I nodded. “He was important to you.”
“I don’t know how to be in this family without him.”
That did not feel like the whole story.
But it was a start.
And then, realizing something positive, I said, “Hey! You drove over a bridge tonight! Without stopping to throw up.”
This was not news to Jack. “Yes.”
“That’s progress, right?”
Jack tilted his head. “Without stopping to throw up right away. I threw up later. In the ER bathroom.”
Ah. I took in the sight of him, just standing there being handsome. It’s so easy to think that other people have it easy. “Still though,” I lifted my fist, like Yay. “A time delay. That’s progress.”
I tossed him the scrubs and a little surgical hat, and then—while he was changing and I was deliberately, specifically not looking—I scanned the shelves for anything else that might help obscure his identity. I found a box of those disposable dark glasses they give you after they dilate your eyes and turned to hold a pair out, like These?
But my timing couldn’t have been worse. He was just peeling off his T-shirt and I got an accidental eyeful of his naked torso.
I clamped my eyes closed.
“You really don’t like the sight of me shirtless,” he said, as he wriggled into the top.
“It’s like looking at the sun,” I said.
“Maybe you should wear those glasses.”
“Maybe I should.”
Then Jack asked, “Like looking at the sun in a good way? Or a bad way?”
“Both,” I said, now rummaging the shelves.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Here’s an idea,” I said, after a minute. “I’ve got eyeliner in my purse. Maybe we could draw a mustache on you.”
In the wake of that suggestion, the room went quiet. And it stayed quiet for so long, I had to turn back around.
And there was Jack, in a scrub top and his boxer briefs, one leg partway in the pants, and bent over laughing so hard, he wasn’t making a sound.
No sound at all. Laughing too hard to even make noise.
Finally, he lifted his head up to the ceiling to take a big breath. “You want,” he said, “to draw a mustache on me?”
“Look,” I said. “This is creative problem solving.”
But he was still laughing. “Can I get a monocle, too? And a puppy nose and some whiskers?”
“Put your pants on,” I said, lacing my voice with irritation.
But he was pretty irresistible.
I felt an urge to laugh, too. But I tamped it down.
Nineteen
I EXPECTED EVERYTHING to blow up pretty fast after the scene at the hospital.
For days, we waited for photos of Jack and Hank in the waiting room to surface online.
But they didn’t.
Every day that passed I breathed a little easier—though, even the possibility of the photos turning up meant we were more trapped on the ranch than ever—because now we really had to lie low.
Here was the problem: It was fun to be on the ranch.
In theory, I knew to be on alert. But, in practice, it really was a forced vacation.
And there’s a reason people take vacations, I guess.
They work.
Slowly, unintentionally, and fully against my will … I relaxed.
A bit.
We fell into a rhythm. Connie returned with an official diagnosis of dehydration-induced vertigo, and she made a new commitment to hydrating. Doc clucked and fussed over her, bringing blankets and fixing cups of herbal tea. Hank and Jack kept a wary truce—not wanting to upset either of their parents. And I made myself useful by cooking all the meals, watering Connie’s garden, and collecting bouquets of flowers to place around the house. It was a pleasant, sunny, rural way of life that made the real world feel like a different universe entirely. In a really good way.
Hank redeemed himself a little bit by bringing in broccoli, brussels sprouts, and squash from the garden—and washing it for me in the sink. As mean as he was to Jack, he was never mean to me—and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had to work to hold onto that anger.
Like it maybe wasn’t natural to him.
Both of the boys, for example, went out of their way to look after Connie—checking on her in a way that felt almost competitive, like some unspoken Best Son competition.
She was definitely not neglected.
As time went by, she got better.
After a checkup in town, she got the news that the site was healing well.
She still wore her robe every day—saying she might never go back to real clothes—but she spent less and less time in her room, and less and less time napping.