Family Matters (4 page)

T
he therapy swim session had almost ended. Megan, the youngest girl in the group, shivered in her bright red bathing suit as rivulets of water ran down her legs and her crossed arms. Her teeth chattered.

Mark Kendall handed her a towel. “Here you go, kid.” He helped her drape it over her head and around her little body. “What's with the goose bumps?”

“The water's c-c-cold….” She pulled the towel so tightly around her that he could see her small, bony shoulder blades jutting through the terry cloth.

“We'll take care of that.” He grabbed another towel and started to dab at droplets of water glistening on her arms. “You did great today, Megs.”

“You think so?”

“I think so.”

Megan grinned.

“Tomorrow we'll get you to swim a little farther.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I got tired today.”

“You can do it, though. I know you can. When you do, you'll be really proud of yourself. Just wait and see.”

“You think so?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“I'll swim farther tomorrow—” Megan bargained “—if you'll let me get a Pepsi out of the machine today.”

He laughed at her. “You sound like Wimpy. ‘I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.'”

She looked blank. “Who's Wimpy?”

“You know. Wimpy. On
Popeye
.”

Megan still looked lost.

“Oh, great.” He slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “This girl doesn't know about
Popeye!
”

She clambered up to plop onto his lap.
Along with everything else,
he thought as he winked at her,
I feel old.
“
Popeye
is a cartoon. Where this guy eats spinach and he gets strong and he beats up this bad guy named Brutus.”

“It doesn't sound like a very nice story,” she said primly. “Beating up people.”

“Oh, it's okay.” Mark was quick to defend his hero. “He gets the girl, too. A real cute one named Olive Oyl. All because he eats a lot of spinach.”

“If I eat lots of spinach, will I get strong?” Megan asked him. “Will I be able to use my arms better so I can swim really fast?”

Mark hugged her. “Nope. It's a nice thought, little one. But it's all pretend stuff. The only way your arms are going to get stronger is by doing what we're doing. Lots and lots of hard work.” Mark glanced up and waved at his sister, who'd just stepped inside the door. Andy waved back.

“Do I get a Pepsi now?” Megan asked.

“Nope,” Mark told her. “That's your mom's department, not mine. Here she is, too.”

The familiar car had pulled up outside the doorway. Mark saw Megan's mother lean across the front seat to open the door for her daughter. He held the double glass doors open for Megan. “See you next Tuesday,” he shouted as the little girl climbed inside the car.

“'Bye, Mark!” Megan hollered back, her little arm fluttering at him outside the window.

He turned inside. Andy was shaking her head. “I can't believe Megan,” she commented. “She's doing so well.”

Mark began to gather his supplies. “I know.” He picked up dented kickboards, several mismatched pairs of water wings and a ball, then pitched them into a plastic laundry basket. “Her arms are getting so much stronger.”

Andy tossed one wayward ball in his direction. “I stopped by to tell you I'm going to have a new team member for you soon. I have a new patient. When he gets stronger, I think you can do him a world of good.”

Andrea and Mark were as close as twins could be. Their father, George Kendall, had spent his life in a wheelchair after a helicopter crash. Together, Mark and Andy had watched him cope. He'd taught them everything they needed to know about courage, about pushing ahead to tiny victories each day. He was the main reason they'd both grown up to work with patients who needed help.

“You want a hamburger?” Mark grabbed the bundle of folded towels and tucked it under one arm.

Andy shrugged. “Sure.” She didn't have anywhere else to go during her lunch hour. “You pick the place. I'll drive.”

“You drive and I'll buy.” He picked one of his favorite restaurants.

When they arrived, the hostess seated them at a little table for two covered with a red checkered tablecloth. “Onion rings,” Mark said, grinning. “It's been ages since I've had onion rings.”

“Me, too.”

Mark lowered the menu and eyed her. “So…now that I've got you here, how are you
really
doing?”

She screwed up her mouth at him. “Is that what this is? You bring me out for lunch and then interrogate me?”

“I'm not interrogating you. I just want to know.”

“I'm fine. Really.” She switched to a safer subject. “You'll like the little boy I just started working with at Children's. He's a resilient one. I can tell he's probably going to surprise everyone.”

“How old is he?”

“Eight.”

“You think he'll beat the odds?”

“The doctors aren't certain yet, but I am.”

Mark toasted her with his soda, which he almost felt guilty for drinking after Megan bargaining for Pepsi. “My sister. The person who won't let herself ever expect anything but the happy ending.”

“It's the exact way Dad was—” she said quickly, her face softening at the memory. “He always found the good side of things.”

Their conversation lulled. Someone flipped a TV on over in the corner and sports scores blared into the restaurant.

“The city council voted down funding for the swim team again,” Mark commented offhandedly.

“Oh, Mark, I'm sorry.” She leveled her dark eyes on his. What a tremendous blow to him. He'd been working on a proposal for funding for months.

“We'll keep going, I'm sure. The YMCA's said we can use this pool for at least another six months. We need to build a therapy pool that isn't so deep, though.”

“I don't know what to say, Mark. You've worked so hard.”

“I can get by without new water wings for the kids. The kickboards are disintegrating but those will have to be a second priority, too. I'm going to try to keep the bathing suit fund ready in case I get more kids who can't afford a bathing suit.”

“I wish I could do something to help,” Andy said, her words heartfelt. The swim team meant everything to Mark. “Maybe I could take up a collection at the hospital. Or maybe someone would like to donate bathing suits….”

Just as the waitress brought their burgers to the table the TV blared out: “In Major League Soccer action last night, the Dallas Burn lost to the L.A. Galaxy. Even though striker Marshall Townsend found several openings and left forward Chuck Kirkland…”

Someone switched it off.

Great
, Mark thought. Just great.
Talk about perfect timing
.

Andy stared at the dark screen, acting as if she hadn't heard the soccer score. But Mark knew she had.

“So,” he said, knowing he had to mention Buddy now. “Do you ever hear from him, Andy?”

“No.” She turned away from the television to stare down at her hamburger. “He doesn't call.”

“The man's a fool.”

“No, he isn't. Buddy has his own problems to work through.”

“Ahh…and even now you defend him.”

She still stared at her hamburger. “Yes. I guess I do.”

“Does he deserve that, Andy?”

“I was pretty hard on him, Mark.” She met her brother's gaze at last. “It's tough reasoning with a therapy patient when you're emotionally involved. A lot of it was my fault.”

“What did you say to him?” Mark asked.

Andy sat back in her chair and let her mind wander. What did I say to Buddy? What
didn't
I say to Buddy?

During the past year, she'd gotten used to the thought that she'd always be a part of Buddy Draper's life. They'd met at a New Year's Eve party, laughing and throwing confetti and cheering as the clock struck midnight.

“You've got stuff in your hair,” he'd told her as he picked a swirl of paper off the top of her head. Everyone around them was kissing and singing “Auld Lang Syne.” It was the first time she'd ever laid eyes on him. Yet, still, he seemed vaguely familiar.

“Everybody has stuff in their hair,” she'd said, trying unsuccessfully to come up with something witty to say. “It's midnight on New Year's Eve.”

She extended her hand gracefully. “Happy New Year, Mr.—”

“Draper. Buddy Draper.”

A slight pause. She'd figured out later he'd been waiting for her to recognize his name. But she hadn't.

She introduced herself, too, and they'd shaken hands. Then they'd laughed and exchanged pleasantries for another half hour, he'd said several things about this “calling” that led her to believe he might be a Christian. Oh, how she'd hoped he was, as she'd gathered her belongings and had taken her keys out of her purse.

“I'll take you home,” he suggested.

“No,” she said. “I just met you. That would never do.” Even so, she was pleased that he'd offered.

Early the next morning he phoned her and asked if she wanted to go to the Cotton Bowl parade with him.

“This is crazy,” she said, sitting straight up in bed and holding the receiver with both hands.

“It isn't crazy. The parade starts up Commerce Street in an hour. You could be there.”

“It'll be hard to find a place to stand coming that late.”

“I bet you'll be surprised,” he told her. “We'll find a place.”

“I guess we could,” she said, still clutching the receiver, with a fluttering in her stomach that made her feel like she was in high school again.

An hour later she gasped as they climbed the steps to the grandstand and Buddy pulled out a metal chair for her beside the mayor of Dallas.

“Why are
we
up here?” she whispered to him after she'd been introduced to half the public officials in Dallas.

He crossed his arms and stretched out his feet. “We're here because this is where I always sit.”

It wasn't until the J. J. Pearce High School Marching Band tromped by playing
Spirit in the Sky,
halfway through the parade, that he offhandedly mentioned he played soccer.

“That's what you do for a living?”

“Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “At least it was last time I looked. But maybe I'd better check again. I might be an insurance salesman now.”

That's when it all started piecing together in her mind and making sense, the name, the vaguely familiar, handsome face, the seats of honor they occupied. “You play for the Burn,” she said in a whisper. “You're Buddy Draper.”

He didn't look at her. He just took her hand. “I thought I told you that last night.”

After the day of the parade, they did a lot of things together. They rode bumper cars and wandered around a flea market. They attended a film festival together. She invited him to visit her church one Sunday and he did so readily, promising he'd invite her to join him for services at the non-denominational worship center he attended. After that, Andy's priorities had shifted. She loved her patients and urged them forward. But, now, with Buddy in her life, her patients weren't the compelling force that drove her soul any longer. Buddy took over a new, special corner of her heart. The two of them spent quiet time alone together every weekend. He gave her tickets to every Dallas home game. She sat with the other players' girlfriends or wives and cheered him on.

She wasn't certain she loved him until one afternoon when the Burn played in San Jose. The Earthquake defeated them in California. She drove to Dallas/Fort Worth International to meet the plane and, when she went to the charter gate, there was a crowd of people waiting to greet the team when they came in.

Just before the plane landed, a security guard came up behind her and took her by the arm. “You Andy Kendall? We're bringing the plane into a hangar away from the terminal. Those players are exhausted and Harv Siskell doesn't want them to have to face this crowd right now. We've got all the wives boarding a shuttle. Liza Townsend saw you standing here and thought I should let you know.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, following him. The shuttle bounced across the tarmac and they disembarked inside the cavernous hangar, huddling in a group as the jet pulled inside, too.

Liza Townsend's husband, Marshall, was a striker on the team like Buddy. She held their little boy in her arms while he squirmed. He was ready for bed, dressed in a fuzzy blue blanket sleeper. And, as the steps went up and the players started to climb down, Marshall Townsend was one of the first off the plane. Liza set the little boy on the floor and he ran to his father, squealing with delight, arms outstretched.