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It was near the entrance to the cemetery, the wood structure surrounded by roses and containing a circle of benches beneath its roof.
After a brief acknowledgment, the others started to move away. Daralyn’s hand rested on Rory’s shoulder as he pushed the chair wheels. Thomas walked with his hands in his slacks pockets, Marcus’s touch still on his back.
Brick noted Marcus gave Elaine a reassuring nod. Thomas was the undisputed male head of the family, but in times like this, Marcus would subtly take those reins, sending Elaine an unspoken message he would look out for her children.
When Marcus glanced toward Brick, it was a pure Dom-to-Dom communication. Brick tilted his head toward Les and Elaine. Though he’d give the women their space to walk and have a private conversation, he’d watch after them.
Satisfied, Marcus followed Rory, Thomas and Daralyn. Brick waited for Elaine and Les to get about twenty steps ahead of him, then followed, at a measured amble.
“I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Elaine fished a wrapped candy out of her purse and handed it to Les, taking one for herself. It was one of the Atkinson striped peanut butter bar candies they carried in bulk at the store. Her father had loved them. “Eat that. It will help.”
As Les dutifully complied, Elaine waited until she’d swallowed to pose her next question. “How are you feeling today?”
They were moving along the path toward the west side of the cemetery. Les made passing note of the different inscriptions, the messages left for loved ones. She wondered what Raeni would put on Llanzo’s.
You should be able to bleed to death from all the cuts…
“All right.”
“I need honest answers, Les. Not empty reassurances.”
Elaine was good at the motherly steel when she needed to make use of it. She’d shaped the same steel in Les, not only to use it in her own life, but to learn how to resist it from others when needed. Even when it came from the woman who’d taught it to her. But she did owe her mother the truth.
“It comes and goes. Sometimes better, sometimes not. When I feel better, I don’t feel like I have the right to feel better.”
“Hmm.” Elaine bent to pull a weed from beside one of the stones for the Mullins family. A great-great grandfather, probably. Edie Mullins worked as a nurse for Dr. Spring.
“I know you’re aware Thomas felt responsible for Rory’s accident,” Elaine said. “He felt if he hadn’t gone back to New York that first time, after your father’s death, it wouldn’t have happened. He might be right, but that doesn’t make him responsible, or make it his fault.”
“No,” Les agreed. “But though I get that Thomas probably wouldn’t see it as different, my situation…it feels more direct.”
Elaine pursed her lips. “What you may not know is Rory’s feelings about his accident. Part of why he was so angry and difficult after he was hurt was guilt. He said ‘the worst part was knowing I’d turned over the tractor that day. That I’d done that to my family.’” Elaine’s face softened. “To me, his mother.’”
Shock gripped Les. She had known Thomas had felt guilty about Rory, as she had, for different reasons. But she’d never guessed…
“When you love and care for people, and you can’t be everything you hoped for them, it’s a very difficult thing to live with,” Elaine said. “It can turn you away from the path you’re meant to walk, obscure it. For those couple years, as you know, Rory was on a bad path. So was Thomas. They both found their way.”
She bent and tidied the flowers in another grave’s container. “It looks like Sally Winstead has been here, visiting her grandmother. That’s good.”
She straightened. “Rory realized what he owed me, his family and himself, was to embrace the life he’d been given, to find joy, love and forgiveness for himself. Finding those three things doesn’t always take us on the easiest path, but nothing happens as long as our hearts are closed to the truth that God is trying to tell us. About ourselves or our loved ones.”
“I don’t know if I can be a doctor.” The words cut her throat like glass. Yet saying them out loud at last, there was a relief to it, even if nothing else eased.
Elaine gazed at her calmly. “Is that a terrible thing?”
“Maybe not if I’d made the decision before I did what I did. Maybe that’s what you were telling me, when you suggested I should stay here and marry a lawyer. But all that time and money, and everyone who expected and depended on me—”
“Stop right there.” Elaine guided Les to a bench and took a seat on it, pulling her down next to her. Her hand was firm and cool at once. Her modest wedding set, a single diamond on a gold band, winked in the morning light. She crossed her stockinged ankles and smoothed out the skirt of her peach-colored suit. Her silver crucifix was paired with a longer necklace, an open-faced gold heart threaded with a lily. An Easter gift from her father.
Elaine squeezed her hand. “Parents have dreams, Les. There’s no sense denying that. I once dreamed of Thomas running our store. Marrying a girl here, having children that looked like him, grandchildren I could hold.”
That had been during Elaine’s internal combat over her chosen faith’s position on homosexuality, a terrible, ugly battle that had left some painful memories on both sides. But here they were, Marcus escorting her to sunrise service, Thomas happy and married to the fierce, beautiful man who left no doubt he’d tear down the world for him.
Elaine paused, those memories creating shadows and light in her eyes. “It’s one thing for parents to say all they really want is for their children to be happy. But when you confront the choices you make, the things you impose on them, knowingly or unknowingly, you realize it’s not that simple. You can’t keep your dreams from impacting them.”
She touched Les’s knee. “Certainly I thought of keeping you close, living the kind of life that brought me such joy. I saw how deeply you loved home, and I didn’t recognize you could find happiness expressing that love in a different way. Or how proud I would feel, seeing how hard you worked to be your own person, and make your own dreams come true.”
