Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I pick at the stitching on the bedspread, refusing to look at her. “Yeah, but I’m not a nurse.”
“You don’t need to be. He doesn’t need a nurse. He needs a familiar face. Meals, company. Someone to help him keep a schedule. He’ll be busy at the hospital, but when he’s here…” She trails off.
I want to ask why, if he’s so high-functioning, she’s leaving me here alone with him. But I already know the answer. It’s written in the way she holds herself, the defensive hunch of her shoulders.
She changes the subject with a wave of her hand. “He’ll take care of your tuition, the way he’s always done, as well as all expenses. There are groceries in the kitchen, and you can order takeout if you want. The guest car in the garage is yours to use, if you need it.”
I finally meet her eyes, and for a second she looks like the woman who used to sing me to sleep in a one-bedroom apartment, all softness and exhaustion. “I don’t know what’s happening, Mom. You asked me to come home to care for a sick man, and I said yes. You said it was practically life-threatening, but now I hear that it’s not. I’m confused, Mom. What’s going on?”
Jeannine looks conflicted, her pretty face pulling into a frown. But then she straightens. “It’s just the end of something, sweetheart. Not a tragedy. I have to get back to work, or I’ll go crazy. You know I was never good at just sitting around. And Kent—” She stops, biting her lip. “He’s better when he’s working, but when he’s not…” Her voice trails off, and she glances at the hallway, as if he might materialize there.
I nod, numb, because there’s nothing else to do.
She leans in and takes both my hands in hers. Her grip is cool and dry, and the skin on her knuckles is starting to show fine cracks, like porcelain seared by heat. “I am so proud of you, Mary Kate. I really am. You’re braver than you think.”
I almost laugh. “I’m not brave, Mom.”
She shakes her head. “You left home for school. You made your own life. You stuck with it, even when you were scared. You got a job, all by yourself. That’s more than I ever did at your age.” There’s a tremor in her voice now, a little shiver of emotion she tries to blink away. “You’ll be fine here. He’ll respect you. And if he doesn’t, you call me, and I’ll come back. Or you leave. You’re not trapped.”
Her voice is oddly firm, and her eyes bright when she says these words. Is my mom getting at something? Does she know that Kent touched me intimately that long-ago Thanksgiving? But I brush the thought from my mind because neither Kent nor I have ever given any hint of our attraction.
But for some reason, I feel like there’s a subtext that I’m not understanding. Something’s roiling beneath the surface of Jeannine’s abrupt departure, and I don’t know what it is. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask, but then she releases my hands, brushes my hair behind my ear, and stands. For a second my mom hovers over me, as if wanting to say more, but she just checks her watch, a cheap digital thing that looks out of place against her wrist. “I have to call Uber. If I don’t leave now, I’ll never sleep tonight.”
She’s halfway to the door before I can find words. “Mom?”
She turns, and there’s a shimmer in her eyes, just a blink away from tears.
“Will you be okay?” I ask.
She nods and smiles faintly. Her eyes are suspiciously bright with tears, and her golden head bends for a moment before straightening. “I always am, sweetheart. Don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself.”
Then, she disappears down the hall, and I listen to the sound of her suitcase wheels, the soft thump as she drags it down the stairs. The front door opens, spilling a draft of cold air into the house, and then closes with a slow, final click.
I sit on the bed, letting the dark fill up the corners of the room. It’s a long time before I move, and when I do, it’s only to close the bedroom door.
The house is silent again, deeper than before. Not the silence of waiting, but the kind that happens after someone’s last word.
I lie on my side, staring at the phone on the nightstand. I think about calling Kayleigh, or maybe Stella, just to hear a voice. But I don’t. Instead, I count the seconds between the blinks of the security lights outside, and try not to think about the man of the house, and what’s left for me in this empty, echoing place.