The Parting Gift(24)

“Mrs. Crawford – he’s my father. I’m taking him for a ride. If you have a problem with it, you’re welcome to come along,” he interrupted her, his eyes boring into hers, daring her to object. “But I’m leaving right now. So either get in or get out of my way.”

The effect of his words was made plain in her lack of reply. Instead of speaking, she opened the driver’s side door and clambered into the cab. Scooting in next to Blaine’s father, she wrapped her right arm protectively around the sick man and examined his face.

“Are you all right, Mr. Graham? You don’t have to go. We can tell him you’d rather stay home,” she offered, pleading with him to intervene on his own behalf.

“Mara,” David gasped. “I want to go.”

Mara nodded, patting her patient’s shoulder, then turned back to the man on her left and sighed with resignation, “All right. But this has to be quick.”

Blaine fired up the old truck and drove it rumbling down the snow-covered driveway.



****



When the pickup turned down the familiar road, Mara noticed David perk up in surprise. Blaine must not have told him where they were going either.

On her left, Captain Graham seemed to tense; his breathing became thin and anxious. What she had come to recognize as an endeavor to maintain his composure, flexed in his jaw and whitened his knuckles which twisted around the steering wheel. She wondered what he was thinking.

He was not the same bitter man he had been at his arrival, harboring a lifetime of pain and anger against his father’s reticence and his mother’s abandonment. Had it been only three weeks? Together they had made a break-through in the walls built around his heart. But in the last few days since the kiss, he seemed increasingly distant, avoiding interaction with her. She wasn’t sure if it was the shock of what happened or if he was just consumed with his father’s decline. For her part, she could still feel his lips on hers every time she closed her eyes. And now sitting so close to him, as near to him as she had been in days, her own heart seemed to race within her chest, and her nerves fluttered deep in the pit of her stomach.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. His cloudy gray eyes were intent on the path before him as he pulled cautiously to the side of the road.

Her soul ached for him to hold her one more time, to linger in her arms for a moment. But as soon as the image flashed in her mind, a stab of guilt interrupted the thought, and she averted her gaze in shame. This is about Captain Graham and his father. Not me, she told herself.

On the right, David squinted across the snow-laden field, lined with cold, gray headstones, and seemed to be craning his neck to the left, searching for a specific site. And suddenly Mara knew what they had come here for. Emily. This should be just between them. Why did I insist on coming? She chided herself for the intrusion.

The three of them sat in silence a moment, gazing at the rows upon rows of grave markers. Blaine cut the engine and turned to look at her.

“Listen to me,” he said huskily. His tone drew her full attention to his face. “We have to do this. Just me and Pop. Please.” The last word was barely a whisper, a desperate plea that she trust him to do what was best.

The raw emotion in his voice and in the deep silver well of his eyes swept her breath away, and she couldn’t gather enough air to answer him. She nodded mutely and glanced down at her hands to hide her own tears, which threatened to spill over.

He opened the door, and the heat from his body disappeared with him, leaving her feeling cold and unprotected. Mara traced Blaine’s movements around the front of the truck and to the passenger side door. The hinges creaked with age, as it swung open. He stepped forward, slipped his strong arms under his frail father and lifted him from the seat. “We’ll be a few minutes,” he grunted and kicked the door closed behind him.

Mara could hear the crunch of Blaine’s heavy footsteps marching through the snow toward the barren maple tree overlooking Emily’s resting-place. The sight of the strong, young pilot carrying his dying father across the field knotted Mara’s stomach, and the unexpected sentiment choked her until she conceded and allowed the tears to stream freely down her cheeks.



****



The frosty wind whipped at Blaine’s face as he trudged toward his mother’s grave. It wasn’t far, but his heart sank lower with each subsequent step – not for grief of his mother, but grief for the fact his father was no heavier than an armful of firewood. Gingerly, he set the man on the nearby bench and arranged his blankets around him.

Blaine felt a sudden chill. Everything had happened so fast, he had forgotten to grab his own coat. Rubbing his hands on his own arms briskly to keep warm, he peered at his father who trembled beneath the layers of quilts.

“Are you cold, Pop?” David shook his head. His eyes turned to the headstone. It was layered in drifts of snow. He lifted a tremulous finger toward the grave. Blaine turned and commented, “She’s a bit covered, isn’t she?” Kneeling over the stone, he used his shirt sleeve to brush the snow from the inscription.

His father laid a hand on Blaine’s shoulder and leaned forward to trace the words with his other hand – Beloved Wife. His skeletal fingers caressed the engraving with a tenderness Blaine had never seen in him before. When he glanced at David’s face, he noticed the tears cutting a swarthy path down the pale, gaunt cheeks. Hesitantly, he reached to brush away his father’s tears.