Stay Tuned

Chapter 54

The steam rose from our coffee cups as Chris and I sat on the porch early Saturday and watched the street come alive with sounds and light. Birds chirped and played on the lawn. I should have been tired. Exhausted. I was wide-awake.

Chris seemed lost in his own thoughts. He stood and walked over to the sidewalk to pick up the Wall Street Journal and Telegraph. But when he came back, instead of opening the Journal and getting buried in the day’s news, he set both down next to his feet.

All at once, the tears came. Hot and wet, coursing down my cheeks in rivulets. I needed a bucket to catch them all. Chris knelt down next to my chair, wiping away the wetness from my face with both hands. He let me cry it out.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said finally. “What can I do to make it better?”

I sniffled and tried to stop sobbing. “You can’t do anything,” I replied. “Everything’s a mess. My mother doesn’t know me. You’ve got to decide about your work. I have to talk to Drew about[lr7] my job at the station.” I stopped.

Chris stood and pulled his chair closer to mine. He took my hand in his and squeezed it. “It is too much for any one person to handle. But we can do it. Together.”

Something in the sound of his voice made me want to believe him. He put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands to look at me straight on.

“First of all, I’ll figure something out with work. I don’t want you to worry.”

“That’s a little difficult…”

“I know. I need to talk to a lawyer, discuss options. Figure out where to go next.”

“All right.” That made sense. He had a next step.

“Second, your mother gave everyone a big scare,” Chris said. “That always makes things worse. Maybe there’s a new medication the doctors haven’t tried, or there’s a way she can spend some more time with us here at the house. Maybe that would help.”

“Maybe.” All I could think was that I was going to lose her. And now, especially since I’d found her notebook, her stories about us, I wanted to make things right. I wanted to talk. There were things I needed to say to Mother. Now, I might not get a chance.

Chris patted my arm. “Let’s see what the x-rays show. And you said she has a check-up this week. That’ll help us decide what to do.”

“Okay.”

We rocked on the swing and sipped our coffee.

“What about your folks? You were going to tell me.”

Chris rubbed his hands together. “Melissa, it hurts me to say this. The whole issue, all of the donations to the medical center and other places, it was all to punish me.”

“Punish you?”

“My parents didn’t want us to get married.” He lifted his palms and shrugged. “When we broke up and I went home, they pushed me into marrying their friends’ daughter. She had a trust fund, the family was well connected. In their minds, it was perfect.”

“So, they gave you an ultimatum?”

The answer was obvious. Of course they did. It all made sense; I had chosen not to see it.

“That’s why they cut you out of their will?” I exclaimed. “That’s the reason?”

Chris nodded. “It was my decision. I knew we could make it by ourselves.”

“I wish you had told me a long time ago. I guess it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“No,” he shook his head.