by DeLuca, Gia
“This is Belinda at Cedars-Sinai,” she said, forcing my heart to race as blood rushed to my head.
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to let you know that we’ve concluded our investigation,” she said. It had been months. I’d pretty much written them off. “The claims made against you were unfounded, and we were unable to substantiate them.”
My jaw dropped, and no words passed my lips.
“So, Evelyn, would you like to come back to work for us?” she asked, her voice uplifting and encouraging.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Thank you, Belinda, but I’m going to have to pass.”
“Really?” She took on a curious tone.
“I don’t need the work right now,” I said, adding, “but I would absolutely love to speak to you about volunteer positions.”
“Oh? Oh. Um. Okay,” she said as I heard papers shuffling in the background. “Sure, um, I can put you in contact with our volunteer coordinator and we can go from there. That sound good?”
“Absolutely,” I said, smiling as if she could see me. It felt right. I didn’t need to work, but I still wanted to do something in Julian’s memory. “Can I volunteer in the respiratory unit?”
“We can arrange that, yes,” Belinda said.
“And I’d also like to speak to someone about making a donation,” I said, “in my late husband’s name.”
“Oh, um, yes, sure,” Belinda fumbled over her words, indicating this was not the way she’d imagined the conversation to go. “I’ll pass on your info, and have the right people get a hold of you as soon as possible. We sure do appreciate this, Evelyn.”
“It’s Evie,” I said. “And you’re very welcome.”
“Cedars?” Jude said as I ended the call with Belinda.
“Yep,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “They said the allegations were unfounded. It makes no sense.”
“Why’s that?”
“It couldn’t have been your mother that filed the claims,” I said, eyes shifting into his. “She would’ve done everything she could to strip me of my license. I don’t think she was lying when she said she didn’t know I moved out here.”
Jude looked down at his food and cleared his throat, lifting his eyebrows as he said, “I know it wasn’t my mother.”
“Then who was it?” I crossed my arms. Why hadn’t he told me this sooner?
“It was Veronica,” he said, avoiding the intensity of my stare.
“Veronica? Are you serious? Why?”
Jude shrugged. “I told you she’s crazy.”
“How did she know about me working at Cedars?”
“I may have mentioned it to her casually,” Jude said, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t think she’d do something like that. Who the fuck does that?”
“A woman scorned,” I said, voice low.
“She was pissed because I bought her out,” Jude said. “And she was even more pissed that I fell in love with you.” He turned to face me, reaching up and brushing my cheek with his hand. “She was just trying to get back at me. I’m sorry you got caught up in that.”
I placed my hand over his and smiled. “It’s okay. I didn’t lose my license. Everything worked out just fine in the end, don’t you think?”
“Is this the end?” Jude asked.
I smiled. “You know what I meant.”
“This is just the beginning,” Jude said, climbing over top of me, the weight of his body pinning me against the soft mattress. He nuzzled the side of my neck, his five o’clock shadow tickling my soft skin. His hand glided down my side, slipping under the waistband of my leggings and tugging them down.
Knock, knock, knock.
“You expecting someone?” I asked as his motions became frozen in place.
“No,” he said, glancing over at the alarm clock. He slid off me and grabbed a t-shirt out of a dresser drawer, pulling it over his head and finger-combing his hair into place as he left the room.
I hid back in his room, peeking out from behind the door and listening intently.
“Sam, what are you doing here?” he asked. From where I stood, I could see him stretching his arms across the door, blocking her access and preventing her from coming any closer.
“I just wanted to drop off some things,” she said, shoving a medium sized cardboard box into his arms.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Some things of yours,” she sighed. “They were scattered around my place. I didn’t want to look at them anymore.”
“Oh,” he said, looking down. “Thanks.”
She lingered, both of them silent, until she said, “You really hurt me, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Sam,” he said, remaining stoic. “I never meant for you to get hurt. I thought we were on the same page.”
“You know, in a way,” she began, her voice trembling. I didn’t really know Sam, but my heart began to ache for her. “I’m glad this happened. Because it taught me a lot.”
Jude set the box down and pulled her in for a comforting hug, the same way he’d offered me comfort when we first met. The man hated to see a girl cry.
“You set me free,” she said. “I’m not going to settle again. I’m not going to look for someone to fill that void anymore. I want something real. I want that crazy love, like what you have with Evie.”
Jude hugged her tight and rubbed her back. “You’ll have that someday. I promise. You’re a nice girl, Sam. You’re just meant to be someone else’s girl.”
Jude released her and she stepped back, wiping tears from her eyes and flashing him a bittersweet smile before silently slipping down the hall.
“That was nice of you,” I said, emerging from his room as soon as he shut the door. “Couldn’t help but overhear.”
Jude shrugged. “I never meant to hurt her.”
“I know you didn’t,” I said, slipping my arm around his solid waist and leaning my head against his chest. “You’re a good guy, you know that?”
Jude shook his head. He still struggled with self-loathing, and the guy beat himself up more than anyone I’d ever met before, but it was something he was working on.
He sauntered over to the sofa, taking a seat and cracking his laptop open.
“How’s work going?” I asked. “I don’t see you working much anymore.”
Running his hand against his bristly cheek he took a deep breath. “Not so good.”
“I thought you were doing great, though? You were going to sell it to someone,” I said, vaguely pasting together bits and pieces of past conversations. He was always so reserved anytime I asked him about his company.
“The buyer,” he said, his shoulders falling, “was Sam’s dad.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Since I broke up with Sam, he decided to take his money elsewhere. He’s still an investor, but ever since things went south with Sam and me, he’s been trying to stir up trouble and dictating things I do. He owns 51% of J-Corp right now. I only sold him the majority of the company because I thought I’d be handing it over in a few months.”
“Jude,” I said, sinking into the sofa next to him and wrapping my arm around him. “So, if you would’ve stayed with Sam a few more months, you could’ve sold your company and walked away with a big profit?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But Evie, I told you, we were never dating. And the second you came back, I knew I couldn’t keep pretending with Sam. I had to be with you. At any cost.”
“Wow.” I sucked in a deep breath, wrapping my head around the lengths he took just to try to be with me once again. “You really do love me, don’t you?”
He nodded, eyes focused on his computer screen as he went through his email, deleting almost everything.
“Is J-Corp still a viable company?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his tone picking up. “J-Corp is still very much viable. The potential is limitless. The only problem is I’ve got that asshole trying to tell me what to do, and he knows absolut
ely nothing about the industry.”
“Can you find another buyer?”
“What’s the point?” he said. “I don’t own the majority of the company. I can’t agree to any offers. It’s all up to Frank.”
“Wouldn’t he want you to be successful? If he forces J-Corp to crumble, he loses his money,” I said.
Jude scoffed. “He only invested a couple million. To a man like him, that’s nothing. His net worth probably fluctuates as much on any given day. He could lose J-Corp today and make up the difference if the Dow goes up a couple points tomorrow.”
“So he’s basically trying to get you back for hurting Sam.”
“Yep.” Jude’s nostrils flared.
I shook my head. People with insane amounts of money were bat shit crazy. That’s what I’d determined in the last year.
“I could try to sell my 49%, but no one wants to own a company with a man who knows absolutely nothing about what he’s doing.” Jude shut his laptop. “Without me, J-Corp would sink like a stone. I’m not going to do that to someone.”
“How much would you need to start up a new company?” I asked. “Like, a fresh start.”
He raised his eyebrows. He knew exactly what I was implying. “Evie, I’m not going to take any money from you.”
“Why not? It’s your family’s money,” I objected. “It’s not mine alone.”
“It is your money,” he argued. “Julian gave it to you.”
“Okay, if it’s my money, then I can do what I want with it,” I said. “Try to argue with that.”
His lips slipped into a relenting smile. “We can discuss this another time. I don’t want you rushing into this because you feel obligated.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Hey, I was thinking about going back to Halverford for a weekend to visit my parents and check on the house. Want to come?”
He peered down his nose at me. “I don’t want to go to Halverford, no.”
“That’s fine,” I said, disguising my disappointment with a smile.
“But I don’t think I can be away from you,” he said. “I’m going.”
JUDE
“I told him we were coming,” Evie said as we pulled up to her old house in our rental car. Her tenant had been a construction worker in town for the year working on some project. Apartments in Halverford were scarce, and the available ones were questionable, at best. He’d scored a deal with Evie’s place. “He said he’ll be working, but we can just go on in.”
She took a deep breath, her blue eyes fixed on the outside of the house. I’d never stopped to think about how hard it was going to be for her to go in there again. It’d been about half a year since she left.
Evie took her time heading up to the front door, running her fingers against wood railing the tenant had apparently sanded and repainted the fall before. He promised her he’d do some improvements to the house since she’d cut him such a good deal on the rent.
She slipped her key into the lock and it popped lightly as if it were brand new. The door swung open and a clean, generic scent welcomed us in.
“Doesn’t smell the way it used to,” she said softly. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
I placed my hand as she stood in the foyer. Ahead a sanded, stained, and polished staircase replaced the weathered and beaten one she’d left behind, and I watched as she gazed down at the wooden floor beneath us. No more scuffs and dings; it was shiny and unmarred.
I followed closely behind as she toured the house as if it were the first time she’d ever seen it.
“No more leaks,” she said, flushing the toilet. “Water used to leak from the handle when you flushed. Remember that?”
Her eyes scanned the rest of the bathroom, and I stood back while she tested the old, leaky faucet that had been outfitted with a shiny new chrome set and watched as she checked out how quickly the tub drained. She skipped off to the kitchen and tested the sprayer in the sink that never used to work, but now behaved as if it were brand new. The faint grinding noise the refrigerator used to make was now deadened to a soft murmur. She ran out to the back deck, which had been stained with a gorgeous cedar color, its old, rotting boards replaced by new ones. Even with a light blanket of January snow covering the yard, we could both see the bushes along the fence had been trimmed neatly and the Poplar trees pruned.
“Wow,” Evie said, drawing back toward the center of the house. “It’s like he ticked off everything Julian and I were going to do.”
I smiled. It was as if Julian had sent that guy her way to take care of all the things he’d never had a chance to take care of.
“Everything looks good,” Evie said, buzzing with excitement. “I honestly didn’t know what I was going to come home to. He did a great job.”
I grabbed her by the arm and tucked her close under my own. I wanted to kiss her, but the moment didn’t feel right. I said a quiet “thank you” to Julian for bringing her into my life. I could almost feel him there, standing with us in the foyer.
“I wanted to run over to Mercy Hope before we go to my parents’,” she said, slipping out of my grasp and heading back to the door.
“Don’t you want to see the rest of the house? Your room?”
“No,” she said, her eyes welling as a sentimental smile spread across her sweet lips. “I’m not ready to see our old bedroom. I want to remember it exactly how it was.”
We left the house and headed to the hospital where Julian took his last breath. At least, that was how I was sure Evie remembered of it. She’d stopped at the bank that morning to grab a certified check, feeling the need to make a donation in Julian’s name to the hospital that had always taken such good care of him.
She’d scheduled a meeting with the CEO of the hospital and the VP of Gifts, reiterating with them that the million-dollar donation was to be in Julian’s name. She wanted no part of it. Her only request was that some of the money went to a reading library for patients. It only seemed fitting, since Julian was an avid reader.
“That was very generous of you,” I said to Evie as we left the hospital and headed outside.
Giant snowflakes fell from the sky, peppering our coats and sending deep shivers down my spine.
“I didn’t know it was supposed to snow,” she said, blinking away the giant flakes that fell into her long lashes. The cement was getting slick. The ground was warm enough to melt the flakes as they landed, but the air was cool enough to refreeze them on contact.
“Careful,” I said, grabbing the crook of her elbow and leading her into the parking lot. I glanced around, squinting against all the white and gray that surrounded us until I saw our black Toyota rental. The second we arrived at the car, a black Mercedes pulled up next to us with windows so tinted we couldn’t see in. The air changed, and it wasn’t the weather. We stood, paralyzed as a tall, slender woman with a pale complexion and icy cold stare climbed out.
“Jude?” my mother said.
“Evie, get in the car,” I said, spitting my words. “Now.”
Evie hesitated for a moment before obeying me.
“You followed me here?” I asked.
“No,” she said, clutching her hand over her heart and furrowing her brows. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”
“How’d you find me?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t looking for you. Believe me.”
My blood boiled with an intensity so fervent I couldn’t feel the ice cold wind as it brushed my face, and each flake that fell onto my exposed skin melted before it had a chance.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded to know.
She looked me up and down and then tugged on her long woolen coat. Holding her head high, she said, “Chemo.”
“Chemo?” I asked in disbelief. “Just another one of your ploys. God, it never ends with you.”
Her face froze in one expressionless position as her bony fingers reached up to her hat where her blonde hair suck out, barely grazing her shoulders. With one slow pull, h
er hat came off. Her other hand lifted to her forehead, where she grabbed the bangs of her hair and pulled back, revealing a bald head. She’d been wearing a wig.
“Believe me now?” she said, her voice faltering in a rare moment of vulnerability. In all my years, I’d never seen her look as raw as she did standing there in the parking lot of a hospital in her fancy coat next to her fancy car with no hair on her head.
“Jesus,” I said, raking my fingers across my face. As I stared into her cool blue eyes, all I could think about was the time I was sick with pneumonia as a child.
“Don’t I get a nurse too, mommy?” I’d asked from my bed as my lungs burned with each wheezing breath.
“No,” she said, standing at the foot of my bed. “Nurses are only for Julian.”
“But what if I need something?” my nine-year-old self asked. “Who’s going to help me?”
“You’re not that sick, Jude,” she’d huffed as she walked away. “God, you’re such a needy little boy.”
I had opened my mouth to say something, but all that came out were uncontrollable, barking coughs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop coughing. I reached my hand out to the near-empty water glass on my nightstand, but I didn’t have the strength to reach it. My eyes pleaded with hers for help, but she walked away, shutting the door hard behind her.
“So, there you have it,” Caroline said, slipping her wig back on and securing it with her hat. “I’m dying.”
I rolled my eyes. Knowing her, she was milking it for all it was worth. I knew with 100% certainty she could afford the best medical treatment available. “I highly doubt that.”
Her eyes widened. “I very well could die, Jude. And what happens then? You’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” I scoffed.
“Sorry for making the wrong choices in life,” she said as her gaze turned toward Evie in the car and her body remained frigid and stoic. She stood firm in her delusional beliefs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “You never wanted me. I was always a burden to you. The day I walked out, I did you and Dad a favor. You should be thanking me.”
“I never felt that way about you,” she lied, placing her hand over her heart in a feeble attempt to make me feel guilty. “I loved you, Jude. You were my baby. And you left me when I needed you the most.”
