“Really well.”
He didn’t seem happy to hear it. If anything, he looked irritated and out of sorts. Rachel wanted to confront him, ask what was wrong, but Jolene acted like a playful puppy, demanding attention as they walked toward the parking garage, making serious conversation impossible.
“So how was Lover Boy?” Bruce asked as he set her bag in the car trunk.
Rachel glared at him. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Sailor Man, then.”
“He has a name, you know,” she said sharply.
“All right, how’s Nate?” Bruce opened the passenger door for her.
“Very well, thank you.”
“Can we go out to eat?” Jolene asked, clambering into the backseat and searching for her seat belt. “I want to hear about the rally.”
“No,” Bruce said. “We’re not going out to eat.”
A little shocked by the vehemence of his response, Rachel turned around and looked at his daughter.
“He’s been in a bad mood all day,” the girl told her.
“I have not,” Bruce barked. “Didn’t you say you have homework to finish?”
“I do, but it’s no big deal.”
Rachel snapped her own seat belt into place. “We’ll go out another time, okay?” she suggested in an effort to keep the peace.
“Okay,” Jolene said, easily mollified.
Judging by his dark, brooding expression, Bruce had no interest in spending time with Rachel. After those kisses, this was precisely what she’d been afraid of.
The drive back to Cedar Cove seemed to take twice as long as usual. Rachel managed to carry on a somewhat disjointed conversation with Jolene, mostly about sixth-grade gossip, who liked whom and so forth. Bruce ignored them both. When he pulled up in front of her house, he stomped out of the car to remove her suitcase from the trunk.
“See you soon,” Rachel promised Jolene.
“Okay.”
Bruce had already dropped her suitcase on the front step and started back toward the car, head down, his gaze averted.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“It was nothing,” Bruce mumbled as he stepped past her. Her key was barely in the lock when he roared away.
Thirty-Three
Grace couldn’t stop worrying about Olivia and the upcoming biopsy results.
Her friend minimized her fears, but Grace wasn’t fooled. Olivia was afraid. Jack, too. The biopsy had been done and the lab required two days to do an analysis. This was the second day.
Just as she was about to go for lunch, the phone on her desk rang. “Grace Harding,” she answered. “How can I help you?”
“Grace.”
It was Olivia, and she didn’t need to say another word. The tone of her voice said it all. Cancer. “Where are you?” she asked.
“At home. I didn’t go the courthouse today.” She paused. “My doctor called a few minutes ago.”
“Listen, don’t move, I’m on my way.” Grace forgot about lunch. Her appetite had vanished the second she heard Olivia’s voice. For two days she’d eaten practically nothing; all she could think about was her best friend and what she might be facing. “I’m leaving right now.”
Grace arranged to take the rest of the day off, then rushed out the door, almost forgetting her coat and purse. She was outside before she’d even slipped her arms into the sleeves.
Thankfully, the drive down Lighthouse Road was just long enough to allow Grace to gather her thoughts. When she arrived, Olivia was standing on the porch waiting for her. Wearing only a sweater, she seemed thin and frail, buffeted by the cold autumn wind. Her arms were wrapped around her middle and her face was set in that determined expression Grace knew so well. It was the same look she’d worn the afternoon she announced that Stan, her ex-husband, had decided to move out. The look that said life was hard but you couldn’t give up—that you had to be equal to the pain and the grief.
The sight of Olivia, her lifelong friend, standing alone brought stinging tears to Grace’s eyes. Everything started to blur as she pulled the car to the side of the road and parked carelessly.
The wind whipped her coat around her as she got out. Dashing the tears from her cheeks, she didn’t bother to hide the fact that she was crying. She rushed up the sidewalk and to the porch steps where Olivia stood. She stopped abruptly. They hugged, and the tears in her friend’s eyes brought a sob to her own throat.
“Tell me …”
“It’s cancer.”
Grace tried not to cry. Crying wouldn’t help Olivia. “How … how bad?” she asked.
“We don’t know what stage it is yet. I have an appointment with the surgeon next week. We’ll find out more then.”
Grace swallowed in an effort to control her emotions. Fear sent a chill down her spine. Her friend, her dearest friend, had cancer.
“Grace,” Olivia whispered. “I’m afraid.”
Through the years, Grace had seen Olivia face every tragedy with grit and faith. When Jordan died it was Olivia who held the family together. A few months later, when Stan moved out, she’d dealt with that, too. Never once, through all the grief, had Olivia ever admitted she was afraid.
It took a diagnosis of cancer to do that.
“Let’s have tea,” Grace said and, with her arm around Olivia’s waist, led her back into the house.
While Grace put the kettle on, Olivia sat at the kitchen table looking like a child, lost and lonely in her own home.
“Where’s Jack?” Grace asked, wondering why he wasn’t here when Olivia needed him so badly.
“He … he didn’t take the news well,” Olivia murmured. “I suggested he go and talk to Bob.”
“He shouldn’t have left you.” Grace bit back her anger at Jack, knowing it was really anger at the unfairness of life.
“It’s okay,” Olivia said. “I told him you were coming.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“Yes,” Olivia whispered and a tear slipped down the side of her face.
“Does anyone else know?”
“Not yet.”
