have told Elaine and Thomas to come home.
Thomas had helped settle her nerves, in his usual calming way. During her conversation with him, Rory was out of it, sleeping deeply, allowing her to fill in some blanks she was missing.
“Did he have a cold? How did he get like this?”
Thomas’s guilt had been palpable, but she heard Marcus speaking in the background, forcefully enough that it reached her ears, even as he aimed his admonition at Thomas.
“He’s an adult, allowed to act like an idiot without you being responsible. You should relate to that.”
Thomas took a breath. “Truth is, Daralyn, being without you threw him for a loop. I don’t think he realized how hard that would be.”
“Why didn’t he call me?” But she knew why. Dr. Taylor had explained it. But if he’d really needed her, he could have called. Then she thought of everything she knew of Rory, of how he felt about her, how he put her well-being far above his own.
“You know the answer to that,” Thomas said, confirming her thoughts. “He didn’t want how much he needs you to interfere with anything that helps you.”
“But how much he wants and needs me…that helps me so much.” It was key to what had made her able to want and need things.
She’d told him she loved him. She’d said it. Finally, something she’d felt for so long, so deeply, it should have shown on her face like a billboard. She suspected it had, for him. But saying it still meant something.
“Sounds like you two have some communication issues to work out.” Thomas paused. “Give him total hell, Daralyn. You deserve better than him falling apart because you had to take a little me-time.” His voice softened. “But I think he convinced himself you weren’t coming back. Not in the same way, at least.”
“I’m not the same,” she said. “Now I’m sure being with him is exactly where I should be.”
The smile in Thomas’s voice came through on the phone. “I expect he’ll be glad to hear that. But don’t tell him too quickly. The little prick deserves to suffer some for giving you that kind of scare.”
She knew he was teasing. But she realized she was actually…mad. Rory knew so much better than this.
He was a proud man. If his mother had rushed home to care for him, it would have upset and humiliated him. Normally that would be enough of an incentive for him to care for himself properly.
He didn’t realize how hard it would be without you…
“He loves you, and it tore him apart that he couldn't help you,” Thomas said into the sudden silence. He paused, as if deliberating, then spoke plainly. “He's your Master, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need you sometimes, desperately.”
His voice dropped to a lower tone. “Sometimes I think they actually need us even more than we need them, but you didn't hear that from me. And since I need Marcus so much I can't imagine breathing without him, that's saying something, right?”
She put her arm around Rory now, tunneling under the gown so she could put her palm against his bare chest, stroke through the layer of curling hair there.
Yes. It was saying something.
He was so strong. She wondered if he knew she felt that way. She’d watched him grow into handling and managing the store, becoming the head of the family with his mother and sister. He’d extended that mantle of care and protection over her as soon as that path had opened between them.
She’d told him she didn’t see the chair, and she didn’t. But the chair was still there. It was part of his life, part of who he was. Every day he managed life with a body that didn’t work like most people’s, in a world that was structured for people who could walk.
Seeing his strength, she’d thought her presence or absence would mean little in terms of its effect on that strength. If she’d been wrong, and that was the reason this had happened, Rory would never want her to know it. The why of that wasn’t hard to figure out either. He’d never want her to feel like she had an obligation to care for and protect him.
The idea that he would think that stuck a thorn in her anger, goaded it. And that anger rested squarely in fear, from how quickly his lack of attention had put his health in a precarious place. That could never happen again.
The nurse had come