Helen was meeting the entire halo of friends who frequented the Crossing, whether it was just to visit Sully or to make sure he was getting enough help with his chores. Maggie dropped by a couple of times a week, Cal was around when Maggie wasn’t. Dakota and Sid put in their appearances regularly; Dakota made trash runs to the dump for Sully every week. Anything that required a lot of muscle, Cal or Dakota or Connie Boyle handled. Sierra, Connie’s wife and Cal’s sister, came by about once a week with her little boy, Sam, but Sierra didn’t come to do chores. She was hugely pregnant. She came to the Crossing to run some energy off Sam. And her golden retriever, Molly, ran wild with Beau—they were best friends.
Watching Sully with the little ones brought Helen a special happiness. Elizabeth and Sam were close to the same age and constantly on the move. Sully would put one on each knee and talk to them, read their books to them, help them put their shoes on fifty times a visit. Elizabeth liked to move around the paperbacks on the used-book shelf while Sam liked to take things off the hooks they were hanging on. They both called Sully Pa. Only Elizabeth was his actual grandchild but he said, “They all come from the same family, which makes them all mine, even that bump Sierra is hanging on to.”
Then in the afternoon at about four he would say, “Time for Helen to stretch her legs. We’ll take both dogs.” And off they would go, up the trail with the dogs.
When they were out of sight of the store, Sully would take her hand, as if they were keeping a secret from anyone. Even Frank had asked Sully, “You get her by mail order catalog?” The only one who was oblivious was Leigh and that was because her mind was on one single thing—the pub owner.
“The end of next week I have to go to New York for a convention,” Helen said to Sully. “I’ll be gone almost a week. Six days. I’ll be back just after Memorial Day weekend, but you said that’s very busy for you.”
“The campground will be full and the store will be busy, but I’ll have help. Tom Canaday’s kids have worked out here in the past and they’ll work a little bit over the summer. I won’t be too busy to look across the yard to make sure you’re writing. But do you look forward to New York?”
“I love New York, plus I’ll meet with my agent and publisher, see a show, have some nice dinners and visit with friends. Would you like me to call you?”
“If you think about it,” he said. But he squeezed her hand. And she squeezed back.
The very next morning, Helen’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen and it said Sullivan. She answered the call.
“Sorry to wake you, Helen. I know you like to sleep. But there’s a big herd of elk down by the lake. And there are new calves.”
“Oh!” she said, sitting up. She looked at the phone. “It’s 5:00 a.m. for the love of God!”
“I’ll take some pictures,” Sully said.
“No. I mean, yes, take pictures, but I’m coming.”
“Don’t drive in at your usual speed. Creep up the road. They’re pretty urbanized, not usually afraid of cars and trucks, but wildlife is most evident at dawn and dusk. If you want to see them without getting trampled...”
“I get it! Don’t let them leave!”
He started to laugh and it turned into a wheeze. “What would you like me to do? Lasso them?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass!”
She grabbed her hoodie, slipped it on and put her phone in the pocket. She stepped into her slippers. Leigh peeked out of her bedroom door. “What’s going on?”
“Sully has a herd of elk at the campground and there are new calves!”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve been looking for them. I’m going to see. You can come.”
“In your pajamas?”
Helen looked down. They weren’t revealing. “I won’t see anyone, and if I do, they’ll think I just have rotten taste. Want to come?”
“Maybe another time,” Leigh said, going back to bed.
It was very hard for Helen to drive slowly to the Crossing but she knew it was true, from what people around town said—the elk were peaceful but they could choose the wrong moment to cross the road. Car versus elk was usually a serious affair. Twenty minutes later she crept down the road toward the Crossing and there they were! Some were grazing, a few were lying down, others up to their knees in that cold lake. She drove on the grass to pass them quietly and politely.
Sully was sitting at one of the tables on the store porch with a cup of coffee, watching quietly. A few people were out of their campers and tents, sitting up on picnic tables, watching and taking pictures.
Helen edged toward the store, parked and got out, snapping a few pictures with her phone on her way to the porch. While she was doing that, Sully had silently gone to fetch her a cup of coffee. She sat down beside him, sipped her coffee. “Sully, they’re amazing. They’re huge!”
“Haven’t seen ’em around here just lately. I suspect they’re headed up the mountain to a higher elevation. Getting warmer down here in the valley.”
“Down here?” she asked. “We’re at five thousand feet! I can hardly catch my breath.”
“You’re adjusting just fine. I count three little ones out there.”
“That’s about right, I think,” Helen said.
“One of ’em is still wobbly. That might be one of the reasons they’ve stopped for a spell.” Although her attention was fixed on the herd, she could feel his eyes on her. “Helen, what you got on there?” he asked.
“Pajamas and a hoodie,” she said. “It would have taken too long to get all dressed.”
“Pretty interesting pajamas,” he said. “I mean, attractive. Very attractive.”
“Sully, they’re just polka dot pajamas.”
“You got a lump over here in your hair. This one side is flat, there’s a bulge over on the other side and you’d do Alfalfa proud with that spike.”
“So?” she said, patting it down a little. “It’s called bed head. It’s what you get when someone wakes you up at five in the morning. If you have hair.” She hadn’t even looked in the mirror, of course.
He smiled at her. “I like it.”
* * *
Maggie didn’t have to pack a lot for her Denver runs. She had her own house there, well stocked with her daily needs from clothing to cosmetics. “I’m going tonight because I have an early surgery,” she told Cal. “I’m going to hang around till at least the weekend. Until my patient is out of the woods. Will you and Elizabeth come up for a couple of days? I want to be near the hospital to keep an eye on the surgical patients but I won’t be tied up the whole time.”
“This must be a big one,” Cal said.
“Very big,” she said. “This one carries a hefty risk for the patient but there’s no good alternative. I’m going to get a good sleep tonight. I’ll be in surgery all day.”
“Will you call me when you’re out? And yes, I can come up with Elizabeth. How about Thursday afternoon? Or would Friday morning be better?”
“I’ll be busy Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I’m working at the clinic Thursday afternoon and won’t be late. We could have dinner, go to the park for a while, maybe put on a movie for Elizabeth and curl up while she watches it. I’ll go to the hospital two or three times on Friday and Saturday, and if all is stable we can come home Sunday morning.”
“You’re operating on Maia, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t say that,” Maggie said.
“It’s all over town,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be happening so fast.”
“It’s not that fast. It’s been weeks.”
“I heard they went to UCLA and the Mayo Clinic,” Cal said.
“We have some excellent surgeons,” she said, though not boastfully. She was incredibly glad and relieved they chose her, though the doctors they had interviewed with at UCLA and Mayo were excellent. But she’d done this surgery quite often, with good results. The position of this tumor, between the skull and the brain in the temporal lobe region, was very dicey but at least operable. Most surgeons would give her a fifty percent chance of a full recovery. Maggie, like her colleagues in LA and Scottsdale, said eighty percent. Ninety-five, Maggie secretly thought. But odds were so meaningless if you fell in that five percent. Or how about the two percent who wouldn’t survive?
The studies showed a neuronal glial tumor; the surgery could take many hours. The recovery would be difficult and painful; the length of time in physical therapy would depend entirely on how the surgery went, on how much damage the tumor or its removal caused. No matter how many CT scans, EEGs and MRIs they did, she wouldn’t know what was really going on until she got in there. But her instincts were good; she was armed with knowledge and experience.
“How do you like her chances?” Cal asked.
“If I don’t think it will go well, I look around for a better surgeon. There are cases I don’t do because I’m not the best person to do them. I wouldn’t hesitate on this, but there are still things I can’t control. Like damage the tumor caused before we get to it, something no one could have prevented.” Maggie sighed. “Do you know her?”
Cal just shook his head. Even though it was a small town, they didn’t all run in the same circles. He was a lawyer. If they hadn’t needed his legal help, he wasn’t likely to know them.
“She’s an angel,” Maggie said. And the way the rest of her life turned out could have a lot to do with how good Maggie was.
“You’re the best,” Cal said. “That’s what I hear from a lot of people you work with—you’re the best. We’ll come up to Denver in time for dinner Thursday. But call me when you’re out of surgery tomorrow.”
“I will. My mind is very busy and running all over the place. I’m seeing renderings of the brain from every angle and it makes me seem morose or worried. I’m only preoccupied. When I get up tomorrow morning, I’ll be excited and the adrenaline will be high.”