© Copyright 2007
by Elizabeth Delayne




“Are you still not talking to me?”

Haley Moore looked up from her computer and barely glanced at her long time best friend and partner in business.

“Nope.”

She turned back to her computer and resisted the urge to press her hand against her temples and the slight throb that came from lack of sleep and anger.

“Even so,” he said, stepping into her office. She could have told him to get out, but that took too much effort. He wouldn’t leave on his own, and it was his building as much as it was hers.

And the bank’s.

Besides, that would negate the premise of not talking to him in the first place.

“Well, just so you know,” he said, standing in front of her desk, “because you would find a way to make it my fault otherwise ... even though, I will point out that you’re not talking to me ...”

She shot him a look, then went back to her computer.

“My mother is having some tests run this morning. If they find anything, she’ll have surgery as soon as possible.”

Haley’s hands stilled. She looked up from her computer and met Jason’s gaze. He was worried, she could see it.

Her mouth had gone dry. What do you say when your closest friend, and his mother—whom you adore—were going through something so ... uncertain?

Jason worked his jaw then nodded. “Just thought you should know.”

He turned to walk out.

She pushed up from her desk. “Jason—“

He turned around. “Are you talking to me now?”

She might have accused him of making a joke if she hadn’t of seen the pain around his eyes. “Let’s just put a moratorium on the no talking. Temporarily.”

They sat and he told her. His mother had gone in for a routine exam as she prepared for an upcoming marathon.

The doctor had run some tests, questioned the results and had asked her to go for more. To get a second opinion.

Breast cancer.

They both said it. His mother was the healthiest person they knew. She still ran marathons, still kept up an active volunteer schedule.

“They obviously have caught it in the earliest stages. So that’s good.”

Haley nodded. She pictured Jason’s mother, the epitome of life and energy. Petite, surly brown hair that made her look younger than her close to fifty seven years.

And it was natural. Mostly. One couldn’t blame her from hiding the tell-tell wisp of grey that had shown up in the last year.

Jason took a deep breath and let it out. “Haley, what am I going to do?”

Haley wanted to walk over, sit at his side, and take his hand. She wanted to comfort, the way he had comforted her along the way.

The way they had always comforted each other.

“You’re going to be with her. You’re going to do what needs to be done. You can do that. You can be her support.”

“I can’t do it if you’re not by my side.”

“I’m by your side, Jason,” she said evenly. “But I’m still mad at you.”

“Then you’re still not talking to me.”

“Not yet.”

He nodded and stood. He took up far too much room in her office.

Took up far too much air.

It was hard to look at him, needing so much, when she had so little to give him.

It was his own fault, she reminded herself, as he walked out of her office. *

Haley stood in the hospital doorway and watched Jason standing by the bed with his mother. They’re interaction was naturally full of affection. It always had been. They had been a team since Haley could remember.

But she looked tired. And worried. And afraid.

It wasn’t something Haley was used to seeing in her. Linda Harrison had always seemed so strong.

Like a super hero who ... just knew. Her faith, her ability as a mother ... her will to do more than make do.

Linda looked over at her and smiled.

“Haley,” Millie said with the warmth of a dear friend. “I’m glad you were able to come.”

“I wouldn’t have stayed away,” she said as she walked into the room and took a place beside Jason.

Linda lifted a brow as she was never one to miss much. There was distance between them, Haley knew, and it spoke in greater volumes than the few inches she’d left between herself and Jason.

She looked to her son and Jason, being Jason, looked away—knowingly guilty under his mother’s gaze. Haley had no doubt Jason understood what was between them. He’d been the one to screw it all up—then clumsily try to pretend it didn’t matter.

Then ...

Then mess it all up all over again.

They’d tried the dating thing. Or at least she’d thought that’s what they were doing. Apparently it hadn’t worked.

And it just might have ruined everything.

“Jason, you have those errands to run,” Linda said, squeezing her son’s hand.

Linda watched her son go, even as she reached for Haley’s hand. Haley moved up and took Jason’s spot.

“Your hands are cold.”

Haley let out a laugh. It was either that or cry.

“They always get cold when you’re worried.”

Haley pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. She held Linda’s hand against her cheek and sighed.

“What’s wrong between you and my Jason?”

Haley tried for a smile and pressed a kiss to Linda’s hand. “We’re just worried about you.”

Linda laughed, the weariness and fear in her eyes temporarily displaced with love. “Honey, you two have been at ends enough over the last ten years, I can tell.”

“I suppose we are.”

“But it’s serious this time.”

Haley sighed, then shrugged helplessly. How had she thought she could hide it from Jason’s mother. They hadn’t told his mother they’d tried to be more than friends.

They hadn’t really even told themselves until ...

“You know Jason.”

“I do,” Linda said. “And I know how much you love him.”

“It’s a moot point at the moment.”

“Love’s never a moot point. It’s the most important point of all. Whatever’s at the root of the problem, just remember that sometimes God takes his time to unscrew the valve.”

Haley nodded, but Linda was a mother ... and she was entitled to hope in her child.

Haley’s own hope was failing.

They talked until Linda fell asleep, and for a long time after Haley just sat and watched her.

Watched Linda sleep.

And thought of her son.

I don’t know how much longer I can be alone.



Jason was sitting in the waiting room when she finally ventured out to find him. He looked tired, his normally confident demenor seeminly weary.

How could she not have gone into business with him? He and his mother had this confidence, this strength, that seemed to say they could take on the world. They could handle ... everything.

He looked up at her, his gaze as open and broken. He was breaking.

And it broke her heart.

“You could have come in,” she said, knowing he wanted the moments with his mother.

He laughed shortly. “Not with you two talking about me.”

“She was sleeping.”

He only nodded.

Haley sighed and sat at his side. She leaned her head against his shoulder as she’d done a thousand times before and looked across the room where Linda’s friends sat talking—and watching them.

“I’m too tired to be mad at you anymore.”

“Than I can apologize now?” he asked, taking her hand.

Haley just kept her head on his shoulder and spoke wearily. “You don’t want to apologize.”

“For hurting you?” Jason asked. “For confusing you. For making you angry with me.”

It wasn’t a question. He knew what he’d done.

Haley closed her eyes, feeling her stomach clench as she remembered. It was better, she thought, then the headache that had followed her around for the last two days.

“It’s not time to talk about this.”

“She’s my mother, and I disagree.” Jason stood and pulled on her hand. “Walk with me.”

Haley sighed and let him pull her up. Reluctantly.

It was either that or let Linda’s friends be an audience to Haley and Jason’s latest domestic squabble. Of course, it would be less of an audience then the last, when he’d shown up in the middle of a restaurant to interrupt her date.

They walked down the hospital corridor toward the elevators, then Jason hit the button up.

Haley let him go where he wanted. She didn’t question him when he pulled her onto the elevator and pushed the button as if he knew where he was going.

She trusted him with her physical well-being. With her safety. With their finances and his decisions. She knew him, and in knowing him, accepting him. She just knew she had to stop ... wishing for him to be something he wasn’t.

Hers.

But how do you tell that to the man in question? For the second time.

Her vow of silence had been more about giving herself space from him then him from her.

She let him pull her along as she let her mind wonder; to college and their endless laughs. To the planning for their business to the day they opened the doors, penned their first checks.

“We’re going to be a success,” she’d proclaimed.

And he’d laughed.

“We have to. My mother will kill me if I’ve gone this far into debt and don’t.”

The celebration the day the books had moved from red to black.

Thanksgivings, Christmases, Christmas Eves, New Years and Easters with his mother.

They’d both dated. It had only gotten complicated recently. At least enough for their seemingly easy friendship to suddenly seem stressed and fractured. Forced at times.

Snipping at each other during meetings so the rest of their staff knew their business.

So they’d tried something new ... had taken a step in that direction.

At least, she’d thought that they had.

Suddenly she realized they’d stopped. In front of her was the long clear window. Behind it were babies lined up in their tiny protective cribs.

“You brought me to look at the babies.”

“I brought you to talk to you,” he said through his teeth, as if he had any reason what so ever for his patience to be stretched.

“Problem?” she asked, looking at him.

“No,” he said shortly, then stepped back and released her to run his fingers roughly through his hair.

He looked tired, she thought. Even in their worst of times had he ever bothered to look more tired, or more frazzled then her.

Or at least more than she felt.

But he had cause.

“Yes,” he said at last and turned to glare at her. “Where else do you bring someone in a hospital when you want to talk to them? It’s all so ... sterile. Medical. Creepy. You wouldn’t talk to me when we could have done so in a normal environment.”

“Jason—“

”Mama sent me up here earlier. She’s in the hospital ready to have a mastectomy ... and she sends me up here to check on one of the women in her bible study who just had a baby.” He let out a breath. “I had to go make the appropriate noises when I can’t even tell the difference. I had no idea what to say. That seems to be a problem recently.”

He stared into the window and scowled at the babies.

Haley would have laughed, but it didn’t seem to be the time. He wouldn’t appreciate it.

And she was still mad at him.

“I can’t loose my mom, Haley.”

She put a hand to his arm, but he only stepped back, unable to stand still. “I know.”

“I know you know. And I know ... and I know its not easy for you to be here. And you shouldn’t be here because of your own mother and grandmother and countless others you’ve dealt with. I’ve ... I know I’ve messed up.”

“Jason, it’s not time to have this out.”

“You’re angry with me.”

“Yes I am.”

“I’m sorry I messed up your date the other night.” He frowned. “Sort of. I’m sorry for the way I messed up the other night. I wish I could say it won’t happen again.”

“Jason—we can talk about this later.”

“I’m tired of not talking about it.”

“That’s always been your fault.”

“I know. I never wanted ...”

“Exactly—“

”And that’s why you’re mad at me.”

“Jason, you’ve done your best to mess up every relationship I’ve tried to have over the last two years. I meet a nice guy, you come between us ... then you finally ... finally tell me that you’re interested this time but I’m not the one you ever thought you’d be interested in. Then ...”

“Okay—“ he held up his hands. “And that’s not what I meant. And you broke up with me.”

“I broke up with you?” she asked and slapped a hand against his chest when he tried to step closer. “You told me we weren’t dating.”

“I didn’t like the word.”

“You didn’t like the word?”

“You have red in your eyes—you know how cute that is?”

When she narrowed her eyes at him, he sighed. “How can things between us be so causal as dating? We’ve known each other forever.”

He ran his fingers through his hair again. “Then you decide to go out with someone else. Again.”

“You said we weren’t dating.” She reminded him again. “Then you interrupt an actual nice date I am having with someone, who didn’t deserve it, in a public place and embarrass us both.”

“That wasn’t the intent.”

“What was?”

He opened his mouth to answer then stopped, letting out a breath. He turned, looked back at the rows of babies.

“How am I supposed to know what I’m feeling? It’s like,” he waved his hands, “all of this that I’m feeling has just been held in to long, but I didn’t know it was. And now the pipes busted and its all ... surging out.”

Just remember that sometimes God takes his time to unscrew the valve ...

“What did you say?” she asked. No timely unscrewing for Jason. The man was so hard-headed God probably used a spiritual sledge hammer.

All those years, all of those times she’d locked away her own feelings ... saddened that they were all for waste. That she was wasting away.

Now Jason just ...spouted.

And glared at her as if it were all her fault.

“I can’t define what I feel for you. Dating’s what you do when you’re getting to know someone. I know you. We don’t even bother to keep secrets from each other anymore.”

She stared at him. “Then what were we doing?”

“Going somewhere with what we felt.”

Haley looked away. For once, there was nothing in her brain. No thoughts, no actions. Just ... his words.

Going somewhere...

“When I said you weren’t the who I’d ever thought I’d fall for ... it wasn’t that I was at all upset that I was falling for you. I just ... it all took me by surprise. You’re so perfect for me. You know me. My mom loves you.” He reached for her, pressed his lips to her hair. “Right here under my nose for ten years. Everything I ever thought I wanted.”

“Okay ...” she said, feeling tears prick her eyes as she held up her hands in defense, “you’re not allowed to say something like that. Not today.”

“I should have said it years ago. I just ... it didn’t occur to me.”

She let out a laugh and blinked back the tears. “Oh, Jason. What am I going to do with you?”

It was an echo of what his mother would say; had said, countless times.

He laughed and turned her so that she was looking at the babies and he was behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and kneaded them gently, in a move so natural and familiar, just about everything seemed to settle in her world.

“So, are you speaking to me now?”

Haley laughed and leaned her head back against him so that her cheek rested against his cheek. “You’re hopeless.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but I think we just established there is a little hope for me yet.”





A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate ... there is a time for everything.

Be patient, my child, and you shall hear,
the voice of God
in the midst of the wait.



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