Summer on Lovers' Island by Donna Alward Page A

uncomfortable. For a while tonight they’d both forgotten that he was her boss. The whole situation seemed so strange, so foreign. So very far away from what her life had become.
    He waited until she got inside before backing out of her driveway and heading back to town.

 
    C HAPTER 7
    The hallway was cool and clean and Lizzie knew she should feel comfortable in this, a medical setting. But she didn’t. The facility her mom now called home wasn’t like a regular hospital. Sure, there were doctors and nursing staff, and Lizzie would meet with them after and discuss dosages and progress and all the other factual elements of her mother’s illness.
    But the truth was, Lizzie’s mom lived here. She lived in a room and had her meals provided and her needs catered to. As a doctor, Lizzie knew this had been the right decision for her mom’s day-to-day care.
    As a daughter, she felt guilty as hell.
    Lizzie paused outside the doorway, then poked her head around the corner. She never really knew if she’d find her mother at home in her room or a stranger who didn’t recognize her. Today Rosemary was sitting in a chair by the window, staring outside while a skein of yarn and a crochet needle sat abandoned on her lap.
    â€œHello!” Lizzie called lightly, stepping to the doorway.
    Rosemary Howard turned her head and a smile lit her face. “Elizabeth. Hello, dear.”
    Relief rushed through Lizzie. Her mom’s eyes seemed clear and sharp, her smile genuine and not confused. “Hi, Mom.” Lizzie held up a little vase. “I brought you some lilacs.”
    â€œOh, they’re beautiful. Let me smell.” Rosemary was only sixty-five, but when she got up Lizzie could tell her hips and knees were stiff. Lizzie held out the vase and watched with bittersweet pleasure as her mom took the flowers and buried her nose in the fragrant blossoms. “I love lilacs. Where did you get them?”
    Rosemary put them on her windowsill and Lizzie put down her purse. “Actually, I snipped them from the bush at the cottage where I’m staying. It’s the last of them, I’m afraid. Next time I’ll bring some roses from the bushes there.”
    â€œLizzie, are you gardening?” Her mom’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, and they both moved to the seating area provided in the room, a little cozy spot with a television, a small bookshelf, and a side table that currently held a few puzzle books Lizzie kept bringing to help keep her mom’s mind sharp. Sudoku was her favorite.
    â€œOnly a little,” Lizzie replied. “I’m working in Maine for a while.” She repeated the information, unsure if her mom remembered her mentioning it last time. “I’m renting a cute little cottage on the coast. You’d like it.”
    Her heart gave a little lurch. Her mom really would like it up there. She’d always liked the ocean and she’d always kept beautiful flower beds at their house. Perhaps that was what bothered Lizzie the most about her mom being here. So many of the things she’d enjoyed all her life were stripped away, one by one. It didn’t seem fair.
    â€œA cottage?” Rosemary frowned. “But you’ve always liked the city. You don’t want to be bothered by a yard and upkeep. Do you remember that plant I got you for an apartment-warming present?”
    Lizzie nodded, tears stinging her eyes. Oh, it was a good day. At least so far. “It was an African violet and I killed it within a month.”
    Rosemary nodded back and laughed a little, and Lizzie was so lonely for her mom that an ache spread through her chest.
    â€œSo,” she said, trying to keep things light. “I thought we could have a picnic for lunch. What do you think? I have a cooler in the car, and the nurses said we can eat in the garden at that little table overlooking the pond.”
    â€œYou cooked?”
    â€œOf course not.” Lizzie