Page 25 of Payback
He promised her choice seats when his season started up again, but she only laughed and shook her head, reminding him she wouldn’t make it that long.
“Stella, I want you to meet a friend of mine. Bella, this is—”
The old woman cackled. “Bella and Stella. Hey, that rhymes.”
Bella smiled as she took the woman’s bony hand in both of hers. “It does, doesn’t it? It’s so nice to meet you, Stella. I hope we’ll have a chance to visit soon.”
“Oh?” Her eyes lit up. “You’ll be coming back to see me?”
Loran knew he was the only visitor Stella had. He imagined it would be nice for her to have another visitor to look forward to.
“If you’d like me to?” Bella asked, rubbing her hand gently before releasing it.
“Can you knit?” she asked, as though testing Bella. “Crochet?”
“As a matter of fact I can,” Bella said, looking smug. “My grandmother taught me when I was about five. I haven’t done it in a while, but I’m sure with your expert guidance I’d remember.”
“That settles it then,” Stella said. “You’ll come back and we’ll work on finishing this together.” She held up the half-finished lap blanket. “There’s a woman at the nursing home down the road who has a birthday coming up. She doesn’t get any presents, so I thought it would be nice to give her this.”
Bella’s eyes shone when she said, “I think that’s a lovely idea. She’s a friend of yours?”
“No, I’ve never met her.”
“Oh.” Bella looked confused as she looked from Loran to Stella. “Then how do you know—”
“There’s this nice lady who comes in here sometimes to visit her uncle. She runs a community program that donates gifts to residents of nursing homes who don’t get anything for birthdays or Christmas. Either they don’t have any family or their family wants to forget they’re alive.”
“Sounds like a wonderful program,” Bella said, softly.
“It is.” Stella shrugged. “She and I got to talking and she suggested I start knitting something for this lady, Mary, who has a birthday coming up. I guess she’s always cold and could really use a nice lap blanket to keep her warm.”
“I think it’s wonderful that you want to do that for her.”
“I have this one to thank for the yarn though,” she said, pointing at Loran with her knitting needle. “Can you believe he went to the yarn store for me? Bought dozens of skeins.” She pointed to a wicker basket at her feet. “Even bought the basket for me. Isn’t that sweet?”
“It sure is,” Bella said, looking a little stunned.
Feeling uncomfortable with the praise, Loran shrugged, “It was no big deal. The lady who owned the store pointed me in the right direction. I just bought whatever she suggested.”
Bella’s phone rang, saving him from further embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I really have to take this. Loran, I’ll meet you outside?”
“Sure,” he said, trying to ignore the curious look Stella gave him. She was obviously trying to figure out the nature of his relationship with the beautiful stranger. And knowing his elderly friend, she wouldn’t hesitate to dig for dirt as soon as they were alone.
“It was so nice to meet you, Stella.”
“You too, dear.” Stella waited until Bella had left the room before she said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Pull up a chair. I want to hear all about your new love.”
“My new love?” Loran chuckled as he pulled up a stackable chair and sat on it backwards, facing Stella. “You just met the woman. How do you know there’s anything between us?”
“She’s the one you were talking about,” Stella said, matter-of-factly. “I asked you a few weeks ago if you’d ever been in love and you said you’d been seeing someone briefly but it didn’t work out.”
Loran winced when Stella started coughing. It sounded so violent. She could barely catch her breath and every time she turned red and reached for his hand he braced himself for the inevitable twist of his heart. He felt so helpless. It was moments like those that reminded him all his money couldn’t buy the things he wanted most.
He handed her the water in her cup holder as soon as she seemed able to take a drink. Watching her sip, his heart beat slowly returned to normal. Since he’d started working at the hospice he’d had to say good-bye to a lot of special people but he knew when Stella left this world she would take a little piece of his heart with him. He’d never known his grandparents, but he liked to think his own grandmother would have been just like Stella.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said, shaking an arthritic finger at him. “And don’t even think about lying. You know I can tell.”
“You’re not wrong,” he conceded.
