Unexpected Arrivals(39)
“Hey, Chelsea?” He stopped me from leaving to meet my ride.
“Yeah?” When I turned back, his features had softened, and whatever wall he’d had up disappeared.
“I have business to deal with in town for a couple days. Maybe we could get coffee or breakfast one day before I leave.” Suddenly shy, he shrugged. “As friends.” His brows rose, and his hand landed in his hair. It looked painful to see him pulling on it with nervous apprehension.
I giggled at the vulnerability of a man who stood head and shoulders above most, had a physique many males would kill for, and who’d exuded confidence from the instant I’d laid eyes on him until this very instant. “I’d like that.”
He had no idea the olive branch he’d offered me. It was unexpected, yet certainly welcome. I looked forward to calling James Carpenter a friend.
***
“How are you holding up, honey?” Dottie handed me a cup of coffee and took a seat next to me on the deck.
Staring out at the horizon, I watched the sky color itself in a rainbow of oranges and pinks. Life in Geneva Key was different than Chicago, not better or worse. “Some days are better than others.” My gaze shifted from the artwork on the horizon to the woman I’d known and loved my entire life. “It scares me to think I’m going to lose her, and that if I don’t remember her, there won’t be anyone around to share with the world how amazing she was.”
Dottie patted my leg just like my mother would have done, and I wondered if she’d picked up the habit watching her over the years, or if she’d always been nurturing. “I think she’ll always be in your heart. And as long as she’s there, her memory will survive. Your mother has touched the lives of more people than you could ever imagine.”
“My entire life, I knew this day would come. She never hid from me what the disease would eventually do to her body and her mind. I just thought I had more time. And the older I got, the younger she seemed, so it didn’t dawn on me that she was losing the fight.”
“Chelsea, you’re young. Mortality shouldn’t be on the mind of a girl your age. Don’t regret living—Janie would never want that.”
Dottie was right, my mother never questioned the things she did when I was growing up. It had always been the two of us, and she made every second count. Had I realized then how she tried to ensure she got joy out of every day, I might have paid closer attention and focused on what mattered. In the end, money wouldn’t save her, neither would the best doctors in the world—and she’d known that since she was diagnosed.
“I miss her. The woman I grew up with. Sometimes I still see glimpses, although they’re getting farther apart. It won’t be long until they disappear completely. I miss the sound of her voice and the way she hugged me. Even the elegance of her handwriting. The little things are the biggest reminders of what all I stand to lose.”
There had been a time in the not so distant past that acknowledging my mother was dying brought an onslaught of tears that would leave me in a blubbering mess. I was well versed in how this all worked from diagnosis to the onset of symptoms and through the stages before death. I’d seen it all my life at charity events, and it was my mother’s life’s passion to raise awareness and find a cure. I’d been to countless funerals, hundreds of events, and studied every bit of information I’d been able to find—I should be prepared.
However, as the Huntingtons progressed, I tried to let go of that emotion to focus on making her comfortable and providing the best finale I could to celebrate her journey. It was important to me to bring a smile to her face for as long as I was able, and even now that I neared the point where my mom would lose what little motor function she had remaining and her memory would fail her completely, I wanted her to have joy as long as possible.
Dottie wasn’t a stranger to the thief who stole the woman I loved. She’d faced that same devil in the losses of countless people she and my mom loved and worked with over the years. And I think those experiences brought the wisdom and patience she’d shown me in the last couple of years. She always seemed to know when to talk, when to listen, and when to just offer support with her presence.
My head rolled toward my mom’s best friend who turned to me. Soulful, blue eyes searched my face, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a gentle offering of love. Dottie was a beautiful woman in her mid-seventies, but she’d been exotic and stunning in her youth. I’d seen pictures of her with her late husband and vaguely remembered her arriving at our house when I was a child looking the way she had in the framed memories that scattered the living room we now shared. Dressed to the nines with her makeup flawlessly done, hair tightly wound into a French twist, and heels I’d never be able to walk in—she was the essence of dignity and grace. And even though her hair had lost the rich, chocolate color of her youth, and her skin wasn’t as taut as it had once been—her beauty still radiated class.
“Do you think she’s in pain?” The mere inability to communicate made my mom’s impending death that much harder. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d told me she loved me because I hadn’t known I’d never hear it again. And because I hadn’t paid attention, I’d missed it, and it was one more memory I wouldn’t have.
“Medically speaking? Or just my personal opinion?”