“We all will. Day after tomorrow,” Matt said. “Until then, he’ll be under constant watch.”
“The next group may go in,” Doc said.
“That’s you and your guys,” Megan said to her. “Ethel will be glad to see you, and I’m sure Patrick and Sam will be, too.”
She hugged her friend again before walking into Ethel’s room with Matt and Sean.
Entering, Jena saw Patrick and Sam O’Leary on either side of their wife. Ethel was in the bed sitting up, looking as beautiful as could be.
“There’s the real hero.” Ethel motioned her closer. “How are you doing, Jena?”
“Better than you.”
“Don’t bury me yet. I might be down for a day or two but I’m definitely not out. Besides, I have to prepare for the annual Halloween Party at our home.”
“Darlin’, that event is in less than four days.” Sam frowned. “You cannot pull that off even with Patrick’s and my help.”
“If we have to postpone, then that’s what we’ll do. Your health is more important to us,” Patrick pointed to the center of his chest and then at Sam, his brother. “Who cares about some old party when it comes to you?”
“Old party? Patrick Michael O’Leary, you listen to me. We are having our party on Halloween, not some later date. I will be up and out of here by tomorrow. Doc Ryder said so. Gretchen, Megan, and the others told me they would help.” She grabbed Patrick by the hand. “Besides, I will not be the cause of disappointment for our neighbors. Everyone loves hearing your speech.”
&
nbsp; “Speech?” Jena asked. “At the party?”
“Yes, dear,” Ethel answered. “It’s a tradition. Every Halloween, Patrick gets up and tells the tale of how he met his first dragon when he was a prisoner of war in North Korea for seven months.”
Her mouth dropped. “Patrick, you were a POW?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have met my first dragon had I not been.”
Ethel reached up and lovingly touched his face. “And during Dragon Week in March, he actually gives lectures. Several of them.”
“And attendees get to hear about my brother’s treks to Scotland, Peru, Arkansas, and elsewhere—each having their own reported dragon sightings.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I still can’t believe him. If it wasn’t a hallucination, then what could it be? Nothing physical, that’s for sure. Something that big would’ve made a noise or at least have been seen by more than just a few people.”
“Lots of people have seen the Loch Ness Monster, which we all know is actually a sea dragon. You are such a skeptic, Sam. I saw it. I wasn’t on drugs. I was in my right mind.”
Jena couldn’t help but giggle. It was clear these two had been arguing about this for decades, with neither one conceding a single inch to the other.
“No more, I tell you,” Ethel said with a smile. “We have guests. Jena, how is Kimmie doing?”
“She’s great.” She turned to Sam, who was a semi-retired psychologist. “Thank you for setting up those sessions with her and my mom.”
“And you,” he said. “What you went through in Albuquerque was awful. What happened at the sheriff’s office only compounded more issues we should go through.”
“Stop pedaling your mumbo-jumbo to Jena,” Patrick teased. “There’s plenty of time for that.”
The bond between the O’Leary brothers was firm and clearly unbreakable. After more than eighty years, that was saying something.
Being an only child had been difficult in some ways for Jena. She wanted Kimmie to have siblings. She turned to Matt and Sean, knowing they would love to have more kids, too. Life was good.
“I do want to come see you, Sam. I think it will be good for Kimmie and my mom, too.”
“Word on the street is your mom and Gary Ryder have a budding romance going,” Ethel said.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Matt said.
Jena grinned. “They are never apart, if that’s any indication.”