The Legacy: Making Wishes Come True by Lurlene McDaniel Read Free Book Online Page A

I’m her friend. We’ve practically grown up together.”
    “Then all the more reason for you to accept her wishes.”
    “What about my wishes? Don’t you know how crazy it’s making me not to be able to even
see
her?”
    Marian stood abruptly, pressed her palms against the top of the desk, and leaned toward him. “This isn’t about
you
, Richard. For the time being, you will not be allowed to see her.”
    Taken aback by her angry tone, Richard stopped pacing and turned to face Jenny’s grandmother. “You can’t stop me,” he said carefully.
    “I can, and I will. I will post a security guard beside her door, and no one will be allowed entrance except medical personnel.”
    “You’d go that far to keep me away from her?” He’d heard his father say that no one ever opposed Marian’s will and lived to tell about it. Until this moment, he’d never understood the remark made in frustrated jest. “Why do you hate me so much?” Richard asked.
    Her stony expression didn’t dissolve. “Once again, it has nothing to do with you. It’s what Jenny wants, and at this time, I can give her very little. What I can give her, I shall. And right now, she wants to see no one. She wants privacy.”
    Marian sat down and began sorting papers on her desk. Richard realized that it was her way of dismissinghim. However, he was in no mood to be brushed off. “If I could just talk to her, I know I could change her mind about allowing me to visit.”
    “Not at this time,” Marian replied, with obvious patience. “It’s nothing personal. It’s a woman thing.” She added the last remarks hesitantly, almost as if they might make amends for her harsh demeanor.
    He struggled to sort out her meaning. “A ‘woman thing’?” he asked slowly. “Are you saying she doesn’t want me to see her because she looks bad?”
    Marian gave him a sharp, penetrating look, but now that he had the opening, Richard barreled ahead with his argument. “I don’t care how she looks. All I want to do is see her, hold her hand, and talk to her. I know I can make her feel better. I’ve always been able to take her mind off her troubles.”
    That much was true, Richard assured himself. That first summer, after her parents’ deaths and after she’d come to live with Marian, he’d taken Jenny under his wing and showed her all his secret places to play on Martha’s Vineyard. He’d taken her to the beach and shown her how to slip along a wall of seemingly solid granite to the narrow crevice that led to the cave. A cave full of pale blue light and shallow pools and mysteries from the sea. How he regretted not going there with her weeks before. Why had he lied about seeing some other girl? There was no one he wanted to be with more than Jenny.
    Marian let out a deep sigh. “Richard, this discussion is getting us nowhere. You won’t persuade me to go against Jenny’s wishes. I will tell her how much you would like to come up to her hospital room, but I doubt it will change her mind.”
    “Can I at least talk to her on the phone?”
    “Even taking phone calls would tax her, so she can’t do that at this time.”
    “You’re taking every opportunity away from me,” Richard argued. “That’s not right.”
    “I have no control over what is happening to Jenny,” Marian insisted angrily. “Can you imagine how frustrating that is for me?”
    Her candor surprised him. “I can imagine,” he admitted.
    “Then you understand that I’m not being deliberately heartless.” He nodded. “Cancer is very cruel, Richard. What the doctors have to do to her to fight her cancer is very cruel. I know that her physical appearance is inconsequential to you, but for right now, how people think of her, and remember her, is most important to her.”
    “But—”
    Marian held up her hand to stem his protest. “I can’t take her illusions away from her. It would be callous of me.”
    It wasn’t that Richard didn’t understand—he did. Marian was simply