The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River)

by London, Julia

  Why was she telling him this? She was Emma’s sister—she ought to be defending Emma, not piling on.

  “I mean, between you and me? Her own family has always been a lot more comfortable around me rather than her.” She smiled a little.

  Cooper was appalled that Laura would casually toss that observation out there, given what had happened between her and Emma. Not to mention Emma’s father and her.

  Laura smiled curiously at his study of her. “What?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard just how comfortable some of her family has been around you.”

  Laura’s smug smile faded. She blinked back her surprise. But she didn’t deny it. No, Laura Franklin slowly smiled again, as if sleeping with Emma’s father was amusing somehow. Her smile was a come-hither smile, too, one meant to seduce. “No one listens to Emma,” she said silkily. “But forget her, because you know what? You’re cute, Cooper Jessup.”

  He gave her a dark look, annoyed that she thought he would fall for that.

  “No, really cute,” she said, turning to face him, her shoulder against the wall. “How come you’re not married?” She touched the button of his shirt—the same buttons Emma had touched—and began a slow finger walk up his chest. “You could have anyone in LA if you wanted. You can’t be so hard up for company that you’d want my sister.”

  And Emma thought she was the despicable one.

  Laura laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. Everyone knows how Emma is. I can’t help it if her own flesh and blood found her difficult to be around, can I?”

  Cooper reached up and pushed Laura’s hand from his chest. “Good night, Laura.”

  “Hey, don’t go away mad,” she said, reaching for his arm. “I’m not going to tell Emma. Not yet, anyway.”

  What the hell was wrong with this woman? “Tell her what?”

  Laura shrugged. “That we sort of hooked up,” she said, and her smile turned cold.

  Laura was a bitch. “We’re not hooking up. Nowhere close,” he said.

  “Whatever you say.”

  He could tell by the slight sneer on her face that she would do exactly what she threatened. She would tell Emma that she’d met him at this party, that they’d connected. She would imply they’d slept together, and on some level, that was more shocking than anything Emma had done. “Why would you do something like that?”

  “Why does Emma keep telling everyone I had an affair with Grant?” she shot back. “It wasn’t my fault, you know. I was only eighteen. Besides that, we didn’t do anything to her. What, he wasn’t supposed to live his life because she didn’t like it?”

  “Wow,” Cooper said. “Are you a sociopath? Do you pack your heart in ice every night? I mean, you do realize you’re talking shit about your sister, right?”

  “Step sister,” Laura snapped, and walked away from him.

  Cooper stood a moment, unable to move. No wonder Emma’s life had spiraled out of control. Her family was as treacherous as anything she could possibly encounter in the rest of the world.

  Eventually, Cooper went outside, away from Laura and her betrayal. Which, in the grand scheme of Hollywood, wouldn’t even rank on the list of great family betrayals. It made him a little nauseous.

  An hour later, Cooper was home at his little house in the Hollywood Hills. He made himself a sandwich and a drink and sat on his terrace overlooking the glittering lights below. His thoughts were with a beautiful blond woman with enough emotional baggage to fill a dump truck.

  He told himself it was best he’d left when he did. That it was mountain air that had him thinking there could be more to the story of Emma and Cooper than a chance encounter at a bat mitzvah, or a few days in Colorado.

  When he finished his sandwich and drink, Cooper decided he was truly as tired as he felt. He thought he’d have a shower and get a good night’s sleep without any beavers looking at him.

  Cooper wearily turned on the shower and as the water warmed, he emptied the pockets of his jeans onto his dresser. A few coins, his wallet, his phone. He looked at the little pile in passing, but halfway to the bathroom, he paused. He walked back and studied the contents of his pocket. Something was missing, he thought, although he couldn’t think what at first. His wallet was there. His phone. A few bills and some change.

  He shrugged and went into the bathroom and got into the shower. As he lathered up, it suddenly came to him. “No,” he said, and banged his fist against the glass shower wall. He pushed open the door and stepped out, striding to his dresser. With soap and water dripping from him, he stared down at his pile of things.

  His St. Christopher was gone. Cooper didn’t have to think about it. He didn’t have to wonder if he’d dropped it or forgotten it at the Grizzly Lodge. He knew Emma had taken it, had slipped it out of his pocket in her room. He knew she had added it to her bizarre collection of things. He was another number, another one in a long line of men who meant nothing to her.

  Cooper’s pulse began to pound with ferocious fury. Hell no, he would not accept this. Emma Tyler would not get away with it.

  TWENTY

  I know it’s taken me a while to get back to you about my most excellent adventure to Denver to see the Broncos play the Patriots. I’ve been dying to tell you everything, but the trip kind of wore me out, and I had another seizure and had to go to the hospital, which of course Dad said was because I had worn myself out, and then he said, “I’m not going to say I told you so, but I told you so.” If Emma were here right now, she’d be all like, I don’t understand why people say that. He clearly means to say I told you so, and I would have to agree. But here’s where Dad is wrong—the game didn’t make me have a seizure. I mean, I have seizures when I’m not doing anything, so you can’t really blame it on the Broncos stinking it up.

  Anyway, while we were at the hospital, the doctors said they were going to have to put me on a feeding tube because I really can’t swallow much anymore, which of course I know, hello! Who do you think has been trying to choke down Dad’s homemade gruel?

  But this time when they said it, they looked at Dad instead of me.

  Like I wasn’t there.

  Or, like because I can’t swallow, that must mean I can’t speak English anymore. I wanted to tell that doctor that I’m a genius, and I know exactly what it means, because I’m sitting in this body every day, feeling it give up and the life leak out of me. If it weren’t so morbid it would be totally awesome that you can actually feel when life is leaving you. It sort of starts in your fingers and toes. It’s hard to describe—kind of like a tide going out.

  Okay, well anyway, enough of that. The big news is the game!

  So we went to Denver, and even at sub-grandpa speed, which, for those of you who don’t know, is about two miles an hour, we made it to the Mile High Stadium in time to actually see the game. My friend Dante was stoked, but he had to walk a really long way to our most excellent seats, whereas I was in a chair. Dante could have had a chair, too, but he didn’t want to enter the hallowed halls of football that way, and dude, who could blame him? Anyway, I don’t know if it was that walk or all the radiation and chemo he’s been taking, or maybe it was just that the Broncos sucked, but Dante got like, really sick, and he didn’t look to me like he loved the game. Maybe he was just completely depressed that the Broncos lost.

  I know, right? They lost! All my hard work and then the Broncos went and blew it.

  Don’t you think my story would be so much better if they’d won? It would be like one of those cool sports movies where the cancer kid and the MND guy crawl across mountains and desert to see their favorite team play, and their dying wish is that the Broncos win, and everyone in the audience is worried for those two kids because the Broncos are playing the Goliaths, and you think there is no way they can pull it out, and then, in the last three seconds the Broncos kick the winning field goal!

  Well, that didn’t
happen. The Broncos fumbled just after the two-minute warning and the Patriots scored. But still, Dad and Buck, the nurse we hired to accompany us to Denver, said it was a really good game, and it was, I guess, if you think a really good game includes losing. Which I totally don’t.

  And you know what else? The skybox wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. I mean, it was nice and all, and Dad said the seats were comfortable, and we could see the field. But we couldn’t see it better than I could on my big flat screen at home, you know? Plus, I thought there’d be chicks to serve the drinks and snacks, and maybe even a cheerleader or two to rub my head for good luck. You can imagine my extreme disappointment when it was Dad who served the drinks—Orange Crush, of course, because I insisted—and potato chips, which Dante’s mom had sent with us because they help with his stomach issues, but of course, I can’t eat.

  The Broncos totally let me down, but still, you gotta hand it to me—I did it. I made that trip happen. That may not seem like a lot to you, but try accomplishing something like that from the hell I live in every day. I mean, think about it, the only thing I had was my cunning and genius. I couldn’t even hold a pencil to make some notes! Look, I’m not bragging, I’m just pointing out, that’s how good I am.

  I’m super proud of myself, but I have to be honest here—it made me wonder what else I could have accomplished in life if I hadn’t come down with this stupid disease. I mean, I could have been an astronaut! Not that I would have been an astronaut, because the idea of flying around space freaks me out. I’m just saying, I could have been anything.

  So I was thinking about all this and feeling pretty sorry for myself while I was in the hospital, because a), once again, they gave me a guy nurse, which is a total waste of my time, and b), I guess I’m due.

  At first, I thought I was just bummed because the Broncos lost to the freaking Patriots (you really can’t say that enough, Bronco fans), but then I realized I was mostly bummed because I’ve been looking forward to that game for so long. I have spent so much time working and planning to make it happen that I haven’t had time to think of other, more unpleasant things, you know? Meaning . . . those thoughts that creep into my head when I’m trying to sleep. You know what I mean. You’ve probably had those thoughts, too, but maybe not as urgently as I have. Like . . . what’s it like to die? Will I know I’m dead? Will it hurt? What’s it like on the other side? Is Mom going to be there? Did she find Grandpa? What if she’s not there, and it’s all black? What if it’s nothing but darkness?

  I won’t lie, I used to worry about that, but I don’t anymore. Maybe because lately, I’ve been having these dreams of running. I’m just running and running, and I’m impressed by how strong my legs are, and amazed that my lungs are working so efficiently, and my heart is steady as a drum, and it feels good. No, seriously, it feels fantastic. I would run up and down these mountains if I could. Here’s something I’ve never told anyone but you: sometimes, I want to sleep just so I can run.

  If you don’t run, you should try it. It’s totally awesome that your body can do that, and then make you feel so good about it when you’re done.

  So I was digging my running dreams, and then this weird thing happened. Don’t freak out when I tell you this one, but okay, here goes. When I got out of the hospital, Marisol brought over that little stinker Valentina and her abuela, her grandmother. Grandma is visiting from Mexico. She comes up from the interior once or twice a year and cleans Marisol’s house and makes tamales for Christmas. At least that’s the way Marisol talks about it. Her name is Maria, and she doesn’t know a whole lot of English, which is cool, because I don’t know a whole lot of Spanish other than hola and besame and abuela.

  So Granny Maria was sitting in the corner holding the baby and watching me like an old barn owl while Marisol combed my hair and made me change my shirt because I was wearing one with holes in it. Granny Maria didn’t say much, but every once in a while she’d let loose with a string of Spanish, and Marisol would fire right back at her in Spanish like she was mad, and then she’d say something to me like, “My abuela likes you.”

  Well, of course she likes me. What’s not to like? And I’d say, “That’s a whole lot of Spanish to say she likes me,” and Marisol would say, “What, you habla Español now?”

  And so it would go.

  Anyway, Granny Maria liked my blue shirt better than my green shirt. Granny Maria thought I should have some achicoria in my food because it’s good for the liver. My finely tuned thinking skills translated that to chicory, which I thought was hilarious, because if Granny Maria thinks my liver is the problem, she’s crazier than her batshit gorgeous granddaughter, Marisol. And I promise you, Dad is not going to buy chicory without a fight.

  Anyway, when they were leaving, Granny Maria waddled over to my chair—let’s just say she’s obviously enjoyed a lot of Marisol’s excellent homemade tortillas—and put her hand on my totally useless left arm. She smiled down at me, and she had these really pretty brown eyes, and they looked really deep to me, like there was an ocean or something under there, and she said, “The light, it is very bright for you in the heaven, Leo.”

  I was like, “What? You speak English?”

  She didn’t say yes or no. In fact, she didn’t say anything else in English. She kept smiling at me with those ocean-deep eyes and patted my arm before she waddled out with the baby, firing off in Spanish at Marisol.

  I’ve been meaning to mention to Marisol that if she doesn’t watch it with those tortillas, she might end up with her abuela’s hips.

  Okay, I didn’t know what Granny Maria meant at the time, but let me tell you, I was more surprised than anyone when the doctor called my dad a few days later and said my blood work was showing some liver issues. Freaky, right? I told Dad to get some chicory root, and he looked at me like I was crazy, and he fought it like I knew he would, but he did it, and he’s grinding it up and putting it in my gruel.

  But wait! That’s not the freaky thing!

  So get this—one day, I’m sitting in my room, staring out the window at the birdhouse Sam made and Dad put up so I could see some blue jays—who of course refuse to use our birdhouse, like they are staging some sort of birdhouse protest—and it just came to me. I mean, I suddenly felt all warm and gooey inside, and I had this epiphany, and what Granny Maria had said that day just jumped into my head, and I got it. It was like a door opened in me somewhere and light streamed in, and I got it.

  She was telling me that it’s not dark on the other side, that there is light, bright warm light. And there are grass and trees and sunflowers and cows and dogs and places to run. And it’s all for me. There are no chairs, no feeding tubes, no breathing machines. There’s light. Lots and lots of light that goes on for infinity. And there’s me, running. My arms and legs are moving, and I can breathe and swallow, and I feel so damn free.

  No shit, I could see all of this in my mind’s eye, I could see me running like Luke and I used to run across that meadow up at the ranch, racing each other. But the totally amazing thing is that I could actually feel it. I could feel my dead legs pumping and my dead lungs working, and I could feel my smile and I could hear my own laughter. You know what? I was happy. I was super happy!

  I was running.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The St. Christopher medal did not go into the leather tote bag with the other things; Emma kept it with her. It wasn’t like those other meaningless things—she hadn’t traded a piece of herself for this one. In fact, this was actually the opposite of that. Cooper had tried to give her a piece of himself, and Emma had refused it. This time, the trinket meant something.

  She couldn’t even reason why she’d taken it. To cling to a part of him? Whatever the reason, Emma couldn’t bear the examination of her motives. She was too appalled by what she’d done.

  For the first few days after Cooper had left, Emma kept expecting his call demanding his medal. Oh, she kne
w he’d figured it out. He’d probably discovered it on the flight to LA. She had no idea what she’d say when he reached her. Sorry? No, she wouldn’t say that because she wasn’t sorry. She was ashamed, and that was not the same thing. It’s mine now? No, it was definitely his, and she intended to give it back, just as soon as she could.

  But the funny thing was, Cooper didn’t call. And when he didn’t, Emma’s anxiety began to ratchet. She questioned everything that had happened between them. He’d said it was his good luck charm, that he’d carried it for years. Didn’t he want it back? Or was it more like the idea of having a good luck charm appealed, but that actual charm could be replaced? Maybe he’d had a dozen St. Christophers in his lifetime. Maybe he kept a dozen at home in case he lost one.

  Or maybe the charm didn’t mean as much to him as he’d said, and he couldn’t care less if she had it or not. Maybe he really couldn’t care less about her, and he’d said those things—those things that were now firmly lodged in her heart—in order to get sex. Could she have really imagined the connection between them? Had she manufactured the thing that had flowed between their fingers and their eyes, turning back on itself and looping again? Was she really so out of touch with the truth of her emotions?

  And she suffered the worst doubt—that he was really just like the others. That was more disappointment than Emma could bear, and she hoped to God it wasn’t true.

  It seemed liked a lifetime had passed since Cooper had left, and since Leo had returned from Denver and the hospital, weaker than before he’d gone, the toll of another seizure evident in the way he looked and felt. Since he’d been back, Emma had lain in bed with Leo, watching TV. He wasn’t his usual chatty self, other than his ongoing post-game analysis of why the Broncos lost. But even that—armchair coaching, his favorite pastime—was a chore for him. Emma didn’t like the lines of worry around Bob’s eyes, or the way Dani chewed her lip when she came to visit. She didn’t like that Marisol was coming by every day, standing at the foot of his bed with her hand on Leo’s leg. She didn’t like any of it. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.