Chapter 6 #2
I looked back to the third generation of Thompsons, noting Hollie’s minis were doing the same exact thing with Cade—coaxing a smile onto his reluctant face, making his stomach feel better.
He’d even sat up and let them deal him in.
A half smile tugged at my lips as Cade organized the cards in his hands, accidentally dropping one onto his lap.
His tongue came out as he focused on getting the hold just right.
“So,” she held the word out and jerked the top of her head toward Cade. “What’s the status update?”
I sat forward in my seat. “There’s not one, really. We talked to the doctor and they said four hours of observation is pretty standard. We went down to radiology right after you called, so now we’re just waiting for the word.” I watched Cade for a moment. “My gut says he’s fine.”
Hollie glanced at him. “Yeah, mine, too.”
“Which means you guys waited for nothing.”
She swallowed her cheek full of coffee. “That is severely underestimating peace of mind.”
“True.”
“Knowing he will be okay is worth however many hours this takes.” Her eyes roamed my face. “You’ll feel better, too.”
I nodded, averting my gaze. “I will.”
A beat of silence fell between us. I wanted to say or do something to redeem myself.
My normal mood wasn’t downcast and overwhelmed.
I didn’t hide from people and avoid conversation.
It wasn’t like me to feel embarrassed or self-conscious, but I couldn’t help but wish Hollie would’ve met me on a better day.
When I could’ve accurately represented who I really am.
Drowning wasn’t my norm. And for some reason I hadn’t fully come to terms with, I didn’t want her to think this was me at my best.
Words eked out of my throat. “You…caught me on a bad day, Hollie.”
She turned to face me, but didn’t speak.
“I’m not usually like this.”
“Like what?” A gentle frown pulled into her brow. “Concerned for your child’s safety?”
“No.” I chuckled at her dry humor. “I meant…needy and difficult.” I shook my head at myself.
“I asked a perfect stranger to come back here and sit with me in the ER instead of insisting you go be with your family. For all I know, you’re being triggered by a hospital phobia right now, but you’re masking. ”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “Masking?”
“Like hiding.”
“I know what it is.” Her laugh diminished. “Do I look like I’m being triggered right now?”
My gaze darted up to meet hers. The shimmer in her chocolate eyes seemed to leak through cracks, held back by some unknown thing.
I cleared my throat and looked away, forced a smile. “No, you don’t.”
“What about you? Are you masking hospital phobias?”
I chuckled like it was silly, but I wanted her to know. Something in her eyes told me she’d understand a sucky day. I raised the straw to my lips, ready to shove it in my mouth after I admitted a bit of my truth. “Yeah, actually. I hate this place.”
Her brows raised. Not judgment, just curiosity. “Is that why you wanted company?”
I nodded, taking a long time with the coffee.
“Did you have a bad experience or something?”
I swallowed. “Or something.”
She waited, not moving to fill the void my lack of explanation created.
I thought about just letting it go and pretending I hadn’t brought it up, but there it was—humming loud, an admission I couldn’t take back.
“My…” I stopped, shook my head. Why was I talking to her like this?
“My…wife…passed away in the emergency room.”
Her face paled a shade. “Oh.”
“Being here brings it all up, I guess.”
She nodded, blinking rapidly. “When did it happen?”
“Six years ago, this month.”
“Cade’s mom?”
“Yeah.”
Upon learning about Laurel, most people apologized like they had some sort of hand on fate that day then never touched the topic again.
Tip-toed around me like the mere mention would set off a land mine.
I expected her to do the same. But Hollie took a deep breath through her nose. “Does he remember her?”
I shook my head. “No. He was only four.”
“I’m sure that’s hard.”
“For a while, I was angry he forgot. It didn’t seem right.” I lifted a shoulder. “He remembers a song she used to sing and occasionally draws something from his memory, but it’s always distorted, never real.”
“He draws?”
“Yeah, he’s incredibly talented, too. Laurel would be proud of him.”
“She was an artist?”
“Not in the slightest.” A laugh built in my throat. “She wished she was, but had enough self-respect not to quit her day job.”
That made Hollie chuckle. “Hey, someone has to admire it.”
“And admire it she did. She loved color, music, art, anything that made the heart dance.”
After a beat of silence, I glanced at Hollie. Tears had welled in her eyes.
I sat up suddenly. “Sorry. I’m—”
Her warm hand clasped over my forearm. “No, Jesse. Don’t apologize. I just wish she was still here so I could meet her. She sounds lovely.”
A lump formed in my throat.
“Do you have a picture of her?”
I froze. It was a ballsy thing for Hollie to request, but my hands reached for my phone like it was a wrapped present under the Christmas tree. “I have so many.”
She waited patiently, watching the kids as I pulled up the album called Her on my phone.
I tapped on one. “This is Laurel in the doorway of our house in Oklahoma.” An ear-to-ear smile stretched across Laurel’s face and her hands were fanned open in front of our bubblegum pink door.
I could still hear her Tada! What do you think?
and remembered my utter shock like it was yesterday.
I chuckled. “She painted our front door and was pretty proud of it.”
Hollie giggled behind her hand. “That is quite the color choice. Goes great with the off white siding.” Her tinge of sarcasm gave the conversation the levity it needed.
“Colors made her happy, and nothing else mattered.” For a few minutes, I showed off Laurel, telling miniature stories and explaining her antics.
The tension in my shoulders drained and my smile came easier.
It had been so long since I’d been invited to talk about her.
I probably came off like a kid in a candy store.
There was so much to say, tell, I didn’t even know where to begin.
A laugh rose from my throat as I scrolled to the next one.
It was Laurel hanging upside down in a parachute hammock with toddler Cade pressed into her chest. Their hair hung toward the fall leaves piled on the ground below them, mouths wide like they were laughing.
“This is the fall before she passed away.”
Hollie’s voice was quiet, unobtrusive. “How did she die?”
“It was a freak accident.” I whispered. “We were riding at her parent’s ranch.
An agitated bull spooked her horse, and the horse threw her…
” I tilted my head to the side. “Before she could get off the ground, the bull hit her in the chest. The blunt force trauma broke her ribs and punctured her lung. By the time we got her help, uh, it was too late.” I hated how detached I sounded, like I was reciting the damn times table rather than recounting the worst day of my life.
But after all this time, the words felt like simple facts.
What cost me more were the memories, the images I pondered alone in the dark.
“Were you…there?”
I gave a slow nod. “Saw the whole thing.”
She laid her hand across her stomach, her voice a whisper. “I cannot imagine.”
“Yep. Needless to say, I don’t do bulls.”
“I bet you hate that one.”
“He met his due end.” My father-in-law had to remove him from the field with the bucket of a skid steer after I shot him unrecognizable. I left out those gruesome details though.
“Is it hard to talk about?”
I frowned. “Always.”
“Well, I admire your openness.” She averted her gaze, glancing down at her hands in her lap where her thumb picked at her cuticle. “I struggle with that.”
“Being open?”
“Just…” She shrugged, a fleeting smile lifting her cheeks. “Facing stuff that hurts. I’m pretty good at pretending it doesn’t exist.”
“No judgment. I’ve done plenty of pretending.
” I drew a deep breath in an attempt to encourage her.
I didn’t know the hurt in Hollie’s life, but I knew with intimate familiarity its pricey toll.
“Facing it takes practice. The impossible looks less daunting when you’ve conquered it a thousand times. ”
Her eyes found mine again, a teasing lilt in her tone. “So do you just tell your story as often as you can? For practice?”
I chuckled. “Something like that.”
“I’m not sure I would find many willing victims.” She smiled and held her chin high, but doubt darkened her eyes and her thumb worked into the most sensitive part of her fingernails—perhaps an echo of deeper pain, an aftershock of sorts.
“Every single time you grit your teeth and carry on, you’re practicing.” I sucked a breath as I fiddled with my straw wrapper. “Sometimes the biggest hurdle is just getting out of bed.”
Her eyes softened, an expression I couldn’t pinpoint furrowing her brow. “I feel that.”
A beat of silence passed. I considered apologizing for being too serious, but Hollie’s face stayed scrunched in thought. Finally, she asked, “What was it like for you to heal after all that?”
I tried to smile. “Heal might not be the right word. My life isn’t the same and never will be.”
Hollie didn’t take her eyes off me, just nodded, soaking the words in. “At the risk of sounding insensitive, you seem okay though.”
“Want the truth?”
Her eyes widened a little before she nodded. “Yes.”
“Last night, I almost threw away four years of sobriety because I was dreading this wedding so much.”
Her shoulders dropped, compassion oozing from her softened expression. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. The old man who works at the gas station in Comfort called me out and sent me home with honey for Cade instead.”
Hollie’s eyes brightened. “He sounds like a good friend.”