Child of Her Dreams. Joan Kilby

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СКАЧАТЬ you, Gran.” Geena relaxed her fists.

      “Geena, honey, we love you. We didn’t mean to imply anything,” Erin said. Kelly nodded in silent agreement.

      But Geena could see they were still skeptical.

      “Anyway, I’m off all those pills. I quit smoking, too. The doctors made me go cold turkey in the hospital.” She sighed as she looked at herself. “I’ve been gaining weight ever since.”

      “It’s good you quit smoking.” Erin paused. “But as far as your size goes, Tammy was right, you’ve lost weight. You weren’t even this thin two months ago at my wedding.”

      Geena did not want to get sidetracked into discussing her weight. She adored her sisters, but they didn’t understand the pressures a model was under. Besides, she still had the most important part of her story to tell.

      “I saw Mom,” she said, almost defiantly. “She said to give her love to all of you.”

      “Geena, when you say you saw Mom, you mean as in a dream, right?” Erin said. Erik stirred in her arms, and she reached under her blouse to unhook her nursing bra.

      Geena watched her sister adjust Erik at her breast, and her heart clenched with longing. She wanted to tell them about the baby Mom promised she would have, but then Erin and Kelly would think she was completely nuts. Sometimes when she thought of the baby, even she wondered if she hadn’t imagined the whole experience.

      “It was as real as being here with you today. She told me it wasn’t my time and that I had to go back. Well, she didn’t actually speak. It was more like telepathic communication.”

      “Telepathic,” Kelly repeated skeptically.

      “She also said Dad wasn’t drunk the night they died,” Geena said, ignoring her. “They swerved to avoid a dog.”

      “That’s the first we’ve heard of a dog,” Erin said. “It’s plausible, but impossible to prove.”

      Geena blinked. “Do I have to prove this happened?”

      “Of course not. But you’ve got to admit, it’s a bit far-fetched. You’ve been under a lot of pressure. It would be natural for your mind to play tricks on you,” Erin said. “Maybe you should talk to the doctor, see what he says.”

      “I might just do that.” A doctor was bound to have patients who had experienced near death and lived to tell about it. A doctor would reassure her she wasn’t imagining things.

      “How long are you staying?” Erin asked, raising Erik to her shoulder to pat his back. “I hope you’re not going to flit off too quickly. We miss you.”

      “I’ll be around for a few months. I told my agent not to accept any new jobs until I’ve fully recovered.” The truth was, she felt a little confused about her future direction, but the fashion industry was all she knew.

      Kelly drained the sink and dried her hands on a towel as she glanced at the kitchen shelf clock Erin had left behind for Gran when she’d married Nick. “Gosh, look at the time. I’d better get my kids home. Geena, come over for dinner real soon. My lasagna will put some meat back on your bones.”

      Geena hugged her sister, knowing she meant well. “Thanks, Kel.”

      Erin carefully lifted her drowsy baby against her shoulder and gave Geena a one-armed hug. “I’d better go, too. Erik always sleeps better in his own crib. Take care of yourself, Gee. We’ve been so worried about you. We want you to get completely well.”

      “I will, don’t worry.”

      Geena walked them to the door and waited until Erin and Kelly had rounded up their families, bundled all the children into their respective cars and driven away. After they left, she sat on the painted wooden steps of Gran’s big old Victorian home, the home she and her sisters had grown up in after their parents had died.

      Scents of late summer wafted on a warm breeze—roses; mown grass; a whiff of salt from the river telling her the tide was in. The heavy crimson head of a poppy drooped through the railing, and she stroked a silken petal with her fingertip, lost in admiration of its beauty.

      Hearing a sound behind her, she glanced over her shoulder to see Gran coming through the open door.

      Gran lowered herself to the top step, her knees creaking a little in her track pants. “Tell me more about your mom. Did she seem happy?”

      Thank God for Gran. “She’s happy. So is Dad. Mom sent a message from Gramps that he’ll wait for you forever.”

      Behind her glasses, Gran’s pale-blue eyes misted.

      CHAPTER TWO

      BEN GLANCED AROUND the Hainesville Medical Clinic with satisfaction. With two examining rooms, a small lab, office, reception area and waiting room, the clinic was positively luxurious compared with what he’d been used to in Guatemala.

      The only glitch was that he hadn’t been in his new job a week before the nurse-receptionist who had worked for Dr. Cameron had been called to the sickbed of her elderly mother in Florida. Ben contacted an employment agency and was promised a temporary replacement in a couple of days.

      Meantime, he took the loss in his stride; he’d coped with far more calamitous events in Guatemala. However, his patients were less sanguine than he about mixed-up appointments and general administrative confusion. Nor were they content to sit and wait for hours on a first-come, first-serve basis like his stoical villagers.

      “You can’t run this clinic the way you ran that place in Central America,” a pinched-faced woman with tight gray curls told him after he’d inadvertently double booked her with the mayor. The mayor, Mr. Gribble, had won on the basis of having to attend an important meeting with the bank manager. Strangely enough, when Ben glanced out the window afterward, he’d seen Mr. Gribble heading for the river, with a fishing rod propped in the back of his Cadillac.

      “Why not, Mrs. Vogler?” He began to scan the long medical history in her file to bring himself up to speed on her background.

      “It’s Miss Vogler. We’re not a bunch of Mayan Indians, you know.”

      More’s the pity.

      “Dr. Cameron never did things this way. And where’s your white coat?” Greta Vogler added with an accusing glance at his Guatemalan shirtsleeves and clean khaki pants. “If it wasn’t for that stethoscope around your neck, no one would know you were a doctor.”

      “Unless they happened to notice the diplomas hanging on the wall,” Ben said pleasantly, still reading. He came to an entry and paused. “It says here you had a hysterectomy in nineteen-seventy-six.” He gazed at her, mentally calculating. She would have been in her midtwenties at the time. “Could this date be a mistake?”

      “There’s no mistake,” she said frostily, looking away. “But what that has to do with the migraines I came to see you about, I don’t know.”

      “My apologies,” he murmured, and decided to skip the rest of the history. “Tell me about the headaches,” he said, and went on to deal with that.

      That СКАЧАТЬ