• Hours of practice: 3
• Hours of sleep: 5
• Hours listening to Mom gush on about Alex and Lucy being preggo: too many
With more than an hour left, I waved good-bye to the girls at our usual picnic table in the courtyard, tossing my uneaten sandwich in the trash. I hopped on my bicycle, my violin in my basket, and turned toward the familiar path of the nursing home. The sun warmed my skin through my light jacket, and after days of dreary rain, I found myself grateful for the change. I would never grumble about the tropical Charleston weather again.
I knocked twice on Mrs. Sweeney’s door, then walked on in. The room was dark, and a vague sadness hung in the air like a cloud ready to spill rain. Nurse Belinda gave me a small wave and a grim smile.
“One last pill, Cathleen. You can do it. Sit up for me.”
“Too tired.”
“I know. You’ve had a rough day. But this will help the pain.”
I stood, frozen by helplessness, and just watched the nurse ease Mrs. Sweeney up enough to safely swallow the pill. Belinda held a cup of water to Mrs. Sweeney’s dry lips, then lay her back down. The breath whooshed from Mrs. Sweeney as if she’d just expended all the energy she had left for the day.
“Finley’s here to see you. Looks like she brought her violin.” Belinda’s voice came out songlike, and I knew it must’ve grated all over Mrs. Sweeney. “Are you up for a visitor, then?”
No response. Mrs. Sweeney lay there, eyes shut, brow furrowed, a thin sheen of sweat clinging to her temples.
“Maybe you should come back tomorrow,” Belinda said.
Because Mrs. Sweeney was dying. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. “Okay.”
I turned to leave, grateful to be excused, only to stop when I heard that weak voice.
“Stay.” Mrs. Sweeney coughed for a few seconds before repeating herself, like she knew I needed to hear it twice to believe it. “The girl can stay.”
“Are you sure?” Belinda tucked the blankets around her thin patient.
Mrs. Sweeney just nodded her gray head.
“Don’t let Cathleen talk your ear off.” Belinda gave me a wink, then disappeared.
I settled into my usual chair and just sat there. Wondering what to say. What to do. “Would you like me to read to you?”
She shook her head. The room was charged with a new heaviness. It made me want to hop right back on my bicycle and pedal home.
Uncomfortable with this new territory, I picked up the brush and lightly pulled it through her hair. “I’m sorry you’re feeling bad today.” That was lame.
God, help me. What do I say to her? Sorry you’re dying, and I really don’t want to be around you when it happens? Or when it gets bad? Or when you’re not well enough to say something snippy?
“I talked to my mom yesterday,” I said, watching Mrs. Sweeney’s breath come in uneven puffs. “She’s worried because I haven’t called much. But I think Skyping every few days is more than enough, don’t you?” Her chest rose and fell as she dozed, but I continued to tend to her hair. And somehow, between the easy rhythm of the routine task and the weight in the room, my thoughts took a different direction. “I have been lax about calling my mom,” I said, knowing I was talking to myself. “But I’m afraid those all-knowing eyes of hers will look at me and see I’m not keeping it together very well here. And I’m afraid to tell her that I think I’m going to mess up my audition. What if they don’t like my song for Will? I need them to. And I need to find that darn grave. I just . . . I’m just trying to find closure. I’ve tried so hard, and I’m not getting it. Beckett thinks I’m too hard on myself, but what does he know? He’s living two lives and can’t decide which one he wants. Like I need to follow his advice. But sometimes . . . sometimes I think this hole inside me will never be filled.”
I plopped back down in the chair, feeling a little better for unloading.
And a little worse.
Bowing my head right there, I whispered a prayer. “God, help me. Help Mrs. Sweeney. We both need you. I want you to heal her. Take away her pain. Make it go away so she can live longer, so she can have more picnics. I pray that she would totally turn her heart over to you. And forgive herself. And please help me finish my song.
And ace that audition. It’s everything.” With eyes squeezed shut, I sniffed against the tears that threatened to spill.
A hand fell on my shoulder and gave a faint pat. Looking up, I found Mrs. Sweeney watching me through heavy eyelids. “Let it go,” she whispered.
My nose was a drippy mess. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough.” She waved her hand toward her water cup, and I moved to get it. Holding her head up like Belinda did, I put the straw to Mrs. Sweeney’s lips as she took a few labored sips before returning to her pillow.
I stared at the blue striped pattern of her sheets. “My life must sound silly to you.”
Mrs. Sweeney closed her eyes, and just when I thought she’d gone back to sleep her voice arrowed into the dark room. “Bitterness. It will eat you up. I was angry that me father sold me off like cattle. Angry that me own sister wouldn’t forgive me and see that her life was better off without Charles. Angry that I was stuck with the likes of a vile husband.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “And furious that God had taken me child, my only joy in this world.”
“Sometimes God isn’t fair, is he?” I knew I was supposed to be the salt and light there, but I just couldn’t pretend I was that confident in my faith.
“All those years wasted.” I had to lean closer to hear Mrs. Sweeney’s words. “Gone.”
“You never married again?” I asked.
She gave a slight shake of her head.
“But you could’ve started over. Had more children. Been happy.”
“Too easy to be miserable. And make others just as unhappy. Didn’t I wear it like a grand fur coat? I just . . . locked meself in this prison of gloom and anger. And where did it get me?” A cough racked her body. “Don’t make the mistakes I did. Don’t hang on to old hurts. You can spend your years blaming God, blaming other people, but in the end it was a choice. And I’ll die knowing I made the wrong one. Could’ve fixed it. And I didn’t.”
“It’s not too late to talk to your sister.”
“This is about you now. Not me.”
“But—”
She shook her head again. “Go on. Leave me. I’ll hear your song another day.”
Her complexion. Her voice. Her dwindling strength and bloodshot eyes.
Mrs. Sweeney was fading fast.
Time was running out.
I found Beckett in his trailer, talking to a woman I recognized as a costume technician.
“Hello, Finley.” His smile made me want to write sonnets.
“Marta here is just fixing my shirt.”
“Did your ruffles lose their fluff?”
“Lost a button,” Marta said. “But I think it will hold now.”
“Thanks, Marta,” Beckett said. “You were telling me how your husband was getting on?”
“Better now that he’s employed,” she said as she put away needle and thread. “Thanks for talking to the studio and setting up that interview.”
“Glad I could help.”
Marta straightened. “There’s been a tear in Taylor’s purple gown. Must go see to it, then locate shoes for . . .” She didn’t even finish her sentence before she bustled out of the trailer, carrying on a one-way conversation with herself.
Leaving Beckett and me alone.
He tugged on the string of my hoodie. “Hey.” His forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Everything okay?”
“Of course.”
“That didn’t sound the least bit believable. What’s wrong?”
Everything. “I’m fine.”
“Talk to me, Finley.”
The way he was looking at me now? I could stare at that face forever. “Mrs. Sweeney had a rough day.”
“And so you did as well?”
“She’s gotten much worse in the last few days. Belinda said bone cancer can do that, move fast. I just . . . feel like I need to do something.”
“Such as?”
I could hardly concentrate for his fingers playing with the ends of my hair. “I . . .” What had we been talking about? “Um, I don’t know.”
“Would it make you feel better to visit with her sister again?”
“I wish she’d just see Mrs. Sweeney. All the woman wants is for her sister to say ‘I forgive you.’ I keep thinking, what if my brother and I had ended things on bad terms before he left for Afghanistan? But we didn’t. A few days before he left, he took me out to eat, we went to a movie.” I could see it so clearly in my head. I’d worn a white sweater, some new jeans, and shiny red flats. He told me to stop growing up. And then he died.
And I’d grown up overnight.
“What movie did you see?” Beckett asked, as if it mattered.
“One with Brad Pitt.”
“I’ve heard of the guy.”
“It’s one of my favorite memories. The best night. But what if Will had been angry? Or had believed something awful about me? It would kill me that he died thinking those things.”
“Like Mrs. Sweeney and her sister.” Beckett slowly pulled me to him and rested his chin on my head. “Tomorrow we’ll go see Fiona Doyle.”
I wondered at this new closeness of ours. What were we? “On the off chance she speaks to us, you know she won’t speak to Mrs. Sweeney.”
“I once sat by a feisty girl on a plane who refused to have her picture taken with me or get my autograph. She would have the courage to try again.”
“This girl didn’t fall in sobs at your feet? She sounds really smart.”
He smiled. “So’s the guy she’s dating.”
I took a step back as his words crashed into me like a meteorite.
“Is that what you are?”
“I could be.”
Me. And Beckett Rush. My brain could hardly process it. “But you’re . . .”
“Interested in you as more than a friend.” He stared down into my confused face. “You make me want to—”
“Wear normal button-downs?”
“—be myself. To tell me da’ I’ve enrolled in college. To tell People I’m not dating Taylor.”
“Then do it.”
A shadow fell across his face. “I have a lot of people counting on these movies. It’s not that easy.” He reached for me as I moved out of his hold. “But being with you is.”
“I can’t be with someone in secret, like we’re sneaking around.” To date him meant to live his double life, and I couldn’t do that.
“Do you really want to be with me—in public? To have your name dragged through the mud? I don’t want your reputation trashed.”
“It already is. A little more won’t hurt.”
“You say that now. But just wait until you see your name on OK! magazine with some trumped-up headline of how I’m cheating on you with three other girls or we’re both on drugs and our families want us to go for treatment.”
Treatment. I guess that was one thing I had on this movie star.
“Finley, trust me. It’s better if we keep this to ourselves for a while.”
The door to the trailer flung open behind me, and as I watched Beckett tense, I didn’t even have to turn around to know who was there.
“Hey, Da’.”
“You and me.” Mr. Rush jerked his thumb outside. “We need to talk. Now.”
“I’m busy.”
His dad held up the dreaded contracts. “You didn’t sign these.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Beckett shrugged. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“You’ll do these movies, son.”
“Going to forge my signature?” Beckett asked. “Like you did the last one?”
“It wasn’t illegal. You were underage.”
“Well, now I’m nineteen.” Beckett glared at his father. “And I’m calling my own shots.”
“There’s a line of young men just waiting to take your place.”
“My roles as an actor?” Beckett asked quietly. “Or my role as Montgomery Rush’s talent?”
Mr. Rush regarded his son through narrowed eyes. “If you don’t do this next vampire movie, someone else will take your place. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know.” Beckett shook his blond head and walked away.
“I just don’t know.”