"What do you mean-" Walsh cut the sentence short at the pained emotion on his cousin's pretty face. "What's wrong with Mom?"
"She's in her bedroom." Walsh had never heard Jo's voice so completely devoid of shine. Dull. Matte. Reflecting nothing, not even the turmoil he knew was teeming inside. "Go ask her for yourself."
Walsh prowled down the hall toward his mother's suite of rooms, rapping on the door.
She smiled when she saw Walsh at the door, patting the bed beside her, motioning for him to come sit. She placed the book she was reading pages down.
"Walsh, come in. How was the party?"
Walsh didn't sit, refusing to go through the polite motions.
"Jo says you have something to tell me."
Her smile dissolved. She folded her lips into a taut line, dropping her eyes to the book she had just discarded, running her finger down its spine.
"Did she now?" She blinked several times, not once lifting her eyes to meet Walsh's.
"Mom, stop stalling. What is it?"
She swallowed, closing her eyes briefly before opening them to stare unflinchingly at Walsh.
"I have cancer, and it's bad."
The cartilage around Walsh's knees softened. His heart hiccupped, snatching his breath. All the air left the room. He felt himself suffocating under the force of another unavoidable blow. But nothing could compare to this. There was nothing he could have done to brace himself for the searing pain even the possibility of losing his fearless mother brought.
He dropped to the bed where she waited, her face stoic. Walsh couldn't formulate words to ask the questions he needed answered. A game of Scrabble had been tossed in the air, and every letter of every word was scattered on the floor. No words. Only an earth-shifting silence that left him disoriented and lost.
"It's stomach cancer." She plucked at the downy comforter covering her knees, fingers restless, eyes steady as she told him all she'd been hiding.
"I've been feeling tired for a while, but I'm always busy. So I didn't think too much of it. I'd lost my appetite, but I've never been a big eater. Then I started losing weight. And a few weeks ago, I started bleeding."
"How do we fight it?"
"It's stage four. We're getting a late start."
"What's the next step?"
"Well, they want to get in there and see how bad it is. How much it's spread."
"How soon can we do that?"
"I wanted to tell you first, but you'd just gotten home."
"When did you find out?" Now he couldn't stop asking questions, firing them at her in an unrelenting succession.
"I knew for sure the day you flew out to Haiti."
"You let me go to Haiti knowing this? We've lost weeks."
Walsh blinked back the burn of tears even the word "Haiti" brought to his eyes. Shitty emotion that he could barely swallow back, fight back, hold back. But he would for now.
"Walsh, I couldn't very well tell you on the phone while you waited for your flight. And then, the kidnapping. It's just been … a lot."
"Jo knew this." Anger threaded through the needle of his words. "Jo has known for weeks and she kept it from me?"
Walsh walked over to the door and toward the hall. "Jo, get in here."
Jo was already in the hall, seated on the floor against the wall with her knees up. She met the desperation in Walsh's eyes with tears pooling in hers. Uncle James's wife had died when Jo was so small that Kristeene had been as much her mother as Walsh's. He knew she felt her insides caving under the weight of this fight because he felt it, too. But what he needed now was the fierce strength she had seen in his mother, the strength she had planted in Jo.
"Get up. Come in here."
"Walsh, I can't." Her voice was a shadow of its usual self. "What if … "
"What if what, Jo?" He squatted in front of his cousin, grasping her hands in his. "What if she dies? Right now, based on what I'm hearing, the odds aren't really in our favor. But we'll do everything we can and hope for the best. You ready?"
"No."
"Me neither. Come on."
"What are you going to do?" She gripped the hand he used to pull her to her feet.
"The only thing I can do. Stay."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kerris waited for the elevator doors to open, fidgeting with the bangle she wore, touching her river stone. She had finally started making a few pieces with the rocks she'd gathered from the river the last two years. Cam had complimented her on it this morning before they left for work.
He'd been disconcertingly sweet and gentle after that first night. He had not hurt her, not physically, but he had smudged her soul, leaving her feeling sullied and worthless. She and Cam had not spoken of it again. She remembered the sex they'd had. She couldn't call it lovemaking. When he'd found his release, it was as if he'd emptied a stream of dark emotion into her body, and had also emptied his heart. She had lain there for long moments, afraid to even move. Finally he had wiped her cheeks free of leftover tears.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into her ear, pulling the long dark hair over her naked shoulder and smoothing it down her back. "Did I hurt you?"
She'd shaken her head, but could find no words. He was like a madman she watched warily, afraid his emotional pendulum would swing back into a rage from the eerie calm. She'd held herself stiffly as he lifted her in his arms, walking to the bathroom. He'd put them both in the shower, leaning his back against the tiles, watching her, his eyes slowly clearing of the ominous clouds. She had stood under the warm stream of water, arms limply at her sides, awaiting his next move.
"It was just a kiss, right?" Cam had asked softly, reaching for the shampoo and massaging a dollop into her hair. "It didn't mean anything, right?"
"It was just a kiss." Kerris had nodded her head under his hands. She had wondered if he noticed that she couldn't lie; couldn't bring herself to say it hadn't meant anything.
"Let's forget about it." In his voice she'd heard a warning and a yearning. A warning that it could never happen again, and a yearning that it never had. He'd stroked the wet hair back from her face. "Let's wash it away and watch it go down the drain."
They'd both bent their heads, watching the suds swirl out of sight. She'd known it was childish and even dysfunctional, how he wanted to handle it. To pretend it hadn't happened, but she didn't know another way to go forward, so she watched the soap disappear through the drain. She knew the selective amnesia didn't extend to Walsh. She recognized that she wasn't to mention his name, and she certainly couldn't have any contact with him.
Thus the system they'd worked out to see Kristeene. Kerris walked out of the elevator toward Kristeene's hospital room. Jo had broken the news to them. Kristeene's illness, while heartbreaking, had actually brought Cam and Kerris closer. Cam was grappling with the thought of losing the woman who had been more of a mother to him than his own, and it left him vulnerable and needy. He'd turned to Kerris, and she'd been there for him.
She could only hope someone was there for Walsh, too.
It had been six weeks since the surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible. Kristeene's physician, Dr. Ravenscroft, had told them how badly the cancer had metastasized, its malignant tentacles stretching into the surrounding organs. Stomach cancer was one of the hardest to catch, and once as advanced as Kristeene's, was hard to defeat. After surgery, chemotherapy, and even some radiation, Kerris could see in Kristeene's eyes that she was tired of fighting. Her heart ached at the thought of that lady warrior vanquished by this merciless disease.
Kristeene had wasted away, declining so rapidly Kerris could barely believe the wraithlike figure sitting up in bed when she visited was the same fierce lady who had grilled her before awarding her the scholarship a few years ago.
Kerris, so absorbed by her own thoughts, didn't look up until it was too late. She slammed into a beautifully scented woman leaving Kristeene's room. The woman's papers spilled onto the floor at their feet. They both dropped to their haunches, scrambling to gather everything.
"I'm so sorry," Kerris said, steadily picking up papers.
"It's okay." The other woman smiled and tilted her head, studying Kerris's face. "Kerris, right?"
"Oh, yeah." Kerris studied the woman's closely cropped auburn waves, smooth brown skin, and killer body. "And you're?"