through the manicured lawns. As she reached the children’s playground, a breeze caught the swings, rocking them back and forth.
Memories of her childhood crowded her mind, and she sat in one of the old swings, almost wishing she could be a little girl again. It would’ve been easy to close her eyes, pretending she was eight years old. She allowed herself a minute to remember Sunday afternoons spent in this very park, with David pushing her and a tiny Stephanie on these swings, catching them at the bottom of the slide. But she was thirty-one now and her father, whom she adored, was in a hospital room, fighting for each breath he drew.
She refused to even consider the possibility of losing him. Was she being selfish? She didn’t know. Her father had said he was ready to die, ready to relinquish his life.
She dragged the toe of her shoe along the ground, slowing the swing to a halt. When the time came to let go of her father, Valerie prayed she could do it with acceptance and strength. When death came to him, she wanted it to be as a friend, not an enemy with a score to settle. But don’t let him die yet. Please, not yet.
As she drove back to the hospital, past the strip malls that marked the highway, she caught sight of a recent addition. A movie theater, a six-plex. It astonished her that little Orchard Valley could have six movies all playing at once, especially in the era of DVDs and movies you could download from the Internet. She supposed that in a small town, going to the movies was still a major social event. The downtown theater she remembered so well from her teenage years still operated, but to a limited audience; according to Norah the features were second-run and often second-rate.
Orchard Valley had its share of national fast-food restaurants now, too, many of them situated along the highway. But as far as Valerie was concerned, hamburgers didn’t get any better than those at The Burger Shack, a locally owned diner.
The summer she was sixteen, Valerie had worked there as a waitress, serving customers for minimum wage, thinking she was the luckiest girl in town to have landed such a wonderful job. How times had changed! How much she’d changed.
As she neared the hospital, Valerie felt a surge of reluctance. For nearly a week now, she’d practically lived on the CCU floor with only brief visits home to shower and change clothes. It had been a strange week, outside ordinary time somehow. Four years ago, when her mother was dying, she’d experienced something similar. But then her father and both her sisters had been there to share it. Now there were only two—Norah and her. And Colby …
She pulled into the parking lot and found a vacant spot, then walked toward the main entrance, sorry to leave the sunshine.
The minute she entered the lobby, Norah sprang up from the sofa she’d been sitting on. “I didn’t think you’d ever get back,” she said breathlessly. “What took you so long?”
“I stopped at the park. What’s the matter?”
“Steffie called from Rome. She’s flying home by way of Tokyo. I know it sounds crazy, but it was the most direct flight she could get. She’s hoping to arrive sometime tomorrow night. She wasn’t sure exactly when, but she said she’d let us know as soon as possible.”
“How’d she make it to Rome?”
“I asked her that, but she didn’t have time to explain. I told Dad she’d probably be here by tomorrow night.”
Valerie felt herself relax. Until now, she hadn’t realized just how tense she’d been over Steffie’s situation.
“Colby wants to see you,” Norah informed her next.
“Did he say why?”
Norah shook her head, frowning a little. “You two didn’t have an argument, did you?”
“No. What makes you ask?”
Norah shrugged vaguely. “Just the way he looked when he asked for you.”
“Looked?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Norah was clearly regretting that she’d said anything. “It’s like he was eager to see you, but then relieved when I told him you’d gone into town. That might seem absurd, but I can’t think of any other way of describing it.”
“I’ll catch him later.” For some reason, Valerie wasn’t quite ready to see him yet.
“I’m sure he’ll stop by this evening.”
“How’s Dad doing?” Valerie asked as they headed for the elevator.
“Not so good. His breathing is more labored and the swelling in his extremities isn’t any better. That’s not a good sign. Colby’s doing everything he can to drain his lungs, but nothing seems to work. In the meantime, Dad’s growing weaker by the hour.”
“He misses Mom even more than we knew,” Valerie whispered, thinking about the snapshots she’d picked up at Al’s Pharmacy. She wondered how often he’d visited their mother’s grave. How often he turned to speak to the woman he’d spent a lifetime with, remembering too late that she was gone.
“What will we do if anything happens to Dad?” Norah asked quietly.
A few days earlier, Valerie would’ve rejected that possibility, adamantly claiming their father wasn’t going to die. She’d stubbornly refused to consider it. She wasn’t as unyielding now.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but we’ll manage. We’ll have to.”
They were seated in the waiting room when Colby arrived. Valerie glanced up from a business publication she was reading and knew instantly that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. His eyes, dark and troubled, met hers. Without being conscious of it, she stood, the magazine slipping unnoticed to the floor.
“Colby?” His name became an urgent plea. “What is it?”
He sat down on the sofa and reached for Valerie’s hands, gripping them tightly with his own. His gaze slid from her to Norah. “Your father’s suffered a second heart attack.”
“No,” Norah breathed.
“And?” Valerie’s own heart felt as though it were in danger of failing just then. It pounded wildly, sending bursts of fear through her body.
“We can’t delay the surgery any longer.”
Norah was on her feet, tears streaking her face. “You can’t do the surgery now! His chances of survival are practically nil. We both know that.”
“He doesn’t have any chance if we don’t.” Although he was speaking to Norah, it was Valerie’s gaze he held, Valerie’s eyes he looked into—as if to say he’d do anything to have spared her this.
Five
Colby had been with her father in the operating room for almost six hours, but to Valerie, it felt like six years.
While she waited, she recalled the happy times with her father and, especially as she entered adolescence, the not-so-happy ones. Her will had often clashed with his, and they’d engaged in one verbal battle after another. Valerie had found her father stubborn, high-handed and irrational.
Her mother had repeatedly told Valerie the reason she didn’t get along with her father was that the two of them were so much alike. At the time Valerie had considered her mother’s remark an insult. Furthermore, it made no sense. If they were alike, then they should be friends instead of adversaries.
It wasn’t until her mother became ill that Valerie grew close to her father. In their love and concern for Grace, they’d set aside their differences; not a cross word had passed between them since.
Valerie couldn’t say which of them had changed, but she figured they’d both made progress. All she knew was that she loved her father with a fierceness that left her terrified whenever she thought about losing him.
The passage of time lost all meaning as she paced, back and forth, across the