The Christmas Hope(36)

I held my empty glass in my hands and rolled it back and forth. It was time that Roy knew the truth. “His bags are packed.” I could sense Roy looking at me. “I don’t know when he’s leaving but he’s ready. I know he won’t leave till after Christmas. Not now that Emily is with us. We’re both too polite to create any sort of scene with someone in the house.” I paused. “We don’t even cause scenes when it’s just the two of us in the house.”

“Stop him, Patti.”

I wouldn’t look at him. “I can’t.” I shifted in my chair, reaching for my purse. I wanted to end this conversation. “We just keep drifting and neither one of us knows how to … I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” he said. “We always know what to do but sometimes that means an awful lot of work and opting out is easier. There’s a divorced woman walking around this town with my last name who’s a result of my taking the easy way out.”

“That’s not true, Roy,” I said. “I ran into Ella the other day and she told me she dropped your name a long time ago.” Roy rolled his eyes and I laughed out loud.





Emily fell asleep on the way home. It was only eight o’clock but the day had been so long for both of us. I helped her up the stairs and into her pajamas. She slipped into bed and Girl curled up by her feet. “Can you read to me?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. It was the first time she’d wanted me to read before she fell asleep.

“Aren’t you too tired for a story?” She shook her head. I opened the top drawer of the dresser and found some of the special books I had been saving since Sean’s childhood for my grandchildren. Neither Mark nor I had thrown them out after Sean’s death. I picked up Love You Forever. I had read it so often to Sean that at one time I had it memorized. The pages were worn, some had food stains and were torn, but Emily didn’t notice.

I read how a mother had a baby boy and rocked him in her arms. Then I got to the part where the mother sings about loving her son forever. I had made up a tune for the song years ago when Sean was a child. Emily glanced up at me; she recognized the story. I read how the little boy turned nine years old and then into a teenager and then into a grown man with children of his own and after each stage of life I would sing again. At the end the mother is aged and she calls her son to tell him she is sick. Emily was quiet as she looked at the picture on the page. When the son came through the door the old woman tried to sing but she was unable to finish the song because she was too ill. I felt tears coming but kept reading. I choked on the words as the son picked the mother up and rocked her back and forth, singing the song she had always sung to him. I tried to sing but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even speak.

Emily sang out the tune I had been singing throughout the book. Tears trailed down my nose and I wiped my face. “It’s okay, Patricia,” she said, patting my shoulder. “The boy said he’d always love his mommy.”

I nodded.

“It’s not sad. It’s happy.”

I hugged her to me and cried over the loss of Sean and of losing her in a couple of days. It was the first time I’d cried in years.

“Thank you for helping me finish the book,” I said, wiping my face.

“Maybe you shouldn’t read it anymore,” she said. I hugged her tight. She held on to my arm and I knew she wanted me to stay with her. I lay down and pulled the blankets up and laid them across her chest. I reached and turned off the light. She moved her hand around in the darkness looking for mine; she wanted to hold it. She pulled it onto her chest and took a deep breath. She was content. I needed to get up so I could let Girl out. I needed to check the messages on the answering machine, I needed to check my e-mail, but felt myself drifting. I was too tired to move.





At one o’clock in the morning Nathan Andrews awoke with a start. “It’s her,” he said, louder than he realized.

“What’s wrong?” Meghan asked, lifting her head to see him in the moonlight.

“I just thought of something,” he said, getting out of bed.

“What are you doing?” Meghan asked, leaning up on one arm.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt and tiptoed toward the door.

Meghan turned on the light and shielded her face. “Where in the world are you going?”

“I need to open that gift.”

“What gift?”

“The gift I found during my ER rotation.”

“You need to open it now?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”