As abruptly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go. “Goodbye, Maggie.” He didn’t look back as he slid behind the steering wheel of the car.
The cold wind of separation whirled around her, chilling her to the bone. She missed the warmth of what they’d had already. Would her tormented heart ever recover?
* * *
Court had to get away. To think. To figure out how to make the red-hot coal of agony deep within him ease. To make sure he didn’t say something he would regret or, worse, didn’t mean. As he pulled away from the curb, he looked into the rearview mirror. Maggie, holding Neetie’s hand, stood watching him in the bright spring sunlight. His heart was back there with them. Pain burned in him. Sharp, and agonizingly bottomless. Maggie had left. She had taken Neetie with her. Court thought of them as family. His family. As far back as the day in the market when he’d stepped out to protect them, they had been his.
All of a sudden, Africa seemed like a lifetime away and life after Maggie even bleaker than Ghana in the dry season.
* * *
Court didn’t know who was more surprised he’d called—his parents or him. Now he stood in front of the navy painted door of his parents’ Federal-style home on Beacon Hill. Normally children didn’t wait to be invited into their childhood home but this house had never really felt like home.
Maggie and Neetie had been gone for four long weeks. Daily the harsh words Maggie had thrown at him played over in his head. He’d been running. He’d known it when he’d gone to Ghana, and he knew it now. Facing Roger had been the initial step toward putting his life in order but if he was going to find any contentment he needed answers from his parents. He had to know why. Maggie dishing out some tough love had made him realize how bitter he was about his childhood. And dish it out she had. No one had ever cared about him enough to call him on what he’d been doing with his life. Even the few people he’d name as friends wouldn’t have dared give a speech like the one she’d delivered.
For weeks her accusations had chafed, kept him awake at night, slipped in during his work day. Was she right? Did he need to let the past go so he could have a future?
Court was surprised when both his mother and father were there to greet him instead of their housekeeper. His father had always been a man with a commanding presence but a pleasant smile. He offered Court a hand in welcome. His mother looked the socialite she was, dressed in her designer slacks and sweater. She gave him peck on the cheek. He’s seen her do the same thing many times when greeting a foundation benefactor.
“This is an unexpected surprise. Is something wrong at the foundation?”
“No, Mother. The foundation is doing fine. This is about me.”
“Oh. Well, come in and tell us what’s on your mind.”
She led them to the formal living room. Court’s smile showed no humor. He was even treated like a guest in his parents’ home. It wasn’t comfortable to admit but that might not be totally their fault. He’d never come around enough to be considered much more than a visitor.
“What’s going on son?” his father asked as he settled into a winged-back chair.
His mother sat on the silk-covered loveseat, crossing her legs primly at the ankles while he sat in the matching chair to his father’s.
Court took a deep breath. He’d be opening the old wound that had never healed. Would it be better or worse from this confrontation? “I want to talk about Lyland.”
His mother gasped and looked down at her clasped hands. His father shifted in the chair.
“Why? That was so long ago,” his mother said as her back went stiff as she recovered from her shock. Her boardroom persona in place, business face on.
“I know how long ago it was.” Court couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “He was my brother. I want to know why you shut me out. Why we never spoke of Lyland again. Why you sent me away.”
Both his parents started speaking at the same time but his father held up a hand, silencing his wife. “Grace, let me talk.” He looked at Court. “We thought it was for the best. When you came home from school, we didn’t want you upset. We wanted you to have happy memories.”
Happy memories? The last happy memory he’d had in this house had been well before Lyland had died. His most vivid memories had all been about loneliness and the need to leave as soon as he arrived.
Grace cried softly. His father moved, taking her in his arms. “Your mother almost lost her mind after Lyland died. I finally talked her into working at the foundation to give her something to keep her sane.”
“What about me?” Those words sounded juvenile and self-centered, coming from a grown man, but they were honest ones from the child he had been whose world had come apart and no one had been there to support him.
His parents look stricken, as if he slapped them. “What do you mean? We saw to your needs.”
“You saw that I was fed and clothed. Sent me off to school, but I always felt like an outsider, still do. I loved Lyland too. For heaven’s sake, he was my twin brother. I felt like I was pushed away because it was too hard to look at me and not see him. As if you wished it had been me. I was the first born, I was fine. I believed that I’d caused Lyland to be like he was.”
His mother looked stricken. “Court, what made you think that?”
“Mother, I was a kid. How was I to know better? As an adult I can rationalize that it wasn’t true but all those feelings…” Court tapped his chest “…are still here.”
“Court, we love you as much as we loved Lyland. His problems had nothing to do with you. We wanted to protect you. We didn’t want you to hurt any more than you already were.”
“But I did hurt.”
“We know that now.” She glanced at his father. “We realized by the time you were in high school that we had gone too far. You no longer wanted to come home for holidays. By then you weren’t receptive to any of our effects to connect.” His mother started crying again. “As an adult you would rather be anywhere but here. We had lost both our boys.”
“You could have kept trying.”
“We did, in our own way. That’s why we insisted you be involved in the foundation. We know you believe in the work it does, so we did everything we could think of to keep you involved. That’s why we saw to it that the board voted you acting CEO when you took a leave of absence from your practice,” his father said. “We thought at least we’d see you regularly. Have some interaction.”
As if the shutters had been thrown open and sunlight had poured in, Court had a clearer vision of who his parents were. They loved him but their devastation over Lyland had hurt so badly that by the time they’d recovered enough to show him love, they’d lost him. Was the same thing happening between him and Maggie and Neetie? Was he repeating his parents’ mistakes?
“It was never our intention to hurt you. We love you, Court,” his mother said.
Court was starting to see that their strained relationship hadn’t been easy on his parents but it still didn’t erase all those years of hurt. He wouldn’t wait twenty-five years to be clearing the air with someone he cared about. He knew his place and that was with Maggie and Neetie. It became clear what he should do. He’d go to Ghana and prove to Maggie he was worthy of her.
His mother rose and came to place her hand over his. “Court, will you give us another chance to be a part of your life? We have missed you.”
He would be asking Maggie the same thing. Could he do anything less for his parents than he hoped to receive from Maggie? Court put his hand over hers. “We can try but there’ll still be distance between us. I’m going to Africa to live.”
* * *
A week later, Court idly tapped his pen on the large oak desk and looked out the office window at the dark clouds gathering over the harbor. The sky reminded him of the one in Ghana the day he’d driven like a madman to get Neetie back to the hospital. That simple thought brought Maggie to mind. His heart did a little tip-tap. It wouldn’t be long before he saw her again. Would
she have him?
Maggie let people know when she cared about them. Could he learn to be that open? With her at his side, he believed it was possible. All he had to do was convince her to take a chance on him. Maggie had given a hundred percent during their lovemaking but had always seemed to be waiting for him to offer a part of himself he hadn’t been prepared to give. He’d believed he had nothing emotionally to share but now he knew differently. He was through protecting his heart. It belonged to Maggie anyway. He’d have to trust her to care for it.
This was his last day as CEO of the Armstrong Foundation. He had resigned. It was time to start fighting for what he wanted in his life. He wanted Maggie and Neetie. He wanted them to be his family. He wanted Neetie to have a sense of belonging, to know he had acceptance and love. All the things Court hadn’t had as a child. He wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of his parents. He would support and care for them during the tough times, not push them away.
Once again the desire to practice medicine had become a burning need. He was eager to return to the hospital in Ghana. The work there had been rewarding. By working with the Mamprusi he would honor Lyland’s memory, help those that needed it most and use his influence to improve the hospital. It was time to stop wasting his skills and talent.
He and his parents still didn’t have the parent-and-son relationship that they should but they were working at it. It would take a long time to ease all the years of hurt and estrangement. He had learned from his parents’ mistakes. Instead of wishing for life to be different, he planned to actively work at making his different. He planned to concentrate on what he could build with Maggie and Neetie, instead of dwelling on what had been.
Court’s family lived in Ghana and he was going there to be with them. The cadence of the pen picked up. Would they welcome him home?
CHAPTER TEN
MAGGIE glanced at the plane circling to land. It would contain the next installment of doctors to the revolving door of medical staff that the hospital still experienced. She was grateful for the help but nothing had changed regarding assistance for the hospital.
She’d given up any hope of receiving any financial support from the Armstrong Foundation. She and Neetie had been home two months and the hospital had heard nothing about the resubmitted application. The hospital would have to carry on as it had for years and hope that eventually some supporter would understand the value of the work being done in Teligu.
They’d heard nothing from Court. Maggie didn’t expect she would but she still wished for some contact—every day. She shook her head, trying to clear it, which was almost impossible. The only time Court wasn’t in the forefront of her thoughts was when she was working. Because of those memories she’d volunteered for any extra shifts or chores that needed to be done. If she was exhausted, then she slept.