Chapter 37 Lorna Now #2
A bit of drool began to slide out the corner of Kristen’s mouth, but she kept squeezing Lorna’s hand.
Lorna took her tissue and wiped the drool away.
She didn’t say more. It didn’t seem there was anything left to say.
She sat with Kristen until an attendant came to get her.
It was time for Kristen to go to work on some motor skills. “Motor skills?” Lorna asked.
“We try,” the attendant said.
Lorna nodded. She couldn’t see very clearly now, as her eyes were filled with tears.
But she slid her hand free of Kristen’s, then leaned over and hugged her.
The antiseptic scent of her sister filled her nose.
She was bone thin. But she was also familiar.
Like an old teddy bear, a wistful sensation from something that had existed long ago.
“I love you, Kristen,” she whispered, and let her go.
Had Kristen heard her or understood her? Lorna couldn’t say. She watched the attendant roll Kristen away.
And when Kristen was gone, Lorna felt a sense of peace come over her.
The bomb-shelter door had been kicked off its hinges and thrown out.
She felt herself coming fully into the light.
She had forgiven her sister, accepted that she couldn’t have changed the outcome and that her responsibility was fully to herself.
She texted her dad.
When she went outside, the sun was in her eyes, and so were tears. But they were now tears of relief. Of hope for herself. Of compassion for herself.
But her tears weren’t so thick that she couldn’t see Bean and Seth standing outside her father’s car.
Seth looked concerned. That concern was for her.
Just for her. She couldn’t remember when she’d ever felt someone’s concern for her like she was feeling it now, and she burst into tears again.
Seth immediately wrapped her in an embrace.
So did Bean, throwing his arms around both their waists and pressing his face against Lorna’s hip.
“I’m okay,” she said, and wrapped one arm around Bean. “I’m really okay.”
“Just checking,” Seth said gruffly.
“It’s okay if you’re not,” Bean assured her. “We’re still your friends.”
Lorna could feel in her heart just how true that was.
Seth and Bean went to the beach for a couple of days. Lorna stayed with her dad and visited Kristen every day. She could never really tell if her sister knew Lorna was there for her. But Lorna knew, and she supposed that was the most important thing.
When it came time to leave, Lorna told her dad about the trust. “It’s only seventy-five hundred dollars,” she said.
“But I’ll sign it over to Kristen. I’ve also got some money I’ve been saving for a big purchase.
I’m not going to need all of it. I’ll call you next week with a sum after I figure out a few things. ”
“Thanks, Lolo,” her dad said. “This has been a drain on us.”
Lorna felt nothing but sadness for her father. She understood the drain. “I know, Dad,” she said.
The other decision she had to make, which had been building for weeks, was much easier than she’d thought.
She’d believed if she didn’t buy Nana’s house, she would be giving up the only home she could call hers.
But Nana’s house was not the home Lorna had been wanting all this time.
It was only walls, and frankly, not very good walls.
Home, she’d discovered, was where she felt safe and accepted for who she was.
Home was with people who cared about her.
On the flight back to Texas, while Seth was gazing at his phone and Bean was once again glued to the window, Lorna studied Seth.
The lines around his eyes. The stubble of beard on his face.
She marveled at the forces in the universe that put him in her path at this time in her life—when she’d most needed a friend.
But friends didn’t keep secrets. She put her hand on his arm. He looked up from his phone and smiled.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Oh. Sounds important.” He put his phone in his pocket. “What’s up?”
“It’s about the house. Our house. Where we live?”
Seth gave her a funny smile. “Okay.”
“I never told you, but... that house originally belonged to my grandparents. And then... then I lived there during my childhood. My mom, Kristen, and my grandmother. Until my grandmother died. That’s when it was chopped up into apartments.”
Seth’s brows dipped. “You lived there?”
She nodded. “My mom sold it to pay for another round of Kristen’s treatment. Anyway, I sort of stalked it until an apartment became available and moved in with a plan to buy it back. I thought that if I had that house, I’d be happy.”
His expression was inscrutable.
She swallowed. “I was one of the buyers Mr. Contreras had.”
“What?” He looked confused. And slightly annoyed. “But—”
“I know, I didn’t tell you. Or anyone, for that matter.
I can’t explain, other than I was convinced it was something I had to do, Seth.
I thought if I could buy back Grandma’s house, I could put my life back together.
And I didn’t want any of you to know because, well. .. you all would have hated me.”
“But—”
“But I’m not buying it,” she interjected. “I’m not. I get it now—it’s just a house, nothing more. It wouldn’t have saved me.”
He frowned. “Did you need saving?”
She sighed softly. “I needed saving from myself. Not from my past like I thought, but from my spiral of thoughts. Bean saved me. Then you and Liz and Martin came along and pulled me into the light. So did the people at Bodhi who helped me see what I was doing to myself. You all saved me.”
Seth looked past her to Bean. “I wish you’d told us.”
Lorna winced. “I wanted to.”
He glanced off, his brow furrowed. Then he met her gaze. “You lived there as a kid?”
She nodded.
“What was it like?”
She told him the long sad tale of her life in Nana’s house. When she was done, he didn’t say much other than “Wow.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, not mad,” he said. “I’m not sure what I am. I have to think about it. I understand how complicated your emotions have been. I get that you’d boxed yourself into a corner. But I wish you’d told us.”
“I understand. I’m so sorry.” She hoped she hadn’t ruined the best thing to happen to her in years. But if she had, she’d figure things out. She had walked into the light and she wasn’t going back into the dark.
“If you’re not going to buy it, then where are you going?” Seth asked.
“Well,” Lorna said sheepishly, “I was thinking of checking out those condos you found. If... if that’s okay with you.”
Seth suddenly grinned. He took her hand in his and squeezed it affectionately. “Lorna Lott, that would be awesome.”
It felt like her body cracked open and flooded with light when he grinned at her like that. Yes, that would be awesome.