Out of His League Page 9

  Elizabeth let that sink in. It was strange, but she felt proud for Ashley. Still... “What did the counselor say? Does he really think you belong here with these people?” Elizabeth thought about the drug addicts Ashley might have to interact with. “I mean, junkies and criminals and such?”

  Ashley wiped her tears away. “Don’t be prejudiced. Besides, once I’m processed and checked in, you won’t have to come back here again for thirty days. My only hard part will be saying goodbye to Brandon.”

  Which led Elizabeth back to the main problem. “You should leave him with your friend Caitlin. The woman with all the boys Brandon’s age.”

  “No,” Ashley said stubbornly. “I want Brandon to stay with you.”

  But Elizabeth didn’t want Brandon to stay with her. Don’t make me say that aloud, she thought. “I can’t handle him.”

  “You can. You have to.”

  “Why not your friend?”

  “Because this is a private, family affair, and if Caitlin has him, then Caitlin will know.” Her chin set as if she was closed to discussion.

  “So what’s the story you’re telling everyone?” Elizabeth asked. “What’s the lie?”

  “No lie. Just that I’m gone away on business, for occupation training, and that Brandon is staying with his aunt until my training is over. In a sense, that’s the truth.”

  “Ashley—”

  “I cleared it with my boss at the salon. He supports me. He’s juggled my clients for me before. He’s the only one who knows where I am this month, besides you and Sharma, and that was because I had to tell him.”

  So why couldn’t her boss take Brandon? But Elizabeth bit her tongue, even though the panic was swelling, the nerves were jumping and that shaking, lost, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach was overwhelming her.

  She leaned over and placed her head between her knees. Breathe, she commanded herself. She was a doctor; she knew human physiology, had taken semesters of course work on human anatomy. In the most technical sense, her emotions were shutting down her system, and that was just...not good. She needed a rational way to deal with Ashley and her commendable but misguided plan for her and Brandon.

  Elizabeth was in no way equipped for a little boy. Not in her home, her job, her life...

  Her throat squeezed. Her life! Her beautiful, happy, comforting bubble of a life! The only thing that kept her independent.

  And thus, safe.

  * * *

  WHERE THE HELL was Lizzy? Jon felt steam coming from his ears. Was she completely clueless, letting a kid walk around alone in this part of town?

  He pulled over to the spot where the GPS indicated he stop. He was in an urban neighborhood, with six-family, boxy-style homes that had seen better days. A redbrick tower-style housing development was on the corner of the busy, four-lane intersection. Jon glanced up and down the sidewalk, saw a man loitering in the doorway, looking him up and down. Or, maybe looking Jon’s SUV up and down.

  Damn it, where was the kid? And what had happened to Lizzy?

  He saw Brandon then, sitting in the passenger side of a parked car in front of him. Jon lightly knocked on the window of the small green Prius. “Brandon, open up.”

  The kid opened the door and propelled himself into Jon. Jon wrapped his arms around the boy’s thin shoulders and his small head. A warm, tender feeling came over him. This is what he knew. This is what he missed.

  This is what centered him.

  He knelt to Brandon’s height. The child wore a blue Captains cap low over his eyes, his shoulders hunched as he slouched against Jon, his aunt’s cell phone still clutched in his fingers.

  Behind him, the door was open, and a woman’s purse—Lizzy’s purse?—was opened and dumped across the seat.

  His heart hammering, he asked, “Where is your aunt?”

  “In the doctor’s office.” Brandon sniffled. “She told me to hold her p-pocketbook and wait for her, but I don’t remember where the office is now.”

  “Are you okay?”

  The boy nodded, staring at his sneakers.

  Jon tipped up the boy’s chin and looked into his sheepish face. “Did you wander off from where your aunt told you to wait?”

  Brandon scuffed his toe. “Yes, but I got bored in there and I didn’t like it.” His lip trembled. “I’m sorry, Jon,” he said in a small voice.

  Jon glanced at the buildings surrounding them. Which one would be a doctor’s office? There was a church on the corner. A Salvation Army store. A small bodega.

  And an alcohol and drug treatment center.

  Jon took Brandon’s hand into his and pointed to the building with his still-splinted finger. “Is that where you were waiting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jon gathered up Lizzy’s purse and handed it to Brandon. She had her car keys attached with a clip to the outside of her purse, so he used that to lock what he assumed was her car. He locked his SUV, too. He didn’t like leaving it in this sketchy neighborhood, but he didn’t see a valid option. He gripped Brandon tightly by the hand and steered the boy toward the building and then up the concrete stairs, which were swept clean, and into a check-in area that did look like a large-scale doctors’ office. The woman behind the desk was busy on the telephone, so Jon stood to the side and waited. In a sitting area, a television mounted on the wall showed a weather report. There were the standard stiff, uncomfortable, doctors’ office chairs and a large central table loaded with magazines.

  Jon sat and motioned Brandon to sit beside him. Jon didn’t speak; he just kept holding the boy’s hand. Brandon was shaken. On his small lap, he gripped his aunt’s large purse.

  At some point, the woman behind the reception desk finished her phone call. She stretched, glanced into the waiting room, and when she saw Jon, did a double take.

  For once, Jon didn’t smile back.

  The woman stood and peered over the counter at him. “Are you the boy’s father?”

  “No. Could you please ask Dr. LaValley to come see us right away.”

  The woman reached for the phone. Jon glanced at Brandon, who had gone pale. “She’s gonna be mad at me,” he whispered to Jon.

  “Maybe. But next time you’ll think twice before wandering away from her in a strange environment, won’t you?”

  Brandon gave him a panicked look, but Jon just returned his measured poker face. The no-jokes gaze that had worked so well with his younger brothers when he needed them to stop fooling around and get serious.

  Brandon sat straighter in his chair.

  Jon was not prepared for what he felt when Lizzy strode into the room. But he kept his poker face and stood, slightly inclining his head. He’d decided to let her know up front that he wasn’t amused, and he wouldn’t be cowed by her brusqueness.

  Her eyes widened, and she inhaled. Whatever she’d been about to accuse him of, she kept to herself.

  “I’m sorry, Auntie.” Brandon’s plea was small and plaintive.

  Her lips trembling, Elizabeth glanced down at her nephew. “It’s okay, honey. Your mom is ready to see you,” she said gently.

  Brandon nodded, and both he and Lizzy stood silently while a nurse led Brandon from the waiting area.

  It was just Jon, Lizzy and the weatherman on television talking about a tropical depression gearing to roar up from the Caribbean and into the Gulf coast of Florida.

  Jon waited, saying nothing. I am not helping you. I have my own problems were the words he’d been planning to say to her.

  But he hadn’t expected to be affected by her the way he was at that moment. There was something about her—a vulnerability and a promise of what she could be, if only she would let down her guard. It pulled at his heartstrings even though he didn’t want it to.

  He did not need this maddening, self-righteous woman needling him about what was or wasn’t wrong with him. He deserved an apology from her. He was now late for his conditioning and pitching session, destroying the credibility of his commitment to Coach Duffy and,
by definition, to the game of baseball and his future in it. He had risked everything, and for what?

  But when he looked into her eyes, he saw the remnants of tears. Something had happened, something bad. She wasn’t even thinking about him.

  Because they were at an alcohol and drug treatment center. Jon gave himself a mental head slap. It had to be for Brandon’s mother.

  “I’m assuming Brandon called you?” Lizzy asked.

  “Yes.”

  Reaching into her purse, she took out her cell phone. She scrolled through it until she came to her outgoing calls history. He looked over her shoulder.

  “Is there a way to delete a phone number from your outgoing calls list?” she asked.

  “Yes, there is,” he said. “By all means, do it.”

  Biting her lip, she made a tentative swiping movement with her thumb.

  Something—anger, a moment of pride—reared its head, and he took the phone from her. He deleted all traces of his phone number, then handed back her phone.

  A stricken look crossed her eyes, just for a split second, and he felt ashamed.

  “You really should go,” she said.

  “That’s it? No ‘thank you’? No acknowledgment that I’ve come out of my way, derailing my own plans?”

  “I’m sorry.” She dropped her gaze and then lifted it to him. The sadness in her eyes was still there, and she was blinking rapidly. “Please accept my apology. You can go now.”

  He hesitated, confused. He’d gotten what he’d wanted from her, and now he should leave. But somehow, his feet seemed rooted. “What’s going on with Brandon’s mom?” he asked. “Is she okay? What’s going to happen to Brandon?”

  “That’s none of your business,” Elizabeth said.

  The breath died in his throat. “I was scared to death when I got his call. I thought that Brandon was being kidnapped, possibly injured, and you’re telling me it’s not my business?”

  “I didn’t ask you to come to my house last night. I didn’t ask you to befriend my nephew.”

  “Lady, you are really a piece of work.”

  “Jon, please. Take your concern and give it to somebody else. Somebody who wants to accept it from you.”

  * * *

  ELIZABETH WAS BARELY hanging on, she was so close to tears. She couldn’t remember a time in her adult years when she felt so upset, her foundation so threatened. She just wanted to shut her proverbial door and hide away from the world.

  What she wouldn’t give to be able to get in her car and just go to work. Oversee an operation. Open a book and read about another time, another place, other people’s problems.

  She turned, but Jon put a hand on her shoulder.

  She froze. Could not move. His hand was warm, and it comforted her, just a little bit. But at the same time, he unnerved her. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why can’t you just go away?”

  “It’s...Brandon. He reminds me of my brother Bobby in the years after our mom...was gone. Brandon is a little older than him, but...”

  She turned and faced him then. His eyes were glassy, maybe a bit dead. His face had a saddened expression. He wasn’t lying to her.

  “So what do you want?” she asked him. “To save the world?”

  His hand dropped from her shoulder. He looked like she’d struck him.

  He did want to save the world. Or maybe just to be a white knight in his corner of the world.

  But Jon hadn’t yet learned what she already knew: that some people could not be saved. He had never pronounced a patient’s death. She had. He surely hadn’t spent time in private therapy over a mom that was so troubled and dysfunctional that she made her kids feel unsafe growing up. Elizabeth had done that, too. And what Elizabeth had learned from that experience was to accept that life was the way it was. Accept it, and stop trying to fix it for other people.

  Jon needed to develop protection and harden his heart the same way she had. Her voice shook. “My sister—Brandon’s mother—is an alcoholic. Brandon is facing that reality. I have faced that already, and if anyone will be helping Brandon with his new reality, it will be me.”

  Jon looked at her for a long time. “I don’t see it happening,” he said.

  She blinked, surprised. “Excuse me?”

  “The kid doesn’t need to be given anesthesia in order to cope. He needs somebody to talk with. To hang out with.”

  The nerve of this...baseball player. “I don’t see an M.D. degree hanging on your wall,” she said.

  “Of course you don’t. You don’t see my wall, because you don’t pay attention to anybody who isn’t in your direct line of sight.”

  She opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

  Pulled her arms around herself, hugging herself.

  Nobody talked to her this way. Nobody was so blunt to a doctor.

  “I’m sorry for Brandon,” he said quietly, and she saw in her heart how much he did feel it. “I’m really sorry.”

  And then he turned for the door and headed outside.

  Her heart in her throat, she followed him. “Wait...”

  But he didn’t hear her. Or if he did, he didn’t stop. She watched him walk over to his truck—a big, huge, gas-guzzling SUV—and swing into the driver’s side like a confident, capable cowboy. Leaving her little, practical Prius alone on the corner by itself.

  He didn’t look back at her. Not once.

  On the street, the light turned green, and he took off through the intersection. She watched until his truck turned the corner around a building and she could see him no more. He was gone.

  She rubbed her arm where his hand had touched her.

  Why did she feel so lousy?

  So...alone?

  She turned and hurried back to the counseling room where she’d left Ashley. She still had so many questions about how to care for Brandon. She had no idea how she was going to cope for these next weeks.

  When she got to the room, the door was open. Both Ashley and Brandon had their backs to her. Ashley was sitting in the chair, and Brandon was half sitting, half leaning beside his mother, his head on her shoulder. She was speaking in low tones to her son, ruffling his hair. She appeared to be calming him. Not a counselor was in sight.

  Elizabeth backed against the wall. How did Ashley do it? In her sister’s place, Elizabeth would have run away from the conversation, or otherwise blocked herself off.

  Maybe Jon was right: there was something she was missing...some skills she needed to learn. He’d been telling her she needed to pay closer attention to other people. Step beyond the curtain she’d drawn to keep people out of her life.

  Elizabeth stepped just outside the door but could still hear what Ashley was saying.

  “I love you,” she heard her sister say to her son as she stroked his hair. “You’re my best boy. We both need to be strong for a few weeks while I’m in the hospital. It’s not a life-threatening hospital, like when you were in the hospital for chemo. It’s...for my behavior. I drink more...wine...than is good for me, and I want to stop that. Because it’s making me make poor decisions. But in thirty days, I’ll be all better.”

  Elizabeth hoped so. She really, truly hoped so.

  “Your Aunt Liz is going to be taking care of you,” Ashley was saying. “Or actually, knowing you, you’ll be taking care of her, too, because your Aunt Liz is a very famous doctor, but sometimes she...needs to learn to smile a bit more. And you’re so good at smiling.”

  Elizabeth brought her knuckles to her teeth. Oh, Ashley, she thought. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.

  But Ashley kept soothing Brandon, oblivious to Elizabeth listening in the hallway. She really should make herself known, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  “I will absolutely be back for you in thirty days,” Ashley said to Brandon. “Just after Halloween. I will make sure of that. I’ll look forward to seeing the costume that you and your Aunt Liz come up with together.” She hugged him tighter. “And then, Thanksgiving will be a
big reason for us to celebrate this year. But until then, I’m going to ask you to keep what I’m telling you just between you and me and Aunt Liz. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I told Jon Farell,” Elizabeth heard Brandon say in a small voice.

  “Who is Jon Farell?” Ashley asked him.

  “He’s a New England Captains pitcher. I met him at the hospital and then he came to Auntie’s house last night.”

  What would Ashley think about that? Her sister seemed to pause. Elizabeth dug her nails into her fingers. “Is he a friend of Auntie’s?” Ashley asked Brandon cautiously.

  “Not really,” the boy said. “He likes her but she’s kind of mean to him.”

  Elizabeth gasped.

  “Auntie can be prickly,” Ashley said.

  Yes. Oh yes, and she had been much too harsh to Jon. Elizabeth regretted it already.

  Ashley kissed the top of Brandon’s head. “It’s okay you told him, just this one time, but don’t tell anybody else, okay?”

  Brandon nodded. “Okay.”

  “Dr. LaValley, would you like to join us?” a male voice said from behind her.

  Elizabeth jumped, swiping at her eyes. It was the counselor who’d said he would help Elizabeth say goodbye to Brandon in an age-appropriate manner.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, thank you.” She knew what she had to do. “I’ll...keep in touch with you, though, sir. I’d like to be kept up-to-date on my sister’s progress.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to join us all while we talk?” The counselor took a sip from his coffee mug and looked at Elizabeth with kind eyes.

  “No, thank you. I’m very sure.”

  Because now was the time for action. And Elizabeth knew exactly what she was going to do.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A WEEK LATER, Jon hadn’t heard a word from Elizabeth, even though he was dying to know how she was doing with her nephew. He thought once or twice about finding some of his family’s old kids’ books for Brandon and driving them over to Lizzy’s condo. But Lizzy had made it clear what she thought of his interference. Her rejection of him had been final, so the wisest thing he could do was to push it out of his mind.