The Mind (The Reluctant Romantics #1.5) (16 page)

I looked at the pain etched on my parents’ faces and crumbled. “I won’t hide it anymore, Mom.” I buried my head in my hands and heard my voice whisper, “Why did this happen to me? To him?” I began to cry as my father caught me in his arms. I heard my mother let out her own anguished sob as my father pulled her into us. We stood huddled in the kitchen as my mother shivered and my father soothed us both.

“I don’t know why. I’ve been asking the same thing over and over. All I can tell you is that I’m with you. Through every minute of this, we are with you.” I sniffed and nodded as I pulled away from them with a small smile.

“I know and I love you both. I’m sorry I haven’t been by. God, Mom, you are
crazy
! I would almost think you got yourself sick so I would come home.”

I saw my father smile and gave them both a look of shock.

“You are kidding me!”

“Of course not. How is that even possible?” I saw my mother look at my father then give him an ‘I told you so.’

“Laura, baby, go shower and change.” My father slapped my mother’s butt and I saw her give him a wary glance.

“I don’t take orders, Seth.”

“Pretty please, pain in the ass? You have been in that robe for two days.”

“Fine.” She scurried away, no longer hiding the fact that she was freezing to death and I looked on after her with amusement. My mother hung the moon as far as I was concerned, and my father was my hero. I sighed as I looked at him while he watched my mother retreat with awe on his face.

“She’s amazing, right?”

“I’m so jealous, Dad,” I admitted as he turned to look at me, confused.

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, you two have had each other for almost thirty years, and I only got months.”

“Is this why you stayed away?”

I sat down at the kitchen table and hung my head. “Lightning struck with Grant, Dad. It’s over for me. I can’t even imagine loving anyone else, ever.”

“It’s too soon to say that, but I can tell you now, we aren’t the type to give our hearts away to just anyone, Rose. We choose carefully and then we’re all in. Don’t rush life, let it happen. You can’t rush your way through the grieving and you sure as hell can’t go on working yourself out of it. Take your time, sweetheart. Let it hurt and let us hurt with you.”

“Seven hours of perfection, Rose. I’m truly impressed. I have to say, I have never sat back and watched any surgery without interrupting during the fifteen years I’ve headed this program

“Thank you, Dr. McGuire,” I said, snapping my gloves off and trashing my smock.

“I’m truly impressed. Get ready for greatness. I’m bumping you to the top of the list.”

“No, sir, please don’t do that. I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

“This isn’t about the comfort of your peers. This is about us honing your skills. They’ll deal with it. It’s a competitive field.”

“I’m more than happy to assist, sir.”

“This is not a discussion,” he scolded as we walked down the corridor towards the nurses’ station.

“Yes, sir.”

I listened to the doctor dispense orders to two of the nurses about patient aftercare. He seemed puzzled that I was still standing next to him as he turned to look at me. “I want you to go home. I won’t schedule your next surgery for a couple days. Take some time, reflect and recharge.”

“Sir—”

“This is also not up for discussion, Rose.”

“Yes, sir.”

****

I drove straight to Grant’s land for the first time since I graduated medical school. I’d come here right after losing myself in my memories, holding them closer than ever. It was a pivotal moment and Grant wasn’t there to celebrate with me. I was lost all over again.

It seemed the new owners hadn’t done anything with it. I was still cursing myself for not moving on it faster when it went into probate. I was too lost in losing him that I couldn’t think of anything else. And by the time I had, it was too late. Now, it just sat there untouched.

I had two days of nothing to do and couldn’t figure out a way of passing the time other than to visit the place that I loved the most. I had spent every waking moment either practicing surgical techniques or in surgery. Time off was a nuisance to me. I was fine as long as I was working. It was my only escape. I decided to head to my parents’ house. I’d had enough inner dialogue for a lifetime and sitting in the rental Grant and I were supposed to share as newlyweds was torture.

The weather was beautiful, so I was sure my mother would be in her rose garden. I pulled up to find her exactly where I assumed she’d be.

“Hi, Mom,” I called as I spotted her in the corner, tending to her pride and joy.

“Hi, baby!” she said, throwing her gloves and trimmers on a nearby table before hugging me to her. “This is a nice surprise.”

“I was hoping you could use me,” I said, holding up my bare, helping hands.

“Of course, your father is out pretending to be busy. Come on.” She gave me a set of gloves then we spent the afternoon caring for her garden. She was as meticulous with her yellow roses as I was with my surgery. We sat back later that day, drinking a bottle of wine and admiring our hard work.

“Thanks, Mom, I needed today.”

“Is it getting any easier?”

“No, not at all. If anything, the more time that passes, the more I feel like I lose him. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense,” she said. She didn’t offer any advice. She simply listened while I gave her what I could. And that’s exactly what I needed, to talk about him, to remember him and for someone to let me.

When my father arrived, I got lost in their mindless chatter as they cooked my favorite dinner of beef stroganoff. They had gone from a painful reminder of what could’ve been to a great distraction at this point. Even Dallas’s newfound happiness and the recent wedding hadn’t bothered me like I thought it would. Dean had fought the good fight, and I couldn’t have been happier.

She got the right ending, and I couldn’t be bitter because I knew she’d suffered greatly for it.

I guess it was just easier to see everyone around me happy than the opposite. No one deserved the kind of battle I was dealing with. Just trying to function in the norm was still a struggle for me. I’d suffered anxiety attacks the first few months, in a debilitating way. No matter how much I tried, Sunday nights terrorized me to no end. I was always afraid of the coming week, unsure of what might happen. I was sure that kind of thing would ruin my medical career. But when I found out I’d been accepted in McGuire’s surgical residency program, I took the steps to remedy my fear, pushing through to keep the one thing I had left. And it worked.

“I think we may do something other than open a general practice,” I announced with a fork full of beef and noodles. This got my parents’ attention.

“You and Dallas have wanted to open a practice for years,” my father said in shock.

“And we still want to do something. We’ve been talking about it for months and now that Dallas is in oncology, we are thinking more along the lines of a treatment center.” I looked between them as my father sat back in his seat, chewing on the idea. “I mean I still have years left in my surgical program but Dallas can open while I finish.” I swallowed, looking between them as they remained a captive audience. “Dad, you know I was thinking about Grant’s land. Can you look into it for me and see what the asking price is? I think if we do anything I want to do it there.”

My father looked at my mother, completely stunned.

“What?” I asked, looking at them. “I loved that land, I think it would be perfect to build on, it’s right off of the highway which would mean good exposure and Dallas agrees. The new owners haven’t touched it. Grant wouldn’t have wanted it to go unused.”

“Rose,” my mother said, taking a sip of wine as my father excused himself from the table, “tell me what you see.”

“What do you mean?” I said, thoroughly confused at my parents’ sudden change in behavior. “I want to build on it, to do something with it and possibly live there. I just keep going back to it. I know what it means to me because it was where I fell in love with Grant, but there is something else there. I can’t explain it. It doesn’t hurt me to be there or, at least, I don’t feel like it does. It hurts me more to leave. I still want a future there. It’s what made me happy.”

My father returned minutes later holding a single piece of paper that he set in front of me on the table. I looked up at him in confusion before he took his seat once again. I scanned the document then looked at them in shock.

“We weren’t sure if it was the right thing to do until you said something. We know how much you loved it there but we just weren’t sure,” my father finished, concerned by my reaction. I felt my lip began to tremble as I looked at my mother in disbelief. She nodded a reassuring yes and I collapsed in a heap of tears.

“It’s all yours, little woman,” my father said, wrapping his arms around me as I shook with all my weight as I cried into his chest, thanking him. “I wanted to do something, anything to ease your suffering but I wanted to wait until you had your bearings to let you know I had obtained it. It wasn’t a hard sell to the judge and I knew how much it meant to you, Rose. I’m glad I did right by getting it.”

“Dad,” I said, gripping his shirt, my heart full of gratitude and my face soaked with tears. “It’s the best thing you’ve ever given me besides my sister.” As soon as I got my emotions under control, I added with a sniff, “I have to pay you back for this. You can’t just give me Grant’s land.”

My father smiled at me. “I can do whatever I want, Rose. It’s part of the fun of being a parent. Your mother sold her motels some years back, and I’ve done well. We invested well. We are prepared to support you and Dallas in whatever you decide. Think about it and let’s get to work.” Overwhelmed with gratitude, I looked at them as they smiled on at me. I clutched the title to me as if it would disappear. “It’s done. No one will ever be able to take if from you. Do you believe me?”

I nodded in reply, still unable to put proper words together. It was an amazing thing they did and I wanted them to see the happiness it brought me. I pulled in the lingering heartache and wiped away my tears with a smile.

“So let’s talk about the treatment center,” my father said excitedly. I could see the scenarios running through his mind. He was truly one of the best architects out there and I knew the fact that this project belonged to his daughters made it an even better job for him.

“Dad, it cost’s millions to start what we have in mind. It’s kind of unrealistic,” I said, studying the paper, still in a cloud of disbelief. I hadn’t lost everything.

I hadn’t lost everything.

“Millions is what we have, Rose,” my father said, winking at my mother.

“What!” I asked incredulously, looking between them again. I sat stunned, waiting for the punch line.

“You’ve always known you and your brother and sister have a trust fund.”

“Yeah, Daddy, but millions!” I looked between them, completely confused yet again. We had wanted for nothing our entire lives, but millionaires we did not live like.

“Your mother isn’t a huge fan of money because she’s a damn hippie. If she had it her way, we would have lived in a tepee without doors or plumbing.”

“Seth, you are so full of shit, and way off base,” my mother corrected him with a laugh. “Anyway, Rose, what your father is trying to say is we have the money to back whatever dream you have and what we don’t have we borrow. We want to do this. It’s
our
dream to do it for you. We’ve been talking about it for years and praying for the day we had this conversation. You and your sister are old enough and more than responsible. Dream it up and let’s make it happen.”

That night I lay in my childhood bed dreaming big girl dreams, and for the first time since Grant died, I felt like I was taking a step in the right direction.

****

I watched Dallas and her husband, Dean, retreat happily to their car after my mother had ordered them out of the house for a night alone. Probably one of their first nights since Annabelle was born. My sister, though she whined constantly, had taken to being a mother of two in the best way, but I knew they deserved this night. I had only managed to help with watching them a few short hours at a time since I spent most of my days in surgery. I still had a ways to go before I was certified to perform surgery on my own, but in a few short months I would be co-owner of The Grant Foster Cancer Treatment Center. I smiled as I thought of how Grant told me about his disdain and the fact that he’d never had luck with doctors and now his name was plastered on a three-story cancer hospital. I hoped he knew and was getting a kick out of it. It was definitely a slow realization through my pain of losing it that fighting the illness alongside my sister was
exactly
where I needed to be.