The Bracelet. Karen Smith Rose

fixed him. Had it?

      Making conversation took effort. But he didn’t want Laura worrying any more than she already was. He could see the guilt in her eyes that she’d caused his heart attack. He could see the questions. But he wasn’t ready to face problems that had been around much too long. He needed a hell of a lot more energy than this to do that.

      So he concentrated on pushing his lunch around his plate and forced himself to talk just to get this visit finished. “But I got the feeling she couldn’t wait to leave.” He could still hear the rasp in his voice from being on the ventilator.

      After a moment’s hesitation, during which he could tell Laura was debating with herself, she said, “She likes to spend time with you. She just doesn’t want to spend it with you in a hospital.”

      “You don’t like hospitals, either.”

      She shrugged. “I’m grateful to this hospital and the doctors who saved your life.”

      Brady closed his eyes for a few moments. “I’m just so damn tired.”

      “I hear that’s normal. You might feel that way for a while.”

      When Brady opened his eyes, he studied her, a list of everything she’d had to handle since he’d been rushed in here clicking in his mind. “Sean’s been okay through all this? No signs of him drinking?”

      Last summer Sean had gotten home in the middle of the night two nights in a row. They’d let the first time pass, but Brady had confronted him the second night. He’d been so drunk he couldn’t stand without leaning against the wall. Brady had grounded him for six weeks and taken away his driving privileges except for going to and from work. Their son had been resentful and angry the rest of the summer. After the fact, from talking to another parent, Brady had learned the boys partied much too often, and he’d known he’d had to be strict with Sean. It had seemed to work. When the school year started and his son had kept up his grades—knowing he had to in order to get into college—he and Brady had formed an uneasy truce. But it was a truce that could easily be broken.

      “Actually, he’s been very supportive,” Laura replied. “The thing is, he overheard some of our argument. He thought we were arguing about him and that caused your heart attack.”

      “The blockage in my heart was a time bomb. That caused my heart attack. Be sure to tell him that.”

      “I did.”

      He knew what she was thinking. He should talk to their son. She’d always expected so much of him where Sean was concerned and he hadn’t been able to deliver.

      To avoid an argument he commented, “One of the nurses mentioned you had to elude a reporter when you left yesterday. Are they bothering you?”

      Laura hesitated.

      He hated that she was being so careful around him. He hated that she thought since his heart attack he had to be coddled or protected. She obviously didn’t know what to say and what not to say because of that videotape they’d had to watch and the suggestions in the informational binder he’d glanced at but she’d probably read cover to cover. Both had warned that a recuperating heart surgery patient should keep anxiety and stress to a minimum.

      “Laura, what’s going on?”

      “There was a short segment on the local news about the article,” she replied quickly.

      There was more. “What else?” he prodded. “Don’t hide things from me.”

      After glancing out the window for a moment, she admitted, “We’ve had news vans in front of the house and reporters waiting for us downstairs. But the ruckus is dying down now. Pat told the reporters to get lost while I was here with you. Since then, they’ve kept their distance.”

      Hospital sounds—a metal cart clicking on tile, lowered voices, a laugh track on someone’s TV—filled the silence between them.

      It was time to change the subject. Brady commented, “I can’t believe Dr. Gregano is going to discharge me tomorrow.”

      Laura gave Brady a bright smile. “You walked up and down the hall three times today and you’re going to do it again tonight. That’s progress.”

      “At home—”

      “At home, we’ll take things one day at a time. I was thinking…” she began lightly. “Sean could help me bring down one of the single beds in the spare room and set it up in your den. That way you could sleep there and…rest during the day if you need to.”

      The thought of being an invalid was unfathomable. “I’m going to hate this. Maybe I can just use the recliner.”

      “They stopped your heart,” she reminded him softly. “Your body went through terrific trauma. You’re not going to come home and try to act all macho, are you? Because there are restrictions.”

      “I read the list,” he admitted, wishing the next few weeks were over.

      Edging forward on her chair as if she wanted to reach out to him but didn’t know exactly how, she asked, “How much do you remember about surgery and afterward?”

      After he lifted his glass from the nightstand, he took a few swallows of water, then shook his head. “Not much. I was hoping I’d see that bright light and maybe find answers in it, but no such luck. I went to sleep, and when I woke up, that damn machine was breathing for me. I couldn’t even feel my arms and legs. It was the weirdest thing. Then little by little sensation came back and I felt I was in my body again.”

      When she moved her hand, her bracelet brushed against the arm of the chair. She studied it, then met his gaze again. “I told Sean about how we met, about the demonstration, about Aunt Marcia kicking me out.”

      That surprised him. “Why?”

      “We spent a lot of hours together waiting to hear about your condition. He asked me about the charms on my bracelet and what you were like back then.”

      After a few beats, Brady inquired, “And what did you tell him?”

      “That we fell in love and it happened fast and we were connected from the moment we met. When I told him…”

      He caught the glimmer of sudden emotion in her eyes.

      She gave him another smile. “The memories are still so alive and real. They were comforting when you were in surgery. I could recall what I’d been wearing and what you’d been wearing. I could even smell the scent of British Sterling. Remember? You wore it the night we went dancing…the weekend before you left.”

      Were the memories comforting to her because back then everything had been so easy between them and now nothing seemed easy?

      She pointed to the tiny envelope charm. “Do you remember calling me from Fort Dix to make sure I’d received this?”

      “I remember.” He’d known how much those charms had meant to her. That was why he’d bought another one. “I sent you that charm to remind you that what we had was real.”