Nate
Nate drove home from the hospital late Saturday completely exhausted.
He found it quite odd that he could work on a construction site in the hot summer sun for twelve hours straight and be perfectly fine, yet a day sitting around in a hospital while his mother underwent testing left him so drained.
If he was tired, his mother had been completely wiped out. She was sleeping soundly when he left. He didn’t think she would stir for most of the night, even when the nurses came to check on her.
He pulled up in front of his house feeling guilty about leaving Sophie all day but she would have been bored senseless hanging out in a waiting room.
After Sophie had spent a long visit with her grandmother in the morning and had been all but climbing the walls, Jess had popped in to check on Eleanor and had asked Sophie to help her finish a few cleaning projects at Whitaker House.
He suspected the request had mostly been a ruse to distract his daughter from driving Eleanor too crazy with her restlessness. It had worked wonders, though.
He’d checked on them around dinnertime with a phone call and Sophie told him they were going to walk down to the beach and do some beachcombing and have a picnic.
That had been three hours earlier. He imagined Jess must have gone back to her trailer hours ago, but no lights were on when he drove past and pulled around to his house.
To his surprise, he found her at his kitchen table, working on a laptop. A fierce yearning hit him hard. How wonderful would it be to come home to her in his kitchen, in his house, in his bed on a regular basis?
She smiled a greeting, obviously with no clue what crazy things were running through his head. “Hi. How’s your mom?”
“Doing well for now. She’s sleeping. The cardiac docs are saying she can probably go home tomorrow.”
“Really? That’s great news.”
“It is,” he agreed. “The verdict is in, though. She does need a pacemaker, which she’s not too happy about. They’re talking about putting it in later in the week.”
“So soon?”
“Believe it or not, they’re hoping it will be an outpatient procedure and she won’t have to stay overnight again.”
“Wow. That’s amazing!”
“Definitely.” He looked around. “Where’s Sophie? Has she gone to bed?”
Jess gestured over her shoulder to the small family room he had added on to the house, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water. “Asleep in there, last I checked. We had been watching The Princess Bride, which she said is her favorite movie, but about halfway through, she fell asleep, so I came in here to take care of some paperwork.”
“I don’t think she slept well last night. She was too worried about Mom.”
“I don’t blame her. I didn’t sleep well either.”
Why? Because of his mother? Or because of something else?
“I still can’t believe my mom never told me she hadn’t been feeling well.”
“I don’t think she wanted to admit it,” Jess said.
“You could be right. She also said she didn’t want to worry me, so soon after losing my father.”
Jess gave a soft smile that made him wish he could drag her into his bedroom and spend the night with her wrapped in his arms.
“She loves you. You’re her miracle baby.”
He made a face. “She told you that?”
“Yes. She told me about the miscarriages and the stillbirth of your sister. It breaks my heart to think of all the pain your parents went through.”
“Yeah. Makes me wish I hadn’t been such a shitty teenager.”
“You’ve more than made up for it in the years since, from what your mother says.”
He raked a hand through his hair, concern again edging through him. Despite the doctors’ claims that the pacemaker would help, he still worried. He also couldn’t believe his mother had had what appeared to be a mild heart attack and even she hadn’t known it.
In the past thirty-six hours, he had learned more than he ever expected about how women experience heart attacks differently from men and often discount their symptoms or attribute them to something else, like acid reflux or normal aging.
He had learned that while heart disease was the number one killer of women, it often went undiagnosed.
His mother might have had another more serious, even fatal, heart attack, if Jess hadn’t been there to call 911. He didn’t even want to think about it.
Jess must have sensed some of his turmoil. She rose and rested a comforting hand on his arm. “Your mom will be all right. Eleanor is tough.”
“Not as tough as we think. Or as tough as she thinks.”
Jess was much the same. He suspected she wanted to put out an aura of invincibility, of toughness and strength and independence, but he sensed a softness at her core, a sweetness she probably would do everything she could to deny.
“Can I do anything else to help get Whitaker House ready for her to come home? Did the doctors say anything about her needing special accommodations?”
“You’ve spent two weeks doing that. Having the excess clutter cleared out will make a huge difference during her recovery and rehabilitation.”
“I’m glad.” She folded up her laptop and slipped it back into a simple khaki messenger bag. “Sophie and I finished up the last few things at the house this afternoon. I also put her to work mopping the kitchen and vacuuming where she could, just so it’s sparkly clean when Eleanor comes home.”
“Thank you. That will help.”
“I won’t be around tomorrow, unless you need my help with Eleanor coming home. I promised Rachel I would spend the day with her and the kids. We’re driving to Redwood National Park.”
That would be good for her, especially after their fight the night of her birthday. They must have made up, but he hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about it.
“No. Go with your sister. We’ll be fine. Thank you so much for all your help with Sophie. You saved the day. Again.”
“I was happy to spend time with her. She’s pretty terrific.”
“She thinks the same of you.”
He almost mentioned that Sophie had given him permission to date Jess but wasn’t entirely certain she would appreciate that information.
“She told me you lectured her about her moodiness the past month and told her she should be grateful instead of resentful. Thank you for that. She was like a different person this morning.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. Being a thirteen-year-old girl is hard work.”
“I will try to keep that in mind. I don’t think fourteen through eighteen will be much easier.”
“Good luck with that.”
She smiled, though he thought it looked a little sad. She picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder. “I should take off so you can get some rest. I’m glad your mom is doing better.”
He wanted so desperately to ask her to stay but knew he couldn’t, not with Sophie in the next room.
“I’ll walk you to your trailer.”
She made a face. “You don’t have to do that. I’m a big girl and can probably manage to walk two hundred feet by myself.”
“Humor me. Maybe I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She looked startled by his words but finally shrugged and opened the door. Cinder and Charlie immediately came out from the TV room, as if they had been waiting for that signal. They both hurried out into the darkness to take care of business.
The night was clear and lovely, the ocean murmuring just down the path as they walked to her trailer, gleaming in the moonlight.
“I really would have been lost without you these past few days,” he said when they reached her door. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad I was here to help.”
“So am I.”
Though he knew it would only leave him aching for more, he leaned down and kissed her. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and returned the kiss.
He didn’t embrace her. Didn’t touch her with anything but his mouth, just like the first time they had kissed. It was still one of the most emotional, intense kisses of his life. It was soft, sweet, tender, and he never wanted it to end.
They stood together for a long time, while the sea breeze swirled around them and he fell a little harder.
She was the first to break away. He couldn’t clearly see her expression in the moonlight but her eyes looked huge in her face.
She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated, swallowed and turned away.
“Good night,” she said.
Somehow he had the impression that wasn’t what she had been about to say.
“Jess.”
He knew what he wanted to say. Stay. Please stay. But the words seemed to jumble up inside him in a tangle and he couldn’t figure out how to make them work.
She took a step up into her trailer to stand in the doorway. “I’m glad your mom is doing better. I’ll try to check in with her tomorrow and then again Monday before I leave.”
She hurried inside and closed the door behind her, leaving him standing alone with only the night and his regrets to keep him company.