Dearly Departing by Geoff North (book reader for pc txt) 📕

of their own, and they knew how kids behaved. They were capable of inexplicable actions when stressed. Fear could lead to bad decisions, and even worse secrets.

Dawn enjoyed the days with her uncles and aunts. She even dropped in on a few of her cousins still living in the area. Ray kept to himself for most of the visit, never straying far from David’s home in the hills overlooking Kelowna. A few days before they planned to drive home, his oldest brother reminded him he had one more visit to make. An important one.

Ray parked the car in the visitor’s section and stepped out. He walked slowly towards the hospital, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. This was where he’d tried to get to almost two weeks earlier from the Dominican Republic. Ray never expected to return home alive after saying goodbye to his mother.

Plans change.

He looked up into the early evening sky and saw a jumbo jet directly overhead. The rumble reached his ears a few moments later. He tracked its passage into the setting sun.

Ray had never been inside the hospital before, but he didn’t need to ask for directions. His brother had already told him Mom had passed away on the third floor. He rode the elevator up and stepped out to the right, towards the nurse’s station.

He introduced himself to the woman seated behind a computer. “I’m Ray Wallace, here to see Nurse Reynolds. I was told she’d be expecting me?”

“Of course, Mr. Wallace.” She turned her head and called out. “Abigail, there’s a handsome gentleman here to see you.”

Ray chuckled and blushed a little. “You’re an awful lair but thank you.”

A pretty, red-headed woman in uniform not much younger than Ray stepped out from the back. “Hello, Raymond.”

“Nurse Abigail Reynolds… Abby.” It was only the second time they’d ever spoken to each other. Their first brief conversation had occurred thirty-seven years earlier. “When my brother told me the name of the nurse that had sat with my mother in the end… well, I knew the odds were great, but somehow, somewhere deep inside I had a feeling it was you.”

She came around the corner of the station. “Would you like to see where she stayed?”

“That isn’t a problem?”

“It’s been slow lately, the room’s empty.”

He followed her down to the end of the hallway and into the last room on the left. There were four beds inside. The sun had finished setting outside, casting a brilliant display of red and orange outside the window. “Which one was Mom’s?”

“Here.” She went to a bed on the right, the one closest to the window. “Best view in the entire hospital.”

Ray sat on the edge of the bed and rested a hand on the cool blanket. “It sure is.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“Your mom was at peace, Raymond. She wasn’t afraid.”

He didn’t like when people called him that, but from Abby it was alright. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous, that I shouldn’t assume any kind of…” he paused, searching for the right words. “Any kind of importance in how the universe works.” He stalled a second time.

“Is it more than just coincidence that I was the one with your mother when she passed away?”

“I guess that’s what I’m trying to ask.”

“Well I can tell you coincidence certainly played a part. I had no idea who your mother was the day she came to us.” She smiled at him. “And I haven’t been keeping tabs on you all these years, waiting for my chance to come and do something nice for you.”

“So how…”

Nurse Reynolds shrugged and leaned against the window sill. “My parents left Rokerton in 1986. My dad tried farming again outside Red Deer, Alberta. We ended up in BC in the early nineties. I graduated from nursing school in ’94, got married in ’96, and settled in Kelowna a year after that.”

Ray glanced at her left hand. “You’re still married?”

“Hell, no. He cheated on me with my best friend on New Year’s Eve in ’99.”

“Not a great way to bring in the new millennium.” He showed her his ring finger. “Same thing happened to me six years ago.”

“Kids?”

“One daughter.”

Abby nodded. “That’s nice. I never had any. Threw myself into caring for others instead.”

“And you’ve done a wonderful job of it, according to my brother.”

“It’s because of what you did that I went into nursing. I guess that’s where coincidence ends, and fate takes over. You saved me that summer. I was here with your mother when she passed away because of you.”

Ray got up from the bed and stood next to her at the window. He stared at the colors already beginning to fade. A few dark bands of the jet’s stream were still dissipating. “I was going to take my own life when all of this was settled. I’ve been miserable for years.”

“And now?”

“And now I want to live.” He looked into her eyes. “Did you ever tell anyone what happened on the rocks?”

“Not a soul, not ever.”

He shoved his hands back into his pockets and started for the door. He stopped half way and turned back. “Secrets that big aren’t good to keep to yourself. Would you like to talk about it over coffee some time?”

Abby looked at her watch. “My shift ends in fifteen minutes.”

Ray’s heart lifted. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

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Books by Geoff North

Live Again (Out of Time 1)

Last Contact (Out of Time 2)

Lost Playground (Out of Time 3)

Ambition (Long Haul 1)

Retribution (Long Haul 2)

Annihilation (Long Haul 3)

Thaw (CRYERS 1)

Burn (CRYERS 2)

Twisted Tales (Volume