Alison Roberts - Winning His Heart

It wasn’t safe for his mother to be here anymore.

He would look at options for her today. He was aware of feeling that there was no time to lose.

He would look after it and leave here. For good, this time.

David knocked on the door, and this time it was opened by a new aide, who must have arrived to help the live-in with morning chores. She looked at him with an expression as bewildered as his mother’s.

“It’s a long story,” he said and moved by the aide.

His mother was in the kitchen, toying with her breakfast, an unappetizing-looking lump of porridge that had been cooked in the microwave. At one time David had hired a cook, but his mother had become so querulous and suspicious of everyone that staff did not stay no matter what he offered to pay them. Then there had been the issue of her sneaking down in the night and turning on the stove burners.

But this morning his mother was dressed, and everything matched and was done up correctly and her hair was combed so he knew she’d had help. The thorn scratches on her arms had been freshly treated with ointment but were a reminder of what he needed to do.

He left the house as soon as he had showered and put on a fresh shirt and shorts from a suitcase he did not bother to unpack. He went downtown and had breakfast. His mother, obviously, had no internet, and for many years he hadn’t stayed long enough to miss it. Now, after a frustrating phone call, he found out it would take weeks to get it hooked up.

He drove down to the beach, still quiet in the morning, and began to make phone calls.

The first was to his assistant, Jane, a middle-aged girl Friday worth her weight in gold.

With her he caught up on some business transactions and gave instructions for putting out a few minor fires. Then, aware of feeling a deep sadness, he told Jane what he needed her to research. A care home, probably private, that specialized in people with dementia.

“See if you can send me some virtual tours,” he said, stripping the emotion from his own voice when she sounded concerned. Then, as an afterthought, maybe to try and banish what he was setting in motion, he said, “And see what you can find out about an ice cream parlor for sale here in Blossom Valley. It’s called More-moo.”

He was aware, as he put away his phone, that his heart was beating too fast, and not from asking his assistant to find out about the ice cream parlor.

From betraying his mother’s trust.

Not that she trusted me, he reminded himself, attempting wryness. But it fell flat inside his own heart and left the most enormous feeling of pain he’d ever felt.

Unless you counted the time he’d witnessed Kayla say I do to the wrong man.

“I hate coming home,” he muttered to himself. He stepped out of the car and gazed out at the familiar water.

And suddenly he didn’t hate coming home quite so much. The water. It had always been his solace.

After a moment he locked the phone in the car and went down to the beach. He took off his shirt and left it in the sand. The shorts would dry quickly enough. He dove into the cool, clear water of the bay and struck out across it.

An hour and a half later he crawled from the water, exhausted and so cold he was numb. And yet, still, he could not bring himself to go home.

No point without a Wi-Fi connection, anyway, he told himself. He drove downtown, bought some dry shorts and looked for a restaurant that offered internet.

It happened to be More-moo, and David decided he could check out some of the more obvious parts of their operation himself.

He managed to conduct business from there for most of the day. Jane sent him several links to places with euphemistic names like Shady Oak and Sunset Court, which he could not bring himself to open. She sent him the financials for More-moo, which he felt guilty looking at, with that sweet grandmotherly type telling him, No, no, you’re no bother at all, honey. And keeping his coffee cup filled to the brim.

Whatever reason they were selling, it wasn’t their service, their cleanliness or their coffee. All three were excellent.

He brought dinner home for his mother, rather than face the smells of some kind of liver and broccoli puree coming out of the microwave.

She had no idea who he was.

That night, it seemed so easy just to go and drag the cushions back off the deck furniture and lie again, under the stars, protecting the back exit from his mother’s escape.

He was aware of a light going on in Kayla’s house, and then of it going off again. He both wanted to go see her and wanted to avoid her.

He hadn’t had a single call about the dog, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t his failure keeping him away.

It felt like the compassion in her eyes could break him wide open.

And if that happened? How would he put himself back together again? How?

Tomorrow he was going to force himself to look at some of the websites for care homes. Tomorrow he was going to force himself to call some of the numbers Jane had supplied him with.

Tonight he was going to sleep under the stars, and somehow wish that he were overreacting. That when he went in the house tomorrow he would see his mother was better, and that it was not necessary to make a decision at all.

But in the morning, after he’d showered and shaved and dressed, he went into a kitchen that smelled sour, and his mother had that look on her face.

She looked up from her bowl of porridge—surely at Shady Oak they would manage something more appetizing—and glared at him.

David braced himself. She held up a sweater she’d been holding on her lap, stroking it as though it were a cat.

“Where did this come from, young man?”

“I’m sure it’s yours, Mom.”

“It’s not!” she said triumphantly. “It belongs to Kayla McIntosh.”

He tried not to look too surprised that she remembered Kayla’s name. It had been a long time since she had remembered his. Even if it was Kayla’s maiden name, it made him wonder if he was being too hasty. Maybe no decisions had to be made today.

“You go give it back to her. Right now! I won’t have your ill-gotten gains in this house, young man.”

He took the sweater. Of course he didn’t have to go give it to Kayla—it probably wasn’t even hers. But he caught a faint scent overriding the terrible scents that had become the reality of his mother’s home.

The sweater smelled of freshness and lemons, and he realized Kayla must have given it to his mother the other night when she had found her in the roses.

Was it the scent of Kayla that made him not pay enough attention? Or was it just that a man couldn’t be on red alert around his own mother all the time?

The porridge bowl whistled by his ear and crashed against the wall behind him. All the dishes were plastic now, but the porridge dripped down the wall.

“Mrs. Blaze!” the attendant said, aghast. The look she shot David was loaded with unwanted sympathy.

He cleared his throat against the lump that had risen in it, that felt as if it was going to choke him.

He said to the caregiver, his voice level, “When I was a little boy, my mother took the garden hose and flooded the backyard in the winter so I could skate. She made lemonade for my stand, and helped me with the sign, and didn’t say a word that I sold five bucks worth of lemonade for two dollars. She never missed a single swim meet when I was on the swim team, and they must have numbered in the hundreds.

“She stayed up all night and held me the night my father died, worried about my grief when her own must have been unbearable. She lent me the money to buy my first car, even though she had been putting away a little bit of money every week trying to get a new stove.

“My mother was the most amazing person you could ever meet. She was funny and kind and smart. At the same time, she was dignified and courageous.