Chapter 2
OLIVIA
Lukas:
“Hey, Livvy. Call me when you get a second.”
Lukas:
“Your assistant said you’re in a meeting, but this can’t wait.”
Lukas:
“Uncle John’s in the hospital. You need to come home.”
I stared down at the myriad of missed texts from my brother for what seemed like the hundredth time since I boarded the Hartstrings private jet just over four hours ago.
My phone had been blowing up all morning, but I’d ignored everything for the sake of closing the deal. That was just part of the job.
The flight attendant advised me to fasten my seatbelt as the pilot announced our descent to Nashville, And tucking my phone away, I closed my eyes, gripping the armrest like I did every time I flew.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but apparently not.
I hated heights, and I hated flying even more.
It didn’t matter that the plane was private.
It just meant there were fewer people to witness my anxiety at the slightest hint of turbulence.
The moment the plane came to a stop, I grabbed my things and thanked to the crew as they dropped the stairs. The central Tennessee air was muggy, even though the sun had already gone down. Not that it made much of a difference either way. It was just as humid after dark.
I scanned the tarmac and spotted a blacked-out SUV idling just ahead. The headlights illuminated a tall figure standing just outside the door.
“Little ostentatious, don’t you think? Too good for commercial these days?
” my brother shouted as I walked down the stairs.
I smiled as he met me at the bottom, wrapping me in a warm hug.
He smelled like home, like pine sap and sawdust and good memories.
“Good to have you back, Livvy. Despite the circumstances.”
“Yeah, they’re not great,” I agreed, blowing out a breath. “How’s John doing? Is there any news?”
Lukas inclined his head toward the vehicle. “Come on. We’ll talk on the way.” He grabbed my bags while I slid into the passenger seat. As he settled behind the wheel, he looked over at me and smirked. “Sure you don’t want to sit in the back? Isn’t that what you’re used to these days?”
“Fuck off,” I muttered. “It isn’t like I have much of a choice. You try taking conference calls and reviewing profit reports while driving and tell me how that works for you.”
My brother’s laugh was deep and throaty. “Naw. I passed on that shit, remember? You’re the prodigal daughter.”
“Lucky me,” I sighed, melting into the leather seat. We were silent as we drove away from the airport and merged onto the highway, heading toward our small hometown rather than the city. “Wait, we aren’t staying in Nashville? I thought John was at the hospital there.”
My brother paused. “He was.”
I turned in my seat to face him. “Was?”
Lukas sighed, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. He looked so much older than I remembered. It hadn’t been that long since I’d seen him, a couple of months at most, but there were deep bags beneath his eyes and an exhaustion that seemed bone-deep.
“He said he wanted to go home and spend whatever time he had left in the town he loved, so…”
“And you let him? The doctors just let him? Can they do that?” I questioned, pulling my brows together.
My brother shrugged. “We can’t force him to stay against his will, Livvy. They advised against it, but he signed an AMA and wheeled himself out this morning.”
I rubbed my temple. “So, what? He’s just going home to die?”
Lukas’s thrumming stopped, and the silence that took its place told me everything I needed to know.
“What the hell, Lukas? Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“It’s end-stage liver failure. We don’t have a lot of options—”
“I mean, can someone get a medical power of attorney over him? Declare him unfit to make his own decisions?” I pulled out my phone and began scrolling. “Or what about a liver transplant? That has to be an option, right?”
He shook his head, snatching my phone out of my hand. “John refused all treatment, and he’s been declared of sound mind.”
“What did the doctors say? Did they give him some bullshit about poor odds or something? Could we get a second opinion?”
“Jesus Livvy. I almost forgot how pushy you can be,” Lukas mumbled.
“I was there when the doctors told him a transplant was risky given his age, just like any other procedure would be, but that there was a decent enough statistical rate of survival. They offered to set him up with other doctors for a secondary opinion, but John waived it all.”
“He still said no?” My voice was barely above a whisper as I settled back into the leather.
Lukas reached over and gave my hand a slight squeeze. “I’m sorry, Livvy.”
“What happens now?” I whispered, voice breaking. I didn’t want to think about what this meant or how many difficult conversations were looming overhead. “I mean, how long?”
“We hired an in-home nurse to make sure he’s taken care of for however long he has left—”
I slammed my hand down on the dashboard. “Which is how long, Luke? Answer the question.”
He ran a hand through his short brown hair, mussing it slightly. “Three to six months if he’s lucky.”
Three to six months wouldn’t even see John through to his next birthday. There’d be no more holiday celebrations, something that he always made a big fuss out of. No more fatherly advice followed by warm hugs and total understanding.
It would be gone. Poof. Just like Dad.
“This is bullshit,” I said as the first tear fell. I couldn’t bring myself to wipe it away. The grief weighed too heavily on my heart.
“It is,” he agreed. “But it’s what he wanted. At the end of the day, all we can do is respect his wishes and hope he doesn’t leave the world with unfinished business.”
Lukas didn’t let go of my hand as I cried.
Not even when his emotions got the best of him, and tears rolled down his cheeks as well.
It was all too much to handle. We’d lost our dad at an early age, but Uncle John had done his best to step up to the plate.
He’d never had kids of his own, but Lukas and I might as well have been.
Neither of us were ever left wanting for anything.
He made sure to stand in for every monumental moment a dad should be present for.
He even walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.
Luke and I drove in relative silence back to our little hometown.
The radio wasn’t even loud enough to drown out the crunch of our tires against the asphalt.
I focused on the noise, trying to push away the intrusive thoughts clamoring to be let in.
It wasn’t until I saw the “Welcome to Pinecrest” sign that I finally asked, “Does Mom know?”
Lukas blew out a long breath. “She does.”
“How is she taking it?”
“About as well as could be expected,” he said dryly. “She’ll probably be two bottles of Chardonnay in by the time we reach the house.”
I shifted in my seat. “Does she know I’m coming?”
“There wasn’t really a way around that, Livvy. You’ve got to see her sometime.”
“I know that. I just didn’t think it’d be like this,” I muttered. “But I guess nothing brings people together like an impending death in the family.”
“Morbid but true,” he chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve put her in the main house with me while you get to escape to the cottage by yourself.”
“Oh, thank god. I can lock the doors and never come out,” I said.
Lukas laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think sequestering yourself is gonna work. You know how persistent she can be. She’ll probably camp outside your front door until you say something to her.”
“The problem isn’t speaking to her. It’s saying what she wants to hear.” I scoffed. “I can’t give her what she wants, Luke. It’s a nonstarter.”
“Not even now?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Especially not now. It complicates things, sure, but the wheels are already in motion. I can’t stop them. I don’t want to stop them.”
Lukas nodded but didn’t say anything more. I could always count on him not to push me. He knew me better than that, knew I would shut down entirely if he did.
That courtesy was something Mom hadn’t extended to anyone, though.
She was often lost in her own world, indifferent to others’ emotions until they somehow came back to affect her.
Dad’s death hadn’t helped, either. If anything, she’d become more withdrawn over the years and quicker to adopt a victim mentality whenever she was met with opposition.
My brother called her selfish, and my therapist called it narcissism. Po-tay-to / po-tah-to, as far as I was concerned. Whatever it was had caused a rift between us that I didn’t know how to mend.
Or if I even wanted to.
“Home sweet home,” Lukas said, pulling up to the large wood-framed gate at the front of our property. He rolled down the window and punched in the code as we waited for it to swing open slowly.
I looked at the empty hooks hanging from the worn cedar beam across the top with a pang of regret.
When I was a kid, Dad and I had come up with a name for the property.
He said it hadn’t mattered that it wasn’t a working ranch; everything needed a name—something that set it apart from every other plot of land that people built on.
So, we’d come up with Blue Moon Ranch, and he’d had a sign made the very next day.
After he died, it was the first thing our mother had taken down. I screamed at her for hours when I realized what she’d done. Then the silence settled in. There was no sympathy or remorse in her features. Just a stony coldness that she still wore.