AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Julie?" At the light rap on the door, he opened his eyes. An older woman he didn't know but was pretty sure was Thomas's mother, based on similarities in their facial features, peered around the panel. "Marcus just relieved me and I wanted to see--oh." She startled when she realized Des's eyes were on her, and she smiled, a partly nervous, partly pleased and anticipatory look. "I'm so sorry."
"It's all right. I'm awake."
"So I see." She smiled more warmly. "I'm Elaine."
"I figured." Des cleared his throat, feeling ridiculously awkward. Elaine hadn't expected he'd be conscious, though now that he was, she looked eager to stay. But he could also tell she was struggling to not seem too eager and spook him. If he wasn't ready to talk, he expected she'd go away without offense, but he didn't know what he was ready for.
Julie filled in the sudden silence in her comfortable way, bless her.
"You talked Marcus into going back to the hotel?" she said to Elaine. She included him in the talk with the angle of her body, still sitting on the bed, but she spoke in that way people did around a recovering patient who might not yet be up to talking.
"Oh, I'm sure I didn't, though he let me believe that." Elaine offered a self-conscious chuckle. She wore dark slacks with a blue tunic top over it that pinned at the hip, accentuating a trim figure. Her dyed ebony hair was long but pulled back in a sleek twist. Her hazel eyes had a touch of blue-grey to them when she turned her head toward the light. Des wondered if she looked like his mother. Since Thomas had been cued into his parentage by comparing Des's looks to his aunt, not his mother, Des guessed that Elaine and Christine had drawn from different gene pools within the same family.
"He was probably in the cafeteria the past few hours to catch up on his work emails and texts," Elaine continued. Her Southern accent was country rural, soft and pleasing. "Staying as close as he can without making me think he doesn't trust me to watch over my own son. I hope he took a little nap down there, though, because I don't think he got much sleep. Thomas woke up about an hour ago."
"Des has only been up a few minutes. I'll go tell the nurse he's awake. Would you like to sit with him a few minutes while I do that?"
"Oh, well, if he's waking up, I don't want to intrude on you two. I can come back later."
Julie had looked his way as she made the offer, confirming he was okay with her suggestion. He wasn't sure, but Elaine's kind attempt to give him an out, combined with the way her eyes were fastened on his face, drinking in his features, decided him. Don't be an asshole. Or a coward. What are you worried about?
Exactly what he'd said before the surgery. Though he'd posed it as a joke, and Julie had gone along with it, the wisdom in her lovely brown eyes had told him she knew the truth. He didn't know how he'd feel if Elaine didn't like him. Didn't matter how old he was, an abandoned kid would run toward the edge of a cliff to avoid another dose of familial rejection.
"No, it's good. Please..." He gestured Elaine farther into the room, coughing a little, the after effect of the breathing exercise.
Julie picked up her robe, shrugging into it and freeing her long hair from the collar. "I'll be back in a few minutes," she told Des, leaning over to brush her lips over his. He put his hand on her shoulder to hold her, bring her back down for more of that, just an extra minute. When he at last let her go, she ducked her head, hiding her flush as she hurried from the room.
She'd handed Elaine a cup of water with what looked like big Q-tips in it before she departed. Elaine moved the rolling table close and set the cup on it so he could reach for one of the swabs and roll it across his lips and in his mouth. Fortunately, he was able to do that on his own, but she helped him find the controls on the bed and raise him to a more upright reclining position. It felt better to sit up and be somewhat in control of his faculties, though he had to close his eyes a few minutes at the return of the dizziness. They had him on some good painkillers, because he wasn't too uncomfortable, but fortunately he also wasn't loopy. He hoped.
She'd put her bag on the chair and he saw a photo album in it. "You've been sharing pictures?" he asked, looking for a way to start the conversation that might put them both at ease.
&nbs
p; "I thought...well, you don't have to look at them. In a way, I brought them for myself. It sounds silly, but I felt like by bringing pictures of the woman who bore you, I was bringing Christine with me to meet the child she never had the chance to know."
He blinked. "That was...an odd way to refer to her."
Elaine's lips tightened. "She wasn't your mother. Betty was probably the closest thing to that for you, wasn't she? God bless her. But I'll call Christine your mother if you wish me to do so."
"I don't. I guess I'm just surprised...that you'd realize that I wouldn't be comfortable with that. She was your sister." He was usually more lucid than this, but maybe this halting, gentle way they were both handling one another was how it should be. Julie had left only the bathroom light on, so it was dim and quiet in the room, cocooning them in their own world.
Elaine took a breath. "She was my sister, and I loved her deeply, even though I didn't know how to help her. It took me a long, painful time to realize both those things could be true. Would you like me to talk about her? We don't have to do so. You've just been through surgery. We can certainly talk about other, easier things."
"No. I think it might be easier to talk about it now. While I'm on painkillers."
Elaine reached out to touch his hand, then thought better of the familiarity, folding her hands back against her. He didn't disagree with her decision. He wasn't sure if he was ready to be touched by his aunt, but he regretted if his lack of encouragement pained her. She straightened her back, though, and gave him a brisk nod that told him she wasn't that fragile.
It almost made him smile. Yeah, she'd raised three kids and, from what he'd heard, she held her own with Marcus. Knowing she wasn't going to break if he said the wrong thing relaxed him a little more.
She sat down in the chair Julie had pulled up beside the bed. "Christine had an artist's personality. When I first recognized it in Thomas, I worried so much about him because of her, but he had a steadiness, a grounding, she never had. Nothing was ever right for Christine. She had this vision of how her life was supposed to be. Whatever didn't fit with that, she simply denied, shut away, or blamed it on someone else."
She shifted back in the chair and crossed her legs, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. She wore an inexpensive wedding set and her fingers had slightly swollen knuckles from arthritis. While her nails were neat and polished, he could tell she worked with her hands. Thomas had mentioned on that drive back to Charlotte that his mother loved gardening.
"Would you like me to go on?" She was watching his face. At his agreement, she continued.
"Our parents were simple farm people, but they took her to a psychiatrist on the recommendation of a guidance counselor. He put her on drugs, anti-depressants, things like that. She became addicted to any drug that could change her mood." Pain crossed Elaine's features. "She'd steal my father's painkillers for his knees, so he had to keep them locked up in the gun safe. She left home at eighteen and would come back on occasion when she had nowhere else to go. The only one she'd tell anything was me. To my shame, I took that as a badge of honor, keeping her secrets even as I knew that she'd become poison to herself."
Elaine shook her head. "Thomas was ten when she came to stay with me for the last time. After three days, I told her I would get her into a treatment program, but if she wasn't willing to do that, she had to leave. She'd become so unstable that I didn't trust her around the children. My husband saw it. 'Lainie, I love you,' he said, 'but she shouldn't be around the kids. We both know it. If it's too hard for you to tell her to leave, I will.'"
