I didn’t need to answer that. We both knew.
“Fine. I’ll email Barry and tell him you’ll be on the contract negotiations. He’s cool and won’t have any problem with it.”
“Barry Reinholtz? Yeah, he’s a chill dude.” Worried dark eyes met mine. “Ezra, I hope I didn’t overstep. I—”
“Don’t even think about finishing whatever it was you were going to say.” I jumped up from my seat, grabbed my keys and phone, and shoved them into my pocket, anticipation building as I came around the desk to give a surprised Sunny a hug. Under his standard black outfit, I felt the strength in the sinewy muscles of his narrow, limber body. “You can always say whatever you want to me. That’s what families do, right? Don’t worry about breakfast. No time for that right now.”
His smile blinded me. “Yeah. Good luck, Ezra.”
I didn’t know whether I needed luck or a miracle, but before this day was done, Roe and I needed to have that talk that was more than twenty years in the making.
Chapter Twelve
In the hours spent waiting for the test results, I learned to hate the phrase “We don’t know.” As a psychologist, I’d used it countless times, never understanding the impact it might have on someone else’s psyche, and I vowed, once my grandmother was out of this place and recovering, I’d choose my words more carefully.
It never occurred to me that my grandmother would be anything but whole again. She’d woken up this morning grouchy and confused but mostly aware. She recognized my mother, but she talked about my father and still thought of me as much younger than my current age. She asked me about high school graduation and how Ezra was.
Ezra.
Damn, last night he’d behaved as if he were part of the family.
My mother and I went to the hospital cafeteria, where we chose a seat in the corner, with a view of the street. The sunlight streamed inside, fanning across her face to illustrate every line and dark shadow on her pale skin. Shards of pain shot through my heart.
I got us each a coffee and a big pastry. I picked at the food, which tasted like nothing in my mouth, as my mother sipped her coffee and made me aware of some facts. “He was so kind to me, but especially to Nettie. He sat and talked to her and didn’t act as if it was a bother to spend his evening with a couple of old ladies. We discussed how you two lost touch, and Monroe?”
My gaze jerked from the intense study of the early 1980s pitted Formica table to my mother’s soft eyes. “Yes?” My grip on the coffee cup tightened.
“Ezra was genuinely shocked when we backed you up and said you continued to write to him until it became apparent he wasn’t going to respond. I think something happened there.”
“I have my own theory.” I sketched out my belief that Ezra’s parents, in an effort to keep us apart, withheld my letters from him. “So,” I said in conclusion, “it made it easy for his parents to say I never wrote him. And the one time I did call, his mother got on the phone, thrilled to relay how happy Ezra was and that he was dating women.” I lifted my cup to my lips, but my stomach twisted at the bitter coffee smell, and I set it on the table, untouched.
“It sounds like they never told him. Or what they did tell him made it easy for him to believe you wronged him.”
Childish as it might seem, I couldn’t help my hurt feelings. It still poked at me like a sharp needle to my skin. “She never liked me. I’m positive she kept me away from Ezra because she felt I wasn’t good enough for him.”
“When all this is over, I hope you have a chance to sit down and figure it out.”
The few bites of pastry sat like lead in my stomach, and I tossed the mess, along with my coffee, into the trash. “We should be getting upstairs.”
Grandma had returned to the room from the battery of neurological tests and was sitting up in a chair. Wrapped in a blanket, she looked even tinier and more frail than usual. One side of her mouth drooped a bit, her words came out slowly and slightly slurred, but it didn’t stop her from complaining. “You’d think I didn’t know how to walk. They kept making me go back and forth so many times.”
“No, Nettie, you know you’re supposed to do these exercises,” a young woman said with a smile. Her dark hair was done in short braids, and she was dressed in blue scrubs. I couldn’t read her ID tag, so I didn’t know if she was a doctor, nurse, or physical therapist. “That’s what will help you regain your stability. You have to listen to us, otherwise it will take you longer to recuperate.” She held out her hand to my mother and me. “I’m Dr. Robinson.”
“Hello. Thank you, Doctor. I’m her grandson, Monroe, and this is my mother, Deborah.”
“Mom, you’re looking better. How do you feel?” My mother flew to my grandmother’s side to kiss her, and she tucked the blanket around her. “You know me, right?”
“Of course I know my daughter,” she said, and my mother’s eyes filled with tears. “But where is Robert? At work?”
Frightened, my mother looked first to me, then to Dr. Robinson. “I’m her daughter-in-law, but we’re very close—she lives with me. But my husband, Robert, her son, died sixteen years ago.”
“The confusion is normal, especially in the beginning. Once she goes home and is in her familiar surroundings, it will be easier for her to regain her memory.”
“Grandma, are you giving them a hard time?” I bent to kiss her, and she clutched my arm.
“Don’t leave me here. I want to come home.”
My heart twisted. “You’re going to be fine. You listen to what they tell you to do, and you’ll be home in no time. We’ll sit and watchMy Lottery Dream Hometogether and pick the beach house we want to get.”
