Taylor Lynne: The Women of Merryton - Book Two (19 page)

I sat at a table in the
cafeteria while Easton grabbed us something to eat. Easton brought me a fruit
plate and a large glass of lemon ice water. I downed the water in no time. I hadn’t
realized how thirsty I was. Easton refilled it without a word while I picked at
the fruit.

Easton ate a sandwich and
a cookie. I almost took him up on his offer to eat part of the peanut butter
cookie.

“Do you want to talk?”
Easton asked.

I rubbed my face. “How
long have you been taking care of Frank?”

He looked up from his
Coke. “A long time.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell
me?”

“I figured you hated me
enough already. And after Frank’s many confessions to me over the years, I
finally understood why you hated him. I had no idea the hell you went through
as a child. I didn’t want to hurt you further, but once he started to decline
rapidly, I knew I needed to tell you in case you wanted to …”

“What? Reconcile with
him?”

He shook his head. “No,
forgive him,” he said reluctantly.

I sat back against my
chair and stared incredulously at my ex-husband.

He stared back at me with
kind eyes. He reached across the table and took my hand. “I know it’s hard to
believe, and I know my word doesn’t mean that much to you, but Frank is sorry.
He knows he can never make up for what he did, but he wants the chance to tell
you that.”

I pulled my hands away
and took several deep breaths.

“Can I ask you a
question?” he asked.

I nodded in the
affirmative.

“Why didn’t you feel like
you could tell me what happened to you growing up?”

I could feel the sting of
tears, but tried to hold them at bay as I stared at my ex-husband, who looked
too sweet. “Part of me was embarrassed. I was an adult and I felt like I should
be over it, that I was better than my past. I didn’t want you to think less of
me.”

His eyes widened. “Tay.”
He hadn’t called me Tay in forever. I had forgotten that he used to. “You
couldn’t control what happened to you as a child. Finding out what you went
through only increased my respect for you. Not many people turn out the way you
did growing up in your circumstances. You could have been honest with me.”

“I wanted to be.”

Neither of us spoke for
at least a minute or two. We each became interested in anything that wasn’t
each other.

“I’m sorry I convinced
you to move back here,” Easton said into the silence.

“Which time?” I sort of grinned.

“We should have stayed in
Birmingham and used the money from my parents’ trust to buy a house instead of
a practice. I should have taken the position at UAB hospital.”

I shrugged my shoulders.
“We don’t know that the outcome would have been any different.”

“Anything would have been
better than the last several years.”

I popped a strawberry in
my mouth. Part of me wanted to ask him what had happened to him, but I thought
it best to leave it alone. I will say that part of me felt sorry for him.

“Can I offer you some
advice?” he asked uneasily.

I swallowed the
strawberry and raised my eyebrow.

“You don’t have to listen
to it.”

“Say what you have to
say,” I responded without contempt.

“I know I don’t have any
right to say this, but watch out for Victor Carmichael. He’s a womanizer. You
deserve someone better than him.”

I almost laughed. It was
such a weird conversation to be having with him. “Don’t worry, I already
figured out he’s only looking for another notch on his bedpost. Besides, I
don’t date doctors.”

He held up his can of
Coke. “That’s a good rule to live by.”

Frank did not wake up
that night and visiting hours in the ICU were over at eight. Easton offered to
drive me home, but I wanted to be alone, even for just a few minutes as I drove
home. I wanted to feel composed before Ashley got home. This was hitting me
like a freight train. I never wanted to see Frank again, but Easton was right,
I needed to find a way to forgive him.

I had no idea Easton had
been taking care of him financially. I needed Easton to be the jerk I had made
him out to be the last several years; it was easier to deal with him that way.
I know that sounds crazy, but the Easton I knew before it all fell apart kept
showing up and it confused me.

That night I watched
Ashley sleep for a moment from her door. She made everything seem right in my
world. As I stared at her, I thought about what a good person she was. I
admired the way she courageously charged ahead in her relationship with her own
father. I loved how she wanted him to be accountable for the lost time, but
didn’t hold it over his head. Instead, they were both trying to make sure that
the mistakes from the past weren’t repeated. At sixteen, she was much better
than me.

I knew our situations
were different in some big ways. Easton never lost contact with Ashley. He may
not have been physically present, but he called her often and he never forgot a
birthday or holiday. There were even times when special events were taking
place in her life, like volleyball tournaments or awards ceremonies, and he
would send her a special note or flowers. But there were also times she would
beg him to come to one of those events and he would always say the same thing—he
wanted to more than anything, but he couldn’t. She and I never understood why.
But now? Now I wondered about the kind of life he led with Kathryn.

I crawled into bed
mentally exhausted. I wasn’t looking forward to another day at the hospital. I
mean, what was I even going to say if he ever did wake up? I really did feel
numb toward him. For years, I dreamed of the diatribe I would unleash on him,
but now there was nothing. Certainly no love or tenderness, but the hate was
gone. I felt nothing for the man.

Easton once again offered
to stay with me at the hospital, but he had been planning to take the girls to
the amusement park in Denver and then to the baseball game that evening. I knew
the girls were looking forward to it, and as much as Easton had been a comfort yesterday,
on the flip side he made me just as uncomfortable.
Him
I wasn’t
indifferent to.

I had to suit up again at
the hospital. Most of the tests had come back and there were no signs of
infection, but there were still a couple they were waiting on. I brought my
laptop and a coloring book for adults for a stress reliever.

Frank looked as unwell as
he did the day before. The only difference was he moved restlessly at times. He
wasn’t coherent, but he was beginning to show signs of life.

His hepatologist came in
late morning and informed me he had discussed his case with a nephrologist out
of Denver and they agreed they were following the right course of action. I
nodded and pretended like I cared.

“We are seeing his kidney
function increase, so we will be decreasing the pain medication slowly,” he
said it like it was a positive thing.

That meant Frank might be
coherent before I was ready for him to be. Not that there was ever a good time
for me, but later seemed better than sooner.

“Thank you,” was all I
could say to the doctor.

I was amazed at how some
people’s bodies could come back against the odds. Frank didn’t look like he
should bounce back at all, yet modern medicine overruled Mother Nature.

Left alone, I turned to
my laptop and closed the PowerPoint presentation I would never present. I was
still irked that Dr. Carmichael thought I could be another conquest. I hoped he
got the hint yesterday and realized that was never happening. But I had had an
insane thought while putting together the presentation that maybe I could write
my own nutrition book.

As I was starting my
outline, Frank received a visitor. At least I assumed Pastor Bates was there to
see Frank, but by the time he left, I wasn’t so sure.

“I hope I’m not interrupting
anything.” Pastor Bates announced himself. He, too, was dressed in the yellow
hospital garb.

I looked up from my
laptop. He was interrupting, but that was okay. “Not at all.” I smiled.

He walked to the opposite
side of Frank. “I heard your father isn’t doing too well.”

I grimaced at the notion
that anyone would think Frank was my father. The good Pastor must have noticed.
He took a seat and looked at me thoughtfully. “How long has it been since
you’ve seen your father?”

“I haven’t seen
Frank
in over fifteen years until yesterday.”

“That’s a long time,” he
responded.

“Will you think ill of me
if I say not long enough?”

“No. It’s not my job to
judge.”

“So what is your job?”

He grinned. “That depends
on who you talk to, but I would say in this case, my job is to provide comfort
and to help heal.”

“I don’t think Frank’s
body can be healed.”

“I’m more of a spiritual
healer.”

“Oh, well I’m not sure
when Frank will be coherent.”

He grinned again and
focused on me.

I squirmed in my seat.

“How are you settling
in?” he asked.

“Just fine.” I was doing
my best to remain evasive.

He studied me for a
moment. “I’m glad to hear that.”

I was hoping that was the
end of our conversation. I liked him—he gave some of the best sermons I had
ever heard—but I felt like he had an agenda for being here.

He tapped his finger
against his lip. “You know, this morning I was reading an inspiring story about
a holocaust survivor.”

He piqued my interest. I
sat up straighter and gave him my attention.

“She was a young teen
when she and her family were captured and arrested for hiding Jews in their
home. Like many she was subjected to the worst forms of brutality and
depravity.”

I shuddered at the
thought. I had read several books about World War II and always wondered how
humans could be so cruel. It was as if they were no longer human.

“There was one Nazi
soldier in particular,” he continued, “that she remembered because of his
unusual eyes. You see, one of his eyes was brown and the other was green. He
was like the others of his company—cold and brutal—as if he were past feeling. But
she was one of the fortunate ones. Her camp was liberated and she lived to tell
the tale, but her whole family had been killed.”

I wiped a tear out of my
eye.

“She was triumphant,
though,” he said in way to make me feel better. “She used her experience for
the good of God and mankind. She started a home for orphaned children when she
was older.”

“That’s inspiring,” I
commented.

“Yes it is,” he agreed,
“but it isn’t as inspiring as this next part. Years later she came face to face
with her captor, the one with unusual eyes.”

I put my hand to my
mouth.

“Yes, there was no
mistaking the man that had once tortured her. He was much older now, too, but
she recognized him almost immediately in the town market.”

My hands fell in my lap.
“What did she do?”

He smiled as if he knew a
secret. I supposed I knew it, too. It was a secret I had been taught, but had
failed to fully learn.

“She approached her
captor. It was as if he recognized her, too, but she thought how could he? He
had surely tortured hundreds, if not thousands of prisoners like herself. In an
unprecedented act of humanness, she took the man’s large hand in her small one.
With tears in her eyes, she looked up into his and said, ‘I forgive you.’

“The once brazen soldier
dropped to his knees and embraced the woman in the middle of the market and
cried like a baby.”

“Why did she forgive him?”
I asked with emotion. My words almost caught in my throat.

“She was asked that very
question many times, and her answer was always the same. The burden of hate and
resentment was not hers to bear; she had given it over to God. A God that
commanded her to forgive all. She realized long before she had the chance to
let the soldier know she had forgiven him—along with all of her captors—that
she didn’t have to carry the heavy burden of not forgiving. She believed that
Christ had atoned for all, and that even   at times it was hard for her to
comprehend, she knew God loved that soldier as much as He loved her.”

That last line struck me
like a bolt of electricity. I looked over at Frank.

The Pastor sat back in
his chair looking pleased with himself. “I’m thinking of using that as part of
my sermon tomorrow. What do you think?”

I think he knew exactly
what I thought. Without looking his way, I responded, “I think it would
resonate with the congregation.”

He smiled and stood up.
“I hope so. Please let me know if I can do anything for you or your family,” he
said on his way out.

I nodded silently.

I didn’t have the heart
to dive back into my outline after the insightful Pastor left. I stared at
Frank and thought a lot about forgiveness. It wasn’t only Frank I needed to
forgive. I needed to forgive Easton, and … myself. Easier said than done.

Easton called late in the
afternoon to check on me and let me know he and the girls were on their way
back. “Why don’t you come to the game tonight? Take a break,” he suggested.

“Okay,” I agreed easily.

“We’ll see you soon,” he
said with a smile in his voice.

I sat back and continued
to stare at the shell of the man in front of me. I still couldn’t fathom that
we were related. I could see no hint of resemblance in his features. I wondered
what hold he’d had over my dear, sweet mother. She deserved so much more. I
supposed she had put up with the abuse for so long because she couldn’t see a
way out, or maybe she felt like she deserved it. How she kept believing his
lies, I’d never know. Maybe she needed to, or even wanted to.

I was putting away my
laptop, getting ready to head home and then to the ball field when I heard a
voice that stopped my heart using a name I loved.

“Tessa,” Frank said,
barely above a strangled whisper.

For a brief second, the
voice paralyzed me. I couldn’t look up, but he spoke again. “Tessa, I’m so
sorry.”

Wasn’t he always?
I
willed myself to look at him. I could see tears in his yellowed eyes. “It’s not
Tessa, it’s Taylor.” I wanted to tell him never to speak my mother’s name, but
I couldn’t.

He tried to sit up but
didn’t have the strength. Me, I felt like my heart would beat out of my chest.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I almost wished Easton was with me. I needed someone.

“Taylor.” It sounded like
he expended all of his energy saying my name.

I didn’t know what to say
to him as he struggled to keep his tear-filled eyes opened and focused.

“Do you want me to call
for a nurse?” I asked.

“No. You came home,” he rasped.

I shook my head no. I
wasn’t home.

He tried reaching out for
me. “You’re beautiful, like your mother.”

I refused to take his skeletal
hand. I stood up. “I need to go.” I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought I
was numb to him, but anger filled me. I wasn’t ready to do this.

I’ve never seen anyone
look so utterly defeated. “Will you come back?” he asked in desperation.

I grabbed my stuff and
didn’t say a word before I ran out of there. I barely remembered to stop and
take off the protective layer of clothing and wash my hands. I informed the
nurses on duty he was awake before I left.

I didn’t head home; I
headed straight for Jessie Belle’s. I marched into the café and ran right into
Jessie.

“Taylor,” she said
surprised. She looked me over. “Are you okay?”

I sighed out heavily. “I
need the most fattening thing you have on your menu.”

Her eyes bugged out and
she grabbed my hand. “What’s wrong?”

All I could mutter was,
“Frank.”

I saw understanding in
her eyes. She dragged me to her counter. “I have just the thing—orange rolls.
They’re the reason I took up Zumba.”

“Perfect. I’ll take two.”

She grinned perceptibly.
“How about we start with one and then we’ll see how you feel.”

“You’re a good friend,” I
almost cried.

She went around the
counter and placed two orange rolls in a to-go bag. She came back around and
took my hand. “Let’s walk to the park and talk.”

“What about the game?” I
asked.

She grinned wickedly. “I
can see Blake in baseball pants anytime I want.”