Chapter 18
“Amy? What are you doing here?” Luke strode out of the elevator and stared in surprise at his baby sister. She sat in the small waiting room between Tony from the strip club and a woman wearing a micro skirt and a thin t-shirt that said “Teasers” on the front in flowery script.
“Hey, dickhead,” Tony said.
“Hey, Tony,” Luke said. “Amy? How did you know about Mama J?”
Amy frowned at him. “Jane woke me this morning and told me. I drove her to the hospital and have been here all day. You didn’t notice I wasn’t at the office?”
He shook his head as the woman beside her stuck her hand out. “Hey there. I’m Candy.”
“Hi, Candy. I’m Luke – Jane’s boyfriend.” He shook her hand.
“Nice to meet ya,” she said. “Tony, I’m gonna get a coffee from the cafeteria. You want somethin’, baby?”
“I’ll come with you. How about you, gorgeous? Can I get you something?” Tony said to Amy.
“No thank you, Tony,” Amy said.
He heaved himself out of his chair, and Luke sank into it as he and Candy headed to the elevator.
“Did Jane text you?” Amy asked.
“No. Mark mentioned that she took a personal day because her foster mother was in the hospital. I tried Jane’s number, but it went straight to voicemail, so I called Bev at the care home. Where’s Jane?”
“She’s in the room with Mama J.”
“How’s she doing?” Luke asked anxiously.
“It’s bad, Luke. She has a ruptured cerebral aneurysm, and she’s in a coma. They said she’s not going to wake up and that she’s brain dead.”
“Shit,” Luke said. “I need to see Jane.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Jane is - I think she’s close to completely losing it. She hasn’t cried, and she’s not showing much emotion at all. That isn’t like her.”
“What room is she in?” Luke asked.
“Luke…”
“What room, Amy?”
Amy sighed. “Four. Buzz the door and tell the nurse you’re here to see Josephine Radlin.”
“Thanks, Ames.”
“Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t screw this up. If Jane asks you to leave - leave. Okay?”
“I will.”
* * *
When he walkedinto Mama J’s room, he could barely stop from pulling Jane into his arms. She sat next to the bed, holding Mama J’s hand, and she looked so sad and broken that his chest squeezed painfully.
There was a second chair on the other side of the bed, and he eased into it as Jane stared at Mama J’s face. Josephine was hooked up to what seemed like a dozen machines that all beeped and squawked intrusively.
“Jane?” he said tentatively.
She glanced at him before turning her gaze back to Mama J. “Hello, Mr. Dawson.”
“Jane, I’m so sorry about Mama J.”
“Thank you. What are you doing here?”
“Mark told me you took a personal day because Mama J was sick. I called Bev, and she told me what happened.”
“Right,” she said. “Probably illegal for her to share that information, but Bev has a crush on you.” She gave him another quick look before she stared at Mama J again. “You’re probably used to that. Who doesn’t have a crush on you, right?”
“What I said earlier? I’m sor -”
She held her hand up. “No, not now. Please.”
He lapsed into silence as Jane reached out and stroked Mama J’s face with her fingertips. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Dawson. Mama J liked you a lot. It would have made her happy that you came to see her.”
“You should have called me, honey,” he said. “You shouldn’t go through this alone.”
“I’m not alone,” she said. “I have Amy, and I texted Candy from the club. She and Tony are here. You said not to contact you if it wasn’t work related, and I said I understood.”
He flinched at her matter-of-fact tone, but hell, he deserved that. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m so sor - ”
“Mama J has a DNR,” Jane said. “I knew she did. We talked about it when Alzheimer’s really started to take hold of her. She didn’t want to be kept alive on machines, she said. She told me that death was only a transition and nothing to be afraid of. She said she would be with her Walter again and couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than that.”
She lifted Mama J’s hand to her mouth so she could kiss her knuckles. “The doctor talked to me about the DNR after he said that Mama J was brain dead. In a few minutes, they’ll come in here and shut off the machines and Mama J will die. And then I really will be all alone.”
She spoke with an odd lack of emotion that frightened him badly. He moved around the bed, crouching beside her chair and cupping her face. “You’re not alone, honey. I’m here with you. Okay?”
“It’s over between us. You said that yourself.”
“I was wrong,” he said. “I made a terrible mistake, and I -”
“Jane?” A man in a lab coat stepped into the room.
Jane stiffened, and a look of despair crossed her face. Luke took her hand as she said, “Hello, Dr. Wales.”
“Hi. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Jane said in a low voice.
The doctor glanced at Luke, and Jane said, “You don’t have to stay.”
“I want to,” he said. “I want to stay with you, honey. Please let me.”
“Sure, whatever you want.” She stared at Mama J’s face.
* * *
“Shit,Luke, I have never been so worried about someone in my life,” Amy said.
It was almost two hours later. Luke had driven Jane back to Amy’s house, and Jane had excused herself to her room as soon as they walked through the door.
“She’s not crying. Why isn’t she crying?” Amy almost whimpered.
Luke hugged his sister. “I think she’s in shock. She didn’t cry when they shut off the machines, and Mama J died.”
“Oh Jesus, that poor girl.” Tears dripped down Amy’s cheeks. “I don’t know what to say or do. I feel so damn useless. Do you think I should stay with her in her room tonight?”
Luke shook his head. “I’ll stay with her.”
“Does she want you to?” Amy said.
He swallowed heavily. “She hasn’t asked me to leave yet.”
“If she does?”
“Then I will. But I’m hoping she’ll let me stay.”
He hesitated and then said, “I love her, Ames. I love her, and I hurt her so badly, and I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me for it.”
Amy hugged him hard. “She will, Lukie.”
“I hope you’re right.” He kissed his sister on the forehead before going upstairs to Jane’s room. He knocked on the door and opened it. Jane was wearing her nightdress and standing by the window with her forehead resting against the glass.
“Jane? I’m going to stay the night with you. If you’re okay with that.”
“Sure,” she said. “Whatever you want, Mr. Dawson.”
He closed the door and crossed the room to stand behind her. He rubbed her lower back. “I’m so sorry about Mama J, honey.”
“Thank you.” He could see her reflection in the glass, and she remained dry-eyed as she said, “I went to visit her last night. She was tired, but she was good. You know? She was Mama J. She knew who I was, and she knew I was upset. She comforted me, gave me advice, and t-t-told me she l-l-loved me.”
Her small body was beginning to shake. Luke wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest as her face crumpled, and she made a wailing cry that hurt his heart. He turned her and lifted her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck as she sobbed brokenly. He carried her to the bed, and she clung to him and continued to cry as he lay on the bed. He rubbed her back and whispered meaningless words of comfort as she cried. Almost half an hour later, her sobs had become the occasional watery sniffle.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded and gave him a desperate look of need before resting her head on his chest. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” he said. “Go to sleep, honey.”
* * *
Jane staredat the ceiling as the beams of light from the rising sun shone into the bedroom. Luke was snoring quietly, and she resisted the urge to study his face in the dim light. She had only slept a few hours before waking. She’d spent the rest of the night thinking about Mama J and trying not to dwell on the bad memories. She wanted only to remember the good things, and she knew Mama J would want that, too.
She eased her body away from Luke’s. She needed to make funeral arrangements for Mama J. Panic bit at her insides. Funerals were expensive, and her little nest egg wouldn’t be nearly enough no matter how cheaply she tried to do the funeral.
She cringed and wished bitterly that she could afford to give Mama J the funeral she deserved. She wiped at the tears threatening to fall and sat up before reaching for her phone. She stared blankly at it for a moment. What did she want her phone for again?
She was tired and sad and wanted to curl up against Luke’s warm body and think about nothing. She snuck a glance at him. His face was relaxed in sleep, and she ignored her urge to run her fingers through his dark hair. God, she loved him so much.
He loves you too, Janie. He’s with you now, isn’t he?
Yeah, he was. She didn’t know why, but she assumed it was because he felt sorry for her and was maybe worried that she would kill herself like her mother did because he broke her heart and Mama J died. When he woke up, and she assured him that she wasn’t suicidal, he’d leave, and she’d be alone.
The thought sent despair through her, and she fought back the tears again before staring at her phone. She needed to make funeral arrangements. She would keep herself busy and not think about how much it hurt not to have Luke or Mama J. She would plan Mama J’s funeral and…right, money. It was expensive, and she needed to get another job. She was pretty sure that funeral homes had payment plans, but she would need a second job to make the monthly payments.
Janie, stop. Mama J is dead, and you don’t have the care home expenses anymore. Stop and think about it.
She ignored her inner voice. She needed a second job. If she had a second job, she wouldn’t spend her time thinking about how much she missed Luke or that with Mama J dead, she was truly alone. More panic rose in her, and she pushed it down. Using her phone, she checked the local job ads, searching with growing desperation for weekend waitress jobs. There had to be something out there.
“Jane?”
Luke sat in bed beside her, rubbing his hand across the scruff on his jaw. She gave him a fleeting smile before scrolling through her phone again. “Hi, Luke.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking through the job postings for a second job,” she said.
“Why?”
“Funerals are expensive.” She squinted at her phone. There was a posting for a waitress job at a nightclub on the west side. It would be a hell of a bus ride, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Jane, stop.”
Luke’s hand closed around her phone, tugging it away from her.
“Hey, give that back,” she said.
“Just stop for a minute, honey.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I need a second job for Mama J’s funeral. She deserves a nice funeral!”
Her voice was rising, and she stopped and took a few deep breaths. “Please give me back my phone.”
“I’ll pay for the funeral,” Luke said.
She burst into loud and bitter laughter. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
“No,” he said. “I want to pay for the funeral, Jane.”
“God, you really do think the worst of me, don’t you?”
“No,” he said. “Honey, I don’t. I shouldn’t have -”
“Here,” she collapsed on her back and spread her legs, “climb on and have a go, Luke.”
“Jane,” he said. “Stop it.”
“Why?” she asked. “That’s what girls like me do, right? We spread our legs for guys so that they’ll buy us shit. I guess I’ll probably be the first woman to fuck for funeral costs, but hey, aim high in life.”
“Stop it!” He sat her up and gave her a gentle shake. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“You think I’m a whore.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t think that, and I’m sorry for what I said. I should never have believed that asshole, and I don’t know why I did. I’m so sorry, Jane.”
“What did Jeremy tell you?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “I was wrong to believe him, and I’m sorry.”
“Tell me,” she said. “It matters to me.”
He sighed, and she listened numbly as he recited what Jeremy had said to him. When he finished, she said, “You believed him.”
“I shouldn’t have. I was upset and surprised and acted like an idiot.”
She lifted her head and met his gaze. “When I started working at the club, I was a virgin.”
He winced. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, honey. Please, I don’t -”
“I want to,” she said. “I have to. Just listen, okay?”
“Okay.”
“When I started working at the club, I was a virgin. I was also lonely and worried about Mama J. The Alzheimer’s was starting to get bad, and I was so afraid I was going to lose her. And I was tired of feeling alone, you know? Jeremy was, well, he had a certain kind of charm, and I was stupidly na?ve and believed him when he said he loved me.”
She dropped her gaze to her hands that were twisting in her lap. “Shamefully, it didn’t take him very long to get me into bed. I didn’t know it at the time because he was my first, but the sex wasn’t very good. Jeremy didn’t always take his time and didn’t seem to notice or care if I had an orgasm. I – he used to tell me that my breasts were too small and was always hinting that I needed a boob job.”
“Asshole,” Luke muttered.
She shrugged. “I thought he loved me. I really did. I knew he wasn’t always good to me, but I thought I was in love with him. I know now that I was just tired of being alone. But at the time…”
She gave him a small smile of regret. “I look back now and wonder how I could have been so stupid. I talked to him a lot about Mama J. Told him how much she meant to me and yeah, I told him that her care was expensive and tough financially, but I never asked him for money. What he said about buying me groceries is true. There were a couple of times when he bought me some food. Both times it was when he was staying overnight at my crappy apartment, and I think he only bought the food because he was hungry, but whatever – I needed the food. I should have said no, he made me feel a little bad for accepting his charity, but I was hungry.”
She could hear the shame in her voice, and she pulled away when Luke tried to touch her. “A few months after I started sleeping with him, I stopped by his place unexpectedly and found him in bed with one of the dancers from the club. He’d been sleeping with a bunch of women at the same time. We’d always used condoms, but I went and got tested for STIs immediately. I didn’t have any infections, thank God, but I couldn’t believe he had betrayed me like that. I tried to talk to him about it and get him to feel bad for what he had done, but he laughed at me. Told me I was a stupid little girl if I believed he would fall in love with someone as pathetic as me.”
She stared at her hands again before saying, “I was pathetic for thinking he loved me. But I – it was so nice to have someone, you know? To not feel like it was just me against the world. It’s stupid, I know, but I was blinded to the truth because I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”
She raised her gaze to him and stared unblinkingly at him. “I shouldn’t have slept with him. Not because he was a bad person but because he was my boss, and it was unprofessional even if I was just waitressing at a strip club. After we broke up, he took me off the weekend shifts and put me on weeknights. It was to punish me. Tips aren’t nearly as good during the week. It’s why I applied for the job as your PA. The cost of Mama J’s care had increased, and I didn’t have enough money even with both jobs.”
She smiled at him. “I was attracted to you but told myself not to act on it. I had already made one mistake by sleeping with my boss and couldn’t afford to do it again. Not when Mama J was depending on me. But I was still so tired of being alone and you were so different than I thought. You were kind and sweet, and it felt so good when you touched me. I’d only slept with Jeremy before you, and I had no idea that sex could be that wonderful, you know?”
He nodded, and she patted his hand. “I swear to you I didn’t get my heat and electricity cut off to try to sucker you into taking care of me. I believed you would fire me if I didn’t wear better clothes and needed my job. I was embarrassed by my lack of money, and the day I fainted in your office was one of the most shameful moments of my life.”
“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that you did.”
“I shouldn’t have slept with you, and I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your kindness, but you shouldn’t have believed Jeremy over me,” she said.
“I know,” he said hoarsely. She watched in surprise as he slid out of the bed and dropped to his knees beside it. He took her hand and said, “I’m sorry, Jane. I shouldn’t have said those horrible things to you. I love you. I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve it, but will you forgive me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He blinked at her, and she almost laughed at the look of surprise on his face. “Yes?”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Just like that,” he said.
She scooted to the side of the bed and swung her legs over the side. She tugged him between her legs and cupped his face before pressing a kiss against his mouth. “A brilliant woman once told me that if you love someone, you forgive them when they say sorry. That love grows sweeter with forgiveness.”
“You love me?” he said.
She kissed him again. “Yes. I love you, Luke Dawson.”
“I love you too,” he said.
She gave him an adorably cheeky grin. “Yeah, I heard you the first time.”
He laughed and kissed her fiercely before hugging her so hard she couldn’t breathe. She pounded him on the back, and he released her before kissing her again.
“I want you to move in with me,” he said.
“What?” Shock reverberated through her.
“I’ve been miserable without you the last few days. Come home with me. Please.”
“I can’t leave Amy alone,” Jane said, “and what if it doesn’t work out between us?”
“Do you believe that it won’t?” Luke asked.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
He squeezed her hands. “Live with me. I want to fall asleep in my bed with you next to me and know you’ll be there when I wake up.”
“But Amy hates living alone, and she’s been good to me, Luke. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“We’ll talk to Amy, but I know my sister, and I guarantee she’ll be happy for us,” he said. “Trust me on this. All right? Move in with me, Janie.”
“Okay,” she said. “But I’m paying my half of the mortgage.”
He laughed. “Honey, I own the house.”
“Of course you do. Sometimes I forget that you’re rich.”
“Not just rich – stinking rich,” he said.
She smiled. “At least let me contribute to groceries.”
“Deal,” he said. “I promise you won’t regret moving in with me. I love you, Jane.”
She touched his face before resting her forehead against his. “I love you. Always.”
* * *