Cupid's Christmas (Serendipity #3)(45)

“What exactly did your mom say in her last message?”

Ray replayed the message on the answering machine.

“She says she’s alright,” Traci said trying to comfort him. “Maybe she just went in for something simple like cosmetic surgery—”

“Mom?”

Traci had to admit such a thing was highly unlikely. She pressed her cheek to Ray’s chest. “Try not to worry, honey. We’ll go visit Mom first thing in the morning.”

That night Ray tossed and twisted, uncomfortable and ill at ease no matter which way he turned. The two times he did doze off, he dreamt of his father and woke feeling another shade guiltier. When the clock ticked off four-thirty, he mumbled, “If Mom is okay I’m gonna make it up to her, I swear I will.” Since Traci was sound asleep, his were the only human ears that heard the promise.

Of course I heard it, but whether or not I believed it is debatable. I’ve heard many such promises before but humans have a way of forgetting vows. They pray please give me this or that and I’ll never ask for another thing—but unfortunately a day or two after they get what they want, they move on to wanting something else. Not all humans are this way, but I always feel a sense of sadness when I come across one who is.





Although visiting hours did not start until ten Ray and Traci circumvented the registration desk and snuck upstairs at eight-thirty. They waited until the nurses at the third floor desk were busy then quietly slipped down the hall and into Room 317.

Eleanor was eating her breakfast when they walked in. “Ray,” she gasped, “How did you—” the shock of seeing him caused a bite of toast with raspberry jam to get stuck in her throat and it took a good ten seconds for her to cough it up.

He began talking before she could say anything more. “I’m so sorry, Mom,” he said. “I know I’ve behaved like a selfish ass, but I’m going to be better. Don’t you worry about a thing, just get well and get out of—”

Once Eleanor had dislodged the toast, she said, “There’s nothing wrong with me, Lindsay’s the one—”

Ray’s expression changed almost instantly. “I should have known,” he snapped. “It’s always about them! John and Lindsay, Lindsay and John! I’m your son, but do you care about me? No! Because of them, you’ve turned your back on your own family!”

“I’ve done no such thing!” Eleanor said, and if you’d bothered to call me back—”

“Call you back—why? So you can tell me about how wonderful—”

“No, so I could tell you that John wants me to give you the house!” Eleanor replied angrily. “You claim the only reason he wants to marry me is to get hold of the few things I own—well, he’s trying to show you that’s not true.”

“I don’t want the house,” Ray grumbled.

“No I suppose you don’t,” Eleanor sighed. “What you want is to go around blaming other people for your unhappiness. John and Lindsay aren’t the ones making you unhappy—you’re doing that to yourself.”

“How am I supposed to feel? If it weren’t for her,” He gave a nod toward Lindsay’s bed, “you wouldn’t be in this hospital. You’d be—”

Eleanor saw a tiny window of opportunity and seized it, “I’d be dead,” she said. “That’s where I’d be. Lindsay’s the one who saved my life.”

Lindsay heard what was said and turned to Eleanor with a look of surprise.

Eleanor spotted the look and rolled over it before Lindsay could voice an objection, “Don’t look so surprised,” she said, “I know I told you that I wasn’t going to tell Ray, but this is something he needs to know.”

Ray stammered, “You mean she…?”

“Yes, she risked her own life to save me. That’s how her leg got broken!” Eleanor could easily enough justify her lie by thinking of it as simply role reversal. “Do you think you would you do the same?” she asked Ray.

“Of course I would,” he answered.

“Of course you would? I doubt that, especially since you’re too busy to even return a telephone call.”

“I said I was sorry. But—”

“There are no buts in life, you either do or you don’t. No moment ever comes around a second time. You have one chance to use each moment, you can use it to love and be happy or you can use it to be angry and hateful. I’m choosing to love and be happy.” She hesitated and looked square into his face, a face that looked exactly like his daddy’s. “And I’m hoping that you can find it in your heart to do the same thing.”

“I will,” Ray said reluctantly. “But it’s not easy to see my mother being somebody else’s—”

“Do you see yourself as someday being a father?”

“Well of course I do.”

“Funny, because I see you as my son—when you become a father, does that mean you’ll no longer be my son?”

“No,” he shook his head sheepishly, “but that’s different.”

“It’s not so different,” Eleanor said, “I’ve been a daughter, a wife, a mother and hopefully one of these days I’ll be a grandmother.”