Promises to Keep (39 page)

She’d done a Very Bad Thing. When you did a Very Bad Thing, you got punished. And punishment always hurt. She huddled under the blankets, cradling her wrist. It hurt, too. Maybe that was part of her punishment. But she somehow knew the hurt was nothing compared to what awaited her.

She wasn’t allowed to play with things like knives. She wasn’t allowed to be in a car, pretending to drive it. Doing all those forbidden things made her a Very Bad Person. Very Bad Persons went to Hell when they died. Very Bad Persons never had anyone to love them and take care of them.

Ruth pulled the blanket over her head, shutting out the voices that were now poking at her. Everything ached, from her head to her feet. Punishment, she knew. Her fault, and now she’d go to Hell and nobody would care.

They told her she’d hurt Mary. She didn’t know who Mary was, and she didn’t remember hurting her. They told her she’d hurt Hank. Ruth didn’t know any Hank, either. All she knew was that she’d been in a car when she wasn’t supposed to, and there had been a knife, and she was a Very Bad Person and had to be punished. Maybe they’d use the knife to cut the badness out of her.

She moaned, low in her throat. It didn’t sound human, even to herself.

“I’m Detective Sorenson.” The forty-ish woman standing just inside the room wore a dark gray pantsuit and sensible heels, her light brown hair wound into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Travis shook her hand while his eyes focused beyond her to the huddled form in the hospital bed. He knew his mother was there, under the mound of blankets. He could feel himself tighten all over as the anguished fury started to build.

Obviously Detective Sorenson sensed it too, for she placed her palm on his tensed forearm, a light touch that nevertheless cautioned him to tread with care. “Mr. Quincy, your mother isn’t talking. We’ve asked her several times what happened, but she hasn’t spoken a word. Now, there were witnesses to her actions, so it’s not like we have to get a confession out of her right away. The doctor on duty here has told us he’ll release her into our custody, probably in another hour or so.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” Annie asked.

“She’ll have to be booked. Assault with a dangerous weapon. It wasn’t a large knife but its serrated edge can do plenty of damage. Child endangerment. I could add attempted child abduction in the mix, but she is the boy’s grandmother, so I’m not sure about that one,” Detective Sorenson replied. “She’ll have to stand trial.”

“Is she,” Travis cleared his dry throat but his words were still raspy. “Is she mentally competent to stand trial?” He couldn’t take his eyes from the mound of blankets on the bed or ignore the keening, broken sounds emanating from under them. She sounded like an animal in terrible pain.

“Well, that’ll be for a psychiatric team to decide. If she’s not competent, then she’ll likely be institutionalized. Could be lengthy or short term. It’ll depend on how her mental capacity stabilizes. She’ll need to understand what she did before she can be brought to trial. At this point we can’t get a thing out of her, much less try to gauge how she might want to plead.”

“What if—what if I refuse to press charges? What if Mary Turner refuses to press charges?” As he spoke, Travis locked eyes with Annie, and saw in hers compassion as well as frustration. His mother assaulted her mother with a knife. His mother endangered the life of their child.

And his mother hunched beneath a small mountain of blankets in a hospital bed, rocking back and forth and moaning like something not quite human. How the hell could he condemn her to prison? How could he live with himself, if he did that? And what kind of beginning was this to the life he wanted so badly with Annie and Hank?

“What are you saying, Mr. Quincy?” Detective Sorenson asked quietly.

Travis turned eyes swimming in emotion toward her. “I want her to have the best help possible. I don’t think she’d survive prison, if it came to that. Please,” he entreated, “Detective, help me. Tell me what I need to do, to assure my mother is placed somewhere that will get her what she needs. Tell me how to take care of her.”

“Miss Turner? Do you agree? What about your mother? Would she agree to something like this?” Detective Sorenson wanted to know.

Annie nodded slowly, and her arms went around Travis. He leaned on her, a slip of a girl who looked as if a substantial wind could blow her away. But there was steel in that tender spine of hers. Nobody knew that better than he did. She was stronger than any of them.

She hesitated, only a second or two, as she prepared to speak in Mary’s behalf. “My mother’s a Christian woman, raised to show empathy and kindness toward those who would slap her down. She’d bring a crust of bread to a ravenous dog and hand-feed it.”

Travis could almost read her mind when she glanced up at him. Years filled with nothing but troubles and discord, caused by his mother. How could she get past all of that and refuse to press charges? It was one thing to speak for her mother and another to apply Mary’s teachings to a situation none of them could have seen coming.

But her arms tightened around him, and she must have found the empathy she needed as his grip remained warm and steady against her waist.

She took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “Ruth Quincy needs help, Detective. She’s my son’s grandmother, and she’s been through so much in her life, things that have formed her and skewed her judgment. My mother won’t press charges, I’m certain. And neither will I.”

Until the last six or so months, days that started out with a smile on Ruth’s face were few and far between. At first, Annie often found herself searching for excuses to avoid visiting her mother-in-law. It was difficult to look at Ruth and not recall that awful day when Annie had held Hank’s hand in the emergency room, sobbing when she’d seen the bruises covering his body and the cuts standing out in stark relief against his pale skin. His poor arm—his leg, his ribs. Her little boy, hurt like that.

She and Travis had to work at reducing that all-consuming anger. By the time their wedding day arrived, Ruth was safely locked behind the elegant yet very secure gates of the Shane Ark Institute, receiving the help she needed. It took time, but with the ability to relax and feel secure once more, came the capability of learning how to be a family. They gave it their all, as they approached everything together.

Equally hard to deal with were the letters Ruth was allowed to send Travis, as part of her rehabilitation. They were filled with remorse, with pleas for forgiveness. At first Ruth asked that forgiveness only of Travis, somehow forgetting what she’d done to Annie and her family. Eventually she understood she needed Annie’s absolution as well. So in that respect the letters were therapeutic for Ruth. Over time, Annie and Travis found something therapeutic as well, in the reading of them.

The final step, of bringing Ruth home and making a place for her in their lives, had been more difficult for Travis than it was for Annie. He struggled with residual anger and hurt over what his mother had done. But Annie dug deeply within herself to understand much of Ruth’s behavior. It became easier for her to finally accept than it was for Travis. And after all, it had been their choice not to press charges.

Travis visited his mother almost every day and there was still awkwardness between them, but she seemed willing to let him set the pace. She wisely didn’t ask for more. She’d come a long way from the blanket-wrapped form in the bed at Thompkin Urgent Care, who’d rocked back and forth, moaning like a wounded animal.

Now Annie stepped over to Ruth’s side, comfortable in her faded jeans and bright yellow sweater. She placed the vase she carried on a nearby credenza. “Good morning, Ruth. I brought you an early birthday present.”

“They’re lovely! Who sent them?” Ruth eyed the roses with delight.

“Dan Marley sent them over. He’ll be by later on today, to see you.” Flipping her long braid over one shoulder, Annie stood next to the bureau, her hands folded at her waist, and patiently waited to see what her mother-in-law might need, though the battle for that patience had been hard-won.

There had never been any question of allowing Ruth to be incarcerated. Especially when two separate psychiatric evaluations diagnosed her as mentally incompetent to stand trial. Hospitalization was best, the doctors advised.

A week after their evaluation, Ronald suffered a massive heart attack and passed away in his sleep. The entire Quincy household was in an uproar. Travis and Annie, trying to sort out their own lives amidst having to bury Travis’s father, had far more than they could handle. Admitting Ruth to Shane Ark was the best solution, allowing them to work through the grieving process and deal sanely with a quiet, private wedding.

After Ronald’s funeral, Phoebe Sherman decided to re-negotiate her previous position at Weston Medical, and left Quincy Hall. Martha had already returned, to everyone’s relief, and her calm, fortifying presence was a godsend. Even Annie’s family pitched in, with Mama taking Hank two days a week and Susan helping Annie move into the Hall and get settled.

Eventually it calmed down, and both Travis and Annie concentrated on their schooling. They’d juggled their classes with frequent trips home as well as to the Shane Ark Institute. Close enough that traveling there on the weekends was doable, being an hour out of Roanoke, they’d often combined the Institute visits with a quick overnight stay at Aunt Nan’s.

Two months after graduation, Travis began working with Dan Marley. Last month, Dan retired, and now Travis fully held the reins of the Quincy Legacy. Despite his youth, he handled it well.

Travis and Annie converted most of the west wing of the Hall into a lovely, spacious apartment, where Ruth happily lived. Her nurses took excellent care of her and she saw Hank every day. She refused to leave her rooms, claiming she felt safe and secure there. Not once, since coming back to the Hall, had Ruth been in any other part of the house.