Missing pieces, p.1
Missing Pieces, page 1
Lillianna Ferguson has spent the last twenty years pretending her father is dead. She moved to Oregon—far away from her childhood home in Delaware—changed her name from Emma to Lillianna and vowed never to go back.
When her brother, Greg, phones, begging her to come home to care for their father who has been diagnosed with a dangerous, aortic aneurysm, she is adamant in her refusal. When did he ever take care of her?
But Greg is equally stubborn in his arguments that she return, as the surgeon at Johns Hopkins won’t repair the aneurysm without first amputating their father’s infected leg.
Calvin Miller, a disabled WWII veteran, survived a grenade that killed his best friend. It took off most of his right hand and left him with osteomyelitis in his leg, a bone-destroying infection, that refuses to heal. His surgeon believes his only chance for survival is amputation. The irony that his body is about to experience another explosion does not escape Lilianna.
Calvin, who has fought more than fifty years to save this leg, is adamant he will die the same way he lived—with both legs. Greg believes, if anyone can convince their father to have the amputation, it will be Lillianna.
Will she leave her safe life and reenter the minefield of her childhood?
MISSING PIECES
Susan Clayton-Goldner
Published by Tirgearr Publishing
Author Copyright 2019 Susan Clayton-Goldner
Cover Art: Evernight Designs (http://www.evernightdesigns.com)
Editor: Lucy Felthouse
Proofreader: Sharon Pickrel
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This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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DEDICATION
For my father, Walter Stephen Hamm
Because I promised I would.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A novel never makes it into a reader’s hands without help from others. I owe thanks to so many people who helped me along the way. To my husband, Andreas, and my children, David and Bonnie. To my beta readers, Diane Lynch, Debbie Jamieson, Clem Lukaszewski, Shirley Reynolds, and Randy Troyer. A special thanks to my early reviewers who read the book and posted their reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Your continued support means everything to me.
And, as always, I want to thank James N. Frey—my mentor and friend for two and half decades. He is always just an email away if I run into a wall and need advice or help with plot.
And last, but never least, my sincere gratitude to my editor Lucy Felthouse for her careful readings, Elle Rossi for her amazing covers, and Tirgearr Publishing, best small press in the world, for putting their faith in me.
MISSING PIECES
Susan Clayton-Goldner
Her father broke her heart,
Long before any boy had a chance to.
Chapter One
Williams, Oregon
Thursday, September 21, 1995
“You know he’s fought hard for more than fifty years to keep his leg.”
Lillianna Ferguson paced across the kitchen of her Oregon ranch house, stretching the coiled phone cord to its limits. But she couldn’t escape the slam of guilt her brother’s words brought. Their mother had told her about the way, against all the odds, her father had learned to walk again in the corridors of Valley Forge Military Hospital.
“Can’t you find someone else? A nurse or caregiver? Maybe the Veterans Administration can help.”
“Doctor Willingham claims he can’t fix the aneurysm without amputating. And the way it is now, Pop won’t agree to the surgery. With the size of that bubble, it’s just a matter of weeks before his aorta blows. The VA is paying his bills at Johns Hopkins. Come on, Em—”
“The name is Lillianna, Greg. It’s only been eighteen years since I changed it.” She sighed. Why couldn’t her brother or anyone in her extended family accept the fact she was no longer Emma Miller? That name was a constant reminder of everything she wanted to forget. “The VA has rehab facilities.”
“I checked out a couple, and they’re pretty depressing. Besides, they bring back things. Things he’d rather forget. You’re his daughter, and he hasn’t seen you for years.”
A dose of guilt she refused to swallow. “Since when does he care if he—?”
“For crying out loud. Let it go. He’s an old man, and he needs you. He… He…” Greg’s voice broke.
Lillianna swallowed. Greg, though three years older, had always been the soft-hearted one, the caretaker, the boy who’d tightened her roller skates with a key he kept on a string around his neck.
“He what? He needs me to take care of him? Is that what you’re saying? Well, when did he ever take care of me?” Despite her attempts at control, her voice cracked, and she gripped the phone receiver in her sweaty hand. She glanced at the clock on the microwave. Her husband, Steve, would be back from feeding the horses soon and dinner was almost ready. She didn’t want to be in the middle of an argument with her brother when her husband returned.
“Hell… he didn’t take care of me either,” Greg finally admitted. “But he’s our father. And he’s been through a hell of a lot. He’s not the man you remember. Pop stopped drinking after Mom died. I’ve tried to put the past behind me and be there for him in spite of…”
She dragged her left hand through her hair and clutched the phone a little tighter with her right. “And I haven’t? Is that what you’re saying? Don’t you ever get sick and tired of seeing his side? Don’t you want to stand up and tell the truth about him for once?” She bit the inside of her cheek. Tears stung her eyes. Her brother was right. She hadn’t been there for their father. But that didn’t mean she had to start now.
“No,” Greg answered softly, then sighed. “I’m not even sure I understand what the truth is anymore. And even if I did, it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re a saint, all right. I acknowledge it. Shall I Federal Express you a halo?” She laughed bitterly.
“Forget the halo. Just tell me you’ll come. Agree to help me out, if not him. He’ll be in the hospital for weeks. I can’t take that much time away from the business. It’s my busiest season. Besides, this may be your last chance.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel guilty?”
“It’s a fact. Somebody has to convince him to have the amputation. I tried. He won’t listen to me. Please, Sis, help him see there’s no choice. His doctor isn’t the one to do it.”
“He’s a stubborn old fool,” Lillianna said, her voice almost a hiss. “What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”
“Because he really wants to see you. Whenever I talk with you on the phone, he questions me. How is she doing? Does she sound happy? Did she say anything about coming back home? If anyone can convince him, it’s you. Come on. I’ll pick you up at the airport in Baltimore. There’s a hotel right next to the hospital. I’ll even pay the bill, for God’s sake. I’ll be there on weekends to give you a break. Please. It would mean a lot to him. And to me.”
“I have a life, too, you know. Ranching is hard work. And I’m not sure Steve can manage twenty-six horses on his own. Besides, even if I don’t go into an office every day, I’ve got deadlines to meet.”
“I’ve thought about that. You can bring your laptop. And I can hook you up with a printer if you need one. Don’t let your writing be an excuse not to see him. If you do…” He paused, and his voice grew faint. “I’m afraid you might regret it once he’s gone.”
After agreeing she’d think about it and get back with him in the morning, they said their goodbyes and hung up. Lillianna stared vacantly out the window at a gray squirrel as it sifted through the needles, bark, and pine cones under the conifers. A late September sun lingered over the trees and left a bright shadow on the ceiling.
There was something about autumn that roused her affection and sadness—the way the pastures turned golden and the apples along the drive dropped to the ground in fermenting mounds. She wanted to talk to Steve, but already knew what he’d say. He’d tell her to go, her father wouldn’t be around forever, and someday she’d be sorry. And maybe he’d be right.
Without any warning, young Emma floated up inside her until she was back in Mrs. Ward’s first-grade classroom on the early June day they’d invited dads to their Father’s Day play.
* * *
New Castle, Delaware
June 1953
“Coneflowers over here,” Mrs. Ward said.
Emma, barefoot and wearing green tights and a leotard with a big cardboard collar of pink petals around her neck, took her place in the garden. It was planted in front of the backdrop of blue sky with big cotton-ball clouds and a white picket fence. She felt both beautiful and
Outside the wall of windows, in the distance, a man staggered across the parking lot toward the classroom.
Emma fingered the horseshoe bracelet she’d worn for good luck and took a few steps forward. Please, God, don’t let it be him.
“Get back into line, Emma,” Mrs. Ward said.
But, focused on the man she now knew was her father, Emma ignored the teacher’s command. She glanced over the rows of smiling dads in the folding chairs she’d helped set up for them—their gazes locked on their children. She looked back at her father’s greasy coveralls and was keenly aware of how miserable and dark her life seemed. There were joy and freedom in the adoring glances of her classmates’ fathers. Emma’s life was a prison she couldn’t escape. And she longed for that other world—as far away from her own as the moon.
The brace on her father’s right leg was stiff and his gait, even when sober, remained that of a cripple. But today it was more than the stiffness of the brace. He lurched and nearly tripped over his untied shoelace.
Emma had often gauged how fast she needed to hide by the way her father walked. Today, he was very drunk. She didn’t want her teacher or her classmates and their dads to see him, stinking with alcohol—to witness the scene she knew would come.
Without a word, Emma raced through the classroom, weaving her way around the fathers and the desks Mrs. Ward had shoved to the back of the room. She ran through the fire escape, across the grassy area, and into the parking lot. The asphalt was so hot on her feet; it brought tears to her eyes, but she kept running until she reached her father. She grabbed his arm.
“My widdle fower girl. I’m here for your…your Father’s Day play, Em.” His words held much more than his usual pint of slur.
Hopping on the burning asphalt, she managed to turn him around and lead him back to his truck. “The play is over. It was really good, Daddy. I was a star.”
* * *
Thursday, September 21, 1995
Williams, Oregon
Then, just as suddenly, Lillianna was a middle-aged adult, sitting at her kitchen desk. She buried her head in her arms and wept into her sweatshirt sleeves. Wept for herself, and for all the brothers and sisters who could never be enough for each other—all the parents impossible to forgive.
Perhaps it was time for her to return. She was aware that Greg’s inexplicable loyalty to the old man made her life on this small horse ranch in southern Oregon possible.
Steve and Lillianna believed the ranch was a way for them to reconnect with themselves and each other—a way to own their days again and to live out their early dreams while they still could. At least that’s what they told themselves and their friends who thought them crazy to leave well-paying jobs to raise horses and write novels.
Maybe seeing her father again was part of that reconnect.
She hurried into the bedroom, opened the master closet and grabbed the small stepladder they kept there to reach the high shelving. After pulling the cardboard box from the top shelf, she searched through the contents. The girl who’d once been Emma had packed this box after her mother died. She’d carried it with her across the country to every new place she lived in the past eighteen years. But this was the first time she’d ever opened it. She rummaged through the report cards and letters, certificates from school science fairs, the sympathy cards she’d received after her mother died, and a school varsity letter she’d won for band.
Where was the red leather diary she’d kept throughout her childhood? It had to be there. When she finally found it, she slipped it beneath some books on her bedside table, then noticed a yellowed envelope tucked into the back of the diary. She pulled it out and found a copy of the application for GI Bill educational benefits her father had filled out in 1965, the year Emma graduated from high school. Because he was one hundred percent disabled, the VA would offer Emma, if she qualified, a college education. But until this moment, she hadn’t realized her father, not her mother, was the one who’d applied on her behalf. She stared at his wobbly handwriting, his childlike signature—the note he’d scribbled in the bottom margin. Please approve my daughter. Emma Ruth Miller is the smartest and best person I’ve ever known.
His words brought more tears. Despite years of physical rehabilitation, he’d never learned to write well with his left hand. But now she knew how hard he’d tried.
Lillianna tucked the envelope back into her diary, replaced the box on the closet shelf, and returned to the kitchen to finish dinner preparations. She felt an inexplicable unease, a sense something in the nature of things had quietly turned her in another direction, undermining her years of certitude about her father.
* * *
An hour later, after they’d eaten and she was loading the dishwasher, Steve perched on a kitchen bar stool with his evening brandy. “I’m the last one to give advice,” he said. “I understand how hard it would be for you to go back. I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you refused, but…”
She set a plate into the rack, then turned and looked at him. “But what?”
“You know all about my stormy relationship with my father. But, now that he’s dead, our battles seem pointless.” He took a sip of his brandy. “Look, I wish I could go back and find whatever was real between us—instead of hating him for everything that wasn’t.”
He paused, hunched forward a little and rested his elbow on the counter. Steve’s dark hair, still damp from his shower, curled over the collar of his denim shirt. “Being a parent is hard. We both know that. You make mistakes and hope your kids will forgive you. I’d give anything for the chance you have now.”
She glared at him. “It’s not the same, and you know it.” Her voice rose. “Your father wasn’t a drunk. He didn’t gamble away the grocery money, terrorize you and your mother, and beat you half senseless.” The muscles in her jaw quivered.
Steve waited until she met his gaze. “No. But he hurt me in other ways. Ways I once thought were unforgiveable, too. What I’m trying to tell you is this. After he’s dead, you may come to see things differently, the way I have. But there won’t be another chance to tell him.”
“I only want to tell him one thing, and that’s what he did to me and Greg and how it affected the rest of our lives.”
“Look,” Steve said. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of being on my own for weeks, but this is important. Sleep on it will you, love? Don’t be so hasty.
Obviously, Greg found a way to forgive him.
"You don’t have to make a decision tonight.”
Steve always saw things so clearly. And though he and her father only met a couple times, Lillianna knew he admired the man’s courage. The way she saw it, Steve dealt with whatever life put in front of him. She, on the other hand, tried to talk her way out, reason around the obstacles, and if neither of those techniques worked, she ran. But this time she was unable to talk, reason or run.
Was anyone ever finished with their past?
Steve slid off the bar stool and put his empty glass in the dishwasher. “I don’t mean to sound harsh, but if you ask me, Greg is right to expect some help from you. All the responsibility has been his, and that’s not fair. Like it or not, he’s your father, too. And maybe you should do your part.”
Lillianna paced some more, her arms crossed in front of her. For years she’d convinced herself Greg chose to be part of their father’s life because he wanted to be. She, on the other hand, had chosen to forget and live her life as far away as possible.
