Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Adam Wheeler is a hard man to track down.
I have half a mind to drive to Goshen, start knocking on random apartment doors until I find his. There’s a search for “LTAC facilities near me” in my internet history.
I roll up to a stop sign, taking a few seconds to catch my breath. The Christmas tree is buckled into Lovie’s passenger seat.
Or mine, I guess. As I was walking out the door, she told me just to keep the car, that she didn’t need it where she was going. Which sounded incredibly morbid for 0.2 seconds, before she and Angie started laughing and explained residents of memory care homes absolutely do not get cars on campus. How very college freshman of them.
“Think, Elle.” My fingers are tight on the steering wheel, but not from fear.
Or maybe it is. Fear that I’ve ruined a good thing—the best thing—and that I am simply too late.
I roll out my shoulders, crank up my Queens playlist, and make my last-ditch effort.
Ruth is slow to open to the door, and immediately slams it closed.
“ Wait ,” I say, shoving both my foot and the Christmas tree through the crack. The present stays tucked under my other arm for safekeeping.
I’ll give it to Ruth Wheeler, girl’s got some strength . My foot’s going to be bruised by dinner.
“Ruth, please,” I grit through the door. “Do you know where he is? I have to give him this.”
The door swings open, and I catch the full force of a glare I instantly categorize as pissed-the-fuck-off. Her eyes are tight, jaw is set mulishly, and—I spare a glance down—her fist is clenched like she’s prepping to throw a punch or two.
The longer she stands there without saying anything, the more my heart pounds. The more my body prepares itself to go to war.
And I would. I would fight for him all over again.
“Please,” I say again, softer.
She scoffs. “Why should I?”
“Honestly? You probably shouldn’t . But I am asking you, from one person who loves him to another.”
Maybe it’s the clear truth of my statement, or the desperation in my eyes. The way I’m clutching a box and a fluorescent fake Douglas fir to my chest like it’s the last shred of my dignity.
But something makes Ruth open the door a hair wider. She doesn’t invite me in. Inside, a television show blares. I bet Adam could name it based on sound alone. “He isn’t here.”
I hitch the Christmas tree up on my hip, bury the box further under my arm. “Do you know where he is?”
She leans into the doorframe. Adam must have taught her that. “Getting boxes, I think.” Her arms knot tightly over her chest, hands still fisted. A challenge.
“He’s moving in here?” Bittersweet emotions churn in my gut. He’d be able to offer the most help that way, especially without the AngelCare job tying up his free time. Ruth would have uninhibited access to his help, and his weekly visits would just become daily chats over breakfast and homework. He wouldn’t have to provide as many monetary resources if he became a resource himself.
“Well—” Ruth starts.
On the street, a car door slams. Inside, a children’s toy starts playing ugly, garish music.
Ruth’s eyes go wide.
“Elle?”
I spin, and my heart must be making up for all the times it hasn’t beat before, the way it races now.
He’s here.
“I’ll just—” Ruth starts but never finishes. The front door creaks loudly on the hinges before shutting with a snick.
“Elle,” Adam says again. He’s burrowed under his coat, a scarf around his neck. Even still, color bleeds onto his face. There are flattened cardboard boxes under his arm, and they scratch against each other as he adjusts them.
“Hi,” I say. It’s just a breeze of a word, which is all I can manage.
“What are you—” He coughs, swipes a hand over his jaw. No gloves again. “What are you doing here?”
“I found the present you left me.” I hold out the box for him, hoist the Christmas tree higher. “I got you something too.”
His navy eyes spark brighter in the dull gray of the afternoon before settling back into something neutral and guarded. “Once again,” he murmurs, “if it’s a gift, you don’t have to return the gesture.”
That memory, the ones we made after, bounce between us, and I want to say it’s the winter chill that has me tearing up, but the breeze has quieted.
I set the Christmas tree on the ground and offer him the gift again. “Will you open it? Please.”
With a small nod, he lowers the cardboard boxes to rest against his leg.
He’s not the type of person who tries not to tear the wrapping, which I appreciate in my current state. He crumples it in his fist, shoving it in his coat pocket before pulling the lid off.
Adam looks at me, confused, then at the neatly folded scrubs nestled inside the tissue paper.
“You wear this color the most,” I say. “I figured that meant they were your favorite, so I got you another pair.” I shrug, adding halfheartedly, “I don’t care where you wash them.”
“Elle, I—” Something catches his eye over my shoulder, and he cuts himself off.
I turn and get a flash of three faces shoved into the window. Ruth and Cora and Chloe. The curtain flutters as they pull back.
I shiver.
“God, you’re not even wearing a coat,” Adam says. He’s already shrugging out of his.
Because I think maybe Adam Wheeler is in love with me too. It’s in the way he clutches the gift in his hand, pulls his coat closed around me and avoids touching me at the same time. The way he says my name. How he removes his scarf and twirls it around my neck.
“I’m pretty good at memorizing train schedules,” I say. “But Lovie just sort of gave me her car? It’s probably time I conquered my fear of driving anyway. I made an appointment for therapy about it.”
His chapped lips part.
I sniffle, fight against the chill in the air. “I … I run away. When things get hard. I leave at the first hint of trouble, which is a problem when you find someone worth staying for.”
His eyes are unreadable under his drawn-tight brows. The tip of his nose is red. Ears too. How did I ever think I wouldn’t fall in love with him?
From the wind or from emotion, a tear slips down my cheek. I don’t rush to wipe it away. The crisp breeze dries it onto my cheek. “I don’t want to run anymore.” I shrug. It stirs the scent of him around me. And I can breathe just a little easier. “It’s not fair to myself. To anyone I run from. To you . I should have never asked you to leave like that. I’m so sorry, Adam.”
One of Lovie’s Hard Love Rules is to always look someone in the eye when you apologize, so I do just that as I lift a shoulder toward the house behind us. “You said those girls in there are yours. So that makes them a package deal. If you’re mine, they’re mine too. And if you give me time, and a hell of a lot of patience, I will love them like you do. I think I could be a really fun Auntie Elle.”
I’m shivering. I lick moisture back into my lips, then bite my tongue so I don’t keep talking.
I can’t read him for once. I wish he’d do something familiar. Lean, quirk his eyebrow, kiss me, something .
But as he stays quiet, doubt worms its way through my brain. Each second of silence punches a hole in my heart. More tears break free. Which is okay. I don’t have to run from emotions just because they’re uncomfortable.
“Lovie was probably wrong anyway.” I blink a few more tears loose, surprisingly calm. “She said she thought you—well, it doesn’t matter.”
“ Lovie ,” Adam murmurs, brows gathering. “Lovie is lucid ?”
“Yes? I mean, maybe not still, but she was when—”
He hugs me. So hard it almost knocks me off my feet. I kick the Christmas tree over, and the moving boxes scatter into the driveway as I enjoy being in his arms again. He pulls back, his hands on my upper arms. “I just … I hoped you’d get another chance to talk to her. The woman I met isn’t who raised you. I know that.” He snags his lower lip with his canine. “Was she okay?”
“More than okay.” I suppress a smile, because there’s still space for this to backfire. “She had some interesting things to say about the two of us, actually. She was under the impression that I’m in love with you.”
Someone bangs the windowpane. “Speak up!”
“Be quiet , Ruth,” Adam shouts. His eyes are on the ground, how the toes of my boots are nearly touching his. His cheeks are cherry red to match his ears.
“Tell your girlfriend to speak up, then!” Ruth shouts back. “You two are giving the girls a lesson in how to grovel.”
A squeak of laughter escapes from my lips at Adam’s pained expression, and I forget for a second that I am, in fact, meant to be groveling.
“She was right, you know,” I say.
Adam shivers, and I unwind some of the scarf to drape it back around his neck. It is the perfect amount of stretch. The move brings us even closer, which was not strategic but is a bonus.
His mouth quirks sideways. “My sister?”
“Lovie,” I say, then raise my voice so everyone can hear it, loud and clear. “I am very much in love with you, Adam Wheeler, and I think the reason you quit is because you’re in love with me too. Maybe I was one of your ‘once in a whiles,’ but you’re my ‘once in a lifetime.’ ”
Our breaths curl and mingle in the space between us before disappearing.
If he doesn’t love me—or even if he does but he’s not ready for things to change—I will still be glad I came here today.
He clears his throat, his expression unreadable. “Ask me about the boxes, Elle.”
My fingers are numb. My entire body. Some weather we’re having. “What about the boxes, Adam?”
He pulls his phone from his pocket. His thumb flies over the screen before he hands it to me. I almost drop it from the cold, how much I’m shaking.
“I got a new place,” he says. “Not in the city, but it’s close. I can’t quite afford Chicago. In case you haven’t heard, I quit one of my jobs recently?” Adam tenses his jaw, but there’s a gravity to it that makes me think he’s trying not to smile.
Cold air rushes my lungs, tugs at our shared scarf. “I thought you were moving in here.”
He holds up the gift box, top and bottom pieces held together in his massive hand. And then he shakes his head, lets the box drop to the frozen ground, and totes me against his body. When I gasp this time, he’s there to fill my lungs. The summer-warm scent he’s always had, stronger after going without.
“Why would I do that?” he says. “You’re not here.”
Adam , my pulse hums. Adam. Adam. Adam. How long has my heart been beating his name?
He licks his lips, eyes unfocused as he searches for the right words. I have no doubt he’ll find the perfect ones.
“I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to figure out a way to make this work, us in two places.” His eyes darken. “I realized a week ago that it just wasn’t going to. Because you left, Elle, you ran away. But I didn’t come after you. And my heart is going to be wherever you are. In Chicago or London or Timbuktu. I can keep up.” He winks. “I’m a runner too.”
My jaw drops.
“Do you know,” Adam says, smiling in full now, “before I ever even met you, I saw your picture in Lovie’s house—one of you hanging in the hall. You had scabby knees and gap teeth and these big brown eyes. A zest for life that didn’t fit in the picture. I felt you right here, like an arrow.” He takes my hand and holds it to his heart. “I thought if I ever got a chance to meet you, I’d fall in love with you on the spot, and it would wreck me.”
I sniffle. Not because I’m crying this time, but because the wind chill is zero degrees and I’m starting to feel it, even through his divine-smelling coat. “And did you? Fall in love with me?”
Beneath my palm, his heart thuds. Steadily, but hard. The same way I love him. “Yes.”
A laugh flies from my lips, and my insides turn to liquid gold. “And did I wreck you?”
“God, yes,” he says, so passionately he sounds anguished.
Then his wind-chapped hands are on my face, thumbs rubbing warmth into my cheeks, and one slips to twine in my already messy hair, and he kisses me. The sound he makes when our lips connect is enough to light me on fire, in this frigid weather and without kindling. It rumbles down his chest, through my fingertips, clutching him. My lips buzz. My soul hums.
He was right. We’re going to have to figure this out. I’m probably going to try to run again. But that’s the thing about love. It isn’t geographic; it’s intrinsic. Like Lovie said, it weaves its way into our body, sometimes so fast we don’t even know until it’s too late. So intricately we can never come undone.
I nod, tiptoe to kiss him again. “Invite me inside?”
“With my family here?” He tsks in his throat, then bends to bite the hinge of my jaw. “You’re relentless.”
“To get warm,” I correct, unable to stop my smile. They’re all his, anyway. “We have some things to talk about.”
@ElleontheL : The final episode of Forget Me Not is live! This week I sit down with guest Nurse Adam Wheeler (@NurseAdamIndy) about our shared experience caring for Lovie. This was the most personal, enlightening journey I’ve been on, and I share everything I’ve learned. Plus, I share the complete compiled list of Lovie’s Hard Love Rules, and our final donation amount, as of Monday morning. Spoiler alert:
@DFWMama6: I SOBBED in carpool listening to this. What a beautiful ending.
@Graciepowww36: screaming crying throwing up. Mostly crying tho.
@allthatgl!ttersxoxo: a gut-wrenching, honest ending. starting the series again now so they can get more $$
@thatguy3k00: This was not the ending I was expecting, and I’m surprised to find I didn’t absolutely hate it.
@ElleontheL : I knew I’d get you to listen one of these days so glad you enjoyed.
@thatguy3k00: What do you mean? I listen every week.
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@SweetiesCakesChicago: @CubsWifeKatija this is my friend’s podcast I was telling you about at the tasting! Bring tissues.
@DMillsBakes: Love that you and Lovie both got some closure to your story.
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