Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

To be honest, I’m not just scared because of what’s going on between Shane and I, I’m scared for my mother. I know that the surgery is routine, that she should be fine. That this is about nipping something in the bud, taking out the cancer before it has a chance to ravage her. But sometimes she just seems so weak and unhealthy that I’m not sure how strong she really is. She’s been thriving too while being at the Nelson’s, but even so, she’s not quite optimal. I think, for the both of us, the road to recovery is a long one.

We go straight to the hospital where we’re introduced to Doctor Fielding and the nurses. He explains to us, as Doctor Cooper did back in North Ridge, exactly what the surgery entails. It’s a pre-emptive strike, especially for patients who haven’t yet experienced the mass effects of cancer yet. He explains how it will leave my mother in a much weaker position than before we started, but the alternative is, of course, cancer. We don’t have a choice.

She’ll be in ICU for a few days after surgery, assisted by a breathing tube and, if anxious, heavily medicated, then will be recovering. After a week or so, she’ll be discharged and we’re free to go. In the meantime, I’ll be renting a room in a hotel around the corner and spending most of my days in the hospital.

It doesn’t sound so bad but what makes it worse is that my mother is barely looking at me, even when the doctor is laying out all the potential complications, and for a woman of her age and health, there are a lot.

It isn’t until the next day, the day of her surgery, when both of us are waiting around in a small, sterile room, that she taps me on the back of the hand and brings something out of her purse.

It’s a bunch of tissue and I watch, enraptured, as she carefully starts unfolding each piece until I’m surprised at the sight.

A dried wishbone sits in the middle of the tissues.

“What is this?” I ask her.

“It’s for you,” she says, picking it up with shaking hands. “When we first came to Ravenswood Ranch a few weeks ago and Hank had made us that chicken, I took the wishbone aside and saved it.”

Tears are already starting to well up in my eyes.

“I remember that necklace,” she goes on. “The one Shane gave to you for Christmas that one year. You loved it so much, never took it off until you did. I knew it meant something to you.” She pauses, looking down at the wishbone with fondness. “I saw this and I knew you should have it. You should have something to wish on again.”

I press my lips together, trying to keep my sobs in check.

No dice.

“I’m so sorry mom,” I cry out, wrapping my arms around her. “I’m so sorry for the things I’ve said to you. I don’t mean any of them. I love you. I don’t want to lose you, I don’t.” I whisper, “I’m so scared.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she says to me, holding me back. Even though she’s fragile, she has some strength to her, strength and warmth I can feel seep into my bones. Even after everything, there’s something about a mother’s hug that sets the world back on its axis, makes it spin, brings back the days and the nights, a balance. “You don’t have to be sorry. I know you’re angry and you have every single right to be. You can be angry with me for the rest of your life and I know I deserve it and more.”

I pull back, wiping at my face. “But I don’t want to be angry anymore. I understand. It took me a long time but I understand. I know you loved me, you were just afraid.”

“I was afraid and I was a coward,” she says, her voice warbling though she’s trying to sound strong. “No mother should ever choose her husband before her daughter, should never choose herself. Darling, I was in such denial over what was happening to me, to hear what was happening to you…I couldn’t bare it. I couldn’t deal. It just – poof – my brain spit it right back out. But I knew, I knew deep down you were telling the truth, I just didn’t have the courage to face it. I will never, ever forgive myself for it. I’ve betrayed you in the most horrific way possible and I’ll spend my whole life making it right even though I know it won’t be.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” she says and now she’s crying, big tears that spill down her pale face and onto the linoleum floor. “It’s not okay and it will never be okay. And that’s something I have to live with. I can never go back and change the past and what I did, or didn’t do, will stick with me. But going forward, I can only love you and pray you’ll give me a second chance.”

“Of course I will,” I sob to her, leaning against her shoulder. “You don’t need to ask. It’s just there. I don’t want to lose you, not now, not after this when we go back to North Ridge. I want to get to know you, the real you, I want a real relationship and all the time in the world to make up for all the time that we lost.”

“And so you’ll stay?” she looks at me hopefully.

I grasp her hand. “If that’s what you want, if that’s what you need, I will stay. For you.”

She frowns, looking saddened, and shakes her head. “My baby girl. You’ll stay for your mother, your mother who turned her back on you and didn’t protect you when you needed her most, you’ll stay for her but not the man who has always been there. How come you’ll stay for me but you won’t stay for Shane?”

I blink at her, my blood whooshing in my head as I try and grapple with it.

She’s asked a damn good question.

“Because you’re my mother,” I say softly, struggling for words.

“And he’s your man. A man that loves you. A man who never stopped loving you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“When it comes to the heart, when it comes down to love, it all weighs the same amount. Rachel, Shane is in love with you and I know you’re in love with him. Don’t throw that away because you think you belong somewhere else.”

“But I have a life there,” I tell her and even now my excuses, valid or not, are starting to sound stale. “I have everything I’ve worked hard for.”

“And you’ll work hard again and you’ll get those things you want, if you even want them anymore, if they really matter. But love like yours, that’s not something you can just show up for, or even earn. Love like that, you have to hold onto it when you see it. It’s a once in a lifetime love, my baby girl. And we both know how short those lifetimes can sometimes be.”

I grow quiet. I could argue forever. I could bring up the millions of excuses. But against my mother, I’m not sure how far I’d get.

“Let me ask you something,” she says, taking my hand into hers. “What feeds your soul?”

“What feeds my soul?”

“You heard me. What feeds it? What gets you up in the mornings? What makes you want to be a better version of yourself, to keep on growing? What makes you feel alive? More than that, what makes you want to be alive forever, finding the lust and the joy for it day by day?” She pauses. “Now change that around. Not what, but who? Who feeds your soul?”

I try and swallow. I’m thirsty and exhausted and scared, still so scared. I want to give her different answers and yet I won’t lie. I won’t bother. There’s only one answer.

Who feeds my soul?

Shane.