The Color of the Season (21 page)

We continued to talk on the phone every night and spent time together on the weekends, and she maintained contact with her mother through regular texts and phone calls. Mrs. James admitted that she had called Riley and fully intended to visit him, but she was keeping it secret from her husband until she figured out how to manage it—and
him
.

“Get this,” Holly said to me when I met her for lunch at the hospital after one of my physio appointments. “Mom’s been seeing a therapist ever since Leah was first diagnosed. I didn’t know until she told me this morning. She’s been trying to get Dad to go for counseling, too, but he won’t do it.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I asked as I dug into my salad.

“It doesn’t surprise me either,” Holly replied, “but I wish he’d budge on something.
Anything
. Even just to show us that he’s not made of stone.”

“Maybe your mom will be able to talk him into it after everything that’s happened lately,” I suggested.

I would have liked to hold out hope for that, but I think deep down, neither of us truly believed it would happen.

o0o

When the time came for me to return to work, I was beyond ready. My wounds had healed well and I felt fit and strong—though I knew I’d be kidding myself if I thought I could chase after a perp and leap over a chain link fence anytime soon.

As a result, my lieutenants assigned me to a desk job until they deemed me fit for regular duty. I saw a department-appointed therapist twice a week, always in the mornings. Who knows? Maybe they felt those bullets I took should count as a free ticket out of the graveyard shift. I told them I could handle anything, but they were determined to ease me slowly and gradually back into the patrol car.

The therapist asked me all sorts of questions about my thoughts and feelings since my return to work and I answered everything honestly, though I never made any reference to what happened to me during my stay in the hospital. I said nothing about how I floated to the ceiling in the operating room, or how I spoke to Leah—a dead person—nor did I draw any attention to the fact that my in-hospital psychiatric appointments had been mysteriously cancelled.

The last thing I needed was a note in my chart saying “patient suffers from severe hallucinations and deliriums.”

I did my best to put it behind me, but it was hard to forget.

o0o

I was just finishing my shift on a Wednesday when a panicked text came in from Holly.

Josh…You there? Please answer…

I quickly typed a reply:
I’m here. Call me
.

Within ten seconds, my phone rang. I quickly swiped the screen to answer it. “Hey,” I said, raising it to my ear. “What’s up?”

She spoke quickly in a strained voice. “Mom just called me. She said she and Dad had a huge argument and she’s locked herself in her bedroom. She wants to leave but she doesn’t know if he’ll let her. I’m worried. She was whispering the whole time.”

“Did he hit her?” I asked. “Was there any sort of physical altercation?”

“No, but she said she doesn’t feel safe. She’s afraid to come out of her room. She asked me to come and get her but I don’t have my car here. Can you go?”

I grabbed my keys off the desk and headed out. “I’m on my way right now.”

Chapter Fifty-two

Still in uniform, I pulled into Dr. James’s driveway, quickly got out of the car, ran up the steps and rang the doorbell. When no one answered, I banged five times with the edge of my fist. “Dr. James! Are you home?”

His car was in the driveway and there were lights on inside. I listened carefully for voices but heard nothing until the sound of footsteps approached. At last the door opened.

Dr. James, dressed in jeans and a navy golf shirt, greeted me with a frown. “What are
you
doing here?” His gaze raked disapprovingly from the brim of my police hat to the badge pinned on my shirt, then down to my gun belt and black boots.

“Your wife called Holly and asked to be picked up. Holly couldn’t leave the hospital so she asked me to come instead.”

“My wife doesn’t need a ride anywhere,” Dr. James replied.

I carefully scrutinized his expression, searching for signs of duplicity or agitation, and noticed his right hand flexing and fisting. “Where is your wife, sir?”

“She’s upstairs.”

“Could you ask her to come down please? I’d like to speak to her.”

Dr. James glared at me intensely. “This isn’t any of your business, Josh.”

“Well, since your daughter asked me to stop by and check on her mother, I think that makes it very much my business. Mind if I come in?”

His brow furrowed. “Yes, I do mind.”

I held his gaze steadily in mine. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be. I need to see Mrs. James. She called for assistance and said she didn’t feel safe. If we can just clear that up, I’ll get out of your way.”

Though I was still standing on the porch with the screen door between us, I caught sight of something over the doctor’s shoulder. It was Mrs. James descending the stairs with a suitcase.

Dr. James turned around. “Where are you going?” he asked her.

She set the suitcase down in the wide foyer and went to fetch a coat off a hook in the back hall. “I’m leaving.”

Dr. James strode toward her. I immediately pulled the screen door open and stepped inside.

“No, you’re not,” he harshly said. “You can’t leave.”

Mrs. James donned her coat and began to button it. “Yes, I can. It’s my choice and I’m leaving with Josh.”

“But we’re not done talking about this.”

“We’ve been talking about it for weeks, Robert,” she said. “Years, in fact.” She picked up her suitcase and started walking toward me at the door. “You know I want us both to visit Riley, but you won’t even consider it. It’s not fair. We always do what
you
want us to do, but you never bend an inch for us. It’s your way or the highway. And today I’m taking the highway.”

“Margie, wait…”

“And I’ve asked you a thousand times to come to therapy with me, but you won’t do that either.”

He followed her to the door. “I don’t need a therapist.”

She stopped and whirled around. “So you’ve said. But I think you need it more than anyone. I’m just in therapy to help me figure out how to cope with
you
!”

He grabbed hold of her arm but she roughly shook him off. “Don’t touch me, Robert!”

He blinked at her in shock as she turned and followed me out the front door and down the steps. We walked quickly to my car and got in.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

Her hands were shaking uncontrollably as she tried to buckle her seatbelt. “Yes. Thank you for coming to get me.”

“It was no problem.” I waited until she was buckled in before I backed out. “Do you know where you want to go? Do you have friends or family you’d like to call, besides Holly?”

“My family lives in New York,” she replied. “I was thinking I might go to a hotel for tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. Dr. James was watching us from outside on the covered veranda as we pulled away. “You can stay at my place until Holly gets home. Then I’ll take you over there.”

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back on the headrest. “Thank you, Josh. That’s very kind of you.”

As I drove out of the neighborhood, I glanced at her with concern. “Are you sure you’re all right? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

She lifted her head and looked at me. “No. That’s at least one thing I can honestly say: He’s never laid a violent hand on me. But I’ve seen him do it to others, you and Riley included, so I’ve never felt a hundred percent confident that he wouldn’t eventually lose his temper with me.” She gazed out the window. “He was pretty angry today. We’ve never fought like that before. It was partly my fault, I suppose, because I didn’t back down this time, but if I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I just wish he had agreed to see Riley. Or at least to go and talk to someone about all this.”

I gave her a moment to collect herself. “You can stay with me as long as you need to, Mrs. James.”

“Thank you, Josh,” she said, looking straight ahead, “but I’ll be booking a flight to Montana this evening and leaving the city as soon as I can. I don’t know what it’ll mean for my marriage, but surprisingly, I don’t really care. All I want to do is see my son.”

The Holiday Season

Chapter Fifty-three

Josh Wallace

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, I arrived home to a telephone message from Riley which included an invitation for Holly and me to join him and his family for the long holiday weekend. It wasn’t easy to tell my own mother that we wouldn’t be coming to her place after all, but she understood when I explained the situation. My sister Marie would be there with her husband and kids, so she wouldn’t be alone. And we promised we’d come for leftovers the day after we returned.

On Thursday evening, Holly and I boarded a plane and flew to Billings for what turned out to be an intimate and emotional family gathering with Mrs. James, who had been staying with Riley and Lois since the day she left Boston. There were tears and laughter, endless conversations about the past and future—and of course delicious Thanksgiving fare…a slow-roasted turkey dinner with all the trimmings, giant servings of carrot cake, pumpkin pie and ice cream, and indulgent hours spent in front of the television watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Later in the day, while everyone was stretched out on the sofa digesting the meal, I smelled coffee brewing, so I went into the kitchen to find Mrs. James scrubbing a pot at the sink.

Grabbing a dish towel, I took the pot from her to dry it before she had a chance to set it in the rack.

“Thanks Josh,” she said with a smile as she emptied the water out of the sink, then removed her yellow rubber gloves and set them on the counter.

When I finished drying the pot, she asked if I’d like a cup of coffee.

“I’d love one,” I replied.

She withdrew two mugs from the cupboard. “You and Holly seem to be getting along well,” she said as she poured.

“Better than well,” I replied. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like right now if I hadn’t met her.”

Mrs. James grinned at me, and the memory of those kind eyes from my boyhood made everything feel perfectly right…exactly as it was meant to be.

Well,
almost…

“Those are nice words, Josh,” she said. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

Leaning against the counter, I crossed one ankle over the other, glanced over my shoulder to listen for the others, and lowered my voice. “For the most part we are, but I have to be honest, Mrs. James. I’m having some trouble dealing with the way things have turned out.”

She inclined her head. “How so?”

I paused. “I’m a family man—you know that. My mom and stepdad are everything to me, and you were like a second mother to me when I was kid. Riley and Leah were like family to me, too, and it’s killing me to think that I might have played a part in the problems between you and your husband. I know I’m not your husband’s favorite person in the world, and maybe if it weren’t for me, you would never have moved from Sycamore Street. But it seems that ever since the day I walked through your door, your whole world has been exploding.”

“In a
good
way,” she said. “And it’s hardly your fault that I’ve left my husband. That’s been building for years.”

I looked down at my shoes and nodded. “I just don’t want Holly to lose her family. She hasn’t spoken to her father since the night he and I got into a scuffle in your kitchen.”

Mrs. James sat down at the table. “You know, I thought after she stood up to him and walked out, Robert might finally see the light and stop being such a hard-liner, but he didn’t. He just
couldn’t
.”

I swirled the coffee around in my cup. “I’m sorry to hear that, because the main reason I came in here to talk to you was to tell you that…” I paused for a moment and lowered my voice even further. “I know this might seem a bit sudden, but I want to marry Holly someday.” Mrs. James sat up straighter in her chair. “I haven’t proposed or anything. She needs to finish school and I don’t want to rush into anything, but when that day comes, I’d like to ask both you and your husband for your blessings. I just don’t know if I’ll ever get that from him. I’ll accept it if I have to, but there must be some hope with you. And if Holly says yes to becoming my wife, I want her to know that she’ll have family with her on her wedding day, that at least you’ll be there to help her pick out a dress and someone will be able to walk her down the aisle.”

Mrs. James smiled. “Josh Wallace, if you get down on one knee to propose to my daughter—if and when that happens—you can be sure I’ll be there for dress fittings and helping her choose flower arrangements and whatever else she needs. I couldn’t be happier to hear this, Josh, because I know you’re a good man. I’ve always known it—even when you were little and you came into my kitchen to ask for popsicles in the summer.

“Back then I thought maybe one day you and Leah might end up together, but now that she’s gone and you’re with Holly, nothing could be more perfect. I still remember how you held her in that rocking chair when she was born. Something in me fell in love with you that day and I wished you could have been a second son to me, too. Now—if she gives you the answer you want—you
will
be, and I can’t imagine a more wonderful gift of hope for Christmas. So there. You have my blessing ten times over. How’s that?”