These Three Words (16 page)

“Why swans?” I asked. Gray was intent on watching the game and seemingly ignoring us.

“Call me a romantic—Chuck the bartender does—but I always try to find them for the couples that have
. . .
well, something special.”

She blushed, and looked as if she’d suck the words back in if she could. Before either of us could ask what that meant, she said, “I’ll be back with your pizza in a few minutes.”

“I don’t remember who won the game,” I said. “But I do remember when we finished, you picked up your swan and tucked it in your pocket. I kept mine as well.”

I looked at him and I felt the tears start down my cheek. “When you collapsed, I saw that picture of us and the swan. I grabbed them. They’re right here on your nightstand. And I remembered, Gray. After months of not being able to move past that one bad moment, I’ve remembered so many of the others.”

I’d done nothing but remember since we came to the hospital.

“I remember that I loved you then. And thinking I could lose you made me realize that I still love you. I don’t know if I can get past all those other moments since December. They’re still there and they still hurt. But when I read the words in the divorce decree,
as if we were single,
I knew no matter what, I’d never be able to live as if I hadn’t been married to you. And I’d never not love you. I think part of the problem is that after we lost the baby, I forgot to fill in your missing spaces. My heart was gaping and bleeding, and I was so busy trying to stem the flow, I just forgot. You were ready to just move on without a backward glance. But I couldn’t. And maybe I couldn’t forgive you for being able to just get over it so easily.”

I sighed. “I guess what I’m saying is, I’m here. I’m all-in. When you’re better we’ll see where we stand. But no matter what, I won’t forget all our good moments again, and I’ll try to move past losing the baby. I wanted—no, I needed—to grieve with you, but you didn’t grieve.”

“That’s not so.” I jumped at the sound of someone’s voice.

Chapter Eleven

I knew that voice.

I turned and saw Peggy in the doorway.

“Gray, your mother’s here,” I said before I rushed to her and hugged her for all I was worth. “You’re here. I hadn’t heard from you and I’d started to get worried. I was going to try to contact you on the ship today.”

She hugged me back. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I should have sent a reply. I got your e-mail and I just spun into action. It feels like I’ve been spinning since I read it. I got off the boat on the island and I’ve been making my way here since.”

Peggy’s dark hair was laced with gray and caught up in a messy bun. She was wearing a sundress and sandals, despite the fact it was October. The thin cardigan that would be perfect in the tropics looked woefully inadequate for Erie.

“I thought you’d have to finish the cruise,” I said.

“As if they could make me.” Peggy looked formidable as she snorted, and I realized that I wouldn’t have wanted to be the person who tried to keep her on the cruise ship after she’d read my e-mail.

She shook her head. “They tried to tell me that it would be faster to just take the cruise ship home, but I got off and found a private pilot who flew me back to Florida, and from there, I found a flight home. Even if the cruise had been faster, I wouldn’t have been able to sit there, relaxing, knowing he was here, sick, and you were on your own.”

I felt slightly envious of her. I’d been doing just that . . . sitting here. Inactive. Inert. Waiting.

She’d been working to get here. She’d had a purpose.

I hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Ours had never been one of those stereotypical in-law relationships. I loved Peggy. Next to JoAnn, I was closer to her than anyone . . . anyone other than Gray, once upon a time.

“I spent Gray’s money,” she added, a bit shamefaced.

“It wasn’t Gray’s, it was yours. He put that money aside for a house for you,” I said. I knew how much he wanted to show his mom how thankful he was. When he’d found a house and wanted to buy it for her as a gift, I’d understood. Granted, buying someone a house was over the top, but the thought—the feeling—behind it was so sweet. “When you wouldn’t let him buy the house, he set up that account. It was his way of paying you back for helping him get through college—”

“I didn’t pay his tuition,” she protested.

“You helped him make up the difference, and you kept a roof over his head,” I said, parroting his arguments in the past. “I don’t think this was how he intended you use it, but it was yours to do as you please.”

“He is so stubborn he wouldn’t take it back, but I’ve held on to it for him. But I just had to be here. I’m his mother,” she said as if that statement explained everything. And in a way it did.

“Come on,” I said, bringing her farther into the room. We walked around the bed to the side he was facing. I explained all I knew and then added, “The doctors are keeping him in a coma until they feel he’s out of the woods.”

Peggy walked up to Gray, and I heard her sharp intake of breath as she really saw him.

I’d already grown accustomed to the tubes and wires. I just saw
him
now when I looked at him. But I remembered my shock when they’d brought me in yesterday.

She ran her finger across his stubbled cheek, before leaning down and kissing his forehead. “I’m here, honey,” she said.

I thought about Mark. Maybe he was right. Sometimes
here I am
was enough.

“Thank you, Peggy,” I said, for both me and for Gray.

“I’m sorry I left you on your own for so long,” she said to me.

“I knew you’d be here as soon as you could. He’s doing better,” I said.

“You don’t look like you’re doing better. Frankly, you look like hell,” Peggy said in her shoot-from-the-hip way. She smiled to soften the words, but I knew she was right. If I looked anything like I felt, her description was generous.

She said, “I heard what you were saying when I came in.”

“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I was apologizing. “There was so much I wanted to tell him. So much I should have said months ago.”

“So much
he
should have said months ago,” she said gently. “I love my son, but that boy could give a monk a run for his money.”

I laughed and hiccuped as it became almost a sob.

“So tell me everything,” Peggy said.

I did. It was as if talking to strangers in the hospital had suddenly made talking to someone I loved easier. I told her all of it.

Except for the divorce papers. Those I kept to myself.

I thought she’d tell me that I needed to give him another chance. That the two of us could make it through this.

I realized I desperately wanted her to say those things.

Maybe if she believed we could make it through this, I could as well.

Instead she simply asked, “Have you heard when they’re going to wake him up?”

“No. I was hoping the doctor would give us some idea today.”

Peggy nodded then leaned down and whispered into his ear. She placed her hand on his fingertips, much like I had earlier.

We both stood next to him. I watched as his chest rose and fell to the rhythm of the machine that was pumping air into his lungs. Then I turned slightly and watched the liquid in the bag drip one slow drop at a time, into the line that snaked down to the hand Peggy was holding.

Peggy had gotten a manicure, I noticed. The fact might not have stood out so much on someone else, but Peggy was a waitress. Her nails, while nicely trimmed, were normally polish-free. She’d once joked they were working hands.

At the moment, they were hands that were giving comfort. I saw them tighten against Gray’s fingertips as she said, “You’re wrong, you know.”

I couldn’t remember what we’d been talking about and had no idea what she was referring to. “About?”

“About the baby,” she said softly, as if hearing her mention it would upset me.

No one talked about the baby—not even me. I realized how much I craved hearing him mentioned. Maybe I needed to know that even though he had never drawn a breath, he had mattered to someone other than me. That someone else mourned his loss.

“Addie, I haven’t seen my son cry since he was little. He didn’t cry when his father left. He’s stoic. But after the doctor told you there was no hope, he took you home, got you to sleep, and came to see me. Addie, I’ve never seen anyone so broken up.”

“He never—” Never. He’d never cried. He’d never seemed upset.

Maybe. It’s. For. The. Best.
Those words were the cornerstone of the wall that had grown up between us.

“He cried, Addie. He didn’t say much, but he cried. For you. For the baby. Maybe for himself.”

“He never said anything to me,” I said again. “I never saw him shed a tear.”

“That’s my fault, you know,” Peggy said. “Just like him being in the hospital is my fault.” She didn’t cry. Like Gray, she wasn’t a woman to wear her emotions on her sleeve. While Gray might have a serious default expression, Peggy wore a perpetual smile.

Someone who didn’t know her might not notice that there were times that smile didn’t reach her eyes.

She offered me a small one now. “It is my fault. After his father left, Gray felt he had to take care of me. I tried to tell him I didn’t need him to take care of me, but he never listened. It got worse as he got older. Like when he tried to buy me a house. It was his way of saying he loved me. And when I wouldn’t take his house, the money he put in the bank for me . . . that was the same thing. He can’t put his feelings into words, but he tries to show them.”

“Peggy, Gray’s condition isn’t anyone’s fault.” I tried to reassure her, but it was hard since I felt guilty as well. I knew he didn’t know why I’d come to his office, but knowing and feeling . . . those were two very different things.

Peggy shook her head, not believing me. “Honey, how much did he ever tell you about his father?”

“Not much. He said his father left when he was seven and he hadn’t seen him since. He didn’t want to see him.”

Peggy nodded. “Graham—Gray’s father—was a screwup. He couldn’t hold a job, couldn’t manage much of anything. Even then I was waitressing and my income supported the family. The good thing was, I had someone to leave Gray with whenever Graham got laid off or fired from another job. And then one day, I got a call from a cop. Gray had been found downtown with no adult. The officer was concerned.”

“How old was he?” How had he never told me this?

“Seven. That’s when his father left. I kicked Graham out that night and told him not to come back until he was ready to be a parent. It wasn’t so much the work, or lack thereof, but how could I be with a man I couldn’t trust with our son?
My
son. Graham, even at his best, had never been a very invested parent. What would have happened if Gray had wandered into the wrong place, or been picked up by the wrong person? In my opinion, that cop saved my son’s life.”

“Did his dad ever contact him?” I asked.

Peggy shook her head. “We never heard from him again. The last time Gray ever spoke to me about his father was the day after Graham left. We’d called Gray
Little Graham
before his dad left. Sometimes
LG
. The day after his dad left, he told me to call him Gray.”

“He was seven?” I tried to remember a time when Gray was Graham. We’d gone to school together, so those first couple of years he must have been Graham, but in my mind he was Gray. He’d always been Gray.

My mind had rewritten that part of his past. My past.

How often do our minds rewrite our memories?

Had my mind rewritten other memories?

After we lost our son, I was so sure that Gray was aloof, but had he thought he was being strong? Being strong in order to take care of me? I’d been so angry after we lost the baby. Had that anger tinted my perception, or my memories?

Peggy shook her head. “We never heard from Gray’s father again. A friend told me that Graham ended up in Michigan, but he never sent Gray as much as a birthday card.”

Or a child-support check.

Gray had said that much when he’d wanted to buy his mom a house. He’d wanted to make up for her having to be his sole support when he was a kid.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. I’d fallen out of love with Graham a long time before that. I’d stayed with him for Gray. When I saw that he wasn’t there for his son, asking him to leave was the easiest thing I’d ever done. Easy on me, but not so easy on Gray.”

“Peggy, he might not have talked about it, and I’m sure he missed his dad, or at least missed the idea of one. But that, and this”—I waved at the machine next to Gray’s bed—“aren’t your fault. And not having his dad around certainly didn’t make him sick.”

“Don’t you see? Wandering away that day was the last truly childish thing he ever did. He was only seven. He got straight As in school. He worked his way through college and only let me help a few terms when he simply couldn’t pay the tuition on his own.”

Her guilt over Gray’s abbreviated childhood was evident on her face. I reached for her, but she shook her head.

“Peggy . . .” I started, but didn’t know what words would comfort her.

“He tried to give me a house, Addie,” she said. “I mean,
a house
. He said that all he ever wanted to do was take care of me. I gave it so much thought on the way here, and I think he wanted to make up for his dad leaving. I think that’s why he worked so hard. And that’s why he’s here.”

“Peggy, you didn’t make him—” I started.

She cut me off. “We always had enough, but never anything extra when he was growing up. He worked so hard to put himself through college. He’s stood on his own two feet. Even though he has you and me, he’s stood on his own.”

“Gray loves his work. That’s not on you . . .” I started to abdicate blame for myself as well, but I wasn’t as sure about that.

Peggy caught the hesitation. “Or you?”

“Or me,” I told her, though I wasn’t quite sure that’s how I felt. I felt guilty.

But as for him loving work? After the baby, I’d minded. I’d felt he was hiding behind his work.

But I suddenly remembered that there was a time I hadn’t minded.

“He canceled another honeymoon because of work?” Peggy asked, shaking her head. “Are you furious?”

I laughed. “No. He was right. They have some big negotiations going on at work, and Jo and I are taking a trip in a few weeks to meet some more carpenters out of Lancaster. It’s not a good time.”

“At the rate he’s going, you’ll never go on a honeymoon.”

“Don’t tell him, but it’s okay,” I stage-whispered. “He’ll take me to the beach and we’ll watch a sunset and that’ll be enough. Especially if we stop for ice cream after.”

Peggy snorted, but she smiled.

“There are two things that Gray’s passionate about, family and work. And on any given day it’s a toss-up which is on top.” I laughed.

Peggy did too.

“You’re wrong,” Gray said as he walked into the living room. “Family will always be first. Business is just a way to take care of my family.”