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“You could have told them you were my mother.”
Sally put her hands on her hips and pretended to be offended. “I’m going to turn around and walk right back out of this hospital room if you don’t take that back right now.”
“I could have said you could have pretended to be my wife. Would that have upset you just as much?”
“I’ll pretend to be your daughter. How’s that?”
It was his turn to snort and wince.
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately.
“No. It’s okay. I’d rather be wincing from the pain of a smile than not having any reason to laugh.”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it. But I think the doctors would say that we should keep things quiet and just let you rest.”
“That’s exactly what the doctor would say,” a nurse said as she walked in with her iPad clipped to one arm while she typed a couple of things in it, then held her lanyard against it until it beeped.
“I just have to check a few things out here. Give me a minute, and then I’ll be out of your hair,” the nurse said cheerfully.
“She told me last time she was in that I would live. It was a relief.” Peter spoke with his eyes closed.
“I’ll say. I was pretty relieved when I heard that you were expected to make it. But they did say you broke one of the bones in your leg.”
“Actually, both of the bones in my lower leg.”
“I guess when he decides to break a leg, he does a bang-up job,” the nurse said as she checked the fluid level and then typed something else into her iPad.
After punching a few buttons on the monitor beside his bed, taking his blood pressure and temperature, she hurried back out of the room.
Sally had made her way over to the far side of the bed and sat down on the edge of the chair. “I guess I should have asked her how long I’m allowed to stay.”
“Stay until they kick you out. At least, I’d appreciate it if you did.”
“Happily. I... I was terrified when they said that you were in a crumpled heap on the ground and weren’t moving.”
“Yeah. I should have known better. I knew there was a bull in that pasture, but I was hoping to get the cows rounded up before they spread all through that field. Once we lose them, they’re often hard to find, and I didn’t want them to trample the neighbor’s winter wheat.”
“Were you able to get them all?”
“I don’t know. I... I got taken out of the game, I guess.”
“I see. I could call Norma Jean—”
“No!” The volume of his voice didn’t change, but the emphatic way he said “no” made Sally freeze as her hand started to move toward her phone. “Please don’t bring her into this.”
“I’m sorry,” Sally said, putting her hand back in her lap.
“You know, for the last two weeks I’ve answered about a hundred ridiculously stupid questions every day. And normally, I don’t really mind answering people’s questions. If you don’t know, you don’t know. But if you’re just making up stuff that you don’t know, it’s annoying.” He cracked an eye. “Do you mind telling me why you backed off and gave Norma Jean the job?”
“Well, technically, you gave her the job, since it wasn’t mine to give.”
“I wanted to give it to you.”
“I’m sorry. I...” She sighed. She didn’t normally go around talking about Norma Jean’s past, but it wasn’t exactly a secret in the town they grew up in, just...that wasn’t Strawberry Sands and most people didn’t know the things that had happened to her.
“Norma Jean had a rough life. I mean, we’ve been friends since kindergarten, and my mom wouldn’t let me go over to her house because it was too dangerous. Her mom was an alcoholic, she had boyfriends in and out. She couldn’t keep a job, maybe because of the alcohol or maybe because of the on-again, off-again drug habit she had. Regardless, Norma Jean spent a lot of time at my house.”
“I didn’t know.”
