Hand-Me-Down Love Read Online Free

get something to eat,” Sean said as Marla got up to leave. “I
know you’ll be here all night, so you need to eat.”
    “ Okay,”
Marla said. “We’ll go get something for you later when she’s in
the room. I know you don’t want to leave her.”
    Sean looked at
Marla gratefully. “Thanks,” he said before turning his gaze back
to Meredith.
    When Marla went
back into the waiting room, she suggested to her parents that they go
to the hospital cafeteria for something to eat. In the elevator, Bob
said he thought Meredith looked pretty good considering what she’d
been through. Cynthia and Marla agreed.
    They went
through the cafeteria line getting hamburgers and potato salad and
sat at a table near windows overlooking the back of the hospital. The
hamburgers could have been dog food for all they cared, but they ate
them because they needed nourishment. The three sat eating without
talking for a while.
    “ I remember
when my mother was in here,” Cynthia said. “This is where she
died.”
    Marla and Bob
looked at her. “She was old,” Bob said. Cynthia just nodded.
After they finished the hamburgers, they went back up the elevator to
the waiting area. Cynthia walked over to the nurse’s station and
asked about Meredith. “She’s doing good,” the nurse said.
“They’re about to move her to a room.”
    A little while
later, Sean came out of recovery and said they were moving her to
room 514 and they could go on ahead and wait for her. Everyone walked
together to Meredith’s room, where she would be for several days.
Sean moved around nervously until Cynthia took his hand and sat him
down in a chair. The plastic covered chair that leaned back into a
pretend bed would be Sean’s bed that night. Finally, Meredith was
rolled into the room and lifted from the rolling bed to the hospital
bed. She was very groggy and not really able to communicate with
anyone.
    “ She’s
going to sleep the rest of the day,” the nurse said. “She’s
fine,” she added reassuringly. “This is perfectly normal. She’ll
be more herself tomorrow.”
    Marla went back
to the cafeteria and got Sean a cheeseburger and fries and a large
soft drink. He was starving and gulped the food down. When he was
finished, he said, “I know you all probably want to stay all night,
but I think you should get some rest. I’m going to be here with her
all night and I’ll call you if I need to. There’s just no place
for you to sleep here and it’s damn uncomfortable. I think Merrie
would want you to have a good night’s rest.”
    “ I think
we’ll get a room at the hotel across the street so we can be
nearby,” Bob said. “Call us if anything at all happens, including
if she wakes up and starts talking. I don’t care what time it is.”
    Marla was
grateful to her father for making that decision. Her mother was
exhausted, and her father knew as well as Marla that she needed some
rest in a comfortable bed. They kissed Meredith, then Sean, and left.

Chapter
Four

    Four days later,
Meredith went home. Her oncologist had visited her the day following
her surgery. He told her that they had not been able to remove the
entire tumor because of its location. Meredith would start a regime
of chemotherapy and radiation treatment when she had recovered fully
from the invasive surgery. Sean took a leave of absence from the bank
for two weeks.
    On the day
Meredith returned home, Marla had a talk with Jada.
    “ Thank you,”
she told Jada. “For taking care of things while I’ve been at the
hospital so much.”
    “ Of course,”
Jada said. She was a sweet-tempered young woman who had been working
at Bay Point Antiques almost since Marla took over the shop. She had
come to the grand opening under new ownership and asked Marla about a
job. Jada knew a lot about antiques from her grandmother, who had
raised her, and she had refinished a lot of pieces herself.
    “ Meredith is
going to be going through chemo and radiation therapy and I want to
help