Chapter Twenty-eight
Ellie signed herself in, then walked Jack through the process. “You have to leave your phone and keys. Sorry, I should have said that before we got here.”
“No worries.” He pulled both from his pocket and put them in the little plastic bin the woman at the desk held out.
They stepped back from the desk and waited for an attendant to unlock the door into the ward. “It might have been easier if we’d waited until she was back at her residence.”
Jack grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I don’t need it to be easier.”
She couldn’t explain why that meant so much more than dismissing or downplaying the experience of visiting a psychiatric unit for the first time. It did, though. It made her feel seen and understood and respected. It made her feel loved.
They were shown into the room, the same one as the last time she’d visited. She appreciated that the visiting areas were private. That hadn’t been the case a couple of times, and it had been a struggle to keep her focus where it needed to be.
A few minutes later, a member of the staff wheeled Donna in. She wore a floral top and a pair of loose-fitting capris with the slide-on sneakers Ellie had picked up specifically for her hospital stay. “Hi, Mom,” Ellie said, tone as bright as she could make it.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Mom spoke slowly, but her speech no longer slurred, and her eyes seemed clear.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Oh, I’m well and blessed. Can’t complain.”
The use of one of her signature phrases made Ellie smile. Definitely a good sign. “I’m glad. I brought someone who’s been wanting to meet you.”
Ellie stepped to the side and Jack came forward. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Lancaster. Ellie has told me so much about you.”
Mom turned to Ellie, eyes wide. “Sweetheart, is this your boyfriend?”
She nodded. “It is. You remember me telling you about Jack, right?”
Her mom’s gaze returned to Jack. “But you didn’t tell me he was so handsome.”
Jack let out a guffaw but recovered quickly. “Thank you, ma’am. But I’ve got nothing on your beautiful daughter.”
Donna beamed. “Thank you. She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
Ellie squirmed, as she always did, when her mom went overboard with the compliments when talking about her to others.
Jack didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, he seemed perfectly at ease.
He asked lots of questions and listened attentively to Donna’s rambling answers.
Donna blossomed under the attention, and Ellie felt miserly for being so reticent about them meeting.
She’d worried about her mom getting into the weeds of Jack’s gender, but it didn’t even come up.
And when Mom started peppering him with questions about his religion, Jack spoke eloquently about being raised Methodist but living his spirituality in a more general way that focused on connecting to nature and showing kindness to others.
It disconcerted her to be learning new things about him in such a context, but she was coming to terms with the fact that her expectations were rather crap at this point.
“God’s wonders abound.” Donna nodded knowingly. “If you slow down enough to pay attention.”
Ellie chuckled. It was a phrase her mom used a lot, and one Ellie sometimes lost sight of in her quest to squeeze everything she could into whatever time she had for this or that.
Jack glanced at her briefly and winked, as though he knew the vein of her thoughts, before turning back to Donna with a smile. “They most certainly do.”
They stayed about an hour, until a nurse came in and said it was time for lunch.
Since lunch was also code for medication, Ellie took that as the cue to say their goodbyes.
Mom got a little teary, though it had more to do with lunch times back when Ellie was a kid, and her dad would come home from work midday, and they’d all eat together.
Ellie couldn’t fault her mother for remembering those times with such sentimentality.
As a teen, it filled her with a mix of embarrassment and resentment that Donna couldn’t manage her emotions in front of others.
Now, she was simply grateful that there were so many good memories to conjure.
And that experiencing them as memories meant her mom was rooted in the realities of the present.
“I’ll come again tomorrow,” Ellie said after her mom had wiped her eyes and managed a smile. “I’ll talk with the staff and see if I can stay for lunch so we can eat together.”
Without missing a beat, Mom turned her attention to Jack. “Would you like to come, too?”
“I’m sure Jack has to work,” she said quickly. “Tomorrow is Monday.”
Mom nodded. “Of course.”
Jack, who’d hovered off to the side during the trip down memory lane, stepped forward. “But I’d love to have lunch with you next weekend if you’re not too busy.”
For all the crying a moment before, Donna’s eyes lit up. “That would be lovely.”
“I hear you have a sweet tooth. I’ll see if this one lets me sneak in some cookies from my favorite bakery.” Jack jerked his head in Ellie’s direction with the subtlety of a bulldozer.
“I’ll ask to make sure it’s allowed.” Ellie smiled. For all the times she resented—or simply struggled with—having to be the adult in situations with her mom, this time she didn’t mind.
Jack tsked but shot her a wink. “Rule follower.”
She was pretty sure this was the only scenario in which Jack played the rebel to her enforcer, so she didn’t mind that too much, either. “Someone has to be.”
Jack told himself he’d wait until they were back at his place to ask questions, but he’d no sooner pulled onto the road than the quiet made him twitchy. “How was it? How are you?”
Ellie looked at him with a wry smile. “I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
He shook his head. “It was harder for you. I could feel the energy you expended staying completely tuned in to both of us.”
She chuckled. “No one’s ever described it like that before. I mean, my therapist and I talk about hyper vigilance, but that feels different.”
That attunement had been one of the things he learned about growing up with a mentally ill parent.
Clover had warned him against assuming anything was one size fits all, but it had given him a perspective—not to mention some language—that helped him to do some tuning in of his own.
“Well, either way, I hope you know you don’t have to do that with me. ”
Ellie frowned. “Did you feel managed?”
“No.” He reached across the console and grabbed her hand. “But I know there’s power in telling you out loud I can manage my emotions, and that I’ll tell you if I’m not okay.”
“Yeah.” Ellie gave an exaggerated nod. “Yeah.”
“It’s good to remind myself, too. I wouldn’t be the first guy, trans or otherwise, to equate stoic with strong. I want to be better than that for you.”
Ellie chewed her lip. “I want to be that for you, too.”
He shot her a side-eye without taking his attention from the road. “The managing your emotions part or the telling me when you’re not okay?”
“Both.” She pouted for a second, then cracked a smile. “Both.”
“Good answer. I think that means we’re going to do okay.”
Ellie chuckled, as though it might be some sort of novelty. “I like the sound of that.”
“What do you need now? Food? A nap?” He was weirdly energized but had a feeling Ellie wasn’t.
“Food would be great.” She looked down at her stomach. “More than great, actually. I was all nerves before and now I’m starving.”
Jack smiled, more than a little pleased with himself for being tuned in correctly. “Requests or do you want me to pick?”
When Ellie didn’t answer right away, he glanced over, only to find her staring at him with a wide-eyed blink. “Are you serious right now?” she finally asked.
The self-satisfaction evaporated. “What do you mean?”
“You’re like a relationship book personified. Do you have a little therapist on your shoulder instead of an angel or a devil?”
Jack laughed. “More like a little Clover.”
Ellie laughed, too. “Remind me to thank her. Or if we ever break up, to date her.”
“Hey, now.”
Ellie slid her hand behind his neck and gave it a squeeze. “Kidding. I like ’em masc. Besides, I don’t have plans to let you go anytime soon.”
For not the first time that day, emotion swelled in his chest, pressing against his ribs like a balloon blown up too big for the space. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, about that food…”
“I would love for you to pick.” Ellie pulled her hand back and linked her fingers together in her lap. She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Thank you.”
The gesture—relief, laced perhaps with contentment—said as much as her willingness to take him along to the hospital in the first place. Like she wanted him to be part of her team. Like she trusted him. “I know just the place.”
Technically, the Little Gem was out of the way.
Only by about fifteen minutes, though. And while he wouldn’t call the meal they shared after digging out from the blizzard a date, it held a special place in his heart.
Besides, he knew there’d be at least one thing on the menu Ellie liked and wouldn’t have to think too hard about.
Ellie must have zoned out on the ride because it wasn’t until Jack pulled into the parking lot that her eyes lit up and she let out an “aww.”
“Is this okay?” he asked.
“More than.” She undid her seat belt and lifted her chin. “Is this you being sentimental?”
“Maybe.” That first morning, he might have taken the question as a dig—some implication that he was in fact too sentimental or perhaps not sentimental enough. Things were different now, though. He knew Ellie. More, he trusted that she knew him and liked him exactly the way he was.
No. Not like, or at least not only that. Love. She loved him and he loved her. And as much as they felt like a bit of an odd couple, he believed in his heart of hearts that they might be made for each other.
Unlike that first time, only a few of the tables were occupied. Since he was already on a sentimental streak, he asked the woman at the register if they could have the booth by the front window where they’d sat before. Ellie lifted a brow. Jack shrugged. She grinned, and then he did, too.
Ellie had no sooner opened the massive menu before she peered over it. “You’re going to be a heathen who eats pancakes in the afternoon, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been known to, but probably not today.”
Ellie nodded and returned her attention to the menu.
Jack had just enough of a view to see her frown. “Would you like me to order you a patty melt and a Diet Coke so you don’t have to think about it?”
Her gaze darted to his. She smiled, but her eyes were glassy. “Yes, please.”
The server—Liz, the same one they’d had the first time—came over to check in, and Jack decided to take a page from Ellie’s book. After the requisite pleasantries, he asked for two patty melts. “A Diet Coke for her and regular one for me.”
“You got it, sweet cheeks.”
With Liz gone and the menus out of the way, Ellie folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “You know, I expected it to be hard, but it wasn’t.”
“Deciding what to eat or letting me order for you?”
Ellie laughed. “Neither. Both.”
Jack waited, trusting there would be more.
She took a deep breath and blew it out, then stared at the ceiling for a few seconds before making eye contact. “Letting you do things for me, decide things for me.”
“For the record, I only want to decide things for you if or when that’s your preference.”
“I know.”
“As for the doing things, I think the whole point is that it’s mutual.” He certainly liked all the random little things she’d done for him in the last couple of months.
“Totally. I guess I’ve always thought of it as fifty-fifty though. Equal.”
“I think that’s the point overall. But not as a daily tally. Some days or weeks even, you’ve only got thirty to give and I can make up the difference. Sometimes, that’ll be reversed.”
Ellie nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I’m never going to feel okay taking extra if you don’t do the same.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is.” Jack smiled. “Which isn’t to say it’s always easy.”
Ellie laughed again, but it was the full, genuine laugh that he hadn’t heard enough of lately. “I’ll remember that.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m more inclined to figure out tradesies with you than anyone else I’ve been with.”
“Tradesies?” Ellie’s raised brow reminded Jack of the way he’d described her to Logan back when they first met—full of mirth.
“It’s a technical term. I definitely heard it on a relationship podcast.”
Liz appeared with their drinks and a promise the food would be out soon. When she’d gone, Ellie lifted her glass. “Well, then, here’s to tradesies.”
Jack clinked his drink to hers. “Cheers.”