by Claire Adams
“You bet! Lunch is going to be the best part!”
“You think so? Do they make really good food here?”
“I have no idea,” she said before running back inside. I chuckled to myself and shook my head…to be ten again. I freshened up and at just before one, I headed downstairs. I reached the first-floor landing and heard someone coming down behind me. I looked up into a pair of dark-blue eyes. Jesus Christ, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest at the sight of him. What the hell is he doing here?
“Hi, Chloe.”
My mouth went completely dry. I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t even work up enough moisture. My damned palms were even sweating. I had to remind myself that he didn’t love me. He had used me. And at the same time, I was thinking how good it would feel to throw myself in his arms. “What are you doing here, Logan? Your mom said you weren’t coming.”
“Kimber called and asked me to come.”
Now it made sense, why she was so excited. She was playing matchmaker. “Did you know I would be here?”
“Yes, that’s why I came.” He took a few more steps down toward me. I could smell his spicy, woodsy aftershave. I took a step back. He almost visibly winced. What did he expect?
“Logan, I don’t have anything to say to you. If I did, I would have called you back after all of those messages you left.”
“I know, Chloe. I don’t expect you to say anything. But if I can say something-”
“No, Logan. I’m going to have lunch with your family. I’d appreciate it if you let me do my thing while I was here and left me alone. My self-esteem is finally healing. I can’t take any more.”
“Chloe I don’t want to hurt you-”
“Too late.”
I turned and walked toward the dining room. Besides the loud and boisterous Moreau group, there were two other families. I sat down with Frank and Caroline and in spite of myself, I kept watch on the door for Logan to come in. Lunch was served about ten minutes later and he hadn’t shown.
I felt a tickle of guilt and caught myself worrying if he’d eaten. I chastised myself and did my best to engage in conversation with the family and get my mind off him. It wasn’t easy considering Frank and all three boys looked almost just like him.
“Uncle Logan should be down by now,” Kimber said, loudly. Suddenly, the adults were all silent and looking at me. I felt like I had a spotlight in my face.
“Kimber, Uncle Logan is not coming this time,” Whitney told her.
“Yes, he is; he’s here already. He’s staying on the third floor.”
The family all looked at each other and then back at me. I finally nodded and said, “Yes, I saw him. I don’t think he’ll be down for lunch, Kimber. I’m sorry.”
She frowned and pulled her little brows together. “What did you do?”
“Kimber!” Whitney said in a warning voice.
I smiled weakly at Whitney. “It’s okay.” Looking back at Kimber, I said, “Honey, Uncle Logan and I talked and we both decided it would be better if we didn’t spend a lot of time together right now.” That wasn’t exactly the truth, but she was ten and it was the best I could do. I could tell by the look on her face that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
She jumped up and threw her napkin on her plate. “He loves you! Why are you being so mean? He was so happy that you were coming.”
“Kimber, that’s enough,” Max told her. Her pretty, blue eyes were filling with tears. She looked like she had plenty more to say, but her father was giving her a stern look. Instead, she ran out of the room. Whitney and Max looked at each other and Whitney said,
“I’ll go.”
“Whitney, can I go, please?”
She looked back at Max. He shrugged. “Sure, Chloe. I’m sorry.”
I smiled at her again. “Don’t be sorry. She’s only trying to tell us how she feels. She loves her uncle and that’s a good thing. I’ll talk to her, gently, I promise.”
“I had no doubt,” Whitney said. As I walked by she reached out and touched my arm. Caroline gave me a thumbs up and Frank winked at me.
I love these people almost as much as I love my own family, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep seeing them if this was the effect it was going to have on both me and the kids.
I walked out into the lobby and asked the girl at the desk if she had seen a little girl run by. She pointed at the front door. I went out onto the porch and stood and looked around until I finally spotted the tail of the red shirt she was wearing; she was up in one of the maple trees near the rock garden, nearly invisible behind the leaves. I walked over close to the tree. “Hey there, girl; can we talk?”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“That’s okay, honey. Can I talk to you?”
“I can’t stop you.”
I tried not to laugh at that. “Can you come down?”
“I’d rather not.”
“I’d rather not get a kink in my neck and have to yell.”
“Then, we don’t have to talk. You’re just going to say a bunch of stuff you don’t mean to make me feel better like grown-ups do, anyways. My uncle loves you. He’s a good man. I don’t know why you made him cry.”
“I made him cry?” She didn’t answer me. After several minutes, I said, “Kimber, when did Uncle Logan cry?”
“The day you were supposed to get married. He came to Grandma’s and waited all day. Mom and Grandma told him you weren’t coming, and he waited all day anyways. Everyone was mean to him, too. Mom made us go home and later, when Noah, was asleep, I snuck out and went back to Grandma’s. Grandma and Grandpa were in bed and he was sitting on the patio in the cold all alone, crying. I don’t understand why you would do that to him. I’ve never seen him cry before.”
Out of the mouths of babes. I felt like I’d just been kicked in the gut. The rational part of my brain wanted to believe he’d been crying for himself. He didn’t want to leave the U.S. But my heart just wouldn’t leave it alone. She wanted to believe he was crying for me…for us, because he really did love me. Jesus, I should have stayed in Manhattan.
CHAPTER THIRTY
LOGAN
After I met Chloe on the stairs, I went back to my room and sat on the edge of my bed. My heart was racing and everything in my body felt wide open, like right after a healthy dose of adrenaline. Just looking at her did that.
I realized, however, when I saw the pain in her pretty eyes that I was still being selfish. Being there when she was trying to relax and put her life back in order was wrong. I blamed it on Kimber, but I knew that the truth was simply that I wanted to see her.
I craved her like an addict with a drug, but unlike the addict and the drug, I was the dangerous one. I saw her face go from completely happy and relaxed to tense and anxious as soon as she saw me. I didn’t want to do that to her.
I finally pulled myself off the bed and took out my suitcase. I hadn’t unpacked yet. I just stuffed the shirt I’d changed out of into it, put on my coat, and went over to close the French doors before I checked out.
When I did, I caught a glimpse of color moving up the side of one of the maple trees. I stepped out onto the balcony to get a closer look and was shocked when I realized that it was Chloe. What the hell? I watched her shimmy up until she reached the lowest branch and then she swung her legs up and gripped it with them. I was flabbergasted. What is she doing?
She was pulling with her arms and trying to sit up on the branch when I saw the skinny arm come out of the leaves and reach for her. Jesus, it was Kimber. Chloe was going up into the tree after her.
I dropped my bag and ran out of the room. I took the stairs two at a time and when I hit the first floor, I ran for the door. As I passed the dining room, I heard my mother’s voice call out my name. I stopped and looked in at my entire family with accusing eyes trained on me.
“What on earth are you doing?” Mom asked.
“Have you lost your mind?” was Frank’s question.
“Do you know how upset Kimber is?” Whitne
y asked me.
“Hey, Uncle Logan!” was Noah’s laid-back greeting.
“You sure screwed this up, son,” came from my dad.
“Kimber is in a tree out there and Chloe just went up after her.” That statement was all it took for the entire clan to get up from their seats and race out.
By the time we got outside, neither of them were visible. I had to stand underneath the balcony of my room to pick out which tree it was. I ran toward it and the family followed. I couldn’t see them until I was right up underneath it. They were sitting side by side on a high branch.
“Hi, Uncle Logan.”
I looked from Chloe to my niece. Chloe had her hand down by her side where Kimber couldn’t see it. She waved me away.
“Kimber! What are you doing up there?” Whitney was suddenly at my side and then Max. “Max, get your daughter out of that tree.”
Max stepped close and reached up, but she was too high for him to reach. “I’m fine, Mom. Chloe and I are talking, jeez!”
“Watch your language,” Max said. He looked at Whitney with a question in his eyes. Whitney looked back up in the tree. The nephews had surrounded it now.
“Can we get up there?” they asked.
“No, come on, guys, out.” I shooed them out where Mom and Dad and their parents were. Whitney was still looking up in the tree.
“Chloe, are you two okay?”
Chloe’s voice sounded slightly shaky as she said, “We’re okay. We might just need a little help getting down.”
“Okay, we won’t be far,” Whitney said. “Yell at us.” She turned and took hold of my arm as she did. She physically urged me out from under the tree. “They need to talk,” Whitney said. “What are you doing here?”
“Kimber called me.” My sister gave her husband a narrow-eyed stare.
“I told you she was too young for a phone.” Max just shrugged. I suspected that he let most of what Whitney said go in one ear and out the other.
“She would have called from someone else’s phone, sis. She’s worried about me, and she’s playing matchmaker. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I was getting ready to check out when I looked out and saw them. I didn’t know what was going on.”
“Kimber was rude to Chloe. She blames her for hurting you.”
I nodded. “I know. That’s my fault, too. When Chloe’s finished talking to her, I will talk to her, as well.”
I saw my sister begin to visibly relax. “She just doesn’t understand what happened.”
“I know,” I said again. “I’ll explain it to her as gently as I can.” Whitney left it at that. I went over and gave my mother a hug.
My father was still visibly upset with me. He’d been the first one to warn me about hurting Chloe. He was disappointed in me and I hated that. My father’s opinion of me meant a lot. I would give it a few more weeks, but then he and I would have to sit down and have a talk.
I said hello to Frank and Caroline and then I engaged in a game of tag with the boys. It was a good half an hour later before we heard Kimber say,
“Daddy! I need help.”
Max jogged over, and so did I. Chloe looked at me with something in her eyes that hadn’t been there earlier, but I wasn’t sure what it was. She looked back at Max and said, “I’m going to lower her down to you, okay?”
Max positioned himself right under them and said, “Okay, go ahead.”
Kimber turned so she was lying over the branch on her belly. Chloe held onto her the whole time. She took hold of Kimber’s arms and I heard her talking to her the whole time, telling her what she was going to do. She held onto the little girl tightly as Kimber wiggled down further toward her dad. When Max could reach her, he grabbed her around the waist and that was when it all went bad.
For some reason, Max swung Kimber to the right before Chloe let go of her. I watched in horror as Chloe slipped off the branch. That was when she let go of Kimber and struck the side of her head on the tree, hard. I tried to stop her fall, but she hit the ground before I got to her.
“Chloe!” Kimber and I screamed her name at the same time. Max called for Whitney and told Kimber,
“Go with Mom.”
“What happened?” Whitney asked in horror as she looked at Chloe on the ground. She started calling for Caroline and Frank, while simultaneously, I was dropping down next to her on my knees. She had a bloody gash in the side of her head and was unconscious. I started to pick her up and my brother-in-law yelled at me,
“Logan, don’t touch her!” He was asking too much. She was hurt. She was bleeding. She was face down in the dirt. I felt strong hands on my shoulders,
“Logan, you need to move back. Let me look at her, okay?” It was Frank. I knew he was right. They all had medical training. I needed to get out of the way, but I felt like I was in a trance.
Frank used his strength and moved me back. I felt a soft hand on my arm and looked down at my mother. I looked back over as Max was checking for a pulse. He nodded at Frank and one of them held her head and the other her feet and they rolled her over onto her back.
Her beautiful face was covered in dirt and scrapes. Her blonde hair was becoming saturated with blood.
I could hear my brother and brother-in-law talking to her and each other. She wasn’t responding. I could hear Kimber’s cries. She was sobbing. My mom’s hand was shaking on my arm, and I could hear my dad breathing heavily next to me. Caroline was on the phone to 911, and I was standing there helplessly with what was left of my heart breaking.
*****
The ambulance screeched to a stop in the bay outside the ER entrance to the hospital. As I pulled my car to a stop behind them, they were unloading her.
“Sir, you can’t park there!” a security guard was yelling at me, but I ignored him. I forgot Frank was with me until I heard him say,
“I’ll move it.”
The EMTs rushed the gurney with Chloe on it through the double doors. The blood was pounding so hard between my ears that the only thing I could hear was the screeching of the stretcher wheels and the pounding of my feet on the tile floor. They turned a corner and the stretcher and Chloe disappeared. My heart sank as I hurried to catch them.
“Sir, you can’t follow them.”
All I could get out was a strangled, “Why?”
“You need to let us help her. You can wait in the waiting room, and the doctor will be out to talk to you as soon as he can.” I just stood there staring at her. What if she needs me? What if she wakes up and she’s alone? “Sir, I need you to go out to the lobby, okay?” My feet and legs suddenly felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. I couldn’t move. “Sir.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder and I heard my brother say, “I’ll take care of him.” It sounded like he was miles away. “Logan, come on. Let’s go find a place to wait.”
“She’s all alone.”
“It’s okay. They’ll take care of us and come and get us as soon as they can. She’s going to be okay.”
I turned and looked at him then. “You promise?” I heard the words come out and realized I sounded like my ten-year-old self asking my big brother to make me a promise that he’d make everything okay.
“Come on, let’s sit.” I followed him that time, but I didn’t miss the fact that he hadn’t promised. When we got to the lobby, everyone was there but Dad and the kids.
Dad was notorious for hating hospitals. I was sure he had volunteered to stay back with the kids. My mother took my arm and led me over to where she was sitting. She pulled me down beside her and put her arm around my shoulders.
“It’ll be okay, son.”
I looked at her, into her blue eyes. “Are you sure? Everyone keeps saying that, but I saw her hit her head. She wasn’t responding; she wasn’t waking up.”
She pulled me into her and put her head on my shoulder. “All we can do is pray right now, son. But I think that girl is a fighter. I think she’s going to be just fine.”
I sat there with my mom for a few mi
nutes before I suddenly remembered her parents. I pulled out my phone and Mom said, “Who are you calling?”
“Her mom.”
She took the phone gently from my hand and said, “I’ll do it.” I realized as she got up and walked over to the other side of the room that she was protecting me. Chloe’s parents probably hate me. I doubt they’d be happy to hear from me even if it was good news.
I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I saw her wince a couple of times. I couldn’t imagine being thousands of miles away and being told your daughter is in the hospital and you were not sure if she’d be okay or not.
Jesus, I never should have come to Niagara Falls. This is all my fault.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHLOE
I was awake, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I heard a flurry of activity around me and the slow beep, beep, beep of the machines. I felt a prick in my arm and another in the side of my head.
Then suddenly, the whole side of my face was numb and all I could feel was pressure. That went on for a while and then I was moving again. I was being rolled somewhere else and the sounds of other machines penetrated the fog that lay thickly around me in bits and pieces.
When the rolling stopped, I felt myself being lifted and placed on a cold surface. That was the first time I tried to move. I heard voices that I didn’t recognize talking about me moving and asking me to lie still. I was still unable to open my eyes no matter how hard I tried.
I felt something cold go through the tube in my arm and after a few minutes – or maybe it was hours, I had no idea – I got sleepy. I felt myself slipping away and the fog got thicker and the voices sounded muffled and far away.
I didn’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up again, I could open my eyes. It was mostly dark in the room, but a faint light was shining almost directly in front of me up on a wall over what looked like a sink. I turned my head slowly. It felt like it weighed a ton.
That was when I saw Logan. He was asleep in a chair next to my bed. I couldn’t remember where we were, and I tried to lift my head to look around, but that was a mistake.
As soon as it came up off the pillow, a sharp pain shot through my temple and then felt like it culminated in an explosion in my forehead. I must have made a noise because Logan’s blue eyes were suddenly wide open and he was looking at me like something he’d lost and finally just found.
