The Heart of the Matter (8 page)

“And where is that?”

“Kids,” he replied. “Friendship. Comfortable old age on a front porch rocker with the ocean at the end of your lawn.”

She bought into the image. “And a light on in the window. And a cat on the sill.”

They fell silent again. From beyond the door they heard vague electronic sounds, the whoosh of pumps and the cozy sound of silverware against crockery.

“So, what happened to the cake?” Jason asked.

Laura frowned in puzzlement. “Pardon me?”

“The carrot cake you were delivering to the boys. On Monday.”

Oh, yes. The fateful carrot cake. She smiled grimly. “Down the garbage disposal.”

“That’s criminal,” he accused.

“I was angry and it was very satisfying,” she admitted with a self-deprecating shrug. “I’ll make them another one.”

“We’re heading for New Hampshire next Monday,” Jason said casually. “That is, if Barry doesn’t think it’ll be a problem for Matt.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounded a little thin, even to her own ears, so she powered up the smile that went with it. “I’ll make it tomorrow, then, so you can enjoy it over the weekend.”

She’d known all along that it couldn’t be any different,
but it now seemed clear that the light in the window and the cat on the sill were out of the picture—at least for her.

“You stay here,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll see if I can track down some coffee.”

When she returned with a full pot of coffee and a stack of magazines, Jason guessed that she didn’t want to talk anymore.

That was fine with him. He no longer knew what to think, much less say. “I’m infatuated with you despite your paranoia, will you come to New Hampshire with us?” somehow didn’t seem like the right thing at the moment. But he didn’t like the thought of two weeks without seeing her—even if it was just from the stage of the church auditorium.

So she had a problem with trust. Who didn’t? It was a world that abused the unwary.

Barry strode into the room about an hour later. “He’ll be good as new in about six weeks, but you’ll have to be sure he stays off of it.”

Jason stood. “Should we forget the New Hampshire trip?”

Barry shook his head. “No, it’d be good for him. You weren’t leaving until Monday, right?”

“Right”

“He’ll be ready to travel by then. We’ll keep him tonight so you won’t have to worry about every little sound he makes. I’ll bring in a cot for you.”

Then he clapped Jason on the shoulder. “Come on. I’ll take you to dinner in the cafeteria. He won’t be awake for a little while yet. Want to come, Laura?”

She shook her head, smiling politely. “Thanks, but I’ve got paperwork to finish before I go home.” She turned to Jason, her expression still glossed with the same formal courtesy. “Have a great vacation. And don’t forget to
keep up the good nutrition and exercise. We don’t want you backsliding. See you in class when you get back.”

And she walked out into the brightly lit hallway.

“Well,” Barry said, watching her leave. “That was disgustingly amicable. I thought you two might have it out while you were in here.”

Jason pushed Barry toward the door. “Have
what
out?”

“Whatever it is that’s turned you into a grump and her into a hermit.”

Jason stopped him from stepping out into the hallway. “Hermit?”

“I found her in her office this afternoon, shades closed, music off, brooding. That was shortly after you bit my head off for asking you how you were.”

“You asked me how the date went,” Jason corrected him.

“Same difference.”

“Hardly. You were snooping.” Jason hooked an arm around his friend’s shoulder and stepped out with him into the hall. “And I was defensive because I don’t know what to tell you. She confuses me.”

Barry frowned at him as though he were dense. “Have you ever met a woman who didn’t? We’re guys. If you understand them, there’s something wrong with you and you end up joining the National Organization of Women.”

Jason turned to him and felt his sense of humor reestablish itself now that he knew his son would be fine and that he still had the weirdest and best friend he’d ever had.

“You’re such a Neanderthal, Barry,” Jason said affectionately. “I can’t believe there are six women vying for your affections at this very moment.”

Barry sighed as though he bore a great burden. “I’d show you how to do it, but first you’d have to sell the kids. And it’ll be hard to unload Matt with a broken leg.”

An hour later Matt opened heavy eyelids and smiled at Jason. “I dreamed I was a Power Ranger,” he said sleepily. “And I flew all over.”

Jason guessed the anesthetic had tapped into his fantasies.

“Where’s Laura?” Matt asked.

Jason opened his mouth to explain that she’d had to go back to work, but a female voice cut him off.

“Right here, sweetie.” Laura appeared over Jason’s shoulder and reached over him to touch the boy’s face. “You were so brave, I had to get you something.”

He tried to move but was still too groggy. His eyes struggled to find her. “What?” he asked in a croak.

She held up a bright yellow dump truck. “The gift shop didn’t have any Power Rangers. Is this okay?”

His eyes brightened and he reached weakly for it. “Cool.”

She let him look it over for a moment, then took it from him and placed it on the bedside table. “We’ll put it here so you can look at it. The nurse will be really mad at me if I let you keep it in bed and you hurt yourself on it.”

“Can I play with it tomorrow?”

Laura turned to Jason.

“No, I get to play with it tomorrow,” Jason teased. “You have to wait.”

Matt smiled, his eyes fluttering closed. “You can play with it tonight while I’m sleeping.”

Jason closed his hand over the small one on the covers. “Thank you. Go back to sleep now.”

Matt complied immediately. Jason walked with Laura to the door. “Thanks,” he said, leaning a shoulder in the doorway as she stepped out into the hall. It was quiet now.

“I promised to be there when he woke up,” she said. Then she grinned thinly. “Don’t wear the truck out before he gets to play with it.”

“I’ll try not to.”

She looked at him another moment and he saw things in her eyes, felt them emanate from her—as though there was more she wanted to say. “Well. Have a nice vacation.”

He didn’t want to say goodbye, either, but as intriguing as this—whatever this was he had going with her—it didn’t seem to be working. So he simply nodded. “We will.”

She turned and walked away.

Jason watched her lab coat billow and flare as she hurried, her slender, indefatigable legs moving gracefully, her low heels clicking on the corridor floor. He felt as though he’d just allowed something important to walk out of his life.

Laura arrived at her office at 5:30 a.m., cleaned out her files, her desk and her supplies closet, then took out her folder on the nutrition seminar she was presenting at the Good Foods Conference in Boston at the end of August.

Usually the preparation required for the yearly event made her life difficult for several weeks before it took place, but this morning she was looking forward to it. She needed it.

She’d spent all night staring at the ceiling, remembering Jason bent over Matt’s bed, smoothing his hair and talking to him. She remembered Matt’s fear-filled eyes brightening when he saw her, his little hand clutching hers.

Those images had been superimposed with the memory of Jason’s cheerful kitchen, the warm light in the family room, slender, witty Adam and sensitive Eric.

She’d finally showered at four, made oatmeal and a poached egg, not because she was hungry but because it would fill time. Then she’d driven to the hospital, determined to focus on what did exist in her life rather than what she wished filled it.

Now she reviewed her handouts before copying them to make sure none was missing.

Her telephone rang.

“Laura Price.” She cradled the phone on her shoulder and shuffled papers.

“Laura, this is Julie.”

Laura felt her spirits lift a little at the sound of a friendly voice. Julie Fuller chaired the Good Foods Conference.

“Hi, Julie!” Laura replied, sitting down to enjoy the conversation. She longed for the distraction of business details. “I’m just getting things together for the conference. How does enrollment look?”

She hoped for an enormous enrollment that would mean many nights assembling information packets, time spent bargaining with suppliers for samples, even some volunteer work helping Julie and her staff with name tags and all the other conference paraphernalia.

“It
was
looking good,” Julie replied. Laura suddenly noticed a grim quality to her voice. “Until the fire on the bottom floor of the conference center last night.”

“What?”

“It started in one of the offices at the rear and spread to the main auditorium that was exhibiting arts and crafts. All that dried stuff, raffia, glue. By the time the fire department
got there, all they could do was save the other floors. Fortunately, no one was hurt.”

Laura groaned, her own concerns supplanted by those for the poor owners of the conference center and the exhibitors who’d lost their wares.

“Then we’ll be finding another location?”

“That’s the plan,” Julie said. “But so far, it’s easier said than done. It looks like we’re going to have to reschedule for October.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. Everywhere else is booked. It’s the earliest date we can get anywhere. Can you save us the second weekend in October?”

Laura looked up at her poster-sized yearly planner and saw that that weekend—like most weekends—was clear.

“Sure.” October. What was she going to do with the rest of August? “Do you need help calling the people who’ve already enrolled?”

“Thanks. We’ve got that covered.”

Of course. “Okay. Keep me posted.”

“Right.”

Laura hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair with a sigh of acceptance. Fine. She’d find things to do; she always did. And they filled the time, they just somehow didn’t…fill her.

She glanced up at the clock. It was just after ten. Jason would be taking Matt home now. She smiled, remembering how pleased Matt had looked with the dump truck, even under the influence of anesthetic.

She briskly bundled up her conference materials and began to put them back in their storage box when her office door flew open. One of the Pediatrics nurses stood in the doorway looking a little harried.

“Can you come with me to Pedes?” she pleaded. “The
little Warfield boy woke. up frightened. He wants ‘Laura!’“

Laura ran around her desk and toward the door. “But his father’s here.”

“Yes, but he’s in the shower in Dr. Driscoll’s office. We sent an orderly to get him. And Dr. Driscoll’s in a consult right now.”

Laura led the way to Pediatrics at a run. She found three nurses in Matt’s room trying to quiet him to no avail. He sat propped up against his pillows, arms clutching his dump truck as he sobbed out his displeasure with his situation.

“Laura!” He shouted her name and reached his arms out for her the moment she cleared the doorway. The nurses backed away for her, looking relieved.

She sat on the edge of the bed and took the weeping child into her arms. “It’s all right, Matt,” she said, unconsciously rocking him, pressing his warm, damp face into her breast. “Your dad was here with you all night long. He’s just taking a shower in Uncle Barry’s office.”

He drew back to look at her accusingly. “When I woke up, I didn’t know anybody. And you said you’d be here!”

“Well, I was here when you woke up from surgery,” she said. “Remember? I gave you the truck.” The scoop of which was digging into her side at that very moment

“Yeah.” He leaned back against her as though he had no intention of moving again. “But you weren’t here just now.”

She hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry.”

“My leg hurts,” he said. “And I want to go home.”

“I know you do, sweetie. Your dad’s going to take you as soon as…”

Hurrying footsteps preceded Jason’s sudden arrival in jeans and a white T-shirt, a cotton pullover still clutched
in his right hand. The orderly who’d apparently gone for him peeled off at the doorway, and the three nurses who’d been trying to comfort Matt now peered in with an interest that did not seem clinical.

“What’s the matter?” Jason demanded.

Laura stood to allow him close to his son, but Matt kept hold of her hand so that when his arm went around his father, so did hers. She felt the warmth and solidity of Jason’s shoulder under her forearm and wrist and tried not to fidget.

“I think he’s all right,” Laura replied. “He just woke up, saw no familiar faces and got upset.”

“Monkey,” Jason said, holding him close. “I sat with you all night and you never moved, then the minute I decide to clean up, you wake up.”

Matt leaned back, a smile brightening his puffy face. “I just screamed for Laura,” he said, obviously proud of the stir he’d created.

Jason straightened to look up into her face. The action brought them very close. He was smilingly apologetic. “Thank you again. I’m sorry you were dragged away from your office.”

“It was no problem,” she said, trying to pull her hand from Matt’s. “Spending time with Matt is always a pleasure.”

Matt was not letting her go.

“I have to go back to my office now, sweetie,” she said. “And you get to go home. You’ll have a ride in a wheelchair out to the parking lot, then you can use your crutches when you get home.”

Those perks of a broken leg didn’t seem to have quite the appeal she’d hoped they would. He turned to his father, wide-eyed and anxious. “I want Laura to come home with us,” he declared.

Jason stared at him a moment, then looked up at Laura, who was as shocked as he was.

“Well…she can’t, Matt,” he said gently but firmly. “She has an important job here, and she has to stay and do it. Aunt Patsy and Nickie are waiting for us at home. They stayed an extra day so they could have dinner with you tonight.”

“Laura could come for dinner,” Matt insisted tenaciously.

“She probably has other plans, Matt.”