Chapter 22

Letting Go

            Alan and J were sitting in the waiting room while Kate was getting her x-ray done when Caleb came running up to them, pulling a familiar hand (attached to an arm, then a body) behind him.  "Mom, Dad," he cried, "look who I found!"  It was Coach.

            Immediately, Alan and J stood.  Coach glanced, surprised, back and forth between the two of them.  "That was quick.  I thought Sheryl just went to call you."

            J exchanged confused looks with Alan just as Sheryl bustled into the room.  "They weren't home.  I left a message, but…" she trailed off upon noticing Alan and J.

            "What are you doing here?" all four adults asked at once.  They laughed, and J answered first.  "We're waiting for x-ray results.  Kate fell from that big tree in the back yard, and probably broke something."

            Coach winced, but smiled fondly.  "That's my granddaughter, not wasting any time.  She reminds me of you, J, at her age.  Why, I can think of the one time…"

            J cleared her throat nervously and changed the subject.  "Yes, well, let's not get into that right now…what are you guys doing here?"

            Before Coach could answer, Shay wandered back into the room, returning successfully (she had a bag of pretzels in hand) from her quest to find a vending machine.  "Hey Grandpa, Aunt Sheryl," she said, then addressed her parents.  "Is there some family reunion thing going on in the hospital?  'Cause I just saw Aunt Adrienne and Uncle Sunshine a second ago.  I mean, Kate's injury isn't THAT serious, is it?"

            The slightly amused grins faded from Sheryl and Coach's faces as everyone turned to them for an explanation.

***

            Adrienne and Sheryl's mother, Coach's former wife, had had a heart attack.   It was more than enough to bring her daughters to the hospital.  Coach went as well, for the feelings between them weren't very bitter, certainly not enough to keep him from at least being there to support his daughters.  After Kate was diagnosed and slapped with a cast, J took the kids home.  She wanted to stay, as Sheryl and Adrienne were her friends, but she and Alan did not expect their kids to sit around at a hospital for a women they barely knew of that wasn't really related to them.

            J convinced Alan to stay.  It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he also did not want to abandon J.  Once she assured him that he wasn't abandoning, J took her leave with the kids.  Alan stayed, mostly for moral support.  He did not know the woman in question by much more than name and word of mouth; he had only met her a few times when he as young.  Yet, Coach was his father, and Adrienne and Sheryl his sisters.  Perhaps he could help them cope with the feelings they were experiencing, as he had been through a somewhat similar situation with his own mother.

            Sheryl was dealing with everything better than Adrienne.  Having been much younger when their mother left them, most of her life had been spent without a mother.  For Adrienne, however the sense of losing this same person for a second time dealt a harder blow.  Although she drew wellsprings of comfort from her husband, in whom she of course confided everything, it was through Alan's  help that Adrienne best came to terms with all that had happened/was happening and what she was feeling.

***

            "Even though we still kept up a decent relationship," she told Alan later that night, "I never really talked to her about how I felt because of what she did.  Leaving us like that."

            "But didn't you have the choice to go and live with her?" Alan questioned gently.

            Adrienne shook her head no.  "There was never a choice.  Maybe there technically was, but neither Sheryl nor I ever considered it an option.  She was the one leaving him.  We couldn't desert him too."

            Alan nodded in understanding.  "I would have done the same thing too, if I had been living with you at the time."

            Adrienne inhaled and exhaled heftily, rubbing her face with her hands.   "What do I do now?  We don't have much time left…there's no denying it.  I feel so many things…anger, aggression, fear, sadness…"

            Alan fixed his gaze with hers, and told her the truth that he had come to find, not so easily, over the years.  "You let it all go.  It know it's hard, but you have to.  If you want to truly make peace with her now, before it's too late, you let it all go.  Look her in the eye and honestly tell her how the things she's done have made you feel, but then forgive her.  Then you will feel lighter than you have in a long time."

            Adrienne closed her eyes and placed her folded hands over her mouth.  She remained that way for awhile, thinking.  Finally, she opened her eyes and released a relieved breath.  "Thank you.  I will."

            Alan pulled her into a hug.  "Anything, sis."