Page 34 of Due North
“Ba is here,” I promised while I held up one finger, and she held up two of her tiny ones in return and then crossed them together. My heart melted and shattered in my chest at the same time. My love for this tiny human was immense in such a short time that I never wanted to let her go. Someday, I would have to, but tonight, I would hold onto her like a lifeline.
Cece finally turned with the cup of milk to see her baby girl snuggled under the blankets and almost asleep on my shoulder. Her hand went directly to her hip, and she shook her head. “She is a straight-up drama llama,” she said with laughter on her lips.
I took the cup and held it out to Poppy, who put it to her lips and drank away, her eyes closed, and her body relaxed. “She just needs someone who gets her sometimes, you know?” I said, stroking her soft curls off her face. “Maybe she knows I’m that person. She’s not a problem, Cece. It’s ridiculous how much I miss her when we’re apart, and it’s only been a month since you brought her home.”
Her head nodded, and her curls bounced, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes were glued to Poppy in my arms, and her chin trembled for too long before she got it to stop. I wanted to pull her into my arms, but I couldn’t. I was tethered to the bed by cords and wires, and now, a sleeping toddler.
“Home,” she whispered, her gaze drifting from my face to the stark white linoleum floor. “Heavenly Lane is our home,” she agreed. “That means we’re all your family, Caleb. We’re scared to death. We don’t know what’s going on with you.” She held up her phone. “I’ve had no less than eighteen texts from Dawn, Heaven, Beau, Blaze, and Amity. That’s not even mentioning the hands. We just want to help you get through whatever this is so you can get back to being you.”
I turned my head to glance up at the I.V. pole, not surprised by what I saw. I pointed at the glass bottle that hung upside down. “Do you see that?” I asked, and she nodded. “That’s me now. That’s me three or four times a week for the next however many months until my nerves and muscles start communicating again. I haven’t talked to the doctor, so I don’t know for sure. Hell, I don’t even know where we are!” I exclaimed, my frustration bubbling over into anger. “I have no idea how they’re treating me!”
Cece stood and buried her hand in my hair. “Shh,” she whispered, her gaze holding mine. “We’ll figure it out together, okay? Just stay calm, or Poppy will sense it and get upset too. We don’t want that, right?”
I shook my head with my lips clamped tightly together while my eyes darted to Poppy’s angel face. Her eyes were still closed, and her milk cup had fallen from her lips to my chest.
“You’re at St. Mary’s in Duluth,” she said. “They almost called Life Flight, but the docs stabilized you in Wellspring and sent you by ambulance. When you got here, they did all kinds of tests we weren’t privy to and then said one of us could stay until you woke up. Since I’m not needed for chores at the ranch, they asked me to stay.”
I chuckled and rolled my head on the pillow. “Sure, that’s why they asked you to stay. I’m sure Heaven and Amity were the ones behind that suggestion.”
“Actually,” she said, lowering herself to the chair without taking her hands from my hair, “it was Blaze. He thought you might need Poppy when you woke up. He sees the special bond you have and just wanted to offer you that little bit of comfort. For the record, I didn’t argue with them. I wanted to stay.”
I turned so our eyes met and lifted her hand from my hair to brush a kiss across her knuckles. “I’m glad you stayed,” I admitted. “When I woke up, and you were the one sitting next to me, I was immediately calm inside.”
“The colors were pink?” she asked, her voice quiet in the darkened room.
“Pink and white, yeah,” I said, nodding. “There was also blue around the edges because I know once I explain this to everyone, I’m going to have to leave Heavenly Lane. For that reason, I focused on just the pink and the white.”
Her head tipped to the side with confusion. “Why would you have to leave Heavenly Lane, Caleb?”
I motioned around the hospital room and bed with frustration. “My job is a physical challenge every single day!” I exclaimed. “I can’t even smile right now, much less rope a steer or muck out a barn.”
“Maybe not tonight, no,” she said, holding my hand to keep me calm. As her warmth soaked into my skin, my heart rate slowed, and the pink floated back like a haze across my eyes. I noticed the grey was gone completely, which meant my lifeblood had returned. “It might not be in a month even, but there will come a day, at least according to the doctor, when you’ll get back to that kind of work. Let me ask you a question?”
I sighed, but the expression on her face told me to let her ask it, so I nodded.
“If you were in remission, then whatever this is has happened before, right?”
“When I was a teenager,” I admitted with contempt.
“Which makes my point,” she said, leaning back. “You went into remission, and you’ve worked for years since. With time, the same thing will happen again.”
“No, it won’t,” I said with sadness. “This disease rarely goes into remission twice. I’ll need to treat it forever. I’ll have episodes of weakness sporadically where I’ll require more medication or treatments like that,” I said, pointing at the bottle hanging by my bed.
“Okay,” she whispered. “If that’s the case, then Heavenly Lane is right where you should be. Do you think Dawn doesn’t have episodes of pain and weakness from her arthritis where she needs you or me to pick up the extra slack for a few days?”
“Not the same thing,” I said immediately. “Dawn doesn’t have to muck out barns and carry feed bags that weigh as much as she does.”
“Neither do you. That’s what you don’t see. We have ranch hands, and if you used them wisely, you would never have to lift a finger. I know you like to do that work, but for a little while, you might have to let someone else do it.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes at the same time. “Oh, yeah, I love cleaning out horse poop and lugging bags of feed all day. It’s my dream job.”
“Why do you do it then? We have six hands that work on the ranch now, and any of them can do the work. Why do you think you have to do it?”
I had to tell her the truth, but first, I had to soak in the love of the little being in my arms. I had to before they walked out of my life forever because of the truth I would speak.
“Penance,” I whispered, rubbing Poppy Rose’s curls.
“Penance?” I nodded. “For what?”
