heard my phone ringing again. This time I reached down, reluctantly, and fished it out of my bag, immediately seeing Ethan’s number on the screen.
“Sorry,” I said to Dominic. “Will you excuse me for a minute?”
“No problem.”
“Hello,” I answered, walking quickly outside the restaurant.
“Claire, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all morning.”
I smirked. “To explain why you didn’t come home last night?”
“Claire, I’ve been at the hospital all night.”
I gasped. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s my grandfather. He had a heart attack. Right after he accepted the award last night at the gala. I’ve been by his bedside since he came out of surgery.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Is he going to be OK?”
“We’re not sure yet,” he said. “Time will tell. I tried to call you last night but you must have turned your phone off. And there was no answer at the apartment this morning.” He paused, detecting the noise around me. A man who appeared hard on his luck had begun playing a banjo a few steps away. “Where are you?”
I looked inside the restaurant at Dominic and I felt a pang of guilt. “I’m having lunch at the Market. With a friend.”
Warren was the grandfather I’d never had. Mine had both passed away before I was born, and when I married into the Kensington family, Grandpa Warren had welcomed me with open arms. I’d bonded with him the moment we met, in fact. He challenged me to a game of hearts, and I won. “She’s a keeper, this one,” he had said to Ethan. “Any woman who can beat a man at a game of cards is a woman you can spend a lifetime with.” I knew he wasn’t talking about me, not really. His late wife, Ethan’s grandmother, had passed away years before I came into the family. But I didn’t have to meet her to know that she and Warren had shared a deep love. You could see it in the pictures of their life together, but mostly you could see it in his eyes. More than fifteen years after her death, he still got teary talking about her.
“I’ll be over as soon as I can,” I said. “Tell him I’m coming.”
I ran back to the table, reaching for my bag on the chair. “I’m so sorry, Dominic, but there’s been an emergency. My husband’s grandfather is in the hospital. He’s had a heart attack. I need to go.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said, standing up. “Can I help?”
“No, no,” I stammered, suddenly feeling the guilt I’d pushed aside earlier. “I’ll just catch a cab from here. I’ll…I’ll call you.” I looked down at my half-eaten lunch before I ran out the door.
Warren managed a weak smile as I walked in the room. His arms lay limp at his side in the gray hospital bed. “Look at you,” I whispered. “You know you can’t go and have a heart attack without giving me some advance warning.” I heard Ethan enter; I didn’t turn around to greet him.
Warren winked. “Sorry, honey; this old ticker has a mind of its own, I guess.”
“Well,” I said, forcing the tears back, “you have many good years left. We need to get you well.”
The old man nodded. “If you say so, dear. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather leave now and go see my sweetheart. I miss her.”
“I know you do, Warren,” I said. “But we love you too, don’t forget.”
I felt the warmth of Ethan’s body near. “He needs to rest,” he whispered to me. “Let’s sit down.”
I didn’t like his know-it-all tone, but I agreed that Warren looked tired, so I followed him outside the room, where we sat down on a bench in the hallway. Nurses bustled around us. The air smelled of beef stroganoff and disinfectant.
“They think he’s going to recover,” he said. “For now.”
“That’s a relief,” I replied, rubbing my hands together nervously.
I looked up to see Ethan’s parents, Glenda and Edward, walking toward us.
“How is he this afternoon?” Glenda asked Ethan. She ignored my presence.
Ethan shrugged. “The same. The doctor says his heart’s weak. He’s not going to be able to keep the same schedule he did. We have to help him manage his stress. It’s finally time he slowed down.”
Glenda looked at Edward and then at me. “Claire, darling,” she said.
I gulped. She only addressed me as darling when a favor or a directive was imminent.
She gave Ethan a knowing look. “Claire, we think you