the city. The plant has deep, meaningful roots.”
He once had meaningful roots in the city, too. But that was the problem with roots—when they died, it hurt all the more. At least the neighbor needed to grieve only the loss of a plant, not his family. What was wrong with him? He blamed Mia Fiore for stirring up the unnecessary emotional pot inside him. “Tell me what to do with Granny’s cactus.”
“Bring me a stem.” Helen powered off her notepad. “In the meantime, look for the cactus food. It’s on the third shelf to the left of the door of the greenhouse.”
In the meantime, he’d be working in the ER, looking for nitroglycerin to treat chest pain and injecting alteplase to dissolve blood clots in the brain or giving morphine to decrease crippling kidney stones. “That’s the only neighborhood plant SOS from yesterday.” Wyatt injected lightness into his tone. Still, his mother looked crestfallen at the news, as if rescuing neighborhood plants gave her a reason to live. “Mom, we need to discuss...”
“Discuss these applications for the foundation,” she finished for him and pulled out a stack of papers from the drawer in her bedside table.
His level of frustration soared. Two months ago, before her fall, his mom had decided to give away the family money to local charities through her newly formed foundation. They’d already talked about that. Right now, they had to discuss assisted care and her living arrangements after her discharge. Once he knew she was safe, he could return to Africa and the medical aid program he’d started there. The one that depended on his return to expand into more remote locations. “You were going to cancel the ad and put the foundation on hold for now.”
“You decided that, but I decided differently.” The warning rapped through her voice like marbles striking a tile floor.
She’d approached helping Trent the very same way, agreeing to Wyatt’s suggestions but then doing exactly what she’d wanted, and look how badly that had turned out. If his mom had only accepted his brother’s addictions and risked revealing the truth of Trent’s condition to friends and family by admitting his brother to an in-patient rehab center, Trent might be alive today. Wyatt straightened, met her gaze and smoothed the boyish plea, as if he was six again and wanted a puppy, out of his voice. “But we already talked about this.”
“No, you told me that I’d be stopping the foundation funding like you instruct your patients on medicine and follow-up appointments. I doubt you use such an overbearing tone with them.” She smoothed the clear tape over her IV line port. “But I’ve reasons, good ones, for continuing to disperse funds from the foundation.”
Doing it because he didn’t want her to was not a good reason. Nor was her insistence that her days were limited. Her days hadn’t been limited since they’d cleared the infection from her femur bone and replaced her hip for the second time. “These applicants need to be vetted. You don’t even know if they’re real organizations or not.” He swiped the first application from the pile and scanned the messy handwritten form from Project Save the Leprechauns. “It’s nothing more than a mad money grab.”
“There’s nothing mad about it.” She patted her hair into place as if her perfectly set updo would keep all the dissenters at bay. “I wish to see the family money put to good use while I’m still alive. It isn’t as if you need it. You can go through the applicants and I can write the checks.”
Wyatt dropped his chin to his chest and jammed both hands into his hair. That stack contained at least a hundred more pages. He had real work: patients to care for and conference calls to attend with his partners overseas. “You want me to go through all of these?”
“Yes. I need to concentrate on my therapy.” She pulled her robe tighter across her chest. “I don’t want to disappoint the charities that are relying on my money to keep up their good work.”
“Yes, I’m sure Project Rescue the Dust Bunny is impacting the needy in the city with its wonderful deeds.” He crumpled the second application from the pile in his fist. One vetted, only ninety-nine to go.
“I promised to help fund local charities in my ad, and I’ll keep my word. I only need the best twenty from that pile.”
She was going to be bankrupt before her discharge. “I’ll do this, if we talk about the brochures I left with you.”
“I threw those out.” Satisfaction, not remorse, steadied her gaze. She never flinched, as if she was a heart surgeon wielding a scalpel.
He squeezed the crumpled paper tighter, trying to squeeze the irritation from his voice. “You cannot move home.”
“I most certainly can.” She raised her voice with the same dignity she’d raised two boys. “And will.”
“I cannot ensure your safety at home.” His cell phone rang.
“You won’t have to ensure anything. You’ll be back in Africa, where you’d clearly rather be right now.” Disdain hardened her voice, and disapproval shifted into the scowl she aimed at his phone. “It must be eight o’clock. Africa calls at this time every night you visit me.”
“I’ve already explained that my partners and I expanded our clinic before I left. My schedule and the time change make it difficult to talk, and there are things that only I can handle.”
“Yet you aren’t the only doctor within your organization. But then you must prefer the interruption. After all, there are twenty-three other hours to choose to schedule your conference call.”
Silence swelled inside the room.
She acted like he’d traded her for Africa. He’d have talked to her about his plans for his medical aid work if she’d gone to her own son’s funeral five years ago. But neither her youngest son’s funeral nor her oldest son’s departure to a foreign country had been important enough for her to leave her precious gardens unattended. Resentment ricocheted through him, nothing new there.
But the sting that hitched his breath and tightened his chest was too fresh, as if his mother’s absence still hurt. Yet he wasn’t wading into that emotional quicksand. That was the past. Not forgotten, but past. Now wasn’t the time or the place. There’d never be a time or place for that particular discussion.
He closed off his emotions. Sentiment only ever distorted the logic and rationale he’d come to depend on in the ER and every other part of his life. Was it too late to steer the conversation back to her nursery? If only there’d been another neighbor with a plant emergency. “My life is in Africa.”
“Then you should return.”
But not stay. Not ever stay. She’d never ask that of him. “When you’re settled.”
“You need to live your own life, not dictate mine.”
As if he’d returned only to boss her around. Not because they were the only family left and needed each other. Wyatt squirmed at the thought. “I came home for you.”
“I never asked you to,” she said.
The last five years their conversations had been trivial: her plants, which friends had passed away and who had moved in on her street. She wouldn’t ask when he was coming home, and he wouldn’t volunteer to return. She hadn’t even asked him to come home when she’d first fallen and injured her hip. He’d come back at the request of a distant cousin. He pushed out of the chair, wanting to push the past
