Chapter 55
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
SEVEN VIRTUES, NORTH CAROLINA
Per the Mayo Clinic, broken heart syndrome is a heart condition often brought on by stressful situations and extreme emotions. It is usually temporary.
Usually.
—The Fireside Psychologist
I’m desperately trying to keep my mother tethered to this world. I’ll do anything, say anything, to prolong a life that’s being cut far too short, but there’s one thing I know: the love flowing between us will last forever. I lay my head next to her hand and by a miracle, she manages to weakly thread her fingers through the crown of my hair. The memory of how she’d do something just like this when I was a little girl prompts me to ask a question I used to ask when I did anything to beat back the time to go to sleep.
Now, I’m trying to keep her talking as long as possible. “Mama, tell me again about Papa.”
There’s a weak cough. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Paige reaching for the cup of water to offer Mama a sip. She rasps, “Thank you.”
Paige murmurs a response and then slips back into the shadows. Mama continues to stroke my hair. “My Herb.”
I pull up a mental image of my father. Tall, dark, with piercing blue eyes like mine, my memories of Herbert Brookes are little more than a man in pictures. But he was very real to my mother. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him.”
“Which was when, Helen?” Paige asks.
I twist my head, uncaring if my hair becomes a nest of knots. I want to see my mother’s smug little smile one last time when she admits, “When I”—her coughing interrupts her—“saw him at a bar. He was playing the guitar on stage. Snuck…” Another cough. “In to see him. Underage.”
I can’t prevent the giggle that escapes at the shock on Paige’s face as her eyes bounce between the two of us—likely comparing our enjoyment of older men. “How much older was he?”
Then, because I can’t help myself, I tease both Austyn’s and my mother. “Mama doesn’t enjoy her men to be as—seasoned—as I enjoy mine, Paige.”
Mama’s dull eyes brighten for a moment at me revealing my truth. Austyn cackles, but Paige doesn’t get it, judging by the confusion written on her face. I ask my mama, “Did he fall for you right away?”
She wets her lips. “He…made fun…of me. Herb…hoped… I had more of a clue than my…twin.”
Austyn gasps in outrage. “What twin?”
“Helen? You have a sister?” Paige is appalled as she glances around the room to not see another family member.
I grin. Since I know this story by heart, I help my mother tell it. “She doesn’t. He was trying to flirt with her.”
“What?” and “I don’t understand” come out simultaneously.
“Yellow…suit,” my mother manages before she nudges her oxygen cannula back down into place.
“Yellow plaid suit,” I correct her. “With her blond hair and yellow plaid suit, my father was trying to compliment her by saying she looked like Alicia Silverstone.”
At that point, both Paige and Austyn put it together and laugh. I stroke my hand up my mother’s arm. “You gave him hell.”
“Sure…did.”
“He loved you for it,” I remind her.
It takes her a few before she murmurs, “I was never sure why me.”
“I know.” I’ve said the same thing ever since she told me the story for the last twenty years. I know exactly why my father fell in love with my mother. He fell in love with the heart that was as bright as her trendy yellow plaid suit.
Her lips curve. “Half the girls in that bar were in love with him.”
“He never saw anyone but you after he laid eyes on you the first time,” I remind her, reaching back and capturing her hand with mine. I bring her hand to my cheek, nuzzling against it.
“He loved you, Fallon.”
I swallow hard because the few pictures of my father and me showed he did indeed love me. He worshiped my mother and adored me. I searched for that expression in the eyes of every man I met and never came close to seeing it until Ethan. At least before. Now? Nothing will ever be the same.
Her hand falls away limply. My heart turns over in fear until I realize the beep, beep of her heart monitor is still going. A whoosh of air releases. “She fell asleep.”
Austyn comes over to me and wraps her arms around me from behind. “You should try to get some too.”
“I’ll just doze.”
“Fallon, you have to get some rest sometime,” Paige admonishes me.
I shake my head vigorously. I know if I sleep, I’ll end up back in the Devil’s Lair parking lot, dying. And really, isn’t it bad enough I’m going to have to bleed out a second time in such a short period of time? Do I really need to relive the death of my happily ever after while my once upon a time is taken from me?