Chapter 54 Love with No Regrets
love with no regrets
Hannah
With the news of Mom’s discharge from the hospital, everyone rallies.
Kristen heads to my place and packs a few bags for me. John and Richard go ahead of us and reconfigure Mom’s living room, bringing her bed to the main space where we can watch the larger television together and she has a view out the oversized front window.
It’s hours later, after I settle Mom in bed for the night, when I discover the fridge full of prepared food. Casserole dishes. Fresh produce, washed and prepped, ready to eat.
“Some guys from the VFW dropped all that off earlier,” Richard says from the kitchen doorway.
I blink, grinning. My Golden Boys.
Richard crosses the tiled floor, rolls up his sleeves, and sets to work unloading the dishwasher.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind. Unless, you’d rather me not be here.” There’s no harshness in his tone, only compassion.
His steady presence these past few weeks hasn’t been lost on me. The days we spent flanking Mom’s bedside in the ICU has me more curious than ever what true feelings lie between them.
If I had to guess…
“No. Stay.”
Bleary eyes crinkle at the corners and he resumes his task. My phone rings from my pocket. I duck into Mom’s bedroom to take Rowan’s call.
The faded outline on the area rug where her bed used to be steals the smile right off me, forcing a fake one in its place. I close the door behind me and drop onto the chair in the corner.
“Hey,” I answer, trying to sound upbeat.
“Hi, baby.”
My lids drift closed as I tip my head back on the seat.
His voice is soft, like he’s saved the last few moments of his day just for me.
It’s two hours ahead in Charlotte. I imagine him there, after a long day of physical therapy for Tess, her first session back since their trip to Colorado.
I see him preparing dinner for the two of them, cleaning the kitchen, maybe watching a show together while sipping hot cocoa.
And now, after the whole house is shut down for the night, him hidden under his covers in the dark, whispering softly into the phone.
An ache unfurls in my chest. “I love it when you call me that.”
“I know you do.” His voice smiles, and it’s enough to make my lips tip a little.
“How was therapy today?”
His nails scraping over his jaw comes through the line. I bet his full beard has grown back in by now. “Tough, but she did alright, all things considered.”
I shift the call to speaker as I get ready for bed.
While I put on my pajamas and brush my teeth, he tells me about the consult next week with one of Tess’ doctors, the surgery on the horizon, and what a therapy recovery schedule might look like before she’d be deemed ready for another surgery, if her medical team determines she needs one at all. Fingers crossed she won’t.
Months, and then some, at best, over a year at worst when it’s all said and done. It hits me like a gut punch—I’m so bone tired I can barely stand. None of this is new information, we talked about it several times while he was here.
Except, he’s not here anymore. He’s all the way over there, and I’m here, and the divide has never felt larger.
“Hannah?”
My lungs pull on a long inhale, and I realize I haven’t said anything in a while. “I’m here, sorry. Just tired.” I dip my gaze to my screen on the bathroom counter.
7:45. The sun is still up. But Mom’s been asleep for hours. And…this is my life right now.
Rowan breathes quietly into the receiver for long seconds. I close my eyes against the near sensation of the soft puff of air along my temple, if only he were here holding me.
I start to cry.
“Hannah.”
“Sorry.” I sniff, switch off speaker mode and put the phone to my ear. “I’m fine, I swear.”
“Baby.” His voice fades on the endearment, a plea. “What’s going on?” I shake my head, irrationally aware he can’t see me. “Is it your mom?”
A sob breaks free. I shut myself inside Mom’s en suite so Richard won’t hear me before sliding down the wall to the bathroom floor.
Rowan murmurs a curse. This is what I’ve tried so hard to avoid—him worried about me when he’s got a full plate back home.
“It’s nothing,” I hiccup. “Nothing I haven’t been preparing for.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” I pause to catch my breath, wipe my face with the back of my hand. The words are nearly unbearable to say out loud. “It’s almost the end.”
He heaves a long sigh. I cry into the phone for fifteen minutes, incapable of piecing together a coherent thought. But he stays—listens, lets me grieve in the silence of this bathroom, persuades my emotions to calm with whispered encouragement and promises.
“Sshhh, let it out.”
“You’re strong like her.”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
“I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
“Give her a hug for me.”
“I miss you so much.”
When we hang up sometime later, I’ve collected myself enough to head back to the living room.
Mom’s still asleep. I spend a few moments perched on the edge of the bed watching the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Her lips look chapped so I grab one of my chapstick tubes from the end table and apply a coat. She doesn’t stir.
I spot Richard sipping coffee at the kitchen table. Without a word, I pour myself a cup and settle in across from him.
“Thank you for being here,” I say sincerely.
He grins over the rim of his mug. “Thank you for allowing me to be. If I’m ever overstepping please feel free to let me know.”
I nod, grateful for his thoughtfulness.
As though our minds are aligned, our gazes slide to Mom at the same time. Seconds tick by before we turn back, eyes locking briefly over long pulls of coffee.
“You know, when she told me you two were seeing each other I was a little shocked,” I confess. He smiles. “It’d been a while since she brought a guy around.”
Mom may have made my happiness her full-time job, but she’s never stopped chasing her own.
I’ve watched her do it my whole life. She’s always been shameless in telling me about her dating escapades, but she’s rarely offered specifics on who or when.
For years I wondered if it was because she was only seeing guys casually.
She was a seize-the-day kind of woman, after all.
But as I got older, I realized it was to protect me.
To never allow a revolving door of men into her daughter’s life.
Yet, Richard’s here. And he’s here because Mom wants him here. I can’t ignore the significance of that no matter how much I might want to.
“Will you tell me about how you guys started dating?”
A smile spreads over his face, eyes beaming. My heart swells as he tells their story.
They ran into each other six months ago at a Call Back to the Classics matinee showing of Sabrina. I grin fondly—she’s always said the original is better than the remake. I’ve never told her I prefer Harrison Ford over Humphrey Bogart. Pretty sure she’d disown me.
He laughs, recounting the theater was empty save for the two of them, but my mother took the seat right next to him. No invitation, no “may I sit here?” Richard recognized her immediately, saying it was the first time he’d been attracted to another woman since his wife passed three years prior.
They spent more time talking than watching the movie.
I’ve done the math in my head—this was a month after her diagnosis. “How long before she told you about the cancer?”
Another sip of coffee. “I walked her to her car after. She told me then.” He pauses, lips twitching. “Then I asked her out.”
I cock my head and he reads the question on my mind.
His gaze swivels to Mom. “Your mom’s the kind of person you just wanna be around. Logic, self-preservation, expiration dates—none if it seems to matter when it comes to her.” A weight lands heavy in my chest as he sets his attention back on me. “I don’t regret it, Hannah.”
“Have you told her how you feel?” If the man thinks I can’t see the writing on the wall, he’s a fool. He loves her.
Arms folded across his chest, he studies me, jaw ticking. I hold his stare. “Every day for the past three months.”
He reaches for his mug again, and there’s a pain in his expression I can’t shake. “I’m guessing she hasn’t said it back.”
Richard swallows long but I don’t let his silence win. I wait in the quiet until he admits, “No. But I still don’t regret it.”
My mind circles through everything I know about their relationship.
He’s the first man she’s told me about in years, much less openly dated in front of me.
Through her most certain fate and his daily confessions of love, she’s continued to see him.
And for reasons far too familiar, and that I’m too emotionally spent to confront, she hasn’t said it back.
I know Mom only has a limited number of words left. Before tonight, I selfishly wanted to keep them all for myself. But now? Now I’d happily give three of them up.