Chapter 18 #2
What if he's dying right now in the back of a car on a Cambodian highway, and I'm standing here in my pajamas?
"What if nothing happens? What if it's exhaustion or dehydration like your mom said?
" Reid's voice is still gentle. "Look, if you need to go, I'll drive you to the airport right now.
I'll help you pack, I'll take care of everything here.
But maybe give it a couple hours. Let them get to the hospital, let the doctors examine him. "
I want to argue with him. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to move, to get on a plane, to be with my parents. Something breaks, you move toward it. That's the Mitchell family playbook. That's how I'm wired. We take care of each other, always.
But Reid's right. And the nurse in me knows it, even if the daughter in me wants to scream. Eighteen hours in the air with no information, landing exhausted and wrecked, unable to help anyone. If Dad is okay, I'll have burned through every bit of leave I have. If it's really bad —
There's a chance he's gone before my plane even touches down.
My stomach rolls. I press my hand against my mouth, breathing through it.
Don't go there. Not yet.
I lock my eyes on Reid. His hazel eyes, steady and sure. Green flecks catching the morning light.
"Two hours," I say finally.
"Two hours." He nods, looking relieved. "I can work with two hours. That's like... four episodes of something terrible on Netflix. Or one really good nap. Or—"
"Reid."
"Sorry. Rambling." He takes a breath. "Two hours. And if your Mom calls and says it's serious—"
"I'm going. No matter what."
"Of course you are. They're your parents." The simple way he says it — no judgment, no trying to talk me out of it — loosens that tight ball in my lungs, just a little. He gets it. He's not going to make me choose.
Even if leaving means leaving him.
"This is hard," I admit, sinking onto his lap after he sits on the edge of the bed. I don't even think about it — just need to be close to him. His arms come around me immediately, and some of the tension drains out on a shaky exhale.
One of his hands finds the back of my neck, fingers gentle. The other rubs slow circles on my back. I tuck my face into his shoulder and breathe him in.
"What's hard?"
"The thought of leaving. I know that sounds awful when my dad might be sick, but.
.." I look around my bedroom. The photos on my dresser.
The plants by the window that I actually water now.
The throw pillows I picked out myself. The stack of books on my nightstand that I'm actually going to finish instead of giving them away because they're too heavy to pack.
"Six months ago, packing that suitcase would have been easy. Twenty minutes, out the door, no looking back. Now the idea of getting on a plane and not knowing when I'll be back..." I swallow. "It makes me want to throw up."
When did leaving become the hard thing?
Who even am I right now?
Reid doesn't say anything. His thumb traces small circles on the back of my neck. His other arm tightens around my waist.
"That's not selfish. That's what happens when you build something you don't want to lose." He shifts slightly, bringing us closer. "It means this place, this life — it matters to you now."
"I don't want to lose this. I don't want to lose you."
"You're not going to lose me. If you need to go take care of your parents, I'll be here when you get back."
"You say that now, but what if I'm gone for weeks? What if Dad needs surgery, or long-term care, or—"
"Then you stay as long as you need to stay, and I figure out how to make it work."
He says it like it's simple. And maybe for him it is. He lost his brother. He knows what it costs to not be there. He's never going to be the guy who makes me feel guilty for going.
"Reid..."
"I'm serious. I know what it's like to lose someone you love. If your dad needs you, you go. We'll figure out the rest."
I search his face. Waiting for the flinch, the tight jaw, the tell that says he's just telling me what I want to hear. But there's nothing. He means it. He'd let me walk out that door without a single guilt trip or passive-aggressive sigh.
Which, naturally, makes me want to stay even more.
How is that not the most annoying thing in the world?
Then the guilt rolls in. Right on schedule.
I should be with my family. That's what a good daughter does, right?
My parents gave up everything. Stability.
Comfort. A normal life. All of it, handed over so they could serve others.
And here I am, hesitating because I have a boyfriend and a fiddle leaf fig.
But here's the thing. No matter where I live, it won't be near my parents long term. They're nomads. Always the next project, the next community, the next church in some town I can't pronounce. Am I supposed to follow them around the globe forever? Just trailing behind like a lost piece of luggage?
They would never ask that. Never. Not once. That's not the kind of life they want for me.
"I still might need to go," I say, but with less urgency now. "Depending on what the tests show."
"I know. And if you do, we'll handle it."
Reid presses a soft kiss to the top of my head. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Come on, that toast is long gone. That's not enough. Especially not when you're stressed." He stands up, pulling me with him. "I'll make some lunch."
"Reid, you don't have to—"
"I want to." His hands curve around my face, thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. "Let me take care of you."
Don't cry because a man wants to feed you, Mitchell. Have some dignity.
In the kitchen, Reid moves with barely contained energy. Cabinet doors open and close with more force than necessary. Pots clang together. He mutters something about my "tragic lack of spices" which is pretty funny coming from him.
He can't fix my Dad. Can't fix the distance or the fear or the helplessness. So he's feeding me. Giving his hands a job.
"My parents have never lived anywhere with good medical care," I say after a while. "When I was a kid, we were always in these remote places where the nearest hospital was hours away."
Reid glances up from the can opener. "That must have been scary."
"I broke my arm when I was eight. Fell out of a tree at this mission compound in Cuba.
" I can still feel it — the sharp crack, the way my forearm bent at an angle arms aren't supposed to bend.
"The closest orthopedic surgeon was a six-hour drive.
Mom held me in her lap the whole way, singing hymns to keep me calm. "
"Six hours with a broken arm. Jesus." He's shaking his head, but his hands keep moving — chopping, stirring, doing. "That's brutal."
"Yeah. Dad kept apologizing, like it was his fault for bringing us there." I watch Reid's hands. Steady. Confident. "That's what I keep thinking about. What if Dad needs surgery they can't perform there? What if something goes wrong and they can't get him the help he needs?"
Reid abandons whatever he's building and comes to sit beside me, pulling my chair closer so our knees touch. His hand finds mine on the table, fingers intertwining.
"Tell me about the medical situation where they are now."
He's asking me to assess. Analyze. Use my brain instead of drowning in the what-ifs. Smart man.
"Cambodia's better than some places we lived, but still..." I shrug. "The hospital in Siem Reap is decent for basic care, but if he needs cardiac surgery or intensive care, they'd probably have to evacuate him to Bangkok or Singapore."
"Have they had to do medical evacuations before?"
"A few times. There was this missionary family we knew in Papua New Guinea — the dad had a heart attack in the middle of nowhere. Took them eighteen hours to get him to a real hospital." I lean into Reid because I can't not. "He lived, but barely."
Reid's arm tightens around me. "Your dad's going to be okay."
"You don't know that."
"No, I don't. But I know he's tough if he raised you. And I know your mom's with him." His hand rubs slow circles on my back. "They've been taking care of each other for a long time, and it sounds like they know how to handle crises."
They do. Thirty-five years of crises — floods, earthquakes, political upheaval. They've handled all of it. But they're getting older. And bodies don't care how tough you are mentally.
Something starts to smell good from the stove. Reid gets up to stir it, then comes back to me, sitting right next to me this time. His hand lands on my knee under the table.
"When Jared died," he says quietly, "the thing that made it worse was how far away he was. How helpless we felt, not being able to do anything."
I turn to look at him. His jaw is tight. His eyes are somewhere else — somewhere seven years ago and thousands of miles away.
He hasn't talked about Jared much. But I love that he's sharing now. Not like this. He's giving me another little piece of himself.
"Reid..."
"I'm not saying this to make you feel worse. I'm saying it because I understand why you want to get on that plane." He takes my hand, threading our fingers together. His grip is tighter than usual. "The distance makes everything scarier."
"Sometimes I think my parents are crazy for living the way they do. Always in places where help is hours away, where a simple emergency becomes life-threatening." I lean my head against his shoulder. "But they've been doing it so long, I don't think they know how to live any other way."
"Do you ever worry about them?"
"All the time. Especially now that they're getting older." I close my eyes. "Dad's sixty-three. He should be thinking about retirement, not building churches in tropical heat."
Reid's lips press against my temple. "Maybe this will be a wake-up call for them."