A Doctor for Keeps Read online

  She nestled her head between Kent’s neck and shoulder, thinking how strong and comforting he felt and how she could get used to his arms around her. But the timing was way off for any possible relationship. And Kent was right—her leaving wouldn’t be fair to Steven, especially since the boy thought so much of her.

  Kent ran his hand up and down her arm. “You look really nice tonight.”

  She smiled, her head still tucked under his chin. “Thank you. You do, too.” What could she possibly offer a man like Kent, who was completely out of her league? “Were those flowers from your yard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they your idea?”

  “Steven’s.”

  Figures. A breathy laugh jerked her shoulders. When she felt his jaw tighten, she assumed he smiled.

  After a few more quiet moments, she pulled away and glanced upward. The way he always looked at her with intensity and interest, like right now, and the way he’d kissed her, she knew in her gut their attraction was mutual. She sighed in resignation, knowing that some things, no matter how appealing, were best left alone. What lousy, lousy timing.

  “Need a refill on your coffee?” she asked.

  “I’m good.”

  Wanting nothing more than to languish in his embrace for the rest of the night, she went with her better judgment and got up to refill her cup. He’d probably felt the shift in mood, because he followed her inside the house.

  “Dad, I beat it! I finally beat the Cyclops kingdom!” Steven waved the hand game like a trophy.

  Kent high-fived his son, then thanked Gerda for a fantastic meal and said good-night to Erik and Helena. He glanced at Desi across the room and nodded good-night. Steven was so stoked by his win, he’d forgotten all about her and everyone else and followed his father out the door.

  No sooner had the door closed than Steven burst back through, running straight for Desi. He hugged her around the waist. “I forgot to say goodbye!”

  Next he hugged Gerda. “Thanks. I’m stuffed.”

  Then off he sprang for home, leaving Desi laughing and filled with genuine affection for the kid. And his father.

  * * *

  Thursday morning, Grandma acted strange. She hadn’t touched her breakfast, and her ritual cup of tea sat cold on the table. She’d had another one of those special meetings Wednesday night, had come home after ten and gone straight to bed. She sat at the kitchen table in her bathrobe, hand across her mouth, staring out the window. “Look at that covey of quail,” she muttered. “They’re finally using that feeder I set out.”

  Desi gazed out the window and found the gray-and-black birds with the stylish feather hats pecking around the feeder. “Do you want me to make you another cup of tea?”

  “What?” Gerda said, as if startled out of deep thought.

  “More tea?” Desi pointed to her cup. Gerda glanced at it as if she’d forgotten what tea was, then shook her head. “Are you okay?”

  She took a long inhalation. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

  Not able to pry anything else out of her grandmother, Desi went about her chores and the last of her current calligraphy job. Two years back, she’d agreed to do wedding invitations for the daughter of one of her mother’s musician friends. Everyone loved them, and several of the daughter’s friends had asked Desi to do their invitations, too. This was the latest and biggest job yet.

  Tonight for dessert, as a thank-you for the wonderful Sunday dinner, she decided to surprise Grandma with the one Scandinavian dish her mother had taught her to make, krumkake. It was something like a waffle cookie, and she’d need fresh eggs and real cream to make sure they came out perfect.

  When Gerda was still sequestered in her bedroom, Desi decided to borrow the car and go to the post office to mail off the completed invitations, then she’d go on to the market. Before she left, she grabbed Gerda’s grocery list from the notepad on the refrigerator and headed out the door. It was almost lunchtime and she wanted to be back in time to make lunch for her grandmother and to give herself plenty of time to prepare for that afternoon’s piano lessons. She allowed herself only one glance next door to Kent’s house on the walk to the car. With Steven at summer day camp and Kent at the Urgent Care, it looked quiet.

  For Tuesday’s piano lesson, the babysitter had brought and picked Steven up, saving Desi the difficult task of facing Kent after she’d made up her mind to leave him alone. He hadn’t come around their house, either, so they’d probably both come to the same conclusion. Some things were best left unexplored. In this case, it was the wisest thing to do.

  Desi got home a little later than she’d meant to, and she found Gerda downstairs in her den on the phone, with no less than three notepads for reference in front of her. She hadn’t bothered to put her hair in a bun today, and there was no evidence of her having yet eaten lunch.

  “I’m heating some soup. Want some?” Desi asked once Gerda had hung up the phone.

  “No, thank you, dear. Could you bring me some antacid?”

  Desi found the bright pink medicine and headed for the den. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

  “Nervous stomach is all.” Gerda offered a wan smile and gratefully accepted the bottle.

  Four hours later, after three piano students and still no sign of Gerda leaving her makeshift office, Desi fixed a simple dinner from leftovers. She’d had a fun and messy baking session and wanted to make sure they saved room for dessert.

  Gerda tried to be polite and eat, but she only picked at her food. She really didn’t seem to have an appetite, so why force her to eat dessert? Maybe tonight wasn’t such a great time to spring the krumkake on her. It could keep.

  “I’m worried about you, Grandma.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing at all.” Gerda pushed her plate away and tugged on the stringy fringe of the place mat. “Just a lot of silly city business on my mind.” She stood, looking less straight and more fragile. “I think I’ll read in my room for a while.”

  Worry trickled over Desi as she watched her grandmother amble off. What if the woman was sick and not telling her? What if Desi lost her after only just getting to know her? Old anxieties nearly swept Desi away, but she talked herself down. Gerda was fine, just preoccupied with her city council. Knowing Heartlandia meant the world to her grandmother, she figured something big must be going on. That was all it was, and from the way it was tearing up her grandmother, that was more than enough.

  A surprising tender feeling for Gerda made Desi pause while washing the dinner dishes. How quickly she’d grown to genuinely care for the woman, how at home she’d felt the past two and a half weeks, and how much Gerda’s withdrawing made Desi worry.

  As she put the dishes away, her mind drifted to Heartlandia, her mother’s home and the town her mother had run away from. It was the place that had shaped her mom as much as Gerda and Edvard Rask had.

  There was so little she knew about her mother’s early years, and letting Grandma remain withdrawn and distracted by city business couldn’t be good for her. Desi made a snap decision to heat some water for tea and carry a plate of the krumkake up to Gerda’s room. Truth was, she was lonely and filled with questions and finally felt ready to broach the questions to which only her grandmother knew the answers.

  A few minutes later, armed with dessert on a tray, she tapped on Gerda’s bedroom door.

  “Come in.” Her voice sounded aged and weak.

  Gerda was still dressed, and she sat in an overstuffed lounger beside her bed, reading several pages from a typed letter.

  “I brought some goodies, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  Gerda’s eyes brightened when she saw the krumkake.

  “Momma taught me how to make this. We’d have it on special occasions.” Gerda’s wrinkled smile warmed Desi’s insides. “I made them especially for you.”

  “Then I will have one. To be honest, I am hungry. It’s just my stomach is all knotted up.”

  “What’s going on
over there at city hall to make you so upset?”

  “They promised I’d just be a figurehead when I agreed to fill in, but I can’t sit back and smile about everything.”

  “Trouble?”

  “I’m not at liberty to talk.” Her index finger shot up. “Oh, though I do have a question for you. Will you teach me how to open and reply to emails? The secretary types up all of the notes from our meetings and emails them to everyone. I’m the only one she can’t send them to, and I’m supposed to be the mayor.” She waved the loose pages as evidence.

  “Of course I can help you with that. And I have a special request for you, too.” Desi poured the tea and handed her grandmother a krumkake with powdered sugar on top. “I have so many questions about my mother and her growing up here. Can you share some of your memories with me?”

  Gerda’s hand went to her heart. “Oh, my goodness, I’d love to. I should have shared with you sooner, but…”

  “But I didn’t ask until now.”

  “Yes.” Gerda smiled and reached out for a hug from Desi. “I’m glad you did.”

  “Let’s eat our krumkake first.”

  “Good plan.”

  Desi ate in hungry silence, and the dessert tasted just as good as it always had, but Gerda took only a few bites.

  “Not good?” Desi asked.

  “Delicious. It’s just my nervous stomach.”

  Was it all city hall that made Grandma nervous, or was Desi adding to it by probing into the past?

  Gerda took one more bite, then put her plate on the bedside table. “Now, you’ll have to help me get the box down where I keep all of her yearbooks and special school things.”

  After she’d finished her tea and Desi licked every last remnant of powdered sugar from her fingertips, she followed her grandmother down the hall to an out-of-the-way closet.

  “Your mother was very temperamental, like her father, and I’m ashamed to report we fought a lot. If I said red she’d say blue. Used to drive Edvard crazy. Maybe I was too protective of her, but I just wanted the best.”

  Desi pulled a chain and a dim lightbulb offered a glimpse of several stacked boxes, some marked with Ester’s name. Way in the back was one with “High School” written in black permanent marker.

  “Let’s start with that one,” Gerda said, “and we can work our way back from there.”

  Desi retrieved the box and hoisted it onto her shoulder, then they started back down the hall to her grandmother’s bedroom.

  “When your mother was a little tot, she used to run down this hall every morning and jump onto the bed with Edvard and me. She was an early bird, that one was, better than an alarm clock.”

  Desi heard the affection in Gerda’s voice and tried to imagine her mother as a little girl.

  “She had the most beautiful white-blond hair, and her eyes were brighter than the sun. I’d snuggle her close between her daddy and me, and it felt perfect.” Gerda’s step faltered. Desi backed up and put her arm around her waist and walked her back to the bedroom, worrying that maybe all the memories might be too much for her grandmother.

  “Your grandfather was hard to please and very old-fashioned. Your mother ran away rather than tell him she was pregnant.” She shook her head as if all the horrible memories had come rushing back. “The whole town had been looking for her when she’d gone missing, and months later when we found out she was in the hospital in St. Louis, Edvard and I flew out to bring her home.”

  Now tears formed in Gerda’s eyes, washing over the look that could only be described as regret. “She’d just given birth to you.” Gerda took and squeezed Desi’s free hand. “Edvard was so old-fashioned. He was upset, and Ester told him to get out of her life.” She shook her head. “What could I do?”

  A moment passed as Gerda drew herself together. “Ester let me hold you.” A tiny smile creased her wrinkled lips. “What should I have done, Desi? Go with my husband or stay with my daughter and grandchild?”

  Desi’s chest grew tight with emotion—love, hurt, anger, sadness—as she put the box on the bed and took her grandmother into her arms and held on tight.

  Mother had taught her when a woman entered into a relationship with a man it should always be on equal footing, but grandmother’s generation hadn’t necessarily gotten that message.

  Now Gerda wept. “We came home and told everyone we’d found our Ester, that she was fine and had a job in Missouri, and Edvard never spoke about her again.”

  “But, Grandma, I feel like I remember you at a couple of my birthdays.”

  She nodded her head on Desi’s shoulder. “Yes. I begged Edvard to come with me, but he was so stubborn, and your mother was just as bad, saying she never wanted to see him again, either. I came for your fifth and tenth birthdays. But when you turned fifteen, well, Edvard had gotten sick and I couldn’t leave him alone.”

  “I wish I could have known you better.”

  “Me, too. You have no idea.” Gerda squeezed Desi’s shoulders.

  After a long hug, Gerda sat down on her bedside lounger. As if stalling, she took another bite of her half-finished dessert. “Hmm, this really is delicious. I couldn’t make them any better myself.”

  Having her grandmother’s approval meant the world to Desi, and she knew her mother would be proud. Gerda and Desi shared a heartfelt smile. The truth had finally come out—her grandfather hadn’t been able to accept a biracial baby—and now they were about to embark on a very special journey together. “Shall we?” Desi reached for the box lid.

  Something about the pyramid of creases on her grandmother’s forehead gave Desi pause. Waltzing down memory lane wouldn’t be easy for either of them.

  “Once, Ester wanted to go to a concert in Portland. Edvard put his foot down and said no. We thought she’d taken it pretty well, until the night of the concert, when she climbed out her window and snuck out to go anyway.”

  Desi’s hand flew to her mouth. From the second floor? Hearing about this other side of her mother made her wonder how many other things she’d never shared. “What did you do?” Desi wiped away some dust from the box on the bedspread and sat.

  “We didn’t even realize she’d gone until we heard someone coming through the front door at one in the morning.” Gerda’s hand went to her cheek. “I thought Edvard would have a stroke right then and there. Her brother had never given us trouble. She was only sixteen!”

  Her mother had never talked much about high school. Or anything else. Desi wished with all of her heart she could ask her how her life had been growing up. She glanced at Gerda, who was looking pale and withdrawn. She’d just admitted her husband had been ashamed of his daughter having a baby out of wedlock—a baby of color, no less—and she’d stayed by his side until his death. Was the pained expression regret?

  Because that was exactly how Desi felt. How would everyone’s lives have been if Edvard had reacted differently?

  Desi refocused in order to drop the negative feelings for her grandfather and opened the box then lifted out several school annuals. “Which one first?”

  Gerda checked out the years and chose the bright red yearbook. “This one is from Ester’s senior year. Let’s start with this one.”

  Desi snuggled next to Gerda on the lounger, where the light was best, and opened the book to the first page.

  “Your mother was involved in everything—cheerleading, music, drama, even the school newspaper. Oh, look, here’s her senior picture.”

  Desi first glanced at her grandmother, whose eyes welled with moisture again, then at the typical senior portrait of a beautiful girl with clear blue eyes and straight blond hair. There was confidence in her smile and maybe a hint of mischief in her expression. Desi remembered seeing that spirited look whenever her mother felt challenged.

  Gerda turned the page. “Oh, and look at that pose.” She laughed. “Ester took cheerleading very seriously. Nearly broke her arm once doing that silly human-pyramid thing.”

  Desi smiled with pride at the pic
ture of her mother holding pom-poms in the air while doing a split. She could practically hear her call out Go, fight, win!

  It occurred to Desi that her mother had only rarely talked about her cheerleading. Desi had always thought it was because she was homeschooling her, and a homeschooled girl couldn’t exactly be involved in a school sports program. Not when they moved around so much, anyway.

  “She was all set to go off to college that summer…then she was gone.” Gerda’s hand went to her chest again; she clutched her blouse. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

  “Is this too much for you, Grandma?”

  “Oh!” Her pained expression sent a chill through Desi.

  “Are you okay?”

  Gerda held her breath for a second, then let up on the death clutch to her blouse. “I got a sharp gas pain, that’s all. It’s better now.”

  Leery of her excuse, Desi watched and worried. “Maybe a sip of tea will help?”

  “That would be good.”

  Desi poured her more tea. Gerda reached for the teacup and took a sip, quickly putting the cup down and grabbing her chest again. “Oh!”

  Chapter Six

  Desi sat in the waiting room of the Urgent Care after the nurse whisked Gerda in to be examined. She’d wanted to go in with her grandmother, but Gerda had waved her off, and the no-nonsense silver-haired nurse didn’t seem too thrilled about the possibility of Desi getting in the way, either.

  “I’ll be fine,” Gerda said. “Kent will take care of me.”

  Knowing that Kent would be in charge helped a little, but her nerves were still ruling the day. There she sat on a hard bench, wringing her hands in her lap, worried sick. She’d felt this way before—every time her mother had needed to be rushed to the hospital. She’d never get used to it. Hated it.