* * *
Under perfect weather and traffic conditions, without stopping, it takes about four and a half hours to get from Royal Oak to Alpena. Somehow, Elliot managed to get us there in four hours, and we even stopped twice along the way to use the bathroom and get fresh coffee.
Even though we made excellent time, four hours seems endless when you’re as terrified as I was.
After we were on the highway, I called Brooke to let her know I was on the way. She and her parents, along with my Aunt Barbara, were waiting at the hospital while my dad was in surgery. She still didn’t have any news, but promised to call me the second they heard from the doctor.
“Brooke,” I said, my throat closing up. “Thank you so much for being there. I just want to say…about the other night—”
“Not worth mentioning,” she said firmly. “Don’t give it another thought. Just be safe and get up here, okay? I’ll be here.”
“Thanks,” I said again. We had never been big on the sappy stuff, but the occasion seemed to call for it. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” she said, her voice even more throaty than normal. “See you soon.”
After that, there wasn’t much to do but wait. Elliot put a CD on, something quiet and unobtrusive with a lot of strummy guitar in the background. We sat without talking for a half hour or so. Outside my window, I watched as the scenery slowly changed from suburban sprawl to wooded areas and fields, leaving the shopping centers and high-rise office buildings behind.
“How you doing over there?” Elliot asked eventually. “Warm enough?” His right hand flitted over to the temperature controls.
It felt weird to be in the passenger seat of my own car, but at the same time, I was relieved to not have to worry about driving. “I’m fine,” I told him. “Thanks.” We lapsed back into silence for a minute. “And thanks for coming with me,” I said eventually. “I really appreciate it.”
“I’m happy to,” he said. “It’s what friends do, right?”
“I hate this feeling,” I said, directing my attention back to the window. “The not knowing. It’s the worst part.”
“I bet,” Elliot said.
“It was like this with my mom too. But for much longer. The whole time she was sick, it was like I was just waiting for the bad news to come, for the other shoe to drop.”
“This might not be bad news,” Elliot said firmly. “You have to try to stay positive or you’ll go crazy.”
“Have you ever lost someone?” I asked. I was surprised to realize that the subject had never come up. It seemed like we had talked about everything else over lunch in my little office.
“A good friend,” he said softly. “Jeremy. Guy I went to high school with. He was hit by a drunk driver our senior year, coming home from work one night.”
“Oh my God,” I said, horrified. “Elliot, that’s terrible.”
“It was,” he agreed. “We were so close to graduation, our whole lives ahead of us. Then he was just gone.”
“Were you close?” I asked. He nodded, his face unreadable. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s hard to talk about,” he said, looking over at me briefly before turning back to the road. “People never know what to say, and you end up feeling like you’re comforting them.”
“I know the feeling,” I said. I thought for a moment. “That’s why you never ask about my mom, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I figure if you wanted to tell me, you would.”
And suddenly, I did. I wanted to tell him everything about her. Not about how she had left, and what had happened after, but all the good stuff of our twelve years together. The stuff that always got lost beneath the tragedy of her loss.
“My mom was obsessed with planning trips,” I said quietly. “She always wanted to travel. She would make these big elaborate plans, no matter how minor the destination. We used to go over to Lake Michigan, just for the day, and she would spend weeks planning it all out, to the last little detail. What shops we would hit, where we would eat. It drove my dad crazy.”
I thought it might make me feel worse to talk about her. I usually avoided it at all costs, and under the circumstance, I thought it might make me worry even more about my dad. But I found that it didn’t. In a weird way, it kind of made me feel better. Elliot didn’t say much, he just let me talk—about the way she would blast classical music while she cleaned the house; how she used to pay me to brush her hair at night while we watched TV; how she would come in my room after school and lie on my bed and we would talk, and talk.
“What did she look like?” he asked.
“Everyone always tells me I look just like her,” I said. “And I mean seriously everyone. It used to drive me crazy, living in such a small town. I couldn’t even go to the store without seeing someone who had known my mom, stopping me to tell me how like her I was getting.”
“Probably not what you wanted to hear on a daily basis.”
“No. I mean, I’m honored people thought I looked like her. She was gorgeous. But it was hard enough to keep my mind off it without the reminders.”
“Probably makes it hard for you to go home as often as you might like.”
I looked at him, surprised. It was funny the way he knew things about me without me even having to tell him.
“Do you want to tell me about Jeremy?”
Elliot sighed. “Not really,” he finally said. He looked over at me and smiled. “But I will someday.”
I smiled back, glad he could be honest with me. He started to say something else, but my phone rang, interrupting him. I pulled it from my purse and swallowed at the sight of Brooke’s name.
“He’s out of surgery,” she said the moment I’d answered. “The doctors say it went well. They were able to put a stint in, and they say he’s resting comfortably now.”
The relief I felt was so great, I slumped back into the seat. I knew enough from my anatomy classes that he wasn’t out of the woods yet. But coming out of surgery had to be a good sign.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Better now,” I said. “Thanks, Brooke.” I looked out the window at the approaching mile marker. “We should be there in an hour or so.”
“Okay. Be safe.”
I ended the call and turned to Elliot. He was smiling. “Good news?”
“Pretty good,” I said, smiling back. “Pretty good.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
I was able to see my dad that night. The doctors wouldn’t let me stay long, saying he needed his rest, and, in fact, he was very groggy. But he was able to open his eyes and tell me he loved me, and the strength in his hand when he squeezed mine was steady and firm.
Though everyone encouraged me to go back to the house for the night, I insisted on staying. Being so far away when he was in danger had been terrible, and I wasn’t about to put any distance between us while he was still far from recovered.
“Can Elliot stay at the inn?” I asked Brooke.
Before she could answer he interjected. “I’ll hang out here, keep you company.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “You’ve done enough already.”
“No, really,” he said. “I’ve never slept in a plastic chair before. It will be an adventure, good practice for the club.” He winked at me, and my will to argue disappeared.
He did leave for a while, taking my directions to one of the few fast food restaurants in the area. He came back with bags full of burgers and fries. I realized I was starving, and Elliot must have been too, because he didn’t even complain about the lack of nutrients in the food. We made a little picnic on the floor of the waiting room, using his hoodie as a blanket for the food.
“You kind of screwed yourself over, you do realize that, right?” I asked as Elliot sipped his Coke.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m gonna need to stay up here for a while. And you came in my car. How will you get home?”
He shrugged. “I have plenty of vacatio
n time coming my way.”
I snorted. “And I’m sure this is exactly how you wanted to spend your vacation.”
He met my gaze and held it for a moment. “Actually, it is.” His voice was serious and soft and sent a flock of butterflies straight into my stomach. “Besides,” he went on, his voice more normal, “I hear there’re lots of great features for a nature lover around here.”
His lightness made it easy for me to forget the look in his eyes and the way it had made me feel. Almost.
* * *
Over the next few days, I settled into a pattern. I would spend all morning at the hospital, visiting my dad as often as I could. Then I’d leave for a few hours at lunch, only because my dad insisted. I would try to nap or visit with Brooke, but mostly I just counted down the minutes until I could get back to his side.
He was looking better every day, that terrible grey color fading slowly. He was able to sit up in bed now and talk to me, but still needed a lot of rest. I sat by his bed whether he was awake or asleep. While he slept, I tried to read, but when he was awake, I insisted that we talk. About everything.
We had spent so many years not talking about too much that was real, always hiding behind sports and fishing subjects. I was determined to put an end to that once and for all, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.
I asked him about mom, about their early years together before I came along. At first it was hard, for both of us, but soon we eased our way in, testing out the waters until we were both comfortable. I told him about how hard it was for me to be in town, about why I came home so seldom. He surprised me by saying he had figured that out long ago. He confided that he should have come to visit me more often, but it was easier for him to keep up the status quo.
One afternoon, after he had woken up from a nap, he asked me about Elliot.
“Is he the boy you had been dating? The real estate guy?”
I colored. “No,” I said quickly. “That’s, uh, over. Elliot is a friend. He works next door to the clinic.”
“Pretty good friend, to come all this way,” my dad said, a shrewd look on his face. “So, what happened with the real estate guy?”
“It didn’t work out,” I said, shrugging and looking down at his blanket. “It happens.”
“Emily.”
I looked up into my dad’s face. I could tell he was concerned but, more than that, he really wanted to know. He wanted to be involved in my life.
So I told him everything. About Dylan and how small and insignificant it had made me feel. About how I had let Ashley and Ryan convince me that I was clueless about men and needed to change. About how I met Greg and made myself change. It was hard, to admit those things. But I knew, as I spoke, that they were true. Everything about me had been fake with Greg. Everything. I knew then, more than ever, that we were completely over. If my parents had taught me anything, it was that life was too short to waste time.
“I’m proud of you,” my dad said, once I had finished talking.
I looked at him in surprise. “Proud? That’s not really the word I would use to describe my actions lately.”
“But you figured it out,” he said. “Before it went too far and someone got too hurt. That counts for a lot.”
“I guess,” I said, shrugging.
“Emily,” he said, reaching over and placing his hand over mine. “It does. Believe me.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
I could tell that Elliot was trying to strike a respectful balance. He spent some time at the hospital, keeping me company when my dad was sleeping, or sitting with us watching Tigers games when he was awake. The rest of the time he took my car and explored the area. He would come back at night and tell us stories of the places he had seen. My dad and I would add our own stories, tell him about our own memories.
On the fifth day my dad was in the hospital, the doctors started talking about his release. I was terrified at the idea of him going home where they wouldn’t be right down the hall to help him, but they assured me he was improving even better than they had hoped.
“You should get out of here for a while,” my dad said to Elliot and me, looking out the window at the clear blue sky. “It looks like a great day for fishing.”
He sounded wistful, and I laughed. “You’ll be out there soon enough.”
“I’m planning to take lots of time to go fishing,” he said, meeting my eye. The night before, we had talked at length about him slowing down at work. He had even entertained the idea that he might retire. “Go out and see the world,” he had said. I was keeping my fingers crossed that he would go through with it.
“Really,” he said. “You heard the doctors. I’m doing good. So get out of here, enjoy the day.”
Reluctantly, I agreed. As Elliot and I headed out to the car, I called Brooke to see if she could get a few hours to join us.
“God, yes,” she said. “We have a tour group of birdwatchers here this week. They’ve been showing slides in the dining room all morning. I feel like I might start pulling my hair out.”
“Bird-watchers, eh?” I asked, grinning. “Sounds right up Elliot’s alley.” He shoved me into the wall, and I laughed. “We’ll stop at home and get the trailer,” I said. “Be there in twenty?”
It surprised me a little how comfortable I felt being back home. For once in my life, the familiarity of the setting didn’t make me feel nervous, or panicked. I didn’t even mind when my dad’s neighbor, Mrs. Sterling, stopped me while we were hooking up the trailer to ask after my dad. She babbled on for about ten minutes about my parents, and what great neighbors they had been, and how much she loved my mom. I got through the entire conversation without even breaking a sweat—not bad for me.
We took my dad’s truck, since my car lacked the horsepower, not to mention a trailer hitch, to tow the rowboat. Once we’d picked up Brooke, I headed west out of town. “You haven’t been over to Lake Winyah yet, have you?” I asked Elliot.
“Nope.”
“Fishing out there can be pretty good,” I said. I cranked up the radio—CDs had not yet been invented when my dad bought this truck—and we rolled the windows down, the sunlight warming my skin.
Out at Lake Winyah, I expertly backed the trailer out into the launch. “Impressive,” Elliot said, raising his eyebrows in surprise when I jumped out of the truck.
“I’ve done this more times that I can count,” I told him, heading around to help Brooke slide the boat down into the water. I threw Elliot the keys. “Make yourself useful and go park the truck.”
Once we had our poles, Brooke’s cooler (freshly filled with beer), and my old tackle box situated, Elliot and I climbed into the boat, Brooke pushing us off from the shore before jumping in. I sat at the back and started the little motor up, maneuvering us out to a far inlet. Brooke tossed the anchor down and we were set.
“Now what?” Elliot asked.
I stared at him. “What do you mean, now what?”
He looked a little sheepish. “I mean, what do we do now?”
“You’ve never fished before?” I was incredulous. Elliot shook his head.
“I don’t believe this! Mr. Nature Boy, tells-everyone-else-how-stunted-they-are-by-the-city has never been fishing before. Unbelievable!”
“Here,” Brooke said, taking pity on him. She took his line and showed him how to string a hook. We hadn’t stopped for night crawlers, so we made do with my collection of lures.
It was silent out on the lake, the only other boat around on the far side. In the heat of the early afternoon sun, I could hear cicadas buzzing in the trees. I settled into a pattern: cast, wait, reel. I could almost feel the tension of the past week—the past several weeks, really—draining away from me.
“I love this,” I said softly. “Being out in the woods, on the water. The quiet, the routine of it. I can’t believe I let myself go so long without it.”
“Once a country girl, always a country girl,” Brooke said drily. She had abandoned her fishing pole and had spread
out at the front of the boat, soaking up the sun.
But Elliot caught my eye and smiled, and I knew he understood.
After two hours, we had caught several trout and a pike. Well, I did most of the catching, but Brooke managed to reel in a pretty decent-sized trout. Even Elliot had snagged one just about big enough to be kept. Not bad for his first time out.
As soon as we were back in the truck, I called my dad’s room. “Go home and cook that up,” he instructed once I’d told him of our haul. “I’m fine. Your Aunt Barbara is here, keeping me company.”
So we went back to the house, where I cleaned and fried up the fish, and Brooke dug up some more beer. “Wow,” Elliot said softly, watching me as I flipped the trout in the pan.
“What?”
“I had no idea you were so good at this. It’s…well, it’s really impressive.”
I looked up into his eyes and felt my stomach flip. He was watching me intently, his gaze dark. Was I imagining it, or was there something there, in his eyes…
“Almost done?” Brooke asked, coming up next to me. “I’m starving.”
I tried to forget about what I had sensed in Elliot’s gaze as we took our plates and our beers outside to the deck. Night was starting to fall, and I could hear the eerie cry of the whippoorwill in the trees as I settled back onto a lounge chair and put my feet up.
It had been years since I’d had freshly caught fish, and I practically whimpered as I took my first bite. It was just as good as I remembered. “You caught a good one,” Brooke said, wiping her mouth and grinning at me.
“Hey, for all you know we’re eating the one I caught.” Elliot said.
“We’re not,” Brooke and I said together.
After we finished our fish, I called my dad one more time. “Stay home,” he said firmly. “I’m tired and I don’t need any more company.”
“You’re tired?” I asked, feeling a shiver of fear. “Are you okay? Did you overdo it?”
He laughed. “I’m tired because your Aunt Barbara talks more than any woman I’ve ever met. Listen, there’s a game on TV, and I’m just gonna lie here and watch it until I fall asleep. Stay with your friends. That’s an order from your father.”
In Search of a Love Story (Love Story Book One ) Page 21
