“Hello?” She sat, only half listening, half pondering the pretty, pink nursery she’d make out of the fourth bedroom.
“Lindsay?”
“Oh, hi, Frank. What’s going on?”
“Um, honey, it’s Mama. She’s … well, she’s dyin’, and she’s askin’ for you.”
Lindsay froze, not even hearing when Anton came in, carrying one son in each arm, both of them sobbing. She glanced up and noted blood running down Antony’s cheek. Without a word, she hung up, took the boy and cleaned the wound. She plunked him in the living room amidst his cars then took Kieran from Anton. He quieted within a few seconds.
“I have to go see Mama,” she said in a small voice.
Anton frowned. “I’ll take the boys. Or do you want me to come with you?”
She shook her head and turned from him, her mind blank and her chest aching with emotions she didn’t care to identify. “Come on, darlings,” she said, taking Antony by the hand. “Let’s put on our Sunday clothes.”
Antony pulled away from her. She gripped him hard and leaned down to look into his Love family eyes. “Young man, you will come with me, and you will do what I say. Mama is not in the mood for your nonsense.”
He blinked, glanced over at his father, then at her. “Okay.”
“You mean, ‘yes ma’am,’” she said, still holding his hand tight.
“Yes ma’am.” His small voice nearly broke her heart. But she had to establish control over this now, because, no matter how many fantasies of baby girls in fluffy pink dresses she might conjure, she was certain there’d be another Love brother added to this fold in a few months.
“Yes ma’am,” Kieran parroted around his thumb.
“Take your finger out of your mouth, Kieran Francesco.”
He did. Antony took his brother’s hand and they went carefully up the steps to the bedrooms.
“Let me know if you need me, or anything,” Anton said from the kitchen. “I love you, Lindsay.”
She pulled her heavy hair up off her neck but didn’t turn to face him. “I know you do,” she said, following her boys upstairs to change into a decent outfit so she could introduce them to their dying grandmother.
By the time she realized that her response had been somewhat less enthusiastic than it should have been, Anton had left.
She found a half-decent dress and slapped on a bit of makeup, then picked up the kitchen phone, determined to put it right—to assure Anton that she did love him, more than she knew how to express some days.
She tapped her fingers on the cracked Formica, her mind whirling at the scene she anticipated at her estranged mother’s deathbed as she waited for someone to locate her husband and put him on the phone. “What is it?” Anton said, his voice neutral in a way she understood, and which made her glad she’d paused to do this before heading to the hospital. “Lindsay? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, honey. I just wanted to tell you I love you … too.” She gnawed her fingernail, nervous for some reason at his silence.
“I know you do, Linds,” he said.
She opened her mouth to respond, but he’d already hung up.
Chapter Twelve
Her mother’s room was at the end of a long labyrinth of corridors and elevators in the University of Kentucky’s newest medical complex. By the time Lindsay parked, after circling several floors in the garage while Antony kicked her seat and Kieran whined about the heat, she was tempted to turn right around and go home. Why she’d even bothered with this would be impossible to explain to anyone, even herself.
“Come on, sweeties,” she said, tugging the sweaty, restless toddlers from the seat and setting them down for a second so she could grab her purse and lock the car. “Antony, come here this minute.” Kieran had a death grip on her skirt, thumb plugging his mouth, while Antony had scurried to the tail end of the truck, and was gaping at everything, practically quivering with delight.
“Cars, Mama!” he yelled. “Lookie! Cars and trucks and cars!”
“I know, honey. Now get over here and hold Mama’s other hand. We’re going inside, and you need to stick close to me, like glue, okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” Kieran piped up. She crouched to be on their eye level, nausea hitting her hard from exhaust fumes and fear of what she had to face. But it had the remembered edge of her early pregnancy days. Figures, this would be day she got her worst symptoms and had to face her mother for the first time in over four years.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” Antony touched her face. She noted his filthy fingernails with dismay.
“Nothing, darlings. I just want to tell you I love you.”
“Love you too,” Kieran, her sweet-natured little redheaded Halloran child mumbled. She pulled his thumb out of his mouth with a loud pop. Antony giggled. Kieran glared at him.
“Big boys do not suck their thumbs.”
He looked down at his feet. Antony bumped his shoulder, which almost knocked Lindsay onto her butt. “Antony Ian Love, I swan you will be the death of me.”
He smiled up at her; his concept of “death” limited to the frogs he found and squeezed so hard they expired before he could present them to his parents. She rose, swallowing the urge to bolt, or puke, or cry, and took her sons’ hands. “Let’s go see …” She stopped, unsure what to even call the woman neither boy had ever met. They’d each met their Grandpa Halloran one time, about a year ago, when he was at JR’s house, and she’d brought the boys over.
“Nana Halloran,” she said, firmly.
“Nona?” Kieran stopped. He was flat-out terrified of Anton’s mother.
But Antony had started hopping around madly, swinging from her hand, nearly yanking her shoulder out of its socket.
“Nona! I love Nona! Will she have ‘lato?” which was his shorthand for the gelato his grandmother always served the boys when they visited, which wasn’t often. When she’d gotten a look at baby Antony she’d shed real tears of joy, declaring him “una miniatura” of his “padre.” When Anton had shown her Kieran at about six weeks old, she’d hissed, backed away, and spit on the floor.
“Sorry, Linds. It’s the red hair. She has a thing about it.”
“No, Antony. Not Nona.” She sensed Kieran relax. “Nana. It’s a grandma you don’t know, because you haven’t met her … yet.”
“Oh,” Antony said, deflating to such a point she practically had to drag him into the building, the elevator, down the hall, to another elevator and around several corners until she reached a tall desk bristling with medical staff.
“Excuse me,” she said, gritting her teeth when Antony tried to wrench out of her grip and take off down the hall. “I’m looking for Gloria Halloran’s room.”
The nurse peered over her half glasses at Lindsay, then stood up and made a show of glaring down at the wiggly little boys by her side. “I’m afraid we don’t allow children on this floor.”
“The children are Mrs. Halloran’s grandsons. She’s dying. Point me to her room, please.” She smiled but she was not about to take shit off this woman.
“One moment.” The nurse sat down and picked up a phone, then turned away and whispered for a few seconds. She hung up and pointed down yet another bland hallway. “Room fifteen-ten.”
Lindsay waited for the woman to apologize, but she started scribbling on a chart instead. The boys kept reaching behind her to poke each other, so she tugged them over to a couple of chairs, plunked them down, and crouched in front of them.
“Listen to me, gentlemen, and listen good. I expect you to behave and speak when you’re spoken to and … and …” She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Antony was already trying to get down off the chair. She gave his calf a quick pinch. “I mean it, Antony. You’re the oldest and must be an example of the best behavior for your little brother. Kieran, you be a big boy. No fingers in your mouth.”