Deliciously Obedient (16 page)

Hurt
took over her shock. “No explanations. You’re your own person and
can do whatever you please. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy by
looking at your phone,” she said in a robotic, flat voice. Turning
away, she walked as far as she could, blinded by the nine thousand
emotions passing through her like a flock of pissed-off hummingbirds.

“
Hold
on, Lydia! It’s not what you think.”

“
It’s
never what I think. It’s always worse.”

“
Here.”
He shoved the phone in her hand. “I wasn’t hiding anything from
you. Look through every text I’ve had for the past…whatever. I’m
an open book.”

That
made her stop. She pulled her neck back in disbelief and skepticism.
“You don’t have to appease me.”

“
I
want to appease you.” He frowned and shook his head. “Besides,
appease
is the wrong word. I was going to show you the texts.
Mike’s alive and fine. Terse, but fine.”

Scanning
the messages, she got what Jeremy meant. “Closer than you think.”
What did that mean. Was Krysta right? Was Mike actually here?

Her
turn to come clean. Just as she opened her mouth to tell Jeremy about
Krysta’s suspicions, Miles pulled up in his red golf cart, driving
so fast Lydia wasn’t sure he’d stop before hitting them. Miles
never sped. Never.

Something
was
wrong
.

Gravel
spat at them as Miles slammed on the brakes.

“
I
need help. Get in.”

She
and Jeremy obeyed on instinct, Miles’ tone of voice giving no
wiggle room. “What happened?”

“
It’s
Grandma. She had a heart attack.”

Lydia
had never seen Sandy so scared. Fear was not an emotion Lydia
attached to her mother. Concern—sure. Distress—rarely. Worry—of
course. But unadulterated fear carved a frightening sculpture into
Sandy’s features with a heavy hand that Lydia didn’t like.

Pete
was back at the campground along with Miles, doing what they could to
keep the talent show going. Dan and Adam were trapped in Dallas, some
giant hurricane-like storm closing down airports. They’d called and
confirmed they were safe and out of the storm’s path, but stuck in
FAA shutdown hell. With hundreds of guests arriving in the next
twenty-four hours, they couldn’t just cancel the talent show.
Various friends in the area began offering to be an extra set of
hands as word spread that Lydia and Sandy had left the campground.

Here
at the hospital in Boston, in the intensive care unit, Madge was
hooked up to so many tubes, monitors beeping at erratic intervals,
measuring processes that kept the heart of who she was alive in a
body that made Lydia weep when she saw it. Grandma didn’t get sick.
It was family lore. At eighty-four she was the Energizer Bunny. Madge
just kept going and going, from mouth to feet.

This
time, though, it was the in-between that wasn’t working right.

“
A
patron at the restaurant where she works said she just grabbed the
cash register and told her to call 911. By the time the ambulance
arrived, she was unconscious. Another patron performed CPR for about
a minute before the ambulance crew took over. She’s very lucky the
restaurant is so close to the hospital. The blockage…” As the
doctor explained the details to Sandy, Lydia could only look at
Madge, taking in all the medical technology that covered her helpless
body, her eyes closed, a tube running in her mouth, breathing for
her.

If
Lydia could have given her heart to her grandmother, she would.

Grandma
couldn’t die. Crazy Madge was a living legend and Lydia had left
for Iceland assuming that Grandma would just be there when she got
back. Because Madge was a living legend, Lydia had always thought of
her as timeless. Immortal.

Another
illusion shattered.

Yet
another doctor rolled in, this one wearing scrubs and a deeply
concerned look on his face, carefully ushering an old man into the
room, speaking to him in a low, soothing tone of voice.

“
Ed!”
Sandy said, walking over and giving him a huge hug. Lydia took a
moment to realize it was her grandma’s boyfriend, Ed Derjian, and
the doctor with him must be his grandson, Alex. Madge had nattered on
and on about the
wunderkind
, and how Lydia should hook up with
him, but fate had never intervened.

Meeting
him under these circumstances was less than ideal. Besides, according
to Madge’s most recent report, the young doctor was snatched up by
a weird, hyper woman whose best friends were in some sort of
threesome arrangement.

Nothing
wrong with that.

“
Alex
Derjian,” he said, introducing himself to Sandy, his arm strong and
peppered with dark hair, the smile restrained and sympathetic. The
wide, friendly face with kind chocolate eyes—like Ed’s—made her
do a double take. Whomever he was dating was lucky. Very lucky.

He
turned back to Ed, who was now talking with Sandy in hushed tones,
Ed’s shoulders shaking slightly as Sandy patted his arm softly.
Whatever they were telling him just about broke Lydia’s heart.

“
My
Madge,” Ed said, his voice shaking. Alex led him to her side and
Ed’s hand tentatively touched Madge’s, daunted by the tubes
running out of her, wide patches of tape covering the thick veins of
the back of her hand.

“
She
looks so tiny. So frail,” he rasped. Tenderly touching three
fingers, he held them as the machine hissed and groaned, pumping air
into her grandma’s lungs.

“
Madge
is sedated, Grandpa. She can’t talk or react, but you can say
whatever you want and some part of her will know you’re here and
that you love her,” Alex said.

That
did it. Sandy’s eyes filled with tears as she gripped Lydia’s
hand, and Lydia’s throat swelled with emotion.

“
She’ll
pull out of this, right, Alex? My Madge is so strong.” Ed’s plea
made Lydia’s chest tighten, and she saw Alex react with as measured
and professional a response as he could, while trying to balance his
own emotions.

Sandy’s
shoulders shook with great sobs that would soon turn to a keening,
Lydia feared, setting the room into chaos. Turning her mother toward
the door, she and Alex shared a surprisingly intimate look, one of
comfort and knowing, one she would remember years later. It was
exactly what she needed, his eyes shifting from hers to Sandy, then
nodding, a confirmation that she was doing the right thing, an
acknowledgment that this was so, so hard, and a recognition of her
own humanity.

Somehow
he conveyed all that in just one look.

“
She
can’t die,” Sandy whispered fiercely. “Not before Karen gets
here.”

Lydia’s
aunt Karen lived in Wisconsin, a professor of biology at a small
college. Sandy was the eldest of the two sisters and Karen came back
every few years.

“
When
is she arriving, Mom?”

“
Sometime
tonight. She said she was arranging coverage for her classes and
going straight to Chicago to catch a direct flight.” Lydia made a
mental note to make sure someone picked Karen up.

Her
mom’s only sibling, Karen was a force of nature. Sandy and Pete had
taken the brood to Wisconsin only once, a crazy two-week trip that
Lydia remembered fondly for the day-long adventure in Niagara Falls.
Luke had nearly fallen over into the spray and they’d all gotten
food poisoning from some cheap diner Pete had insisted on trying. The
road trip was known as “The Puke Vacation,” and Aunt Karen had
been the one to travel to them after that.

“
Is
it that bad? What did the doctor say?”

“
The
cardiologist says that she has an eighty-five percent blockage in one
artery, and they’re looking at the others to see how pervasive the
damage is. Right now, they think she went no more than ninety seconds
to two minutes without oxygen, but until they lessen the sedation and
get her breathing on her own, we just don’t know.” Sandy’s last
word came out as a sob.

Seeing
her mother like this was killing Lydia. Killing her. Standing in the
hallway, she wrapped her arms around Sandy and just held her, letting
her mom sob in her arms. Jeremy rounded the corner in front of her
and gave them both a look of such sympathy and compassion that she
felt her own tears come again. To see someone so big, so imposing,
have his face crumple like that…

Without
hesitation he marched over to them both and added a third set of arms
to the hug, taking deep breaths and just being there with them. For
the next two minutes they stood in place and felt what they needed to
feel as the world continued on without them.

Which
was exactly what Lydia needed right now.

“
What’s
going on?” Mike asked, approaching Pete and Miles as they struggled
with a tent pole. Tomorrow the talent show would begin, an all-day
extravaganza culminating in the big show under the tent, and as
throngs of men he didn’t know poured in to set up the stage and the
enormous circus tent, the atmosphere was decidedly less celebratory
than the previous day.

“
My
mother-in-law had a heart attack,” Pete said, now looking up as he
and Miles tried to move the heavy cylinder into place. As he jumped
in, Mike’s extra strength made the difference, the three men
grappling with the pole until it was centered and secured.

Madge?
He nearly blurted her name out, then realized what a faux pas that
would be. He had no reason to know her name under the current
circumstances. “I’m so sorry,” was all he could offer.

“
Thank
you. She’s a tough old bat, and I sure as hell hope she pulls
through. I’ll go to Boston on Friday, but in the meantime, Lydia
and Sandy are there with her.”

“
Lydia?”

Miles
gave him a very narrow look. “My sister.”

“
Mike
wouldn’t know her,” Pete said in a calm, hollow voice. “She
just got here a few days ago with her new boyfriend.”

Gut
punch. Her new boyfriend.

“
She
went to Boston with Sandy?”

Both
nodded.

“
That’s
good. Sandy will need the support.”
And so will Lydia.

“
Her
boyfriend, Jeremy, drove them. I didn’t want either of my girls
driving. Not when they’re this emotional.”

“
Is
the prognosis good?”

Their
faces went from grim to horrid. “We don’t know,” Miles said, a
hangdog expression making him look darker than usual. “We’re
waiting to hear.”

“
She’s
in CICU and she’s eighty-four. Madge is a fighter, but…” Pete
let out a ragged breath. “The show must go on,” he said, cracking
a shaky, morbid grin.

“
How
can I help?” Mike asked.

Pete
sized him up. “You already have, man. Let’s just keep going.”