TWENTY-SIX
Libby and Madeline pulled up behind a sports car in front of a little green house on Elm Street where the Kendricks now lived. Madeline was surprised by how tiny the house was. Lights were blazing in every window, and she could see the forms of people moving around inside.
“How well do you know the Kendricks?” Madeline asked as Libby pulled down her visor and applied lipstick.
“Not that well. I was in the same grade as Leo, so I’ve seen them around.”
Libby opened the driver’s door and stepped out. Madeline juggled the flowers she’d brought, and climbed out a little less gracefully. She stood at the car a moment, looking at the green house. She thought of the stately ranch house high above town compared to this one. She knew how it felt to leave a comfortable home and move into something that was much less so. She was struck by a strong pang of guilt that the Kendricks had suffered it, too.
Libby had already walked through the gate and past the empty doghouse; Madeline hurried to catch up. She could hear laughter from inside, and her old nemesis, her fear of what people would think of her, began to get the best of her. Her stomach was in knots by the time she reached the porch.
Libby apparently had no such fears; she stepped up to the door and rapped loudly. A moment later, the door swung open. A woman with a short bob of gray hair and a barrel chest smiled out at them. “Well, Libby, I recognize you,” she said. “You still have that beautifully curly hair.”
“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Compton,” Libby said politely.
The woman looked past Libby to Madeline. “And you must be Madeline. I’m the boys’ Aunt Patti. You girls can call me Patti,” she said, pushing open the screen door. “Now come on in.”
Libby went through without hesitation. Madeline held out her handmade bouquet to Patti Compton. “I, ah… I picked these from Mrs. Kendrick’s garden.”
Patti gasped and put a pudgy hand over her heart. “Well,” she said, “isn’t that sweet? Oh Lord, but Cathy had the greenest thumb. She would have loved these.” She smiled brightly at Madeline. “I’m Cathy’s sister. So, thank you, hon,” she said, and took the flowers from Madeline as she pushed the screen door open wider. When Madeline didn’t move, she put her hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be shy. You have to jump in with both feet when the Kendricks are together or risk getting run over. Especially if someone rings the dinner bell.”
Madeline hesitantly stepped across the threshold, standing just inside the door. There were so many people crammed into the tiny living room that she felt claustrophobic. Libby had already made her way through the room—Madeline could see her leaning up against the doorjamb, talking to someone in the next room.
“Now that’s my husband, Greg,” Patti said, pointing to a man with a very large belly. “And that’s my brother-in-law Bob—he’s the one who owned the ranch, you know. Of course you know Luke.”
Madeline had never been so grateful to see anyone in her life. Luke smiled, and she instantly felt lighter. He looked sexy in a gray button-up shirt tucked into black jeans. The shirt matched his eyes exactly. “Hi, Madeline,” he said, as if they had only just met. “You look great.”
“Thank you.” A blush of pleasure was rising in her cheeks, and her smile broadened.
“Ex-cuse me!” a man bellowed behind Luke. “What am I, a piece of the furniture?”
Luke smiled. “Madeline, I’d like you to meet my brother, Leo,” he said, and stepped aside.
Madeline froze. She hoped her face did not betray the utter shock she felt in seeing Leo, his body twisted unnaturally, his head cocked at a strange angle. Luke had said he had a muscular disease, which she’d interpreted to mean something like muscular dystrophy—nothing like this.
She realized she was staring. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Hi, Leo.”
“Not to worry,” Leo said cheerfully. “You’re not the first to be caught off guard by my studly good looks. Wow. You really do have blue eyes.”
A woman stood up from the couch. She said something in Spanish to Leo that made him grin crookedly. “Hello, Madeline,” she said in an accented voice. “I am Marisol Fuentes. I am the zookeeper.”
“Marisol helps us keep up with Leo,” Luke said beside her. “You met my aunt and uncle, and you’ve met my dad,” he said.
Madeline said hello to them, exchanging small pleasantries.
“And you know Jackson.”
Jackson was sitting in the corner, looking dapper in his skinny jeans and leather jacket. He smiled, tilted his beer bottle at her. “Hey, Madeline!”
“Where’s Libby?” Leo called out. “Where’d she get away to? Hey Libby, sweetcakes, I’ve been dying to talk to you probably as much as you’ve been dying to talk to me!”
“Leo has illusions,” Luke said with a fond smile. “Want to give me a hand in the kitchen?”
“Sure.” Madeline followed him into the kitchen. It was even smaller than the living area, and Luke had to inch in between the fridge and the little kitchen bar to open the fridge. He pulled out two beers, popped the tops, and handed her one. A shout of laughter went up in the front room.
“I didn’t know,” Madeline said. “When you told me that Leo had a muscular disease, I had no idea—”
“Yeah,” Luke said, and looked down to rub his nape. “It’s motor neuron disease. He’s slowly turning into a vegetable.” He tipped the beer bottle back and took a long drink. “Never seems to be a good time to say, hey, by the way, my brother is in a chair. And besides that,” he leaned forward, glanced to the doorway. “We don’t do a lot of talking.” He stole a kiss from her.
Madeline jumped back. “Don’t,” she whispered, a tiny moment before Luke’s aunt and uncle came tromping through the kitchen and out the back door.
“You look fantastic,” he said, his gaze skirting over her. “Gorgeous.”
Madeline blushed again. “Thank you.”
Luke stepped away from her and opened the fridge. “We’re going to eat outside,” he said, and took a big bowl of salad from the fridge, kicked it closed, put the bowl on a tiny little breakfast bar and grabbed some tongs to toss it.
“How long has he been like that?” Madeline asked.
“Five or six years,” Luke said. “He was playing football for the Colorado School of Mines and started to notice that he couldn’t grip a ball with his left hand. It took about a year before they finally figured out what was going on, and then, things started happening pretty fast. He’s been in a chair for about three years now.”
Madeline could not imagine the devastation for Leo, for his family. The wasted potential was heartbreaking. “What will happen to him?”
She saw the hitch in Luke’s shoulders. He turned partially away from her to grab salt and pepper and said, “Eventually, he won’t be able to breathe or swallow. Nothing will work.”
He didn’t need to say more than that. Madeline could feel tears building in her. “Luke… I am so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said. He turned back to her, composed, but distant.
Madeline could not fathom it. She’d never endured anything so painful. And to think his mother’s cancer had come in the midst of it! How did one family find the strength to go on every day? How did Luke hold them together?
“May I do something to help?” she asked.
“No, you sit back and relax,” he said, and began to toss the salad.
Madeline didn’t know how she was supposed to sit back and relax. In the living room, she could hear Marisol’s lilting accent and Libby’s laugh. The back door suddenly banged open, and Patti came in. “Excuse me, hon,” she said, and squeezed her ample hips past Madeline into the kitchen, next to Luke. She bent over at the oven, bumping Luke aside, and brought out two pans of lasagna, stacking them on the stovetop.
She was peeling back the tin foil when Libby came in to the kitchen. “Want me to get the drinks?” she asked.
“That would be great,” Patti said. “Glasses are there.”
“There” was just above Madeline’s head, and she had no choice but to step back into the living room where Jackson and Leo were sitting together.
The two men abruptly stopped talking when they saw Madeline.
“Come in, Madeline,” Jackson said. He gestured to a chair on the other side of Leo. It was set slightly back; she wondered if she was supposed to pull it up and join the conversation.
She sat, looking at the back of Leo’s head, wondering how he’d found the strength to endure what he had. She turned her attention to the peeling wallpaper, and noticed a big framed collage of photos on the wall behind him. It was the only adornment in the room. They were various pictures of a happy family—a broad woman who looked like Patti, who Madeline assumed was Luke’s mother, Leo with a cane. Luke, Leo, his mother and father sitting on a picnic bench that she recognized from the west lawn at the ranch, laughing. Pictures of a happy family before their lives were decimated.
Jackson suddenly hopped up, interrupting Madeline’s thoughts. “I’m going to get another beer. Anything for you, Madeline?”
She glanced down at the beer she was holding. She’d taken one sip. “No, thank you.”
“I’ll be back,” he said, and walked out of the room, leaving her alone with Leo.
“Hey,” Leo said. “I can’t see you.” His chair suddenly lurched forward, then stopped and lurched backward, and again and again, until he had maneuvered it around to face her. He smiled crookedly at her. “You like football, right?”
“Ah… not really.”
“What, are you kidding? You have three professional teams in Florida! Dolphins, Buccaneers, Jaguars—you’ve gotta find one you like.”
“I never really got into football,” she said apologetically.
“Tragedy of the first order. Basketball? Baseball?” he asked hopefully.
Madeline shook her head. “Soccer.”
“Wow,” Leo said, wincing. “That is the one sport I could care less about. All that running around for a point?” He shook his head. “Okay, how about video games? I have a new game, ‘Hounds of Hell.’ It’s dope, man. You have to kills these giant dogs before they kill you. Come on, let’s play.”
“I don’t know how,” Madeline said quickly.
“You don’t have to know how,” he said. “You’re playing a guy with useless arms.” He grinned crookedly. “The controllers are over there.”
Madeline stood up and collected two controllers and placed one in his lap as he instructed. Leo did a quick little tutorial about how to work the controller as the game booted up. “Remember,” he said. “Kill the hounds. Ready?”
“I guess,” she said uncertainly.
The game started, and the hounds were released from their cages, galloping right at them. “Okay, fire! Fire!” Leo shouted. In a moment of panic, Madeline had to study her controller again, remembering which button was the Fire button. By the time she punched it, the hound had leaped at her.
“Oooh, you’re dead,” Leo said sympathetically, and somehow managed to fire and kill several of the beasts in the next minute. “I’ve never seen anyone die so fast,” he said, impressed. “You know what that means, right?”
“No, what?” Madeline asked.
“A guy with useless arms in a chair beat you.” He laughed gaily.
His laugh was infectious. Madeline grinned at him.
Leo moved his crippled hand from the controller. “So what do you like, Madeline? There has to be something you like.”
“Movies,” she said. “I like movies.”
“Now we’re cooking with grease! What kind? Sci-fi, thriller, dramedies, period films?”
“I lean more toward romantic comedies.”
“A fine genre and one that happens to be my favorite, too,” he said loudly. “Let me guess—you’re a Love Actually kind of girl.”
“Nope,” Madeline said, smiling. “More like a Knocked Up kind of girl.”
“Ack! That was going to be my second guess. Get this, Knocked Up is Luke’s favorite, too.”
Madeline must have looked as surprised as she felt because Leo said, “It’s a little known fact that Luke Kendrick loves a good looooove fest.” He waggled his brows at Madeline.
“You’re kidding me.”
“I would not kid about something as unmanly as that. He also cries at baby and puppy commercials, too. Loves the little buggers.”
Madeline laughed. “I don’t believe you. I don’t think he has time to watch movies.”
“Well maybe not in Denver. But when he comes here, we watch a lot of tearjerkers, believe me.”
“Does he come to Pine River a lot?” she asked.
“Probably a whole lot more than he wants to. I mean, it’s not hard to figure out that Luke is the Kendricks’ go-to guy.”
She nodded. “I can see that.”
“Yep. I’ll let you in on a family secret. Dad and I aren’t the most efficient team in the world. If it weren’t for Luke, we would have either killed each other by now or be living on the streets with our pet monkey. Luke’s always pulling our bacon out of the grease, you know? And the great news is, he’s a good sport about it. I mean, think about it—it took him about six years to finish his architecture degree because he had to keep dropping classes to come home and fix this or that problem. Yep, that’s my brother. He comes home to save the day, then he watches movies with me and plays ‘Hounds of Hell.’ And he’s way better at it than you.”
Madeline smiled. She liked Leo, very much. He had a great personality, and he was a straight shooter, which she appreciated. “He must be good if he’s better than me.”
Leo laughed. “I think I like you, Madeline from Orlando. And in case Luke hasn’t said it to you, he likes you, too.”
“Leo, Madeline, time for dinner!” Patti called, popping her head into the living room.
Luke squeezed around his aunt into the living room. “Okay, genius,” he said to Leo. “Time to strap on the feed bag.” He smiled at Madeline as he stepped up behind Leo’s chair. “He hasn’t told you any wild and unbelievable tales, has he?”
“Not a single one,” she said honestly.
“That’s because I haven’t even begun to talk,” Leo said as Luke took hold of his chair.
“He’s not kidding,” Luke said. “Consider yourself forewarned. We’ll meet you out back.” To Leo, he said, “No hot-rodding, buddy.”
Madeline watched him roll Leo out. She stood up and walked to the collage of pictures that hung on the wall. Yes, it was plain to see that Luke was the cog in this family wheel, trying to right his dad’s mistake, taking care of his brother. He was a good man, Madeline thought, and she felt a yearning unlike any she’d ever felt in her life—for that. For family. For a hero.