“We’ll take him to see the penguins as soon as the doctor says it’s okay.”
“He’ll like that.”
“Yeah. And we’ll all go this time. All three of us.”
She nodded again.
He put his hands on her shoulders. “We could have lost Tyler without ever knowing anything was wrong. But we’ve been blessed with a second chance, Laurel. With Tyler and with each other. Let’s try to do it a little better this time, okay?”
There was a soft shimmer of tears in her eyes when she gazed up at him. The sight of them was so rare, and so unexpected, that he felt his chest tighten. Ignoring everyone else in the room, he brushed his lips lightly across hers.
“We’ll get through this,” he murmured. And for perhaps the first time since he’d been told about his son’s illness, he began to believe it.
“Mr. and Mrs. Reiss?” Irma, the volunteer, looked as though she were hesitant to interrupt them.
Without releasing Laurel, Jackson looked around. He felt Laurel clinging to him a bit more tightly as he asked, “Is there news?”
“Your son is out of surgery. He came through just fine. The doctor will be out to speak with you soon.”
Laurel seemed to sag just a little. Jackson tightened his hold on her. “When can we see Tyler?”
“Tyler will be taken to PICU, where you’ll be able to see him as soon as he’s settled in.”
“Thank you, Irma.”
The older woman smiled and moved on to the next family waiting for news of a loved one.
“I’d better tell Mom the operation’s over,” Jackson murmured, glancing across the room to where his parents sat anxiously watching him.
“Yes. Your mother doesn’t seem to be handling the stress very well.”
Jackson had noticed that, himself though he was rather surprised that Laurel had. Donna had been acting downright oddly for the last couple of days, in Jackson’s opinion. He’d never seen his mother so jittery and introspective. But then, she’d never faced open-heart surgery for her utterly adored grandchild before either, he told himself. “Let’s go talk to her.”
Laurel held back a bit. “You go ahead.”
He kept a light grasp on her arm. “I thought we were going to work on this team thing,” he reminded her.
After only a momentary hesitation, she nodded. “All right. We’ll talk to them together.”
Satisfied with whatever small victories he could get, Jackson led her toward his parents.
Five
Laurel had thought the time had passed slowly while Tyler was in surgery, but it seemed to creep by even more sluggishly afterward. She and Jackson had already met briefly with the surgeon, who had assured them again that Tyler had come through the operation very well before he’d somewhat apologetically rushed away to his next patient. Kathleen O’Hara had promised to let Laurel and Jackson know the minute they would be allowed into the ICU to see Tyler. And now it was a matter of waiting again.
Carl and Jackson talked Donna and Laurel into accompanying them to the cafeteria for an early lunch. Laurel wasn’t hungry, and didn’t particularly want to leave the waiting room, but Jackson convinced her in whispers that his mother needed the break. Because even Laurel was starting to be concerned by Donna’s visible distress, she reluctantly assented. Maybe it would make the time pass a bit more quickly, she reasoned without much optimism.
Leaving word where they could be found, they took the elevator down to the cafeteria. Carl and Jackson ate hungrily, neither having eaten much breakfast, but both Laurel and Donna only picked at their food.
Donna jumped every time someone spoke to her. Laurel watched her mother-in-law surreptitiously, wondering what, exactly, was going through the other woman’s mind. She couldn’t help remembering the puzzling snatches of conversation she’d overheard between Donna and Carl, and it seemed obvious to Laurel that Donna was still obsessing about whatever had been bothering her then.
Whatever the problem, Laurel hoped it wouldn’t be too upsetting for Jackson when he found out—and she didn’t doubt that he would find out, given the way Donna was acting, all but advertising that there was something she was trying to hide.
For the first time in quite a while, Laurel was feeling a bit better about the state of her marriage. Maybe Tyler’s illness would forge a stronger bond between her and Jackson than they’d had before, a new level of trust and communication. He seemed to be trying for now anyway, and she was willing to give it another shot, for Tyler’s sake, if for no other reason.
It would be just the way their luck went if Jackson’s mother did something, even unconsciously, to put a new wedge between them.
A tall man with salt-and-pepper hair and a shorter woman with brown hair and a sleeping toddler in her arms stopped beside their table. Both of them smiled at Laurel. “Laurel, it’s good to see you,” the woman said. “How are you?”