“She’s Brooke’s teacher. You’d like her.”
Brooke was Anthony’s obnoxious seven-year-old. Laura couldn’t please the girl no matter what she did or didn’t do. Obviously, the kid had bonded with her teacher. So had Anthony.
She spotted her direct line blinking and jumped at the chance to end the sensation of her heart bleeding all over her desk. “I’m happy for you, Anthony, really I am, but I’ve got another call.”
She heard him sigh. How many times had he accused her of putting work first? When he’d made her choose between work and him, work always won. Work didn’t hurt her. “Take care, okay?”
“You, too.” She connected with the other line. “Laura Toivo.”
“Laura, you have to come home, your mother’s had a stroke.” Her aunt’s frantic voice rang through the phone.
“How bad?”
“We don’t know yet, honey. She’s in ICU. She needs you. We both do.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Laura stared through the glass partition at Cindy.
Laura had to make that meeting. Her mom was hospitalized, surely a few hours wouldn’t change anything. But what if a few hours was all the time her mother had left? She’d regret it the rest of her life if she didn’t see her mom one more time.
What if—
Panic coiled in her gut, making Laura sick.
Cindy poked her head into Laura’s cubicle. “Everything okay?”
“Call Mr. Albertson and postpone my dinner plans. I’ve got to go to Michigan. It’s my mom—I’ve got to go home.”
It was late when Laura pushed open the door to her mom’s hospital room. Stepping closer, she stared at the frail-looking woman lying in a bed surrounded by monitoring machines. The stroke had aged her mother, making her look older than her seventy-four years.
If Laura were a good daughter, she would have visited more often. But she wasn’t a good daughter. She was an only child who’d never figured out how to please her mom.
Her mother’s eyelids fluttered. “Is that you, Laura?”
“How are you feeling?” Her whisper came out sounding choked.
“My left side is nummmm.” Her words slurred. She opened only one eye, the other lid drooping.
“I know.” It wasn’t easy seeing half her mother’s face immobile.
“Have you eaten anything? I can get you something,” Laura asked. Did they feed stroke patients?
“Too much trouble.” Her mom’s thick slur held a trace of stubborn martyrdom.
Laura knew if she went out of her way to bring food, it would sit untouched and uneaten. With a sigh, she peered out the window at the shiny black water of the Portage River. It’d be crammed with boats lapping up the last days of summer come daylight.
“Are you home to stay?”
Laura fiddled with the buckle to her purse. Pressure. Whether she closed a deal, tried to make a relationship work or please her mom, the pressure built and simmered, never finding release. “People depend on me. It’s not easy to get away.”
“You’re too thin.”
“I can’t cook like you do.” Laura pulled a chair closer to the bed. How long did they keep a person with a stroke? She’d left a message for her sales manager that she needed family leave.
“Your hair looks lighter.”
“I just had it done.” Laura threaded her fingers through her highlighted blond bob. Looking like she hadn’t worked hard this summer was a sure sign of success, wasn’t it?
After hours of sitting beside her mother, watching her sleep, the door opened. Her mother’s only sibling and younger sister, Nelda, entered with a fresh-cut bouquet of flowers in her perfectly manicured hands.
“Good, you’re finally here.” Aunt Nelda gave Laura one of her pointed glares—as if driving through the night from Wisconsin was not enough. Married to a man who’d once been an actor off Broadway, her aunt dressed like she was headed to Hollywood instead of the local Wal-Mart.
“How’s Anna?” Aunt Nelda kissed her sister’s forehead.
“A little weak,” Laura’s mom whispered, her slur worse.
Aunt Nelda pinned Laura with another stern look. “You’re lucky your mother and I were shopping in Houghton when she had her stroke. There’s no telling what might have happened had she been home alone.”
Like she needed more guilt. Laura rubbed her aching head. “I need coffee. Do either of you want anything?”
“I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in a few minutes.”
Aunt Nelda wanted to talk, but it was a conversation Laura didn’t look forward to.
Twenty minutes later, Aunt Nelda sat down across from Laura. “Sweetie, you look beat up.”
Laura cradled her mug of coffee and shrugged.
Aunt Nelda patted her arm. “I’m sorry, are you okay?”
“I’m working on it.” Laura cringed. She’d sounded too much like her mom.
“How long are you home for?”
“I don’t know, a couple weeks?” Laura lived in Madison, Wisconsin. It was six hours south from her mother’s hospital room in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but it might as well have been halfway across the country.
Aunt Nelda fetched a mug and a fresh carafe of coffee. “What if you need more time?”
Laura stared at nothing in particular.
“Laura,” Aunt Nelda scolded softly, “your mother needs you. It’s not like she has other kids to lean on. Nancy and I visit when we can, but your mom’s going to need constant care.”
Laura avoided her aunt’s gaze.
“What if you moved back home?”
Laura straightened. “I spent my whole life trying to stay out of Mom’s way, get away from the U.P., and make something of myself. Moving back is the last resort.”
Aunt Nelda shook her head, making her drop earrings bounce against her neck. “Why?”
“Because I’m on the verge of a big promotion. There’s no need to jump to conclusions just yet.”
“Strokes at your mother’s age are serious, no matter how mild the damage,” her aunt whispered.
“What am I supposed to do? Uproot my whole life and make us both miserable? Mom doesn’t want me here. She never has.”
Aunt Nelda sighed.
“I’ve suggested she move near me.”
Aunt Nelda stirred sugar into her coffee. “Your mother will never leave that house. I know, I’ve offered for her to live with Ed and me. I’m sorry to be so hard on you, but you’re all she’s got.”
Her cousin Nancy’s three young children were no doubt part of the reason Laura’s mom wouldn’t think of living with Aunt Nelda and Uncle Ed. Her aunt had her hands full watching her grandkids while her divorced daughter worked full-time.
“I could hire someone to come in,” Laura said.
“Who’s going to pay for that?”
“Me.”
“I didn’t think you were doing that well.”
With that promotion…
Laura