First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

She stumbled a bit as she thought this, and a Secret Service agent immediately took her arm.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. Thank you.”

She marched on, going into full-scale First Lady mode.

But one terrible thought pierced this usually rock-solid armor like it was paper.

Is the past finally catching up?

CHAPTER 40

QUARRY DROVE. Gabriel was in the middle, and Daryl on the other side of him. The truck rocked, pitched, and rolled until it reached the firmness of asphalt. They’d spent pretty much all day in the fields and were bone-tired. But this visit was not an option. They’d headed out right after dinner.

Gabriel looked out the window and said, “Mr. Sam, I think you were right about old Kurt. He moved on. Not hide nor hair of him.”

Daryl glanced at his father but said nothing.

Quarry said nothing either, just kept one hand on the wheel and stared dead ahead, the smoke curling off the end of his Winston. They pulled into the parking lot of the nursing home. As they climbed out Quarry snatched a cassette recorder off the dashboard, crushed his smoke out on the pavement, and they all headed in.

As they moved down the hall, Quarry said, “Been a long time since you visited your sister, Daryl.”

Daryl made a face. “Don’t like seeing her like that. Don’t want to remember her that way, Daddy.”

“She didn’t have any choice about it.”

“I know that.”

“She might look different on the outside, but your sister is still in there.”

He pushed open the door and they walked inside.

The nurses had turned Tippi on her right side, so Quarry slid chairs over that way. He slipped the Jane Austen book out of his pocket and handed it to Daryl.

“I ain’t no good at reading,” Daryl said. “Especially that old stuff, Daddy.”

“Give it a whirl. I’m not handing out prizes for performance.”

Daryl sighed, took the book, sat down, and started reading. His delivery was halting and slow, but he was doing his best. When he made it through four pages, Quarry thanked him and then handed the book to Gabriel.

The little boy was clearly the superior reader and he whipped through an entire chapter, getting into the personalities of the characters and changing his voice to accommodate them. When he was done Quarry said, “Didn’t sound like you were too bored that time, little man.”

Gabriel looked sheepish. “I read the book back at Atlee. Figured if you and Miss Tippi liked it so much I needed to give it another go.”

“And your verdict?” Quarry asked, a smile playing across his lips.

“Better than I thought it would be. But I still can’t say it’s my favorite.”

“Good enough.”

Quarry set the cassette recorder on the nightstand next to the bed and turned it on. He picked up Tippi’s hand and held it tightly as the voice of Cameron Quarry, Sam’s dead wife and Tippi’s mother, engulfed the room. She was talking directly to her daughter, expressing words of love and encouragement and hope and all the things she was feeling in her heart.

Her voice grew weak toward the end because these had been Cameron Quarry’s dying words. At her insistence Sam had recorded his wife at the end of her life, as she lay in bed at Atlee slowly passing on.

The last words were, “I love you, Tippi, darling. Momma loves you with all my heart. I can’t wait to hold you again, baby girl. When we’re both healthy and fine in the arms of Jesus.”

Quarry mouthed these last words his wife had spoken, ending exactly when she did. He cut the recorder off. As soon as the name Jesus had passed across her lips Cameron Quarry had taken her last breath and just died. For a God-loving woman, Quarry felt, it was a dignified way to head on. He’d closed her eyes and put her hands across her chest, much like he’d done with his own mother.