Losing Gabriel (18 page)

“Hi. Had a late emergency. Gabe in bed?”

“Sound asleep.”

Franklin eased his briefcase onto the granite countertop, as if sensing the tension in the air. “Everything all right?” He rolled his shoulders and faced his son. “How'd the interview go?”

“You mean the one you blindsided me with? I felt sorry for the girl. She was as clueless as me about the setup.”

“Not fair. I sent you an excellent candidate for Gabe's care. Didn't you like her?”

“Yes, I liked her.”

“Then what's the problem?”

Dawson struggled to find words to express his frustration. Living with his father gave him and Gabe a home, at little expense. Plus Franklin paid for Dawson's night classes at MTSU, so he could work all day. Franklin's generosity made it easy for Dawson to save money, and Dawson was grateful, but he felt stagnant and saw nothing changing for him. He wanted to be out on his own. He wanted more for himself and Gabe than living in Windemere still tied to his father. He wasn't sure yet what more was. He only knew he wanted it. But he had no other choice right now. Unable to articulate his feelings, Dawson asked the only question he could come up with. “Why did you choose this girl, a student nurse?”

Franklin sighed wearily. “Yes, I have RNs working with me at the hospital, but frankly, I need every one of them on the floors. It isn't easy keeping personnel at small rural medical facilities, you know. That's one reason I came up with the Step-Prep program. Tying a job to college credits gives me more loyal personnel. I can spare Lani because she's a student and not full-time. She's conscientious, Gabe already likes her, and she needs a job. I thought it would be a good fit.”

“But she's
my
age. And still in school. She's not going to stay in the job after summer's over.”

“Son, I love Gabe very much, and Lani's one of my brightest and best. She can handle an emergency. I trust her. But if you want to interview others, do so. Gabe's your son, and you have the final say for him. Now I'm going to wash up, come down, and find something to eat.” Franklin picked up his briefcase and walked out of the kitchen.

Dawson stood for a long time staring into the space his father had left behind. Much as he hated to admit it, his father was right. Lani, a girl from high school he didn't even remember, a girl Gabe already knew and trusted, was perfect for the job.

Resigned, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell, made the call, and offered her the job.

“S
top! Sloan, you're murdering my song. You sound like a screeching cat! Way off-key!” Jarred slung his guitar off his shoulder, keeping a stranglehold on the instrument's neck.

Sloan whirled on him. Truth was, Sloan had perfect pitch and everyone in the studio knew it. “Hey, it's my song too! We wrote it together, so don't play the ownership card on me. We've gone through this part a hundred times and my throat's raw. What's wrong with the last five takes?”

“Lots of takes mean lots of choices when we start mixing.”

“So when do we stop?”

“When we get it right,” Jarred fired back. “When you sound like I want you to sound on the lyrics.”

“Oh—it's all
my
fault? You were late on the start-up. Bobby and Hal were easily three beats behind, and Sy”—she threw a glance to the keyboard man—“well, he was the only one keeping up with me.” She was kind to Josiah because this was, after all,
his
studio,
his
property, and
his
goodwill. Besides, he would do the final mixing.

Sy acknowledged her comment with a wink. The others in the studio went silent. At his perch behind his drums, Hal flipped his sticks end over end, caught them expertly. Bobby hugged the long neck of his bass guitar, stared up at the ceiling. Josiah eased into a nearby chair, all waiting for the latest blowup between Sloan and Jarred to subside.

“You don't drive this song, Sloan. I do. My band. My rules.”

“We're a team, a band, all for one, or have you forgotten that part?”

“We're
not
equals, Sloan. No way. No how.”

After spending half the night struggling to perfect the song and sucking caffeine and nicotine, Sloan knew she had to either walk away or bash Jarred over the head. “You're an ass. And this band's going nowhere!” She stalked out of the studio and into the shocking brightness of an April day. They'd hit the studio at midnight; now the sun was almost overhead. She needed sleep.

She headed toward the house of stark white concrete rising into the blue sky off a manicured lawn, intent on climbing the stairs to the bedroom she shared with Jarred. She passed flower beds exploding with hot pink azalea bushes and rows of yellow daffodils. She made it to the bricked patio surrounding the pool of sparkling turquoise water when Bobby caught up to her.

“Hey! Stop. Wait!” He put his hand on the patio door just as she was about to slide it open.

“I'm not going back, so don't try and drag me. I hate Jarred!”

“We're all taking a break.” Bobby took her hand. “Let's sit.”

“Bobby, not now!” She snatched her hand from his, not a bit surprised he'd been the one to come after her. Bobby was the negotiator, the one who soothed and calmed the band's volatile mix of creative personalities. Every band had one. The surprise would have been if Jarred had run after her. “I'm whipped…not in the mood.”

“Just hear me out.” He settled her on one of the numerous lounge chairs spread across the deck, dragged another closer so he sat facing her. “It's not you, and you know it. He's having trouble booking tour venues for the summer. Not small-time stuff like last summer, but something bigger, better.”

“We all want something bigger. It's been over
two
effin' years, Bobby! We have a CD, we have some people who love us, but that's it. No local airtime, no labels looking at us, no agents calling. Why is that, Bobby?” She didn't expect an answer, but she wanted to vent. “I know about his booking problems. He's always bitching about it. But I'm asking why does he have to handle everything himself—the money, the schedule, the songs we sing, the way we sing them?” She ticked off Jarred's perceived offenses on her fingers. Everyone in the band had day jobs—except Sy, who didn't need one. The jobs were low paying but with flexible hours to accommodate their bookings, and they gave chunks of every paycheck to Jarred, who deposited the monies into a special account that paid all the band's expenses. “Why can't we score a real agent? One who can help us? But no! Jarred has to handle
everything
! He makes me crazy!”

“It's Jarred's way. He likes to run the show, and we all agreed to let him two years ago, remember?”

She blamed herself for agreeing to what was supposed to have been the democratic rule Jarred had promised back in Windemere but now had turned into a dictatorship. She had been an absolute emotional mess when Jarred first brought her to Nashville. The guys had treated her with kid gloves, no one asking about or even mentioning the baby she'd left behind. Perhaps Jarred had told them not to say anything. It didn't matter. She didn't want to talk about any of it anyway—couldn't talk about it, really.

At first, working to come up with a new sound for the band had been therapeutic, an emotional balm for the desolation she'd felt. She used to think of the baby every day…
tiny Gabriel,
with tubes and IVs and full-time nursing care. Had he gone home with Dawson and Franklin? Had he even lived? But she had burned her bridge when she'd left, so she forced herself to stop thinking about him. An act of will that grew easier over time. In some ways it was as if Dawson and Gabriel had never happened to her. But now, after over two years of effort, she felt the band was chasing a dream they'd never catch.

“I'm just sick of the bars, the bubble-gum teen parties, the bar mitzvahs, the country clubs, and stage-sharing with bands not half as good as we are. We need help! Why can't Jarred see that?”

Bobby rubbed his eyes, red from lack of sleep and cigarette smoke. “Everybody pays their dues. You know there aren't any overnight sensations in this biz, Sloan.”

She'd heard the refrain a hundred times, and in the beginning, when they'd all first gathered in Sy's palatial house, Sloan thought she'd caught the brass ring. She'd never seen a place like it, a soaring contemporary styled house of stacked white cubes with a glass wall facing a pool and colorful gardens. But these days she felt more like a prisoner locked in a never-ending cycle of running after her dreams but getting nowhere.

And yet she owed the band her loyalty. Her voice, the voice that was supposed to carry the band into their future, felt flat, stripped and raw. Sloan looked to the side of the yard that held Big Blue. “Wonder if it will ever move again.”

Bobby followed her gaze and grinned at the old school bus they had all converted into their band's tour bus. Painted neon blue and complete with sleeping quarters and space for all their gear, the Big Blue Beast made quite a statement rolling along the highway from gig to gig. The band's name glowed in big yellow letters on each side, along with cover photos of their lone CD, sold at every venue. The words
Road Hog
were painted bright red across the rear door. “Sure it will. Can't keep a bus that awesome locked in the yard like a dog.” Bobby lifted her chin, peered into her eyes. “We'll get through this dry spell, Sloan. We're good and you know it. We just need a break. The right person to hear us. Some DJ to pick our CD from the slush pile and put it on the air. And it
will
happen for us. Just a matter of time.”

Bobby's pep talk did little to buoy her spirits, but her anger was out of juice. She leaned back into the lounger, closed her eyes, and let the bright warm light of the sun wash over her. “So you're saying that I should just ‘Keep calm and carry on'?”

“Can't hurt. Might help.”

She raised an eyelid in time to see the patio doors slide open and a froth of giggling girls surge outside, heading for the pool. Sloan swore and pulled up from the chair. “The bubble heads are here. I'm gone.” The troop of females were leftovers from Saturday night's party. Sloan disliked them, long-legged twits who hung around flirting and drinking and popping into anyone's bed they could cozy into. Certainly not one of them had any clout or connections. They were users and takers.

Bobby lumbered up from his lounge but didn't take his eyes off the bikini-clad troop of pretty women. Guys were coming across the lawn toward the house, not only the band, but also several others who, once she and Bobby left, must have driven the back access road leading to the studio. More groupies…
spongers,
to Sloan. The girls waved and shouted for them to hurry. A couple of guys ran toward the pool, ripping off their shirts and executing cannonballs into the cold water. Girls shrieked and scattered. One called out, “Hey, Jarred! Want to swim to the bottom with me?”

Sloan shot her a threatening look, and the girl slunk to a lounger and stretched out on her stomach, turning her face away from Sloan's glare.

Jarred walked to Sloan, slid his arm around her waist, and nuzzled her ear, as if nothing had happened between them. “You're the best-looking one here, babe.”

She wanted to hammer him but instead said, “Creative differences. It happens.” The words tasted sour in her mouth, but backing down was her best choice with these female vultures waiting to scoop him up.

“We good?”

Her smile was tight. “Always,” she said, and together they went inside the house and up the stairs to the bedroom.

L
ani finished at MTSU with a 4.0 grade point average. She worked Saturdays at Bellmeade, exercising horses, mucking stalls, and doing chores for Ciana. Weekdays she took care of Gabriel from seven in the morning until either Dr. Berke or Dawson arrived home, typically between five and six. She squeezed dates with Ben into Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. Lani felt guilty over dialing back their together time, but she couldn't help it. Her work came first, and dating was a luxury, not a necessity in her life.

Dr. Berke allowed her to claim the job as part of her credits toward her clinical requirements in the Step-Prep program. “It's my program,” he told her. “So I make the rules.” The whole situation was a win-win for her, but she couldn't make Ben understand.

As spring burst into blooming trees, flowers, and grasses, and the pollen count climbed into the three and four digits, Lani became super vigilant about Gabe's asthma. She kept an app on her cell that she checked often, keeping him inside when the pollen count was predicted to be at its worst but taking him to a nearby park when the count was lower or when the air had been washed clean by a rain shower. Dawson had been right about how Gabe loved being outdoors. It was the first thing he asked about every morning, the last at night. “Park?”

“Maybe tomorrow, Gabe,” she would tell him.

At the park, Gabe ran to the swings, butt-slings held up by thick chains. He refused the child safety swings that locked him in securely, crying if she tried to put him in one. “Gabe not baby!” So Lani taught him how to wrap his small hands around the chains and pushed him gently, always standing behind him, ready to grab him if he went too high or started to slip off.

“Gabe fly!”

“Like Superman,” Lani would tell him.

If Dr. Berke had an emergency or if Dawson got stuck on a job site, Lani stayed and tucked Gabe in for the night. Dr. Berke paid her overtime, but she'd have done it for free. She adored Gabriel, found him bright, inquisitive, and sweet natured, quick to catch on, eager to please. The toddler owned her heart.

If Dawson came home midday, usually because of being rained out on a job site, she stayed to watch him and Gabe roll around on the playroom floor like exuberant puppies, giggling and laughing, tickling and wrestling (or as Gabe said, “wesling”). Or sometimes instead of leaving at the end of her workday, she joined the two of them under the basketball net mounted on a pole at the top of the driveway. Dawson would hand her the ball and she'd dart around Dawson holding Gabe on his shoulders and take a shot. Or Dawson would hand the ball to Gabe, hold him high enough for the boy to touch the rim, and Gabe would shove it through and shout, “I win!” and Dawson and Lani would do a little victory dance to celebrate.

More often she hung around on purpose, all the while telling herself she shouldn't and that she needed to leave. But she didn't, sometimes staying for an impromptu dinner with the three of them. Old feelings, ones she had buried back in high school, struggled to the surface. Dawson—the boy she'd crushed on, now in her life every day.
You have a boyfriend; you have Ben,
she told herself. It was neither professional nor wise to think of Dawson any other way. And yet…
and…yet.

At first Melody said nothing when Lani came in after long evenings at the Berkes'. But one night Melody gave Lani her stern lawyer expression and said, “Don't let them take advantage of you.”

“What are you talking about? Do you think any nurse walks out at quitting time when she's caring for a special patient?”

“You're a babysitter, Lani.”

Lani's back stiffened, and she glared at Melody. “I've spent a lot of time working at the hospital, learning how to be a nurse. Gabe's not an ordinary child. He has a condition that can take him down in the blink of an eye. I'm his caregiver, his nurse when he needs me to be. I'm not just a babysitter.”

Melody held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry, no insult intended.” After a moment, she asked, “What about Ben? How's he taking all this, all your busyness?”

Lani sighed. “Actually, he's unhappy about it. I've tried to explain how much the job means to me, and my career, but—” She shrugged. Ben shared an apartment with three other guys in Murfreesboro, a good thirty-minute drive to Windemere. One of his roommates always seemed to be hanging around the place, so he and Lani were rarely alone there, and he didn't like that either. He'd returned to his summer lifeguard job, and intent on laying a guilt trip on her, he hired on at a local restaurant three evenings a week, telling her, “To take up the slack in my boring nights.”

Lani smiled at her sister. “But I'm happy, Mel. Really happy.”

Melody tipped her head to one side, giving Lani a searching look. “How will you ever return to your old life of classes and hospital work when summer ends and Dr. Berke hires a new caregiver?”

And in that flash of reality, Lani's happiness factor crashed.
How indeed?

Dawson moved upward from the edge of the roof while driving nails with expert hammer blows into overlapping shingle tabs. Laying asphalt roofing tiles was hot, back-aching, mind-numbing work, but he was good at it, and after two years on the job he'd landed weeks after bringing Gabe home from the hospital, he was getting good pay to do it. He figured he'd make it to the base of the chimney of the new construction house in about two hours. Together with the other men, he was part of a team, and the sound of their hammers was a symphony of progress. The roof would be shingled by quitting time. The hammers stopped for lunch and water breaks only.

When the call for water went out, Dawson tucked his hammer into his utility belt and rested his back on the brick chimney. The spot offered some shade, along with an amazing view of the Bellmeade farm. The main house had been completed a year before, a modern take on a Victorian rebuilt from the ground up after a tornado had blown it to smithereens. Another smaller ranch-style house, several yards from the main one, was also brand-new. The one his construction team worked today would be finished in a couple of months.

Dawson chugged from his gallon water jug and then leaned it against the chimney. From his vantage point, he could see an oval exercise track, a checkerboard of fields and pastures in the distance, plus stables and corrals where horses were penned. On the track, a man rode a big black horse, and even from this distance Dawson saw that both were fighting to control the pace.

Control.
Circumstances—unforeseen and life-altering—certainly had taken control of Dawson's life. He remembered how rough it had been at first to care for Gabe, how he'd sometimes sit up all night walking the colicky baby, and later there was the asthmatic wheezing. He learned diapering and feeding skills, and as Gabe grew, he'd learned patience and tenderness. He'd also learned to cook, at least mac and cheese and hot dogs and even one green veggie—peas, he thought with a wry smile.

Being a teen father hadn't come with a playbook, and without his dad's helping hand, he couldn't have managed. The bridge between them now was Gabriel, the boy with a runaway mother. Dawson retreated from thoughts of Sloan, except to wonder what, or how much, he'd tell Gabe about her, knowing one day Gabe
would
ask.
Everybody has a mother.

Dawson took another long drink, partly to quench his thirst, partly to wash away the taste of Sloan's memory. Right now, he and Gabe had Lani, and Dawson knew he'd done the right thing by hiring her. She was cheerful, caring, and competent—a perfect fit for both of them. He didn't worry about Gabe with Lani in charge. Problem was, he was beginning to experience feelings for Lani that went beyond gratitude. When they played basketball with Gabe and their hands touched, he wanted to hold hers longer. Or when they spoke face to face, he'd watch her lips and wonder what she'd taste like.

Dawson took a deep breath and shook his head to clear out thoughts he didn't need to be having. Maybe Lani was simply a temptation because he'd been too long without a girl. These days his life focused on Gabe, work, school—and besides, where could he go to meet any women in this tiny town?

Around him, Dawson heard the other men stirring. Water break was over. One of the men called out, “Hey, Berke! Boss wants you on the ground.”

Dawson quickly descended the ladder and found the crew chief waiting at the bottom and holding out a cell phone. “What's up?”

“People are trying to track you down. You didn't answer your phone, so they called our head office and they called me.”

The crew was discouraged from taking personal calls while on the clock, so Dawson kept his cell on vibrate and hadn't felt it go off as he'd worked. Dawson's stomach tightened.
Gabe!
He took the phone. “This is Dawson Berke.”

A man's voice said, “I'm Dr. Lopez, attending physician in the ER. Your father's had a myocardial infarction—a heart attack,” he clarified. “You need to come to the hospital right away.”