Letters to Katie (27 page)

“To join the church.”

“I didn’t dare hope for that.” She smiled, her blue eyes bright. “But I have to admit
I’m happy you’ve made that decision. I
know it was hard for your grandmother to hear about.”

“It was, but eventually she’ll come to accept it.”

“I hope so. In the meantime, be gentle with her.”

Sawyer frowned. “She wasn’t exactly the nicest person to you when you first met.”

“
Nee
, but the circumstances weren’t ideal either. Like I said, she’s been a gracious guest.
I almost—”

“Like her?”

Before Anna could respond, a thudding noise sounded from above them. Sawyer shot up
from the chair and ran upstairs, Anna trailing him. When he arrived at Cora’s bedroom
door, he found his grandmother on the floor.

He knelt beside her and helped her sit up. Her face, devoid of makeup, revealed her
age. The circles under her eyes supported what Anna had told him. Cora looked exhausted.
And in pain.

“What happened?”

“I slipped.” She attempted to sit up straight, lifting her chin in that haughty way
of hers. But she couldn’t do it, and when she tried to stand, she winced.

“Cora?” Anna came into the room, breathless from running up the stairs.

“I’m all right,” she said through gritted teeth.

“No, you’re not.” Sawyer glanced at her right leg. It was twisted at an odd angle,
and her normally slim ankle was already swelling. “You need to see a doctor.”

“I need to stand up.” Cora’s voice sounded weak, but there was force behind it.

“Help her back to bed,” Anna instructed.

Sawyer started to help Cora to her feet, but ended up lifting her small frame and
laying her gently on the bed. Anna, at the foot of the bed, arranged a pillow underneath
Cora’s injured ankle.

“Ow!” Cora tried to sit up but couldn’t.

“Sawyer,” Anna instructed, “run to the cooler in the basement and see if we have any
leftover ice. Even if it’s just cold water, dip a cloth in it and wring it out.”

He nodded and hurried to get the cloth. He found a few ice cubes, wrapped them in
an old kitchen towel, and rushed back to Cora’s side. The ankle had already swollen
to twice its size. He handed the crude ice pack to Anna, who placed it on Cora’s ankle.

“Stop. Please!” Cora leaned back against the pillow. Her skin had taken on a grayish
color.

“It hurts that much?” Sawyer asked.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. Instead of answering, she nodded.

Anna set the ice to the side. “It might be broken.”

“Then I’ll take her to the emergency room.”

“No!” Somehow Cora managed to sit up. “No hospitals.”

“But, Grandmother—”

“Sawyer, I said no.” She tried to move, only to cry out in pain again.

He turned and started to leave.

“Where are you going?” Anna asked.

“Phone box. To call a taxi.” He looked at Cora. “You’re going to the hospital, Grandmother.
No more arguments.”

Cora opened her mouth, then shut it again and sank down in the bed, nodding weakly.

Cora sat in the ER exam room, waiting for the results of her X-rays. She didn’t need
X-rays to tell her that her ankle was broken. The pain searing through her foot and
leg told her that.

She looked across the room at her grandson, who sat in the corner with his right ankle
crossed over his left knee. He shook his foot nervously, continuously. They’d been
here for two hours already, but he had never left her side.

Although this was the last place she wanted to be, his presence comforted her. And
made her realize just how alone she was. What if she’d fallen at home? Who would have
stayed with her in the hospital? Kenneth? Manuela? Whoever it was, she’d be expected
to pay overtime.

A simple slip, losing her balance after she’d gotten out of bed to get ready for the
day, ended in a broken bone—and a stark reminder of her loneliness and weakness.

Sawyer had said little to her since they’d arrived at the hospital. For the first
time, she felt a pang of guilt. He was supposed to be at work. She was keeping him
from his job, so he could babysit her in the emergency room. “I can get a taxi back
to the Bylers’,” she said. “Once the doctor returns.”

“I’m not leaving you here.” Sawyer stood and paced across the small cubicle. “You
heard what the doctor said. It’s probably broken, which means a cast and crutches.
You’ll need help.”

“I can manage.”

“I’m sure you could. But you don’t have to. Not while I’m here.”

Cora met Sawyer’s gaze, and a lump caught in her throat. His eyes, so much like Kerry’s,
brought back memories of her daughter when she was young. She remembered being with
Kerry when she was ill with the flu, sleeping on the floor next to her bed so she
could check her fever every four hours. Kerry’s father had wanted Cora to let the
nanny do it. But Cora couldn’t leave her three-year-old daughter, not when she was
so ill. Not when she needed her mother the most.

Now the roles were reversed.

She looked away, her eyes burning with unshed tears.

“Hurts pretty bad, huh?”

Cora nodded. “Yes, it does.”

“I broke my arm once. When I was in sixth grade. Playing on the jungle gym at school.
Tried to hang upside down like a monkey at the zoo. Instead I slipped and fell. Landed
on my elbow.”

“That must have been painful.”

“Yep, I was in a cast for six weeks.”

The door opened and the doctor came in, holding X-rays. He flipped on the light box
affixed to the wall and clipped up the X-rays. “I have good news and bad news.” He
pointed to her ankle on the X-ray. “The good news? No break. Just a bad sprain.”
He flipped off the light box. “The bad? Unfortunately you’ll need an air cast and
will be on crutches for a few weeks.”

Cora hid her despair. How could she handle crutches when she was already so unsteady
on her own two feet?

Her hands started to shake. She held them together tightly.

“Mrs. Easley, other than your ankle, are you feeling all right?”

She nodded, tightening the grip on her hands.

The doctor looked at her intently. “Do you have someone to drive you home?”

“We’ll be getting a taxi,” Sawyer said.

“Good. And do you have someone to help you at home?”

Cora didn’t respond. She wasn’t at home. But she couldn’t go to her real home, not
like this.

“She has plenty of people to take care of her.” Sawyer looked at her and smiled. “Don’t
worry.”

Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his ankle that was screaming with pain. “Are you sure
it’s not broken?”

The young doctor pushed up his glasses. “Sprains can hurt worse than a break. You’re
lucky, Mrs. Easley. A broken ankle might have required surgery. Are you in pain?”

She could deny it, but both Sawyer and the doctor would know it was a lie. “Yes.”

“I’ll prescribe some pain medication. What drugs are you currently taking?”

Cora froze.

“Mrs. Easley? I need to know your current medications. I don’t want to prescribe anything
that might interact with them.”

She couldn’t speak. Once she said her medication out loud, the doctor would know.
She glanced at Sawyer, taking in his confused expression. “Grandmother?”

She looked away. “L-dopa.”

The doctor frowned. “You have Parkinson’s?”

She swallowed and looked at Sawyer. His mouth had dropped open. She glanced back at
the doctor and lifted her chin. “Yes,” she said, her voice trembling nearly as much
as her hands. “I have Parkinson’s.”

Almost two hours later Sawyer and Cora were in a taxi headed back to Middlefield.
He looked at his grandmother, who was facing the passenger window, her back almost
to him. He clenched his jaw. Parkinson’s. Why hadn’t she told him?

He hadn’t said anything to her in the emergency room. He knew better than to embarrass
her publicly like that. And they weren’t going to discuss it in the taxi either, even
though he was itching to find out why she had kept her illness a secret. But he was
determined: when they returned home, she was going to tell him everything.

He followed her cue and watched the landscape pass by as the taxi zoomed down the
road. He didn’t know a lot about Parkinson’s, but he knew it was debilitating and
that there wasn’t a cure. It explained her fatigue, her slower movements . . . and
her desperation.

He closed his eyes, his heart aching. In the short time he’d
known her, she had been so strong. An iron lady. But now . . . how would they deal
with this?

When they arrived back home, he helped her out of the car, paid the taxi driver, and
watched as she struggled with her crutches. When he offered to carry her, she balked.

“Please. I’m not an invalid.”

“I know that. But you’re not used to crutches either.”

She gripped the crutches and tried to balance herself on the gravel driveway. She
nearly slipped as she took her first step.

“Could you put your pride away for five minutes and let me help you?”

Then she looked at him. It wasn’t pride he saw in her eyes. It was fear. He went to
her and held out his arm.

“At least lean on me.”

She looked at his crooked arm, then handed him the crutch. She slipped her thin arm
through his, and they slowly made their way toward the house. When they reached the
porch steps, he picked her up. She didn’t complain.

Anna opened the front door. “Is it broken?”

“Sprained.” He took Cora to the couch and set her down. She weighed next to nothing.

“Thank you.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke.

“I fixed up the small storage room in the back of the
haus
,” Anna said. “You won’t have to worry about the stairs.”

“A storage room?” Cora closed her eyes. “Seriously?”

“Grandmother.” Sawyer sat down next to her. “It’s the best we can do. I’m sure it’s
very nice.”

“I need to make a phone call.” Cora opened her eyes. “My cell is upstairs, but it’s
dead.”

“There’s the call box outside,” Sawyer said. “Who do you need to call? I can make
it for you.”

“My travel agent.” She turned her steely gaze on him. “I’m going home.”

“No, you’re not. Not with your ankle. And not with—”

“Parkinson’s. You can say it out loud, you know.”

“Apparently you can’t.”

Cora sneered. “How dare you judge me about how I handle
my
illness? I should sue that doctor for breach of privacy.”

She was right; he had no place judging her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Sawyer asked,
gentling his tone.

“I was going to. I was even going to use it, if I had to coerce you into coming back
with me.” She paused and looked away. “But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you.” Sawyer moved closer. “I want to help.”

She looked back at him. “Then, please, return with me to New York. I don’t know how
much longer I have. My—
our
—company needs you.”

He swallowed. “I—I can’t.”

But the words were harder to say this time. Before, he had refused because he was
protecting his freedom to live the life he wanted. Now he just sounded selfish.

He looked up at Anna, who had wisely kept quiet during the conversation. But he didn’t
miss the shock in her eyes.

Cora leaned against the cushions. “I see.”

The two simple words pierced him.

“Is Parkinson’s cancerous?” Anna asked.

Cora looked at her like she was a fool. “No. It’s not cancer. But it’s incurable.
And over time—”

“Over time, that’s the key,” Sawyer said. Somehow he had to fix this. Make it work
for both of them. “Cora, you don’t have to go back to New York. We can take care of
you here.”

“You can’t. I saw your hospital. Primitive, to say the least.”

“Now, that’s not right, or fair.” Sawyer scratched his forehead. “The Cleveland Clinic
is an hour from here. It’s one of the best hospitals in the world. We can get you
the treatment you need there.”

“You’re asking me to stay here? With you?”

He looked at Anna. She nodded and sat on the opposite side of Cora. “You’re welcome
to stay as long as you need. Or want.” She took Cora’s hand. “You’re
familye
.”