She nodded, pleased that he had not launched into questions about her situation.
He went to the kitchen and she sank into an armchair.
Raina needed a little time to herself to gather her thoughts. She had taken the documents and bills and flicked through them. She could only imagine what was on Christopher’s mind.
Still, she would be honest with him. If there was anything she believed in, it was honesty. Without that she knew their relationship didn’t stand a chance.
She would make it clear that she expected nothing from him and that she could take care of her own problems. He returned minutes later, bearing two cups of coffee.
“How was your day?” he said with that gorgeous smile that turned her legs to jelly.
“It was fine, and yours?” Raina said tightly, thinking of Roger. No point in telling Christopher any of that at this point. When Pervy Rog eventually fired her, she could tell him then.…
“Good, I got a lot done after I came back here. Your door handles are all fixed as well, and I figured out what was shorting the outside lights.”
Raina smiled, feeling awash with gratitude.
“Thank you so much,” she said. She felt the tension about what was unsaid between them as she sipped on her coffee.
She hesitated, then sighed. No time like the present. “I see you now know my deepest secrets?” Raina tried to sound light and carefree, but her voice was a bit too strangled for that. She waved the papers in her hand.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. They were just lying there,” Christian explained though he did not look remorseful in the slightest. “Raina, how did you get yourself in such a mess? Medical bills over two hundred thousand dollars? Missed mortgage payments? What happened?”
Raina closed her eyes for a moment. This would be the moment that decided whether he stayed with her or not. This was the moment of truth.
Hesitantly, she began her story …
“It started when my sister, Mira and her husband Byron were killed in a car accident on the highway. It was a semi-truck and the investigators think he must have passed out after drinking too much. The truck swerved out of its lane and hit Mira and Bryce’s car head on. It veered into a wall and they were crushed against it by the truck. The driver died on the spot and so did Byron. Mira was rushed to hospital.” Raina said, her voice breaking.
She looked up at him, her wide brown eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “The kids don’t know the whole story—not about how awful it was. I saw the pictures of the wreck. They didn’t stand a chance against that truck.” She bit her lip, and then resumed speaking.
She was not aware of Christopher moving from his chair to hers. She only felt his hands on her cold ones.
“The police called me that morning with the news. They had tried just about every number. I drove to Arizona immediately to be with my sister and to pick the kids up from school,” Raina said in a wavering voice. She had never told anyone else the details of the accident.
“When I saw her in hospital, my heart broke into pieces. She was not the big sister I knew. She was covered in bandages, so that only her eyes were visible. She never opened them for the seven days that she was there and she didn’t say a word. The doctors said that she was brain dead and only the machines were keeping her alive.”
Raina could not explain the helplessness that she had felt during that time. The feeling of losing control. She could see Mira’s life ebbing away and even before the doctors told her about the life support machine, she knew it in her heart that Mira had left them. They had explained that as the next of kin, it was up to her to decide whether or not to have the machines switched off.
She had agonized over the decision day and night. Even if by some miracle, Mira regained consciousness, she would be a vegetable. Raina remembered her sister’s zest for life, her sense of adventure. She and Byron had been off on one of their impromptu excursions on the day of the accident.
That was just like Mira to drop everything to take a few hours to enjoy life. She could hear her laughter ringing loud as she convinced Byron to go along with her plan. Byron was the serious one but he had been perfect for Mira. They brought out the best in each one of them. It had been the hardest decision of her life, but after much prayer and agonizing heartache, Raina had decided to have the life machine switched off. It had been the right thing to do.
She had missed her sister every day since.
The children had kept her sane, but they had lost a mother and a father and their own grief was overwhelming. They had needed her to be strong for them.
“Mira and I had been so close, we spoke every day.” Raina said, and then her control left and she cried deep, bitter sobs.
Mira and Byron had been buried together in Arizona, where they had spent all their married life. Raina did not recall much of the funeral, only the girls hanging on to her waist and Jeremiah in her arms. The next few months had been spent trying to help the children move, adapt to a new home, a new school and a new life.
“Mira and Bryce’s insurance did not cover all the hospital bills, and because I inherited their ‘estate,’ such as it was, to care for the children, it meant that I had to inherit their debts too. What they had wasn’t close to being enough to cover their bills, but I couldn’t just let the house in Arizona that the kids had grown up in go. It was too painful for them—the only memories they had of their parents were there. So I kept it, and I’ve been renting it out for the time being—but with the recession a few years ago, the mortgage was so much more than what I could get for rent. And for my own mortgage, well—I’ve missed a few payments, which I intend to pay soon. I hope to have some money coming in shortly. It should be a nice little chunk of change.” Raina sniffed.
She had decided it was time to sell the Arizona house. It was too much for her to hold on to, and now the children had another home. It would be hard on them, but they were in a better position to handle it now. Selling the house wouldn’t pay off all the debts, but it would certainly make a good dent in them.
Christophe
r cradled her in his arms.