Janice Johnson - Someone Like Her

“I could have told you that.”

But he wouldn’t have believed her. They both knew that.

When he didn’t respond, she asked, “Have you made a plan yet?”

He looked back at his mother, watching as her chest rose and fell, the stirring of the covers so subtle he had to watch carefully to see it. “Move her to Seattle. What else can I do?”

As if he’d asked quite seriously, Lucy said, “Leave her here for now. Until Dr. Slater says she can go to a nursing home. And we even have one of those here in Middleton, you know.”

God, he was tempted. Leave her to people who cared. Whose faces she’d recognized if she opened her eyes.

Abdicate.

He shook his head reluctantly. “I don’t have time to be running over here constantly. And it sounds as if the chances are good she won’t be waking up.”

Lucy pinched her lips together. After a long time, she said, “I suppose that’s true.” She gazed at his mother, not him. “How soon will you be taking her?”

“I don’t know. I’ll get my assistant hunting for a place with an open bed.”

Now she did turn a cool look on him. “Won’t you want to check it out yourself?”

“Why do you dislike me?” he surprised himself by asking.

With a flash of alarm in her eyes, she drew back. “What would make you think—”

“Come on. It’s obvious. You think I should have found her. Taken care of her.”

Her chin rose fractionally. “I suppose I do.”

Adrian shoved his hands in his pockets. “I did look for her some years back.” He rotated his shoulders in discomfiture. “I suppose…not that hard. I thought she was dead.”

Her brow crinkled. “Why?”

“Even as a kid, I knew there was something wrong with her. My father claimed she’d gone to a hospital to be treated. Then he told me she’d checked herself out because she didn’t want to get well. I was young enough to believe that if she was alive, she wouldn’t have left me.”

She stared at him, and prompted, “Young enough to believe…? Does that mean, now that you’re an adult, you don’t have any trouble believing she’d ditch you without a second thought?”

God. He felt sick. That rich breakfast wasn’t settling well in his stomach.

“Apparently she did,” he said flatly.

He felt himself reddening as her extraordinary eyes studied him like a bug under a microscope.

She surprised him, though, by sounding gentle. “How old were you?”

His jaw tightened. “Ten.”

“And you never saw her or heard from her again?”

He shook his head.

“How awful,” she murmured, as if to herself. “Your father doesn’t sound like a, um…”

“Warm man?” Irony in his voice, Adrian finished her thought. “No. You could say that.”

“Have you told him…” She nodded toward the bed.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Compassion and an array of other emotions crossed her face, as if the sunlight coming through the window were suddenly dappled with small, fluttering shadows. “Do you have other family? I didn’t think to ask if you had sisters or brothers.”

Adrian shook his head. “Just me. Dad remarried, but as far as I know he and my stepmother never considered having kids.”

She nodded, her gaze softer now, less piercing.

Without knowing why, he kept talking. “His parents are still alive. I’m not close to them.” He hesitated. “My maternal grandmother is alive, too. I haven’t told her yet.”

“Oh! But won’t she be thrilled?”

“I’m not so sure. She might have preferred to think her child was dead. To find out she didn’t care enough to ever call home…” He shrugged.

“That’s not fair! She forgot who she was!”

“But then Maman may feel she failed her in some way.”

“Oh,” Lucy said again. “ Maman? Is that what you call her? Is she French?”

“French Canadian. She lives in Nova Scotia. That’s where I was, with my grandparents, the summer my mother went away.”

“What a sad story.”

Oh, good. He’d gone from being a monster in her eyes to being pitiable. Adrian wasn’t sure he welcomed the change.

When he said nothing, she flushed and rose to her feet. “I really had better go. I don’t do breakfast, but it’s time for me to start lunch.” She hesitated. “If you’d like…”

What was she going to suggest? That she could feed him free of charge like she had his mother?

“Like?” he prodded, when she didn’t finish.

“I was going to say that, after lunch, I could take an hour or two and introduce you to some of the people who knew your mother. They could tell you something about her life.”

“Your sister started to.”

He felt weirdly uncomfortable with the idea. But if his mother died without ever coming out of the coma, this might be the only way he’d ever find out who she’d become. Perhaps she’d even given someone a clue as to where she’d been in the years before she came to Middleton. He thought his grandmother, at least, would want to know as much as he could find out.

After a minute he nodded and said formally, “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

Lucy smiled, lighting her pale, serious face, making her suddenly, startlingly beautiful in a way unfamiliar to him. Adrian’s chest constricted.

He thought he took a step toward her, searching her eyes the way she often did his. Her pupils dilated as she stared back at him, her smile dying. He felt cruel when wariness replaced it.

She inched around him as if afraid to take her gaze from him, then backed toward the door. “I’ll, um, see you later then? Say, two o’clock?”

“I’ll come and eat lunch first.” He paused. “Your soup was amazing.”

The tiniest of smiles curved her lips again. “Wait until you taste my basil mushroom tomato soup.”

His own mouth crooked up. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Well, then…” She backed into the door frame and gave an involuntarily “umph” before she flushed in embarrassment, cast him one more alarmed look and fled.

He stood there by the curtain, the soft beep of the machines that monitored his mother’s life signs in his ears, and wondered what in hell had just happened.

THE CAFé WAS BUSY, which made it even more ridiculous that Lucy’s heart insisted on skipping a beat every time the door opened and a customer entered. Was she excited at the prospect of spending more time with Adrian? Nervous about it? She didn’t even know, but she didn’t like reacting so strongly for no good reason at all.

For goodness’ sake, he was going to eat lunch in the café! He’d eaten here last night. She planned to introduce him to a few people. He’d probably freeze her out in between stops. He was good at that.

Reason didn’t seem to be helping. Something had changed between them this morning. He’d let her see the cracks in his facade of invulnerability. Well, he might not have chosen to show them, but they were there. He did hurt. This wasn’t easy for him.

And he’d looked at her. Really looked, and maybe even liked what he’d seen. For just a moment, she’d seen something on his face that had stolen her breath and panicked her.

Common sense and reason did work to stifle any sense of expectation that he was suddenly, madly attracted to her. Okay, there might have been a brief flicker. But Lucy hated to think how she compared to the women he usually dated.

Her hands froze in the act of tossing salad in a huge bowl.

Dated? He could conceivably be married. When she researched him on the Internet before going over to Seattle that day, she didn’t see anything to make her think he was, and he certainly hadn’t mentioned a wife, as in, My wife will visit any nursing homes my assistant finds, which you’d think would be natural. But he was closemouthed enough that it was still possible.