Page 2 of Dorchad

After Billy’s mother left Rebecca tidied the room and then went to her office to check her schedule. A last-minute cancellation meant she had several hours before her next patient arrived, and she’d skipped breakfast, so she decided to grab an early lunch. With an eye on the cloudy weather, she stuffed a scarf in her bag.

“You should try that deli over on Tremont Street, Doc,” the department secretary said when she signed out. “The Reuben sandwiches are wicked delish.”

“I never dodge a wicked Reuben.” Smiling a little, Rebecca checked her watch. “I’ll be back in two hours, but text me if you need me.”

Passing by the elevators to take the stairs down to the first floor added a little bounce to Rebecca’s step. She had enough time to have lunch and visit her favorite outdoor book shop, where she hoped to find some new reads. Since her grandparents had moved to their retirement home in Florida she had been living alone in their old brick house near the hospital, and could do as she pleased with her spare time. At the moment she was building a small library of erotic romance novels that would have utterly scandalized her grandmother. Very soon she hoped to work up the courage to be even more daring.

I could check out one of the underground clubs, Rebecca thought. There are some that are just gathering places for people like me.

So far the only true contentment she’d experienced in life came from the vague, blurry memories of her childhood. Thanks to the love of her bubbly, carefree mother and her big, gruff father, Rebecca had been a very happy kid. Jessica and Stewart McIan had adored their daughter, and spent every moment they could with her. Rebecca sometimes wondered if they both subconsciously sensed that the time they’d have together as a family would be cut short in the worst way possible.

Thankfully she didn’t remember anything about the accident that happened when she was twelve, when she and her parents were on their way home from seeing a movie. The drunk driver who had jumped the median and hit their car head-on had died instantly along with the McIans. It had taken fire rescue two hours to cut Rebecca, barely alive, out of the wreckage.

When she woke up a week later she saw her grandparents sitting on either side of the hospital bed, both looking pale and exhausted. Her grandmother had promptly burst into tears while her grandfather had shouted for a nurse. They didn’t tell her about her injuries until the doctor had examined her and decided she was strong enough to hear the awful news.

“Your back and knees got hurt real bad in the accident, baby.” Jacob McIan clasped her small hand between his. “That’s why you can’t feel nothing down there.”

“Does that mean I can’t walk anymore?” she asked, looking down at her lower body, which she couldn’t move due to the waist-high cast immobilizing her.

“The doc says maybe you can after the operations you need,” her grandfather said, forcing a smile while tears glittered in his eyes. “And if you can’t, then we’ll figure it out together, huh?”

Three months and four surgeries later the big cast had been removed, and Rebecca had been transferred to a pediatric rehabilitation hospital. By then she had learned of her parents’ deaths, which she tried not to think about unless she was alone and could cry without upsetting anyone else. Beginning the painful but necessary physical therapy that her doctor hoped would help her walk again also helped. The year that followed would restore her mobility inch by sweat-soaked inch as the swelling in her spine receded and she learned how to stand and use her new knees to walk.

No one but Rebecca knew how much the experience had changed her in other ways, but that was something she intended to keep private forever.

Nothing to be ashamed of, Becs, her physical therapist Reuben Dane would have said. Everybody’s got secrets.

On her way downstairs Rebecca checked her phone for messages, and saw three missed calls and five increasingly anxious texts from her grandmother, the last of which she’d written in all caps.

WHY DON’T YOU ANSWER YOUR PHONE IT’S LUNCH TIME ISN’T IT ARE YOU OKAY I’M REAL WORRIED NOW CALL ME BACK AS SOON AS YOU CAN.

Because Bess McIan would probably next call the Boston police, Rebecca stopped on the fourth floor landing and called her grandmother, who answered in the middle of the first ring.

“Oh, Becky, you scared me so much,” Bess said. “Can’t you hear your phone?”

“I’m fine, Grandmom,” Rebecca said, keeping her tone soothing to reassure the elderly woman. “I’m at work, and I leave my phone in my office when I’m with one of my patients. What’s the matter?”

“I haven’t heard from you in two days, that’s what’s wrong,” Bess McIan said, sounding as if the days had been years. “Wait, I need a tissue. The pollen here is horrible, it’s killing me, you would not believe.”

The sound of her grandmother blowing her nose, which likely came from her latest crying jag than any allergy, suggested there was more to the story.

“You have an argument with Granddad this morning?” Rebecca asked.

“All Scotty and I do is fight since we came here. Stubborn old mule doesn’t give two hoots about me.” Bess sniffed a few times. “Can you come down for a visit? I miss you so much I can’t sleep.”

“I used all my vacation time to move you two there, remember?” When her grandmother made a sobbing sound she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the window pane. “You want to come up? You know I have to work during the days, but we can spend our nights and weekends together. I’ll send you a plane ticket.”

“I promised Scotty I’d stay here and stop bothering you, and I’m going to keep my word.” Bess sighed. “It’s just so hard. You’re all we got left of our boy, and you’re alone there now. Anything could happen and it would take us all day to reach you—if we could get a flight out of here.”

This wasn’t anything new. Both of her grandparents fussed over her, but Bess had not yet gotten over her separation anxiety.

“I’m being careful, just like I promised you,” Rebecca reminded her. “Why don’t we do a video call tonight, huh? Then you can see I’m safe and sound.”

Her grandmother made a chiding sound. “I can never figure out how to do that. Just call me so I can hear your voice, Becky, ’kay? Soon as you get home from work so I know you’re safe.”

Safe. That was the story of her life since it had been smashed to pieces.

After reassuring Bess she would call her after dinner, Rebecca switched off the phone and briefly imagined tossing it out of the window. Of course she loved her grandparents, and would forever be grateful to them for caring for her and raising her after the accident. Yet from the time she was twelve they had both kept her so sheltered that she never went anywhere alone.