25. #2
"The doctors don't think she has much longer." Even though I'd known that for a while, saying it never seemed to get easier. "So I just want to see her as much as I can. Even if she's sleeping. I don't care. I just want to be there."
His hand came up, thumb brushing once along my cheek.
"I hope you enjoy your time with her today."
I nodded.
"I will."
"And call me if you need me."
"I will."
He looked at me for another second, probably deciding whether he believed that.
Then he kissed me again.
"I've really gotta go."
"I know."
Grant grabbed his keys and the water he'd left on the counter before heading toward the door. I watched him leave, listening to the sound of it closing behind him before the kitchen settled back into silence.
For a moment, I stayed where I was.
My phone remained beside my coffee, Rodney's messages waiting behind the dark screen.
Next to it was the list I'd made last night of everything I wanted before classes started.
Notebooks. Highlighters. A planner, which felt strangely necessary now.
I'd never been much of a planner before.
I usually relied on memory for whatever I had going on, but there had also always been someone behind me making sure I was exactly where I needed to be.
Vivian with my schedule. Rodney with everything else.
If I forgot something, someone reminded me. If I was late, someone came looking.
This time, there wouldn't be anyone keeping me in line.
Just me.
I looked between everything for a moment before reaching for the list.
Rodney could wait.
Less than an hour later, I was pulling away from Grant's house with my purse in the passenger seat and a day ahead of me that, for once, I'd planned entirely for myself.
I made it about ten minutes before realizing the coffee I'd abandoned at Grant's had done absolutely nothing for me. By the time I merged onto the highway, I'd already talked myself into replacing it.
I pulled into the facility and parked in one of the visitor spaces near the entrance, gathering my bag from the passenger seat before my phone started vibrating inside it.
Her name stopped me before I could open the door.
I stared at it until the vibration stopped.
The missed call notification had barely appeared before another one replaced it.
I frowned.
I wasn't entirely sure what that meant.
Or maybe I was, and I just didn't want to deal with what came after acknowledging it.
Things had been strange between us since the situation with her suitcase. I'd told myself I needed time to think before speaking to her again, but apparently time had turned into avoidance somewhere along the way.
I still didn't know what I'd seen.
That was the problem.
A pair of red underwear in my bedroom didn't prove anything.
Reese only owning underwear that looked similar didn't prove anything either.
Neither did her going to California with Rodney's team.
I'd taken three separate things that could've meant absolutely nothing and connected them because something about the combination had made me uncomfortable.
Then I'd gone back to the house looking for proof.
And found nothing.
Some days, I was embarrassed I'd even entertained the thought.
This was Reese.
She'd known me before Rodney. Before the White House, before campaigns and security details and every other complication my life had collected along the way. She knew things about my marriage I hadn't trusted most people enough to say out loud.
She knew what he'd done to me.
What he'd taken from me.
A friend wouldn't know all of that and then sleep with him.
My stomach twisted at the thought.
I unlocked my phone before I could talk myself out of it.
Then read.
I waited, watching the screen longer than I wanted to admit.
A thumbs-up appeared beneath it.
That was it.
I sighed and dropped the phone into my lap.
Great.
Apparently I'd managed to add Reese to the growing list of people pissed at me.
The guilt came quickly because, suspicions aside, she had every right to be upset. I'd pulled away without explaining why, and there wasn't exactly a graceful way to explain it now.
Sorry I've been ignoring you. I briefly convinced myself you might be sleeping with my husband.
Yeah.
That conversation would go beautifully.
I picked my phone back up, briefly considering sending something else before deciding I'd probably make it worse. Calling her later would be better. I could apologize properly, hear her voice and hopefully remind myself why the entire idea had been ridiculous in the first place.
For now, I had somewhere more important to be.
I grabbed my bag and coffee and headed inside.
The facility had become familiar enough that I no longer needed anyone to direct me.
I recognized the woman sitting behind the front desk and smiled when she greeted me.
Somewhere down the hall a television was playing loudly enough that I could hear a game show audience applauding, and two residents sat near one of the windows arguing over a card game.
It didn't feel like a hospital.
I'd been grateful for that from the beginning.
My mother's apartment was farther down the hall, and I knocked once before letting myself inside.
"Mom?"
No answer.
The living room was quiet except for the television playing softly near the window. Shauna was sitting on the couch with a tablet balanced against one knee, and she looked up when I came in.
"Hey."
"Hey." I smiled at her before looking toward the bedroom. "She's sleeping?"
Shauna shook her head. "She's not here."
That stopped me.
My eyes went toward the empty bedroom again. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine. They moved her treatment appointment up this morning. Transportation picked her up about an hour ago."
"Oh."
I glanced at my watch even though there wasn't much point.
"Do you know when she'll be back?"
"Probably a few hours."
Of course.
I should've called before coming.
"Okay." I set my coffee down on the small kitchen counter. "That's fine. I'll just check what she's running low on while I'm here. I needed to pick some things up today anyway."
Shauna nodded and returned her attention to the tablet while I headed toward my mother's room.
The bed was made. Her robe hung over the chair near the window, slippers tucked beneath it.
I stood there longer than necessary.
The doctors had stopped giving us timelines in weeks and started giving us approximations instead.
Soon.
Not much longer.
Prepare yourselves.
Different ways of saying the same thing without ever having to say the thing itself.
I opened the cabinet beside her bed and started checking through everything she'd accumulated.
Lotion was almost empty. She needed more of the nutritional drinks she'd recently started tolerating.
Her favorite tea was down to the last few bags, although I wasn't sure how much of it she was drinking anymore.
I pulled my phone out and started adding things to a note.
Lotion.
Tea.
Socks.
Maybe another blanket. The room stayed colder than she liked.
I was checking the bathroom cabinet when I heard Shauna call from the living room.
"Naomi?"
"Yeah?"
There was a short pause before she spoke again.
"Your mom was so happy to see Rodney."
My hand stopped against the cabinet door.
For a second, I stayed exactly where I was.
Then I closed it.
By the time I walked back into the living room, I'd already arranged my expression into something neutral.
"Rodney stopped by?"
"Two days ago." Shauna smiled, apparently oblivious to the way my stomach had tightened. "I thought you knew."
"No." The word came out easily enough. "I didn't know."
"He stayed for a while too. Your mom loved it."
I adjusted the strap of my bag higher onto my shoulder. "That's nice."
"It really was. He ordered her a new bed because she mentioned this one was bothering her back. Took care of the rent here for the rest of the year too."
My fingers tightened slightly around my phone.
Shauna kept talking.
"He spent some time talking to the residents before he left. Secret Service nearly gave everybody a heart attack when they came through first."
She laughed. "Not everybody was thrilled about the surprise visit, but that's politics, I guess. Your mom didn't care. She was just happy her son-in-law came to see her."
I managed a smile.
Small.
Polite.
Exactly enough.
"I'm happy she got to see him," I said. "She adores Rodney."
That much was true.
My mother had always loved him.
It was considerably easier to love Rodney when you only knew the version of him he wanted you to know.
Shauna started saying something else, but I'd already turned back toward the bedroom under the excuse of finishing my list.
The second I was out of her line of sight, my expression dropped.
Rodney hadn't mentioned coming here.
Neither had Vivian.
And maybe under different circumstances I would've convinced myself it was thoughtful. My husband visiting my dying mother shouldn't have felt sinister. Paying her expenses should've been generous. Buying her a better bed should've made me grateful.
Instead, all I could think about were the messages sitting unanswered in my phone.
You don't get to decide when you're finished.
He hadn't needed to call me.
He'd come here instead.
To the one person he knew I couldn't separate from everything he provided.
My mother's apartment.
Her treatment.
Her comfort.
The security of knowing that whatever happened medically, money wouldn't be the reason she went without something she needed.
Rodney had made sure all of it carried his fingerprints.
The message wasn't difficult to understand.
He could take care of the people I loved.
He could reach them without going through me.
And if I wanted to start making decisions like he wasn't part of my life anymore, he was perfectly capable of reminding me how deeply he'd embedded himself into it.
I stared down at the unfinished list on my phone.
Lotion.
Tea.
Socks.
My thumb hovered over the screen before I added the nutritional drinks and locked it.