His arm tightened slightly around her shoulders, as if he sensed her response to him. In that area, at least, he knew her quite well. “We don’t have to be at odds during this, Laurel. We’re a team, with one goal. Our son’s recovery.”
Her throat tight, she nodded.
“I want to be here for you if you need me,” he added.
She felt her stomach clench. It was just the sort of comment that always made her edgy. Maybe if Jackson had said that they needed each other… But he would never admit that sort of vulnerability.
“We’re both strong people,” she said carefully. “We’ll get through this.”
She was aware that her answer didn’t completely satisfy him. “Laurel, if you—”
“Mommy?”
She stepped immediately toward the bed, feeling Jackson’s arm fall from her shoulders to his side. “I’m here, sweetie.”
Reassured, Tyler snuggled back into the pillow, curling himself around Angus and closing his eyes again.
Jackson waited until it was apparent Tyler was asleep again before he spoke quietly. “We aren’t very good at it, are we?”
Laurel turned with raised eyebrows. “At what?”
“At being a team.”
“No, I guess we’re not,” she whispered. She could almost feel the weight of blame lying heavily on her shoulders. She should have known she wouldn’t be any good at this. What in her dysfunctional family history had made her believe she could succeed at being a model wife and mother?
Jackson drew a deep breath, his own expression grim with guilt. Knowing his overdeveloped sense of responsibility, she imagined he was accepting the fault as his own. She watched as his jaw hardened with resolve. “I’m not giving up. We’ll keep working at it until we get it right.”
No, he wouldn’t give up, she thought with a touch of sadness. Admitting defeat wouldn’t suit his self-image of the strong and capable head of their household. But shouldn’t there be more to a marriage than staying together because they didn’t want to admit they had made a mistake?
Had she been allowed, Laurel would have stayed at Tyler’s side during the entire operation. Instead, she sat in the surgery waiting room, every nerve ending in her body on anxious alert. A closed Bible sat like a talisman in her lap. Donna had brought it to her that morning, saying the time would pass more quickly for Laurel if she sought comfort in the verses.
Though she was rather touched by the gesture, Laurel had been unable to concentrate long enough even to open the book. Her eyes kept turning to the clock on the opposite wall, watching the hands move so slowly that she constantly fought the urge to check if it was still operational.
Unusually subdued, Donna sat nearby, while Carl and Jackson paced. Other people were grouped in the large area, attended to by a couple of smiling, gray-haired volunteers in bright blue jackets. The volunteers kept the coffee pot refilled, and the aroma of steadily dripping coffee almost, but not quite, masked the antiseptic smell of hospital cleaners.
It was a bit quieter in this surgery waiting room than it had been in the larger waiting room, whether because of the gravity of the procedures underway or because it was still so early in the morning, Laurel couldn’t have said.
“Everything okay here, Mrs. Reiss?” one of the sweet-faced volunteers asked as she stopped by Laurel’s chair. “Can I get you any more coffee?”
Glancing at the woman’s plastic nametag, Laurel shook her head. “No, thank you, Irma.”
“Anyone else?” Irma looked at Jackson and his parents as she made the offer. When they, too, declined her assistance, she nodded and moved away, after assuring them that Kathleen O’Hara, their surgery team liaison, would be by soon to give them an update from the operating room.
“Laurel?”
Hearing her name, she turned her head, then rose. “Hello, Morgan.”
The tall, dark-haired director of the Children’s Connection smiled as he took her hands. Always a pleasant, congenial man, his recent marriage to his beloved Emma had added a new glow of happiness to his striking blue eyes that no one who knew him well could miss. Because she knew and liked them both, Laurel was pleased that Morgan and Emma had found each other. They seemed to be a strong, united team—something she couldn’t help envying a bit.
But his expression now was one of concern for Laurel. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m doing okay,” she said, though she knew it was usually a waste of time to try to put on a falsely brave front for this man who was so adept at reading people.
“Any news yet?”
“No. The operation just started about twenty minutes ago. The surgeon said it could take a couple of hours.”
“Is there anything I can do for you? Get for you?”