Elias’s breathing stilled. His pulse launched into the stratosphere. Forget Elmer’s glue. Grammy was Gorilla Glue personified. She held the Carpenter family together. Without her…
His knee bounced. He lifted off his chair. He wanted to demand answers and the doctor’s number. Not that the doc would tell him anything because of HIPAA.
He forced himself to sit. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Dad inhaled slowly. His exhale came even slower.
An imaginary clock in Elias’s head got louder.Tick-tock.Tick-tock.Tick-tock. “Tell me.”
“It’s. Her. Heart.” Dad drew out the words so long each word sounded like its own sentence.
Her heart.
Worst-case scenarios flashed through Elias’s brain at fast-forward speed. Grammy in a hospital bed attached to blinking and beeping machines. A flatline on a heart monitor. A coffin surrounded by the fragrant lilies she loved so much.
“Three weeks ago, she was given a heart monitor to wear. Now, she needs a pacemaker,” Dad said as if Grammy was ordering a purse to match a new pair of shoes.
Elias was about to say as much, but he remembered the lip lick. This had to be bothering Dad, but the man had built a reputation of being calm and capable and strong, a rock for the family and the community. If that meant shutting off emotions to be a solid pillar no matter the circumstances, Marc Carpenter didn’t think twice. That was why Elias closed his eyes, took a breath, and opened them.
Except, Dad’s stop-being-so-dramatic expression he reserved for Elias’s mom’s shopaholic tendencies was fully displayed. “The procedure is routine. Simple.”
“We’re talking about her heart.” Elias’s voice sounded surprisingly steady, though it wavered slightly at the end. He usually kept his cool, but this was Grammy they were talking about. She was his Achilles’ heel. The closest thing to a mother figure he had. After his parents divorced, his mother had gone no contact with Elias. “Grammy is seventy-nine. Any procedure at her age carries risks.”
But Grammy would be fine. She had to be.
Wait. Dad had mentioned something about three weeks…
Elias balled his hands. His temperature shot from ninety-eight point six to two hundred twelve. “Why didn’t anyone tell me what was going on?”
“You didn’t need to know.” The sharpness of Dad’s words stabbed like a knife. “Now, you do.”
More proof they saw him as a teenager, not a grown man. “What changed?”
“Your grandfather and I want her to slow down. She won’t if Gramps doesn’t. I’m too busy to be on the committee.”
Which meant Elias had no choice but to do it.
An image of an office in a high-rise in Seattle or Portland flitted through his mind. Who was he kidding? A low-paying job as a public defender might be better than languishing in quicksand daily at his family’s firm. A new job would mean leaving Grammy, but if he stayed, he would work himself to death for the firm.
He swallowed back regret at having become nothing more than the firm’s lackey. Grammy loved him, but Gramps and Dad only seemed to care about him if Elias did what they wanted. How would they act if he said no to their demands? He didn’t know because he’d always said yes, though that was getting harder to do. “What’s involved with the committee?”
Dad shuffled through the stack of files. “Attend the next meeting. Do whatever task you’re assigned.”
Elias wanted to help Grammy, but “task” was too vague. He leaned back in his chair to exude more confidence and pointed to the files. “I have a huge workload thanks to you and Gramps.”
His dad scoffed, slapping the files against the desk and sending the stack to the floor. With a contrite expression, he stepped away from the desk.
Of course, Dad didn’t clean up his mess. That was Elias’s job. He bent to pick up the files and placed them on the desk.
“You’re young.” Dad sounded wistful—a rarity for such a pragmatic man. “You can handle the lack of sleep. And don’t forget, one day, all this will be yours.”
“Be more specific about one day?”
Dad laughed. “Want to get rid of us?”
Yes, which meant Elias needed to answer carefully.
On paper, returning to his hometown after law school checked all the boxes on his life plan. A position at his family’s thriving firm—albeit in a small town—gave him job security and a future with a location close to loved ones. Except Elias never expected to be stuck in the role of a glorified intern.
