Forever This Time (14 page)

“Well, he had a pretty serious stroke, hon. But he's starting to respond to stimulus, so that's an excellent sign that he's on his way back. Your daddy's strong, he's healthy, he's young. Those things are definitely working in his favor here.”

“He does look better today.” Josie grasped at the positive.

“He definitely does.” Gayle adjusted a few tubes, then came around and patted Josie on the shoulder. “I've got a full floor of patients today, so I can't stay and chat, but I'll be back. Give his hand there a squeeze. Maybe he'll surprise you and squeeze back.”

Josie took a deep breath after Gayle left, staring at Dad's slackened face. For ten years now, she'd convinced herself she didn't need him, didn't want him in her life, didn't want her trajectory to follow his. She'd chosen the path of no contact, and it had worked … hadn't it? She'd built a life in Boston, had a full patient load in her tiny clinic, had a social life that kept her plenty busy.

So she wasn't lonely, right? Didn't miss this town, this life, these people, right?

She glanced at his hand—the wedding ring dulled by age, the neatly trimmed fingernails, the graying hairs—and remembered darker hair, a shinier ring, a stronger hand gripping hers as she skipped through Camp Ho-Ho every summer morning checking out the rides before the igloo doors opened.

Could she let herself believe that things here had changed? That her parents were truly happy together? That maybe, just maybe, Echo Lake might really be a different place than she'd left behind?

Before she could stop herself, Josie slid her fingers toward Dad's on the bed and she placed her hand cautiously over his.

Maybe.

An hour later, Mom stepped silently into the room, startling Josie. Her eyes locked onto the bed where Josie's hand still held Dad's, but she didn't comment, just smiled. “Hey there. How's he doing?”

“Quiet.”

Too quiet, obviously. He needed to wake up, dammit.

All she'd done for the past hour was try to distract herself by thinking about Ethan—about his eyes, his hands, his lips. She kept trying to counteract the confusion by listing the reasons she'd left in the first place, but right now, the hands, eyes, and lips were winning.

Mom laughed a little. “You're the master of the understatement.” She put her hand on Josie's shoulder, and in a move natural to another time, another family, Josie put her free hand up to squeeze it.

“You want to go get something to eat, Jos? Are you hungry? I feel like there's probably nothing in the house for you to eat.”

“Mom, you could feed a family of twelve with just the yogurt in the fridge.”

“If they liked yogurt. There's hardly anything else
in
the fridge.”

“That, I have to admit, is true.” Josie smiled as she slid her hand away from Dad's and pushed up from her chair. She motioned toward the door. “Should we see if we can find a seat in the cafeteria?”

Just as they reached the huge doors at the end of the hallway, one of them swished open and a young guy in scrubs pushed a stretcher through. Josie moved to the side to get out of the way, but before it passed, she could swear a knife went through her gut.

Sparks taunted her eyes and her lower body turned to pudding as she glimpsed the small lump on the stretcher. Hidden under stark white sheets and an industrial blanket was an impossibly tiny bald head, and Josie heard her own cavernous voice say “No!” before she heard nothing at all.

*   *   *

“You're back!” Mom's face swam before Josie's eyes. She blinked hard, trying to figure out why she was flat on her back looking up at the tiled ceiling of the hospital hallway. “Honey, you fainted.”

“I fainted?” Josie started to push herself up. “I've never fainted in my life.”

“Have you eaten anything today?”

“Um…”

“That's what I thought.” Mom pulled two packages of saltines out of her purse and handed one to Josie. “Here. Nibble on these. I'll go get some ginger ale in a minute.”

Josie pushed herself up to sitting, bracing her back against the wall. Mom's eyebrows were drawn together, worry lines etching her forehead as she grasped Josie's elbow lightly.

“I'm so sorry, Mom. I have no idea what happened.”

“You're not … um … by any chance … you know, I haven't asked you if you have a boyfriend back in Boston.”

Josie choked on her cracker. “Pregnant? God no. Definitely not. No.”
That would indicate actual sex at some point in the previous nine months.

“Okay.” Mom laughed quietly. “Not that you're going to be emphatic about it.” She handed Josie the second package of crackers, pausing for a long, painful moment before she spoke again. “Did she … did that little girl remind you of Avery?”

Josie swallowed hard. “I think so.”

“I imagine it's almost impossible to separate the hospital from her, isn't it?”

Josie felt her own eyebrows drawing together. What was this tender voice? This soft hand rubbing circles on her back? Who
was
this woman? Josie looked up at Mom.

“I'm sorry, sweetie. So, so sorry.”

As her mother hugged her shoulders, a memory washed painfully over her.

*   *   *

“Josie!” Eight-year-old Avery bounced in her wheelchair as Josie came through the hospital doors.

“Hey, munchkin! Who let you escape your floor?”

Avery looked behind her at the male nurse holding the chair handles. “Jeff brought me down.”

“I like your new hat.” Josie tapped on the brim of the baseball cap and tried not to notice there was no espresso-colored ponytail poking out the back anymore. “Did the Red Sox guys come visit after all?”

“The whole team. It was utter chaos.” Avery tried her best annoyed look, but dissolved into a proud giggle.

“So I guess this means you're famous now?”

“Nah. But I did get Ethan an autographed ball. Look!” She pulled it out from where it was tucked into the chair.

Josie picked it up and examined it carefully. “He's going to be over the moon for this. You're spoiling him rotten, munchkin. How can I compete?”

“Hmm. Get cancer, lose all your hair, and have the wish fairies bring you a baseball team?”

Josie laughed out loud. “Well, as fun as that idea
sounds…
”

“You're just jealous of my shiny head. Admit it.”

“It does have a fabulous glow. And a lovely shape.”

“My ears look big.”

“Only when you frown like that.”

“Wrong. They're even bigger when I smile.”

Josie leaned down to hug her. “You have the best smile in the universe, Avery. When you smile, no one's looking at your ears, I promise.” She looked up at Jeff, eyebrows raised in silent question. He nodded carefully as he pushed the wheelchair toward her so she could grab the handles and roll Avery out to the curb. “So are you ready to keep me company at Camp Ho-Ho?”

“Your dad wouldn't like it if he heard you call it that.”

“That's why I do it.” Josie lifted Avery into the passenger seat of Ethan's truck and buckled her in, trying not to think about how much lighter she was than the last time she'd lifted her. “It's a daughter's job to annoy her parents.”

“You're seventeen. Shouldn't you be growing out of this phase?”

Josie laughed. “You're eight. Should you really be this smart?”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Josie sat in the waiting room chair, elbows braced on her knees, while Mom went back in to see Dad, since the tiny cafeteria had closed. She couldn't believe she had fainted. She nibbled on one of the crackers Mom had pushed into her hand. When
was
the last time she'd eaten, anyway?

She looked up at the shaded windows and could see shapes bustling around. Who was that little girl in there? She looked around the room, trying to match her with a family, but the only people in here were the teens from last time and an elderly mother and her daughter.

The poor child had looked just like Avery—her shiny head with its blue veins, her eye sockets too dark, her tiny body too small under the blanket. Josie bit her lip, too late realizing she had started rocking slightly in her chair. Suddenly the waiting room walls seemed to be caving in on her.

It felt childish to wish for shiny red shoes she could clack together and be back in her cozy apartment with her calm, predictable job and a date every few months … or six. Dammit, this place was cursed. Everywhere she turned was another heartbreak from the past. If Ethan wasn't looming over her, piercing her with his smoky eyes and taunting her with his bronzed skin and the after-shave she still loved, then Avery was poking her sweet little head into Josie's psyche at random moments.

She took a deep breath, trying to slow down her jiggling legs. But it was no use. She had to get out of here. She scrawled a note for Mom and took off at a fast walk down the hallway. As the elevator descended, Josie practiced the kind of breathing she taught her patients. Her heart was racing, which made the elevator seem interminably slower than it really was.

She just needed to get out of the hospital, find her Jeep, and drive. She didn't even know where she'd go. Visions of Avery kept flashing through her mind like a photo album on high speed, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn't shut it down.

Finally the automated voice said
First floor
and the elevator bumped slightly as it landed. Josie stumbled through the sliding front doors and did everything in her power not to run to her Jeep.

Maybe her parents had mended their ways, but nothing else had changed here. At least not for the better.

Echo Lake was still poison.

Ethan was still poison.

And Avery? She stifled a sob.

Avery was still … dead.

 

Chapter 15

“You'll have to talk quickly. I'm packing.” Josie pulled open one of her bureau drawers as she answered Kirsten's call an hour later.

“Where are you going?”

“Boston. Home.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing! Everything! I don't know!” Josie winced at the frazzled sound of her voice.

“I see.”

Silence followed Kirsten's words, and Josie tried to wait her out, but failed. “Oh, stop using that therapist-silence technique on me. I know how it works.”

“Why are you packing, Jos? What happened?”

“Everything! Everything's happening! Dad, Mom, Ethan. I tried, Kirsten. I came back here. I did the hospital, I did the park, I—”

“Did Ethan?”

“
What
?” Josie sputtered. “Oh my God. I'm being serious here!”

“Me, too. Did you?”

“No!”

“Did you
want to
?”

Josie looked in the mirror over her bureau, surprised at the dark pink spots of color on her cheeks, the redness of her throat and chest. Dammit, look at her. It was hopeless. If she stayed here, she'd certainly fall back under Ethan's spell, and she'd only get her heart broken.

Yes, he'd kissed her, and oh God, it had been as good as ever—better, even—but it could never work. They had separate lives. His was firmly hitched to Camp Ho-Ho's wagon, and hers never would be again. Ever. She knew the end play on that game already.

“No. Yes. No. Of course I do! It's Ethan! But it would never work. No more than it would have ten years ago.”

“How can you know that for sure? You haven't been home in a long time.”

“No. The situation's pretty clear. And it's no good. He has willingly signed up for my father's life. He lives and breathes this stupid park, and I've seen how that story ends. This place eats people alive. There's no room for relationships when you've got a Christmas paradise to maintain three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

No. She couldn't even fathom staying here, no matter how hot the air got when they were in the same room. No matter how looking at his sculpted body made her ache to be swatting mosquitoes in the back of a beat-up Chevy truck out by the lake. No matter how feeling his lips on her skin made her want to strip off every bit of clothing she owned and submit to his mouth and hands and …

She turned away from the mirror, swearing. She had to go. Now.

“How are you going to feel being that far away from your parents?”

“I've been that far away for ten years now, and it was working just fine.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know. I'll only be three hours away. Dad's—stable. Mom can call if anything changes. I'll visit on weekends. I just have to get out of here.” Josie hated herself for even having these thoughts, given that in reality, Dad was far from stable. She pulled the knobs on the Venetian doors of the closet and reached up to pull her suitcase down.

Before she got it to the edge of the shelf, a big shoebox peeked over the edge of it, sliding toward her at a dangerous angle. She grabbed at the box before it could clonk her on the nose, juggling the phone clumsily.

“Josie? Jos? Hey!” Kirsten's voice squawked. “Are you okay?”

Josie fumbled the phone toward her ear as she set the Nike box on her bed. “Sorry! Almost dropped you. You are never going to believe what my mother did.”

“Do tell.”

“I have a feeling she knew I might try to pull a runner in the night.”

“What'd she do? Lock you in your bedroom?” Kirsten laughed, but cautiously.

With her index finger, Josie traced the letters she'd taped on the box lid oh so long ago. “Worse. She put my old shoebox of Ethan's stuff on top of my suitcase.”