Chapter 12

© Copyright 2007 by Elizabeth Delayne

Seated at her mother’s old oak dining table, Meredith stared at the clock and watched as the second hand slowly ticked by. Chad was coming by at seven to pick her up. They were supposed to have their first official date. She wished she could work herself up to be excited about it.

The last week had been tough. She had thought things would be better when her mother was resting at home, but everything only escalated. Meredith was tired, her energy torn between her mother, her sisters and her job.

Nothing ever seemed to be completed. There was a stack of dirty dishes in the sink. A load of wash from two days ago still in the washing machine. She had a garbage bag of futile attempts of working.

And there was a sharp throbbing in her head that never ceased.

Kelly was in a bad mood—they had not had a real conversation in days—and Brittany ... well, Brittany went from over compensating for their mother’s lack of conversations and vitality, to dropping into a deep and sad silence.

Minutes ago, standing in the entryway between the living room and kitchen, watching Brittany and her mother play a game of checkers, Meredith had let the helpless feelings overwhelm her. The weakness she saw in her mother was so foreign.

“You’re quiet,” Chad’s voice brought her back from her thoughts. She looked up in surprise to find him standing in the middle of the kitchen. His large frame seemed to fill what she once had thought of as a large kitchen. “You look tired.”

She was feeling much better, she realized, now that he was here. “Just thinking. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Brittany came to the door as I was coming up the steps,” his look told her he was worried. “Your mother and I had a good conversation. She seems to have regained some of her articulation.”

How would you know? Meredith almost asked, but held her tongue. “How long have you been here?”

Chad shrugged as he folded his large frame into the chair just around the table from her. “Not more than five minutes.” He reached out and took one of her hands and held it within his. Only then did she realize that she had been rubbing her hands together. Anxious, he thought.

“Did you have a busy day?” she asked.

“Very,” he squeezed her hand lightly. “I don’t think I need to ask you that. What is the doctor saying?”

Meredith shrugged, but found the courage to look at him as the pain lodged in her throat. “Not much of anything, I suppose. She’s stable, looking fine, progressingly better ...” she shook her head sadly, “I just don’t know what I’m going to do if ... .”

“Come here,” Chad stood, and with the hand he already held, gently pulled her out of her chair and into his arms. As the second hand ticked slowly by, he just held on as one tear after another ran down her cheek.

She surprised him when she pushed back, disconnecting herself with him. “Chad, I can’t—”

He reached out and took her face in between his large hands. “Yes, you can.” He dropped a soft kiss on her nose and then leaned back just enough so she could look in his eyes.

Trust me, he begged, let me be here for you.

Gingerly, as if afraid touching him would prove deadly, she reached up and touched his freshly shaven cheek. Somehow she swallowed part of the lump in her throat, “You’re a ... wonderful man.”

Chad smiled and wiped the remaining tears off her cheeks. “Do you still want to go out?”

Meredith nodded, not wanting to spend another long evening within the house ... wanting to leave the uncertainty of her home behind ... .

At least, for a little while.

❊ ❊ ❊

The next day Meredith looked up from her sketches as Kelly came in the kitchen door. Today was the first day of her summer school classes at the community college. “How was it?”

Kelly crinkled her nose and dropped down into the kitchen chair. “Terrible. Torture,” she buried her face in her hands as she moaned, “It’s summer. I’m not supposed to be thinking about bones and blood cells. Why did I do this to myself?”

“Because you were thinking of your future?”

The un-lady like snort made Meredith laugh. “No,” Kelly said, shaking her head, “I was dating a guy who thought it be a good idea. We’re taking the class together, but we’re not dating anymore. I think I understand why now.”

Meredith looked down at her sketch and realized she had begun to draw the outline of Chad’s face. Dating seemed so unpredictable these days ... how could anyone make decisions of any kind when they depended on a person who may or may not be there in two weeks.

Shaking herself, Meredith listened to her sister roaming around in the cabinets as she crinkled the paper and tossed it across the room, missing the trash can by two feet. Kelly laughed and picked the ball of trash up on the way back to the table. She spread it out as she sat down and smiled, recognizing the person. Her sister’s talent had been something she had always respected, but knowing Meredith was mindless enough to doodle some man’s face was even better.

“Are you and Chad serious?”

Unsure of the answer, Meredith kept her eyes on the page before her and concentrated on her rose. “It’s hard to be serious when you’ve known someone two weeks,” she answered, sounding convinced.

“Would you like it to be serious?”

Unwillingly, her hand stopped on the page. She looked up and caught her sister’s eyes. She wanted to tread carefully. It was the first conversation they had started that did not move immediately into a face off. “I don’t know.”

Kelly looked at the crinkled page. She did not know what to think about Chad. Not yet. She knew she feared him slightly. He could take Meredith out of her life as quickly as she had been brought back in.

“He treats you really good.”

Meredith smiled, unable to refrain, “I know.” She looked down at her drawing and sighed. She had begun to draw him again. His lips, so gentle and expressive, captivated her. “He’s ... been a blessing.”

“Do you miss Dallas?”

“Not as much as I thought I would,” Meredith decided not to fight the urge to draw Chad. Her hand moved in quick, detailed movements. She watched as his outline appeared under the point of her pencil. “I’m thinking about heading there in a few weekends for a birthday slash engagement party for one of my friends. It would give me a chance to catch up with everyone.”

Kelly balled up the picture and threw it towards the trash can. Watched the smooth arch before it dropped neatly in. How come their lives had always seemed to miss the basket? Meredith had lost her father to a plane crash during air force maneuvers. Her own father had died from cancer, leaving their mother with three girls to support. Since then, Meredith had almost ceased to be a part of their lives.

Now their mother had left them in so many ways. Meredith was talented, beautiful. Kelly knew that Meredith’s career and social life had thrived on the big city, but it had been so long since they had been a family. If Chad came in, became important, that meant Meredith would forget about her sisters all over again.

“Where’s mom?”

Noticing the change in her sister’s voice, Meredith looked up and watched as she stood and went to the refrigerator for a can of coke. “Britt’s helping her with her exercises.”

“Britt’s such a good kid. I don’t know how she stands it.”

“Stands what?” Meredith asked as Kelly leaned against the refrigerator door.

“Stands seeing mom so ... .”

“Not like mom?” Meredith offered. “Kelly, none of us like it, but ... she’s still our mother.”

Kelly shook her head. There was an unusual fire in her eyes, “Not really. When did our mother need help to go to the bathroom? Have to be told to wipe food off her mouth?”

“When has our mother stopped loving us?” Meredith asked, not thinking clearly as the anger and weariness poured over, “Actions and love make a mother, not rituals and ... and habits. Our love for her makes her just as much our mother as her love for us.”

“Your actions took you to Dallas. What do you think dropping by at Christmas and maybe a phone call here and there meant to us? You were two hours away. Your actions spoke clearly.” Meredith stared at Kelly and finally dropped her eyes with a sigh. She heard the door open, but could not look up.

“Where are you going?”

“Out. It’s not like you ever cared before.”

The door slammed. Meredith looked up. She felt helpless in the empty kitchen, so haunted by the years she had been away. How could she expect Kelly to understand? Did she even really understand herself why she had stayed away?

❊ ❊ ❊

“You’ve been quiet,” Chad stated as he settled on the porch beside Meredith. He reached over and took her hand, watching as she stared out into the yard. “I noticed Kelly wasn’t at dinner.”

“We had a fight.” Meredith supposed he wanted more, but she was not going to give him any.

“Do you know where she is?”

Pulling her hand away from his, she nodded as she rubbed her hands over her face. “She’s at the shack. It’s this place her friends hang out at and play cards and talk. Mom and I always have a good laugh about it. It’s supposed to be a secret, but being that it’s in the old offices behind the police station, no one ever worries.”

“You’re turning into a good guardian.”

Meredith shook her head, “Yeah. It would of been easier if I had wanted them to be a part of my life before.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“No, it is,” Meredith stood and turned to face him, her hands on her hips, “How can you stand there and make a statement like that? You don’t know. You can’t know me that well by now.”

She stormed angrily a few steps away and then back.

“They were just my half-sisters, okay? If I’d had a choice between a gallery showing and one of their birthdays, I would have sent them a card. I was selfish. I didn’t care. They weren’t important enough to me. My art was what mattered. It got me a scholarship. It got me a good paying job. My family had never gotten me anything ... .”

“That’s what you wanted to believe.”

“It’s what I believed.”

“No,” Chad reached out and took her hands. He saw the pain now in her eyes. She had lost everything a little girl desired. A father she had never known, two fathers that she had loved. He had lost. Twice in one fatal blow. Maybe that’s why he saw the truth so clearly.

She tried to pull her hands away. He held on.

“You were hurting. There was pain here for you.”

She hated the fact that he could see deeper into the reasoning ... she hated that maybe he did know her better than she wanted him to. How much safety did that give her?

Finally, she sat down beside him again and leaned against his shoulder. “Kelly,” she stopped to clear her mind and felt his arm drop around her shoulders, “I can remember the day she was born. My mom and Michael had been married for two years. We were living here. My grandmother was alive then and she came to stay with me ... There has been nothing in this life that has equaled that day.”

“I don’t remember my father. I never knew him. I had always felt so empty. Like I was missing some sort of part ... I used to sneak into Kelly’s room and take her out of her crib and rock her and tell her that I would never leave her like my father did. I would watch after her and keep her safe.

“I broke that promise the day Michael died. It all seemed like so much. I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t handle loosing her.”

Chad’s arm pulled her closer. She felt him drop a kiss on the top of her head.

“You think I’m crazy.”

“No, I think you’re wonderful,” carefully, he turned her. “You could be running now. You have family that could take your sisters in, split them apart, ship them away from here. You could be in Dallas. Your art is still there. Your friends are there. Your job is there,” he let his eyes simply search hers, “but I have a feeling that your heart has never fully been there.”

Meredith leaned back against him, listening for the deep thud of his heart. She took in his words, not yet able to process them.

When she asked about his family, he told her. She relaxed, listening to his deep voice talk about the people and the home he obviously loved. He even promised to take her and her family out to the ranch sometime when her mother got better. Meredith loved the idea of spending a whole day with Chad and seeing Brittany up on a horse and Kelly ... well, doing something.

Long after Chad said goodnight, Meredith sat in the living room flipping through her high school portfolio. Kelly had kept it in her room. She had sketched her family. There was a water color of emotions, a burst of feelings she had let forth one night. She remembered the night too well. Kelly had been put in the hospital because of the chicken pox.

The front door opened and Kelly came in. She looked over and saw Meredith on the sofa.

“Waiting up for me?” she asked as she shut the door.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Meredith replied, sitting the portfolio aside. “I’m sorry about all those years that I have been gone. It was hard. I forgot what family meant.”

Well, it’s a little too late, Kelly thought. She turned to go to her room, but Meredith’s voice stopped her.

“I won’t move you until you graduate. I promise.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Meredith watched her sister retreat. Maybe one day Kelly would understand. Maybe one day they could believe in each other again.


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