She sniffed, gave me a short grin, and wrapped her arms around her knees. I knew she knew, I saw it in her eyes: the acceptance of the truth.
I took a deep breath and licked my lips. “I can help you clean up, if you’d like.”
“That’s okay, I’ve got it.”
We were just making our way to our feet when her cell phone chirped.
“Sorry.” She held up a finger. “But that’s Marianna’s ring tone, I’ve got to get that.” Racing to the counter, she snatched up her phone. “Hello?”
Gathering the dishes, I took them over to the sink. I could at least help her out before leaving. Running the water, I shot some soap into the sink, and was just about to turn it off when she plopped onto the barstool.
Brows dipping, I cocked my head. “Jamie?”
Setting the phone down very gently, she gave me a vacant stare that covered me from head to toe in chicken skin.
“What’s the matter?” I rushed to her side immediately, grabbing her upper arm as my heart throbbed a staccato beat in my chest.
He’d died. He must have. How was she going to take this? This would shatter her. No matter what I wanted, I never wanted that for her. Ever. I pulled her into my arms.
“Angel’s in a coma again,” she whispered against my chest. “Can you take me back to the hospital?”
***
Jamie
“What happened?” I asked the second I marched back into the hospital room. Just this afternoon the doctors were supposed to transfer him to a different ward—he’d been improving, I thought.
The other bed that’d been empty this morning was now occupied. The curtains were up, shielding whoever it was from our view. Aware that I needed to keep the volume down, I whispered to a stunned-looking Ms. Romero, “What happened?”
“Aye, mija.” She sniffed, dabbing her nose with a white handkerchief, and shook her head. Mr. Romero grabbed her shoulder and squeezed once.
He was a broad man, square and powerful looking. With arms as big as tree trunks from kneading dough all his life and a big belly from constantly tasting his wares. His hair was salt-and-pepper gray, but his eyes were still the kindly warm brown they’d always been whenever he looked at me.
“Mija, thank you for coming,” he said in his deep voice. “It is good that you are here.” Giving his wife a kiss on her cheek, he smiled at me. “Now there’s someone else in the room, and we can only have two in here at once, so I’ll leave you both to talk. Jessica, do you want anything?”
“No, papi.” She tapped his hand. “But thank you.”
Nodding, giving his boy one last long look, he turned on his sturdy black work boots and walked out.
The beeping machines seemed suddenly too loud.
Angel looked as he had this morning. Like he was only in a deep sleep and that at any moment he’d open his eyes, smile, and wonder what we were all doing here. He should have woken up a while ago.
“They say that because of the brain damage the first time, it is easier to happen again and again,” she whispered, brushing strong fingers across her son’s whiskered cheek.
Taking the seat next to hers, I held my hands on my lap, feeling totally useless. “I’m sorry about this morning,” I murmured, because I hadn’t meant to shock her when she’d caught me in here with Tor.
Sighing, she threaded her fingers through Angel’s and glanced at me. “I was surprised, yes. But I cannot be angry. You are young, and this is so very heavy. It is an exhausting burden to bear. Especially for the third time.” She patted my knee.
The warmth of her absolution flowed through me like a wave of relief. It’s not that I didn’t love my parents, but in so many ways they were just an idea in my head. Ms. Romero was like my pseudo-mom and dad; she’d adopted me as hers in a lot of ways. As I had with her. I grabbed her hand.
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t a burden, that I loved her son. But I didn’t think that was really true anymore. I was here because I wanted to save him from himself, and that wasn’t really the same thing was it?
“God.” My voice broke. “Why does he keep doing this?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “We sent him to therapist after therapist, they all said the same thing. Angel suffers from PTSD, and when it gets too bad, he goes to dark places. You know we’ve tried, mija, right? You know that? Even though he wouldn’t let us put him in that drug rehab, we did try to prevent this.” Her big brown eyes pleaded that I understand.
I nodded, even though she and I both knew he’d needed more than a couple of therapy sessions. “I keep hoping that at some point he’ll miraculously wake up and be who he was. It’s why I stay, because I keep trying to remind him of who he really is.”
Her breath caught on a sob. Turning her face into her handkerchief, she blew her nose twice.
While I gave her the time to get herself together, I gazed at Angel and felt a sickening, crushing weight of guilt. Because whenever I looked at him, even during his good times, he was a burden. I’d given everything to this relationship, hoping that because I was staying faithful, even when he wasn’t, that fate would see and reward my efforts. Tip the scales of justice in my favor and give him back.
The thing was, what I’d done with Tor last night, it’d sparked me. Like Frankenstein’s monster I’d woken up, and as sad as I was to let Tor go, I knew it was probably the right thing to do, at least for right now.
I was nowhere near ready to dive into a new relationship.
I would turn him into a rebound and he didn’t deserve that. But being with him made me see I couldn’t do this with Angel anymore, either.
I had nothing left to give, and as much as Angel hurt me, I wasn’t into sleeping around just to get my revenge. All I wanted was just to move on and discover me.
And this time it wasn’t empty words. My tank was empty. I still wanted Angel to do good, wanted him to wake up from this coma and be the man he should have always been, but I no longer wanted to share my life with him.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She gave me a wobbly grin.
And that right there was the source of all my problems. My heart sank deep into the region of my stomach.
I couldn’t make a clean break. Because as much as I was done with Angel, I wasn’t done with his family; there was too much history and love there to walk away from them. Once again I was back in the same predicament as always, picking up the pieces. Except this time I was coming to resent him for it.
We sat there in silence for the next hour and a half.
And that night, as I lay in my bed, I thought about what I was going to do. I knew what Zoe would tell me: “Walk away.” But I’d never really been good at that.
Rolling over, I stared out my window. Living on the fifteenth floor of the apartment building in downtown Austin afforded me a beautiful view of the city lights at night. The lights seemed to wink and roll on for miles. The sky was black with a hazy golden fog threaded throughout because there was never a true night in such a big city, and usually I loved this time of day. Loved the shadows and darkness and all that it hid.
For some darkness was scary, treacherous, but not for me. It’d always felt magical, soothing. Not tonight, though, tonight I felt alone and tired.
More tired than normal. The bedside clock read five past two in the morning. Thank God I worked from home; otherwise I’d would have been a giant mess in the morning. But as the time ticked on, one hour bleeding into the next and the next, I knew sleep would elude me.
Sometimes things came to a head, the storm finally tore through, and what few threads of sanity you’d been hanging on to snapped. Heat burned my throat and eyes.
Rubbing at them, I reached over for my cell and didn’t think about it before I dialed my parents’ office. It was a long shot that they’d even be around—when they were out in the field, getting in touch with th
em was virtually impossible.
I held my breath as the line rang.
“Hello?” My mother’s soft voice immediately made me sob. Clutching the phone to my ear, I tried to will the tears away but the harder I fought the harder they came.
“Jams, is that you?”
Face screwing up, I could only nod in silence and sniffle loudly.
“Baby doll, what’s the matter?”
Closing my eyes, I scooted up in the bed, sitting cross-legged. My stomach pitched with a sudden and intense wave of nausea. Grabbing myself, I thought I might have to run for the bathroom, but just as soon as it came it went.
“Mama,” I whispered, “I’m just. I’m...”
“Shh. Shh. It’s okay, hun, it’s okay. What happened?”
I looked straight ahead at the only thing I’d bothered hanging on my walls. It was a painting I’d done when I was ten. It was a picture of a painted desert. It was crude, done by the inexperienced hand of a child, but I’d been so proud of it. A red desert with the sun setting behind it and a sea of colorful flowers blooming magically upon the sands.
She’d kept it in the living room for years. I’d sometimes see her brush her fingers across its canvas and it would always bring a smile to my face. When she’d left to Nigeria she’d asked me to watch over it.
“It’s Angel. He’s in the ICU again.”
She sighed and then was silent for so long I thought the call had been dropped.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jams.” Her voice sounded suddenly strained, like she was old and tired.
My parents had had me in their thirties, and mom was close to her sixties now. The idea of that really bothered me.
“Tell me something, Mama. What should I do?”
“Jamie, you’re so much like your daddy. You all want to save the world, and you think you can do that. But sometimes you just can’t, all you wind up doing in the process is killing yourself. I know how much you’ve wanted that boy to wake up, but darlin’—”
Her Texas twang came out just then and made my heart ache.
“—sometimes in life you need to learn when to let go.”
That was the thing, I really did want to. I did. In the quiet of my room I could almost believe it was possible, but I knew the moment I looked into Ms. Romero’s eyes that my desires would waver. I wasn’t a saint by any freaking stretch of the imagination, but I did love them, and that meant something.
Sensing it may have been a bad idea to call, I switched the subject, making idle chitchat that meant absolutely nothing. She knew it and I knew it. I wasn’t sure when it happened that my mom and I no longer had anything in common, mainly because it’d happened so gradually that I’d not been aware until the day I turned around and realized I was talking with a stranger.
Mama didn’t know me at all.
“Tell Daddy I love him,” I whispered after ten minutes of pointless conversation.
“I will, Jams. Good night, baby girl.”
“Night, Mama.”
I’m not sure if she even heard that last part; the connection was already dead. Staring at my phone sightlessly, I had an epiphany.
There was nothing saying that I had to stay in Austin right now. I was a book editor; there were book conferences galore I could go to help promote my business better. I needed to get out for a while. Just long enough to get Humpty Dumpty’s pieces back together again.
***
Two weeks later I was in New York City and sitting all by my lonesome at a booth with a big sign in front of it that read: “EDITOR for hire.”
Probably not the classiest way to pimp out my services, but it was getting the job done. I’d seen many happy faces pass by, some took my card, others left me a partial manuscript to give them a sample of my editing style, and even a few asked if I was hiring.
I crossed my legs. The silky black pantsuit I’d bought precisely for this event was now a wrinkled mess. My back was aching and after a full day of mingling at the East Coast Romance Lovers conference, I was exhausted. My smiles weren’t coming as readily anymore, either.
Not even when the sexy male models dressed in chaps and tight leathers would saunter past stopping for photo ops from rabid fan girls. The crowd was strong and the interest was there, but my brain felt so foggy and muddled that I cut my time slot short by an hour. I packed up my pens and business cards in no time. I carted my ridiculous sign with me to the elevator and the moment the doors pinged open, I slumped against the brass handlebar and cringed as another wave of nausea hit me. I’d not eaten anything today. I’d been too excited and amped up by my unexpected success.
The buzz and excitement had gotten to me. But it was past eleven at night, I hadn’t felt this sick in forever.
Just then a bout of nausea so powerful overcame me that I doubled over, grabbing hold of my stomach and my mouth before I upchucked all over the pretty burgundy carpet, counting slowly to ten in my head until the violent wave passed.
The moment the elevator doors swished open I raced for my room.
Inserting my key into the lock, I threw the door open and flung my purse to the ground, kicked off my shoes, and ran for the bathroom like the hounds of hell were nipping at my feet. Grabbing the toilet bowl with a death grip. But even though I gagged and teared up, nothing came.
Not a surprise: there was nothing in my stomach.
I wasn’t really sure this was even from not eating, though. For the past few days I’d not been feeling good. Chalking it up to too much stress, I’d ignored it. But maybe this was more than stress.
Flushing the toilet, I grabbed a glass tumbler and filled it with some water. Taking small, steady sips until the nasty feeling passed. Grabbing hold of my stomach, I plopped onto the corner of the bed and picked up my cell. Calling Zoe.
She answered on the first ring. “Hey, J. How was the convention? Any hot guys?”
I groaned, not really up for small talk. “I feel like crap,” I moaned. Setting the cup down, I laid back and flung my arm over my eyes.
“Still?”
She’d noticed the night before last that I’d not been feeling good, and, in her words, I’d looked “like death warmed over.”
“Yeah. My stomach is always rolling. I didn’t eat today, so that’s probably all this is, but I’m just so damn tired.” I sighed. “I did get lots of maybe clients, though, so that’s one good thing.”
“Umm…sweetie pie, just a quick question.”
Rolling over into the fetal position, I crammed a pillow against my stomach and felt a little better with the pressure against it. My insides were still flip-flopping. Not with nausea now, but with twinges of pain. It wasn’t horrific pain, but I wasn’t enjoying it, either.
“What?” I closed my eyes, wondering if I should just skip part two of the conference and sleep in tomorrow. I’d be flying out the next day and going immediately to the hospital.
Angel was still in a coma, but the doctor’s said there were now definite signs of brain activity. Marianna said that at one point she could have sworn that Angel’s finger twitched against hers. It hadn’t happened again, but we were all positive that was a sign that he was close to pulling through yet another near-fatal catastrophe.
I’d always told Angel he was like a cat with their nine lives, and he was absolutely proving me right. In my heart I knew he was going to wake up again, it was really just a matter of when. Everyone else felt the same. First time around, this had still been a devastating time. But after three rounds, it was just easier to move on with life and know that until he woke up, there was really very little anyone could do, and sitting in his room crying helped nothing. Whatever guardian angel he had deserved a raise and some serious time off.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose.
“When was the last time you had a period?”
“What?” I snapped into a s
itting position, mouth grown suddenly dry and pulse pounding. Those were nine words no twenty-three year old ever wanted to hear. “Zoe, stop.” I held up my hand. “Don’t even go there. I only had sex with Tor like three weeks ago and we used a condom. Before him, it’s been a year. Not possible.”
My words said one thing, but the chaotic beating of my heart was saying another. Breathing beginning to turn short and choppy my brain rewound all the problems I’d been experiencing lately. Extreme tiredness, nausea, pain in my stomach area.
I blinked.
“Shit,” I breathed, then gulped, then shook my head. “Oh my God, oh my God, Zoe.”
“No. No. No. Shh. Stop the panicking right now, do you hear me?”
“No! I am panicking, why would you even put that stupid idea in my head if you didn’t want me to panic?” I bunched the floral-patterned hotel comforter in my fist.
“How do your boobs feel?”
“How the hell should I know? Like squishy boobs.” As I said it I squeezed them, sure they were feeling a little more tender than normal, but that wasn’t that uncommon for me at the end of the night.
But then again…
Where just seconds ago I’d felt on the verge of passing out, I was now completely awake and pacing on the soft, slate-colored carpet.
“What am I gonna do? What will Tor think? Oh my god, what will the Romeros think?” I shoved a fist into my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut as hot tears threatened to roll.
“Okay, first of all, get yourself together,” Zoe snapped, “you might not be. Jeez, lady, high strung much?”
I hissed into the line.
She only laughed. “The way to know for sure is to test yourself.”
“Well, even if I am, I’m still too early to tell, right?”
“Actually I think they have some that can tell you kind of early now. Janelle, Alex’s co-worker, just found out she’s pregnant and she’s only like two and a half weeks along. It’s actually why I thought of this in the first place.”
“I hate you so much right now,” I groaned, growing absurdly terrified of the idea of a child.
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