fragrant gardenias. Honeysuckle vines climbed around the porch.
She knocked on the door, hoping to find Lucy at home.
The woman who answered looked as pretty as she had in high school. The only difference Gemma could see was that the copper-gold hair she’d had at eighteen had darkened to a reddish-brown. Lucy had on a pair of nurse’s scrubs the color of teal green.
A friendly, tail-wagging mutt that looked part collie, part mountain dog with some Asian shepherd thrown in, stood next to Lucy, bumping her leg.
“Hi. I’m Gemma Bonner. Mayor Bonner. I hope I’m not interrupting anything. Because I know you’re a very busy woman. I would’ve called ahead, but I was afraid if I called you wouldn’t see me.”
Lucy frowned. “Really? What’s up? I was just about to head out on one of my calls.” She reached down to rub her hands over the dog’s face. “This is Barley. I usually drag him around with me.”
Gemma squatted down to scratch under Barley’s chin. “Your making your rounds is sort of why I dropped in like this. Do you recall going to school with a man by the name of Flanner DelRay? He took you to…”
“The senior prom,” Lucy finished. “Sure. I remember. How could I forget one of the best nights of my life? Yes, I know Flanner, such a sweet guy. How is he? Nothing’s happened to him, I hope.”
“No. Well, sort of no. Could I come in?”
“Sure. But you have to make it quick. If I get a late start, I’m out in the countryside after dark, and sometimes I get lost. I don’t have a great sense of direction.”
“And yet, you don’t let that stop you. I wouldn’t want to make you late.”
Lucy showed Gemma into the living room, and the two women sat down at opposite ends of the sofa.
Gemma caught her up to speed on everything she knew about Flanner. “I’m sure he has PTSD.”
“Definitely,” Lucy uttered. “ I remember when he got back from the military. He walked into a mess of a life, which didn’t help matters any. His mother, Delnita DelRay, had been fighting breast cancer for almost three years. I took care of her. The thing is, Delnita didn’t want to let on to Flanner how serious it was until she absolutely had to. I told her it was time to let him know what was going on. She finally agreed. But when she did tell him, that’s when he left the service to take care of her.”
“Did you two reconnect then?”
“Oh, yeah. We even went to the movies a couple of times, ate out, went on long drives through the same backroads we used to take when we were dating. But let’s face it, by the time he mustered out, Delnita’s cancer had metastasized. It had spread to her liver, her pancreas, and her colon. She died four short months after he got back to town. By that time, she was so sick she couldn’t work. She lost the family home, the home where Flanner had grown up. He blamed himself for the situation, for not coming back sooner. And, crazy as it sounds, I think he might’ve put some of that blame on me because I didn’t tell him what was going on with her. In letters,” Lucy explained.
“I used to write to him when he was overseas. But because Delnita didn’t want to burden him with worry about what was going on back here, my letters, our letters, left him completely in the dark. I tried to explain that it wasn’t my place to tell him about the cancer. When a patient insists on keeping her illness private, I don’t have much of a choice but to follow the patient’s wishes. But I don’t think he understood that. He somehow viewed my silence as another betrayal in his life.”
“I’m so sorry. But I just think the guy could use a break or two right now.”
“How can I help? The last time I tried to talk to Flanner was when he got kicked off the force. He was so embarrassed that he took off into the woods.”
“Yeah. He’s still there, living off the grid in a cabin he built by himself.”
“I know. Last time I was out there, he had no running water, no bathroom facilities to speak of, no conveniences of any kind. I’ve been out there to check on him multiple times. Lately, he won’t even answer the door.”