FAMILY OF STRANGERS
By
Tim Myers
FAMILY OF STRANGERS
by Tim Myers
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 Tim Myers
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Chapter 1
All it takes is one telephone call to change your life forever. In a split second, all that you hold dear may be suddenly gone, or everything you ever hoped for could come true. Oddly enough, both happened to me in the breadth of a single call, only I wasn’t in any position to realize it at the time.
The next time you answer the shrill summons of your telephone, try not to think about what could be waiting for you on the other end of the line.
If you do, your hand may never make it to the receiver.
My résumé reads like the Yellow Pages. In the past fifteen years since graduating from college with a degree in Business, appropriately acronymed BS, I’ve done a dozen different things to pay my bills; from working as a corporate salesman to clerking in a small town hardware store to repairing electronic equipment. I never stayed with any of them over two years, hanging around only long enough to realize I wanted to be doing something else. Without any conscious effort, I’d been searching my entire life for my very own Holy Grail. The only problem was that I hadn’t even begun to figure out what it was I was looking for that kept driving me on. When it finally came, the first step in the right direction hit like a sledgehammer, a double wallop of bad news delivered in a single span of time that lasted no longer than it took to make a decent cup of tea.
My personal life was another repetition of my work history, falling in and out of committed relationships with the regularity of the seasons of the year, searching for Love with a capital ‘L’. The season of my heart was definitely late autumn with Bridget, with winter’s harsh breath not far behind.
We were fighting again, something that had become the norm for us over the past few months. Bridget and I been living together for two years, a personal record for me. Though Christmas was only two weeks away, we’d done nothing about decorating for it. There hadn’t seemed to be much point. I’d grown weary of searching for something I wasn’t even sure existed, and decided that what I had with Bridget was the best thing I was ever going to find. Maybe if we got married and started a family, I could find that sense of belonging I’d been searching for.
Bridget made no bones about letting me know she had other ideas. She was more interested in her career than children, let alone matrimony. We’d been riding the same carousel for the last few months, spinning the same arguments around and around until we both had our responses memorized.
Finally, I’d had enough. “Bridget, I want to get married and start a family.”
Her dark green eyes flared with aggravation as she flipped a wisp of jet black hair out of her porcelain toned face. Bridget was proud of her Irish heritage, though she and three generations before her had lived in the same Oregon city where we were arguing, a world away from County Cork.
She said, “Josh, I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not ready to be tied down, not to you, and certainly not to any children.” A sudden look of enlightenment crossed her face. Her voice was suddenly calmer than I had ever heard it. “I don’t mean to be brutal, but I doubt I ever will be.”
It wasn’t anywhere near the response I’d been hoping for. “What are you saying?”
Bridget looked startled by her revelation, but there was a new, firm resolve in her words. “I don’t want to marry you, Josh. Not now, not ever.”
The look of shock on my face must have touched something inside her. There was a soft, gentle pleading in her voice as she added, “Somewhere in your heart you know I’m right. We don’t belong together, not in the long run. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun, but we want too many different things out of life.”
“But I love you,” I said, nearly choking on my words.
She stroked my dark hair gently. “I know you think you do, but if you’re honest with yourself, you know I’m mostly just habit to you now.” Bridget leaned forward and kissed me gently on the cheek. “I’m sorry, Josh.”
I felt numb. I’d never had a relationship end before I was ready to leave it. Bridget was breaking new, unwelcome ground. “So where does that leave me?”
She frowned, her earlier tenderness gone. “It was my apartment before you moved in, and I’m not willing to give it up. It’s home for me.” Bridget took a deep breath, then said bluntly, “It’s best if we do this quickly. I’m going out for a few hours. When I get back, I want you gone.”
Before I could do anything she was out the door, and out of my life. That’s not exactly true. I could have tried to stop her a hundred ways, but my subconscious was in control, letting her silently walk out of my life. A part of me died as she left, but it was much smaller than I’d been willing to acknowledge. I suddenly realized she was right. Whatever I was looking for in this life, I knew I wasn’t going to find it with Bridget.
Going through her apartment gathering my things together hurt less than I could have imagined. I paused to sniff the gentle traces of her Obsession on one of my sweaters, the heavy cotton gray one she liked to wear on chilly autumn evenings, but the scent, as well as the memories left me the second I dropped it onto the pile of my things. I was startled to find that two small suitcases held everything I owned. I’d always traveled lightly through the world, fearful of any possession that might tie me down. I’d wanted roots, but suddenly I realized I’d made no effort developing them with Bridget.
I moved through the door with my meager collection, knowing my time with Bridget was over.
I’d gone three blocks when I realized I still had her apartment key on my ring. For a second I considered dropping it off in the mail, but something dragged me back to the apartment. I had to finish it, and I had to do it the right way.
When I walked back in the apartment, there was a flashing ‘1’ on the answering machine. I hesitated before pushing the ‘play’ button. I didn’t live there anymore, no matter what little sense that way of thinking made. I felt like a thief slipping back into a place he’d just robbed. All I wanted to do was to leave the key and go. ‘You’re being crazy,’ I told myself. ‘Nobody knows you’re gone but Bridget.’ Before I could bring myself to replay the message, though, the phone rang shrilly.
I picked it up out of habit more than anything else. “Hello?”
“Yes, may I speak with Mr. Joshua Vance?”
The man’s voice had the steady drone of a telephone solicitor, though there was a distinct southern drawl there, weighing each word carefully before it was spoken. Wonderful, I’d somehow managed to get myself on a phone list sold to Dixie. With a lighter heart, I realized that in a few minutes it would be Bridget’s problem. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” I hung up the telephone, still staring at that flashing ‘1’.
The phone rang again, and I was greeted with the same voice I’d just cut off. Before I could utter another word, I heard him say, “Mr. Vance, I’m not selling anything. I’m afraid this matter is quite urgent. Please, all I ask is a moment of your time.”
I kneaded my forehead with my free hand, then ran it through my hair. “Sorry I hung up on you. I’m having one of those days. What can I do for you?”
“My name is Harley Kline. I’m afraid I’ve got some rather bad news. Your cousin has been in a serious accident, and she’s requesting you at her bedside.”
“Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve got the wrong man, I don’t have any family left.” Since my mother had died, I was the last of the Vances, at least from my particular branch of the family tree.
The voice on the other end sounded perplexed. “Oh, dear, I’m quite sorry, but my instructions to contact you were quite specific. Mrs. Brock was certain you’d come.”
I was getting a pounding headache, and his accent wasn’t helping. “I’d like to help you, but I don’t know any Brocks.”
“Of course, that’s her married name. Grayson was her maiden name. I’m sorry, I’m not thinking clearly at the moment. There’s been too much happening too quickly in the past few hours.”
Now why did Grayson ring a bell? Could it really be that I had family still alive somewhere? It was hard to believe. “I’m listening, though I still don’t remember her.”
“I’m afraid that complicates matters. Helen’s been requesting you as her last blood relative in the world. She said something about sneaking Strawberry Wine in the summertime, but I’m afraid she might have been delirious when she spoke. She’s been coming in and out of consciousness for the last few hours.”
Suddenly it all came back to me. When I was seven years old I’d spent the entire summer at my grandmother’s house in Hickory Falls, North Carolina. My folks had been in the middle of a messy divorce, and they’d parked me there while they’d worked out the details of who got stuck with me; at least that’s how I’d felt at the time. I guess I’ve been looking for a family of my own ever since.
I hadn’t been alone at my grandmother’s. A freckled tomboy I always called Sport had been there with me part of the summer. The highlight of my visit had been sneaking some of my grandfather’s homemade strawberry wine behind the house. We’d both gotten sick from the alcohol, and had been forced to endure Gran’s old fashioned ‘cures’ until we both swore we’d never take a drink again. We’d also sworn an oath, with blood from lanced thumbs no less, that we’d always be there for each other. I hadn’t thought of her in the thirty years since that summer, and I was surprised how the memory of her smudged face and wiry red hair suddenly flowed into my mind.
“Tell me what happened to her.”
“Good, you remember her, I can hear it in your voice. I’m afraid there’s been a terrible automobile accident. It looks as if Helen may be dying.”
“It all happened in the blink of an eye,” he said as I caught my breath. “She was on her way to church, of all places, and a teenaged boy who’d been up partying all night crossed the center line and hit her car head on with his pickup truck. He woke up with a few bruises, but it took them the better part of an hour to cut Helen out of her compact car. That was this morning. My God, could it have just been today? Mr. Vance, is there any way you can get down here? I know it’s a long way to come, but I swear, I think the chance to see you again is the only thing keeping her alive.”
I thought about how insane it was to pack up everything and leave at the spur of the moment, and then stared woodenly at my suitcases on the floor. If the call had come the day before, I would have offered my sympathies and excuses, but at the moment I had no one in my life, no place to live, and a job fixing cash registers I no longer cared about.
He must have sensed my hesitation. “You should know I’ve taken the liberty to arrange for your plane ticket at the airport. There’s a flight leaving Portland in an hour for Charlotte, and I’ve got you booked on a commuter into Hickory Falls as soon as you land. Will you come?”
I suddenly realized I had nothing to lose, nothing to leave behind. “I’ll be there.”
The relief in his voice was obvious. “I’ll be waiting for you at the airport. Thank you, Mr. Vance.”
After I hung up, I stared at the blinking light on the answering machine a moment without touching the button. Let Bridget answer it. I had a plane to catch. Almost as an afterthought, I left a note to her to arrange a general pickup at the Hickory Falls Post Office for my mail to be forwarded. I figured Bridget owed me that, at the very least. As I took my key off the ring and laid it atop my note, I almost wished I could see her expression when she found out I’d gone to North Carolina. She would probably take all of the credit, in her mind driving me to the other side of the country so I wouldn’t be reminded of her.
Let her think what she would.
Bridget was the least of my worries at the moment.
I had a plane to catch.
I needed to know what had made Helen call out to me across the miles, and more importantly, across the years.
Chapter 2
It took a lifetime to fly from Oregon to North Carolina; the extra hours added to the clock only encouraged that feeling. I endured one plane change, two nondescript airline meals and three shifting time zones, wondering the entire time if I’d done the right thing in running to a woman’s side, a lady I’d known thirty years ago, at that. Both of the big planes I flew in were booked to the last seat, but I might as well have been flying alone for all the company and conversation my seatmates got from me.
One underlying thought kept running through my mind that quashed the feelings of unease over my uncharacteristic behavior. Helen was family, something that had become an elusive memory of smoke for me over the years. My early life was mostly lost to me, the clouds and shadows of time obscuring an unhappy beginning enduring a series of lifelong fights between my mother and father. With the final dissolution of my parents’ marriage, I had lost any real sense of belonging to anyone else. I was holding on to the hope that Helen would offer me some kind of grasp of who I was, where I’d come from.
I was beginning to fear that that was the only way I’d ever figure out where I was going.
Five minutes from the Hickory Falls regional airport, the small commuter plane’s engine caught on fire.
There were only two of us in the tiny cabin besides the pilot. I’d studied the other passenger briefly when we’d boarded, an attractive woman around my age with long auburn hair and sad brown eyes. I’d considered striking up a conversation with her, but left it at an exchange of polite nods and a single brief smile. She obviously wanted to be left alone with her thoughts, and I respected her unspoken request, as I had much the same feeling myself.
Before taking off, the pilot had ordered in a soft drawl, “If you folks don’t mind, it’ll help our weight distribution if you sit across the aisle from one another.”
I took the seat he requested, and soon we were in the air. The flight was choppy and full of many bumps and shifts, a much different ride from the jumbo jets I’d ridden earlier. It was like going from a stretch limousine to a battered old farm truck. Still, I got used to the noise as well as the unsettling movements of the plane and decided to make the best of it.
I was looking out my tiny Plexiglas window, marveling how the mountains below me looked so different from the Oregon coast I’d just left, when I saw fingery wisps, then clouds of angry black smoke billowing from the front of the plane. Before the words forming on my lips could escape, the pilot pulled back the faded blue curtain that separated the cockpit from the cabin and said, “We’ve got a small situation here, folks, nothing to worry about.”
I said loudly, “We’re on fire,” as I pointed out the window.
The pilot shot me an exasperated look as he said, “If you’ll just sit back and relax, I need some quiet to fly this thing.” He calmly turned his attention back to the controls and left his passengers sitting in stunned silence. Was I going to die for my irrational behavior, hurrying to a dying cousin across the country, a woman I barely remembered?
With more than a little hysteria in her voice, my fellow passenger said, “I cannot believe this is happening. I should have listened, I know I should have listened.” Her voice was quaking with fear.
She was in worse shape than I was. I reached across and patted her hand gently. “Don’t worry, we’re going to be okay.” Her skin was icy to the touch. She jerked away a moment before laying her hand firmly back on mine.
“What makes you so sure?” She grasped my hand and proceeded to squeeze all of the feeling out of it.
“I figure he seems pretty calm. When he goes for his parachute, then it’s probably time to start panicking.”
She looked over and caught my smile. “Are you always this calm in an emergency?”
“I specialize in them. It’s the regular everyday life that seems to give me trouble.” I added, “My name’s Joshua Vance.”
“Grace Wilson. It’s nice meeting you. You’re not from around here, are you?”
Though she was attractive in a cerebral sort of way, it was difficult concentrating on her words. It took every ounce of strength I had not to look out that window for signs of increasing smoke. Suddenly I had to smile. Being gallant to an attractive woman as our plane was going down would be a hell of a way to die.
“What’s wrong? Did I say something funny?”
Her words brought me back. “No, something just struck me as funny.”
As Grace’s hand tightened even more on mine, she said, “If you don’t mind, why don’t you keep that to yourself. I don’t find anything remotely amusing about this. I’m not nearly as calm as you are.” She paused a second, then asked, “Please help me take my mind off what’s happening. Where are you from, Joshua?”
“Originally? I grew up in West Virginia, but I’ve lived all over the country.
“Then what brings you to North Carolina?”
“I have family in Hickory Falls. At least I used to. Well, maybe I still do. At least that’s what the lawyer said.”
Her rich brown eyes studied me a moment, the panic gone momentarily from her eyes. “I’ve heard simpler answers in my life.”
“It’s a long story,” I said, “and I’m not sure we’ve got time to go into it all now.”
We both felt the nose of the plane suddenly pitch down toward the ground.
I called to the pilot, “What’s going on?”
“Don’t panic, it’s almost over.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, my voice calmer than my nerves.
“We’re landing,” the pilot said, never moving the curtain back so we could see.
I glanced out the window and saw that the smoke had increased. “Anyplace in particular, or are you just hunting for a flat piece of land?”
“I figured your ticket was for the airport, so I thought I’d set us down there.”
Two minutes later we were safely on the ground. I expected to be met by an emergency crew, or at the very least a fire truck or two. Instead, after coasting to a stop, the pilot hopped out of the plane, retrieving a fire extinguisher from the cockpit along the way, and proceeded to put the fire out himself.
I said, “Grace? I’m losing the feeling in my hand. Can you ease up a little on it?”
I had to repeat my request before she heard it. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
As I rubbed the circulation back into my fingers, I said, “Let’s get off this thing while we still have the chance.”
She nodded and I followed her out of the plane. The fire was now completely out. The pilot had the belly of the plane open and had recovered our luggage.
“Thanks for flying with me. Hope you’all come again real soon.”
I said, “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll rent a car next time. No offense.”
“None taken,” he said as he offered a shrug. “I’m not afraid to admit it, I was a little on edge up there myself.”
As Grace and I walked to the small terminal building over the broken asphalt runway, I said, “Do you fly with him much?”
“I hate to admit it, but that was my first time in a plane. I’m scared to death of the things, but I promised myself I’d give it a chance. Besides, I didn’t have much choice, I had to get back here quick.”
I shook my head. “So goes your reward for taking a chance.”
“I don’t know about that. We made it, didn’t we?”
I would have gotten her bag, but my hands were full with all of my earthly possessions. “In that case, don’t get your hopes up. Most flights aren’t nearly this exciting.”
A small, slender man with a drooping gray mustache met us in the small terminal. He wore a blue suit with a tie that sported ducks in flight; it looked as if he’d slept in his outfit overnight. As he offered his hand to me, he said, “Mr. Vance? We spoke on the telephone, I’m Harley Kline.”
Grace broke in, “How’s she doing, Harley?”
He shook his head sadly. “In and out. We’d better hurry. Let me have your bags, you can ride to the hospital with us.”
Grace nodded, then said to me, “Do you know Helen?”
“It appears we’re long lost cousins. How in the world she tracked me down in Oregon I’ll never know.”
Harley finished stowing our bags in his trunk, a late model Cadillac not much smaller than the plane we’d just flown in. He said, “Folks, we can talk in the car. Let’s get a move on.”
The attorney held the front passenger door open for Grace and I climbed in back by myself. As soon as we started, Harley fiddled with his rearview mirror until we could make eye contact. “She’s been asking for you ever since I told her you were coming. Are you sure you just spent one summer together?”
“Not even that, just a month when we were both around seven years old.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it, she knows more people in Canawba county than just about anybody. Why in the world is she so intent on seeing you?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing across three time zones, and I haven’t been able to come up with anything either.”
Grace turned to face me. “Is that what you meant by family? Are you and Helen related?”
“First cousins, but to be honest with you, I’d nearly forgotten all about her.”
Harley laughed gently. “I’m willing to wager you’re the first person who’s ever said that about Helen in her life. She’s what you’d call a memorable woman.”
“We were just kids,” I said, somehow feeling the need to defend myself. As we drove toward the hospital, I looked out the window, trying to match my memories of Hickory Falls with what I saw before me. It could have been a small town anywhere in the South, with its Dairy Queen, Barbecue restaurants and shaded roads. In the distance, I could see the Blue Ridge mountains, cloaked in a haze of azure, but there were just enough hills around us to give me a taste of a memory. When I stopped looking for familiar buildings and started thinking of the terrain, bits and pieces started to come back to me. An odd sense of déjà vu began to sweep over me, but I wasn’t happy with the memories it was reviving. I’d long associated Hickory Falls with my parents’ divorce and their subsequent abandonment of me. What in the world was I doing back there? I suddenly knew that I was going to get out of town the second after I saw Helen. I’d been searching for a place to call home all my life, but I hadn’t found it yet. There were too many buried memories in Hickory Falls for my taste.
The car stopped in front of a large stone building. Harley said, “We’re here. We’d better hurry.”
As we rushed toward the hospital’s entrance, Grace said, “I hope we’ve still got time. I’ve at least got to say good bye.”
I felt ashamed at my selfishness. Here I was feeling sorry for myself for my meager troubles when the last tenuous thread of my family lay dying, her only request to see me again. As we walked inside, I buried my earlier feelings of resentment for Hickory Falls and what it meant to me. Helen had been the brightest spot in the worst time of my life, and if I had anything to say about it, I was going to do my level best to return the favor.
I’ve always hated hospitals. No one I ever loved who went into one ever came back out alive. Not a rational point of view, I know that, but one I doubted I’d ever be able to shake.
This hospital was no better, no worse than the ones that had haunted me before. Sterile white everywhere, accented only with touches of modern pastels, and an antiseptic smell that clung to the air.
It made me feel queasier than when the plane had caught on fire.
Harley grabbed my arm before we got to Intensive Care. “Try to smile, for her sake. She knows it’s bad, but we don’t need to remind her of it, now do we?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. A petite blonde nurse met us at the door. “Mr. Klein, I’m afraid you can’t go in. Dr. Wilmoth has given us strict orders; no one but family’s allowed to see her.”
“Is she getting worse?”
The frown on the nurse’s face eased. “No, if anything, she’s better at the moment. He just wants to make sure she gets all of the rest she needs.”
I said, “That’s not a problem, I can come back another time.” It was like a last second reprieve from the governor, not having to walk through that door.
Harley patted me on the shoulder and said, “Nonsense, you’re the only family she’s got left.”
The nurse’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Is that true? Are you related to Helen?”
“I guess so,” I said, still staring at the door, my mind not fully on her question or my response.
“Well, either you are or you’re not. Which is it going to be?”
I pulled my gaze back to her. “I am. We’re first cousins.”
“You’re Josh? She’s been asking for you. You come right with me.” Before she led me through the door, she said, “Sorry, you’ll have to wait out here, Mr. Klein.” She didn’t even acknowledge Grace’s presence, but I was too wrapped up in my own emotions to give it much thought.
As the nurse led me into the heavily divided room, I saw several beds occupied with more machinery than humanity, tubes and hoses, pumps, gauges and dials; it was walking through a biotech nightmare. The nurse’s crepe soles whispered gently on the heavily waxed floor, her steps accompanied in a strange serenade by the beeps and whines of the equipment. I steeled myself for what I was about to see as the nurse led me to a curtained space.
The woman in the bed was sleeping. Her mass of wiry red hair was shaved at one point, an angry bandage taking up part of her skull. The areas around her eyes were blackened, and her nose had evidently been broken in the wreck. Still, she seemed to be breathing well on her own, and I wondered how badly she was really hurt. Her limbs seemed to be okay, from what I could see of them under the thin white sheet that covered her. An IV tube was in one arm, and there were assorted monitors attached to her keeping tabs on her vital functions.
I held my finger to my lips and pointed to the hallway when I caught the nurse’s attention. She nodded, and as we started for the partition my foot caught a tray in front of the bed, sending the water pitcher on it crashing to the floor. Helen stirred from her sleep, stared at me through bleary eyes, and said, “Joshua, is that you? I must be dreaming. You’re all grown up.”
I moved to her bedside. “It’s really me. I’m sorry I kicked the pitcher over. I’ll come back later so you can get some sleep.”
She smiled gently. “Now why would I want to do that? I’m already awake.” She reached a hand out from under the sheet and said, “My God, it’s good to see you. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
I touched her hand lightly. It was chilled, whether from the room or her condition, I couldn’t say. “Hey, we had a pact, remember? I wasn’t about to let you down, Sport.”
“Nobody’s called me that in years. Have you been to the house yet?”
I shook my head. “I came straight here from the airport.”
“That Harley, I told him to get you settled in first. Did he bring you up to date on what’s been going on?”
“Hey, it was only a ten minute ride from the airport. We’ll have plenty of time to fill in the gaps later. I’m not going anywhere.”
She squeezed my hand lightly. “Good, I was hoping you could stay.” A look of pain crossed her face, then disappeared as quickly as it had come.
I said, “Are you okay? Can I get someone for you?”
“No, I’ll be fine, it’s gone now.” She took a deep breath, seemed to think better of it, then let it slowly escape. The constant blip of the heart monitor seemed to reassure her as it settled back into its steady drone. “Josh, there’s something you should know.”
There was a long pause as she fought to control another, obviously much larger wave of pain. I stroked her hand lightly in mine. “Listen, we can talk about it later. You’ve been through a lot.”
“No, we need to talk about it now.” The heart monitor began to increase its beat, enough so that the nurse who had guided me there came into Helen’s curtained space.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go now, Sir.”
Helen fought to sit up, and fell back to the bed. “I’m not done talking to him.”
The nurse shooed me with her eyes as she said, “He can come back after you’ve rested some, Helen. You need to take it easy.” She touched a control on the IV tube, and Helen began to calm down. The nurse led me out into the hallway and said, “She’s wearing herself out, and she needs her rest.”
“What exactly is wrong with her,” I asked.
“In layman’s terms? She took a pretty hard hit to the head. Besides that, she’s got some bruises and a few broken ribs.”
“It must be fairly serious if she’s in intensive care.”
“Lower your voice.” She led me to the nook by the door and said, “We don’t treat head trauma lightly. We need to watch her for the next few days, but she’s doing well so far.” As an afterthought, she added, “Better than we expected.”
“When can I see her again?” I needed to hear what Helen had to say. There was something on her mind, and I had a gut feeling whatever it was, she needed to get it out in the open if she was truly going to recuperate.
The nurse glanced at her watch. “I’d say you should wait at least an hour. Right now she needs her rest.”
I walked through the ICU door and found Grace and Harley waiting for me.
“How is she,” they asked with nearly the same breath.
“She’s resting now, but I’m supposed to come back in an hour.” My stomach rumbled gently. “Is there a cafeteria in the hospital? I’m starving.”
Harley shook his head. “You don’t want to eat there, trust me. If you’ve got an hour, we have time to go the Crest Bell Diner.” As Harley and I started to walk away, I turned to Grace. “Aren’t you coming?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m staying right here.”
Harley said, “Grace, they’ll never let you in. Why torture yourself?”
“I’m staying.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Can we at least bring you anything back?”
“No thanks, I’m not hungry.”
As we left, I looked back to see Grace studying the door to the ICU ward, as if she was willing it to open for her.
“They must be really close,” I said as Harley and I stepped out into the balmy wind. It felt tropical to me, at least twenty degrees warmer than Oregon. I wanted to shed a layer of my clothes, but I settled for unzipping my heavy jacket and let some of the breeze inside.
Harley took a long time answering, always keeping his steady pace as we walked toward the diner.
“Helen took her in when no one else would. Grace is devoted to her.”
“What do you mean, took her in? Did something happen to her?”
We were at the diner’s door when Harley said, “If you don’t mind, we’ll talk about that later. You won’t be doing yourself any favor discussing Grace’s history in here.”
I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but decided for the moment I’d bide my time. It appeared that there were more enigmas in Hickory Falls than I’d bargained for.
On the plus side, though, I hadn’t thought of Bridget since the plane engine caught on fire.
Chapter 3
The first thing that struck me about the Crest Bell Diner was the music. I’d heard my share of Country over the years, mostly switching stations on my radio, but the music blaring from the juke box sounded straight from the fifties instead of the contemporary stuff I’d heard. As the singer belted out his remorse over a woman’s betrayal, Harley nodded and spoke to a dozen people in the diner. They all seemed to be watching me without being too obvious about it, as if they weren’t exactly sure who I was or what I was doing with Harley. Well, I wasn’t sure what to make of them, either. Every other one of the dozen stools by the front counter was occupied by a mix of faded blue jeans and dress suits alike; no one seemed to notice the stark contrast, let alone be bothered by it. Nine of the two dozen tables were already filled, giving us plenty of options. Harley led me to one well away from the others.
The gray Formica table top was chipped, and two of the four chairs didn’t match. I reached for a menu stuck between the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin dispenser, looking for something I could eat. I figured it would be hard to screw up a hamburger, so I ordered one while Harley had the lunch special: country style steak, creamed potatoes with gravy, fried apples and a biscuit.
The skinny waitress with flaming red hair looked to be fresh out of high school. With an exaggerated smile, she studied me carefully as she said, “You want two sweet teas, Harley?”
I interrupted, “Just water for me, thanks.”
She looked at me curiously, then said, “One tea, one water it is.” She walked away with an exaggerated sway to her narrow hips, and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t for my benefit, but instead a reaction to the music’s beat.
I said, “Tell me about Grace.”
“Keep it down, will you? There are quite a few folks in this town who still don’t forgive me for defending her.”
“Defending her? What happened?”
The waitress came back carrying our glasses, along with a small pitcher filled to the rim with tea for Harley. “You sure you won’t have a glass, Sugar?”
“Maybe later. The water’ll be fine for now.”
“Okay, but you can’t blame a gal for trying.” She studied me for a moment, then asked lightly, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard an accent like yours before. Mind my asking where you’re from?”
I started to say, ‘None of your damn business,’ when I suddenly remembered where I was. In Hickory Falls, it probably wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a waitress to engage a patron in a personal conversation. “I’ve lived a little bit of everywhere across the country.”
She looked at me wistfully. “I’ve never been out of Hickory Falls myself. I bet you’ve got some stories to tell, don’t you?”
“One place is pretty much like another,” I said.
She raised one eyebrow, as if she didn’t quite believe me. “You know, I’m willing to bet you’ve seen more than you’re willing to tell.”
Harley interrupted, “Sally, why don’t you go check on our orders?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.” She smiled broadly, then said directly to me, “We’ll finish this conversation later. I’ll be right back.”
After she was up at the counter, Harley said, “You’ll have to excuse Sally, she’s the nosiest waitress I’ve ever run into in my life.” Harley took a long drink of the sweet tea, then said, “People are going to be naturally curious about you, Mr. Vance. I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with a certain amount of that. Hickory Falls is a small town, and not a whole lot new happens around here.”
“Please, I asked you to call me Josh. You don’t have to apologize for the town, I’ve lived here before, remember? For one summer, anyway.”
I was getting ready to ask about Grace again when Harley said, “Josh, I’m still not certain why Helen has been so adamant about seeing you. Surely the fact that you’re her last living kin counts for something, but there was an urgency to her demand that I didn’t quite understand. She held onto my hand with a grip that surprised me, given her condition, and she wouldn’t let go until I promised to do everything in my power to get you to Hickory Falls.”
I took a sip of water, then said, “I don’t know any more than you do, Harley. It seems to me that if she wanted to contact me, she knew well enough how to do it. I’ve been at the same address for nearly a year. You didn’t have any trouble finding me, did you?”
“No, Helen had your address and telephone number sitting on top of her dresser. The paper was worn, as if she’d held it in her hands a hundred times. Why should she hesitate to call you? It’s pretty obvious she’d been thinking about doing it for some time.”
“I wish I knew. I’ll just have to wait and ask her that myself when I see her.”
Harley suddenly frowned. “Please, don’t do it on my account. Here I’m lambasting Sally for being so nosy, then I start pumping you for information myself. Please forgive me, Josh, I meant no disrespect.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “Harley, you don’t have a thing to apologize for. I can’t blame you for wondering. I spent the entire flight from Oregon chewing over the same thing myself.”
I was about to steer the subject back toward Grace when our waitress appeared with our orders. After sliding a heavily filled plate in front of Harley, she deftly set a white wrapped hamburger before me, saying, “You didn’t say, so I figured you wanted this all the way.”
“It’s fine,” I muttered as I took a bite. There was chili on it, along with Cole slaw, onions, catsup, mustard and Lord knows what else. I choked down the bite and said, “What do they do, throw whatever they’ve got in back on these things?”
Harley finished a bite of heavily gravied meat, then said, “If you don’t like it, send it back. It would serve Sally right, trying to make your mind up for you.”
Once I got over my surprise, I found that I liked the odd assortment of flavors mixing together. Before I realized it, I’d eaten the entire hamburger and was ready for more. I called Sally over and ordered a duplicate to the one I’d just had, and in short order she brought it out to me. By the time I finished it, my hunger pangs were gone. I’d most likely regret my choice that night, the chili was spicier than I was used to, but for the moment I felt better with a full belly.
Harley had eaten most of his meal by the time I finished, attacking the plate’s contents with vigor. He stabbed the last wayward apple and ate it, then refilled his glass with the dregs of the small pitcher. After downing that, Harley pushed his plate away and laid a ten on the table. I started to protest when he said, “Please, it’s my treat. You’ve done enough for me today, flying here to see Helen the instant you were asked to come.” He took a final sip of his tea, then asked, “When do you have to be getting back to Oregon?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have any set plans. I can stay here as long as I need to.” I didn’t feel it politic to tell him that I’d severed my last ties with the West and had no plans to ever go back.
The relief on his face was evident. “Fine, that’s just fine. There’s room for you at Rivermont, I checked on that first thing this morning, so there’ll be no problem with finding you a place to stay.”
“Rivermont? Is it some sort of hotel, or is it a bed and breakfast?”
He looked surprised. “I was certain you knew. It’s neither one, Josh. Helen converted your grandparents’ place into a boarding house at least a dozen years ago.”
It made sense, in an odd sort of way. The house had been built to hold the dozen kids my grandparents had dreamed of, but they’d only had two, my grandmother nearly dying when my own mother had been born. It must have been a lonely place for Helen all by herself when our grandmother had died, and it was probably a nightmare to maintain, too. I was a little surprised she hadn’t sold the house long ago. Whenever I thought about it, the farm was always as it had been in the past, the intervening years never touching the structure in my mind. I couldn’t imagine what kind of shape it was in now, but I suddenly had a yearning to see it again, to see how well it stood up against my memory. On second thought, maybe it would be a mistake going back. I was certain the intervening years had taken their toll. Reality never matched fantasy, I knew that only too well.
“Are there boarders there now?”
“There’s a handful, but there’s at least one room open, so that’s all that counts, isn’t it?” He glanced at his watch, then said, “we’d better be getting back if you’re going to see Helen on time.”
As we walked back toward the hospital, I noticed a scent in the air, a smell I remembered from my youth in West Virginia. The sky had suddenly turned gray during the short time we’d been in the diner, and without the sun’s warmth, there was a definite chill in the air. The temperature had dropped too, and I zipped my jacket up against the breeze. “Are you expecting snow?”
Harley laughed. “We hardly get any snow here at all, Josh, and if we should get the errant flake or two, it’s never before the first of the year. It has to be at least twenty years since I saw it snowing before Christmas, let alone when it’s still nearly two weeks away.”
As he said it, a flake drifted lazily down from the sky and struck him squarely on the bridge of his nose. As he wiped it off, he said with a gentle laugh, “Then again, I’ve been known to be wrong before.”
By the time we got back to the hospital, there was a light dusting of white on the car tops and the bushes, though nothing stayed on the pavement long.
I brushed a hand through my hair as we walked to the emergency room, feeling the icy water in my fingers. Grace was where we’d left her, watching the door intently, as if expecting it to burst open at any moment.
“Any word,” Harley asked.
“No, but I’m worried. A team of doctors and nurses just rushed inside. They looked frantic.”
“I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on,” I said and stepped toward the door.
It was locked. I knocked a few times, and a large nurse came partially out, frowning as she blocked the way inside, not to mention my view. “I’m here to see my cousin.”
She said gruffly, “I’m sorry, Sir, but no one is allowed in ICU right now.”
“Can you at least tell me who they’re working on?”
Her face didn’t change expression as she said, “I’m sorry, you’ll just have to wait.”
I did as I was told, and turned back to Harley and Grace. “Sorry, they’re not saying anything. We might as well sit down, it might be awhile.”
Harley’s cellular phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call. After he backed off a few paces, I asked Grace, “Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?”
“No, I couldn’t eat a bite.”
We sat near the door, perched on a pair of faded red vinyl chairs. No one else was in the waiting room, and it felt strange being there with two people I’d only met a few hours ago, waiting to visit a woman I hadn’t seen in thirty years. Grace’s eyes studiously avoided mine, staring intently at the door. There was an awkward silence between us, and I fought to break it. “You and Helen must be really close.”
“She saved my life.” Grace said it as if she was announcing the weather, or quoting a stock price.
When she didn’t go on, I said, “You can’t leave me hanging like that. Tell me how she saved you.”
Grace leaned back in her chair and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. They were a deeper shade of brown than I’d remembered, and I felt myself slowly pulled toward her. I couldn’t say if it was our time in the plane and the potential for tragedy, or if I was rebounding from Bridget, but I could feel the tug of her presence beside me like a physical force.
Her next words drove all of that out of my mind.
“I can’t believe you haven’t heard, you’ve been in town at least two hours,” she said, then pursed her lips into a thin dark line.
“I killed my husband.”
Chapter 4
“There’s got to be more to it than that, Grace. Tell me what happened.”
Before she could answer, the door to the ICU opened and a team of doctors and nurses walked out, solemn expressions on their faces.
Grace jumped up, and I moved quickly beside her. She asked, “Helen Brock... is she okay?”
One of the nurses looked up and said, “Hang on a second, let me check.”
She went back inside, and a lifetime later returned with some good news. “Ms. Brock’s doing fine.” The nurse turned to me. “Are you Mr. Vance? She’s been asking for you.”
When I nodded, she said, “You can go in now, but don’t stay too long. She needs her rest.”
I started for the door, then stopped and touched Grace’s hand lightly. “We’ll continue that conversation as soon as I get back.”
She ignored my words. “Tell Helen I’m here. Would you do that for me?”
“Absolutely.”
I walked into ICU and saw that one of the curtained partitions that had been opened before was now closed. No noise or activity came from behind the veil. They must have removed the body through another door. Smoothly efficient, probably through practice. I was willing to bet that more patients left ICU covered under a heavy sheet than ever left the place still breathing.
Helen looked better than she had earlier. The rest appeared to do her good. “Hey Sport, you’re looking better by the minute.”
She shrugged gently. “Better than some.” Her eyes glanced to the right where the pulled curtain seemed to overpower the room. It must be tough, lying there hooked up and hearing the frantic attempts to save one of your fellow patients. A shadow crossed Helen’s face, leaving as quickly as it had come. She said lightly, “So tell me, have you been to Rivermont? What do you think?”
“I haven’t had time to go out there yet, but Harley told me you’d made it into a boarding house. Truthfully, I was kind of surprised you didn’t sell the place.”
She shifted in bed, then said, “I thought about putting it on the market, but there were complications in selling it.” She took a deep breath, then continued. “I had to take in a few boarders to pay taxes on it, and put food on the table. After I got my head above water, I discovered I enjoyed running a boarding house. There are always people around, and life’s never dull.” Her eyes softened as she added, “Tell Harley to put you in the Lee suite, it’s the best we’ve got.”
I stroked her arm lightly. “Any place will be fine. Before I left, you said there was something you had to tell me, but then the nurse ran me off. What was it that was so urgent that you needed to see me?” I smiled gently, then added, “I’m not complaining, but I’ve got to admit, you’ve got me more than a little curious.”
Helen took a deep breath, then said in a rush of words, “The house isn’t mine, at least not all of it. Half of it belongs to you.”
I said, “Our grandparents place? You’re kidding. To be honest with you, I never gave the farm much thought after that summer. I just figured that when Mom left like she did, Gran just sort of forgot about me. I remember they had one hell of fight when it was time to go. I wasn’t even allowed to bring her name up in conversation after that. Losing Gran was just another casualty of the divorce.”
“Well, she never forgot about you. I didn’t know about the arrangements she’d made until after Gran’s funeral, and I couldn’t find you, so I just sort of took over.”
A wave of shame swept over me. “I would have come to the funeral, but I didn’t know about it until months later. I was moving around a lot then, and it took a while for my mail to catch up with me.”
She smiled softly at me. “Josh, I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty. She died peacefully in her sleep, and she never knew you weren’t there, so don’t worry about it. She still held you close to her heart, it wasn’t your fault that your mom took you away.” Helen closed her eyes a moment, and I wondered if she was falling asleep, when suddenly her eyes focused on me intently. “Harley kept telling me I had to find you, since your name’s on the deed and everything, but I figured once I decided what to do with the farm, I could let you know that half the place was yours. It was the wrong thing to do, keeping it from you like that. I’ve had your address for at least a year, but I haven’t had the courage to contact you. Josh, can you forgive me? I haven’t been able to rest, knowing what I’ve done to you.”
I offered her my best smile. “Sport, as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing to forgive. It wasn’t your fault I was out of touch. Don’t forget, I could have looked Gran up after I was out on my own.” My eyes went to the ceiling, it was easier to talk that way. “I guess I was afraid to take the chance of her rejecting me. I knew what a damn fool I’d been when I heard she was dead, but our separation was nobody’s fault but my own. I put my family behind me along time ago, including Hickory Falls.” I suddenly knew what I had to do. “Let me round up a pen and some paper and I’ll sign my half over to you right now. You stayed in Hickory Falls, the farm belongs to you.”
She shook her head, and I could see a wave of pain sweep through her. “That’s not what Gran wanted. We own the house together.” She was visibly upset, and I was worried the monitors would betray us again. I wasn’t ready to be evicted again, not with so much still to say between us.
“Easy, if you want me to have half, then I’ll gladly take it. Let’s not worry about that right now, we can straighten everything out once you’re out of here.”
A tear crept down her cheek. “Oh, Josh, you’re really not upset?”
“I promise you, the thought never entered my mind.”
A look of peace settled on her face, and I could see some of the little girl I’d known in her eyes. “I can’t tell you what a relief that is. I was so worried.”
“Oh, before I forget, Grace wanted me to tell you she’s in the waiting room. They won’t let her see you, you’re restricted to family only, but she wants you to know if there’s anything she can do, she’s there for you.”
Helen nodded. “She’s a sweet lady. What do you think of her?”
“I like her. We flew in together on a little commuter plane, and we had a chance to get to know each other.” I hesitated before adding her confession just before I’d come in the room, but it was troubling me.
Helen frowned gently. “Josh, she’s a good woman. Don’t believe everything you hear, especially from her. There’s more there than meets the eye.”
Her monitor began accelerating again, and the last thing I wanted to do was upset her. A nurse came to the partition and peeked inside. “It’s time to go, Sir.”
Helen protested, “I’m tired of resting. When can I go home?”
The nurse offered a genuine smile. “I don’t have any control over that, but I’ll say that if you’re asking, I’d take it as a good sign.”
I kissed Helen’s forehead, being careful not to jar her. “Sweet dreams, Sport. I’ll see you soon.”
She smiled softly. “Count on it, Josh.” Her smile turned into a full-blown grin. “When I get out of here, I’ve got a special bottle I want to share with you.”
“Anything, as long as it’s not Strawberry Wine.”
“You ruined my surprise. I’ve been saving Gramp’s last bottle for our reunion.”
I patted her hand gently as I left. “For you, I’ll take a sip. Good night.”
She squeezed my hand gently. “Good night, Josh.” As she drifted quickly off to sleep, she added softly, “Welcome home.”
As I walked to the door, I couldn’t keep myself from wondering what she meant about being home. I’d lived a great many places in my life, but to call any of them home was hard. Sure, there were good times in my life after my parents’ divorce. But nowhere I wanted to stay. I couldn’t imagine a place where I could feel at home. Maybe I wasn’t capable of putting down roots.