Laurie's Time (The Fairfield Series) (28 page)

“You must be Rob. I’m Jean, a friend of Laurie’s.”

Rob looked at her suspiciously, then seeing the kindness in her eyes, he recognized a possible ally. Jean, turning towards Laurie, said, “If you want to talk in a neutral place, come back to my house.”

Rob could see Laurie’s red-rimmed, swollen eyes and pale face. Her chin began to wobble and tears threatened once again. She looked exhausted, and he remembered the words of the doctor several weeks ago.
You need to reduce the stress in your life.
Looking down at his feet, he felt his resolve stiffen.
Fuck. I gotta make this right.
Stalking over to her, he wrapped his arms around her before she had a chance to pull away. Looking over Laurie’s head to Jean, he nodded at her. Jean smiled at him and headed to her car.

Laurie tried feebly to push back. “I can’t do this now, Rob. I’m so tired. There’s nothing left in me to deal with your deceit.”

“Babe, you can’t take care of yourself right now. I’m here. I’m doin’ this. We’ll sort everything else out later.” He picked her up and placed her in his truck. He wasn’t kidding himself. Just because Laurie wasn’t fighting him now did not mean he was forgiven. But her not fighting him also had him worried. That told him how weak she was right now.

Sending Brock a text, her followed Jean to her house. She opened the door to her quaint little house. Rob carried Laurie in, and following Jean, he carried her into the guest bedroom and laid her gently down, moving his large body onto the bed next to her. Feeling ill, with no resistance left, Laurie didn’t move as the tears continued to flow down her face. Jean brought a blanket and draped it over both of them.

Rob pushed Laurie’s hair out of her face. “Babe, you gotta calm down. You’re making yourself sick. I know you’re pissed at me. We can deal with that later. Right now, just breathe deep and slow.”

Eyes closed, she felt herself drifting away. Blanketed by the warmth of the covers and his body, she gave way to the pull of sleep.

*

Consciousness creeping in slowly, Laurie began to awaken. Fighting the pull to drift away again, she sat up in the bed, realizing she was in Jean’s guest room.

Angry voices could be heard coming from down the hall. She slid out of bed and walked over to the door. While not usually a proponent of eavesdropping, she felt no guilt about hearing what was going on in the living room of Jean’s house. Hearing multiple voices, sorting them out in her mind, she listened.

“What on earth were you thinking, Rob?” Carol said in whispered anger. “No offense, Mr. Sinclair, but meeting the father that you never knew existed after twenty-five years must have been a real shock to her system!”

“I did what I needed to do, can’t you get that through your head?” she heard Rob retort. “I wanted to make sure the doctor has all the information and was gonna make that happen.”

“Don’t take this out on Carol,” Tom answered back. “She’s just worried.”

“Oh, fuck off, Tom. You thought it was a good idea until now!”

“Tom! You knew about this? I can’t believe that you knew about this mess and didn’t say anything to me!” Carol was no longer whispering as her voice crept higher.

“This is about my daughter. I don’t care who is mad at who around here, but I want her safe and well.”

“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?” Rob answered back.

“Everyone calm the fuck down.” Laurie recognized Jake’s voice.
Is everyone out there?

Jean decided that a voice of reason was needed. “Stop! Jake is right; everyone here needs to take a deep breath and sit down.” Laurie could hear shuffling as people were moving around.

Jean continued, “Here is what everyone needs to focus on. We are all here because we love Laurie and want her safe. Right now is not the time for blaming or accusations. Right now is the time for calm reassurances.”

“Carol, we cannot say that she never knew her father existed. She knew he was out there somewhere, but she never felt a reason to try to find him. Brock, in the past seven years that she knew your name, she never tried to find you because she felt that you would not have wanted to know about her, and she always said that she did not miss what she never had. But do not imagine that she did not think about you, because she did. We talked about it. We talked about you.”

She heard Jean continue and thought ruefully,
When Jean gets on a roll, she doesn’t stop!

“Rob, I understand why you searched for Brock. You love her and you’re afraid for her. When those two things combine, love and fear, we often act in ways that we might not act otherwise. I truly believe that Laurie will forgive you, but it may take time to earn her trust back. Tom, Jake – all I have to say to you two is how lucky Rob is to have friends that will support him no matter what. And once Laurie forgives Rob, she will value that friendship as well.”

Brock looked around the room, realizing that he was in the presence of people that loved Laurie and was awed that there was so much support. “I have to say, I have no intentions of going anywhere,” he said to the group. “I will fit my life into whatever place Laurie wants to give me.” He got up and walked over to Rob, whose head was resting in his hands. “And son, while you may have messed up on the secret keeping, what you did for my daughter, well… you have my eternal thanks.” At this Rob stood up, weary himself, and embraced Brock.

Laurie, with her ear pressed up against the door, couldn’t hear a sound.
What are they doing now?
Suddenly bone-tired once again from the emotion of the day, she turned and crawled back into bed. Sleep overtook her as she dreamed fitfully.

*

Brock looked over at Jean, feeling a desire to stay in her presence for a while. She was not only beautiful, but she knew how to read people, read situations, calm anger, soothe wounded souls. She looked up at him as well, a smile playing on her lips.

The friends all left, leaving just Brock and Rob with Jean. Having checked on Laurie, only to find her still sleeping, Rob rejoined the others in the kitchen.

“Jean, how do I make this right? I can’t…I can’t lose her.” Rob’s chest was hurting, and he rubbed it with his hand.

Jean watched the mannerism with a slight smile on her face. Eyes back up to Rob’s, she observed, “Laurie does that too.” Seeing his quizzical look, she explained, “When she speaks of you, she rubs her heart. It pains her to be away from you.”

He grunted. “More ‘n likely, it pains her to think of me. Jesus, things are so fucked up.” Rob, in unchartered territory, realized he had no idea how to make things right. Ever since he saw Laurie in the grocery store his world had been turned upside down. He wanted her. He wanted only her. He needed only her. He loved only her.

Sitting on the kitchen stool with his head in his hands, he felt Jean touch his shoulder.

“Rob, she loves you. That love will prevail. But allow her to go at her pace through this.”

Nodding, he hugged Jean and shook Brock’s hand, then headed out to his truck. Back to their home. Alone.

*

The trip to the rheumatologist several days later seemed almost anticlimactic after all of the drama from the previous days. Filling out the family history for the first time in her life, she did not have to list ‘do not know’ on the paternal medical section.
How strange to actually put down my father’s information.
Brock had given Jean a list of family members and their health histories for Laurie to use.

She and Dr. Lawrence talked for a long time. He explained that there is no one test for lupus, but that all the indicators that they look for were present in her case, so he was comfortable with the diagnosis. Determined not to fall apart, she mentioned that she just learned that she had an aunt that had died from lupus many years ago. He explained that medications were being created and new discoveries were being found every day, and he was certain that they could find the right combination for her symptoms.

Dr. Lawrence answered her questions, went over the medications that she would be starting, and assured her that just because her aunt had died from complications from lupus there was no reason to expect Laurie not to live a full life.

Leaving the office, Laurie called Emma who was anxiously awaiting news of her visit. Filling her in first on the doctor’s news, Laurie then began to talk about the rest of her life.

“Yeah, I’m still staying with Jean.”

Emma, understanding Laurie’s anger, also knew that her niece was heartbroken without Rob. “Sweetie, I know you’re still mad as hell at Rob, but I want you to think carefully about what you are doing. Every relationship has its bumpy times. Are you willing to just walk away from him without at least trying to work things out?”

“I know. I’m just scared. What if he keeps other secrets? What if he starts lying to me? What if –”

Emma interrupted, “Laurie, you can ‘what if’ yourself until you go crazy with it. If you love him, you owe him the opportunity to explain why he did what he did.”

“I know the why of it all. He wanted me to have a family history because he was scared about this disease.”

Letting the silence float through the airwaves, Emma said nothing, waiting for Laurie to understand the meaning behind the words she had just spoken.

Sighing, Laurie admitted, “He loves me.”

“Sweetie, love makes us do some crazy things, but it will especially make us do anything and everything we can to protect those we love. So…what are you going to do?”

Standing taller, head thrown back, Laurie announced, “I’m going to go talk to him. We need to work through this, because not having him in my life is killing me.”

Laughing, Emma agreed.

Tossing her cell phone back into her purse, Laurie walked over to her car. Looking down, lost in thought, she did not see Brock until she was standing at his truck parked next to her bug. She looked up, surprised and yet glad to see him. Her gaze roamed his face, which was already becoming familiar. The crinkles next to his storm-colored eyes, the greying hair at his temples, the lean strength of his frame. He pushed off of his truck and walked the few feet over to her.

“Brock. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Jerking his head toward the medical building, he asked, “How’d it go today?”

Laurie looked up into her father’s grey eyes, the same eyes that stared back at her each day in the mirror. Giving him a tentative smile she said, “It went…well. I gave him all of your information and he was very positive about things. I start some new medications this week, so we’ll see how it goes.”

The tentative smile on her face reached in and touched a part of Brock he never knew existed. Throwing caution to the wind, he stepped closer, looking down at his daughter’s beautiful face and continued.

“Laurie, I don’t know what place I have in your life. I don’t know if you want me to have a place.” Looking down at his rough worn hands clutched tightly, he sighed. “I guess it sounds like I don’t know much.”

Tears welled in his eyes as he swallowed hard a few times to choke them back. Shaking his head as though to pull his thoughts from the past back to the future, he brushed a tear away and looked down at the face that reminded him so much of Sarah.