“Do you like it?” I asked Ted.
He grinned from ear to ear. “It’s way cool.”
“Cool enough for your friends to admire?”
He nodded eagerly.
“That’s what I thought, too. Do you want to keep this one?”
Again he nodded.
“Perfect. I’ll see you back here when it’s ready to come off.”
He grinned again and we bumped fists and added a high five.
Ted’s mother grasped my arm. “Thank you for coming up with this. And, Macy, thank you. It’s a work of art. Would you sign it, please?”
Macy shrugged off the praise, but used my pen to write her signature on the cast. She collected her paints and returned to the hallway. I was feeling good about my solution for Ted and wanted to thank Macy myself. But when I went in search of her, I discovered she’d gone for the day.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” I asked Linda in bewilderment. “Did she have another appointment?”
“Not that she said.” Linda appeared as baffled as I was.
“I have a feeling Macy does that fairly often.”
“Leaves for no reason? Why?” I didn’t understand it, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Macy had warned me, after all, that she frequently lost interest in projects halfway through.
“I don’t think she knows. But then again…maybe she does.”
Linda liked to speak in cryptic sentences. “What does that mean?” I asked bluntly.
“She likes you.”
“So she avoids me?” Which, of course, was the same thing I’d done after her accident.
“Maybe you should just ask Macy,” Linda advised.
“Ask her what?” I said. “Ask her about being here one minute and gone the next?” I despaired of ever understanding Macy. Give me a cranky four-year-old any day. Linda patted my arm sympathetically, then clapped a file in my outstretched hands. “Talk to her and you’ll both feel better.”
An hour later, I tried Macy’s home phone. She didn’t answer. Nor did she pick up thirty minutes after that. When I was done for the day, I decided to stop by her house and find out what was going on. I hoped Linda’s advice worked. Maybe I’d invite Macy to dinner…. By the time I parked in front of her house, I was happily anticipating an evening in her company. As Hannah had promised, when Macy wasn’t frustrating me, she did make me smile.
I let myself through her gate and walked up the sidewalk to her front door. I rang the bell and waited. A cat, Peace, I believe, leaped onto the living room windowsill. Peering into the house, I saw the other two cats asleep on the sofa. Macy was nowhere in sight.
“You looking for Macy?” Harvey called from his porch. Sammy stood at his side, tail wagging furiously. “In case you’re too dumb to figure it out, she isn’t home.”
“Where is she?” I asked, choosing to overlook the insult. He didn’t answer. “I wondered if you’d come by,” he said in the gruff tone I’d come to expect from him. “If I was twenty years younger I’d punch your lights out.”
I bounded down Macy’s steps and hurried around to his porch.
“Okay, forty years younger,” he amended. “What did you say to Macy, anyway? I’ve never seen her this upset, outside of losing her grandmother, that is.”
I wasn’t spilling my guts to this old coot. “I didn’t say anything.”
“In case you don’t know it, young man, Macy is mighty special. I can’t understand why she cares about you, but then I don’t know why she pesters me with all this attention, either.”
“Did she say when she’d be back?” I asked, more eager to learn what she was upset about than to discuss his theories about her emotional attachments.
He shook his head. “You want to come inside for a beer?” he asked abruptly.
“Okay. As a matter of fact, I’d love one.” I had nothing more pressing to do and Macy would return eventually; I might as well stay here.
“Good.” When he held open the screen door, Sammy and I trotted into the house. Lowering himself onto his recliner, Harvey told me to retrieve the beers. When I joined him, he turned off the evening news. I sat down across from him on the couch, while Sammy lay on the rug, next to Harvey’s chair.
“You had dinner?” I asked.
“Don’t have much of an appetite these days.”
“How about a pizza?”
He considered the suggestion, then shrugged. “Sounds as good as anything else.”
I took out my cell. After more than a year of fending for myself, I had my favorite pizza delivery service on speed dial. I ordered the usual, then sat back and relaxed, gulping down a refreshing mouthful of beer.
“She has a private place she’ll go for a few hours when she’s upset,” Harvey said. “Don’t know where it is. She’s never told me, but my guess is she likes to walk along the Hood Canal. I’m sure she’ll be back soon—those cats want feeding.”
I put down my beer. “You love her, don’t you?” Most of the time, the old man pretended otherwise.
He snorted and looked me in the eye. “So do you.”
I began to argue and realized I was no different than Harvey. I hid my feelings, too, dodged emotions and their uncertainty, their messiness. Hannah had been the keeper of our emotional life. Now I was finding my way through this strange new existence.
Harvey’s eyes pierced straight through me. “Admit it. You love her.”
“Yeah, I guess I do,” I said reluctantly.
The old man shook his head. “Damn shame,” he muttered.
“What is?”
“She loves you, too. I’d always sort of hoped she’d marry me,” he said. His serious expression shocked me until I realized he was joking. Harvey joking? That was a switch. He grinned and it seemed as though his facial muscles were stiff, unaccustomed to smiling. What I’d done to deserve his smile I couldn’t begin to guess. I sat on the couch with my beer as we waited for our promised thirty-minutes-or-it’s-free pizza delivery. “Before she died, my wife wrote me a letter,” I said, unsure what had prompted this sudden confidence.
Then, before I could decide whether I should, I told Harvey everything. After having read Hannah’s letter countless times, I repeated it to him almost verbatim. Harvey listened, not interrupting even once to ask questions.
“It took me a long time to understand why Hannah included Macy,” I finished.
He arched his brows as if to say that was the stupidest remark he’d ever heard. “You’ll figure it out soon enough. You’re still young. In another thirty years, you might wise up.”
I laughed. He meant it as an insult, but I didn’t take offense.
“You married a wise woman,” he said next.
“I did.” When people mentioned Hannah, I used to feel overwhelmed by grief and sadness. All I could think about was what I’d lost. Now I was starting to understand what I’d been given in the years we’d had. That time together had been a priceless gift.
Another thought struck me and it was like being prodded out of sleep into wakefulness. A moment later I was on my feet.
“You going somewhere?” Harvey asked.
“No…I was thinking.” My mind was still spinning. I’d been given another chance. Macy was that chance. Through Hannah’s wisdom and the grace of God, I’d found Macy. A car door closing caught my attention and I reached for my wallet to pay for the pizza.
“It’s Macy,” Harvey announced, looking out the window. I didn’t need him to say another word. Opening the door, I ran down the steps.
Macy stopped when she saw me. She seemed to brace herself, as if she felt apprehensive about what I’d say. I didn’t hesitate. I ran down the walk and straight toward her. Not giving her a second to protest, I slid my arms around her waist and lifted her from the sidewalk. Then I buried my face in her shoulder and breathed in the scent of lavender and paint and Macy….
“I’m sorry I left,” she whispered. “I had to get away.”
“Why?”
“I was…afraid.”
“Of me?” I asked.
“Yes. No. I’m afraid of falling in love with you.”
I set her on the ground and held her face in my hands.
“Am I so terrible?”
“Oh, no! You’re wonderful. Too wonderful.”
“Oh, Macy…”
“You’ll get tired of me and angry because…I’m different.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“But—”
“Would you please stop talking so I can kiss you?”
She smiled, and before she could say anything else, I lowered my mouth to hers.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Monday afternoon Leanne’s cell phone rang while she was on her lunch break. After a bowl of chicken soup in the hospital cafeteria, she’d gone for a walk. The last week of June was cool and a little blustery; according to the calendar summer had begun the previous week, but it didn’t really arrive in the Pacific Northwest until the latter part of July. Still, she needed the exercise, so she’d brought a heavy sweater to wear outside. She’d made her way from the hospital and strolled through the shopping complex at Pacific Place. She didn’t need anything, nor could she afford much, but browsing through the stores gave her a chance to think. She hadn’t heard from Michael Everett in a couple of weeks and realized the attraction just wasn’t there. Thankfully, they both recognized it. When her phone rang, Leanne fumbled in her purse to retrieve it. She didn’t take the time to check her small display screen, afraid the caller might hang up.
“Hello,” she said breathlessly.
“Leanne, this is Muriel. I apologize for disturbing you.”
Her mother-in-law didn’t sound like herself. Her voice quavered as if she’d been crying.
“I’m glad you phoned,” Leanne assured her as she continued walking.
“How are you?”
Leanne left the shopping complex and stood on the street, where telephone reception was better. “Okay, and you?”
Muriel didn’t respond.
“Is everything all right?” Leanne asked during the awkward pause that followed.
Muriel still didn’t answer and Leanne wondered if the call had been disconnected. “Muriel? Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Is it Brian?” Her father-in-law was in good health as far as Leanne knew, but she hadn’t seen him in nearly two years.
“No,” Muriel said in the same odd tone she’d used earlier.
“Is…is it…”
It suddenly came to her that Muriel would phone in the middle of a workday only if something had happened to Mark. She clenched her cell phone more tightly. The street noise made it almost impossible to hear.
“We…got some news this afternoon—about Mark—
and I thought you’d want to know,” she said in a leaden voice.
Leanne’s legs felt weak. Fortunately, there was a bus stop nearby; she staggered toward the bench and slumped onto it.
“Tell me,” Leanne pleaded.
“McPherson, the company that employs Mark, contacted us an hour ago. Mark did warn us before he left that there’d be risks, but…but we assumed, the way everyone does, I suppose, that he’d be safe inside the army compound. It should be safe there, don’t you think?”
“Yes, of course.” Why in heaven’s name was Muriel dragging this out? Tell me! It was all Leanne could do not to scream at her.
Some of the expression had returned to Muriel’s voice.
“Mark knew several of the military men in Afghanistan from when he was in the service. One of them is a helicopter pilot. About the same age as Mark, married and a father. I believe Mark told us he has two little girls. I don’t recall how old they are. Then again, Mark might not have said. I don’t remember now.”
Leanne’s hand flew to her mouth and she closed her eyes.
“His name was Alan,” Muriel said. Her voice shook.
“Was? Alan’s dead?”
“Yes.”
Leanne swallowed painfully. “Alan…wasn’t alone, was he?”
“No…”
The grip she had on her cell phone threatened to crush it. “Was…Mark with him?”
Muriel’s answer came in the form of a sob. “Yes!”
Leanne could hardly breathe. Her mother-in-law was crying. Finally, when she couldn’t bear it any longer, Leanne blurted out the question. “Is he dead? Just tell me if Mark’s dead.”
“We don’t know.… Apparently, Mark went out with Alan and another mechanic because Alan was having engine problems and Mark couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He thought if he heard the engine in flight, he’d know where to look—only, when they left the compound, they came under immediate fire and went down. Then…when the second chopper got to the one Mark and Alan were in, they found Alan had died in the crash.”
“And Mark?” she asked. “What about Mark?”
“He wasn’t there. Neither was the other man.”
“Mark was captured? ” That scenario was truly terrifying. Leanne was well aware of what might happen once the enemy got hold of him. The evening news had been filled with nightmarish accounts of beheadings and brutal beatings. The fact that these men and women weren’t military, were just contract workers, didn’t seem to matter.
“We don’t know what’s going on,” Muriel told her again.
“The company’s promised us they’re doing everything in their power to rescue Mark.”
“He should never have been in that helicopter in the first place,” Leanne cried, lashing out in her pain. Muriel sobbed. “I…I agree.”
The silence stretched between them. Leanne was afraid to close her eyes for fear of the appalling images that would come to life.
“I felt you’d want to know,” Muriel said again.
“Thank you.”
They disconnected, but for a long time Leanne held on to her cell. She struggled to assimilate this terrible news. Ever since her divorce, her family and friends had insisted she should get on with her life. Her counselor, too, had advised her to focus on the future.
Leanne had done that, or tried to. She’d gotten involved in the Kids with Cancer program and had organized the volunteers for the picnic. She’d gone out with friends, joined a reading group, taken a class on new cancer therapies. She’d dated Michael Everett. Nothing had worked. Nothing had eased the ache in her heart. She loved Mark. She’d never stopped loving him. She realized it the Sunday she’d driven to Yakima; she knew it when she heard he’d taken a job in Afghanistan.
Now it might be too late to tell him she still cared, still needed him. She’d followed everyone’s advice, did her best to move on, and to a certain extent she had. As soon as she returned to the hospital, she went to see her supervisor.
Janet glanced up from her desk and frowned. “Leanne, what’s wrong?”
“I need a leave of absence as soon as possible,” Leanne said, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice.
“What’s wrong?” Janet asked again, sounding alarmed. Leanne told her about Muriel’s call.
“What will you do? Where will you go?”
Leanne didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know yet…but I’m too upset to be any good to anyone here. I need to be where I can get information about Mark, no matter what it is.”
“Where would that be?”
Janet forced her to think logically. “With his parents in Spokane.” She took a deep breath. “They shouldn’t be alone.”
“Then that’s where you need to go.”
Leanne nodded, grateful that her friend understood.
“Go home,” Janet said. “Now.”
“But my patients—”
Janet removed her glasses and set them aside. “I’ll take over for the rest of the day and I’ll arrange your leave. Like you said, you’re too emotional to work right now. I’ll call you once I’ve talked to HR.”
“Thank you,” Leanne whispered. Janet had helped her figure out what to do. Sometime i
n the next few days, she’d leave to be with Mark’s family. They’d support one another through this.
Janet stood and hugged her. “Do you have any idea how long you’ll be away?”
“No…”
“I’ll be praying for you and Mark and your family.”
“Thank you.”
Leanne didn’t remember the drive home or dragging her suitcase out of the spare-room closet. She’d just finished packing when she got a call from Janet telling her that the leave of absence had been arranged.
“Keep us updated,” Janet said.
“I will and thank you so much.”
Ten minutes later, she let the building super know she’d be away. Then she carried her suitcase outside and thrust it in the trunk of her car.
Not until she was in the driver’s seat did she think to call her former in-laws to explain her intentions. Shuffling through her purse, she searched for her cell phone. It wasn’t in the side pocket where she normally kept it. When she finally located it in the bottom of her purse, she heaved a sigh of relief. Her fear was that, traumatized as she was, she’d left it at the bus stop.
Holding it gratefully with both hands, she pressed the button that would redial the number of the last call received. Brian Lancaster answered on the first ring.
“Hello?” He sounded anxious, no doubt worried that this was the call he’d been dreading.
“It’s Leanne.”
Brian took an audible breath. “Muriel phoned you?”
“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate. “I’m driving to Spokane. Can I stay with you and Muriel until…until…” She left the rest unsaid and held her own breath; she felt as if her lungs might explode.
“Should you be driving?” he asked. Brian was the practical one in the family. Levelheaded, competent, rational, and Leanne admired him. Mark was a lot like his father. She released her breath. “Probably not, but I’m coming, anyway.”
“Will anything I say stop you?”
“No.”
Brian’s voice cracked. “I think we all need to be prepared for the worst. Come. Stay as long as you like. Muriel needs you and, frankly, I don’t think I can help her get over the death of our son….”