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“I’m going to tell Kat goodnight,” he declared huskily.
He never looked back at me. I on the other hand, couldn’t take my eyes off his back or his ass in those tight fitting jeans. Dammit! The door closed behind him and I could no longer see him. However, the footsteps of my daughter and mother as they quietly tried to run back to the side door that led into the kitchen were conspicuously obvious to me. I turned quickly in the swing looking over my shoulder towards the sound behind me but could not see the spies in the darkness. The little rats.
#
Pop, Yancy and I rose at four a.m. the morning of her surgery. She fixed her hair perfectly and applied her make-up with careful expertise as if today were like any other day in her ordinary life. Yancy put on a two-piece sweater set in lavender that suited her coloring. My mother looked beautiful considering what she was going to have done today.
I brushed my curly hair and pulled it up into a ponytail as my bangs fluttered wistfully across my forehead. I didn’t bother with make-up not that I looked that bad without it. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a heavy cable knit sweater of off-white that suited my complexion, dark hair and eyes. Keegan slept through this part. She was joining us at the hospital later at a reasonable hour she had informed me last night when she found out what time we would be rising from bed.
Pop had on jeans, a flannel shirt and a heavy wool coat. His face looked tired. He hadn’t slept well I could tell. Pop was worried about Yancy. They had been together for a lifetime. What would he do without her? He had to be thinking about this. He h
ad to be scared. I sure as hell was. I touched his shoulder and he turned to look at me.
“You okay?” I asked.
Pop gently smiled at me and the lines around his eyes the same color as mine creased even more, “Yep. You know we have to be strong for Yancy,” he replied uneasily. Nobody was allowed to show weakness.
“Yep, we do,” I agreed.
In the car, seatbelts fastened, I sat in the back. I reached up and touched my mother’s shoulder. “You okay?” I asked her.
“Fine dear.” She wasn’t fine, I knew.
“Yancy, why did you tell me and not the others?” I asked meaning my sisters as Pop put the key into the ignition and turned the car on.
She glanced back at me carefully before she said, “Because I knew that I could count on you.”
“You know that you can count on my sisters,” I declared.
“Michaela is unsteady emotionally.” My mother seemed distracted as she said these words to neither myself nor my father in particular. “I know that you girls think that I keep her tied to my apron strings but I don’t. I’ve tried to cut the damned things for years but your sister just won’t or can’t let go.” My mother rarely cussed which surprised me all the more when she did on these rare occasions. My eyebrow raised in question at her choice of words.
“Michaela is selfish and spoiled just like Gemma but for the simple difference that Gemma doesn’t need the emotional crutch that Michaela does. Adin is independent. Even though she lives the closest to me she is the furthest away from me.”
My mother looked sad for a moment. “Why were you the one who seemed to understand instinctively my heartbreak when Nana died? Who has always helped me when I needed help, sometimes without being asked I might add?” Yancy glanced at Pop. He looked briefly from the road to her and back again a silent message passing between them.
“Me.”
”You Gabrielle,” she agreed. “You are emotionally strong unlike Michaela. You’re independent like Adin but you don’t keep me at arm’s length as she does. You’re not selfish or spoiled like Gemma. I knew that I could count on you just as the girls know that they can count on you. We take advantage of you, I know.”
I interrupted, “I think you’re wrong Yancy. You are our foundation.”
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at me. “You girls will be fine if something should happen to me. I’m worried about Jack,” she said pointedly considering my father.
“Nothing is going to happen to you Yancy,” Pop replied clearly uncomfortable with our discussion. I could see his face in the rear view mirror. His worried eyes met mine. I was worried about Pop too.
Quickly I shot a look at my mother and then back at the road. “Nothing will happen to you,” I agreed.
Yancy shook her head. “I won’t live forever. That should make my daughters happy. I won’t be able to meddle in their lives.”
“That isn’t funny,” I snapped.
We were quiet for the rest of the journey to the hospital. The unease and tension thick inside the car. At the hospital, my mother was sitting in a wheelchair. She lifted her head allowing me to kiss her smooth cheek lovingly. Following my lead, my father leaned down and kissed her lips softly something I rarely saw them do. It was always a quick peck on the cheek while he grasped her arm firmly.
Then she was wheeled away to be prepped for the surgery with my Pop following them forlornly. His shoulders were hunched. He already had the stance of a defeated man. The scent of her cologne stayed with me while I stood in the hallway watching them take her leaving me feeling more alone than I could have imagined. A small gasp of some emotion that came deep from within me escaped through my lips. Inside my head the words kept repeating. Don’t take her from me please!
“I thought you might need some company.”
Whirling around, I found myself looking directly into the warm liquid brown eyes of Kerry McCoy. “How did you know?” I asked.
