Someone to Watch Over Me (2 page)

Okay.
She was on a whole lot of morphine. The doctors had warned that it did funny things to people, that people said odd things and believed they saw odd things, too. The doctors had said not to be alarmed by it.

Sure.
Jax could do that. He was not alarmed.

“So nice to see him,” she said. “He looked so good. Like always. In his day, he was even prettier than you and Romeo.”

“Oh,” Jax said. What else could he say?

“He’s waiting for me.” She smiled at that.

Jax gave a little choking sound, couldn’t stop it, and he really, really wanted to get up and run away. But obviously, it made her feel better to think his dad was there, waiting.
Fine.
She could see all the dead relatives she wanted if it made her feel better.

“But I’ll still be with you,” she said. “Always be with you. And the girls.”

“I know, Mom.”

“No, you don’t. But…that’s all right. You don’t have to believe for it to happen, Jax.”

“For what to happen?”

“For me to help you.”

“Mom—”

“Girls will lean on you…you’ll let them. But who’ll take care of you? Have to be me.”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Whatever you say, Mom.”

The dog started to make this pathetic, whining, crying sound that drove Jax absolutely crazy.

Take it like a man, Romeo,
Jax wanted to say. He hadn’t cried in years. Probably not since his father died.

“Want you to know…no regrets,” she said. “Except not more time…with you and the girls. With my grandchildren. I wanted a dozen. But even that…doesn’t sting the way it
used to. No regrets…important to be able to say when you’re where I am. I want you to be able to say it, too. No regrets.”

“I’ll say it now,” he claimed. “I don’t have any.”

He lived his life exactly the way he wanted, and it suited him just fine.

“You don’t even know,” his mother said.

“Know what?”

“What’s really important. You need to make some changes, Jax. It’s time.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, because he’d promise her anything and he hated so much to think that she was disappointed in him in any way.

“Believe.”

“Believe in what?”

“Love.”

“I love you,” he said. “I love Kimmie and Kathie and Katie.”

“You’ll get it right. In time,” she said, moving from one subject to another, as she tended to do of late. “I know you will.”

“Get what right?”

“Try not to miss me too much. And don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

No, she wouldn’t. She’d be gone. He didn’t care what she believed, what she thought she’d seen. There was nothing else. She’d be nothing.

“One more thing,” she whispered, her lips barely moving, the words slurring together. “One more favor.”

“Anything,” he said.

“Left you a job to take care of. In my will.”

“Okay. I will. Promise.”

“You know? Doesn’t really hurt anymore,” she said, and for a moment it was as if someone had taken the weight
of the world off her emaciated body, eased all the stress lines on her face and put some color back into her cheeks. “Doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Good.” He sure didn’t want her to hurt.

“Billy,” she said, the faintest of smiles on her face.

That was his father’s name.

It was the last word she said.

She died with a smile on her face and his dead father’s name on her lips, Jax’s hand in one of hers, and the other buried in the dog’s fur.

Jax froze for a moment, staring at the quilt over her chest, willing it to rise and fall as she took more air into her lungs. But nothing happened. There was no more of the wheezing, labored sound of her struggling for one more breath, that hideous, hideous sound.

Romeo seemed to know what had happened. He looked at Jax, as if to say,
Do something!

“I can’t,” Jax said. “I already did too much bringing her here, and she signed all the papers weeks ago.”

No one was coming to try to make her breathe again or get her heart going. Her choice, and he’d accepted it. No one would do anything.

Romeo whimpered pitifully. He licked her face frantically for a moment, until Jax got up and pulled him off. Romeo growled and showed his teeth. Jax swore and said, “She’s gone. Let her be.”

He thought for a minute, the two of them might go at it, right there in his mother’s room, and he wouldn’t have minded that. He was up for a good brawl right now. But all the fight went out of the dog. It was like his whole face just fell. He curled back up next to Jax’s mom, his snout laid over her chest, and started whimpering again. Jax sat back down in his chair and buried his face against her
other shoulder, because he still needed to touch her, to not let go yet.

A nurse came in sometime later to check on her, halted in the doorway at the sight of him and the dog leaning over her.

“Go away,” Jax said, glancing at her briefly, and then pressing his face against his mother’s shoulder again.

“I…Is she gone?”

“Just go away,” Jax yelled.

Another nurse came in twenty minutes later, asking if she could do anything, if he’d like her to call anyone.

“Just go away,” Jax said again.

The girls would be mad that he hadn’t called, but what was the point? It was the middle of the night, and none of them had slept in days, and he’d screwed up and brought his mother here and sent the girls home.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he said to no one but the dog.

Romeo whined, as if he agreed for once with something Jax said.

“And it wasn’t supposed to happen yet,” he yelled.

Romeo frowned, then laid his head back down on Jax’s mother’s chest, the two of them in complete accord. Neither one of them wanted to do anything but sit here and hang on to her and pretend she wasn’t gone.

J
ax and the dog stayed until morning came and with it Jax’s three sisters. Katie, the oldest, was twenty-seven, part owner of her own mortgage-finance company and a junior real estate mogul. She wore crisp, no-nonsense power suits with matching pumps, never a hair out of place, and she arrived issuing orders as usual.

“Jax! You haven’t taken the dog home yet? It’s seven! The place is full of people. The doctors will be making rounds soon—”

“Katie?” He stood up slowly, stiffly, every muscle in his body aching, and went to her, taking her by the arms.

“We promised we’d get him in and out without too many people seeing him—”

“Katie?” He looked her right in the eye. “It’s over. She’s gone.”

“And they’re about to serve breakfast. Romeo will want to know where his plate is, the beggar….”

Her voice finally trailed off. She looked to the bed, where the dog was still curled up next to their mother. Romeo whined and put his head down over her silent heart.

“But…we were going to take her home,” Katie said.

“I know.”

“She wanted to be home. We promised.”

“I know.”

Her expression shattered, mouth falling open, lips trembling, eyes blinking furiously at the tears overflowing, as she stepped back, away from Jax, and looked to the bed. He still hadn’t let anyone do anything to her, hadn’t been able to bear it.

Katie reached out and brushed her fingers over their mother’s forehead. “She was supposed to be home.”

As if their plans mattered in this. If they’d had any say in the matter, she wouldn’t be dead.

“Look, I offered to take her last night,” Jax said. “She said it was fine to stay, said the medication was better here, and she didn’t hurt as much. She was ready to go, Katie.”

“But we were all supposed to be here with her.” She sobbed once more.

Order was very, very important to Katie. If she broke things down into a checklist, she could handle anything, and their mother hadn’t died the way she was supposed to. This was a completely typical Katie response. Jax answered all her questions, accepted the blame for sending her and their other two sisters home to rest, for not calling immediately when their mother died, everything.

And when she started to cry harder, he held on to her until she got herself under control.

The middle one, Kathie, was the quietest of the three, and shy in the sweetest of ways. She had the same pretty, blond hair they all did, tended to wear hers long and loose. Her eyes were blue, and she dressed like a Gypsy, except without the bold colors. She liked pastels, long, gauzy
skirts that blew in the wind like her hair and peasant tops. Everything about her was soft, including her heart.

She stepped into the room, realized what had happened and got very, very still, as if moving might break some spell, as if by freezing in place she could stop time and never move forward into the time when she had to accept what had happened and go on.

She sat by their mother’s bedside and fussed over the dog, who snuggled against her and buried his nose in her sweater, as if he was hurting as much as the rest of them, and Jax stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders, wishing he could do more.

The last to arrive was Kim, the baby, who bounced into the room with the same enthusiasm she did everything else, her arms full this morning with flowers and the newspaper and another book of crossword puzzles, which their mother loved but couldn’t concentrate enough to do anymore. Kim did them for her, talking through all the answers with her.

She was a tomboy, wore her hair in one, long braid, wore a comfortable pair of jeans and plain, cotton T-shirt. As a girl, she’d tagged along after Jax, trying to be as rough and tough as him or any of his friends, getting muddy, dusty and wet, with scraped knees, bruised shins and the occasional busted lip. A hockey puck had been the culprit, last time he remembered her bruised and bleeding.

“Kimmie, I’m so sorry,” he said, when she slowed down enough to realize what had happened.

She fought not to cry then, to be a true tough-girl. But there was nothing of the tough-girl that morning. Her entire body racked with sobs, and she went from Jax’s arms to Katie’s to Kathie’s and then back to Jax’s.

They were a mess. No two ways about it. All of them heartbroken and lost in a way Jax didn’t think grown-ups
could ever be. He was thirty, after all. Surely a man knew who he was by then and knew that he could take care of himself and his family. Surely he didn’t panic at the loss of his mommy when he was thirty.

But she’d been one amazing woman. A rock. Funny, happy, even bubbly at times. Open, honest, trusting as could be. Generous, hardworking, a woman who would have done anything for them.

Life had been hard for her. She’d worked so hard once his father was gone, and she hadn’t had any particular job skills to fall back on, except a mountain of pride. Tons of people had offered to help, but she hadn’t taken a dime from anyone.

It had been him and her, trying to hold things together. Mostly her, he feared, although he’d done what he could.

And now it was just him.

Him and the girls.

They were still crying. One of them would stop and then two, and he’d think the worst was over. Then in trying to get the last one to stop, the other two would start. Or the dog would, and then everyone would get going again.

“Look, we’ve got to go,” he said, feeling like someone had kicked out every tooth he had, broken every bone in his face, in his entire body. He felt like a lump of putty about to fall, and he couldn’t look at the bed anymore, at the woman he loved so much who was in it. “We have to let the hospital do whatever it has to do, and we have all that stuff on Katie’s list to take care of. Staying here…it’s not going to change anything.”

“But I’m not ready to let her go,” Kim cried.

“She’s already gone, Kimmie.”

They hadn’t been able to hang on to her tightly enough to keep her. There was something so wrong in
that idea. If you loved someone, and you hung on as tightly as you could, you should be able to keep her safely by your side.

Jax felt a stinging in his eyes, felt raw and weak and uneasy in a way he never had before. He felt alone, even with his sisters clustered around him, wasn’t feeling all that confident in his abilities to even take care of himself, much less them, something he’d never doubted before.

He drew in a deep breath, then another, reminded himself that he never, ever cried, and that it sure wouldn’t do any good even if he did. Look how much his sisters had cried. They didn’t feel any better.

“We have to go,” he said again, thinking that surely they did. There had to be a funeral. They had to put their mother in the ground.

His stomach churned.

The girls started talking about what they had to do, what their mother would want done, what she’d wear. He bit back a curse, along with something like,
Who cared what she’d be buried in?
They debated it with enough honest interest and concern that he knew what he’d hear if he said anything.

A woman thing.

He’d grown up outnumbered and badly misunderstood.

Fine.
He let them debate her wardrobe, right down to earrings and shoes.
Shoes? It wasn’t like she’d be walking anywhere.

They were almost together again. They had a plan, Katie’s, and her lists. Everyone had been assigned jobs to do.

His sisters fussed over their mother one more time. Touching her cheek, holding her cold, cold hand, straightening the quilt covering her body. Kim put her head over their mother’s chest, as if she had to make absolutely sure her heart had stopped beating.

They gave him forlorn looks like the ones they’d worn when stupid boys had broken their hearts over the years, or when they’d had a falling-out with each other and vowed never to speak to each other again. Like the ones they’d had when their mother was first diagnosed with cancer. When she heard that it had come back. When she and the doctors agreed it was pointless to fight anymore. When their father’s friend and partner had come to tell them their dad was gone.

They’d huddled around Jax then, little stair-step girls, all blond and blue-eyed and innocent. Kim had sucked her thumb. Kathie had taken to hiding in Jax’s closet at night until she thought he was asleep and then creeping over to sleep on the floor by his bed. Katie started making lists.

So this was all familiar territory. Dreaded, but familiar.

He got the girls on their feet and by his side, and then there was just the dog. Jax was afraid he’d have a fight on his hands, but Romeo seemed to understand. He took his turn nuzzling her cheek and whining over her, and then jumped off the bed and stood quietly by Jax’s side.

“Good dog,” Kim said, stooping over to hug Romeo and then wrapping her arm around Jax’s waist.

He took the dog’s leash. Kathie leaned into his other side, her head on his shoulder, and Katie linked her arm with Kathie’s.

“Okay. Ready?” he asked.

“We should say a little prayer,” Kathie said. “Mom would like that.”

“Okay,” Jax said.

They could say anything they wanted, as long as they left. He bowed his head with the rest of them, and Kim did it. She started off by thanking God for their mother and
ended with something that sounded vaguely like a threat, a take-good-care-of-her-or-else thing.

Or else what?

Katie raised her head and gave her sister an odd look.

“Well, He’d better take care of her,” Kim said. “All those prayers she said. All the ones people said on her behalf. And she’s still gone.”

“It’s okay,” Jax said. None of them were particularly religious, except their mother, and he understood exactly how Kim felt. “Now we go.”

They pivoted around as best they could without letting go of each other and trooped out.

Two of their mother’s friends were outside the door, one crying. One of her neighbors was standing there holding fresh flowers. At the nurses’ station, three women stood staring, sad, understanding expressions on their faces. Jax looked down at the floor, and then looked away. He just didn’t have anything left, not for anyone.

The girls pulled themselves together and thanked their mother’s friends for all their kindness during her illness and over the years. They thanked each and every one of the nurses on the floor, showing all the graciousness and kindness their mother had taught them. She would have been proud. His sisters could be a little flaky, each in her own way, but they were strong, smart women, good down to the core.

Their mother had loved them well.

She’d loved Jax, too. Completely. Powerfully. Joyously.

But she’d been disappointed in him, too. He knew that.

She’d said it, right there at the end, in that jumble of thoughts where she’d believed she’d seen his father again.

And it wasn’t as if it was a surprise that she was disappointed in him. She thought he was playing at life, wasting
it, letting it slip through his fingers. That he had no faith. Not just in the God she trusted so completely, but in other people as well.

In life and in love.

Losing his father hadn’t weakened her faith in either of those things. Nothing had.

So where had it come from? he wondered. The trust? The faith? The hope?

He trusted that life would hurt him sooner or later, that people would disappoint him and disappear, had faith that there was nothing more to this world than what he could see with his eyes and touch with his hands.

And yet he wanted to believe what she’d said, that she’d watch over him, even now. That his father had been waiting for her, even after all this time, and God had come for her, taken her by the hand and led her…. Wherever it was that people went. That nothing hurt her anymore, and she’d never even be sad or miss him and his sisters or her silly dog.

That’s what he wanted to believe.

But he didn’t.

So once more, he gathered up his poor, brokenhearted sisters and the dog. Arm in arm, they walked out of the place where they’d lost their mother.

Gwendolyn Moss dragged herself out into the midday sunshine in the town park across from Petal Pushers, the bright, cheery flower shop where she worked.

On the north end of the park, on a bench beneath a huge, sprawling oak and a cluster of magnolias, she sat and ate the sandwich she’d packed that morning, all the while trying her best not to be afraid.

It was high noon, sunshine raining down through the branches of the trees, dappling the ground with spots of
light among the lazy shadows. The temperature was a perfect, balmy seventy degrees with an ever-so-slight breeze, and the park was smack-dab in the middle of a small picturesque, Southern town.

No one was going to grab her and drag her off into a dark corner because there were no dark corners here. Gwen had made sure of that. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have come outside.

She sat off on the fringes of the park, keeping to herself but careful not to stray too far from the crowds, even in broad daylight.

There was a playground a little off to the right, where mothers gathered to gossip while their children pushed each other on the swings and climbed into the tree fort, athletic fields to the south where adults and children alike played and friends clustered around to watch them.

Magnolia Falls Park was shaped like a crescent moon that ran from the north to the south end of town, all along the west side, following the path of and surrounding Falls Creek. For the most part, the creek was not much more than a wide, shallow stream of water rushing over a slick, smooth, sloping rock face. But to the south, still surrounded by parkland, the creek bed dropped all of thirty feet over a quarter of a mile, into a wide, rounded pool of water surrounded by a dozen magnolia trees, forming Magnolia Falls, for which the park and the town was named.

It was especially pretty there, and Gwen liked the soothing noise the rushing water made, but for now she preferred her little corner on the fringes of the park. It was farther than she’d have come just a month or so ago. So this was progress of sorts.