Chapter 3
By the time he got his mother and Hope home and settled, Paul was ready to give up on the day.
But that wasn’t an option when there was work to be done.
There was always work to be done. He changed into work clothes and then sat on his bed to put on socks.
A wave of despair overtook him, threatening to suck him under.
“We’ve tried so hard, Pop,” he whispered. “We tried to do what you would’ve done and kept Mom home with us. But it’s so hard.”
Before he got sick with cancer, George Martinez had been a strong, capable man who never let anything get him down. He worked hard, loved hard, played hard and had very high expectations for both of his sons. Disappointing their father had never been high on their to-do list.
His father’s voice was always in Paul’s head, guiding every decision he made in business and in life.
George Martinez was the yardstick by which Paul measured himself as a man, and today he found himself sorely lacking.
They were going to the mainland to have his mother evaluated by a dementia expert who would—again—recommend she be placed in an in-patient residential home for her own good—and theirs.
Except how could it be “good” for any of them to have her living a ferry or plane ride away from the two people who loved her most?
They were tied to the island thanks to the business their father had founded more than forty years ago.
It wasn’t like they could suddenly abandon what they’d all worked so hard to build.
When they hired Hope, they’d bought themselves some time.
But what if that time was up now? What would that mean for her and Ethan when they’d recently uprooted their lives to move to Gansett?
Paul’s stomach was tied up in knots, and he still had to talk to Alex about the appointment with David, not to mention what he’d learned about Ethan’s father.
Steeling himself to face today and whatever lay ahead with his mother, Paul stood and tried to shake off the gloomy mood.
He had to believe his father would be proud of the herculean effort he and Alex had put forth to keep their mother at home for as long as they had.
He had to believe that because the alternative didn’t bear entertaining.
He left his room to encounter angry shouts coming from the living room, where he’d left his mother and Hope.
“I don’t know who you think you are, young lady,” Marion said, “but I have no time to take naps during the day. I have a husband and two sons to care for. Who will do the washing if I’m napping? Who will cook their dinner?”
“You’ll have plenty of time to do all that when you get up,” Hope said calmly.
No matter how much crap Marion shoveled on Hope, she never lost her temper, never lost her composure or her patience.
It was admirable, because at times, Paul wanted to scream his head off when his mother went off on him.
Thank God for Hope. He and Alex had said that so many times since she arrived over the summer and literally saved their lives.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Nope,” she said. “Go on ahead to work. We’ll be fine.”
“There’s my George now! Tell this woman, whoever she is, that I have things to do, will you please?”
It was a source of never-ending black humor to him and Alex that their mother couldn’t remember what happened a minute ago, except in the middle of an argument in which her memory became crystal clear. They had morbidly joked that they should fight with her constantly.
“Marion, Hope is just trying to help,” Paul said, channeling his father, who’d adored his wife to the point of distraction. “Will you please let her help?”
He watched as some of the starch went out of Marion’s rigid shoulders. “If that’s what you’d like me to do, George.”
“It is. It’s what I’d like you to do.”
“All right, then.” She glanced at Hope tentatively. “What did you want me to do again?”
Hope nodded for the door, encouraging Paul to get while the getting was good. He and Alex had made her promise from the outset to call them if anything ever happened that she couldn’t handle—even if they were working. They’d promised to come running. She’d yet to call.
As he walked out of the house and crossed the yard to the building where they kept their equipment, Paul texted his brother. Where are you?
Alex replied immediately. Chesterfield.
Stay put. I’m going to stop by.
I’m here for the day.
Paul loaded the truck with the tools he’d need for the abbreviated workday mapped out for him by Jenny, who now managed their workload as well as the store, and headed to the Chesterfield property, which was now owned by Jared and Lizzie James.
They’d turned Mrs. Chesterfield’s estate into a first-class wedding venue, which would host Alex and Jenny’s wedding next month.
Alex had made the secret garden inside the elaborate hedges his own pet project, which Paul supported and encouraged. His brother had given up a fantastic job working at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, to come home to help Paul when their mother’s condition took a turn for the worse.
If cultivating the gardens at the Chesterfield gave Alex an outlet for his considerable horticultural talents, Paul refused to begrudge him that.
He’d never begrudge either of them anything that brought them even the slightest bit of joy in the midst of the never-ending sorrow of their mother’s illness.
Jenny brought Alex joy, too. His brother had been a different person since she came into his life, and no one was happier for both of them than Paul.
He parked in the circular driveway in front of the huge stone house and headed directly for the garden.
Inside the tall hedges, Paul found his brother clipping and pruning and tending to the blooms, whistling while he worked.
Paul supposed if he got laid three times a day without fail, he’d whistle while he worked, too.
The thought made him feel petty, so he squelched it as fast as he had it. “Hey.”
“Hey, what’s up? How was the appointment with David?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not bad, but there was a development.” He explained David’s concerns and the plan to take Marion to the mainland to be evaluated by a dementia specialist.
Alex sighed, wiped the sweat from his brow and took a long gulp of the ice-cold water he guzzled all day long. “We’ve known we were living on borrowed time for a while now.”
“I guess. What’re we going to do if they tell us—again—that she needs in-patient care?”
“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. No sense speculating about what-ifs.”
After two years of living with his mother’s rapidly declining health, Paul had become an expert in speculating about what-ifs and worst-case scenarios. “I’ll go with her. Hope will come, too, if you and Jenny wouldn’t mind having Ethan for a couple of days. He can stay in my room.”
“Of course we will. He’s no trouble. Are you sure you’re up to going? I could do it.”
“You’ve got a lot going on with the wedding and the house. You need to be here right now.”
“I can take a couple of days away.”
“It’s fine. I’ll do it.”
“What else is bugging you?”
“Other than our mother’s increasingly depressing illness?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
“I keep thinking about Dad. You ever think about him?”
“Every day. Hard not to when Mom mistakes us for him all the time.”
“I just hope he knows we’ve done everything we could.”
“He knows, bro. People tell us all the time how proud he’d be of the way we’ve taken care of Mom and kept the business afloat, too. What else could we do that we haven’t done?”
“I don’t know.” Paul kicked at the dirt, frustration beating through him like an extra heartbeat. “I just feel like if he was here, it wouldn’t feel so chaotic and out of control. He’d know what to do.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He’d be so heartbroken to see her this way. He wouldn’t have the first clue how to cope with it. Maybe this is why he died first. You ever think of that?”
It had never crossed Paul’s mind that his supremely competent father would’ve been unable to cope. “No.”
“We’ve elevated him to god status in our minds,” Alex said. “But in fact, he was just a man who loved his wife, and this would’ve killed him. It would kill me to see Jenny this way someday. I hope to God that never happens, because it would wreck me.”
Alex had certainly given him something to think about other than the fact that his father would be disappointed in them.
“You know what you need?” Alex asked.
“I can hardly wait to hear this.”
“A few days away from it all. Take Mom to the mainland and then go somewhere while she’s in the hospital. Do something fun. Hell, take Hope with you. She could use a break, too.”
Paul was immediately hit with the unreasonable fear that Alex knew he’d kissed Hope. But how could he possibly know that? He’d been asleep when it happened. And it wasn’t like it was going to happen again, so what did it matter?
Except… the idea of a few days away from it all with Hope as his companion had his mind racing with all sort of inappropriate images. That, right there, was dangerous thinking, so he shook it off.
“I gotta get to it. See you at home later.”
“Hey, Paul?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. We’re both doing the best we can in an awful situation. No one is judging us, least of all Dad. If anything, he’s watching over us and making sure we don’t lose our own minds.”
“Probably.” It was a far better scenario than some he’d entertained recently. “Let me ask you something else…” He’d debated whether he should say anything about what Ethan had told him. On the one hand, he felt disloyal to Hope for telling anyone, but he was more loyal to his brother and mother.
“Sure.”
“Yesterday, Ethan told me his dad is in jail.”
“What? Seriously? What for?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to make a big thing of it with him, but it’s got me wondering.”
“There was nothing about a spouse in jail on the background check we had done.”