"You don't have to thank me," I said, my own emotions swelling. Drake was such a loving man, a caring man. His patients were lucky to have him.
Sophie and I were lucky to have him.
We kissed once more, a nice warm kiss, and then he left me and went to Sophie, kissing her on the cheek before returning to the bedroom so he could sleep for a few more hours.
On my part, I quickly finished tidying up the kitchen and then I took Sophie to her room and got her dressed in a romper so we could go for our usual walk and let Drake fall back to sleep. I put her in her stroller, tied her sunhat under her chin and together, we went for a walk along the walkway that bordered the ocean. It had been packed down and was used by the city workers who cleared off the beaches each day so it was good to walk on with a stroller. We found a nice spot and I took Sophie out and put her onto the sand with her pails and shovels and then we sat for a while, the surf lapping at the beach a few feet away.
About fifteen minutes later, my cell chimed. I checked and saw that someone messaged me on Facebook.
Hello, Kate. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kent Reynolds. I wanted to contact you before I contacted Drake, your husband, who is my half-brother. Our mother, Louise, is very sick and may not survive. We wanted to give Drake the chance to come and see her if he wants. We understand that this is completely out of the blue and that they have had no contact since soon after she left Manhattan when he was a boy. We thought it would be best to contact you first, for you would know if this was something Drake would even want to do. If he doesn't, we understand, although we would be happy to meet him. Family is the most important thing in the world and it's often only too late that we realize that. Please call me back at the following number. Cheers, Kent
Then he listed a phone number.
I sat for a moment and tried to absorb what I had just heard. Drake had talked only rarely about his mother and most of the time, it was with considerable pain in his voice. He had grown up with a series of housekeepers and nannies who provided good care for him, so that he was never alone when Liam was busy working in the ER as a trauma surgeon or on one of his jaunts to Africa. But he had been very lonely and of course, he never had a real mother after he was ten. Liam certainly didn’t take over that role and never remarried, preferring to have temporary liaisons with women but never getting serious again.
As a result, Drake was very self-contained as a person. He looked after himself from then on emotionally. He became very intellectual, and kept his emotions in check by focusing on his studies and had graduated high school early and attended college early. A high achiever, he overcompensated in life by being the best at everything.
I couldn't imagine not having a mother. Losing my mother when I was an adult was hard enough. I couldn't imagine how hard
it must have been for Drake as a ten-year-old. What happened at Christmas? On birthdays? When Drake had a broken heart or injured ego? There was no one to kiss him better.
He met and married Maureen, but he had never really opened up to her, and theirs had been a distant marriage after the first year or two.
Drake had opened up with me and with Sophie. I could see the change in him. He was still an achiever but he devoted his every waking moment, when he wasn't at work, to us – to Sophie and me. He always wanted to be with us when he wasn't at the hospital.
How would he react to the news that his half-brother had tracked him down and wanted to meet him? How would he feel to know his mother was dying?
I called Kent's cell right away. Once we got our introductions out of the way, I got right to the meat of things.
"Does Drake's mother want to meet with Drake? I think that will have a bearing on his decision."
"She's got early onset Alzheimer's. She's confused at this point so, no, she's not aware of this. My siblings and I got together and thought it would be a good idea to contact Drake and give him the chance."
"Oh, that's too bad. We didn’t really know anything about your mother. How many half-siblings are there?"
"Four, including myself. Then, there's Amanda, my little sister, and my two younger brothers, Craig and Andrew. The four of us have seven kids between us so he has nieces and nephews as well."
"I'm sorry to be so forthright, but is your mother dying because of the Alzheimer's?"
"No. She got septicemia after a virus and the doctors said she may not survive. She's been living in a nursing home for dementia patients and she must have picked up an antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They tried everything but she's very sick. She's at UCSF right now."
"Oh, God."
"I debated contacting Drake earlier, but I didn't want to just call up and talk to him out of the blue so we tracked down someone at New York Presbyterian and he filled me in on you and that you'd moved to California. Luckily, he gave me your name and I checked Facebook because I would never have found you otherwise."
"Drake's sleeping right now, but I'll talk to him about this as soon as he gets up. He works the evening shift and so I don't think he'll be able to come by right now or even later today. He's working tonight, but as soon as he gets off work and has rested tomorrow, I'm pretty sure he’ll want to come and at least see her once. And meet you and your brothers and sister, too."
"That's good. I hear he's working at UCSF as a neurosurgeon?"
"Yes," I said. "He's a visiting neurosurgeon providing coverage in the ER for the trauma team."
"Look, tell Drake that if he doesn’t want to see her, we all understand but we want to meet him and establish a connection. Life's too short."
"I agree. I'm sure he'll want to see her. How bad is she?"
"Pretty bad. She really doesn't recognize us anymore and is non-verbal. She might not understand who he is, but I wanted him to make that choice himself. Besides, for as long as I knew about him, I wanted to meet Drake. The others did as well."
"I'm sure he'll want to meet you. He'll call or text you with his answer."