Chapter 25 Diane
Diane
When the hospice nurse shows up at Sara’s the next morning, the transformation is abrupt. Gone is any pretense of normalcy. The nurse, a woman named Dee, arrives with a rolling suitcase and voice pitched for reassurance, all bright vowels and cheer.
Judy is not far behind, her suitcase thumping across the porch like a warning shot. Relief and guilt twist together in my gut. She arrives with the air of a general entering a war-zone, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a determined line.
Sara is in her chair, diminished and fragile but fiercely upright.
She seems to expand a little when Judy enters, as if buoyed by the prospect of being properly fussed over.
I hang back in the kitchen, fingers slick with the juice from a clementine I’m peeling for Cassie, and watch the choreography as Judy orchestrates a symphony of care around Sara.
Within twenty minutes, Sara is tucked into a blanket, the morning TV tuned to a gardening show, and Cassie is dispatched to the den to build a castle out of the spare cushions and old quilts from the hall closet.
Judy finds me by the sink, where I’m methodically pulling apart the fruit into a bowl, segment by segment, as if the right arrangement might make the day hold together.
“She’s stable for now,” Judy says. “You’ve done a hell of a job. You should take a break. I mean it, Diane. Go do something for yourself. I’ll hold down the fort until you get back, scout’s honor.”
The words should make me laugh, but instead I blink hard and nod. My heart is racing for no discernible reason, a woodpecker pulse that refuses to settle. I scrape the clementine pith from my nails and set the bowl in front of Cassie, who beams as if I’ve delivered her a Nobel Prize.
“Maybe you should go for a swim,” she tells me, cheeks sticky from the first wedge. “Or go shopping. That might cheer you up.” There is a hopefulness to her voice, an eagerness for me to reclaim even the smallest piece of normal.
I ruffle her hair, trying not to show how much it costs to let go. “I’ll figure something out,” I say, and slip out the back door.
The air is so dense with salt and humidity that the world feels slightly underwater. I walk down to the cottage and stand there in the kitchen, hands in my pockets, as if waiting for some sign of what comes next.
The phone rings, sudden and sharp. Nathan.
“Hey,” I say, voice weirdly breathless.
“Hey yourself. Did the cavalry finally arrive?”
“Yes. Judy’s here now, and so is the hospice nurse. She’s setting all the equipment up and getting Sara’s meds sorted out. Judy insisted that I take a break."
“She’s right, you know? Listen, I don’t want to step on any toes, but—” There’s a pause, a shuffling sound, the scratch of a pencil or a thumb across wood.
“Would you want to get coffee this morning? Or, I don’t know, take a walk?
No pressure. You just sounded—last night, I mean—you sounded like you could use a change of scenery. ”
“Yeah. I’d really like that.”
He names the café by the marina, the one with the blueberry scones, and says he’ll meet me in half an hour. We hang up before either of us can overcomplicate the logistics, and I just stand there, letting the salt air ransack my lungs.
I trade my jeans for a skirt, the kind I haven’t worn since I was with Kyle, and run a brush through my hair. Rolo peaks around the corner, bleary-eyed from his spot on the bed, and gives me an approving bark.
“Looks like you’re on your own for a bit,” I tell him and give him several reassuring pats. He seems undeterred by my impending absence, nestling back into the warmth of the comforter with a contented sigh.
Picking up my keys, I allow myself one final glance around the cottage, then step out into the morning, locking the door behind me.
I drive to the café. The route takes me along the edge of the harbor, where shrimpers are already double-knotting their lines, and the air is thick with diesel.
I take the long way, letting the rhythm of my feet smooth out the last of my jitters.
By the time I reach the café, my heart is still fluttery, but it’s the hopeful kind of anxious, the kind that precedes an anticipated kiss or the opening lines of a really good novel.
Nathan is already there, perched on the back deck that overlooks the water, a mug balanced on his knee and a legal pad spread across the slats of the table.
His hair is a little wilder than usual, and he’s in a gray sweatshirt and khaki shorts, a look that makes him seem both adolescent and ageless.
When he sees me, he stands so fast he nearly upends his coffee.
“Sorry,” he says, laughing, as he rights the mug and brushes the splatter from the paper. “I forgot how small these tables are.”
I wave off the apology and slide into the seat opposite him, my knees brushing the table leg, bare skin prickling where the wood is cool and rough. “Didn’t take you for an early riser.”
He shrugs, face open, a little sheepish. “Didn’t sleep. Kept thinking about the last few days. About Sara. And you.”
The candor makes me blush, though I hope he can’t see it in the diffused light of the awning. “She’s better today,” I say. “And thank you, again. For the soup, and the company. And the candles. Cassie thinks you’re a wizard.”
Nathan grins, wide and boyish. “I do try.” He hesitates, then says, “at the risk of reigniting our little…disagreement… I meant what I said, about not going anywhere. I don’t want to crowd you, Diane. But I… I like seeing you…spending time with you.”
I study him, his fingers laced around the mug, the way his right thumb taps a silent rhythm along the side. There is a vulnerability to his posture, a sense that he’s bracing for something and hoping it will be kindness.
“I like seeing you, too,” I confess, the words slipping out before I can overthink them. “Nathan, about yesterday, I….”
“I know,” he interjects softly, his hand stretching across the table toward me.
The lights reflect off his skin, casting a soft glow on his tanned arm.
"Me too," he adds when I don't continue.
"This thing between us… I think we're both a little scared; you because of all you've been through and me, because I'm not sure how to be what you need. But when I look at you, I see someone who’s already survived the hardest part, someone who makes me want to push through whatever’s left of my own fear.” He laughs, short and uncertain, but his fingers remain, open and steady, on the table between us.
“What I’m trying to say is we don't have to figure it all out today, or even tomorrow. We can take our time."
He's right. Fear has been a constant companion ever since we met, ever since I stepped into this life I wasn't prepared for and found him there, an unexpected comfort.
"Yeah," I admit, my voice barely more than a whisper against the soft hum of the café. “I’d like that.”
Nathan smiles gently, seeming to comprehend the weight of my confession. "All right then,” he says. “Let's just…see where this goes."
We fall into an easy conversation, discussing the topics that feel safest at first: the storm, the state of the town, the ongoing repairs to the boardwalk.
When the food arrives, the conversation shifts. We start to trade stories, the kind you only tell when the world is reduced to just two people at a table and the rest of existence is on mute.
I tell him about the time I almost failed out of freshman English because I wouldn’t stop arguing with my professor about the symbolism in Moby-Dick.
He tells me about his high school prom, how he showed up in a rented tux two sizes too big and danced so badly his date abandoned him for the principal’s son by the second song.
We laugh, we cringe, we admit to things we wouldn’t say to anyone else.
At one point, he leans forward, elbows on the table, and says, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Why do you keep saying you’re bad at starting over?”
The question floors me, not because it’s unexpected but because it’s so precisely aimed at the bruise I’ve been nursing for years.
“I don’t know. Maybe because every time I try, it feels like I’m leaving someone behind. Like starting over means erasing the people who mattered most.” I look away, afraid I’ve said too much, but Nathan absorbs the confession without flinching.
“I think you’re better at it than you realize,” he says. “I think the hard part isn’t starting over. It’s letting yourself be seen after.”
The truth of it lands, solid and undeniable. I want to reach across the table and touch his hand, but I don’t. Not yet. Instead, I change the subject. “Do you want to walk for a bit? I feel like I haven’t seen the beach in days.”
He smiles, pushes his plate aside, and stands. “I’d like that.”
We pay at the counter, and as we leave, the barista waves. Outside, the air has warmed, the early fog burned off by a tentative sun. We walk side by side, not touching, but closer than before.
At the end of the block, the sidewalk gives way to a sandy footpath lined with stunted pines and wild sea oats.
The wind is stronger here, threading the grains through our hair and tugging at the hem of my skirt.
I tilt my face to the breeze, letting it scrub the last of the stale air from my lungs.
Nathan glances over, as if gauging my mood, then says, “Do you ever get the feeling that everything you’re supposed to want is just a list someone else made for you?”
“All the time.”
“I quit my job because I couldn’t stand the list anymore. All those things I was supposed to want—promotions, money, the five-year plan—they felt like a suit that never quite fit.”
“And now?”
“Now I just want to make things. Even if no one cares, even if it’s just for me.” He turns to face me, stopping at the edge of the dunes. “What about you?”