MELLIE WAS CHECKING Rufus’s incision site when Delano strode into the hospital, his expression stern and somehow abstracted. He acknowledged her presence with a grunt, and started pulling open drawers, one after the other, then closing them without taking anything out.
Not exactly the way she’d expected their next encounter would be, after his final sexy salvo that morning.
“What’re you looking for?” she asked, finally.
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up, but kept rifling through the suture drawer. “Exam room two needs some...” Stopping suddenly, he straightened and shook his head. “Dammit. I can’t remember.”
“Dude. You’re not that old,” she said, unable to suppress a chuckle, even though his behavior had her a bit worried. “What’s going on?”
Delano closed the drawer and turned to face her with an interrogative look.
“Do you know that Dad’s planning some type of memorial scholarship in Mum’s name?”
Mellie nodded warily. “He’s mentioned something recently—asking for fundraising ideas and stuff like that. Because your mother was a teacher, he thought it would be a fitting tribute to help kids who might not be able to afford a higher education.”
He frowned. “Why am I only just hearing about it? And the fact that the practice was going downhill over the years?”
Rufus shifted on the examination table, and Mellie put both hands on him to keep him calm. She wished she could do the same to the confused and upset Delano.
“I don’t know.” That was the truth, if not what she thought. “Maybe your father didn’t want to worry you while things were unsettled?”
Still with that fierce expression on his face, Delano shook his head.
“We both know that isn’t it. He didn’t tell me because he thought I didn’t care.”
What could she say to that?
“Well, he’s told you now.”
“That’s the worst part,” he growled. “He didn’t tell me. My cousin Jason did instead.”
“Oh.” Delano still looked angry, but Mellie wasn’t fooled. He was hurt.
Before she could think of something worthwhile to say, Delano slumped onto the stool across the table from her, and absently reached out to pet Rufus. As though the contact with the dog’s fur and the little lick Rufus turned his head to bestow upon Delano’s hand released some of his anger, Delano sighed.
“I’m at a loss, Mellie. Neither Dad nor Aunt Eddie told me he was struggling to keep the clinic going. If I’d known...”
The unsaid words hung between them, and Mellie pursed her lips. It seemed unfair to press him, but until he faced his dilemma head-on, there was no way he could solve it.
“What?” she asked softly. “What would you have done? And be honest about it.”
The silence between them was broken only by the whir of the ceiling fan and the sound of Rufus’s breathing. Delano was looking down, his face creased into a frown. Then he looked up, and Mellie’s heart ached at the torment in his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Moved and sad for him, she put her hand over his and gave it a squeeze.
“And you won’t ever know, because that moment is gone. If your father had told you, if you’d had to make a choice about what to do. If...if...if. The ifs will drive you crazy if you dwell on them too long. The truth is, this is a different moment in time, and the only way you’re going to get any peace out of this trip is to sit down and talk honestly with your dad.”
His mouth twisted slightly. “I’m out of practice doing that.”
Mellie shrugged one shoulder. “Well, he’s not the type of person who’s going to bite your head off, or refuse to have a conversation. Not like my mom.”
He turned his hand so he could hold hers, making her silly heart do a little flip.
“You’re not in contact with your mother?”
“I reach out every now and then, but not really.”
Now his expression was one of sympathy, and she was glad to give him something else to think about, and lift a little of the cloud hanging over his head.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I had to come to the understanding that my mom chose not to be in my life, because her criteria for us having a relationship is too high for me to meet.”
Curiosity seemed to war with his natural good manners, and the sight of him battling with the urge to ask questions made her smile.
“You can ask me whatever you want,” she said. “Just not right now. The clinic’s about to open, and Rufus doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going home today. Mr. Brixton is coming for him this morning.”
She lifted Rufus down from the table, placing him gently on the floor. With one hand under his abdomen, she kept the dog standing.
“That’s good,” Delano said after a little pause, as though he was still thinking through their conversation. “Hopefully that’ll improve his mood.”
“Both their moods, I think.” Keeping her voice cheerful was a bit of a chore since she suddenly felt as though she’d run an emotional marathon. “Mr. Brixton looked so sad when he had to leave him after the operation.”
At Mellie’s urging Rufus took a few tentative steps, looking up at her with the saddest puppy dog eyes imaginable.
“You got this, Rufus,” she said, letting go of his belly so he was moving on his own, albeit jerkily. “You can do it.”
And, as she led the dog out of the exam room, Mellie touched Delano’s shoulder, saying, “You got this too. Remember, the future doesn’t have to be the same as the past. Have that chat with your father...”
“If he’ll let me.
“He’ll let you,” she replied. “He’s missed having you in his life, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.”
Then she took Rufus out to do his business, so when Mr. Brixton came to pick him up he’d be ready to go.
Delano found himself considering Mellie’s words all morning, in between seeing patients. The volume of clients was still high enough to keep them both busy, but when he heard Mr. Brixton was there to pick up Rufus, he made sure to take a few minutes to say goodbye to the dog.
“He looks so much better,” Mr. Brixton said, smiling widely as his hand first stroked his dog’s head, then scratched behind one floppy ear. “And he’s walking on his own.”
Rufus’s tail was wagging for the first time since he’d come in, his eyes were noticeably brighter, and where before his nose had been dull and dry, now it shone.
“It’ll take him a while to fully regain his balance and agility,” Mellie told the older gentleman. “But dogs generally do well after an amputation, and the best place for him now is at home with you. Being back in familiar surroundings with his favorite person will be better than any medicine we can give him.”
She had such an easy way about her, and a really lovely voice. Remembering the husky timbre of it after they’d kissed gave him all kinds of naughty ideas he hoped to be able to put into practice.
Even in the midst of his personal turmoil, there was no ignoring the effect Mellie had on him, but it was up to her whether their relationship ever got to the next level. Not only wasn’t he the type to push, but he also respected her cautious attitude. If she decided it wasn’t worth the potential problems, he’d have to respect that.
Not that he’d like it.
Quickly saying farewell to both Rufus and his owner, Delano excused himself to see his next patient. But he kept listening to Mellie as she gave Mr. Brixton instructions about how to care for his dog until he couldn’t hear her anymore.
Bearing in mind what Mellie had said earlier that day, about how he might be able to move forward with his father, Delano took a moment between patients to call home.
When he asked Aunt Eddie if he could come back there for lunch, she replied, “Of course, boy. Plenty of food here.”
He got to the house as his father was sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Just in time,” Dad said, giving Delano a sideways glance. “I was afraid you’d be late and Eddie would make me wait until you got here.”
“Thank goodness Delano keeps better time than you do,” was Eddie’s tart response. “The number of nights dinner got cold waiting on you...”
“All right. All right.” Dad tried to sound put upon, but he was smiling, since they all knew it was true.
Delano washed his hands and helped Aunt Eddie carry the dishes of chicken, boiled green bananas, cassava, yam and salad to the table. Impossible not to feel a pang of nostalgia as he surveyed the food. His father, unlike many of his countrymen, didn’t eat a lot of rice with his meals, preferring ground provisions, like the cassava, and other kinds of carbohydrates. It was how Delano had grown up, and he realized now that he’d missed it.
There was so much to love about his homeland. And so much pain associated with it too.
After his father had blessed the meal, and Aunt Eddie passed around the dishes, his father said, “I haven’t had a chance to ask you how obedience class went.”
That was a safe enough subject, so Delano gave them a rundown of what had happened, making his father laugh.
“Did you really fall down?” he asked, still chuckling.
“Flat-flat,” Delano assured him. “On my back, looking up at the sky, wondering how I’d gotten myself into such a position.”
“I don’t know what you’re laughing about, Milo,” Aunt Eddie said, her lips twitching as she tried to hold back her own amusement. “Remember the time the bull chased you into the pond?”
That set the tone for the meal, and although Delano hadn’t asked his father about either the trust or what had happened with the clinic, it felt like a success. They hadn’t really spoken much since Delano arrived, and now it was as if they’d partway crossed the barrier between them.
On impulse, Delano asked, “How about coming to obedience class next Wednesday, even just for a little while? We can set you up in the pavilion, where you can see everything, and get you a taxi home if you don’t want to stay until the end.”
He wasn’t sure where the suggestion sprang from, but the pleasure on his father’s face let him know it was the right one.
“I will,” Dad said, smiling broadly.
“Give him a megaphone,” the irrepressible Aunt Eddie muttered. “So he can boss you around from the sidelines.”
“Cho,” was his father’s response, but he was still smiling.
After lunch was over, Aunt Eddie got a telephone call and went out onto the veranda to take it, leaving Delano and his father alone at the table.
That was as good a time as any, Delano thought.
“Dad, I spoke to Jason today.”
“Oh, yes? I didn’t know he was back already.”
There was no change in his father’s demeanor.
“Just got back today. He was telling me about the memorial trust you want to set up.”
Dad definitely stiffened, and his gaze searched Delano’s face.
Then he huffed.
“I told your cousin I’d talk to you myself when I was ready,” he said, the corners of his lips turning down.
“But I don’t know why you wouldn’t have spoken to me about it from the start—when you first had the idea.”
With a little shrug, his father leaned back in his chair, trying to look nonchalant, even though his gaze stayed fixed on Delano’s face.
“It was just an idea. And Jason would know who I needed to talk to if I decided to set it up. Lawyers and so forth.”
A spurt of annoyance made Delano lean back in his own chair, trying to match his father’s casualness. If Dad didn’t want to talk about it—be honest with him—then what was the use of even trying?
Then, like a whisper in his ear, he heard Mellie’s voice: The future doesn’t have to be the same as the past...
And neither did the present. But one of them would have to break the habit of silence and deflection if there was to be any chance of making a change.
Clearly, it would have to be him.
“Dad, I couldn’t help you navigate the laws here, but I would be able to give you some idea of what it entails to set up the kind of foundation you’re thinking of, although mine’s on a pretty small scale.”
His father’s gaze sharpened.
“Oh?”
Putting his elbows on the table, getting physically closer to his dad, Delano nodded.
“I set up one, myself, a few years ago. Once a year it pays for sports equipment for a primary school—cricket bats and pads, or soccer balls and cleats, that sort of thing—up to the limit of what the fund can afford. The schools apply, showing their need, and I have to pick one to benefit. That’s the hardest part, to be honest.”
Eyes wide now, Dad stared, and Delano would have laughed at the way his mouth moved and nothing came out, if the moment itself wasn’t so important.
“You have a...?”
Delano nodded. “A foundation? Yes. Took a while to get going. Stella wasn’t on board with it, so saving and investing a reasonable amount of funds was the work of years.”
His ex-wife had hated the fact that he was saving money for a cause she didn’t think was terribly important. Or, in hindsight, maybe what had upset her was not being in on the planning stage. Looking back, he realized he’d downplayed the importance of it to her.
He’d held his pain close, denying her access to those emotions that had shaped him into the man he was.
It was the only way he knew how to deal with them.
But that was in the past, and now he needed to move forward into the future and rebuild a relationship with his father. Even if it meant opening up the wounds they shared.
Swallowing hard against the lump forming in his throat, he said, “I called it the E.G. Foundation.”
His father blinked, and his mouth moved again, this time not with shock but in an effort to speak.
“Everard Gopaul.” Dad’s voice wavered, and he lifted a hand to cover his eyes for a second. When it fell away, Delano could see the moisture in his father’s eyes, and his own prickled too. “Everard loved sports. I remember him racing down the soccer pitch, leaving everyone in his dust.” His father reached across the table and squeezed Delano’s forearm tight. “That’s a perfect memorial, son.”
And for the first time in too many years to count, Delano felt connected to his father again.