their emptiness. “Knowing that, you might want to discard any notion you have of dying, dial up Kaylie or Kylie or whatever her name is, and tell her you’ve decided to outlive us all because I can’t raise Jess on my own and not make a complete mess of things.”
His father met his gaze. His voice stayed level. “I can’t change the inevitable, Marc. I would if I could, at least ’til my work’s done. You know that.”
That was part of the trouble. Marc didn’t know that. He heard his father’s words but couldn’t believe them.
Pete’s body was wearing out from choices the older DeHollander made long ago. A steady smoker, Pete’s actions probably brought this cancer on, and Marc had no clue how to rationalize that. In Marc’s mind, sucking poisons into your system was asking for trouble. Marc didn’t understand the choice and he sure didn’t like it.
Everyone else seemed okay with the eventuality of the prognosis. They used terms like natural. Understandable.
Their acceptance exacerbated Marc’s anger. His father’s cancer wasn’t inevitable, but avoidable. Watching the fabric of his family torn by years of bad choices, Marc tried to deal with both sides of the issue and came up short.
Jess had come to terms with Pete’s illness, on the surface at least. She seemed determined to make her father’s last months stress-free. Quite a commitment for a hormone-stricken teen. A teen who shouldn’t be left with no one but Marc to steady her path to adulthood. At fourteen, Jess needed an understanding mother and a thriving father. Through no fault of her own she had neither.
Resentment choked him. He knew his feelings were counterproductive, but had no clue how to change them. Mounting thoughts swelled, emotions he didn’t dare show. Suppressing the urge to throw something, he stood to finish supper, his fingers tight, his shoulders tense, a rod of anger anchoring his steps.
In one day he’d managed to lose a pair of livestock, insult his father’s nurse, ruin his sister’s wobbly self-esteem and add weight to a dying man’s pressures.
And it was only the dinner hour. If his streak continued, he might be able to instigate World War III by bedtime. Nuclear holocaust. Plagues of locusts.
As long as his luck held steady.
Chapter Three
A welcome blast of heat greeted Kayla as the pneumatic door of the VNS offices swung open.
Christy Merriton glanced up, dropped a questioning look to her leather-strapped wristwatch and compressed her lips. “What are you doing here?”
Kayla met the supervisor’s frown with a half grin. “I, um, work here.”
“Not at six-oh-five,” Christy argued. “At six-oh-five you should be home making supper. Or on a date. Maybe curling up with a good book. Having a life.”
“About that…” Kayla indicated her boss, then tapped her more feminine timepiece. “You’re here.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Christy stood, stretched, then leaned down, her fingers tapping computer keys. The main drive shut down as the printer kicked in, the sound marking the end of a long day. “I have an excuse. Brianna gets picked up from basketball practice at six-thirty, so it didn’t make sense for me to drive home and come all the way back. What’s your story?”
“Supplies.” Kayla raised her tote. “I saw the lights and figured I could restock. Save time tomorrow.”
Christy looked unconvinced. “I’d have bought that line an hour ago. It’s after six, Kayla.” She studied the younger woman, then nodded toward the door. “Go home.”
“Consider me gone.” Kayla opened her case and moved to the supply cabinets. “Right after I load up.”
Christy stepped to the printer and retrieved a fresh pile of assignment tickets. She handed a slim stack to Kayla. “Tomorrow’s schedule.”
“Awesome. Now I don’t have to stop by at all. Thanks.” She eyed the uppermost printout and tapped a wild rose pink nail against the second name, the glossed color reminding her of summer. Sun. Sand. Flowers. “This one came back from Arizona, and this one,” her finger scaled down, “from Florida. Why would they do that?”
The simplicity of Christy’s look underscored her meaning. “To die.”
Her words rang true. Several of Kayla’s recent patients had sought the softer climes of southern states after retirement, opting away from the snow and ice. But in those final months, when fate held the winning hand, many came home, wanting the familiarity of what they knew first. Family. Friends. Church.
Back outside, the storm pelted her with slanted snow, stinging cold. Shoulders hunched, she headed to her Grand Am, its warmth a respite.
She was a Thomas Kinkade girl caught in a David Morrow canvas. Winter lovers esteemed Morrow’s work. His snow-filled landscapes offered haunting insight into the breathtaking reality of upper latitude cold. Thought-provoking. Windswept. Sometimes brutal. North Country, through and through.
Kayla preferred sprigged cottages and thatched roofs. Decorative grasses, grown in abundance. Sources of light, teeming with hope.
Winters at the forty-fifth latitude outlasted their welcome. She hadn’t given that proper consideration when she’d made the move north after graduating from the nursing program in Syracuse. Her goal then: financial, financial, financial. The Potsdam community had offered to forgive student loans and extend her a nice paycheck in exchange for years of service. The proposal sounded good to a young woman who’d struggled to make ends meet for as long as she could remember.
But now her contract was nearly up. What next? She had no idea. She put the car in gear and aimed for Route 11, her headlights battling the snow.
Numerous options lay open to an experienced nurse. She’d spend the next few months exploring them. Because her after-work life was fairly nonexistent, she’d have plenty of time.
That thought could have drawn a sigh, but she resisted the pity party. Focused, she gripped the wheel and peered through the snow, wondering how warm a person would be to be warm enough. Someday she’d find out firsthand.
Kayla wiggled her thermostat on Wednesday night, listening for the magic click that promised heat.
Nothing.
She thumped a corner of the radiator and paused, hopeful, glad she didn’t chip her polish with the useless maneuver.
The upright, ivory-painted contraption maintained its silence, barely warm. The effect across the room proved negligible. Brittle weather stripping, designed to bind the storm window to the frame, was equally ineffective. The flow of chilled air across the ice-encrusted pane made her living room frosty.
The bedroom stayed warmer. The windows in that room actually sealed. And she had a comforter she’d bought two years ago, her one concession to comfort, down-filled, thick and cushy. She’d made a duvet cover for the layered blanket, one of her first sewing projects, and she’d been proud of the careful work. Of course the piece was comprised of straight lines, intersecting, and who couldn’t sew a straight line with today’s machines? Still, it became a job well done. A new skill learned.
She
