Chapter Twenty-Eight

Gabby

Maple Street

GABBY STEPPED OUT of her car and went to the back passenger door to get Ceebee. She’d been on automatic since her peculiar conversation with the new janitor this morning. He’d been probing about her and Mike. She didn’t know why. She might have discovered the truth if she hadn’t let his perfectly common questions spook her.

At the time, she’d feared he’d discovered the truth about the DNA test. She knew that was impossible, but that hadn’t kept her from fleeing like a frightened bunny. Once she’d regained her composure—a little—she’d talked to both Mrs. R and Tim about Jack. They hadn’t been able to understand her abrupt concern, and she couldn’t explain it without sounding silly.

Then the day had gotten worse. Mrs. Lucas was refusing to come out of her room to eat and hadn’t touched any of the food on the trays brought up to her. Gabby had gone to Mrs. R to tell her about the conversation she’d had with Mrs. Lucas the day before. The director thanked her and told her that Mrs. Lucas’s reaction wasn’t her fault. The old woman had been acting oddly over the past month, often going on what Mrs. R called “hunger strikes.”

But Gabby knew this one was different. The whole staff and many of the residents were worried about Mrs. Lucas. When she heard the head nurse mention “failure to thrive” and what steps they’d have to take, she couldn’t hide her dismay that the old woman was ready to give up on life.

Even Ceebee had been tapped to help discover if the old woman would respond to a unique stimulus. Gabby had been incredulous about the request made by the head nurse, but she’d agreed, knowing they must do whatever they could to help Mrs. Lucas.

She’d taken the baby up to the third floor where Mrs. Lucas’s room was. Going to the desk of the care assistant at the other end of the hall, she’d asked, “Any change in Mrs. Lucas?”

The care assistant, a young girl named Sandra, had shaken her head. “She just lies there. We’ve gotten her to take a few sips of juice, but nothing else.” Coming around the edge of her desk that was set near the elevator, she smiled at Ceebee. “How’s our baby doing today?”

“She’s going to help me try to prove something before we head home.”

“Like an experiment?”

Gabby tried not to grin like an idiot. Just the word experiment brought Mike and his work to mind, even though he hadn’t been far from any of her thoughts all day. He’d left a message on her voice mail earlier that he hoped he’d be able to take her out for supper tonight and to think about where she’d like to go. She’d called him back, hoping to get his reassurances that nobody else could possibly know about the DNA test results. She’d gotten his voice mail and, not knowing if anyone else had access to it, just said she’d come up with some ideas of where they could eat dinner.

“I hope this works,” Gabby said when she realized the care assistant was waiting for her to answer.

“Let me know if you need any help,” Sandra said.

“I will.”

Carrying Ceebee, Gabby walked slowly along the hallway. The head nurse had mentioned that several of the staff had noticed Mrs. Lucas glancing toward the door if someone passed with the baby. She’d asked Gabby to confirm that.

Mrs. Lucas’s door had been left open, as if by mistake, so Gabby strolled past. She talked to Ceebee about what a busy day it’d been and what errands they needed to run on the way home. Pretending that she was looking only at the baby, she surreptitiously peeked into the room.

The old woman shifted her head to glance out the door, but as Gabby walked in, Mrs. Lucas became motionless on the bed again. Her eyes were closed, feigning sleep.

“Don’t make a peep,” Gabby said in a stage whisper. “Mrs. Lucas is sleeping, just as you should be doing, Ceebee. You missed your nap today.”

No reaction from the bed.

She backed away a few steps, then took several steps in place, making each one quieter. The ruse worked because Mrs. Lucas opened one eye for just a second to see if she’d left, but she squeezed it tightly shut again.

Gabby was about to ask Mrs. Lucas why she was pretending when she saw a pair of tears wending their way down the creases in the old woman’s face. Without another word, she’d walked out of the room and closed the door most of the way after her.

Her report to the nursing staff had been brief. Mrs. Lucas still refused to have anything to do with the baby, even though she was curious about who was carrying Ceebee. It was nothing they hadn’t already known.

All the way to Maple Street, Ceebee chirped and wiggled in the car seat, drawing Gabby’s attention back to her. The little girl was finding ways to communicate more each day, becoming more and more alive.

Gabby parked the car in the driveway and got out. Smiling, she lifted the carrier out of the car. The breeze twisting through the still bare branches was gentler than it’d been just last week. “It may get done being cold one of these days,” she said to the baby. “Then you won’t have to be all bundled up.”

“Good evening, Gabrielle!” she heard Mr. Shepard call from the porch. Closing the door with her hip, she took advantage of the shadows to compose a smile.

“Will you look at how big our girl is getting?” crowed Mr. Shepard as Gabby came up the steps. “She’s going to be walking in no time.”

“What are you doing out on this chilly night?”

“I’ve got a message for you from Mike. He tried to contact you, but you’d already left work. He said your cell went right to voice mail.”

She rolled her eyes. “I probably forgot to recharge its battery again.”

“He wanted you to know that he’d be late at work tonight and not to wait up for him.” The old man gave her a lecherous grin. “Sounds very husbandly of him.”

“Have you always been such a matchmaker?” she teased back, even though she was surprised at her own reaction. When Jack hinted at such things, she’d been bothered. When Mr. Shepard spoke about them plainly, she wasn’t.

“An old man has to have a hobby.” He opened the door and held it for her to go in. “I can watch pretty girls, but I’ve given up all aspirations of catching one’s attention. So I figure it’s my job to help a busy young man take notice of a pretty girl right across the hall from him.”

“So is it a job or hobby?”

“A calling.” He chuckled. “And it seems as if I’m doing pretty darn well. The three of you are spending a lot of time together lately.”

“It would be the four of us if you’d join us for supper more often.”

“It should be the two of you. It’s time I had a chance to babysit again.”

She smiled as she began up the stairs. “You know you’ll be the first one we’ll call. Mike’s up to his ears in work right now.”

“Too much work and not enough play...” Again he smiled. “But it doesn’t seem to make Mike a dull boy for you.”

Laughing, she continued up the stairs before he set her to blushing with his comments. What she and Mike had shared for the past week was so new and so fragile. Neither of them spoke about the one topic that could cause an explosion between them, tearing them away from the passion that was both ecstasy and sanctuary; yet the results of the DNA tests remained with them, a silent ghost always lurking. The strain of pretending they didn’t know was telling on her and probably accounted for her reaction to Jack’s conversational questions today. Instead of acting like a madwoman, she should have just answered his questions as she would have before Mike told her the results of the tests. After all, she’d been even more blunt with Mrs. Lucas.

And that was another thing. Jack had used almost the same words Mrs. Lucas had. That had unsettled her, too.

Going into the apartment, she took Ceebee out of the carrier and put her in the musical swing she’d found at a secondhand shop a few days ago. The baby loved rocking and the music, and Gabby loved having a few minutes to deal with things around the apartment without the baby in her arms.

She dropped heavily onto the sofa, without even taking off her coat. “I don’t know, Ceebee, when I’ve been happier to have a day over.” Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back and waited for the cares of the day to slide off her shoulders.

The next thing she knew she was being kissed. She blinked her eyes open to see Mike smiling down at her.

“Ohmigod!” she gasped, jumping to her feet so fast she almost struck him in the nose. “What time is it? Is Ceebee okay?”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Calm down. She’s asleep in the swing.”

The baby began to cry.

“Or she was I should say,” he continued. “And don’t worry. It’s only a little after six. You couldn’t have been asleep long.”

She released the breath she’d been holding in dismay. Shrugging off her coat, she said, “I’m glad to hear that. What are you doing here so early? Mr. Shepard said you’d be working really late tonight.”

“I am.” He picked the baby up out of the swing. “But there’s not much I can do until about ten, so I figured I’d stop in and see if I could bum some supper off you. Looks like I should call for some pizza while you give Ceebee her bottle.” His nose wrinkled. “Do you want me to change her first? She’s pretty aromatic.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it. I’ll change her while you call.” Gabby took the baby. “Now I know what she was doing while I was napping.”

By the time she returned from putting the baby into a new diaper and her pajamas, Mike had the bottle warmed and the pizza ordered. They sat together on the couch while she fed the baby. His arm slipped around her shoulders, and she leaned her head on his.

“Wow,” he murmured as he rubbed her upper back. “You’re pretty tense.”

“It’s been a tough day.”

“What’s going on?”

She wanted to tell him all about Jack’s questions, but she wanted some time to sort out that conversation. She wondered if she’d over-reacted. So, instead she said, “It’s Mrs. Lucas. She’s refusing to eat now.”

“Can you force her to eat?”

“One of the nurses tried to persuade her to eat a little, but it came right back up.”

“How about more drastic measures?”

“You mean like a stomach tube or something like that?”

He nodded.

“The director could get permission to do it, but once the tube is inserted, there are a whole new realm of problems. And at this point, Mrs. Lucas is lucid, and she’s refusing any treatment.”

“So she wants to die.”

“Yes.” She drew the emptied bottle out of the baby’s mouth and tipped her up to burp her. “The nursing staff calls it failure to thrive, but I think Mrs. Lucas could thrive just fine if she wanted to. She’s simply tired of living, or at least I think that’s it.”

“You don’t sound very certain.”

She gave him an uneven smile. “I’m not a doctor or a nurse, but I think there’s more to it than any of us have guessed. She was okay until I started bringing Ceebee to work. She’s gotten progressively worse ever since.”

“It could be coincidence.”

“I didn’t think you scientists believe in coincidence.”

“Ouch!” His smile was as feeble as hers. “You’re right. I don’t believe in coincidences, but, as I’ve been reminded a couple of times lately, sometimes certain events appear to be coincidental. I’m sorry you’re upset.”

“We get close to the residents, so when one of them is hurting, we hurt.” She relaxed slightly when Ceebee burped and nestled against her. “And I feel bad because I chewed Mrs. Lucas out yesterday for not coming to my therapy classes. I had no idea she wasn’t feeling well. I wouldn’t have confronted her if I’d known that.”

“Ouch again! Bad timing.”

“The worst.” She sighed as she stood and put Ceebee back in the swing. Cranking it, she gave it a gentle push to start. “I should have seen the signs of a problem, but I was so sure that the only thing bothering her was Ceebee that I didn’t look beyond my assumptions. I should know better.”

He took her hands and drew her back down to sit facing him. Wrapping his arms around her, he whispered, “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“Maybe not, but I do.”

When his mouth caressed hers, she gave herself completely to the kiss. In it was his deepest compassion for her distress. She drew away, knowing he couldn’t guess the other reason why she was troubled.

“Gabby?” he whispered as he pushed her hair aside to nuzzle along her neck. Sweet delight flew along her.

She was saved from answering by a knock on the door. She’d never been happier to see the pizza delivery guy. Paying him, she brought the steaming pizza in and put it on the kitchen counter.

“There are sodas and beer in the fridge,” she said as Mike went into the kitchen. “What’s in that box?”

“I picked up some dessert for us.” He chuckled. “I should say first dessert. After I get done with work, I’d like to have a second dessert.”

“Me?”

“With whipped cream if you’ve got some.”

“Pick up some on your way home.”

He grinned. “Guess what’s in the box.” He lifted her hand from the counter and kissed it. Turning it over, he ran his tongue up along her wrist. When she gasped at the powerful need erupting inside her, he smiled and asked, “Feeling better?”

“I’d be lying if I said anything except yes.”

He put his hand on her arm and drew her around the counter and against him. Into her hair, he whispered, “I like when you say yes.”

“That I’ve noticed.” She was tempted to tell him to forget about pizza and whatever was in the box and come with her to her bed, but she knew he needed to get back to work. She wanted to fall asleep with his arm around her, so she’d wait until they could be together for the rest of the night. “What’s dessert number one?”

“Cake.” He smiled as he took out a couple cans of soda. “Chocolate, of course.”

“Of course.” She loved when he was in a teasing mood like this. Then, as she opened the pizza box, she caught sight of his expression when he thought she wasn’t looking. There was a familiar strain around his mouth as there’d been on his birthday when he’d learned about the results of the DNA test. Was waiting for the results of the new test bothering him tonight, or was it something else? They shouldn’t hear about the new test for a couple of days at least.

Placing two slices of pizza on his plate and a single slice for herself, she carried them into the living room and set them on the table. She picked up a toy that Ceebee had dropped and placed it in the little girl’s hand. It went immediately into Ceebee’s mouth.

“Do you think she’s beginning to teethe?” Gabby asked.

“Possible, but more likely some sort of oral fixation.” He gave her a leer even more salacious than Mr. Shepard’s. “I hear it comes from not being breast-fed. Some of us never get over it.”

She slapped his arm as she laughed. “Eat up your pizza before it gets cold.”

Gabby needed all her willpower not to ask Mike directly what was bothering him. She gave him opportunities to tell her while they ate the pizza. She offered him some more chances while she put the dishes in the sink and cut two pieces of the cake that was topped with coconut. Finally, when she was sitting beside him again and enjoying the delicious cake, she knew she couldn’t wait any longer. He’d be returning to work soon.

Quietly, as if it were of no importance, she asked, “So why did you really come over tonight?”

“Do I need a reason other than a free meal?”

She smiled. “You do. What’s up?”

Before he could answer, someone knocked at the door. At exactly the same moment, Ceebee’s toy fell to the floor and she began to cry.

Mike bent to collect the ring of plastic keys while Gabby went to the door. She’d get rid of whoever it was and find out what Mike had been about to say with such a long face.

She opened the door and stared in amazement at the new janitor from work. “Jack! What are you doing here? Is everything okay at Swan View?”

“I need to speak with you and Dr. Archer. When I was out at the lab, they told me that he’d come over here, so I figured this was a good time to talk to both of you.”

“You were out at Mike’s lab?” In amazement, she realized she’d never asked Mike who else might possibly know about the DNA test results in addition to Sam Cho.

“Can I speak with both of you? It’s important.” His voice quavered as he added, “For all of us.”