“That doesn’t make a damned bit of sense,” he said, raking his fingers through blond hair the same shade his father’s had been at that age.
“Stop.” Lacey put her hand over his.
“Are you trying to find yourself? Is that what this is? Some crazy mid-life crisis?”
Lacey drew in a deep breath. “I couldn’t watch it anymore,” she admitted quietly, giving in to Jason’s desperate need to understand something that was almost beyond explaining. “I couldn’t sit by and watch your father destroy his health. I was dying bit by bit, right along with him. I tried everything I knew, but nothing worked.”
Her son stared at her, his eyes filled with astonishment. “Are you saying that you wanted to shock him into letting up?”
Tears misted in her eyes. She blinked them away. “I hoped that our marriage would matter enough, that I would matter enough, to make him stop killing himself.”
“But you are the only thing that matters to him.”
She shook her head. “Not anymore. Not enough. Have you seen any signs that he’s changing? Admit it, since I left, he’s only working harder.”
“Because he has no reason to go home. Don’t you see? You’ve created a catch-22.”
“So what should I do? Go home and watch him die? Give him permission to do it? I won’t do that, Jason. I can’t.”
“Can’t you talk about it? Compromise?”
“Not about this.”
Jason ran his fingers through his hair again in the gesture he’d picked up from his wife. “Damn! What an awful mess.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle. I would give anything for that not to be.”
“I love you both. I want to see you happy again, the way you used to be.”
Lacey’s lips curved into a rueful smile. “No one wants that any more than I do. I promise you that.”
They were still talking when the phone rang. Lacey picked it up and heard a cool, impersonal voice inform her that Kevin Halloran had just been brought into the hospital. “He’s in the cardiac intensive care unit. He wanted you to know.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered softly, sinking into a chair, her own heart pounding.
“Mom, what is it? Is it Granddad? Dad?”
“Your father,” she said, taking his hand, needing his strength to ask into the phone, “How is he? Will he make it?”
“His condition is critical.”
Leaving had accomplished nothing, Lacey thought bitterly. Nothing.
Then, with a rush of panic, she tried to bring herself to face the very real possibility of losing forever the man she had loved nearly her whole life.
Chapter Two
The ten-mile ride across town to the hospital was the longest Lacey had ever taken, even though Jason drove like a maniac. His expression was grim, and she was certain she’d detected accusation in his eyes from the moment she’d told him about his father’s heart attack. Whatever he thought, it was no worse than what she was mentally telling herself. She felt as if the guilt were smothering her.
The deep sadness, the sense of magic lost that had pervaded her entire being for so long had vanished in the brief seconds of that phone call, replaced by a gut-wrenching fear. Kevin couldn’t die, not like this, not with so very much between them unresolved.
“It’s my fault,” she said when she could stand the silence no longer. “I moved out. Maybe if I’d stayed…” But she knew deep down it wouldn’t have mattered. Kevin had made up his mind to tempt fate.
And he’d lost. Dear God, she prayed, don’t let him pay with his life. Make this just one more warning. Give him one more chance.
Jason glanced her way. “He’s going to be okay, Mother. Stop beating yourself up over this. Casting blame isn’t going to do Dad any good. Did the hospital call Granddad?”
She realized she hadn’t asked, that she had no idea where Kevin had been when he’d had the heart attack or even how he’d gotten to the hospital. “I don’t know. I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you.”
“Maybe Granddad was with him. Knowing the two of them, they were probably still at the office.”
Jason seemed to take comfort from the possibility that Brandon had been with Kevin, that he might even now be with him. Lacey was less certain how she felt about seeing her father-in-law. She dreaded another confrontation. They’d already had one monumental set-to over her decision to move out.
Brandon had ranted and raved, even questioned her sanity. She knew it killed him that he couldn’t manipulate them all like puppets on a string. She wasn’t sure she could stand another meeting like that, especially tonight.
The bottom line, though, was that in his own way Brandon loved Kevin every bit as much as she did and wanted what was best for him. Unfortunately, they tended to differ on what that was.
Despite their differences, he had every right to be at Kevin’s side. Knowing Brandon, though, he would figure he had more of a right to be there than she did. Maybe that was true. She didn’t know anymore.
“It’s my fault,” she said again as Jason sped into the parking lot by the emergency entrance and screeched to a halt in the first space he could find.
“Stop it,” Jason said impatiently, slamming the car door and coming around to join her. “You did what you thought you had to do. I may not agree with your methods, but I know you did it out of love.”
“Maybe I did it out of selfishness,” she countered and bit back a sob as guilt clogged her throat. “Maybe I was only thinking of my needs, not his.”
“You don’t have a selfish bone in your body,” Jason said, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. He scanned her face. “Are you going to be okay?”
Lacey drew in a deep breath. She slowly, consciously pulled herself together and gave him a tremulous smile.
