Love in Bloom (36 page)

“Nothing,” Hope insisted, brushing at the corners of her eyes.

“Did you and Jason have a fight?”

“No.” Hope knew her voice sounded snotty, but snotty was probably the only way she would keep Bobbi out of her business. “And will you please quit trying to matchmake?”

“But he's perfect for you,” Bobbi protested.

“Well, I'm not perfect for him,” Hope said bitterly.

Bobbi studied her a moment, then said, “That again. Are you going to let cancer take away your life?”

This was totally crossing the line. Bobbi didn't know what it was like to wonder if you'd be around to see another Christmas. She had no idea what it felt like to hold your breath when you went to the doctor, to look at your body and want to cry, to know that you'd go through your life alone.

She stabbed a finger at her sister. “Don't you tell me how to run my life. You haven't been where I've been and you have no way of knowing how I feel.” She grabbed her purse from under the work counter and brushed past her sister.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Away. You can close up.”

Swiping at bitter tears, Hope walked to the downtown lakefront park, marched to the end of the dock, and sat down, dangling her feet over the water. On a weekday, no one was renting paddleboats. No one was even around. She looked across the lake at the Cascade Mountains in the distance, stretching in rugged grandeur toward an endless blue sky, and considered the vastness of her setting. She was just a tiny speck in this great painting. What did it matter what one tiny speck felt or did?

She sighed. She'd been happy as a tiny speck, content to pour herself into making the picture pretty for everyone else, until Jason Wells had walked into her shop. Now she wanted to jump to a different spot in the picture. But it didn't work that way. She had to learn to be happy where she was.

On Sunday afternoon, working next to Amber at the community garden, tending her herbs and flowers while the sun massaged her back, she could almost convince herself that, deep down, when she wasn't getting distracted by handsome men who could quote poetry, she was perfectly content.

“I love it here,” Amber said with a sigh. “I don't know what I'm going to do when winter comes and we can't be out here.”

“We'll plan our gardens for next spring, of course,” Hope told her.

“And wrangle more recipes out of Millie,” Amber added. “Hey, and speaking of Millie.” She pointed to the white Prius pulling up at the edge of the garden path.

Inside sat a beaming Millie, cuddling up to a good-looking older man with gray hair. They shared a kiss and she slipped out of the car and gave him a little good-bye wave that made Hope think of Betty Boop. He grinned, then waved up at Amber and Hope, who were shamelessly spying, and the car purred off.

“Welcome back, world traveler,” Amber greeted her. “You look like married life agrees with you.”

“What was your first clue?” Hope joked. “The ear-to-ear grin?”

Millie shook a playful finger at them. “All right, you two.”

“Except you're moving kind of slow,” Amber added.

“I'm a little tired,” Millie admitted, stepping into her plot and caressing her flowers.

“I wonder why you're so tired,” Amber teased, making Millie blush.

“I've been so busy. I got all my things from Debra's yesterday.”

“I bet that was fun,” Amber said. “Well, Debra is a little unhappy about the suddenness of everything,” Millie admitted.

“She'll come around,” Hope predicted.

“So, I suppose you worked yourself to death trying to get everything or ganized at the new house,” said Amber.

“Altheus won't let me work too hard,” said Millie. “Although, a little hard work never hurt anyone.”

But as they weeded, Hope noticed that Millie was becoming increasingly quiet. The late June weather was warm, but not warm enough to justify the profuse sweat on her face as she straightened and massaged her temples.

“Are you okay?” asked Amber.

Millie frowned. “I have such a headache.”

Amber left her garden and came around to rub Millie's shoulders. “Does that help?”

“Thank you, but no.”

“Maybe you should quit for the day,” Hope suggested.

“Maybe,” Millie agreed. “I just feel so . . . I don't feel well,” she finished weakly and sank down on the ground, crushing her pansies. She barely seemed to notice. She put a hand to her chest and took a deep breath.

“Millie,” Hope said, fear making her voice sharp.

Amber sat down next to Millie and put an arm around her shoulder, but Millie hardly seemed to notice that either. She sat breathing as if it was the only thing she could focus on.

“Tell us exactly what you're feeling.” Now Amber sounded as scared as Hope felt.

“I don't know,” Millie fretted. “I just don't feel right. I feel like I'm going to faint.”

Hope began to add up the symptoms. Sweating, light-headedness, anxiety. She pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and dialed 911. “I'm calling from Grandview Park,” she said as soon as someone came on the line. “I think we've got a woman here having a heart attack.”

“No,” Millie whimpered, and Amber hugged her, stroking her hair and chanting, “It'll be okay, it'll be okay.”

Oh, God, would it?

They hung in limbo, waiting for time to start again. The whole garden had gone quiet. At the far end, they could hear someone's hoe scratching behind a wall of cornstalks. A bumble bee buzzed slowly by. And Millie sat, concentrating on breathing as both women watched her in concern.

At last the ambulance arrived, sirens wailing, lights flashing. Seeing it, Millie became agitated. “Oh, dear.”

She clutched at Amber, who was nearly hysterical and pleading, “Stay calm, Millie.”

It only took a couple of minutes for the paramedics to decide Millie needed to go to the hospital, but it felt like hours to Hope as she watched them checking her and asking questions. Then they loaded her into the ambulance and carried her off.

Amber and Hope got into Amber's car and followed. As Amber squealed around Lake Way, following the ambulance to North Woods Hospital, Hope brought up Amber's home number on her cell so she could borrow it to talk to Ty.

“We think Millie's had a heart attack,” Amber said. “I don't know what time I'll be home.” It seemed to Hope she barely waited for an answer before ending the call and giving back the cell. Then she burst into tears.

“She'll be okay,” Hope insisted. “She has too much to live for to even think of leaving us.”

At the hospital, Amber told the nurse at the desk that she and Hope were Millie's granddaughters and the nurse promised to let them see Millie as soon as it was possible. “We're the closest thing she's got,” Amber rationalized as they sat down to wait.

“Altheus doesn't know,” Hope realized. “We've got to call him. And what's her daughter's name?”

“Debra.”

“No, her last name. Do you know it?”

Amber shook her head.

“Well, let's hope Altheus does. And let's hope he's listed. I'll be right back.”

Amber nodded grimly.

Hope hurried outside to call. She found Altheus. He answered the phone with such a hearty hello she wanted to cry. She nearly did as she broke the bad news to him.

“I'll be right there,” he said, grimly. What a sad change from the happy man who had come into her shop to pick up a corsage for his bride.

Why did this have to happen to Millie just when she'd found
real happiness? She couldn't just leave everything right when her life was getting good. It wasn't right. Hope leaned against a corner of the building and cried. The crying didn't change anything. It didn't even make her feel better. In fact, it left her with a headache. Giving a nearby shrub a vicious kick didn't help, either. It just made her feel like some kind of a traitor. “Sorry,” she told it.

She returned to the waiting area where Amber sat ripping off her thumbnail with her teeth. “No news yet?”

Amber shook her head.

No news is good news, Hope told herself, and tried hard to believe it.

At last the doctor came out and informed them that Millie had, indeed, had a heart attack.

They were finally allowed to see her and found her in a typical hospital room, with walls in a nondescript green and a long counter containing a stainless steel sink and decorated jars of cotton swabs and tongue depressors and a box of plastic gloves. A blood-pressure cuff dangled from the wall. Millie lay propped up in a bed with the usual worn sheet and thin blanket. She looked old, frail, like someone else.

She smiled and held out a hand to each of them and they took up positions on either side of the bed. “Thank you, girls, for taking such good care of me.”

“We're just glad you're okay,” Amber said, her voice unsteady.

Hope couldn't speak, so she squeezed Millie's hand.

“Had you been feeling sick?” Amber asked. “Were you sick on the cruise? How could this happen? Do you have high blood pressure?”

She was sounding more upset by the minute. “Amber,” Hope said gently.

“Oh, I've always had little health issues,” Millie replied vaguely. “It comes with the territory when you get old.”

“But you're going to be fine,” Amber insisted.

“Of course, I am,” Millie assured her. “I'm just so sorry I caused you girls all this trouble.”

“Yeah, you're a regular drama queen,” Amber teased.

“But we love you anyway,” Hope added.

Millie chuckled.

Hearing it, Hope felt comforted. They hadn't lost her. Hope had kicked that poor conifer for nothing.

Millie started to speak, but instead her features contorted into a look of pain and confusion. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

“Millie,” cried Hope, as if simply speaking her friend's name could make her snap out of it and get her body working right again.

But nothing was working right. Now Millie's mouth was opening and shutting, like a dying fish at the bottom of a boat, begging for water.

Amber rushed to the door and called, “We need a doctor!”

Hope stayed next to Millie, holding her hand tightly.

 

ALTHEUS ARRIVED AT
the hospital in time to learn that his wife had had a heart attack and followed it up with a stroke. “I'm very sorry. This happens sometimes,” the doctor said.

“Not to Millie,” Amber protested, and Altheus put an arm around her as if they'd known each other for years.

“I'm so sorry,” Hope said to him.

“She was feeling tired by the end of the cruise, but then we'd been going pretty hard. I wanted her to take a day and rest when we got back, but she insisted on going to her daughter's.” That made him frown. “I offered to help her pack, load up the car, but she wanted to do it all herself.”

“And I can guess why,” Amber said as she and Hope set up headquarters in the little waiting room of the critical-care unit. “She was probably afraid to let him near her daughter.”

Just then Debra marched in. Hope and Amber had ringside seats, right near the nurses' station, and it was easy to hear every angry word spilling out of her mouth.

“Why didn't someone from the hospital call me?” she demanded. “Where is my mother now?”

“She's in room 204. They're getting her settled,” the nurse said. “You can see her in just a minute.”

“I'll see her now,” Debra snapped, and marched into the room, ignoring the nurse's attempt to call her back. And then they heard Debra's anguished cry, “Mom! Oh, Mom.”

“I want my mom to live forever,” Amber said in a low voice.

Altheus returned with coffee for them. At the sound of the commotion, he set down the cups and started for Millie's room. Hope and Amber exchanged looks and followed him.

“This is all your fault,” Debra accused Altheus as they entered the room. “What were you thinking, hauling her all over the place like she was thirty?” She scowled at Hope and Amber. “This is a private room.”

“These are my wife's closest friends,” Altheus said calmly. “She would want them here.”

Debra looked at all three of them like they were ganging up on her, then covered her face and burst into tears.

“It's all right, girls,” Altheus said. “Everything's going to be fine.”

Was it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

O
N MONDAY, HOPE
left Bobbi to man the shop during lunch hour and went to the hospital.

As she entered Millie's bedroom, it struck Hope that her friend was beginning to disappear. Not just her body, which looked gaunt and small under those white covers, but her very soul. This wasn't the Millie Hope knew. Altheus sat slumped on one side of the bed holding Millie's hand. He, too, looked like he was shrinking.