Into His Keeping Page 21

  Holdin and Drifter were in Jill’s room by six a.m. Surgery was scheduled for eight-thirty and preparations were underway. A patch of her hair had been shaved and the rest pinned out of the way. A skullcap was fitted over her to secure it. The opening for surgery was neatly cut out of it. She was silent as the technicians worked around her. Jill’s only demand had been that they let her hold Drifter’s hand as long as possible. Holdin stood against the wall watching as the nurse reached around her neck to remove Jill’s necklace.

  “I’ll take care of that.” Holdin stopped her as he went to Jill’s side. The nurse stopped in surprise and nodded, moving aside as Holdin bent over Jill.

  Looking up at him as he reached around her neck for the clasp, Jill bit her lip. Her free hand rose as if to hold the charm on.

  “Shhhhh, baby girl,” Holdin soothed while smiling into her eyes. “I’ll keep this for now.” The gold was warm with her life energy as his hand closed over it. Jill gulped in a hitching breath. “It’ll be waiting when you come back,” Holdin assured her.

  At those words, Jill glanced away for a second, the uncertainty of her returning clouded pretty brown eyes as she met his again. “Thank you.”

  Holdin slipped the necklace in his pocket. With the crowd of strangers in the room, Holdin couldn’t say what he needed to. The words to take that cloud from her eyes escaped him as he desperately searched for them. And then someone was asking him to step aside so they could continue.

  Her smile trembled as he backed up. Their gazes clung to each other for that moment and then it was gone.

  Jill’s attention focused on her son. As she should be. Yet Holdin felt a ragged stab of loss and the need for some commitment from her that she’d be back. That she believed it. She had to believe it for it to happen. He stood there and watched her be brave and couldn’t find a way to help her.

  Control was once again Holdin’s battle as he contained the need to tell her that she was his. Nothing would ever change that. No power in heaven or earth could touch it. Nor could it change the fact that she was her baby’s mama. But he remained silent. He had no promises to offer, no assurance, nothing that could alter the battle she had to fight alone.

  Watching them prepare her for surgery was a drawn-out lesson in what it was possible to endure. This time he knew what was taking her and still had to stand back and let it happen. Help them if he could. Helpless rage boiled in the pit of his stomach. Raw and senseless, it urged him to snatch up the woman who was his and leave this place.

  What was the use of being rich and influential if he couldn’t use it to fix things for the people he loved? Wasn’t that what rich men did? They bought, they bribed, they blackmailed the world to bend it to their will. He’d failed, even on that callous level he’d failed.

  In a hospital room, no one had status. It was the great equalizer. Rich or poor, brilliant or barely finished grade school didn’t matter. In this building, every family had to stand by helplessly and pray when the gurney was wheeled away. There was no mercy to be purchased when that small group of orderlies and nurses disappeared.

  Watching her vanish out the door took every ounce of willpower he possessed to hold back a bellow of denial. He wanted to charge them and beat the malevolent men to a pulp for trying to take her. Gritting his teeth, he actually visualized squeezing the life out of each one with his bare hands around the white-collared necks.

  Holdin glanced at Drifter and noticed a slight tremble in the boy’s stiff-legged stance as the door shut behind the rolling bed. The space between them where her bed had been was now empty. The absence of a bed in the hospital room suddenly became unbearable and both of them avoided looking at the space. In fact, Drifter remained facing the door. His breathing had picked up as he glared at it.

  The tall young man’s hands were fisted at his sides and Holdin recognized the struggle for control in his son. Again Holdin was helpless. There were no words that fixed watching one’s mother being wheeled off by white-clad orderlies. It was a stark reality that could not be soothed and he wasn’t about to insult the boy by pretending it could. Holdin reached a hand toward his son’s back, unsure what he’d been about to say when the door opened again and a smiling student nurse invited them to follow her.

  Holdin and Drifter were ushered into the surgery waiting room where Carol and Charles were already present. Drifter sat beside Carol and smiled weakly at her as she took his hand. Charles was standing with his back to the window and Holdin joined him.

  “So she went?” Charles asked. It was a pointless question whose real purpose was to fill the silence.

  “Yeah.” Holdin nodded. “Shouldn’t be too long. Just in and out then an hour in recovery.” Everyone knew the schedule. Holdin needed to repeat it for himself mostly. Two hours, that’s all it should take. Three hours on the outside because he hadn’t taken into account prep time right before surgery, so four was probably realistic. He knew he was stretching it, trying to force every eventuality into the “okay” slot.

  She had to be okay. He’d refused to think of what happened if she wasn’t. For Drifter he’d acted as if he’d considered it and had a plan, but within himself he hadn’t. Having Jill back was too big, to consuming, to allow her to leave again. If it happened, he’d deal with it. Hopefully gracefully, but he didn’t hold out much hope for that.

  It was a good thing his mom and dad were here and that was just sad. It felt like a failing that he needed them to ensure he behaved if the news was bad. He needed them for Drifter, not himself.

  They were insurance that someone present would be sane enough to help his son. He had little faith for himself in that situation. At least he was honest enough to face his failing. He’d been in love with Jill too long, too hard. He’d seen himself when he lost her the last time. This time would be worse.

  They were all silent as the minutes ticked by. There was nothing to say. Everything seemed trivial. Holdin couldn’t sit, he couldn’t pace. He simply stood and stared at the door. In the background, he heard Carol try to distract Drifter with a drink of soda or something to eat. Charles went to sit with them. Holdin’s eyes moved to the family unit and he knew it was his job to join them.

  So long he’d been alone with Jill. That was a strange way to put it but there it was. He’d mourned her alone, missed her alone. He’d never been strong enough to share her memory. Not with his parents and certainly not with anyone else. She’d driven him to be the man he was and yet it’d just been the two of them in his mind.

  She’d spent the last fifteen years without him, completely. He’d spent them with her. Only her.

  Including Drifter in their relationship was something he’d not realized would be so difficult. Even when he’d grasped the fact that he had a son, it’d not occurred that he’d have to share this most intimate part of himself with his son. His pain had been his alone. Now it was selfish to hold it in. Suddenly he recognized that Drifter felt the same way.

  Drifter had never had to share his mother. Their relationship had been uncommonly closed in a way that could not be opened by anyone other than his biological father. Even if Jill dated, Drifter didn’t have to share her as he would have to with Holdin. Of course the boy was not enthusiastic. How could he be? Holdin represented a threat, someone who could take his mother’s attention from him. In a child’s mind, attention equaled the level of love they received.

  Holdin slowly walked over and sat down across from Drifter and Carol. Leaning forward he scrubbed his hands down his face, consciously relaxing, letting his face show at least some of his emotions. The boy needed to see it in him. To know they shared this pain, regardless of what it cost Holdin to do it. Bent with elbows on knees, Holdin faced his son. Even his sitting position was an effort to convey their equality in this moment.

  “Neither one of us is very good at sharing her,” he started quietly.

  Drifter regarded Holdin blankly for a moment. “What?”

  “I shared a little with you in the hotel room. T
elling you what your mother meant to me all these years. I’d never told anyone that.” Holdin straightened in the chair but scooted down so his butt was on the edge of the chair, stretching long legs out in front of him, remaining at eye level with Drifter. “But I didn’t get what it would mean for you to share her with me. I doubt either of us really got it. She’s been mine all this time, if only in my mind, but still, just mine. Our connection was so strong, so deep, it didn’t fade with time. Her loving you is an elemental connection of a mother with her baby. I know you’re not a baby anymore. But you will be her baby forever.” Holdin’s eyes flicked to his mother beside Drifter. “Come to terms with it, son, we both have strong women for mothers.”

  Drifter grinned and glanced at his grandmother too.

  “He’s right,” Carol agreed. “I don’t care how big he gets,” she nodded toward Holdin, “he’s still my baby and he’d do well to remember it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Holdin confirmed, chuckling. “See what I mean?”

  “Yeah. So?” Drifter regarded Holdin with the bored expression again. Holdin knew it was a defense. Passive aggressive, it was one of the few tools Drifter had to deal with this situation.

  “So I’m saying, the way I love your mother might be something both of us have to adjust to. You’re not used to having a father and it never occurred to me that I have a son. We have to share her in ways neither one of us expected. Even if she’d married someone else, that man would not have the connection she and I have. Not with regard to you. I get it that you’re enough like me to resist sharing her with me. I’m sorry it’s difficult. It shouldn’t be. But what we should have had isn’t important. Right now is the only thing we have to work with. We’ve got some time to kill. Getting to know each other would be a good way to spend it. Can you meet me halfway and do that? I’d really like to hear how you know so much about fixing a car.”

  “You just figure out that there’s no getting rid of me so now you want to know me?” Drifter asked in disdain.

  “No. I wanted to be sure you understood that you aren’t getting rid of me. I want to know you because you’re my son. I’m trying to make it easier for you by explaining how similar we are. Your reactions to me are ones I’d have if I were in your position.”

  “You sure talk a lot when you’re trying to make a point,” Drifter observed. Silence stretched out after his statement.

  “Well?”

  Drifter’s face twisted in a bitter grimace. “You do know it was Mom who insisted we go find you? I did it because she needed to.” Drifter glanced at his grandmother and Charles, who’d sat down on the other side of Carol as he tried to soften his resentment for his grandparents. “Not saying it was a bad idea.” Then his gaze returned to Holdin and all softness disappeared. “But I figured the chances of you being that interested in me were low. It was never about you and her.” Drifter slid a little farther down in his chair and glared at Holdin belligerently.

  “I know. You didn’t plan on me impacting your life. But consider this. Your mother did. She knew me well enough to know I’d be very interested in you. Can you respect her wishes and make an effort?”

  Holdin knew Drifter was scared. Right now that fear was translating to anger and he’d become the target. If he let it go, being the bad guy would continue to grow. If he couldn’t reach Drifter and find a common ground to make this an event they got through together, their relationship might never grow beyond that anger and resentment.

  “Your mother’s first concern is always going to be you. I don’t want to change that. It’s why she risked her life to bring us together. Our relationship is so important to her that she was willing to die for it. I can’t take that lightly. I hope you don’t. She didn’t expect anything out of our meeting for herself. You got that, right? When she wakes up, she’ll need our support as much as she needed it before. Seeing us struggling with each other will create stress she doesn’t need. Her main concern should be recovering, not refereeing between you and me.”

  Holdin paused, hoping what he was saying was making an impression on the angry young man. “I’m not saying you have to pretend to like me for her. All I’m asking is that we get to know each other. We both want what’s best for her. That’s a place to start, to try for her.”

  Drifter regarded Holdin in silence a few seconds and then the need to move forced him out of his chair. Holdin watched the rangy young man pace over to the window. He stopped to stare out it, arms crossed over his chest, legs stiff. Tension flowed around Drifter in angry waves as he stood with his back to them. Carol moved to get up but Charles gently laid a hand on her arm to hold her back.

  Holdin went to the other side of the window, standing in a mirror image of his son, gazing out blindly at the bright summer morning outside. After a few minutes, Holdin began talking. He wasn’t looking at the boy as he started telling him about how it was to be fourteen and reared all over the world. The Powells had been a Navy family. There was no money for extras. His interest in cars could only be fed through magazines.

  The information flowed out of Holdin in a steady stream that wasn’t complaining, it was more a humorous, self-depreciating story of a boy whose interests were very similar to those Drifter harbored. Shortly Drifter was interested enough to ask questions. They weren’t exactly having a conversation but it was getting there. In the telling, Holdin included the recounting of some of his young antics that had gotten him into trouble. Carol and Charles naturally joined the conversation, adding details Holdin left out.

  Eventually Drifter began telling them how he’d learned about cars. Their apartment building was next to a family-owned service station. The owner was a mechanic as were his sons. Hector Chavez knew a boy who needed to be involved when he saw one.

  The Chavez family was a hard-working bunch who’d built a reputation for good work at reasonable prices. They didn’t have much to share but what they did have was male companionship and an appreciation for the willingness to learn. They’d apparently folded Drifter into their lives and by extension, his mother.

  Holdin mentally made a commitment to find a way to repay the debt he owned them. Perhaps repay was reaching too far but he certainly owed them his thanks. There really was no way to repay the generosity they’d showed his son.

  Charles Powell looked his son in the eye and raised a brow. Holdin nodded. The Powells owed a lot to the Chavez family.

  Time passed. The conversation didn’t make it go faster. Everyone watched the clock. What it did give them was some ground to meet each other on. Drifter wasn’t a stiff, defensive mass anymore and Holdin found investing in Drifter’s comfort was more rewarding than he’d thought it could be. It wasn’t painful to acknowledge the life Jill and Drifter had led. It was simply the facts. Reality.

  Letting those years they’d struggled alone bother him was a selfish point of view, one that revolved around him and what he’d lost by not being there. Parts of the story gave Holdin a heavy heart but for the most part, he had to admire how Jill had reared their son. Accepting that nothing could change the past gave him a small measure of peace. The future was the only thing he could be involved with and nothing would keep him from that task.

  But he couldn’t afford to even glance into the future right now. The unknowns were too great. Knowing he was a selfish bastard about Jill didn’t make it go away. The possibility of her not knowing him after surgery was too painful to deal with. Focusing on Drifter gave him some satisfaction. This would never be taken from him. His son.

  While they were talking, a technician came in to do the DNA swabs. A long-handled Q-tip was used to gather cells from the inside of their mouths. It was quickly done and the tech left.

  Drifter regarded Holdin seriously as she disappeared. “What if it’s not you?”

  Holdin smiled. “Give up that hope, buddy. Didn’t my mom show you the pictures of me at your age?”

  Drifter shrugged. “Yeah. I know. It just seems too strange.”

  “What’s so strang
e about it? You knew there had to be a guy.”

  “But you’re you. This famous, rich guy from TV. It’s strange.”

  “It’ll get stranger. Wait ‘til everyone knows you’re the son of the famous, rich guy from TV.”

  Drifter laughed. “I guess it could be worse. You could be a teacher or something. You know, geeky nerd.”

  “You’ve thought about that, haven’t you? Wondered who your father was. Were you worried someone would just show up someday?”

  Drifter jammed his hands into his pockets. “I figured it was a possibility. Could have gotten ugly if Mom didn’t remember him and junk.”

  Holdin nodded and glanced away to give Drifter some emotional space as he asked the next question. “So what was your plan?”

  “I don’t know. I sorta thought we might have to run away from him at first.”

  “You ever talk to your mom about this?”

  “Naw. She’d have told me not to worry about it. She thinks I’m still a baby sometimes. I talked to Mr. Chavez about it.”

  “What did he say?”