Mistletoe and Miracles

Remembering, she flushed with guilt. She would give anything to hear him talk again. These days, she tried to fill the void by keeping on a television set. And when that was off, radio chased away the quiet. Anything to keep the oppressive silence at bay.

Laurel looked away from the door. Staring at it wouldn’t make it open. There was a magazine on her lap. It had been open to the same page now for the last thirty minutes, ever since she’d reached for it and pretended to thumb through the pages for the first two minutes. The articles hadn’t kept her attention and although her eyes had skimmed the page, not a single word had managed to penetrate.

Just as her words didn’t seem to penetrate Cody, she thought ruefully.

Trent had to fix him, he had to.

She had her strengths and she had learned to endure a great many things, but seeing Cody like this wasn’t one of them. The idea of her baby being trapped in this silent world for the rest of his life simply devastated her. It was all she could do not to fall to pieces at the mere suggestion that Cody would never get better.

Fidgeting, Laurel caught herself looking at the closed door to Trent’s office for what had to be the tenth time. It was a struggle not to let another sigh escape her lips.

She could feel the receptionist—Rita, was it?—looking at her.

Clearing her throat, her fingers absently moving the magazine pages back and forth between them, Laurel asked, “Has he been in practice long? Trent, um, Dr. Marlowe, I mean.”

Rita took her time in responding. “Depends on your definition of long.”

Laurel shrugged helplessly. She had no definition for long. She was only trying to make conversation to pass the time.

“Five years?” she finally said.

Rita moved her head from side to side. The short, black bob moved with her. Her eyes remained on the woman sitting so stiffly in the chair.

“Not that long. The other Dr. Marlowe has been in practice fifteen years,” Rita told her. “Ever since she took it over from Dr. Riemann.”

“Oh,” was all Laurel said. The single word throbbed with preoccupation. Her mind raced with thoughts she was afraid to examine.

Rita began to rise from her desk, as if to see to a task. But then she shrugged and sat down again. “Five minutes,” she said to the boy’s mother.

Laurel’s head jerked up. The receptionist had said something to her but she hadn’t heard the words. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve got five minutes,” Rita told her, enunciating each word as if she were talking to someone who had to read lips. “The session, it’s fifty minutes,” she explained. “You’ve got five more minutes to wait.”

“Oh.” The light dawned on her. Laurel forced a smile to her lips and inclined her head. “Thank you.”

Rita said crisply, “It’s customary to pay up front and then I’ll give you the paperwork so that you can mail it in to your insurance company.”

She didn’t work. Matt hadn’t wanted her to. Hadn’t even wanted her to finish college, saying, at the time, she was “fine” the way she was. She realized later it was all meant to control her. Matt liked being in control of everything and everyone.

Shaking her head, she informed Rita, “There is no insurance company.”

Squaring her shoulders, Rita informed her with feeling, “Then payment is definitely up front.”

“We can make arrangements later,” Trent told Rita as he walked out of his office, catching the tail end of the conversation.

Laurel popped to her feet as if she’d been sitting on a spring that catapulted her into an upright position. Startled, she pressed her hand to her chest as she swung around. “I didn’t hear you.”

“It’s the carpet,” he told her with a smile. “It muffles everything.”

Laurel wasn’t listening. She was looking at her son, aware that she’d been holding her breath.

“Leave Mrs. Greer’s account to me,” Trent told Rita.

It was obvious that this wasn’t what the older woman wanted to hear. Accounts and the billing were her domain. She frowned. “I take care of all the accounts, Dr. Marlowe.”

After several years, Trent had gotten used to Rita and her rather unique ways. At bottom, as Kate had pointed out more than once, the woman was a huge asset. He smiled at Rita. “Change is a good thing, Rita. You should learn to embrace it.”

Rita made a noise under her breath and went to get the copy paper.

“I can pay my bills, Trent,” Laurel informed him. And then she glanced at her son. Cody seemed just as withdrawn into his own world as ever. She knew it was too soon for a miracle to take hold, but that was what made them miracles. Facing Trent, her heart rate sped up just a little as she asked, “Well?”

“Not yet, but he will be,” Trent promised.

Chapter Four

Kelsey Marlowe didn’t hear the knock on her door at first. Lost in her studies—why did it seem like there was always another big exam looming on the horizon?—she didn’t become aware of the noise until a louder rap echoed against the wood, startling her.

The next second, the door opened and one of the triplets peered in. Even after all these years, a first glance always made her mentally scramble for a clue to which one it was.

Kelsey realized that it was Trent invading her space about half a beat before he spoke.

“Hi, Kel.” He flashed a smile that was just this side of serious. “Got a minute?”

Uncrossing her legs, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “No.”

Open textbooks, not to mention her laptop, littered her comforter. Two of the books slid onto the floor with a grating thud. The pages she had them opened to disappeared.

Stress and surprise ate away at Kelsey’s usual good humor. “You know, there’s a reason the door was closed.” She exhaled a huff that was filled with frustrated anger. “Does the word privacy mean anything to you? I could have been naked.”

If she had been, he knew the door would have been not just closed but locked. Trent walked into the sunny bedroom. The only one of them still living at home, Kelsey had gotten the room with the best exposure. It used to be his.

He grinned. “This from the kid Mom had to chase after because you liked running around the house naked.”

Embarrassment threatened to change the color of her cheeks. Kelsey struggled to suppress it, not wanting to give Trent the satisfaction.

“I was two,” she reminded him indignantly. Were her brothers ever going to forget about that? She’d gone on to get straight As in every subject in school. Why couldn’t they refer to that instead of the period of her life when her social values and awareness hadn’t kicked in yet?

Trent shrugged good-naturedly. “Still, all the body parts were there.” His grin widened. “And I’ve got a great memory.”

She frowned at him as she tossed her head, her long, straight blond hair flying over her shoulder. “Obviously all long term. Your short-term memory appears to be shot.”

Curious, he bent down to pick up the textbook that had dropped on the side of the bed closest to the door and handed it to Kelsey. “What did I forget?”

She took the book from him. The answer was right there in his hand and he still missed it. Men were hopeless, she thought. “That I have midterms coming up. I’m on quarters, not semesters, remember?” There was no sign of anything dawning on her brother. It figured. “I mentioned it at dinner Sunday. A dinner I had to move things around in order to make,” she added with a touch of exasperation.

“You mention a lot of things,” he pointed out in selfdefense. He’d never come across anyone who could talk as much as his sister. Someday, he fully expected the muscles in her jaw to lock up. “Most of the time, you do practically all the talking at the table.” Again, he shrugged. “I filter things out sometimes.”

Sometimes? Kelsey laughed dryly. “How about all the time?”