Chapter III #2
“I’m at the hospital,” Tom told her, and was startled by how much steadier he felt the moment he said it out loud to her. “George. He had a bad fall and is in surgery as we speak. They think his hip is broken.”
“Oh, Tom,” Lila said softly. “I’m so sorry. How are you holding up?”
“I’m all right,” Tom told her. “I just hate the waiting.”
There was a small silence on the other end of the line.
“I can understand that,” Lila told him, compassion filling her voice. “I think hospitals bring back horrible memories for those of us who have lost loved ones.”
“Yes, and especially this one for me,” Tom’s voice dropped and was coated in sorrow as memories of Eleanor’s last moments flashed through his mind. He pushed them aside.
“Is there anything you need?” Lila asked. “Anything I can do from this end?”
“No, but if you don’t mind locking up,” Tom asked her. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Linda is on her way but probably won’t be here for a few more hours.”
“Don’t you worry about the bakery, Tom,” Lila reassured him. “The afternoon batch is already out, the display is filled, and I’ll close up for you tonight.” There was a slight pause. “If you need anything, just call.”
“Thank you, Lila,” Tom said quietly.
“George is in good hands, and he’s a tough old gentleman. He’s going to come through this just fine.” Lila’s voice echoed comfort and confidence all at once.
“I know,” Tom said.
“I will let you know once I’ve locked up for the night,” Lila promised. “Please keep me updated on how George is.”
“I will,” Tom promised.
Tom ended the call. He sat with the phone in his palm for a long moment after, looking at the dark screen.
He had known Lila Grant for six months now.
She had walked into Reilly’s Bakery on a Tuesday morning with a folder of references and a tin of her own coconut macaroons, and Tom had hired her by Wednesday afternoon.
In all the six months, he had let himself think of her as his new baker, as a steady pair of hands, as a kind, capable woman who had taken to the bakery as if she had been working there all her life.
He had not, he realized now, ever quite let himself notice that her voice steadied him the way Eleanor’s used to.
He had not let himself notice the way her smile reached the corners of her eyes when she handed a customer their morning bread, or the way she hummed quietly to herself when she was rolling pastry, or the way the bakery had felt fuller and warmer since the day she had walked through the door.
Tom gave himself a mental shake and pushed the thoughts aside.
George was in surgery. Linda was on the road.
This was not the time for such thoughts.
In fact, Tom had no business at all thinking about Lila like that.
It’s because she reminds me so much of Eleanor.
He reasoned. And lately he’d been missing her so much.
But try as he might, the thoughts about Lila did not go all the way away. Instead they lingered like shadows at the back of his mind.
Tom set the phone down beside him and looked back at the doors that still hadn’t opened.
He thought about Linda then, somewhere out on the long drive up the coast, her grandchildren in the back seat, her whole life packed up behind her.
He worried about her, especially now that her ex-husband was getting remarried in three months’ time and had managed to entangle Linda in the mess he’d made of his finances.
Anger sparked through him at the thought of what that man had done.
He ran a shaky hand through his hair. Eleanor had always had her reservations about Richard Thompson, Linda’s ex. But she’d never said anything to her daughter and had always been warm and welcoming to the man. “He is, after all, the father of my grandson.” Eleanor would say.
Tom sighed and leaned back, folding his arms over his chest, then stretched out his long legs.
His thoughts went to Michael, who Linda said was coming too, though he had a few things to clear at the office first and would be a few days behind her with his granddaughter Lily.
Tom smiled as he pictured his family, whom he was so grateful for.
He couldn’t have children. Eleanor and her kids had welcomed him into their family and never once treated him like an outsider or a wicked stepfather.
Although they called him Tom, he was always introduced as their father. A title he wore proudly.
Tom blew out a breath as his mind switched to the hotel.
It was not in good shape and hadn’t been for a good few years.
There was peeling paint on the second-floor balcony railing.
The third-floor hallway carpet had needed replacing for at least two seasons.
The soft, tired quality of the front lobby in late afternoon light, when the sun came in through the big windows and showed every place the upholstery had thinned.
Tom thought about the conversations he and Maggie had tried to have with George over the past two years.
The careful, gentle conversations that had always ended the same way, with George shaking his head and telling them everything was just fine and would they please stop fussing.
Tom had let it go each time because George was the kind of man whose pride was his last good blanket, and Tom had not known how to take that from him.
Tom hoped, very quietly, that Linda’s arrival would be the thing that finally cracked that wall open.
He didn’t want to be glad for any reason related to George’s fall.
But if there was a small mercy hiding somewhere in this terrible afternoon, it was that the family was finally going to be in one place long enough to see what George had been hiding.
Tom looked down at the phone in his hand as it buzzed.
Linda’s name flashed on the screen, and Tom felt something in his chest loosen just a little.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Tom answered.
“Hello, Tom,” Linda greeted. “We’ve just pulled over for a bathroom break. I swear, Sophie has a bladder the size of a pea.” She sighed before asking, “Is there any news about Uncle George yet?”
“Nothing yet,” Tom told her, keeping his own voice steady for her sake. “He’s still in surgery. The doctor is one of the best they have. The nurse just came through and told me everything is going the way it should. They’re being thorough, that’s why it’s taking so long.”
“Thorough is good,” Linda said, and Tom could hear her trying to make herself believe it. “Unless it’s not and …”
“It is good,” Tom assured her gently, talking her down from her spiral of worry. “Where are you, sweetheart?”
“We’re just past Fort Myers,” Linda told him. “I’d guess about forty-five minutes out from the hospital. Maybe a little less if the traffic stays kind.”
“Drive carefully,” Tom said. “No need to rush. I’m here, and Maggie will be here as soon as she’s closed the boutique. So take it easy on the road.”
“I am, Tom. I promise,” Linda assured him. “Besides, I have very precious cargo with me, so I’m extra careful out here.”
In the background, Tom could hear the children’s small, anxious voices.
“Is Uncle George going to be okay, Gran?” Sophia asked from somewhere in the back seat. “Tell Grandpa we said hi.”
“Tell him we love him,” Jake added. “Tell him to give Uncle George a big hug from us when he wakes up.”
Tom smiled, the first real smile that had crossed his face since Rosa’s call.
“Tell those great-grandbabies of mine that I heard them loud and clear,” Tom told Linda, “and that I will give Uncle George a hug from each of them the moment he is awake enough to receive one.”
“He says he heard you,” Linda relayed to the back seat, and Tom heard a small chorus of relief.
“Linda,” Tom said, “how are you holding up?”
There was a small pause.
“I’m all right, Tom,” Linda said. “I’d be more all right if I were already there. The drive feels longer than usual this time.”
“I know it does,” Tom said. “But you’ll be here soon. And until then, I’m sitting right where I am, and I’m not going to move from this waiting room until you come through those doors.”
“Thank you, Tom.” Linda’s voice caught, just slightly. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“Of course, sweetheart. George is my family too,” Tom told her quietly. “Now you concentrate on the road. I’ll see you soon.”
“I’ll see you soon, Tom,” Linda said and ended the call.
Tom set the phone back down, and this time he let himself sit back fully against the chair. The plastic dug into his back the way it had been digging in all afternoon, and he found that he no longer minded.
The double doors at the end of the waiting room remained closed.
The young couple by the window was still holding hands.
The older gentleman with the crossword had set his pen down and was leaning back with his eyes closed.
The nurse with the clipboard had not come through again.
Outside, the gold light over the parking lot had begun to lengthen toward evening.
Tom watched the doors and waited. He was alone in the room, and yet he was not alone in the way he had been at the start of the afternoon.
Linda was on her way. Maggie was on her way.
Michael would come as soon as he could. Lila was holding the bakery for him.
Rosa was sitting upstairs in the penthouse with Buddy, keeping watch over an empty home until somebody from the family came back to fill it.
The Heart family, scattered across years and miles and decades of quiet drift, was gathering itself back into one place.
Tom closed his eyes for a moment and let that feeling settle through him. Whatever the surgeon walked through those doors to tell him, none of them were going to face it alone. Not George. Not Linda. Not Tom himself.
He was still sitting that way, eyes closed, hands resting loosely on his knees, when the cold paper cup on the side table caught the last of the afternoon light through the window and threw a small, soft pattern across the linoleum floor at his feet.
He didn’t see it. But he felt, somehow, the slow and certain warmth of Sweet Blossom Bay reaching him even here, even in this fluorescent-lit room three miles from the water.
Its comforting lull drew him on a whispered promise that his family was coming home and everything was going to be okay.
He just knew, deep in his heart, that something about this summer was about to change their lives forever.