One More Knight

waiting for her in that hospital all alone.

Since he didn’t have the sun and the heat to worry about, he was able to park a little closer to the hospital. He left Bubba tied to the Cherokee’s door handle and walked Charly in through the emergency entrance and down the long hallway to the CICU, one hand casually on her waist, as if it belonged there.

They found Dobrina alone in the waiting room.

“Asleep,” Charly whispered, pausing in the doorway. Troy could feel her body relax.

“That seems like a good sign,” he offered.

She nodded. “I can’t believe she’s still here.” Troy gave her a quick look but didn’t say anything. She let a breath out softly, shaking her head in wonderment. “She’s been with him since I was born, you know that? Thirty- six years. I don’t know how she’s stuck by him all these years.”

“She got any family?” Troy asked.

“She had a husband once. I think he was killed in Vietnam, or something.” She paused, her head tilted to one side, thinking about it. “You know, I really don’t think I ever asked. I was a kid, you know? And as far as I was concerned, she was my family. And then…” She gave herself one of those little shakes that was more like a shudder and turned away, but not before he saw the sadness in her eyes. Such terrible sadness, it made his whole face hurt just to look at her. “I sure never thought she’d still be with him,” she said in a light, brittle voice. “I guess that’s loyalty.”

To Troy it seemed pretty obvious that it would take more than loyalty to keep that proud, elegant woman at a man’s side for thirty-six years, but it didn’t seem like the time to point that out. He’d noticed that it didn’t seem to matter how old people got; when it came to their parents’ love lives they were blind as bats.

At the ICU nursing station, they were told that Judge Phelps was in stable condition and resting comfortably.

“Can I see him?” Charly asked, her voice tight.

“He’s asleep right now,” the duty nurse told her, “but you can go in for a few minutes.” She gave Troy a warning look. “Family only, one at a time.”

“It’s okay,” said Troy, “I’m just with her.” To Charly he said softly, “I’m gonna go make a phone call. You be okay?” She nodded, her eyes unfocused. “Be back soon,” he said, and then he did something that surprised them both. He leaned over and kissed her.

He left her there and went off, jangling like an old jalopy, to find himself a phone and some badly needed privacy.

Charly had been in ICUs before, in her professional capacity, but never when the person hooked to all the tubes and wires was someone to whom she had an emotional connection. She had expected it to be an upsetting experience; she’d prepared herself for fear, helplessness, even pity. What she hadn’t expected, as she stood just outside the glass partition gazing at the man lying so inert and pale and stripped of every shred of dignity, was to feel angry. Especially since she had no idea who it was she was angry with-him, herself or God.

She went toward him slowly, the beeping of the monitors timing her own pulse, the anger like a weight around her heart.

How could you do this to me? Is this it, then, the ultimate punishment? To leave me with your death on my head, and everything between us so wrong? Will I have to find a way to live with this now, too?

She was struck by how small he seemed, this man who had loomed like such a giant in her life. This man whose love she’d craved, whose approval she’d yearned for, this man she’d rebelled against and finally tried to run away from, only to find that his specter would dog her every day of her life. This man she’d tried so hard to prove herself to that she’d actually made a success of her life against all the odds.

How many times, when the struggle had seemed beyond her capabilities, had she flogged herself onward with the thought that she could not go back, would not go back until she’d succeeded, until she’d made something of herself beyond even her father’s expectations? And that someday… someday…she’d come back here and show him?

He waited, all those years, for you to come home…

“Oh, God, how ironic,” she whispered.

How terribly ironic that when she finally did come back to show her father the successful woman and respected attorney she’d made of herself, it was to discover that all that time, her greatest failure had been in staying away.

“I didn’t know…I didn’t know,” she said in the voice of a heartbroken child. “How could I know you’d do such a thing? You never even told me you loved me…”

And suddenly she knew that that was the reason for the anger. And that it always had been.

“Don’t you dare die,” she whispered fiercely, just as a tear surprised her by sliding off the end of her nose and dropping with a tiny plip onto her father’s blue-veined hand. It seemed to her a betrayal of the vow she’d made never to cry in front of him again, even though he was sound asleep and would never know. She jerked around, swiping at her eyes with a furious hand.

She froze. Her mind, her emotions, her body processes… everything stopped. Someone was there, outside the glass partition, a tall young man, watching her with familiar eyes, red rimmed now with fatigue, and fear, and fury. She knew him instantly, from the photographs on her father’s mantlepiece. He was the toddler with the floppy- eared dog, the boy with the baseball glove, the proud graduate in his cap and gown.

He was her son.

Chapter 10

October 18, 1977

Dear Diary,

Well, it was a big night for Mourning Spring High School. It was Homecoming, and we played Parksville and won. Bobby made two touchdowns and Richie even made one, which is pretty good considering he plays mostly defense. The way it happened was, he intercepted a pass and ran it all the way back for a touchdown. It was really bitchin’. Kelly Grace got junior princess-I knew she would. So she and Bobby get to be in the Queen’s Court at the dance tomorrow night. I’m going with Richie, natch.

I should be really happy, right? Well, I’m not. I’ve never been so miserable in my life. I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to anybody about this. I haven’t even told Kelly Grace. I know I have to, eventually, but…you know what? Sometimes I think I’d rather die.

I have to tell Colin. (Oh, by the way, the marching band did really well tonight, too. They did a whole medley from Grease, since this year’s theme is the fifties. It was bitchin’.) I haven’t seen much of him since school started. We don’t ever talk anymore like we used to. Guess I’m going to have to pretty soon, though, huh?

Thought for the Day: I guess there’s nothing like sex to screw up a good friendship.

She’d imagined it a thousand times. Dreamed about it. Made up romantic scenarios in her head. Especially in the early years, when she was still young and naive enough to believe in happy endings. Then had come the working years, when the struggle to get through college, then law school, bar exams and her first, dreadful job with the public defender’s office had kept her too busy and physically and emotionally exhausted to dwell on personal heartaches.

But in the past few years, when adoption stories were so often in the headlines and searches for both adopted children and birth parents seemed to have become the latest yuppie fad, she’d begun to think about it again. She’d even gone so far as to consult one of the senior partners, who had given her the names of a couple of lawyers he knew of who handled such matters, and also the names of some reputable private investigators. She’d carried the numbers around in her briefcase for weeks, waking up in cold sweats after nightmares filled with anguish, rejection