Kate and Mia stood in the kitchen, staring out into the backyard. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of surreal,” Mia said.
They were watching Brandon and Evie play football, tossing the ball back and forth over and over. Kate hadn’t expected to come home from grocery shopping and find this.
“Maybe they’re making progress,” Kate said.
“Looks like it. And I’m happy for her. Aren’t you?”
Kate smiled. “Actually, I am. Maybe they just needed some time to readjust to each other.”
“Hey, y’all,” Cooper said, as he walked through the front door. He was holding a large piece of paper with a sketch on it. “Evie around?”
“Oh, just forget that I’m here and ask to see my daughter?” Kate teased. Cooper walked over and kissed her cheek.
“Sorry. I’m just so dang excited about that treehouse. I’ve got all of the materials out in my truck, and this is the final sketch.”
Kate took it from his hand and stared at it. He was so talented and could build anything, and it warmed her heart to see him taking a treehouse for her daughter so seriously.
“What is this part?”
He grinned. “Oh, that’s a little overhang in case it rains while she’s up there. And look here. That’s a built in table so she can put her drink or even a computer.”
“You’re making it easy for her to live in a tree full-time, Cooper,” Mia joked.
“So, where is she?”
“Take a look,” Kate said, nodding her head toward the back door. Cooper walked over and saw the football flying through the air.
“Wow. Never thought I’d see that. They actually look like a normal father and daughter for once. Brandon seems out of breath. How long have they been doing this?”
“I’m not sure, but we’ve been watching for ten minutes,” Kate said.
Evie noticed Cooper in the window and waved before putting the football on the ground and jogging over.
“Hey, Cooper. Are you looking for me?”
“I was, but I don’t want to interrupt your game. We can chat later.”
“Is that the sketch?”
He smiled. “Yep. I’m about to head up and start working.”
“Can I go?” she asked, a huge smile on her face.
“You go ahead, sweetie. Old Dad is tired. You wore me out.” Brandon was breathing heavily, which was surprising to Kate because he’d always been in good shape.
“Are you sure?”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Of course! Go have fun, and I’ll see you tonight at dinner. Besides, I need to make a phone call.”
Evie and Cooper walked through the house and out the front door. Mia, sensing she was standing in the middle of an awkward situation, also made herself scarce and disappeared.
Now it was just Kate, standing in front of Brandon, who was still trying to catch his breath.
“Do you want something to drink?” she forced herself to ask.
He looked at her like he was surprised. “Sure. Thanks.”
They walked into the kitchen, Brandon pulling the French doors shut behind him. He sat down at the breakfast bar.
“Sweet tea? Water?” Kate said, as she looked in the refrigerator.
“I’ll take water. I can’t stomach that sweet tea. I’m surprised you can.”
She walked over and slid a bottle of water toward him. “It took me a few months, but I actually prefer it now.”
Brandon chuckled. “How? It’s like trying to drink sap straight out of the tree.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at that characterization. “It was nice to see you and Evie enjoying each other again. Kind of reminded me of old times.”
“Yeah. She and I used to throw the ball like that all the time when she was a kid. I can’t believe how quickly she’s grown up.”
“It’s been tough.”
“Has it?” he asked, looking up. They made eye contact for a long moment, Kate struggling not to say something snide or rude. But what was she supposed to say to the father who left his daughter when she needed him most?
“Evie was really struggling back in Rhode Island. She was getting in trouble in school all the time. I thought she would get arrested before too much longer, and then we moved here. She’s a whole different kid now.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“In Rhode Island, it was just the two of us. She had no roots. No family. Here, she has more than enough family and love to go around. I think it finally filled the hole in her heart that…”
I looked down at his hands. “That I left?”
“Well… Yes.”
“Look, Kate, I realize that I went about this reunion the wrong way. I had no right to try to burst into her life and be so confrontational with you. I was just desperate to get some time with her.”
“And that’s what I don’t understand. You’ve had years to reach out to her and suddenly you need to see her immediately. You were willing to take me to court if you had to. What is that about?”
He cleared his throat, obviously nervous. “I guess I just really felt bad about what I’d done. I wanted to see her before it was too late. I was afraid she would become an adult and never want to see me again.”
Kate still wasn’t buying it. He was keeping something from her, but if she pushed then she ran the risk of creating more drama.
“Well, I’m happy if she’s happy. So, how are Kara and the kids? Certainly they must miss you?”
“They’re fine. Kara is modeling swimwear in Cozumel right now. The kids are staying with her parents for a while.”
Modeling swimwear? Kate would soon be modeling a beekeeping suit. There was something very wrong with that picture.
“I hope that Evie will get to meet them someday before everybody is much older. She would love to have some siblings.”
“You don’t think you’ll have kids with Cooper?”
“That’s a very personal question, but no. That’s not in my plan. One kid was plenty.”
“For what it’s worth, Kate, I’m happy that things are going well for you. You deserve that. And even if I don’t understand why the two of you love this place so much, I’m glad you have those roots now that you always wanted.”
“Thanks. Well, I think I’m going to head up to the tree and see what my daughter and Cooper are up to. I don’t want them building some monstrosity.”
“Thanks for the water.”
As she walked out of the front door, she thought that maybe she might’ve misjudged Brandon. Maybe he really had changed and would be a great addition to her daughter’s life. But he was still keeping a secret, and until she found out what that was, she wouldn’t feel completely comfortable.
Mia had felt that it was best to get out of Dodge when Kate and Brandon were standing in front of her. She figured it was the right time for Kate to have a conversation with her ex-husband, so she went upstairs to her room.
She hadn’t heard from Travis since the night before. Of course, then her phone had died after she accidentally dropped it in the dish water. She had it in a bag of rice hoping to get all of the moisture out of it and turn it on again.
If Travis needed anything, it would just have to wait. Or he would call Kate, and she hadn’t said anything. The more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable it made her feel that he didn’t mention his dinner with Sam. She didn’t know a whole lot about their history except that they had gone to college together and worked at the same company for years. Surely if anything was ever going to happen between them, it already would have.
But then again, Travis had been married some of that time. And when his wife passed away, he was in no shape to be dating then either.
Sam seemed like a nice enough person, but her interest in Mia’s boyfriend was disconcerting. Maybe they were just friends, or maybe she wanted something more.
Tired of thinking about it, Mia decided that doing laundry was probably a good way to get her mind off of everything. She loaded all of her clothes into a large plastic basket that her mother had always used. One of the handles was cracking, but she couldn’t bear to get rid of it. So many Saturday mornings, she remembered her mom walking down the stairs carrying it, overflowing with clothing and towels from the guests.
As she walked down the hall, she noticed that Brandon’s door was cracked open. Apparently he and Kate had already finished their conversation. She started to walk but then heard him talking. Curiosity getting the better of her, so she stopped by his door.
“I know. I miss you guys too. Hopefully I won’t have to be here much longer…”
Who was he talking to? His wife?
“I haven’t said anything yet. But I can’t stay here much longer. This place is as boring as it gets…”
Boring? Certainly it wasn’t the most exciting place on earth, but Mia would never classify the beautiful mountains and the stunning lake as boring. Feeling offended, she almost walked away, but she just wanted to hear more.
“I know we’re running out of time. I’m going to say something soon. I just don’t know if I should say it to Evie or Kate. What do you think?”
Say what? Running out of time? She almost wanted to open the door and ask him what he was talking about, but so far Brandon appeared to be very secretive and probably wouldn’t tell her anyway.
“I know I have to. I’ve been trying to play nicer the last couple of days because you catch more bees with honey. And can you believe my ex is becoming a beekeeper?”
Mia really wanted to walk into the room and dump the dirty laundry right on his head. Why was he playing nice to Kate’s face and then saying things like this behind her back?
“One way or another, I’ll get what I need. Don’t worry, honey…”
It sounded like he was wrapping up his conversation, so Mia quickly walked away and ran down the stairs. She stopped and set the laundry basket on the back of the sofa for a moment. What was he doing? Something is definitely up, just as she and Kate had suspected. But what was it? It sounded like only time would tell how this would play out.
Kate stood beside the tree, looking up at her daughter and Cooper sitting precariously on a limb. “Are you sure that limb will hold both of you?”
They laughed. “We do this all the time, Mom!” Evie said, rolling her eyes. It was amazing how many times a day a teenager could roll their eyes without falling over backwards.
“Still, I think one of you should come down!” Kate called up to them.
Again, they both laughed. She loved seeing the interaction between Cooper and her daughter. As much as she wanted Evie to have a relationship with Brandon, she also wanted her to feel safe and comfortable around Cooper. After all, one day they might end up married. At least that was her hope, although they’d never really talked about it.
Cooper climbed down out of the tree and gave her a quick peck on her forehead. “I promise I won’t let anything break that will send us tumbling to the ground.”
“Y’all are crazy, climbing trees like that.”
“Did you just say y’all?”
Kate laughed. “Apparently this place is rubbing off on me.”
“I’m going to back the truck up a little bit more so I can get to the lumber easier.”
Cooper walked down the driveway just a bit and hopped into his truck. She turned around to see Evie climbing out of the tree.
“I think me and Dad are really starting to form a bond.”
“It certainly looks like it. I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks. Hopefully we can spend a lot more time together, even though he lives in Mexico. I guess that will make it a kind of hard.”
Kate froze for a moment. “You’re not thinking of moving there with him, are you?”
Evie stared at her and then laughed. “Um, no. I would never leave this place. But maybe he’ll invite me for a vacation or something.”
“Maybe so. We’ll talk about it if that ever happens.”
“I would like to meet my brother and sister.”
“I know. I’m sure your dad will make that happen at some point soon.”
Cooper stopped the truck and popped the tailgate down. “Hey, Evie, you want to help me start unloading some of this?”
As Kate watched them pull out pieces of lumber, she was so thankful to have found someone like Cooper. Who else would build her daughter a customized treehouse platform just so she could enjoy sitting there? It was going to be a lot of work, and she knew he had other things to do. But he had considered this treehouse project to be just as important as everything he was doing for other people and getting paid.
Kate waited for them to finish unloading some of the lumber and then sat on the tailgate of the truck. She would’ve helped them, but she had been having problems with her neck lately, probably from stress. The last thing she wanted to do was really pull a muscle and end up not being able to take care of her bees or cook for the guests.
As she watched them start to work, her phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket and didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Kate? It’s Sylvia. How are you?”
“I’m good, Sylvia. It’s nice to hear from you. We were hoping that you would come to visit with dad.”
There was a long pause. “That’s why I’m calling you. And I really probably shouldn’t be calling you because Jack would kill me, but I have to tell you girls something. I’ve actually driven into town, but he doesn’t know that I’m here. I hope we can keep this between us until I have a chance to meet with you girls.”
“Meet with us? Is everything okay?”
As Kate continued listening to Sylvia, she noticed Mia walking up the driveway.
“What’s going on?”
Kate held up her hand. “So where would you like to meet us, Sylvia?”
“Sylvia?” Mia mouthed.
“The café? Oh, you mean the one in Blue Falls?”
“She wants us to come two cities over?”
“Okay. We will see you in a bit.”
Kate ended the call and looked at her sister, her mouth hanging open a bit.
“What’s going on?”
“That was Sylvia, and she said that she has something she needs to talk to us about but she doesn’t want Dad to know she’s driven to town to meet with us. We have to meet her away from here, just so we don’t run into him.”
“Well, I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Neither do I, and I don’t like keeping anything from him. But we know he’s keeping a secret, and I think we need to meet her.”
“Speaking of secrets…”
“Is everything okay?” Cooper called down. Not wanting to upset her daughter, Kate decided to keep her conversation with Sylvia to herself.
“Everything is fine. But Mia and I have an errand we need to run, so will be back in a couple of hours.”
“Okay. Love you!” Cooper called.
She smiled at him. “Love you too! And don’t fall out of the tree!”
“Y’all are so sweet.”
“So are you and Travis.”
“Don’t even get me started about that…”
“Obviously we need to talk about whatever that is, but right now I think we need to focus on getting to Sylvia and finding out exactly what’s going on with Dad. Wait, were you going to tell me something else?”
Mia paused for a moment. “No. It can wait.”
The two of them jogged down the driveway, climbed into Kate’s car and took off in pursuit of answers about what was going on with their father.
Kate and Mia parked the car and hurried into the cafe. The drive over had done nothing for either of their worried minds. In the car, they’d talked about their dad, Mia’s worries with Travis and Cooper building the treehouse, but Mia had kept Brandon’s overheard conversation a secret for now. She didn’t want to add any more worries to Kate’s already full plate.
“It looks like she’s here,” Kate said, as they pulled up at the café. They could see Sylvia sitting inside, and she raised a hand to wave at them.
They walked into the café, the smell of food overwhelming Mia’s senses. She was starving and thankful to get away from the B&B for a while where someone else was cooking for her.
“Sylvia, it’s so good to see you,” Kate said, smiling as she hugged Sylvia tightly. Mia hugged her as well before they both sat down. Sylvia looked tired, worried.
“I’m so thankful that you two agreed to meet me here. And you didn’t tell your father, right?”
“We didn’t. We don’t feel great about it, but we know he’s hiding something and we’ve been worried about it,” Mia said.
“Welcome to Della’s Cafe,” the young female server said as she walked up to the table. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Sweet tea for both of us,” Mia said, forcing a smile. Her mother had always taught her to be kind and mannerly even when things were a mess in her mind.
As the waitress walked away, Sylvia sucked in a deep breath and slowly blew it out like she was preparing for something really bad. Mia’s stomach tightened.
“You’re right that your father has been keeping something from you.”
“Are you two having marriage trouble?” Kate asked.
Sylvia smiled slightly and shook her head. “No. I mean, the fact that he is keeping this secret from y’all has caused us a few fights recently, but that’s not it.”
“What is it?”
“Your father has a health problem that is very serious. His doctors want him to have a procedure, and he’s refusing. He told me he’s just going to let nature take it’s course, and I think he’s just scared.”
“But he seems fine. What kind of health problem?” Kate asked, confused.
“A few weeks ago, he had a cough. We didn’t really think anything of it because we figured it was a cold or something like that. Then he woke up one morning and he couldn’t breathe well, so I ended up taking him to the emergency room. I wanted to call you girls, but he wouldn’t allow it.”
“He’s a stubborn old goat,” Mia said, rolling her eyes.
“Yes, he is,” Sylvia said, smiling sadly. “Long story short, they found out that he has the beginnings of congestive heart failure.”
“Oh my gosh!” Kate said, putting her hand over her mouth.
“Thankfully, the doctors were able to treat a lot of the issues in the hospital. They released him and he’s been taking medication ever since, but they sent him to see a cardiologist.”
“And what did they say?”
“The doctor said that he has a potentially dangerous heart rhythm. There were two options that they gave us. One would be to have a procedure called an ablation. They would basically burn the part of his heart that is causing the arrhythmia. That might save his heart function and keep the heart failure from progressing.“
“Wow. That sounds really scary and possibly dangerous.” Mia said.
“Actually, it’s apparently a very common procedure. He probably wouldn’t even stay overnight at the hospital.”
“You said there was another option?” Kate asked.
“The other option would be to get a defibrillator implanted in his chest. If his heart goes into a potentially fatal arrhythmia, it would shock his heart.”
Mia’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “That sounds terrible. So he would be walking around like a ticking time bomb?”
“Exactly. And something like that really wouldn’t help add more years to his life. The doctor definitely wants him to have the ablation first. Sometimes they can’t identify the area of the heart that’s causing the problem, and they may have to even repeat the ablation. Sometimes they do the procedure and it causes a worse problem to happen.”
Kate put her head in her hands. “This is all very scary. We just got him in our lives, and now something like this?”
“I know. And I begged him to tell you girls. I begged him over and over, but he just wouldn’t listen. He said he wanted to come spend time with you because he’s convinced maybe he doesn’t have much time left.”
“Is that what the doctor is saying?” Mia asked, her eyes filling with tears.
“Not in so many words, but it’s not a good prognosis if he just doesn’t do anything. His heart function will decrease if he doesn’t address the arrhythmia. I think the ablation is our best chance. It’s the least invasive.”
“So you want us to talk to him?”
“I just thought maybe you girls would be able to talk some sense into him. Doing nothing is just not a reasonable way to go about this.”
“We have to make him get the procedure. I can’t lose my dad after I just found him,” Kate said, a tear rolling down her cheek. Mia hated to see her strong sister so upset, even though she was feeling the same way.
“We will talk to him, and we will make him understand that he has to do this. I’m sure he’s just really scared, and that’s totally understandable.”
“He told me that he was afraid of having the procedure because what if he died and never saw you two again? At least if he does nothing, he knows he’ll have that time with you, or at least that’s the way he’s thinking about it.”
“We’re going to change his mind,” Kate said, wiping away her tears. “We just have to.”