he had been thinking just moments earlier. But it wasn’t something he wanted to admit. Not even to himself.
“And you wouldn’t be?”
The colorful lines on the white linoleum floor helped guide patients and staff alike to different sections of the hospital. He followed the blue stripe, although he knew the route by heart. His office was on the other side of the hospital.
“We’ve lived through things that were a lot worse than a few hours of awkwardness.”
“Yes. We have.” He hesitated. It was none of his business, but he had to ask. “Did you ever have more kids?”
Her face paled for a few telling seconds before turning a bright pink. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again. “No. I haven’t.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”
She stopped in her tracks, her chin popping up. “No. You shouldn’t have.” Then her face softened. “Thank you for sending the flowers, though.”
He didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. The monthly daisies for Grace’s grave. “The florist sends them. I just put in the order.”
“I thought they were from you, but there is never any card attached.”
“Grace can’t read a card.” His jaw tightened again. “Or anything else.”
The florist had told him that daisies symbolized innocence and purity. Exactly what he thought of when he remembered his daughter. It had made the suffering she’d gone through all the more terrible somehow.
“Then why send them?” The question didn’t have the challenging tone he would have expected. Instead, she seemed to be searching for something.
He had no idea what, and even if he did, Tucker didn’t have an answer for her. He had no idea why he sent them. It was true. Grace would never see or touch or bury her face in those white petals. A tightness gripped his throat that wouldn’t let go.
That first trip to the florist’s shop had been hard. He’d sat in the parking lot for almost an hour before he’d been able to make himself go inside. The woman at the desk had taken his order, the compassion on her face almost his undoing. But once it was done, it had become almost a ritual—a sacred remembrance of what she’d meant to him.
He shrugged. “I know she would have liked them. It’s the only explanation I have.”
As she turned to start walking, something made him snag her wrist and pull her to a stop. When she turned to face him again, he took a moment to study her before letting go of her hand. She’d lost weight in the last two years. She wasn’t emaciated, by any means, but there were hollows to her cheeks that hadn’t been there when they’d been together. Maybe it was because her hair was longer than it had been, those vibrant red waves throwing shadows across her face. But whatever it was, her green eyes were the same, glowing...alive. Only now they were a little more secretive than they used to be. He didn’t like not being able to read her the way he once could.
“Are you...?”
Her brows puckered. “Am I what?”
“Are you okay with me sending them? The flowers, I mean.” He’d set out to ask her if she was really and truly okay. But since he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, he’d changed it at the last second.
“Yes.” Kady reached out and touched his hand. “I think it’s sweet. And Nanna and Granda’ like seeing them when they go to visit her grave.”
“How are they?” Kady’s Irish grandparents had taken some getting used to. As had her extended family, which was huge. And loud. And fun. He and his parents had been close, but their family gatherings had been small, reserved affairs. And as an only child, Tucker had learned to imitate that...to remain quiet and stoic no matter what was happening around him.
Not the McPhersons. They all wore their hearts on their sleeves, holding nothing in.
Only Kady did. At least, the Kady standing in front of him did.
She dropped her hand to her side. The urge to reach down and enfold it in his came and went. “They miss Grace, obviously, just like I do. But they’re doing okay. Nanna has been a bit forgetful recently, which has Granda’ worried.”
“Anything serious?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t see the signs of Alzheimer’s there. But time will tell. If it gets worse, I’ll talk her into getting some tests.”
“A very smart idea.”
Tell them I said hi. Send them my love. Tell them I’ll see them soon.
None of those responses were appropriate anymore. And it set up an ache inside him that wouldn’t quit.
“They’re thinking of selling the house and getting something smaller.”
The McPhersons’ home was huge by any standards. They’d held large family gatherings there. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Any holiday had been an occasion to be celebrated. He couldn’t picture them living anywhere else. The family’s wealth had been another thing that had come between him and Kady at the end. She had insisted her grandparents were willing to hire a fertility expert to make sure the odds of having another baby with Tay-Sachs were as low as possible. He’d been dead set against it. Not because of the money it would take. Her grandparents could afford all of that and more. His argument had been more along the lines of not being able to guarantee with a hundred percent certainty that they would not have another child like Grace.
“That would take some getting used to for them, wouldn’t it?”
“I think they’re ready for a change.”
Just like Tucker had been. Looking back, though, he wondered if it wasn’t so much that he had been ready for change as it was that he’d been running from his grief. The hopeful look on Kady’s face whenever she’d spoken of another baby had been enough to send an icepick through his heart. Eventually the organ had become a sieve, any emotional involvement leaking away until there had been nothing left.
“I hope it all works out for them.”
“Thank you.”
And on that note it was time for him to get back to his own retooled life. “Well, I have a surgery today at two. I’m assuming the medical students will be coming tomorrow, since Phil didn’t mention them being at the hospital today.” He paused. “Do you need anything while you’re here?”
He wasn’t sure what he would do if she came up with something personal.
“No. I think I’m good. I guess I’ll see you later this afternoon, if you’re in any of the sessions.”
“I’m scheduled for the anesthesia and pregnancy track.”
She nodded. “I’m not in that one. I have ‘Monitoring the High-Risk Pregnancy from Beginning to Delivery.’ So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Any idea at all on when we’re supposed to meet the students?”
He hadn’t thought to ask, although Phil had probably told him at some point. “I’m not sure. I’ll get hold of him and give you a call at the hotel, if that’s okay.”
“Yes. I’m in room 708. You can leave a message if I’m not there.”
No offer of her cellphone number. But then again, he’d told her he’d call her at the hotel, so maybe she thought he didn’t want it.
He didn’t.
Did he?
Hell, no. It would just give his fingers an excuse to push and erase those numbers again and again. Or, worse, call her with some trumped-up excuse just so he could hear her voice.
That was all he needed—one more thing to brood over. Not that he’d tried to call her since the divorce. Her cellphone number could be the same,