Chapter 25
HOLLY
The next morning, I sit up in bed and rub my eyes, attempting to bring the world into focus. Every morning feels like a weird remake of Groundhog Day only we’re never in the same location. Only the emotions are the same. Exhaustion, a sense of loss, and what could be heartache or heartburn.
Heartache and heartburn.
The burger I ordered from room service last night is punishing me for every misdeed ever.
Jack had questioned my culinary choice when we FaceTimed.
It’s been eight years since an unfortunate burger, purchased from a street vendor, ended in a nasty case of food poisoning.
For years after, just the thought of a burger was enough to send me running to the bathroom.
Maybe it was because Zoe loved burgers, or maybe because after talking with Leo and Anna, then a lengthy recap of the conversation with Zoe back in the room, the blue cheese bacon burger on the room service menu seemed like the logical choice. It’s what Z would have ordered.
“You all right?” Anna asks, rolling onto her side.
“Sure. You?” I push the blanket aside and groan as I stand up.
Every hotel we’ve stayed at has had wonderfully comfortable beds, and there’s no question that flying first class instead of Economy is a bonus, but my body still craves my own bed.
Nine nights of this and the end is still two flights, two hotel beds and six nights away.
Anna gives me a dubious look, then says, “You were kinda gassy last night.”
My stomach cramps in response and I pick my way through the maze of suitcases toward the bathroom, avoiding looking in Anna and Zoe’s direction. It’s become a nightly ritual to set Zoe’s urn on the bedside table between our beds and before going to sleep, share one good thing from the day.
Last night it had been just me and Zoe. The words had come from somewhere deep in me. “My happy for the day is, believe it or not, being here with Anna,” I’d whispered.
“Hols? You’re looking a little paler than usual,” Anna offers helpfully.
I turn toward her ready to unleash a typical Holly “Really?!” glare.
But seeing Anna leaning against the headboard with Zoe’s urn less than an arm’s distance away, the last “one good thing” I shared with Zoe knocks the air from my lungs, just as it had that night.
“My happy for the day is you. You can’t begin to know how much you and Anna have meant to me,” she’d said less than a month before she died.
I put my hand over my mouth to keep the sob back, but Anna reads it as I’m about to be sick.
“Hols, are you okay?” she bolts up in bed. “Oh my god, are you pregnant?” Anna calls out as I slam the bathroom door shut.
And now I really am crying. I turn the water on to cover my sobs and sink to the floor.
“Hols? Holly?” Anna knocks gently then again with a bit more force.
When I don’t answer, she nudges the door open. “Can I come in?”
I nod, because (a), she’s already more than halfway in, and (b), I have the sudden need to confide in her. It’s what Zoe would have wanted.
Anna folds onto the floor next to me, gasping as her bare thighs meet the cold marble floor.
“Was it the gas comment?” she whispers.
I laugh through tears. “Not the gas comment. Although I won’t be eating burgers again for a while.”
I force a few deep breaths into my lungs and blow my nose on toilet paper since it’s the only thing I can reach.
“Not gas. Pregnant?” Anna twists to look at me, her grin faltering when she sees my tears.
I shake my head. What I need to tell her, though, clogs in my throat. “I told Zoe last night that my one good thing for the day was being here with you,” I hear myself saying instead.
Next to me, Anna inhales sharply. I was just as surprised by that realization. I suppose Zoe would have gasped as well if she was alive.
No, she would have smirked and said something like, “Duh, I knew it would be.”
“This might sound weird, but seeing Leo in the lobby and hearing that Zoe orchestrated his visit changed something for me. I don’t know how to explain it.
” I drop my face into my hands and wait for the words bouncing around my brain to settle.
“This trip has been so hard, in so many ways. I lost count of the number of times I wanted to go home. But Zoe knew what challenge to place in front of us at each step of this trip. Every letter, every task was just enough to rattle us without knocking us over.”
Anna laughs. “Earthquake Zoe. What do you think she’d be on the Richter scale?”
“Six-point-five?”
Anna snorts a laugh. “That sounds about right.” She’s quiet for a minute before addressing the proverbial elephant. “What about Leo changed this for you?”
“Him showing up reminded me how keenly aware Zoe was about everyone. She was so good at making people feel important. Given what we now know, it makes sense. She knew we’d have a billion questions about Ava.
But I don’t think she sent Leo here to answer our questions.
I think she sent him here because she knew he’d need us, you, as much as we need him right now. ”
“You think so?”
I nod. “There’s always been something between you two.
You guys spent a lot of time together when Zoe was sick.
I’m surprised you aren’t together already.
It’s okay,” I reassure her when she scrunches her face.
I know she’s sensitive on this topic, especially after I came down so hard on her with Brody.
“For whatever my two cents are worth, I think Zoe would be happy.” I stop short of saying I would be too, because even though we’ve taken giant steps forward, there’s still five years of friendship debris to tiptoe through.
Anna reaches across me for the toilet paper roll and blows her nose.
“Are we meeting Leo for breakfast?” I ask. My stomach seconds the need for food, last night’s burger incident apparently forgiven.
Anna shakes her head, blowing her nose again. “He had an early flight. Are you up for food?” she asks. I can tell she’s still convinced I’m pregnant.
The truth about that is the one thing I don’t know how to talk about. “Yeah, I’m up for it.”
“Why is this necessary?” I hiss, my eyes squeezed shut and my hand in a death grip on the clammy metal pole as the gondola swings above the treeline.
The ham and cheese omelet I devoured for breakfast is now battling the remnants of the burger.
Anna had eyeballed every bite as it went from my plate to my mouth, but so far she’s resisted asking again.
“It’s this or hike.”
“Why didn’t we hike?”
“Because it would take hours.”
“Oh, yeah. And having to go back to the room to collect Zoe put us behind schedule.” It’s a low blow, but I’m queasy and feeling less than generous.
“That’s not fair,” Anna pouts.
It’s not entirely unfair. Granted, I rushed us out of the room, not wanting to give Anna the chance to ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer. But Anna is in charge of the urn, and Anna had left Zoe sitting on the bedside table.
Not to mention the heated text exchange with Jack over Quinn’s field trip, which is today, and for which I know they’ve done none of the things on the pre-trip planning list I’d made for them.
How am I so sure of that? Exhibit one, Jack’s response that “it’ll be fine, stop fussing.
” Exhibit two, the text asking where Quinn’s “outdoor backpack is.” Exhibit three, Jack responding to my “did you find it” with an “I’ve got this.
Stop worrying.” Exhibit four, Jack responding to three additional text questions from me with, “Holly, enough already!” Exhibit five, Jack’s final text before we boarded the gondola that said, “Don’t you have a mountain to climb instead of micromanaging home long-distance? ” I’m still fuming over that one.
The gondola jolts, swings, jolts again. “Shit,” I growl.
“Hey, Hols,” Anna hedges, clearly wanting to distract me and feed her curiosity at the same time. “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”
I squeeze my eyes shut as the gondola jolts again and hiss in a breath of fresh mountain air that immediately adds to my nausea.
Nausea fueled by altitude, dangling precariously a million feet from safety, and the knowledge that once this thing docks at the top of the mountain, we have to scatter more of our friend’s ashes. Nausea not caused by pregnancy.
“No, Anna, I’m not pregnant.”
“Maybe you should check. We can pick up a test from the pharmacy this afternoon.”
“Can you please drop this?” I cringe at the creaking and clanging of the gondola as we get to the station on top of the mountain.
“But, Hols, maybe you shouldn’t be traveling. Especially overseas.”
In my head I hear Zoe. You need to open up to her. It’s time to let go, Hols.
“I’m not pregnant, Anna. I can’t be.”
“Accidents happen, even when you think you’re being careful,” she says with a playful grin.
The gondola gives one last jolt then grinds to a snail’s pace when it reaches the mountaintop platform.
My stomach bottoms out then jumps back up with more force than any of Quinn’s rubber balls.
The door glides open and an attendant reaches a hand to help me since the gondola is still moving.
I must look as bad as I feel because he makes a face at me.
“Hols, this is so exciting. Quinny’s going to be a big brother. Does he know?”
This morning’s omelet becomes acid in my stomach and I whirl on Anna. “He’s never going to be a big brother,” I snap.
She blinks, stunned. “Why not?”
“I can’t get pregnant.”