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Her best friend answered after only one ring.“How did the discharge go?”
Bea sighed and drifted further from the house.She went down the steps to the backyard.“We made it out of there,” she said.“I don’t think any of the nurses would’ve survived the night if we hadn’t.”
Cass laughed, but Bea barely broke a smile.“I don’t think I’m going to survive this.”
“Yes, you will,” Cass said in a firm tone.“He’ll get better, and he’ll actually be in better shape than before, because the whole hip is new.”
“He’s going to drive my mama insane.”
“Yes, he will,” Cass agreed.“But Bea, he’s acting normal.He’s lost his mobility and his independence in one go, and he just needs some time.”
“Yeah.”She wandered toward the trees at the back fence.“I think Mama will be able to manage his medications.”She turned back to the house, and she saw Dallin through the window.He wore a smile and moved around the kitchen like he’d never left.
“Right,” Cass said.“They’ll be okay.They have great neighbors, and their pastor knows the situation.”
“Yeah.”Bea didn’t say anything else.She wasn’t sure how to ask Cass what she should do.“I—”
“You’re not going back to Grant, are you?”
“I don’t see how I can,” Bea said, dropping her gaze to the grass.“I—they need help here.”
“Bea.”
“No, Cass,” Bea said, because Cass could sometimes clip out words and make Bea question her decisions.“The first few weeks are going to be intense.I’ll be here every day, just to make sure Mama doesn’t kill him, and that he understands that he has to do what he’s told.”
“Tori can come help.”
“Not this week,” Bea said.“Dallin will be here, but he’s more of the big-picture guy, and I’m the one who takes care of the details.”In this case, the details mattered a lot, and Bea couldn’t imagine herself boarding a plane and leaving her parents to their own wiles.
“Okay,” Cass said.“So you call him for a few weeks, then go.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Bea said, knowing it wasn’t.“Honestly, Cass, Hilton Head was a dream.That’s all it was.A vacation.A celebration that the previous fourteen months were over.”Tears pricked her eyes, not enough to threaten crying, but enough to know that she wished dreams came true.
“Bea.”
“I was there for ten days.I didn’t fall in love with him,” Bea said, noticing that Cass had simply said her name a couple of times, with nothing following.That meant she didn’t have much to say, and her name was becoming a plea.
“What are you going to do?”
Bea watched her siblings and mother moving in front of the windows.They looked about to sit down to dinner, and Daddy hobbled into the frame the window provided.She needed to get back inside, and she could only think of what needed to be done.
“I have to go,” she said to Cass.“They’re eating dinner.”With Hilton Head an hour ahead of Sweet Water Falls, Grant was probably at home.
“Call me later,” Cass said.
Bea said, “Okay,” and turned away from the house.She needed more time to put things in the right order, but she didn’t have any more minutes.She wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if she didn’t put some things to rest inside her mind.
She took a deep breath and dialed Grant.Her heartbeat thundered through her chest as the line rang, and she expected to hear Grant’s deep, rumbly, happy voice any moment.
He answered with, “Bea, I’ve been thinking about you.”
She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him either.Instead of saying that, she let out her breath and said, “Grant.”
“Uh oh,” he said.
Bea couldn’t get rid of the storm inside her.Better to just blow it all out.“I can’t come back to Hilton Head right now, Grant.My parents just need too much help.I know you can’t leave the island right now, moving into summer and everything.And Shelby is coming, and I’m so sorry.I’ll pay you for the beach cottage and all of that.”
She paused to take a breath, wishing Grant would jump in and say everything was fine.He didn’t, because things weren’t fine.
