Chapter 22
Grace
It was late when we arrived at the hospital.
Sam’s father was idling in the parking lot, waiting to take her home.
She pulled me into a hug, whispered that everything would be okay, and gave me the keys to her car.
I watched her father’s Ford pull out onto the main road and disappear into the darkness.
St. Jude’s stood before me like a haunted image from my dreams, the gray building cast in red light from the bold emergency sign.
I couldn’t move. The last time I’d stepped inside this hospital, I’d come against both of my parents’ wishes, desperate to catch a glimpse of the woman who’d raised me.
Be brave, Grace. Do it for your sister.
There was a lone security guard waiting inside the front doors.
He looked me over with a bored expression as I walked on shaky legs to the front desk.
A middle-aged woman asked for my name without looking up from her computer.
She continued to type away as I rattled off my name and reason for visiting.
“Room 224. Elevators are down the hall on the left,” she said, handing me a sticker with my name printed across the top. I pressed it to my chest without checking to see if it was right side up.
The hospital was eerily quiet, save for the swish of scrubs from the lone nurse traversing the hallway. The sound of my breathing felt impossibly loud as I boarded the elevator for the second floor. They’d already moved my father from the emergency department into the critical care unit.
Room 224 was at the very end of the hallway, a corner unit cast in dim fluorescent light, the blinds drawn over a large window along the back wall.
My dad was awake, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a half-hearted smile as I entered the room.
I bit back a sob at the sight of him lying in bed.
There was an IV bag pumping fluids into him and a pulse oximeter attached to the tip of his finger.
A chorus of different beeps from the various machines permeated the air.
In the armchair beside the bed, Gabby lay curled around her knees, sleeping.
The sight of them together was all it took for the sense of betrayal hanging over my head to vanish.
My shoulders relaxed. With light steps, I rounded the corner of his bed and reached out to grab the hand he’d extended for me.
“Don’t wake her up,” he said in a whisper, nodding to Gabs. “She was crying up until the moment she fell asleep, even though the doctor says I’m doing well.”
I didn’t know what to say. After weeks of ignoring his calls, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible.
“Is this all my fault?” I asked, unable to keep my darkest thoughts inside.
He looked at me incredulously. “How could this be your fault?”
“I’ve been ignoring your calls for weeks. That wasn’t fair to you. You get so stressed when—”
“You’re not to blame for this, Grace. It’s ridiculous for you to even think that.”
“Then what happened?”
“It was a minor heart attack. I’m okay, I promise.”
“What caused it?”
He let out a long sigh. “They mentioned a few things about my diet and my drinking habits, but the most important thing is that I’m doing fine. I’m on meds to break up any clots, and if my vitals remain stable, I can probably leave in a day or two.”
Relief coursed through me, but it didn’t lessen the feelings of guilt. In some cases, heart attacks could be brought on by chronic stress. It wasn’t that ridiculous to think that I was partly to blame for his anxiety.
“This is not your fault,” he said as if he could hear the stream of thoughts inside my head. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“I’m so sorry for ignoring you. I shouldn’t have—”
“None of that matters now,” he assured me. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
A quiet sob broke free from my lips. I covered my mouth to muffle the noise.
“I was so scared,” I admitted, a perfect imitation of Gabby’s confession to me over the phone. “And I’m scared for Gabby. I don’t want Mom anywhere near her.”
“I felt the same way in the beginning. I was terrified when she showed up on our doorstep asking to see Gabs. But I couldn’t be the one to stand in the way of a daughter and her mother. And despite her past mistakes, everyone deserves a second chance. Don’t you think?”
Every particle in my being screamed hell no. I didn’t want to give Mom the chance to fuck up her other child. “Is she different?”
His head tilted to the side in consideration. “In some ways, yes. In others, no.”
“How can you stand to be around her? Isn’t it painful? I can’t even think about her without feeling like my lungs are going to collapse.”
“It is painful. It always will be. But it’s worth it to see the excitement on Gabby’s face when I mention her mother’s coming to visit. My pain will always be worth her happiness, and yours as well.”
>> <<
Gabby didn’t say a word to me when we left the hospital in the early hours of the morning.
I didn’t want to push her after the stressful day we’d both endured.
Silence filled our walk to the parking lot, and the car ride home, and the space in our front foyer where we stood and watched each other in a strange tension until Gabby disappeared into the privacy of her bedroom.
That night, no five-star podcast or curated playlist was enough to stop me from reaching out for a warmth that wouldn’t be there or dreaming about Sebastian.
You were a mistake. I couldn’t un-hear his words.
Sebastian was just another person who regretted me, and it was my own damn fault.
I’d been afraid to open up. Instead of listening to his pleas for me to be honest about how I was feeling, I’d used him to distract myself from the pain.
And when it was finally time for me to return the favor, I’d chosen numbing myself on shitty tequila over showing up for him.
A feeling of bone-deep exhaustion followed me into the next day.
When I glanced at myself in the bathroom mirror before heading downstairs, I was greeted with the sight of bloodshot eyes and swollen skin, half-moon smudges of purple decorating the flesh below my waterline.
Thankfully, my dad was a coffee lover, and just the smell of roasting grounds was enough to ease some of the tiredness from my body.
After a fifteen-minute check-in with my dad, I set to work preparing breakfast, determined to have something ready by the time Gabby woke up.
I’d just poured the final pancake onto our countertop griddle when she walked into the kitchen rubbing sleep-bleary eyes.
“I spoke to Dad this morning,” I said as she slipped onto a stool along the kitchen island. “He asked if we could bring him some lunch just after noon.”
Gabby remained silent, though she reached for one of the plates I’d set out and used a fork to snag a pancake off the top of the leaning stack. I hadn’t heard her voice since she’d called me in a panic the night before, and I was beginning to feel desperate for her to speak.
“Do you want any coffee?”
Dad didn’t let her drink coffee on a regular basis, but I figured she could use the caffeine after the last twenty-four hours. Gabby glanced up from her barely eaten pancake, brow furrowed in a look of disbelief.
“Dad doesn’t let me,” she said, and I had to hold in my laughter at the unexpected response.
“He’d make an exception for today.”
She scoffed. “Like you’d know. You haven’t spoken with him in weeks.”
I schooled my expression to keep the pain of her words from showing on my face. With a determination to win her over, I grabbed a mug from the shelf above the stove and poured a cup of coffee. I topped it off with a good amount of hazelnut creamer before setting it on the counter in front of her.
“Do you want me to call him and ask?”
Gabby just shook her head and pulled the mug closer, letting the steam waft up and warm her face. After removing the last pancake, I turned off the griddle and leaned against the counter directly across from her. Despite her earlier feistiness, she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“I know you think I’m a coward,” I said, ripping off the bloodied bandage, “and I might be, but there’s a lot you don’t know about our mother. If you really want to understand why I’m so hesitant to forgive her, I’ll tell you.”
Gabby looked like she was holding her breath as she nodded for me to continue.
“You were too young to see how devastating it was when she left. Dad blamed himself every day for years, even after doing everything right to help her. And I had to step up and help take care of you.” I winced at the confession, hoping that Gabby realized I’d never resented her for it.
I’d do it all over again, and I told her that, but it shouldn’t have been my job as her sister.
I was still a kid, and she’d needed a mother. We both had.
I talked about how cruel the other kids had been once their parents found out, how no one had wanted to be friends with me after Mom’s stint in the hospital. Gabby hung on to every word I spoke, and I could see in her eyes that this was what she’d needed all along—the truth.
“I felt so alone back then, even before she disappeared, and eventually all the sadness I felt at losing her turned to anger. Up until recently, I couldn’t fathom why you even wanted to know her.
And then I realized something. You’ll never understand what it felt like waking up in the morning to learn that she was gone.
You were a baby, barely three years old.
The truth is, I’m terrified that she’s going to break your heart like she did mine.
But you’re old enough to make your own decisions, and I can understand wanting to know our mother, even if part of me thinks it’s a mistake. ”