by Jessica Kate
Jem tucked his fingers back into the warm flannel. “He got really lethargic after you left, and I googled his symptoms. I need to make sure it’s not something serious.”
“Where’s Lili?” Natalie brushed her finger over Oliver’s smooth cheek. No fever.
“I dropped her at her parents’ on the way over. Steph’s away at the conference in Philadelphia, but Mike should be home. He didn’t answer his phone, but most people don’t at 2:00 a.m. I made sure Lili got into the house before I left.”
Natalie’s skin pinched into goose bumps as a sharp breeze blew from the north. She’d run out the door in yesterday’s jeans, flip-flops, and the first T-shirt she grabbed from a pile of unfolded laundry.
Jem ran his hand over her upper arm. “You don’t have to be here if you don’t want. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have had Lili call you.”
Natalie tightened her grip on the baby. “Don’t be stupid. Of course I should be here.”
He gave her a brief squeeze. “Let’s get inside.”
The antiseptic hospital smell speared Natalie’s senses as they crossed the threshold. Panic clawed at her throat. Every time she smelled that scent, something painful happened. Dad’s diagnosis, his relapse, and that close call they’d had two years ago.
She glanced around the room as Jem spoke with the nurse. Cold, sterile, unsympathetic. Just like the woman Jem was talking to.
The nurse handed him a form and pointed to a chair. “Fill this out and wait over there.”
“Are you serious?” Natalie leaned forward. “He’s only a baby. He’s sick.”
The woman didn’t even glance up. “Tell that to the guy whose friend can’t aim a nail gun.” She nodded toward a patient.
They swung their gazes to a disheveled man hobbling through the heavy doors that separated the emergency department from examination rooms. He held an ice pack to his groin.
Jem paled. “We’ll wait.”
He led Natalie to two plastic chairs and passed Oliver to her. Olly didn’t stir, just lay limp in his blanket.
“I thought the doctor said antibiotics would fix it, and that if he’s still eating and drinking, it would be okay,” she said.
“I know. I told Lili I’m being paranoid.” Jem kept his focus on the paperwork.
“What aren’t you saying?”
He signed the final box and stood. “Google is scary.”
She cuddled the baby against her chest. What if he had some sort of childhood cancer? Possibilities swarmed her mind like fire ants. She curled around the bundle in her lap and tried to pray, but no words came to mind.
You know what you have to do.
Eyes closed and face buried against Olly, she paid no attention to Jem until he brushed her side as he sat down. She unraveled herself and shifted so Olly lay half on her lap and half on Jem’s.
They watched his son, cradled between them.
“Jem, I have to tell you something.”
He shifted, Chicago Bears hoodie warm against her bare arm. “I’m sorry about tonight.”
“No, that’s not—I mean, yes, I’m sorry too. But that’s not what I wanted to say.” She pulled back till she could look him in the eye. “I talked to Sam after you left—”
His left eye twitched.
“—and I ran into your dad. Between the two of them I got reminded of some things. I did some serious thinking. And . . . I . . .” She took a deep breath and shot up a prayer for help. “This is something I need to say out loud: I forgive you.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“I understand what you meant about the difference between forgetting and forgiving, and I forgive you.”
A glassy sheen came over Jem’s eyes before he blinked it away. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She smiled at him for a moment. Saying it didn’t mean it wasn’t hard anymore. It didn’t mean she entertained the thought of a future with Jem. No, she couldn’t get sucked into his vortex again.
But it was a weight off her soul.
He shifted Olly onto her lap, gripped the hem of his hoodie, and pulled it over his head. “Here.” He swapped it for the baby.
She pulled the fleece on, inhaling Jem’s scent as she did so. Still warm from his body, it enveloped her frame.
Jem, wearing his blue shirt from dinner, shifted so she could lean against him and still reach Olly.
She placed her index finger in the baby’s palm and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, it was to squint up at the cranky nurse.
“They’re ready for you now.”
The nurse led them to an examination room and pointed to two even more uncomfortable plastic chairs. Natalie jigged her foot against the ground as the woman grilled Jem on Olly’s symptoms.
Jem rattled through Olly’s unusual thirstiness, vomiting, and lack of energy. “The doctor gave us antibiotics, but they didn’t do anything.” He paused. “Tonight my father noticed that his breath smells sweet. And when I checked on him at 1:00 a.m., he’d saturated the bed . . . and that smelled sweet too.”
The lines on the nurse’s face deepened. She hefted her body from the chair, ducked beyond the curtain, and returned with a small black machine in one hand, a pen-like object in the other. “Hold out his hand.”
Natalie frowned as Jem did so. “Why?”
The woman held the pen up to Olly’s hand and it clicked. Olly jolted, screamed.
“What are you doing?” Natalie reached for Olly, but Jem grabbed her hand.
The nurse held a thin strip of paper up to the red spot below his thumb, then inserted the paper in the handheld machine. The machine beeped, and the nurse’s eyes widened. “Excuse me. I need to get the doctor.” She swept past the curtain.
Natalie grabbed Olly from Jem’s arms and bounced him against her shoulder. “What was that all about? Why is the sweet smell important? You didn’t tell me that before.”
Jem rubbed a hand over Olly’s back as he settled back down. “When I googled all his symptoms, the computer lit up with a hundred thousand results, pretty much all saying the same thing.”
“What?”
“I think he has—”
The curtain swept aside, and a man with a gray mustache and brown toupee strode in. “Mr. and Mrs. Walters,” he said.
Natalie didn’t correct him.
“I need to run some more tests for confirmation, but you should know . . . we think your son could have diabetes.”
25
“Lili? What time is it?” Mom’s groggy voice brought a wave of tears to Lili’s vision. Dad’s computer screen blurred. “M—Mom, it’s about Dad,” she sobbed.
A crash sounded at the other end of the connection. “What’s wrong? Is he alright? Just let me switch on the lamp. I knocked it over.” A rustle sounded, then a click. “What’s going on?”
“I-I should have t-t-told you earlier, but he said he was going to talk to you. I wasn’t certain, and I thought—or I hoped—he was telling me the truth, b-but—”
“Lili, tell me what’s happening.” Mom’s voice was firm but not harsh.
She gulped back a sob. “Dad’s having an affair.”
The clock on Dad’s wall ticked—one, two, three, four.
“I know.”
“You know?” Lili sucked in a breath, then another. A tingle buzzed through her fingers, and her head floated two inches above where it should be. Was she hallucinating right now? How could Mom have known? “F-for how long?” The photos on the wall twisted and danced. “Mom, I feel dizzy.”
“You’re hyperventilating, Lili. Slow your breathing down.”
She stared at Dad’s bookshelf as she counted to three, breathing out, then in. A silver-framed photo of their family at Disney World sat at eye level. Mom, green from one too many Space Mountain rides, Dad with half a churro shoved in his mouth and looking cross-eyed at the camera, and eleven-year-old Lili laughing at him. Happy.
Now never again.
She twisted the cord of her
pajama pants round her finger till it turned purple. “What are you going to do?” Her voice wobbled.
“I need you to do something for me, Lili, and you might not understand at first, but I want you to promise me.”
Poor Mom, knowing something this awful and pretending nothing was wrong. Anything she could do to help . . . “Okay. Promise.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Was she serious? “What? Why? People should know what two-faced liars they are.” She stabbed a pencil against a notebook, and the lead snapped off.
There was a pause. “You know who she is?”
Lili’s insides clenched at the waver in Mom’s voice. “Yeah.”
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
A question burned to escape. “Are you going to get a divorce?” She held her breath.
“Not if I can help it.”
She breathed easier even as disgust curled her lip. “How can you stay with him after what he’s done? Do you still love him?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I can’t be a divorced woman!” The words flew out of Mom like a squeezed watermelon seed. “I’ll lose my job, my ministry.”
The church fallout was going to be . . . Yikes. But Mom hadn’t done anything wrong. “Dad will, you won’t.”
“Who goes to a divorced woman for relationship advice, Lili? The church wants good role models to be its leaders, not people who couldn’t keep their family together. No one would look at me the same.” Mom’s voice cracked. “And I’ve only ever worked in the church. I don’t know how to do anything else. I don’t even have friends outside our congregation.”
Tears slipped from beneath Lili’s eyelids as she looked at the Disney World photo again. It had all been a lie. Dad didn’t want them anymore.
“I’ll do it on one condition,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t look in Dad’s office when you get home.”
“Deal.”
* * *
Lili seized an armful of papers from the bottom drawer of Dad’s filing cabinet and tossed them into the air. A papery blizzard raged around her. She’d just emptied the entire cabinet in less than two minutes.
Pain registered. A paper cut sliced down her index finger, thin and red. Her throat ached the way it always did before she cried. Sermon notes and church budgets fluttered down around her.
She curled up on the paper-covered floor and sobbed till the tax return beneath her face turned soggy.
How could Dad have done this? Did he care that little for her and Mom?
She pounded the floor and screamed again. She’d tried to be the perfect daughter. Her grades were flawless, and even her math had improved. With the exception of the smoking incident, her behavior had been exemplary. She had no bad friends. No boyfriend. Didn’t party. Wore a skirt to church every week and had taught Sunday school for two years.
Apparently that wasn’t enough to make Dad love her.
Fire surged through Lili’s veins. She bounced up from the floor and attacked Dad’s desk drawers. When a notebook, calculator, and stash of jellybeans fell from drawer number three, a small black cylinder rolled from the top of the pile. She dropped the drawer and grabbed it. Red lipstick. Definitely not Mom’s.
Lili pulled Dad’s leather-bound Life Application Bible from the towering pile of books on the edge of his desk. A small nudge sent the rest of the pile crashing to the floor. She plopped the Bible in the center of the desk. Uncapping the toffee apple-red lipstick, she scrawled across the page.
Liar.
The lipstick worked like a giant crayon, its red stain smudging the holy pages.
Her gaze landed on the cream office wall before her.
Cheater.
Dad’s massive bookcase covered the third wall, and his filing cabinet and a cupboard blocked most of the fourth. But the back of his door was an untouched canvas.
I hate you.
She squished the remaining lipstick against the wall, then dropped the pulverized red mash. A sweep of the hand sent Dad’s bookshelf photographs tumbling to the ground, and she yanked every book from its place. The corner of an Old Testament commentary landed on her big toe. She yelped and jumped backward. Biting back a curse word, she clenched her fist against the roll of pain.
A thought whispered from the back of her brain. Why not curse? It wasn’t like God loved her either.
Lili shouted every curse word she knew and looked around for anything left to destroy. A pair of scissors suggested themselves from Dad’s desktop. She picked them up and turned to Dad’s chair.
Dad’s favorite leather chair.
She pressed the blade against the leather. A hot tear splashed onto her hand. She gripped the scissors tighter.
She could do it . . .
She should do it . . .
Throwing the scissors aside, she collapsed to her knees, face pressed against the seat. Her tears soaked the yellow foam that poked out from cracks in the worn cushion.
This chair belonged to the father who’d smuggled her chocolate-chip ice cream when Mom sent her to bed without supper. The man who’d danced with her at the elementary school ball. The one who bought her new paints last November, for no other reason than to see her smile.
She couldn’t destroy it yet.
Lili dragged the back of her hand across her face and rose on unsteady feet.
She screenshot the Find My Phone map, printed it, and laid it on the keyboard.
Uncapping a red pen with her teeth, she scribbled on the bottom of the page.
Dad, Oliver was really sick so Jem dropped me home. I got worried when you weren’t here.
I’m not worried anymore.
P.S. Mom knows.
She dropped the pen on the desk and left the room, shutting the door behind her.
26
A warning alarm buzzed close to Jem’s ear. He jerked his head up from where it rested on the hospital wall. What piece of medical equipment was that?
He squirmed upright in the large window seat of Olly’s hospital room, Natalie’s head limp on his shoulder. Careful not to wake her, Jem viewed the machines in the room. Predawn sunlight filtered through the window, devoid of warmth. Despite the tubes coming out of Olly, so small and still in the hospital crib, he couldn’t figure out which contraption made the racket. They’d been shifted to a private room sometime around 3:00 a.m., so the alarm couldn’t be coming from anyone else’s machine.
The sound rang out again, and he looked at the pocket on his hoodie—the one Natalie was wearing. It vibrated.
“Nat, wake up.” He jostled her and brushed the navy hood back from her head.
She sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong?”
“Answer your phone.”
She fumbled for it. “It’s Mom.” She looked at Olly, clearly torn.
“Go. I’ll watch him.”
She pressed the answer button. “Mom?” She slipped out of the room.
Jem stood and stretched, working out the kinks from a night spent in chairs that made a torturer’s rack look comfortable. Resting his hands on the rail of Olly’s crib, he gazed at his son.
Olly wore a baby-sized hospital gown—Natalie had held on to his blue “I’m Dad’s favorite” onesie ever since the nurses changed him out of it. His white-blond hair blended in with the pillow, cheeks barely a few shades lighter.
Jem stroked the soft skin of one of them, noted the lack of chubbiness. Olly had lost much of his baby fat in recent weeks. Jem had attributed the change to a growth spurt—he’d seen friends’ babies suddenly grow up instead of out. But the doctor said the change—as well as Olly’s ravenous hunger and thirst—had not been due to growth but the fact that his body could no longer draw energy from his food. It was Olly’s internal reserves, stored in fat, that had kept him going so far.
His own stomach growled, and he winced. His son had been starving, and he hadn’t noticed. How could he have missed th
e signs?
He expelled a breath and shook his head. Even the family doctor had gotten it wrong, prescribing antibiotics.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, approached the door.
“What did your mom sa—” The words froze in Jem’s throat.
Chloe stood before him, hair tousled and no trace of makeup on her face. She wore gray sweats and had mismatched ballet flats on her feet.
Jem stared. He’d never seen her in such a state, not even when they were dating.
“I got your message that he was here. What’s wrong?” She made no move toward Olly, but a tremor rang in her voice.
“They say he has diabetes.” His voice came out wooden, just fact, no emotion. He couldn’t make it sink in.
She swore.
Still comprehending that she’d shown up—looking like this, no less—he took her elbow and led her to his chair, taking Natalie’s seat himself.
Chloe’s eyes remained glued to the little boy on the bed. “Is he going to die?”
Jem flinched. “It has risks, especially if his blood sugar drops too far, but if we manage it carefully he should be okay. But he’ll have to take insulin for the rest of his life.”
Her hand went to her stomach. “Is it genetic?”
“I think so. Dad’s brother has the same thing.” That little fact had clicked in his brain somewhere around 4:30 a.m. as he stared at his son in the dark.
She looked at Olly, still motionless on the bed, and her face crumpled. “Richard t-told me this w-w-was a bad idea.” She kept talking, but it came out in a mumble he couldn’t decipher.
“As in your ex, Richard?” She’d mentioned him—quite a bit, now that he thought about it—back in Chicago.
“Now my fiancé.” She pulled a ring from her right hand and slipped it onto her left. The diamond sparkled, even in dull fluorescent light. “We got back together not long after . . .” Her eyes darted away from Olly. “We got engaged two months ago.” She shrugged. “He doesn’t want to do the blended-family thing, but I had to come check on Oliver.”
Jem’s neck heated. The guy was pressuring her to stay away because he didn’t want to do “the blended-family thing”? What kind of man did that?
