tough on you, sweetness. On all of us. Gracie may be nearing fifty, but she’s still our little girl.” Granddad released her arm.

Oh, how she longed to have wings. To fly away. Out of the hospital. And back to her inn where life was safe. But she couldn’t.

Not this time.

Mom needed her.

Cupping her shoulders, Granddad looked at her—eyes full of compassion and never leaving her face. “You can do this. You have your mama’s strength. She will be fine. It’s only a broken leg.”

Hadn’t she chanted that mantra already? Somehow her brain tuned it out.

They stopped in front of one of the exam rooms. Lindsey’s heart slammed against her rib cage. No going back now.

She grabbed Granddad’s hand. He gave her a gentle, reassuring squeeze and then rapped on the door with his knuckles. He stepped back and motioned for her to enter.

They’ll cast Mom’s broken leg, send her home with crutches and pain pills. She’ll be fine.

Lindsey dredged up a smile. She peered around the door frame. Dressed in a generic hospital gown, Mom lay against the snow-white pillows with her eyes closed. A thermal weave blanket covered her from the waist down but did little to disguise the puffy mound around her right leg.

Her grandmother, Madeleine Matthews, sat in a pea-green vinyl chair in the corner, knitting. The rhythmic clicking of the needles told Lindsey Grandma wasn’t as calm as she appeared. She always knitted when she was stressed. Said it calmed her nerves.

“Some people will do anything to get out of doing laundry.”

Grandma looked up and smiled. She dropped the yarn and needles in her purse at her feet and stood, opening her arms.

Lindsey rushed into her gentle embrace, breathing in the familiar lavender scent. “Hey, Grandma. How are you doing?”

“Oh, my girl, it’s so good to see you.” Grandma squeezed her, and then held her at arm’s length. “I’m sorry it had to be like this.”

“It’s great to see you, too.” She pulled away from Grandma and edged toward the bed. “How’s Mom doing?”

“Why don’t you come over here and find out for yourself?” Mom’s sleepy voice drifted toward her. She turned, giving Lindsey full view of the reddish-purple bruises and abrasions streaking the side of her face.

Lindsey bit back a gasp as she sat on the side of the bed.

Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.

She caressed her mother’s swollen cheekbone. “Stairs one? Mom zero?”

“Something like that. I told them not to call you. It’s only a broken leg.”

“Actually, it’s a little more serious than that.” A petite, dark-haired woman dressed in a white lab coat over green scrubs with a folder tucked under her arm knocked on the partially opened door before entering the room. She crossed the room and shook hands with Granddad, Grandma and Lindsey. “Rachel Warren, attending physician.”

Lindsey shook the doctor’s hand. “Just how serious?”

Dr. Warren leafed through the pages in the folder and turned to Mom. “Mrs. Porter, your blood work looks good, but I wish I could say the same about your X-rays. You have a compound tib-fib fracture near your ankle joint. I’ve called in Dr. Geis, our orthopedic surgeon. She had a cancellation and will be able to do surgery right before lunch.”

“Tib-fib?” Mom tried to sit up, but sucked air between clenched teeth.

Dr. Warren laid a hand on her arm. “Please lie back and try not to jostle your leg. Tib-fib refers to the tibia and fibula— the bones between the knee and ankle.” Pulling back the blanket and using a pen as a pointer, she ran it along the front of Mom’s left calf. “Your fracture occurred in the lower portion of your leg, close to the ankle. With this serious of a fracture, surgery is necessary to be sure the bones heal properly.”

Granddad and Grandma asked more questions, but Lindsey’s thoughts swirled like a shaken snow globe. Surgery? People died on the operating table.

Lindsey wandered to the window. She stared at the ugly blue parking garage that grew out of the asphalt and towered above the two-story hospital. Cars the size of ladybugs crawled into parking spaces. She pulled her BlackBerry out of her purse and scrolled through the list of events for the rest of the month. One by one she deleted them from her calendar.

“Lindsey, is everything okay?” Grandma placed her hand on Lindsey’s arm.

She forced a smile. “Of course.”

A few minutes later, Dr. Warren left and a nurse came in to prep Mom for the move to the surgical wing. Lindsey returned to the waiting room with her grandparents.

Molly and Nana were gone. Maybe they were eating in the cafeteria. But Lindsey couldn’t think about them right now.

Granddad struck up a conversation with a man next to the coffee machine. Grandma sat and resumed knitting.

Lindsey paced, clenching her hands as a million thoughts ran through her head. Leaving Shelby Lake was definitely out of the question now. She couldn’t abandon Mom right before surgery. She needed to call her assistant Rita and give her a heads-up.

And, oh, yes, the quilt.

That meant heading out to Mom’s house—the house where Lindsey spent her first twenty-two years. The house so full of memories that she hadn’t returned in five years.

Grandma reached for Lindsey’s hands and pulled her down to sit in the empty seat beside her. She rubbed a thumb over Lindsey’s knuckles, forcing her fingers to unclench. She stared at Lindsey with her faded aquamarine-colored eyes as if reading the thoughts racing through her head. “Everything is going to be fine, honey. You can spend the night at the farm, if you want. Or I’ll come to your mother’s house with you.”

Part of her wanted to pounce on Grandma’s offer, to curl up next to her in the queen-size bed with the iron headboard, fluffy down pillows and handmade quilt like she did when she was a little girl. To hide herself inside the big farmhouse, with its creaky wooden floors and lingering scents of baking bread and cinnamon. But if she were going to be back in Shelby Lake for any length of time, she’d have to return home sooner or later. Better to do it now on her own terms without an audience.

She laid her head on Grandma’s shoulder. “I’m a big girl, Grandma. I can stay by myself.”

Grandma slid her arm behind Lindsey and gathered her close. “Oh, I know. It’s just … well, going home may be a little difficult.”

Getting a loan for her inn was a little difficult. Finding a certified contractor on a Sunday was a little difficult. Going home was … well, that was beyond difficult. She had to suck it up and do it.

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine hanging out here until Mom is out of surgery.” Lindsey stood and adjusted the butter-yellow cardigan she wore with her yellow-and-lavender floral skirt. Her open-toed heels were killing her feet. She longed for a hot bath and comfy pajamas.

“While they’re prepping Gracie for surgery, I’m going to see if Granddad wants to go to the chapel with me to pray. Would you care to join us?”

“No, thanks. I’ll wait here until I can see Mom before her surgery.”

“They gave her a pretty strong painkiller. She may sleep for a while.”

“That’s okay. I just, well, I need to be here. In case she needs me.”

“I understand.”

Grandma gathered her yarn. Lindsey touched her shoulder. “Grandma? What if …” Lindsey hesitated, not wanting to go there, but a girl had to face reality. “What if something goes wrong? Like with Dad.”

Taking Lindsey’s hands into hers, Grandma squeezed them lightly. “Honey, you are not alone. Remember that. We’re here with you. And so is God. One of my favorite verses from Psalm reminds us, ‘When I am afraid, I will trust in You.’ The Lord will guide the surgeons and keep your mom safe. Put your trust in Him.”

Lindsey tugged on the cuff of her sweater. “Where was that guidance five years ago? How can I trust a God who takes great people like Dad, yet lets his killer roam free? Praying would be a waste of time. God tuned me out years ago.”

Stephen rested his head against the back of the vinyl chair and shifted Tyler in his lap. The kid was supposed to be lying on the bed, but comforting his son was more important than following hospital protocol.

Ty whimpered and snuggled closer, cradling his head in the crook of Stephen’s arm. “I wanna go home.”

“I know, partner. As soon as the doctor finds out what’s wrong with your wrist, we’ll be out of here.” Stephen adjusted the ice pack on Tyler’s left wrist and prayed the ibuprofen started working soon.

Ty didn’t fight the nurse who took his vitals or gave him pain meds, but when Dr. Warren touched his wrist, the kid let out a scream that sliced through Stephen like a scalpel. More than anything, he wanted to fix it. Take the pain away. Make his son happy again.

His ears still rang from Tyler’s screams upon entering the emergency department. Stephen wasn’t sure if he was in pain or if the hospital brought back memories. Maybe a little of both.

Ty cried every time they visited. The beeping monitors scared him. He complained about the smell. His childhood needed to be filled with baseball games, skinned knees, climbing trees—not death.

Bethany’s face swept into his head. Her final days, lying in the bed, struggling for her next breath as the melanoma ravaged her frail body. Skin stretched across bone, she had become a shell of the woman he cared about. Her strawberry blond hair had been destroyed by chemo and radiation. Even her freckles appeared as washed-out as the hospital bedsheets. Not even thirty when she died, but she appeared closer to sixty.

Stephen brushed the curls off Tyler’s forehead. The kid needed a haircut. Bethany had been so good with all that. Even when she felt like crud from the chemo, she made sure Ty was well cared for. He could barely remember to check Ty’s homework, let alone make hair appointments. But he’d do better. He had to. Ty depended on him. He wasn’t going to let his son down.

He counted the ceiling tiles for the second time and made it to twenty-eight when someone knocked on the door before pushing it open. Dr. Warren entered the room. Over her shoulder, Stephen caught sight of a woman with honey-blond hair and wearing the same yellow sweater as Lindsey.

Oh, right. Grace Porter’s fall.

Ty’s injury had pushed aside this morning’s events, but seeing that hair brought everything back in a rush.

Should he go after her? Check and see how her mom was doing?

No, he couldn’t leave Ty. Plus, it could have been someone else. And then, he’d look like an idiot.

“Officer Chase.”

Stephen looked at Dr. Warren and realized the middle-aged physician had been talking to him. And he hadn’t heard a word she said.

“I’m sorry. My brain was in left field. Mind repeating that?”

She gave him that pitying “I know you’re a single dad now, so I’ll treat you with kid gloves” look he’d seen so often in the past year. “Good news. Tyler’s wrist is not broken. He does have a grade two sprain, though. Because he’s such an active kid, I’d like to splint it and keep it in a sling for about a week. It will help with the pain and minimize further damage.”

She explained to Tyler what was going to happen and gave him time to ask questions. Stephen appreciated the way she included his son in the conversation.

Thirty minutes later, Stephen hugged a now-smiling Tyler goodbye, being careful not to jostle his splinted arm. “You’re going to hang out with Papa until I get home. Take it easy with that arm.”

“I will. Love you.”

“I love you, too, buddy.”

Giving his dad a one-armed hug, Stephen said, “Thanks for keeping him. I’ll grab him after work.”

“No rush. You should have called sooner. We’re here for you, son. This rain kept me in the house instead of at the construction site, so I’m glad I could help. I’ll keep the little guy entertained.”

They headed out the door. If he paid a nickel every time his parents bailed him out, he’d be a poor man. Thank God for them. Otherwise neither he nor Ty would have made it this far.

He returned to the nurses’ station and scrawled his signature at the bottom of the discharge form his cousin, the E.R. nurse on duty, put in front of him. He slid it across the counter to her. “There you go, Roxanne. Thanks.”

She scanned the form and then smiled. “Looks like you’re good to go, Stephen. I hope Ty feels better soon.”

“Thanks. Me, too.”

Fishing the keys to the cruiser out of his pocket, he headed for the emergency-entrance parking lot. He rounded the corner and about knocked over a woman coming from the opposite direction. His chin grazed the top of her head. He gripped her upper arms, dropping his keys in the process. “Whoa, easy there.”

The woman’s purse sailed out of her hands and landed upside down on the floor. Loose change clattered against the tile. A metallic tube rolled under the water fountain.

“Sorry.” The woman looked up and stared at him with stormy green eyes.

Lindsey.

Judging by the thinness of her lips and clenched jaw, she wasn’t happy to see him. She glanced at him, then down at his hands. Her focus seemed to be centered on his left hand. On his wedding band. His heart took a nosedive.

Stephen released his hold, wanting to hide his hands in his uniform pockets. “You okay?”

She nodded. Without a word, she bent down to clean up her stuff. She tried to hide her fingers, but he noticed a slight tremble. So, he wasn’t the only one affected by their collision.

Stephen retrieved the tube under the water fountain and realized it was her lipstick. He scooped up two dimes, a quarter and a few scattered pennies and jingled the loose change before handing it back to her.

She didn’t want to take it—didn’t want to touch him. He could tell by the way she hesitated before opening her hand and allowed him to drop the coins into her palm.

The tips of his calloused fingers caressed her skin. Baby soft. An electric charge pulsed through his hand.

Lindsey tossed the change in her purse. Pushing her hair behind her ear, she stood, shielding her purse over her heart. “Sorry for bumping into you. I wasn’t watching where I was going. If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on Mom.” She tried to brush past him.

“Hey, Linds, hold on a second.” Stephen cupped her elbow. “Sorry for barreling into you like that. How’s she doing?”

She closed her eyes and backed out of his reach, bumping into the wall behind her. “I really need to go.”

“Lindsey.” He spoke in a soft, patient tone that warned she wasn’t going to win this one.

“Stephen, why are you here? Why do you even care? We’re history. Remember?” Her voice cracked on the last syllable. She cleared her throat and looked at him.

Stephen rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a half smile that his grandma used to claim could charm the gruff off a goat. “I’m not stalking you. My son fell and hurt his arm. And what happened between us doesn’t mean I don’t care … about your mom.”

“I’m sorry about your son. I hope he’s okay.”

“Thanks. He’s a tough kid.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let me know if I can help. With anything.”

Lindsey shrugged off his hand. Eyes blazing, she glared at him as if he was something disgusting she found on the bottom of her shoe. “You can help by not touching me! You have no right. You lost it the day you chose her over me. I’m sorry she d-died. No one should have to deal with that. But still … you have no right.”

Her words ping-ponged off the walls in the corridor and hovered over them like dust-covered cobwebs. Heat scorched his cheeks as if she had physically slapped him. He was only trying to help. Problem was, she didn’t want his help. He needed to get that through his thick head.

Lindsey clapped a hand over her mouth and closed her eyes, but not before he saw the welling tears. She sagged against the wall.

Stephen shoved his hands in his pockets to prevent himself from reaching out for her again. Her vulnerability sucker punched him in the gut. Seeing her was an answer to many whispered prayers, but he had hoped for different circumstances. Grinding his teeth, he prayed for strength. For years, he fought to keep her memory from crippling him. Now he was going to be tested?

He forced himself to breathe. He had to fix this. Make it right. Rubbing a thumb and forefinger over his eyelids, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “You’re right. I’m … sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“No, I shouldn’t have said that. It was mean and hurtful.” A tear squeezed between her lashes and drifted down her cheek.

“Don’t worry about it.” He lifted his hand, then hesitated, not sure if she’d slap his hand away again or not, but she looked as if she needed a friend. He thumbed away her tear and let his finger linger a second longer than it should have.

Lindsey turned her face away from his hand and took a step sideways. She tripped over a large potted plant next to the water fountain.

Stephen grabbed her before she fell. Before common sense could kick in, he drew her against his chest. “Take it easy.”

He breathed in the fruity scent of her shampoo, craving the fragrance like a junkie desperate for a fix.

They belonged together.

Only they didn’t.

He had no claim on Lindsey anymore. He chose another woman. They shared a child.

The overcooked coffee he drank while waiting for Ty’s X-rays to come back soured in his stomach. A yearning for the past tangled with regret and blew through his veins, nearly dropping him to his knees.

He shouldn’t be hugging Lindsey. For a moment, though, it felt so right. Holding her for even a brief moment edged out a sliver of longing.

She leaned against him. Then, almost as if she realized what she was doing, she stiffened and pushed out of his embrace. Her warmth evaporated, leaving him with a sudden sense of loss.

“Thanks for your help, but I—I just can’t … can’t deal with you right now.” Without a backward glance, she fled down the hall.