until his unexpected death six years ago this past November. Home was where she and Joe had raised their two sons while they both pursued careers they loved. And home was where she lived now, surrounded by joyful memories, her faith and the fulfillment she still found in her career as an educator.
With loving thoughts of her late husband and her children and her little grandchildren tucked in her heart, she got out of her car and made her way into the house. She flipped the switch next to the front door for light. Little in the modestly furnished living room was familiar, since her mother redecorated as frequently as most women changed their wardrobes.
At the moment, the room was awash with tones of beige and white—on the walls, carpet and furniture. Instinctively, she slipped off her shoes and wiped her hands on her overcoat, surprised at how easily she could reclaim habits she had acquired as a child.
Turning on lights as she walked, Ellie heard echoes of her mother’s critical words, and recalled her father’s ever-present silence. In the front bedroom, more pale earth tones greeted her. She made quick work of choosing the clothes her mother would need for the next two weeks, grabbed some toiletries from the only bathroom in the house and placed everything in a large suitcase.
Lugging the suitcase, she turned off lights on her way back to the living room. With her shoes back on, she flipped the switch to turn off the last of the lights and locked up the house. Heading to her car, she prepared herself to go home and try one more time to win her mother’s love and approval.
She had the faith she needed to guide and sustain her, and after she made one stop tomorrow, she would have the only other thing she absolutely needed during the next two weeks: her own little replenished supply of her favorite candy.
Chapter Four
A fter seven seemingly endless days, Charlene felt as if she had spent an entire week in a playground, stuck on one end of a seesaw. The neighborhood bully sat on the other end and constantly taunted her by pushing her up into the air and holding her there before jumping off again and again, slamming her hard and fast to the ground.
In reality, she had spent every waking hour for the past week at Tilton General Hospital, a bizarre playground filled with mysterious flashing and beeping equipment, where Aunt Dorothy was recovering from her little spell—a mild heart attack.
Days, when Charlene was encouraged by the promise of her aunt’s progress, were invariably eclipsed by days when the bully, aka CHF and diabetes, yanked her down from hope to fear and doubt. Other than taking time to retrieve her aunt’s living will from the bank, she had taken only one other break, the morning that two women from the Shawl Ministry had stopped by to visit her aunt and deliver a lap shawl they had made for her. Charlene was also able to grab an hour alone when Annie Parker and Madeline O’Rourke, her aunt’s closest friends, came by each afternoon, which deepened Charlene’s desire for a supportive friend of her own.
Charlene was pleased, however, that once she had called her children, both Greg and Bonnie had come to the hospital to see Aunt Dorothy, although they each had had to get right back to their homes and had been unable to stay overnight to visit longer with Charlene.
Yesterday, her aunt had stabilized enough that the doctors discussed discharging her. Now, on Friday morning, Charlene and Daniel were in Aunt Dorothy’s room for a meeting with the hospital social worker, Denise Abrams. Fortunately, her aunt’s roommate had left earlier for a test of some sort, so the group that gathered about Dorothy Gibbs’s bed had plenty of privacy.
Charlene glanced at the faces and smiled to herself. No one was under fifty. Over the past week, she had seen a multitude of doctors, nurses, technicians and aides. Most of them were young enough to be her children, and she shuddered to think that at fifty-nine, she could be a grandmother to some of them. Although they all appeared to be competent and qualified, Charlene felt more comfortable with hospital workers who had been alive long enough to know that the best way to eat a Mary Jane was to suck on it and to remember a time when a chocolate bar, with or without almonds, cost only a nickel.
Aunt Dorothy sat in her bed, obviously enjoying being the center of attention. For the first time since she had entered the hospital, her hazel eyes held a bit of sparkle again, but she still looked forlorn and bedraggled.
Her pale blue hospital gown hung loosely around her narrow shoulders. Mottled bruises surrounded the small white bandages on the back of both her hands and at the crease in her elbows. Her complexion was pasty. Her dark gray curls were flattened in some spots on her head, while unruly clumps stood up in other places, making her look as if she was wearing a broken tiara.
She was a queen held captive on her throne. An IV line snaked from the back of her hand to several bags hanging on a stainless-steel pole, and wires linked her to monitors that measured her heart rate and blood pressure. A urine bag and catheter tubing were discreetly concealed beneath sheets near the floor, and bars on both sides of the mattress gave her something to hold on to, helping her to shift more easily in bed.
Charlene stood next to the pillow, resting a hand on her aunt’s shoulder. Daniel held on to the top rail with one hand on the other side of the bed. Charlene studied him as he told her aunt about the young boys’ basketball team that was coming to camp in the state park this weekend.
The crisp white sheets on Aunt Dorothy’s bed offered a stark contrast to Daniel’s perpetual tan, acquired from a lifetime working as a park ranger. He was a stocky, well-muscled man with dark, wavy hair. He had passed on his cleft chin and love of the outdoors to their son, Greg, while their daughter, Bonnie, had inherited his fabulous blue eyes and the tendency to be reserved and not to reveal thoughts and emotions.
Standing with him, as she had done for more than forty years, Charlene realized again how physically unlike one another they were. She had often said that her figure resembled a salt-water taffy: plump from top to bottom. She had pale skin and hair she’d kept light, long after time had darkened it and later turned it white.
Her life, since she’d married Daniel, had been built around her home, her children and her church. Unfortunately, by the time the nest she and her husband shared was empty, they had become strangers who had two children in common, but little else—except that they both loved Aunt Dorothy.
Grateful for his support during the past week, Charlene glanced at the end of the bed, where Denise Adams stood next to the papers she’d brought to the meeting and stacked in neat piles on the table Aunt Dorothy used to take her meals. For a woman who spent a good part of her professional life helping patients and their families make the transition from hospital to home, the social worker had an unusually stern and rigid turn to her mouth, and the expression in her light brown eyes was pure business.
Charlene was not impressed—until Daniel and Aunt Dorothy finished their conversation and Denise started the meeting. “As you know, Dorothy, Dr. Marks feels you’re just about ready to leave the hospital,” she said in a sweet, soothing voice that immediately set Charlene at ease.
For the life of her, however, she would never get used to hearing the hospital staff refer to her eighty-one-year-old aunt by her given name. Unless requested by the patient, titles and last names, Charlene had learned, were taboo under new guidelines that were supposed to guarantee patient privacy. But no one had asked Aunt Dorothy what she preferred.
“I wouldn’t mind staying a few days longer,” Aunt Dorothy murmured, clearly reluctant to return home and resume the independent life she had always led.
“We’ve got a number of options for you and your family to consider, which is why I thought it best that we all be here together,” Denise replied. “I thought I might briefly explain
