Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Harman walked down the hall toward the room he had been requested to go to. Ms. Donahue had asked if he could come to see her, and he told her that it would be his pleasure. As he was backing out of the room, finding her sleeping in her bed, she turned and looked at him with a huge smile.

"I'm having a better day today. Come, come in. I would like to talk to you a spell." He came into the room and sat down in the room's only chair to do what she requested. "My granddaughters have been in to see me. I remember them sometimes only as they're leaving. It hurts my soul when I remember bits and pieces of the things that I said to them. Will you tell them I'm very sorry?"

"I can do that. Is that what you wanted to see me about? I don't mind coming to see you, Ms. Donahue. If you need me, have one of the nursing staff call me at home." She nodded, but Harman wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing. "Can I make things better for you in here? Anything you want so long as it's approved by the staff to—"

"You used to call me a pain in your backside. But you were forever kind to me. Still, to this day, I can't tell you how many times I thought of you. You become a bigger saint than the one that I had in my heart all those years ago." He laughed with her. "I remember the day of the dance like it was yesterday. You saved me so much in the way of humility that even my family doesn't know about."

Harman put his hand over her very frail one. Kissing the back of it, he knew that he couldn't save her, but he did give her a little bit of himself so that she'd be better the next time Carrie and Katie came to see her.

"All I did was be at the right place at the right time, that's all." She nodded, and he believed that she was doing what she said and making himself out to be a saintly man. "You were so beautiful back then. You still are, I think; however, aging has made you more so. And I've noticed too that you've not lost your ability to say what you mean either."

She laughed with him and closed her eyes. "It was like yesterday to me. There you were, all dressed up for the prom, and no one that was at your home to take you. I bet you still have the corsage, too, don't you?" She said that she'd pressed into her diary and that it was still there. "You gave me a wonderful time as well. Dancing around the floor while standing on my feet. Thankfully, no one had noticed.

"They would have been relentless to me had they known that the class bully didn't have the first clue about dancing with a handsome man. My goodness, you look just like I remembered you all those years ago." He told her it was clean living. "Yes, and I'm a monkey's uncle. But I still remember you growling low to that boy who asked if he could dance with me. You do know that he turned out to be my late husband? He was. And we had such wonderful years together after we married."

"I'm so happy that you found your one true love. I have, too, in one of your granddaughters, Katie." She said that Katie had told her. When she stretched out in her bed, he helped her fix her tangle of covers. "They give me one every time I tell them I'm cold, but don't take the old ones out. By the end of the day, my blanket collection weighs more than I do." It was then that she told him the reason that he'd been asked to come see her.

"I know that you're not human. I think I knew back then that you weren't. None of you Griffins are, I think." He told her what they were, and she smiled. "I was thinking bear, but that's near enough to something that gets all furry."

She closed her eyes, and he watched as her chest rose and fell to her breathing. It was getting slower all the time. Her heart was strong, too, but he'd bet his last nickel that she was going to pass on today or tomorrow. Looking at her, he could remember the beauty that he'd taken to prom the only time he'd ever gone in her face. The same violet eyes were not as lively, but there was a spark there. When Hope turned to look at him, this time, she had tears on her cheeks.

"I'm going to die. I had plans to live out the rest of my life in my home with my sister, but she didn't wait for me. Now I have to go it alone. Do you think she's looking down on me and wondering what is taking me so long?" Harman told her that not only did he believe in the afterlife, but he was looking forward to joining up with some of the friends he'd lost.

He didn't tell her that he couldn't die but didn't think that one small lie would get him into trouble. Harman smiled when he remembered the things that he'd helped her with to get her popular.

"Was it at all what you thought it would be? Being the belle of the ball and so on? I've often thought when I'd see you around town with your crew that you didn't like it any more than I would have." She laughed, then coughed. It was about time, and he knew it. He decided to tell Hope some things about himself and his family, knowing that she'd not tell anyone else.

After telling her how his father had come to be pack leader, he told her how they'd been working and investing in not just business people but regular humans, too. She smiled again, and Hope closed her eyes again.

"Even though my parents could neither read all that well, in my mom's case, she couldn't read at all, but we were happy. And happy to be able to help some of the townspeople that needed it." Hope asked him if he'd helped her family in some way. "Yes. Not as often as many but we did make sure that you could reach your mortgage payment when it was coming due, and one of your sons wasn't working to help out."

"Those boys of mine were a lazy bunch. The only thing that they excelled in was getting on my last nerve. And eating everything that we had in the house. You'd think that I was being selfish about letting them eat, but what they couldn't eat, they'd destroy what was left." She slipped away, her dementia making her act out for a few moments. When she demanded that he go away, he only touched her hand, and she settled again. He was wondering what had happened to her sons when she spoke again.

"David was all right. He still had his moments of loving us, his parents. But then he'd go with Roger, and that would be the end of that." She wanted to get this off her chest, and he was going to make sure that she was able to do it. "I killed Roger one night. Just walked up behind him with a gun and blew his brains out before he was able to kill his father."

"Do you want me to see to his body? I don't mind doing that for you." She shook her head and told him that they'd never find either of them. She'd raised pigs on her little plot of land. "Good for you."

"I didn't know what you'd say to me about it. I thought…well, it goes to show you, Harman, that you don't know something, then ask. I'm so happy I could tell you that. His daughter doesn't know. Neither of them do. And if you'd tell them for me, after I'm gone, then I will sing your praise to anyone up there—If I go to heaven, I'll tell everyone what a good man and friend you turned out to be." He told her that she'd go. She had protected herself and her family. "If the good lord sees it that way, I'd be appreciating that."

Between naps she would wake and tell him something that her sons had done to her and her husband. It was terrible, he knew, to have one of your children treat you so badly that you were made to kill them off. He asked her about David.

"It was tricker to have him out of the house. When his brother disappeared, he accused us of killing him. He even came out and asked his dad if he'd killed him. Saying that he'd not had a thing to do with his death, then telling David that he might want to straighten up, still has me smiling. And you know what, for the next few years, he didn't come around all that often. He had Katie with him when he did. I guess he figured that we'd not kill him with his little girl was around.

"That was about the time that they all packed up their things and moved off to parts unknown. It wasn't until years later that we realized that they had gone to Wales. Moron, he didn't know the first thing about the country and came back here when he couldn't take it anymore."

"And Roger's wife, she stayed there too, I'm assuming. That's why the two of them, Katie nor Carrie, knew that much about each other. They're catching up now. The two of them are having a good time getting to know one another." Hope said that was the way it should have been. "But it's made them into the people they are."

"Hogwash. Everyone says that, but it's not true. Katie was lonely all her life. Kids wouldn't become her friends because of her being so smart. I think she was that smart because she didn't have anyone to play with when she'd been just a little thing. I do think that at some point in her living with us that she thought we'd killed her father. But she didn't come to us about it. She's a smart one, that little girl." Harman agreed with her. "But David, now there was a mean, cruel person. I akin him to being related to Genghis Khan. He was that mean of a man. Anyway, one night, I was sitting in my car, waiting for one of them car services to come and change out my tire for me. It was raining, oh lordy, was it ever raining that evening, or I might have noticed the car that pulled up in front of me."

He held her hand while she rested. The nurse came in to see if the monitors were on her right it wasn't registering very well. Instead of allowing her to wake her up, he convinced her that things were just fine.

"He got out of his car with a tire iron in his hands. Waving it all around, he broke out my front window as well as the driver's side. He'd not hit me yet with it, but it wasn't for him not knowing where to swing it. Every which way that he could, David was hitting it. Then the fool hit me in the head with it thing." He could still see her lying on the road with her life's blood draining out and being made lighter because of the rain. "Your daddy, he was there, I remember. So was that…I think they were all there when the police made their presence known to me."

Harman decided to come clean with the rest of her story. "My dad killed your son. As soon as he came up on the scene, he shifted into his wolf and tore his throat out."

Hope turned her head and looked at him. He wasn't sure if she'd believe him or not, but it was the truth. She asked him how he'd known what was going on. Told her of the time she'd broken her ankle with being the mother so soon after Roger had been born and you begging him to fix you. That you'd never tell—"

"No, I hit him with the tire iron to keep him from hurting me anymore." He told her that Dad, his dad, had taken that memory away so that she'd not be ridiculed about seeing a man turning into a large wolf that saved her life." Harman could tell the moment that she remembered it the correct way. "He told me that he didn't want me to go to prison for killing a man that was going to be the death of me. So he fixed my ankle by giving me a bit of his magic. That's what really happened, isn't it?"

"Yes. Dad talks about you often. How you got a bit more of his magic than he'd first realized. He said that was why you healed up so quickly and never got a cold ever again that might harm you." Hope cried, and he let her.

One thing that he did know was that David didn't die that night, nor the next. His body, along with his brothers, were never found either. Being wolves, they could smell where the grave was of Roger and dug him up to put him into a safer place. One that didn't get trampled on all that much and maybe discovered.

"I thought that's why you are forever baking him things when you're able, and he eats the whole thing by himself. I know that he felt, and still does, that David was set to kill you, and there wasn't a thing anyone could do to stop him but a big black wolf full of anger." Hope told him that she'd been ready to die but so wondered about Katie. "Which was wonderful because she is my mate. The love of my life."

They sat there, the two of them, and talked. Hope would doze off, each one longer than the one before. Her heart had stopped beating a few times for a full minute. Every time, he was ready to call the medical personnel in to revive her. But she told him she didn't want to be revived. That she was ready to go see her husband.

Harman sat with her for another three hours. Assuring her that he was still there because she didn't want to die alone. He told her several times that he could call in her granddaughters, and she wouldn't have it.

"They'd be all emotional, and I wouldn't be able to handle that." He agreed with her but continued to ask her what she wanted. "You think that you can pay for me a nice jar to put me in when I'm cremated? Anything will do. Even if all you have is one of those butter cups that had a tight lid on it."

"I think that I can do better than that. Where would you like to be hanging out with us? Over the mantel? Maybe so close to the food that a little bit of you falls into our dinner?" She laughed, and it took its toll on her. "I know. I'll sprinkle you over the graves of your sons to prove to them that you outlasted the two of them."

"I'd like to be on your mantel if Katie doesn't mind." He assured her that she'd not mind at all. "Good, you just stuff me behind some picture up there and you won't hear another peep from me."

When she closed her eyes this time, he knew that she was gone. But she surprised him to no end when she woke up and looked at him again. "Will you dance with me, Harman? One last time?"

"It will be my pleasure, Hope." He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her images of the two of them dancing down the halls here. When she passed, her dream of dancing with him still in her mind, he got up and kissed her soft cheek, and sat down again. The staff, having been alerted by him that she was gone, came in and told him how much she'd been looking forward to talking to him. "When you called me, I dropped everything that I was working on to come here. I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

After telling Katie and Carrie that she was gone, he made his way to the police station. While he'd been talking to Hope, he told his dad that it was time for the earth to give up her dead. That Hope had asked him to do that for her.

"'Tis something that I've been thinking about when you told me where you headed. I've already moved their bodies out to the fields. And with a bit of magic from Rain and Storm, it looked like I'd been out there testing the dirt for the spring planting, and there they were. Both of them lying side by side."

"Thanks, Dad. You're the best there is." Dad told him that he was humbled today, and that all his boys had been by to wish him the best. "We should have a cookout. To celebrate life coming full circle."

And it had. Things had a way of working around things and he thought that this was a perfect example of it. Two men would be found, and a great lady was going to be laid to rest. He wondered what the next chapter of his life was going to bring. Harman was excited for it to come around.