These Ties That Bind

Such a beautiful boy.

It was her job to protect him and she took that seriously. When they got home to Mama’s, Sara spent the afternoon checking out every class, course and organized sporting activity around Ordinary and Haven, to replace that swimming course Finn should have been in three afternoons a week. She glanced at the calendar. She’d have to cancel the basketball league she’d signed him up for, as well. That left too many days empty—too many days he could fill with mischief—and there was nothing left to register him for.

CHAPTER FIVE

AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK THE following morning, an unforgiving sun followed Rem out of the house and to the corral where his horse Rusty ambled lazily, kicking up puffs of dust with his hooves.

What was taking Ma so long to get here? He’d expected her half an hour ago.

He’d already been out to the hospital this morning with a bag of nice clothes for her to wear home. He’d signed all the necessary papers, had packed up all of the cards the townspeople had given her. He’d found an elderly woman in another room who had no family and had given her Ma’s flowers. Then he’d driven out ahead of Ma’s ambulance. He’d expected them to be only a few minutes behind him.

He’d already had time to put the cards around her room, to give her something to look at all day.

He glanced around the yard. It looked good. Clean.

He’d taken Ma’s pretty flowered cushions out of plastic in the storage shed and had spruced up her blue wicker chairs on the veranda. Rem’s ancestors had built this two-story home more than a century ago, had built it with brick to last and with gingerbread trim that Rem had repainted white in May.

He’d put a fresh coat of blue paint on the veranda floor and stairs, too.

He’d started on the stable with more white paint, but had only finished the front and the corral side, both of which could be seen from the dining room windows. He still had to paint the far side and the back, but that would come in time.

Gracie lay on the steps like the grand old dame she was, a border collie with too much gray fur among the white and black. She spent a lot of her days sleeping, sometimes in the house, sometimes in the stable.

Two days ago, Rem had planted pansies across the front of the house, in yellow, purple and mauve. What did he know about flowers? If they lasted through the summer, he’d be surprised. They brightened the place, though.

At the rumble of an engine in the driveway, he turned.

The ambulance rode up the long lane, with neither siren nor flashing lights.

Ma. Home at last. Feeling like a kid getting a present, he ran to the steps at the front of the house. He’d missed having her here.

The ambulance swung around in the yard, backed up toward the house and stopped a couple of yards away from him.

The driver jumped out of the vehicle and came around the rear, nodding at Rem, his pressed white shirt almost blue in the sun.

“How is she?” Rem asked.

“Comfortable,” the attendant replied while he opened the door.

“What took so long?”

“Half the staff came out to say goodbye.”

Rem thanked his lucky stars that he lived in a close-knit community. Ma would have loved the attention.

Another attendant jumped down from the patient area and Rem caught his first glimpse of Ma, half sitting in the dark interior. She looked pale, her face immobile, her eyes a little scared.

His chest tightened. Ma, I’ll take care of you. You’ll never go to a home to be taken care of by strangers. I promise.

The attendants lifted the stretcher out of the ambulance and released the legs. Rem stepped close. He took Ma’s hand in his, but it was the paralyzed one, so she might not have felt his touch.

Her eyes flickered to the pansies raising their colorful faces toward the sun and a weak smile cast the ghost of movement across her face then disappeared. She blinked.

On the veranda, she dropped her good arm over the side of the gurney and Gracie stood and licked her fingers. Her glance at the cushions on the chairs brought forth another smile. Rem was glad he’d worked so hard.

After the attendants wheeled her through the front door, Rem ran ahead to open the dining room doors. “In here.”

He’d rented a comfortable hospital bed and had crowded Ma’s treasured dining room set into the closed-in porch at the back of the house. For the past two nights, he’d worked until three in the morning to make Ma a comfortable new bedroom.

After they transferred her from the stretcher to the bed, Rem walked the paramedics out and shook their hands.

“Thanks, guys. I appreciate you taking care of her.”

Any minute now, one of the caregivers should be showing up.

Sure enough, a small blue sedan rode up the lane just moments after the ambulance drove off. Ah, here she was, the first nurse.

Sara stepped out of the car, spit polished and as crisp as a new dollar bill in a white shirt and navy skirt. She pulled a bag out of the backseat and turned toward the house.

Sara? What was she doing here?

She approached the steps then stopped before climbing them.

“Hello, Rem,” she said, her voice as cool as her gray eyes.

His expression flattened. “What are you doing here?” Even to his own ears, he sounded unhappy. “Checking up on me?”

“I’m here to work with Nell. I’m with TLC Outreach.”

“No way. You’re a nurse at the hospital.”

“I have two jobs.”

“What do you need two jobs for?”

“I have student debts to pay down.”

Rem knew Sara well. Again, as with her reasons for returning to Ordinary to live, he got the feeling he wasn’t getting the whole story.

“Why didn’t they send someone else?”

“I volunteered.”

“Why?”

“Rem. It’s Nell. How could I not want to help her?”

Yeah, that part made sense, but, honest to God, this complicated things.