The Healing by Frances Pergamo

Author:Frances Pergamo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“How are you feeling so far?” Karen asked her daughter when they were alone at the water’s edge.

“I’m tired.”

“The surgeon said you have to expect that for a while.”

“I know.”

As they ambled along, their feet splashing in the surf, Karen gazed at Lori’s profile. “It’s nice to be with Melissa and Jen, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s been a while since you girls got to spend time together. They were always like big sisters to you.”

Lori nodded, but without enthusiasm. “They’re great,” she replied. “But they don’t understand.” Her lip quivered. “Nobody does.”

Not even your own parents, her mother realized.

It broke Karen’s heart to see the tears rolling down her daughter’s face, yet there was nothing she could offer in the way of comfort aside from a maternal shoulder to cry on. “Daddy and I are very proud of you,” was all she could say, feeling how inadequate the words were.

At the mention of her father, Lori’s eyes gushed anew. “I can’t get used to seeing him with a walker,” she confessed. “He looks so—crippled.”

“At least he’s getting around,” Karen said, trying to appear optimistic for her daughter’s sake. “It’s nice to be here at Wildwood together, isn’t it? Like old times.”

But Lori’s memory apparently couldn’t backtrack far enough. Not past that terrible night in June. “No matter where I look, all I see are people who have what I’ll never have. Girls my age with their boyfriends, women your age with their husbands, old couples—”

Karen stopped walking and looked at her daughter with a pained expression. “Oh, Lori,” she said, wishing they could all start over and travel down a different path.

Lori looked at the horizon through her tears. “I feel cheated, Ma.”

“Of course you do. But you have your whole life ahead of you. And I promise things will get better.”

“When?” Lori asked.

When you can accept that Nick is dead and Daddy is getting worse. “In time.”

“But how?”

Karen wanted to tell Lori the truth. Her life would never be the same. Period. But Karen had no pearls of wisdom to impart. Even if she could answer “how” and “when” things would get better, she knew damn well there would never be an answer to “why” they happened in the first place.

Her daughter met her gaze a little too knowingly. “You feel cheated, too, Ma,” Lori said in a hushed voice. “Don’t you?”

Still no words would come. There was no argument to what Lori was stating so frankly and so wisely. So Karen just put her arm around her daughter and resumed walking, their feet moving in slow, synchronized rhythm.

Lori bent her head sideways, leaning it against her mother’s and taking the only solace Karen could provide. She certainly had no control over the fate that had swept them all away.

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