Anchor of Hope (14 page)

He shook his head. “No neighbours.” He grinned.

She felt herself blush.

The sun was sinking below the horizon creating a spectacular sunset which resembled a dreamy watercolor painting.

“What a view.” She sighed as Jay stood beside her, gazing out the window at the shimmering water. “I could get used to this. The view from my bedroom window is a brick wall.”She could feel Jays gaze upon her and she looked up at him. His eyes were full of questions and she was surprised to find herself feeling so comfortable with him. Especially considering she was standing in his bedroom.

There was silence except for the radio playing softly in the background downstairs. The last remaining rays of light danced on his face defining that strong jaw line and those deep, thoughtful eyes. Her breathing seemed irregular like she couldn't get enough oxygen and her skin felt warm.

Her phone rang and she jumped.

“Bryan.” She answered the phone, coming back to the present moment.

“Ash, we're at the hospital—”

“Don’t tell me Harley’s stuck another pea somewhere!” She looked up at Jay and smiled.

“No, Ash, it’s Grandpa. They think he’s had a heart attack. You better get down here.”

Ashley hung up the phone. A rush of fear shot down her spine.

“What is it? What's wrong?” Jay asked.

“It’s Grandpa. He's had a heart attack. Can you take me to the hospital?”

“Let’s go,” he replied.

Ashley’s head began to spin as Jay drove into the hospital grounds and the familiar building came into view. It wasn’t that she hated this place: it was that it terrified her. She recalled the long nights she spent there by her father’s bed as he slowly and agonisingly succumbed to ALS.

She clenched her fists as she felt her pulse getting faster and faster.

Jay noticed.

“Do you want me to come in with you?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

He found a parking spot with little trouble. As they dashed across towards  the entrance, he took her hand in his. She was amazed at how much that one small action helped to soothe her.

Jay asked the receptionist which room Henry was in.

Ashley stood there behind Jay, under the harsh fluorescent lights as people dressed in hospital scrubs walked by. She folded her arms, unable to focus on what Jay was saying. She felt him take her by the arm and guide her towards the elevator.

Please God, don’t let me be too late. I can’t go through this again.

The trip to the second floor seemed to take forever. As they stepped out into the foyer, everyone was there. Jane and Martin. Grace. Bryan, Jess and the kids. They all turned and saw Ashley and Jay.

“It’s OK. He’s OK,” Jane said as soon as Ashley appeared. Ashley sighed in relief and Jane wrapped her arms around her, holding her tight.

She tried to hide her trembling.
“What happened?” Ashley asked.

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Grace spoke up. “It was acute angina.”

Bryan shook Jay’s hand. “Thanks for bringing Ashley.”

“Not a problem,” Jay said.

“Where is he? Can we see him?” Ashley looked around.

Jane nodded. “Yes, you can see him. Bryan and Jess were about to leave and take the kids home for the night.”

“We’re here so often they almost decided to give us our own room.” Jess smiled.

Ashley smiled back. Seeing everyone in such good spirits helped to ease her anxiety.

Bryan gave Ashley a long hug, and grasped her by the shoulders as he pulled back, looking directly at her. “You OK?” he asked, voice full of concern.

She nodded and let out a deep breath. “Yeah, I think so. I was scared I would, well, that I might not—”

“It’s all right. He’s fine. He’s probably in there cracking jokes with the nurses.”

She smiled weakly and nodded.

Bryan and Jess said their goodbyes and left.

“We might head home too,” Jane said. “We’ll let him have some peace and quiet for the night.”

Grace said goodbye to them and they also left.

“Jay, Henry will be glad to see you.” Grace smiled as she looked up at him, and pointed to the room closest to where they were standing.             

Jay smiled back and knocked lightly on the door. He poked his head in and Ashley could overhear Henry welcoming Jay into the room.

“He’s a good man,”  Grace put her arm around Ashley’s waist.

“I know. I was so scared tonight, Gran. I thought we were going to lose him.”

“Oh no, dear. I’m talking about Jay.”

“Oh.” Ashley was beginning to see how much of an impact Jay had made on everyone’s lives.

“Let’s go and get some coffee.” Grace smiled.

“Shouldn't we wait for—”

“They'll be a while,” Grace said, “Once they get started talking there’s no stopping them.”

Ashley was perplexed.
How often did they get together and talk?

The cafeteria was empty and they had to buy their coffee from the vending machine.

“Did I ever tell you the story of how I met your grandfather?” Grace asked as the paper cups filled with the  hot coffee.

“Yes. You met him in New York. After the war.”

Grace nodded. “Ah yes, but there’s a bit more to it than that.” Grace took her cup and sat down at one of the empty tables. Ashley sat down opposite. Most of the lights were out, except for a few fluorescents near the entrance to the cafeteria.

“I never knew my father,” Grace began. “My mother had told me from an early age that I was an accident. She was an entertainer, you see—she would sing and dance in various gentlemen’s clubs. I grew up feeling unwanted, unloved, and always knowing that I was a burden. She often blamed me for the fact that she never married. Once I grew up, she taught me how to perform and how to earn a living in show business. I travelled from club to club, singing and dancing.”

“Sounds very glamorous.” Ashley sipped her coffee.

“It was at first. That's how I met Arthur Livingstone. Oh, he was a dream. He was much older than I was and upper class. He bought me expensive gifts— jewelry, perfume, dresses. He would even take me out for dinner at the finest restaurants. I was only eighteen, and Arthur was well in his thirties. He was a married man. I knew that right from the beginning, but he promised me it was a loveless marriage and he only stayed with her because of the children. I loved him, and he treated me like a queen. Right up until the point where I fell pregnant.” Grace paused taking a sip of her coffee.

“In those times it was a scandalous thing to be pregnant outside of marriage. I told Arthur, hoping this would be the thing that would finally cause him to leave his marriage and marry me. I had wild dreams of us growing old together with our child, living in the lap of luxury. Instead he told me to get rid of the child. He gave me a lot of money to find a doctor who would be willing to
‘deal with the problem’
.
When I refused, he told me that if I chose to keep the baby, I would lose him. He would never speak to me ever again. My mother encouraged me to abort the child too. She told me no one would want me with a child. That I couldn't make a living with a child, and that if I chose to keep the child we'd both end up in the gutters.”

Grace stared off into the distance as she recalled this painful moment.

“So what did you do?” Ashley asked, captivated by Grace’s story.

“I kept the child. I had to give up my showgirl job, and ended up working in a laundry in the city. I was five months pregnant by then. I was having my lunch break in one of the alleys—I didn't venture out into the public eateries much as I couldn't stand the looks I would get. Everyone knew I was unwed and pregnant. It was such a shameful thing. I still remember, clear as day. Henry was riding by on his bike when he saw me. He rode straight past the entrance to the alley. Then he came back again. He looked at me and didn't seem bothered in the slightest that I was pregnant. He said to me, in his British accent, ‘
Sorry to trouble you madam, but I was wondering if you might be kind enough to give me some directions
.’” Grace laughed.

“He was lost in the Big Apple. Turns out he had moved here as the war had ended. He’d served in the Royal Navy, made many American friends during the war, and was looking to start a new life in the US. He looked at me, and instead of seeing the decay and filth that my life had become, he chose to see the beauty within, beauty I didn't even know I had. He looked at me as though I were a rare and precious diamond, who had, over time, gathered dust and had been left to lay by the wayside.”

Ashley swallowed as she tried to comprehend what her grandmother was telling her.

“He didn't look at me with pity; he looked at
me
. That was the first time in my life I had felt love—
true
love. It wasn't lust—I mean there was that too, not that Henry let on of course, he was such a gentleman, but a woman
always
knows when a man fancies her.” She smiled at Ashley and Ashley felt her cheeks flush.—

“For the first time I didn't feel like an unwanted burden. It was a surreal feeling to be
wanted
for the first time—not for my body or my looks, or my intellect—which paled in comparison to Henry’s—but simply for being
me
. Henry welcomed me in with open arms and we moved to Sweet Home to start our lives together. It took me many, many years to learn to trust him. I kept waiting for him to hurt me, to get sick of me and throw me out, but he didn't. Despite all my failures—and there were more than I'd care to admit—he continued to show grace and forgiveness. I didn't know how to be a wife or a mother, but he stood by my side every step of the way, encouraging me. When I thought my life was destined to be miserable, full of suffering and pain, Henry showed me that God had a plan for me—a
good
plan, to give me a hope and a future. I was valued. Your father, Thomas, was born and the rest is history.”

Ashley stared, open mouthed. She never knew any of this. She had always believed that Henry was her real grandfather.

“Did Dad ever find out that Henry wasn’t his real father?” Ashley asked.

“Oh yes, we told him. He didn’t care. Henry was all he had ever known as a father, and all he needed. I contacted Arthur to let him know he had a son. He didn’t care either. He’d been married and divorced three times and had several children, none of whom had fond memories of him from what I gathered at his funeral. He died a lonely man. He built up incredible wealth here on earth, but what use is that? He had no one to share it with, and he certainly couldn’t take it with him after he passed.”             

Ashley shook her in disbelief. This had been a day full of surprises.

“I see a lot of Henry in Jay.” Grace smiled. “He has a good heart, Ashley.”

“So I’ve discovered.” Her coffee had gone cold as she had been so wrapped up in her grandmother’s story she had forgotten to finish it.

“Steven has a good heart too,” Ashley said, feeling the need to defend him. Was she was attempting to convince her grandmother, or herself?

Grace raised her eyebrows. She’d had never met Steven.

“He’s career-orientated, so he
has
to spend a lot of time working. He
would
spend more time with me if he could. I understand though.” Ashley licked her lips.

“And what does Jay think about Steven?” Grace looked at Ashley.

“I haven’t told Jay about Steven.” Where Grace was leading with that question?

“Why haven’t you told him?” Her eyes narrowed into slits, awaiting Ashley's answer.

Ashley shrugged. “I don’t know. He never asked if I had a boyfriend so I figured he wasn’t interested in knowing. We’re just good friends, that’s all.”

“Hmmm. Good friends, and yet he doesn’t know you’ve had a boyfriend for the last five years. Do you love him?” Grace asked.

“Jay? No, of course I—”

“I meant Steven.”

“Well, I guess it depends what you mean by love.” Ashley replied. “We don’t love each other like when you want to spend every second of every minute of every day together. That would be silly. We're both quite mature in our relationship—”

“Yes, but do you
love
him?”

Ashley was confounded. “I think I do,” Ashley replied. “He’s good to me, and I owe him a lot. He’s a hard worker. There are a lot of women out there who would love to be in my shoes.”

“Do
you
want to be in your shoes?” Grace raised one eyebrow.

Ashley frowned, unsure of how to respond.

“C.S. Lewis said ‘
ceasing to
be
in love need not mean ceasing
to
love
.
’
Being ‘in love’ and ‘loving’ are two different things, yes, but they are both interconnected—it is on this ‘
love
’ that the engine of marriage is run; but being ‘
in love
’ is the explosion that started it.”

Ashley frowned as she pondered Grace’s words. She’d never felt the 'explosion’ with Steven; their entire relationship had remained on a constant, mediocre plateau when it came to passion and excitement. That mad, crazy, passionate love didn’t exist. Did it? “How do you know if you've found ‘the one’?” Ashley asked, doubting there could be a one size-fits-all answer.

Grace smiled sweetly. “That's an easy one. Simply dance with God, and
He
will let the perfect man cut in.”

“Ooh, that's good Grandma. Is that from a famous novel or something?”

“Oh no, honey. I got that one from Pinterest.”

When Grace and Ashley walked back into the room, Jay was sitting on the chair beside Henry, and they were laughing together.

“Hey, here she is,” Henry held out his hand.

Ashley smiled and walked over, taking his hand and bending over to give him a kiss on the forehead. He wore a white hospital gown and was reclining back in the bed, with an oxygen tube attached to his nose.

“Prettiest girl in town. Wouldn’t you agree, Jay?” Henry smiled.

“Yes sir.” Jay nodded and Ashley felt herself starting to turn red.

“Takes after her grandmother, that’s for sure.” Henry’s eyes creased as he smiled.

“How long do you have to stay in hospital?” Ashley asked Henry.