Small-Town Dad Read online

  He glared at her.

  “Unless you wanted to. If you transfer to RPI at the end of this school year you should be able to finish your environmental engineering degree in three, three and a half more years.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw but he didn’t say anything.

  “Obviously, Troy is too far to commute to. But it’s not too far to come home weekends to see Autumn and your family.” She breathed deeply and the sharp cold air stung her lungs. “And Ian and me.” There. She’d said aloud what had been smoldering between them.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  Her heart raced. “You’d have a place at Green Spaces when you finish. We hire a lot of our scholarship students.”

  He stopped walking and her throat tightened.

  “You could have an office in Ticonderoga.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not a subsidiary of Green Spaces.”

  What was he talking about?

  “You can’t develop a business plan for my life and just expect to carry it out, business as usual.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Isn’t it?”

  She shook her head. It wasn’t.

  Neal turned to her and placed his hands gently on her upper arms. She shivered, but not from the cold.

  “We should turn back.”

  He placed his arm around her shoulder and she wanted to pretend she’d never brought up the scholarship, that they weren’t having this conversation.

  “I didn’t agree to work with GoSolar just for the money.” His voice was low and soft now. “I thought and prayed about it long and hard. It’s what I want to do. Engineering was what I thought I wanted to do twenty years ago. That was then. This is now. I’m a different person. We’re both different people. I’m going to finish out the semester at NCCC. Then I’m done.”

  “You’re quitting?” She bit her tongue. “I mean, you could finish your environmental studies degree at NCCC part-time. Then—”

  His eyes clouded and his face went slack. “You’re hearing me but not listening. Does my not having a degree matter so much?”

  She wanted to say no but on some level it seemed it did.

  Neal’s cell phone rang.

  “Go ahead,” she said, glad for the reprieve.

  He dropped his arm from her shoulders. “It’s the house,” he said before answering.

  Anne swallowed. Was something wrong with Ian? Surely, Mary and Margaret could handle anything that might be.

  “We’ll be right there.”

  “Ian?”

  “What?” His expression softened. “No, Autumn called. The power went out at the nursing home. They’re running the generator to keep the heat going. She wants me to come see if I can do anything. Fortunately, about half of the residents are with family for the holiday.”

  “You’re going to go?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Of course I’m going to go. It’s not like I have some underling I can send.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant... Never mind.” She didn’t know what she meant. “You were right at Margaret’s when you said I didn’t know you at all. And you don’t know me.”

  And she’d already spent eleven years in a marriage where her husband didn’t really know her or care to.

  He bent and pressed his lips to hers so softly and quickly she wasn’t sure it had happened until she felt his warm breath on her frosty cheek.

  “I’m sorry I’m not the guy you want me to be.” He left her at the steps and strode to his truck.

  An arrow of pain struck her heart, leaving a dull ache. It wasn’t like he was breaking off their relationship. They didn’t really have a relationship. Anne touched her cheek with her cold gloved fingers. She didn’t need Neal. She and Ian were doing fine with just the two of them and they could continue to do just fine. Couldn’t they?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ian coughed himself awake and Anne picked him up from the couch where she’d tucked him in a half hour ago with his Muppets DVD playing on the TV. He was still warm. Maybe even warmer than when she’d laid him down. She’d checked the health handbook from her insurance provider and given him children’s Tylenol like the nurse she’d talked to on the help line had told her. His temperature should be coming down.

  When the day care teacher had called Anne Friday afternoon to ask her to pick up Ian early, the teacher had assured her it was probably a bug that had been going around school. The other kids had been fine in a day or two. But it was five o’clock Sunday and Ian wasn’t anywhere near fine. Why hadn’t she taken him to the pediatrician yesterday during the Saturday-morning emergency office hours?

  “Nee Nee.” He raised his arms to her and coughs racked his little body.

  She lifted him onto her lap. Not only was he hot, but he was also limp and his eyes were glassy. Fear paralyzed her.

  “I hurt,” Ian whimpered.

  Anne rubbed his back and comforted him, looking out the living room window at Jamie’s dark house. Jamie would know what to do. But Jamie wasn’t home yet from her folks’ in Buffalo.

  Ian wheezed into another coughing fit and started crying, which only aggravated the coughing.

  A flash of headlights caught her eye as a vehicle turned into Jamie’s driveway. Anne rose, lifting Ian to her shoulder. Yes, finally. But the lights didn’t look right for Jamie’s van. The vehicle stopped a short way into the drive and backed out. Her heart sank. It was only someone turning around.

  Anne paced the living room, which seemed to soothe Ian. She hadn’t felt this helpless since, since she’d been a child herself.

  Mary. Neal’s mother. She could call her. Anne carried Ian into the kitchen and lifted the phone receiver from the wall. She dialed the Hazards’ number. Her chest tightened as the phone rang and rang. What if Neal answered?

  Ian coughed and rubbed his face against her. She was being silly. So, what if Neal did answer? He’d probably know what to do as well as his mother would.

  “Hello,” Mary Hazard said.

  “Mrs. Hazard, Mary. It’s Anne Howard.”

  “Anne, what’s wrong?”

  How did Mary know something was wrong? Most likely from her near-hysterical voice. She needed to calm herself.

  “It’s Ian. He’s running a temperature. I’ve done everything the health handbook and the helpline nurse I talked with said to do, and I can’t get it down.” She took a gulp of air. “I’ve been waiting for Jamie and the kids to get back from visiting her parents. I’m concerned. I thought you’d know something I could do.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  “You don’t... Thank you. I really appreciate this.”

  “Have you been giving him liquids?”

  “He didn’t want his milk.”

  “Try some cool water or watered-down apple juice. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks again.”

  Anne fixed Ian a sippy cup of juice and walked him back to the living room. She sank into the chair, buried her face in his carrot curls and prayed.

  “Please Lord. I tried to do everything I was supposed to. Please help Ian feel better.”

  It came out stilted, but lightened her worry a bit just the same.

  To Anne, the fifteen minutes it took Mary to drive to her house seemed to take an hour. The sound of the car pulling in had her on her feet and at the door before Mary was out of the car.

  Anne swung the door open and the older woman rushed in.

  “Let me see that baby,” Mary said in a lilting voice. She took Ian from Anne’s arms. “You don’t feel good, do you?”

  Ian made a halfhearted attempt to pull away from Mary and lift his arms to Anne. Her throat clogged.

 
; “He’s really warm. What was his temperature last time you took it?”

  A sense of inadequacy that Anne hadn’t experienced in years filled her. “It was one hundred two before I got him down to sleep about an hour ago.” She should have taken it again when he’d woken.

  “We should check again.”

  Mary sat with Ian and Anne handed her the thermometer from the end table.

  A minute later, Mary handed it back. “My glasses are in my purse.”

  Anne checked the thermometer and swallowed the clog that had stuck in her throat. “One hundred and four. I gave him the Tylenol,” she said as much to herself as to Mary. “It should have gone down.”

  “Who’s your doctor?”

  Anne gave Mary the name of a practice in Ticonderoga.

  “We use them, too. Call their service and tell them we’re taking Ian to the Saranac Lake hospital.” Mary gave Ian back to Anne. “I’ll move Ian’s car seat into my car. I just filled the tank. Is the garage locked?”

  Anne nodded yes and then no, conserving her words for the call to the doctor’s service. She kissed Ian’s warm forehead. Why hadn’t she gone with her first inclination and taken him to the doctor’s yesterday morning instead of following the protocol in the health handbook and waiting to make sure it wasn’t an “unnecessary visit,” as the book had discussed?

  After she finished the call, Anne bundled Ian in his snowsuit.

  Mary came back in from outside. “All set. I’ll take him so you can put your coat on.”

  This time, Ian went to Neal’s mother with no protest. He didn’t seem to have the energy.

  Anne opened the door for Mary and Ian. A cutting wind fought to yank the handle from her grasp and slam the door against the house. She held fast and forced it shut behind Mary.

  Head down against the wind, Mary tucked Ian’s face under the lapel of her coat and led the way to her car.

  “I’m going to ride in the back with Ian.” Anne opened the back door of the car.

  “Of course.” Mary handed her Ian and she strapped him in his seat before walking around to the other side of the car.

  Within the first ten miles of the fifty-mile drive to the hospital, Ian fell into a fitful sleep.

  Anne adjusted his wool cap to cover his ears better, even though the car was plenty warm. “You’re a godsend. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll bet that’s a situation you don’t often find yourself in.”

  Anne grasped the edge of Ian’s seat. Criticism wasn’t something she’d expected from Mary.

  “You’ve always had such an air of confidence, even when you were a teen.”

  A hard-earned confidence that motherhood was taking a toll on.

  “And that same methodical way of thinking that Neal has. But, tell me if I’m wrong, it’s different when it’s your child, isn’t it? Decisions aren’t as clear-cut.”

  “Exactly,” Anne said with relief. Maybe she wasn’t as inept as she was beginning to feel. “I thought I should take Ian to the doctor yesterday, but the health handbook and the information I read online said I should wait a while longer to see if his temperature went down.”

  “Did you pray on it?”

  Anne clenched her jaw. “I prayed hard for Ian.” She didn’t want to get into her track record on getting any personal direction from prayer.

  “When Neal was a new father, my mother cross-stitched him a verse that had always been dear to her heart, Proverbs 3:5–6. ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.’”

  So, that’s where he got it from. But because it worked for him, didn’t mean it worked for everyone. If the Lord had told her what to do today, she wouldn’t have had to call Mary. Or had He told her to call Mary? She rubbed her temples. She didn’t have the patience to think about theology now. She just wanted Ian well.

  The hospital came in sight and saved her from having to respond to Mary.

  “Take Ian in,” Mary said as she pulled up to the emergency room entrance. “I’ll park the car and meet you inside.”

  Anne held the half-asleep Ian on her hip while she pulled open the glass door to the emergency room. It was blessedly empty. She explained everything to an intake person behind a glass window.

  “Yes, your doctor called.” The woman buzzed open a door and had Anne sit in a chair next to her desk.

  “Please fill out this short form.”

  Anne rearranged Ian on her lap so she could write down the information.

  “And I’ll need to make a copy of your insurance card, if you have it with you.”

  Anne dug in her wallet for the card, spilling the contents on the desk when it slipped out of her hand. “Here.” She picked up the insurance card and shoved it at the woman. “Couldn’t we do this later?” she asked in a surprising calm and even voice.

  The woman ran the card through a desktop scanner. “You’re set now. Follow me.” She led them back to a curtained cubical and put up the side rails of the stretcher that took up most of the room. “A nurse will be with you shortly.”

  Anne placed Ian on the stretcher and removed his snowsuit before taking off her coat and placing it on the chair crammed in next to the side curtain.

  “They’re in E4,” she heard the intake person say. Anne looked at the number on the back wall over the stretcher. E4. That must be Mary.

  The curtain moved. “How is he?” The unexpected deep voice made her heart leap.

  “Neal. What are you doing here?” she blurted.

  He waved her off. “Later. Has the doctor seen him?”

  “No, we just got back here. Insurance stuff. A nurse is supposed to be coming.”

  Ian coughed and wheezed as if he were struggling for breath.

  “I’ll see where that nurse is.” Neal was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.

  Anne stroked Ian’s curls, glad for Neal and his taking charge. She didn’t care about the whys and the wherefores. She was physically tired, and tired of being in charge.

  “Neal?” Ian opened his eyes and looked around the cubicle.

  “He’ll be right back, baby.”

  Ian closed his eyes again.

  The other day when she and Neal had argued, she’d been determined that she and Ian were fine, just the two of them. But she’d been wrong, like she was wrong to try and mold Neal into what she thought he wanted to be, wrong about him not knowing her—he might know her better than she did—and wrong not to have taken Ian to the doctor’s yesterday.

  She gazed at Ian’s still, flushed little face and folded her hands. “Lord,” she said in an angry whisper, “is this the way you’re speaking to me, telling me to right my wrongs? Through a helpless little boy?” She knew her accusation wasn’t right, but the words poured out. “Stop. I get it. Make him well. Make us all well.”

  Her mind raced trying to come up with some direction.

  Think with your heart and not with your head.

  Was that something Mary had said on the drive to the hospital? Anne couldn’t remember, but it was worth a try.

  * * *

  Two steps outside the cubicle, Neal almost walked into the nurse and a doctor.

  “Mr. McCabe?” the nurse asked.

  Neal’s heart sank and his aggravation grew. They weren’t coming to see Ian.

  “Are you with Ian McCabe?”

  McCabe. Neal hadn’t known the boy’s last name. There were so many things he didn’t know or thought he knew but didn’t.

  “I’m a friend of his...his aunt’s.”

  The nurse narrowed her eyes and pulled the curtain aside to reveal Anne bent over, her lips pressed to Ian’s forehead. She jerked back, her face pale.

 
Neal’s throat clogged. He brushed past the doctor and nurse and placed his arm around her shoulder. What he wanted was to take her in his arms and reassure her that everything would be all right, that he’d keep her and Ian safe forever. But that wasn’t something he had the power to promise. She leaned against him as if grateful for the support. A sense of rightness filled him. He loved her and Ian. He had for a while. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself until his conversation with Drew on Thanksgiving. And angry as he’d been with Anne after dinner, their argument hadn’t done anything to diminish the strength of that love.

  “I’m Dr. Carson,” the pediatric resident introduced himself. “Kristen will take the baby’s vitals while you tell me the problem.”

  “Anne Howard.” She extended her hand for a handshake. “And this is...a family friend, Neal Hazard.” She rushed into an explanation of Ian’s condition.

  “He does sound very wheezy.” The doctor glanced at the notations the nurse had written on the chart on the foot of the bed. “I want to listen to his lungs. Kristen, sit him up.”

  “Nee Nee. Want Nee Nee.” Ian started crying.

  “That’s me. Aunt Annie.” She pulled away from Neal and soothed the toddler. “I’m right here. It’s okay. The doctor is going to listen to you breathe so he can make you better.”

  She looked from Ian to the doctor, her eyes wide with a silent plea that tore at Neal’s insides.

  The doctor leaned down. “Hi, Ian, I’m Dr. Carson. I’m going to use my stethoscope to hear what’s going on inside you and making you feel sick.” He offered his scope to Ian and let him touch it before he pressed the diaphragm to his back.

  Anne rubbed Ian’s little fleece-encased leg in reassurance.

  “Can you breathe in a deep breath?” Dr. Carson showed Ian. “Good boy. Now, I’m going to listen to you from the front.” He moved the stethoscope to the boy’s chest. “Another deep breath. Good job. You can lay back down on the pillow now.”

  Ian turned his head to Anne. She nodded and pulled the sheet up over him.

  “I want to get X-rays of his lungs,” Dr. Carson said. “Someone from transportation will be down shortly to take him over to X-ray.”