Chapter 32
I t’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so like the crazy people we are, Grace, Rina, and I are shopping through Wholefoods. It’s the equivalent of going to the mall on Black Friday in here. It’s packed with holiday pick-up orders and last-minute shoppers. We’re the latter.
Stella and Layla had the idea of inviting all of the staff to have Thanksgiving with us. Typically, the Fritzes give most of the staff the holiday off to do their own thing, but this year, Octavia and Dr. Fritz extended the invitation to holiday dinner.
We’re talking a lot of freaking people coming for a meal.
The garden room in the back of the house that is beside the ballroom is being set up as we speak with tables and food stations galore. But to add some crazy, Stella asked if each of the Fritz people could bring a dish to help with the cooking.
Stella, Landon, and Elle are making all the breads.
Oliver, Amelia, and Layla mashed potatoes.
Grace and Carter are thinking of doing apple and pumpkin pies.
Rina and Brecken get sweet potatoes and squashes, and I volunteered green bean casserole—my favorite—and brussels sprouts.
Sophia, the house chef, is making two turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauces, gravy, and who knows whatever else.
But for the first time in four years, I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving.
It was sort of easy to not feel homesick over missing the holiday when I was in London since they don’t celebrate it there. Still… I knew what I was missing. Family. Food. Love.
“To marshmallow or not to marshmallow? That is the question,” Rina muses as she stares down at the bags of white puffs on the display in front of us.
“My vote is marshmallows,” Grace tells her. “But that’s just me. Carter has gone back to policing my sugar and junk consumption, so I’m at the mercy of others.”
I snicker. “Like you don’t have a stash.”
She glances around as if Carter’s going to jump out of the neighboring cereal aisle and bust her. “I’ve had to hide gummy worms in my shoe boxes and eat them either after he’s gone to sleep for the night or when he’s not home. It’s so pathetic.”
“You’re a better woman than I am,” Rina states flatly. “I’d just tell Brecken to fuck off.”
“Different beast,” I say, picking up two bags of marshmallows and dropping them into Rina’s cart. “You’re making four of these. Do two with and two without.”
“Smart. And remind me why we’re all doing this again?”
“To feed us commoners.”
“No, that’s not my issue,” Rina smarts as she goes about grabbing maple syrup and brown sugar by the gross.
“But why do I have to cook? Stella told me I can’t get catering.
That’s just awful. I’m subjecting everyone to my poor cooking skills.
It’s a wonder Brecken doesn’t have irritable bowel syndrome after suffering through a few of my meals a week. ”
“You?” I point at her, my eyes wide. “I haven’t cooked in forever other than what I could make for myself in my tiny flat in London or in the community kitchen in the staff house.
Most of the time I was eating cereal or soup because it was cheap, and London is not.
We’re using Luca’s kitchen because it’s huge, but Stella is putting a lot of faith in us. ”
Grace is beet red, her face cast everywhere other than at us.
“What?” Rina snaps. “What are you hiding?”
She nibbles on her bottom lip. “I might have ordered two of the pies.”
Both Rina and I gasp.
“What? I am not a freaking baker, okay? I just like sweets. I ordered the pumpkin and chocolate cream pies. I’m making the apple.
That has to count. We’re talking three damn kinds of pie here and I’m a fucking resident.
Carter made a test pumpkin pie that was so awful, it was inedible.
I won’t subject people to that. I just won’t. ”
I hold up my hand as I load my cart with canned cream of mushroom soup. “No judgments. I have zero judgments and honestly, I’m grateful. I love the hell out of pie.”
Rina bobs her head, her hair up in a tight bun, and she’s still in scrubs from her shift. “Ditto. You’re doing a service. Do you think they’d know if I scooted back over to prepared foods and bought them out of squash?”
“Probably, but I’ll carry that secret to my grave,” I promise.
“Me too.” Grace nods solemnly.
We walk along, Rina and Grace going back and forth on the merits of adding clove in apple pies, when I blurt out, “Has Luca seemed different to either of you in the last couple of weeks?”
The two of them pause midaisle, nearly causing a traffic jam and getting a couple of snarly comments from a woman behind us. We let her pass us and then Grace turns to me, her eyebrows pinched together, her lips pursed. “Different how?”
“I don’t know. Not distant exactly, but more pensive. I can’t put my finger on it, but he just feels… off to me.”
“Off,” Rina echoes. “I don’t know. I haven’t noticed anything, but then again I don’t see him a ton during the week. Could it be about my mom?”
“Maybe.” I stare down at my cart, at the pile of food.
“I feel like it’s more, though. He’s clingy, but he’s also not talking as much as he used to.
And his moods feel… darker, I guess.” I exhale a heavy breath, scrubbing my hands up and down my face.
“Maybe I’m just crazy and reading too much into things.
We’re new at this and yet we don’t feel that way. ”
“It’s like you two skipped over the getting to know each other phase and went straight into serious town,” Grace quips.
“Carter and I were the same way. We’ve known each other our whole lives and then suddenly our dynamic completely changed and we had to learn how to get to know each other as a couple. ”
“Right! Yes. That’s how this feels. But we did some of that dance four years ago and now here we are, back to this, and everything is great.
I mean, pure magic. We can’t get enough of each other, but…
” My hands grip the handle on the cart as I stare pointedly at my friends.
“I also feel like maybe he’s keeping something from me. ”
Rina throws her hands up. “If he is, I have no clue what it could be.”
Grace shrugs sheepishly. “Me neither.”
“Maybe I’m just—” I get cut off when all three of our phones ring simultaneously. “What the hell?”
“Carter?”
“Oliver?”
“Luca?” I answer. “What’s going on? I’m with Grace and Rina, and they’re getting calls from your brothers.”
“My mom is in the hospital. She passed out in the shower this morning and Dad rushed her in by ambulance. They’re doing all kinds of tests, but I’m headed over there now.”
“Where? What hospital?”
“Brigham and Women’s. She’s in the Shapiro Tower Pavilion.”
“We’re on our way. Can I bring anything?”
“No. I’ll see you soon.” He disconnects the call and I’ve never heard him like that. His voice a concoction of scared little boy and all business doctor.
Grace and I both grab Rina’s hands and without saying anything, the three of us abandon our carts and run for the exit. Grace drove Carter’s car and the three of us pile in.
“Did Luca or Oliver tell you any details?”
I shake my head as I buckle up. “No. Just that Octavia passed out in the shower and Dr. Fritz rushed her into the hospital. She’s on some tower pavilion.”
“It’s the private floor at the hospital,” Rina whispers, her voice cracking slightly at the end as she types furiously into her phone. “Oliver told me the same thing. I don’t think anyone knows anything right now. I’m texting Brecken.”
“In this traffic, avoid Charles Street and take Storrow Drive. It’ll be quicker because we can loop around and if it looks like it’s backing up, we can get off and cut over.”
Grace wordlessly does as I request. I’ve been trained for this, and they both know it. They know about my parents. “Carter said Landon is bringing the girls over to the compound to stay with Sophia there since he doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone for.”
“Fuck! Just fuck! I knew something wasn’t right. I knew it. And now this.”
I reach forward and squeeze Rina’s shoulder. “You’re not helping yourself and you won’t help anyone else if you lose your mind now.”
“She’s right. You don’t know anything yet,” Grace asserts, weaving us onto Storrow. “She could have just vasovagaled in the shower. Let’s wait and see.”
“Grace, how often do you go against your nurses’ intuition?”
“Never,” she replies solemnly. “But Octavia also perked up a bit last week.”
Rina shakes her head. “Or she was putting on the Octavia Abbot-Fritz facade so we wouldn’t worry.”
“Maybe,” I agree. “I’m no doctor or nurse, but couldn’t it be something simple like anemia?”
“Could be,” Grace concedes.
“Or it could be something worse.”
“My lovely pessimistic, friend. I know you’re an ICU nurse and are used to the worst, but what you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your mouth.”
She snorts. “Thank you, Yoda. Don’t tell me Luca is rubbing off on you.”
“That’s actually a Jewish proverb. Not Yoda. And it’s true.”
“She’s right, Rina.” Grace weaves in and out of lanes around traffic. “I know you go to the dark side—pun intended—quickly, but you and I have both been around this shit enough to know it can be something very simple that caused this.”
Rina sinks down in her seat, her blond head falling back. “I know and I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bitch or snap at you guys. I’m just so scared, I can hardly think or take a breath. She’s my mom.”
“We get it,” I tell her. “We more than get it. Octavia is all we have too.”
Rina nods and none of us speak again until we reach the hospital and find Elle and Amelia flying toward our car. “We just got here,” Elle cries. “Oh my God, do you know anything?”
Amelia puts her hand on Elle’s arm. “Remember what I said in the car? You gotta breathe and calm yourself down. We will not help Octavia or anyone else by panicking like this.”