Mari gathered the loose sheet around her and sat up in the bed, her heart starting to hammer rapidly in her chest.
“Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. We can be in Harbor Town in a few hours. Traffic should be nothing right now…I know, I understand…I still want to come… Yeah, okay. See you soon.”
He hit the End button.
“What is it?” Mari asked.
“It’s my mom.” He met her eyes before he set the cell phone on the table. “She had a heart attack.”
“Oh, my God—” Mari whispered.
“It’s not bad,” he said hastily, hearing her shock. “She’s going to be fine. That was Liam calling. It was relatively mild. The cardiologist told Liam and Colleen she’s had high blood pressure and high cholesterol for a while now, but according to the doctor, it hasn’t improved with treatment. The cardiologist implied my mom hadn’t been taking her medications.”
“Did you and Liam and Colleen know—”
“No. She never told us. I thought she was completely healthy,” Marc interrupted grimly. “She looks so healthy. She’s so slender and active. It’s the last thing I would have expected.”
“Yeah. Me, too,” he said in a flat tone.
Mari’s chest ached for him. She knew what he was experiencing.
“Anyway…Liam says they’ll likely release her tomorrow, but I still want to go.”
“Of course,” Mari said. She started to rise from bed when Marc put his hand on her forearm, halting her. She looked over at him.
“This doesn’t change anything. Do you understand?”
He seemed to regret the harshness of his tone. He closed his eyes and exhaled. “I only meant… I’m sorry, Mari.”
“Don’t apologize,” she said fervently. “I understand completely. Of course you have to go. It’s family.”
He opened his eyes. “Yeah. But I’m sorry nonetheless.”
She nodded and hurried out of bed. The vivid dreams about telling Marc about the baby slowly faded to the background.
Chapter Thirteen
They arrived back in Harbor Town that evening at about six. Mari insisted upon accompanying Marc to the hospital.
“I mean… I won’t go into your mother’s room or anything—that would upset her—but I’d like to be there for you. If you’d like it, anyway.”
Marc had given her a half smile and grabbed her hand. “’Course I want you there.”
Once they’d located the unit where Brigit was staying, Mari told Marc she was going to find them something to drink while he went and saw his mother. Her throat was dry after the long drive. She left him to confer with the nurse and wandered through the corridors of the hospital in search of a vending machine.
When she returned to the unit carrying two orange juices, she found Marc talking to Colleen in the waiting area. They were the only two occupants in the room, their backs turned to her. Mari went still when she heard the distress in Colleen’s tone as she spoke in a quiet, shaking voice to her brother.
“It’s my fault,” Colleen said.
“What? How could it be your fault? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“All right, maybe it wasn’t entirely my doing, but what I said to her certainly didn’t help matters,” Colleen said in a hard voice. She swept her long hair over one shoulder in an anxious gesture and leaned back in the chair. “It was after I spoke to her that she got all quiet. Then her complexion went sort of gray and she clutched at herself like this.” Colleen demonstrated by grabbing at the area between her left chest and shoulder. “She said she was having a cramp. It scared the hell out of me.”
Marc put an arm around his sister for reassurance.
“Yeah, it must have been scary. But it wasn’t because of anything you did or said. The doctor said this has been building for a while. Mom hasn’t been attending to her treatment.”
“What I said didn’t help any.”