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“None that can help her. She’s as alone in the world as she ever was. That’s why I’ve agreed to take responsibility for Matty.”
“Oh, Nate.” Arlene covered her mouth with her hand for a moment. “I know how much you used to love her, but to do this for a woman who broke your heart.”
“What happened between Sarah and me is in the past. It’s about what’s best for the boy now.”
“A child who isn’t yours—”
“Mom. It’s settled.” She winced at the hardness he couldn’t keep out of his voice.
In silence they watched as Harm came out of his cabin and moved slowly down toward the lakeshore, tackle box in hand, followed by Buster. The old man was probably heading out to try and catch a mess of late-season pan fish for his supper; it was anyone’s guess where the cat was headed. The growl of Harm’s old Evinrude outboard motor broke the morning quiet.
“When?” Arlene asked after a few moments.
“We can pick up the license Friday afternoon. Mayor Holder, over at Lakeview, has us penciled in for five o’clock that afternoon. Sarah’s surgery is scheduled for seven a.m. Saturday morning.”
“So soon?” Impulsively his mother reached out and laid her hand over his. He turned his palm up and closed his hand around her cold fingers.
“It has to be, Mom. I can’t let Matty grow up the way Sarah did, shuffled from one foster home to the next, no security, no place to put down roots. He needs stability and a family. I’ll do my best to give him that.”
“When you put it that way I suppose there’s no use me arguing with you. You’ve always been the most stubborn of my kids, and that’s saying something. Always trying to get the rest of the world to march to your drummer.” She gave his hand a hard squeeze then fumbled in her coat pocket for a tissue.
“Don’t you think I’m up to the challenge?”
“Of course you are. You’ll make a wonderful father! Maybe this is the Almighty’s way of giving you—”
He knew where she was going with that line of thought and was glad that she stopped herself so he didn’t have to.
“God, I wish I had a cigarette,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“You haven’t had a smoke for over a year. Don’t go backsliding now.”
“Easy for you to say,” she sniffed. “Do I look okay?”
“You look fine.”
“I’m so glad I didn’t launch into Sarah with both barrels. Or you, for that matter. Two whole days of wondering what she was doing here. Your father warned me not—”
“Will you tell him, Mom? It would save me some time.”
“I’ll tell him,” she blew out a puff of breath. “He always liked Sarah but I don’t think he’s going to be any happier about this than I am.”
“You don’t have to be happy about it. Just stand by me.”
“Till my last breath,” she said fiercely. “Let’s go inside. I suppose I should get to know Matty a little better so he won’t be afraid to stay with me while…while Sarah is in the hospital.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Nate bent his head to give her a peck on the cheek. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a quick, hard hug.
“I know you think you’re doing the right thing, and I suppose you are. But, oh Nate, she hurt you so badly.”
“We hurt each other, Mom, but that’s not what’s important now. She came to me as a last resort. There’s nothing left between us but a little boy who needs our love.”
She put her hand on his forearm as he turned to go back inside. “Nate, I just thought of something. What if the doctors are wrong? What if the surgery is a success? If Sarah is granted her miracle, what will you do then?”
CHAPTER THREE
HER WEDDING DAY was over.
In a few hours they would leave for the hospital. The trailer was quiet so Nate must have fallen asleep at last. The walls of the mobile home were thin and she had heard him tossing long into the night. It hadn’t always been that way. When they were married—before—he had always slept like a log, barely moving from the position in which he fell asleep. Always with her snuggled tight against him, safe and protected in his arms.
Best to stay away from memories like that.
It was why she dreaded the small hours of the night—the barriers she kept strong and in good repair during the day failed her in the darkness. The week had passed quickly. There had been lawyer’s visits, small domestic chores, precious time spent with Matty as he played with Becca and became more at ease with Nate and his family. But the nights had been long and stressful, for both of them.
She glanced around the shadowed room. All of Matty’s things were arranged to his satisfaction. His favorite SpongeBob SquarePants lamp was on top of the dresser. His clothes were folded in the drawers and hanging in the little closet next to hers, his toys piled into a new bright yellow storage unit in the corner. The fireproof box with all the documentation Nate would need when he became responsible for her son was sitting on Nate’s dresser.
She had sold or given away most of her possessions except for those she could pack in the minivan. Still, it had been difficult to find room for all of it in Nate’s trailer. There simply wasn’t much storage space. Matty’s baby book, the albums with pictures of his father and his Taylor relatives, were stored on the top shelf of the closet along with the few photographs various sets of foster parents had taken of her over the years. There was also the video of her when she was pregnant that David had made, which ended when she was seven months along, and he died. Later, she had taken some footage of Matty when he was small to add to it, but her heart was never in it and she’d ended up selling the video camera to one of her co-workers at HomeContractors so she could buy a still camera.
She was a throwback, she guessed. She loved photographs, the kind you could hold in your hand, put in an album to linger over, savor, relive. She had taken roll after roll of film of her son, a set for each year of his life. The camera was in the safe box, too. She hoped someday Matty would want to learn to use it when he was old enough.
There were no pictures of her and Nate among the keepsakes, however. She had destroyed them the day their divorce became final.
And there had been no pictures taken today, although she suspected Tessa had a camera in her car. She and her husband, Keith, a long-distance trucker, had acted as their witnesses for the short, informal ceremony in the mayor’s office at the back of the redbrick building that housed Lakeview’s six-man police force, as well as its municipal offices. There had been no rice to throw, no cake to cut. And no toasts to a long and happy life together. Because there wouldn’t be one.
Their whirlwind remarriage was probably already the talk of the entire population around Cottonwood Lake. More than once Sarah had caught the mayor taking in every detail of her simple navy blue dress and Nate’s dark suit. There had been an absence of flowers, except for the nosegay of fall mums that Arlene had pressed into her hands when they dropped Matty off at her house—all brides need a bouquet she’d said, shrugging off Sarah’s thanks. And the lack of other family and friends in attendance, and that no further celebration appeared planned to mark the event, was all grist for the gossip mill of a very small town. It was Nate who remembered the ring, a simple gold band that fit perfectly but felt heavy and unfamiliar on her hand. And a kiss, light and soft and warm as sunshine on her mouth. Another memory that wouldn’t go away.
A shadow blocked the light from the hallway. She turned her head to see Nate’s broad shoulders filling the narrow doorway. He was fully dressed except for his shoes. He was wearing jeans and a gray chamois shirt, open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. He braced one shoulder against the door frame and pushed his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. The casual, masculine clothes suited him, just as his Army uniform had. She could never picture Nate wearing a suit every day, or working behind a desk, an office-bound, cubicle-dweller chained to a keyboard and monitor. He was a man born to be outside, to work with his hands.
“You should be asleep,” he said quietly.
“I’m not sleepy.”
“The doctor said you should get all the rest you can.”
“I’ll have eternity to rest.” She smoothed the blanket over Matty’s knees. She was tired and scared and her emotions were too close to the surface to easily control. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound melodramatic.”
“You shouldn’t dwell on the worst-case scenario.”
“You always dwell on the worst-case scenario when you’re a single parent.”
There was a heartbeat’s silence before he answered. “You’re not a single parent anymore, remember.”
“No, I’m not. Not anymore,” she whispered.
Matty frowned in his sleep, then he raised his little fists and rubbed his eyes. “Mommy,” he called, sitting up, looking around with an unfocused stare. He began to sob, caught up in a bad dream.
“Shhh, baby,” she crooned, pulling him close. “I’m right here.”
Sarah didn’t need a child psychologist to tell her why Matty was suddenly having nightmares. His whole world had been turned upside down. He didn’t understand the gravity of her condition, at least she prayed he didn’t, but he knew something was wrong and the uncertainty of his new life scared him.
“He goes right back to sleep if you rock him,” she whispered to Nate. Matty had stuck his thumb in his mouth as he snuggled tight against her. “Just take his thumb out of his mouth when you put him back down.” She heard the quaver in her voice and fell silent.
“I’ll remember,” Nate said, and the words sounded like a promise. “Do you want me to hold him?”
She shook her head. She knew his suggestion made sense, but she couldn’t let go of her baby. Not now, not even for a little while. There were so many things to teach Nate about Matty but she couldn’t trust her voice any longer. “I need to hold him.”
“Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll wake you at four. Mom will be here to watch over him so we can leave by four-forty-five.” Her surgery was scheduled for seven but they needed to check into the hospital an hour earlier.
“All right.” She laid Matty down on his pillow and curled up beside him. She closed her arms around him and felt the quick, light beat of his heart against hers.
Nate stepped into the room and pulled the sheet over them both. He didn’t say anything more, urge her to sleep, or wish her pleasant dreams. It would have been a waste of breath. But she thought she felt the merest brush of his fingers in her hair, and then he was gone and she was alone with her son in her arms.
IT HAD BEEN the longest day of his life and that included those he’d spent in battle, Nate thought, watching the last of the orange and gray sunset fade from the night sky. He turned away from the window. He and his parents were alone in the waiting room.
It was small and tucked away at the end of a long hall.
The kind of room they put you in to give you bad news.
“What time is it?” Arlene asked, looking up from the magazine she’d been pretending to read for the last half hour.
“Almost six,” Tom responded. Nate had thought his father was asleep he’d been quiet for so long, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his chin resting on his chest, as he sat slouched in a brown tweed chair.
His parents had shown up at the hospital about an hour after Sarah’s surgery had started. “I know I promised Sarah we’d watch look after Matty,” Arlene told him with the stubborn look on her face that all of her children had learned at an early age not to argue with. “He’ll do fine with Joann and the boys. You need us more than he does right now.” They hadn’t left his side for a moment since.
“Only six o’clock and it’s dark already,” Arlene sighed.
“It’ll be dark even earlier when daylight savings time ends.” Tom straightened from his slouched position and stretched his arms over his head. He was a couple of inches taller than Nate, although they favored each other in looks.
Arlene dropped the magazine and stood up, walking to the door and looking out into the hallway. “How much longer do you think it will be?”
Nate shrugged. “Six to eight hours. That’s what the surgeon said.”
“And the surgery started at noon?”
“Yes,” he answered patiently. It was the third time she’d asked.
He and Sarah had arrived at the pre-op suite right at six. But from then on nothing had gone as planned. The doctor was in surgery, an emergency, an apologetic nurse had informed them. Sarah’s operation had been moved back on the schedule. There was a room they could wait in, she’d explained, while Sarah filled out forms. She knew what Sarah was facing and she did her best to put them at ease.
Later another nurse had taken Sarah away to undress and change into a hospital gown, leaving him to cool his heels in the windowless cubbyhole of a room. He stared at the gauges and tubing affixed to the wall above the empty space where Sarah’s bed would be. Oxygen, blood pressure cuff, monitors that he couldn’t read. He switched his gaze to the TV and pretended to watch the early morning weather report. A few minutes later they brought Sarah in. She looked small and lost in the high bed with its stark white sheets and pillowcase. She wore a worn-looking white surgical gown and her hair was hidden beneath a paper cap.
“They didn’t shave my head if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said with a ghost of the smile that still had the power to make his heart beat harder. “The incision will be here.” She touched the back of her neck.
The nurse started an IV and gave Sarah the first of her pre-op medication. A few minutes later she seemed to doze off. Nate stared at the TV and the clock, not paying attention to the one and wondering if the other was broken since the hands didn’t seem to move. Nurses came and went with more medication for the IV. Sarah woke up and turned her head to look at him. “I forgot to tell you,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. They’d probably given her atropine to do that. Nate knew more about pre-op medications than he wanted to. “Matty wants to be Shrek for Halloween. He’s excited about it. Do you think you can find a costume for him?”
Nate stood up and walked over to the high bed. He leaned both hands on the rails the nurse had put up when she started the IV. “I’ll make sure he has a Shrek costume,” he promised.
The answer seemed to please her. A faint smile curved her mouth and her words took on a dreamy tone. “Spoken like a true father. See, I told you you’d be good at the daddy thing. Thank you, Nate. For everything.”
He’d reached down to take her hand in his at the same moment the surgeon appeared in the doorway. She was young, with chocolate-colored skin, a serious demeanor, and an excellent reputation in her field. “It’s time to go,” she’d said.
Sarah’s fingers tightened around his. “Try to learn to love him, Nate. That’s all I ask.”
His last words to her were spoken directly from his heart. “I won’t have to try at all.”
“Someone’s coming.” Arlene’s voice broke into his thoughts. She took a couple of steps backward into the waiting room and turned to face him. “Is Sarah’s doctor a very pretty, young black woman?”
“Yes. Dr. Jamison.” He curled his hands around the back of one of the brown tweed chairs so his parents couldn’t see them tremble.
Tom rose, too, as the neurosurgeon entered the room. She was wearing rose-colored scrubs and green surgical booties, her short, dark hair still covered by a white paper cap like the one they’d put on Sarah. She carried a clipboard and a large envelope in her hands, looking down at her notes as she walked. Nate searched her face for signs of the bad news he was certain she’d come to deliver. She looked up and saw them watching her, and smiled.
Not the polite curve of her generous mouth that Nate had seen earlier, but a real smile that reached her eyes and banished the weariness from her face. “I’ve got good news,” she said. Nate had been preparing himself for the worst, and if he hadn’t been watching her so closely he would have thought he’d heard her wrong. “The surgery was a complete success. Sarah is going to be just fine.”
“A miracle,”Arlene whispered, and sat down in her chair with a thump, as though her legs would no longer support her. Nate felt weak in the knees himself.
“Well, not exactly a miracle, but very close to one.” Dr. Jamison pulled a sheet of X rays out of the envelope and snapped them into the light box on the wall by the door. “These are your wife’s pre-op scans.” She pointed to a spidery web of lines curled over and around the vertebrae of Sarah’s neck and then indicated the second X ray, where there were no more lines. “The growth was advancing very rapidly. Another few millimeters, and it would have been too late.” She stared at the scans for a moment with a satisfied smile, then snapped off the light. “But we don’t have to go there anymore. It was touch and go for awhile, but I think I can safely assure you the chance of a recurrence is less than five percent over the next—” her smile grew a little wider “—fifty years or so.”
Nate felt as if a bomb had at last gone off in his face. Blood roared in his ears and for a minute he forgot to breathe. She was going to be all right. And she was his wife again. How were they going to deal with that? Automatically, he held out his hand. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.”
“I’m so pleased to be able to give you such a good prognosis. I don’t have to tell you I didn’t think the outcome would be so favorable.” She glanced down at Arlene, who was staring up at her. “Maybe your mother is right. Maybe there was a little bit of a miracle worked in the mix.”
“A miracle,” Arlene repeated, turning her eyes to Nate.
“Sarah should make a complete recovery over the next couple of months, Mr. Fowler. She’ll need some therapy for the nerve damage to her arm and leg, but I believe it’s completely reversible. The therapy will all be out-patient, of course. Barring any unforeseen complications you can take her home in seventy-two hours.”
“IS THERE ANYTHING I can get for you?”
“No, thank you.” At the last moment the constriction of the brace around her neck reminded her not to try and shake her head. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Matty—?”
“He’s with Tessa, remember.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I…I forgot.” She missed Matty terribly. She’d never been away from him this long before, although in reality it had only been four days. Ninety-six hours that had changed her world.
“It’s normal. The anesthetic, the pain medication. Your brain won’t feel like such a block of wood after you get some sleep.” Nate wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, but was hanging their coats in the postage-stamp-size closet beside the door.
“I imagine you’re right.” He was talking from experience, she reminded herself. How many surgeries had he undergone to reconstruct his knee and ankle? It hadn’t been a subject that had come up during the few days they’d been together before the wedding. Odd, not to know something that at one point in her life would have been of the utmost significance. Even now she couldn’t bear to think of him hurting and in pain. Her palm itched, so she absently rubbed the tips of her fingers over the skin. It was another sign the surgery had been successful, this uncomfortable, almost annoying return of sensation to her nerve-deadened hand and leg. She kept her eyes on the lake. Gray clouds scudded overhead changing the surface of the water from blue to pewter as swiftly as her moods seemed to swing between light and dark, happiness at being alive and near despair at the dilemma she’d created for Nate and herself.
She had been prepared to die.
Not to live.
She had believed wholeheartedly that she wouldn’t survive the surgery. She’d made him believe it, too, or he wouldn’t have agreed to her mad scheme. But she had survived. Yet in her fear and anxiety to provide for her son what had she done?
To Nate?
To the two of them?
The thought made her head swim. Her knees felt weak and rubbery. She put her hand out to steady herself on the arm of Nate’s huge recliner. It was a man’s chair, wide and overstuffed. David had had one much like it. She’d sold it along with all her other furniture before she left Texas.
Immediately Nate was at her side, helping to lower her gingerly onto the seat. She steeled herself not to jerk away from his touch. To have him so close made her wary of her reactions. He was so big and warm and safe. It would be wonderful to give in to the temptation of being taken care of again. But she didn’t dare allow herself the luxury of such yearnings for even a moment. She and Matty were on their own, or would be again soon enough. “Thanks,” she said, “wobbly knees.”
