Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Frannie stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor and found her brother in the waiting room, hunched over, elbows on knees.
“Jack? What’s wrong?”
“Hey, Fran.”
“Why aren’t you in with Clare?”
“She asked me to leave.”
She sat next to him. “Oh. You told her.”
“I keep telling myself that to her everything’s the same as it was three years ago. It’s like time stopped for her. But it didn’t stop for us.”
“Let me talk to her. Why don’t you get out of here for a while? Mother and Dad are with the twins, but they want to come in later to see Clare, so someone will be here.”
“The girls will be in after school, too.”
“You can spend some time with Andi. How’s she coping?”
“She left,” he said, still unable to believe all that had happened.
“Where’d she go?”
“To the hotel, for now anyway.” He sighed. “She won’t see me, won’t take my calls.”
“Damn.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“What’ll you do now?”
“Go to work, I guess. I don’t want to be at home without Andi, and I’m not welcome here right now. I’ll come back later. Hopefully, Clare will cool off.”
“I’ll talk to her, and then I’ll take a ride over to see Andi, just to make sure she’s okay.”
He brightened. “Oh good. Thanks, Fran.”
“Go on ahead. It’ll all work out. Don’t worry.”
“You have a lot more faith than I do. It’s a goddamned mess, and I have no one to blame but myself.”
She rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t do this. You did the best you could every step of the way during this whole thing. You never made promises you couldn’t keep to anyone, especially not to Andi.”
“I promised I’d never leave her alone with the babies.”
“And you won’t. Don’t drive yourself crazy second-guessing every decision you’ve made over the last three years. I know it seems awful right now, but you’ll figure something out.”
“I wish I could be as optimistic.”
“I’ll call you later.” She kissed his cheek and pushed him toward the elevator.
As she walked into Clare’s room and saw that her sister-in-law had been crying, Frannie wasn’t sure if she’d be welcome, either. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“I hear you’re having a rough day.”
Clare shrugged and played with her fingers but didn’t look at Frannie.
Frannie sat next to Clare’s bed. “Could I tell you something? And will you listen to me as someone who loves you?”
“I guess.”
“I’ve never seen anyone suffer the way my brother did after your accident.
There were times when I feared he’d die of a broken heart.
He was a wreck, for a long, long time. Even after all the doctors told him there was nothing they could do for you, he continued to hope.
It was only after he finally gave up hoping that he allowed himself to grieve for you, and that’s when I worried we’d lose him, too. ”
“I get he’s a man with needs, and three years is a long time, but did he have to bring her to live in my house? With my children? What kind of woman moves into another woman’s home and family like that?”
“The loveliest kind of woman,” Frannie said with a sigh. “She was nice to your girls, cared for them as best she could, and never once tried to take your place with them. She left everything in your home just as you had it, except for the room she shared with Jack.”
“That’s my room! I can see you love her, and I suppose I’ll have to hear my own children tell me they love her, too. You say she didn’t try to replace me with them, but she’s probably managed to do a good job of it anyway.”
“You’re way off, and you’re being terribly unfair to Jack.”
“Unfair to Jack? While I was lying in a hospital bed, he was off starting a new life with someone else, and I’m the one being unfair?”
“Yes, Clare, you are,” Anna said from the doorway.
“Even my own mother doesn’t see how wrong this is? My husband has another family! Another family with another woman!”
“I love you, Clare, and I’m so glad you’ve come back to us,” Frannie said.
“But he’s my brother, and I love him, too.
I can’t stay here and listen to you talk about him like this after witnessing the way he suffered over you.
I hope you’ll think long and hard before you judge him too harshly on choices he made in an unbearable situation.
You know he’d never have hurt you on purpose. Not in a million years.”
Frannie squeezed Anna’s arm on her way out the door.
Anna moved to her daughter’s bedside. “She’s right, you know. You can’t imagine what this was like for him. Where is he anyway?”
Clare turned away from her mother. “I asked him to leave.”
“You’re making a terrible mistake, Clare. He wants to be here with you. He hardly left your side for two weeks when you had that terrible fever.”
“Have you met her?” Clare asked, turning back to look at her mother.
“A couple of times.”
“And you just sat idly by while he moved another woman into my house—the house he built for me—and said nothing about it?”
“It wasn’t up to me to tell him how to live his life, Clare.
He’d done everything he could to find help for you and to make sure you were well cared for.
By the time he told me about her, I was almost relieved to see him getting on with his life.
He’d suffered so terribly. It was painful to watch, for all of us.
” She reached for Clare’s hand. “He never forgot he had a wife. He was there all the time to see you, and if you don’t believe me, ask Sally.
She’s been your nurse for years. She’ll tell you. ”
Clare continued to stare out the window.
“I know this is a terrible shock, but it’s just not possible for you to know what it was like for him, for me, for everyone.”
“He has another family, Mom.” Clare’s voice caught on a sob. “My Jack has someone else.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Anna hugged her daughter. “I wish there was something I could say.”
Shaken by the scene in Clare’s room, Frannie left the hospital. She tried to put herself in Clare’s place to understand what a shock it would be to wake up after three years to find out the whole world had gone on without you. But that didn’t give her the right to speak so harshly about Jack.
On the way to the hotel, Frannie decided she’d check in with Jack after she’d seen Andi. She parked at the hotel, hoping this visit would go better than the last one.
Frannie spotted Jen Brooks across the lobby and went over to her.
“Hi, Jen, I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Jack Harrington’s sister, Frannie Booth. We met at the gala.”
Jen shook Frannie’s extended hand. “Nice to see you again. Do you know what’s going on with Andi? She and Eric are staying here, and she asked me to drive him to school today for her. She sent him out to meet me, but I haven’t seen her.”
“She left Jack last night.”
“Why?” Jen asked, her face slack with shock.
“His wife has recovered.”
Jen gasped. “That’s amazing. But God, Andi…”
“Could I see her?”
“She’s in the manager’s apartment. I tried to get her to talk to me about an hour ago, but she didn’t answer. Maybe you’ll have more luck.” Jen pointed the way.
“Thanks, Jen.”
Frannie made her way across the lobby and up the stairs to the manager’s apartment at the far end of the east wing. She knocked on the door. “Andi, it’s Frannie. Open the door, honey.” She knocked some more, and when the door finally opened, Frannie was shocked by Andi’s shattered expression.
“What are you doing here?” Andi tied her silk robe tighter across her rounded middle.
“I wanted to check on you. May I come in?”
Andi stepped aside to let her in.
“Are you all right?”
“I will be.”
“Jack’s worried about you.”
“He needs to focus on his family right now.”
“You’re his family, too, Andi. You and Eric and the babies.”
“His wife needs him.” Her voice, like her eyes, was dull and lifeless. “That’s where he should be.”
“What’ll you do?”
“I’ll stay here and work and take care of Eric while I wait for the babies.”
“Can I do anything for you? Anything at all?”
“You’ve been such a good friend to me, Frannie. There’s one thing I need.”
“Anything.”
“I can’t see you. I can’t see any of you. I have to make a clean break if I’m going to get through this. Please tell the girls, too. I love them, but I can’t see them. Try to make them understand. They need to be thinking of their mother, and they don’t need to be worried about me.”
“What about the babies? And Eric?”
“I’d never keep the babies from their father, and Eric is counting on seeing Jack. But I won’t. Please tell him that. I won’t see him, and I won’t take his calls. Not now. I’ll contact him after the babies are born.”
“You can’t just cut him off this way.”
“I have no right to him. I probably never did. His wife won’t understand that he has another family waiting in the wings, so I’ll make it easy for him—and for her.”
Frannie couldn’t believe how Andi had summed up Clare’s exact sentiments.
“Please ask him, ask everyone, to respect my feelings.”
“If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“I am.”
Nothing in Andi’s firm tone betrayed the terrible pain she must’ve felt as she said the words, but Frannie saw it in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know this must be awful for you.”
“I’m not sorry those beautiful girls have their mother back or that Clare has her life back. And I’ll never be sorry for the time I spent loving your brother and living with him. It was the highlight of my life.” Her voice finally broke.
Frannie took a step toward her, wanting to offer comfort, but Andi held up a hand to stop her.
“Don’t. Please. I appreciate you coming, Frannie, but you have to go now.”
Frannie opened the door. “We love you and Eric very much. I’m just a phone call away if you ever need me.”
With tears in her eyes, Andi nodded but said nothing more as Frannie let the door close softly behind her.