Millie nodded, and he leaned down to give her a soft kiss on the cheek. From behind him, Millie heard Jessica mutter repeatedly, “Oh…my…God, oh…my…God…”
Millie was about to reprimand her granddaughter, but Kai grabbed Jessica’s elbow, muttered something in her ear, and pulled her from the room. Jessica had a horrified expression on her face as they exited.
Curious.
Millie strained to hear them outside her room, but her hearing wasn’t what it used to be, and she could barely make out more than the whirl and swish of the air vents circulating the stale currents. Resting back on her bed, she closed her eyes. Her hip ached a little from where she’d fallen this morning. Such a stupid accident. She hadn’t been doing anything more exciting than getting the mail. She’d stumbled on the curb, lost her balance, and landed on her side. Thirty years ago, she would have laughed at the embarrassment, brushed herself off, and sprang right back up. But with the flash of pain that had jolted through her body the moment she’d landed, she’d known she was no longer a staunch fifty-year old. She still felt like one. Heck, she still felt like a teenager. It was a shame her body disagreed.
She hadn’t been paying close enough attention to what she’d been doing, and that had cost her a great deal of pain. Oddly enough, she’d been thinking about Kai at the time. She hadn’t realized he’d made it up here already. She’d known he’d be up soon, but hadn’t heard the official date yet. Coming up to start his new job…
Frowning, Millie opened her eyes and cast a quick glance at the door. She wasn’t sure if Kai and Jessica were right outside, or if they had gone for a walk through the hospital. Maybe they’d decided to head down for some coffee, to catch up on what their families had been up to. Millie’s eyes shifted to the clock on the wall as she thought about her son in Hawaii. It was late in the afternoon here, so he should be up and around back there.
Grabbing the phone on the nightstand, Millie dialed her son’s number. After a few rings, a confused voice answered her. “Hello?”
“Hello, son. How are you this morning?” Millie brightly said.
She smiled into the receiver as she heard her son immediately respond with, “Oh, hey, Mom. I didn’t recognize the number. I’m fine, how are you?”
Millie laughed, her joints reminding her of her ache as she did so. They’d dosed her up pretty well, and her hip felt a little numb. The rest of her was sharp enough though. “A little stumble this morning, but I’m fine. My granddaughter is taking good care of me.”
There was a pause on his end, then, “You okay? Really?”
Millie scoffed into the phone. “Honey, I’ve had nine kids. A little tumble is nothing.” Her son laughed into the phone, and she took that moment of levity to make her reason for calling known. “Kai came to see me today.”
Her son immediately stopped laughing. “Yeah, I figured he would soon. He left Wednesday.”
Millie sighed as she stared at the ceiling. “What are the two of you thinking, sending him here?”
With a forced cheerfulness to his voice, her son responded, “Well, it’s a great job, Mom, and he can be close to you—”
She cut him off. She knew bull when she heard it. “That is not why he’s really here, and you know it. Don’t play me for a fool, Nate.”
She’d had suspicions for a while over her son’s true motives, and Nate had picked up on her doubt in previous conversations. He seemed a little frustrated being called out on it now. “Mom…he needs to know.”
Millie closed her eyes and shook her head. Damn…he was right. “Why, Nate? What difference does it make at this point?”
He sighed, louder this time. When his voice came out, it was laced with anger. “He deserves to know the truth. Truth matters.”
Millie opened her eyes. Her face softened as she listened to her son’s pain. “Does it? Did the truth do you any good? Did it do anything but ruin your marriage?”
He sighed again, wistfully. “Mom…the truth is important. He should know. Leilani and I both feel he should finally know. He’s an adult now.”
Millie bristled and raised her head off the pillows. “Yes, he’s an adult. Couldn’t you just sit down and talk with him like one? Did you need to send him out here…to see him?”
There was a long pause from her son, then in a near whisper he said, “I couldn’t do it, Mom. I couldn’t look at him and tell him… It’s better this way.”
Millie sighed. “Better for whom?”
Her son grunted in frustration. “You wouldn’t understand.”