Page 69 of Make Me Yours

But can I save her from the grips of a dysfunctional family system?

I don’t know.

I would like to think so, but I’m old enough to know that in the end, we all have to save ourselves. Friends, therapists and lovers can help us out along the way, but we have to do the hard work on our own. We have to want to become a better, more functional person. We have to believe we deserve to see our dreams come true.

I don’t know if Sully’s there yet. I have no doubt she will be someday, but that day might not be any day soon, and I can’t wait for her to come around to seeing how much she matters. It would kill me, to watch her family use and abuse and take her for granted, sucking up her youth and vitality like vampires who feel entitled to her blood because they share the same DNA.

I set my cell in the cupholder, hoping to hear from her, but I’m not really surprised when I emerge from the sheriff’s station ninety minutes later to find no messages on my phone.

I check into a hotel across the highway from the hospital, but come six o’clock, when I order dinner delivered, there’s still no response from Sully. I consider messaging her again, but decide the ball is in her court.

I want her to choose me more than I want to get on the next plane to New York, but I don’t want to bully her into it. I want her here with me because it’s where she wants to be, because she doesn’t want to think about a future without me in it.

I certainly can’t imagine one without her…

Or, I can, I guess, but it isn’t pretty.

That bleak return to my old lonely life—made even lonelier now that I know how incredible it feels to love one amazing woman—plays out behind my closed eyes as I try to sleep.

Call me, Sully. Just call, text, something,I beg, willing her to hear my mental plea across the highway and pick up her phone.

But she doesn’t and eventually, I fall asleep, haunted by dreams of watching Sully guiding a lobster boat out to sea, never to return.

chapter 24

GERTIE

The afternoon passes in a blur.

I’ve just been discharged from the ER with assurances that my internal organs are in one piece and instructions to wear my sling for four to seven days and to avoid heavy lifting for twelve weeks—catastrophic news I barely have time to absorb when Aunt Cathy starts blowing up my phone.

Gramps is out of surgery and doing well, so well they might let a few of us in to see him in the next hour!

I hustle to the hospital gift shop as fast as my sore body will allow, possessed by the need to have something tangible to give to my grandfather to show him how much I need him to stick around. I settle on a stuffed lobster wearing a t-shirt that says “You’re Claw-some” and head for the elevator.

As I’m stepping off, Weaver’s voice message pops through. I listen to it, relief flooding my body, but before I can respond, Cathy is at my elbow, talking a mile a minute.

“Your dad just called!” she says, beaming. “The charges were dropped. Weaver must have changed his mind, thank God. Leon asked me to come pick him up. Can you keep an eye on everyone here while I go? Murray and Steven need to eat something and Henna needs someone to watch the kids while she runsJennifer’s baby present over to the maternity ward. Poor Jen. The baby kind of took a back seat in all the worry over your grandad.”

She heaves a heavy sigh, laughing as she pats my good arm and leads me toward the waiting room our clan has taken over. “But all’s well that ends well. The baby wasn’t born until one a.m. Did I tell you that? So, Aunt Sue is happy. And Jen had a boy so David is happy, too.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever, David. How is it okay to say shit like that anymore? He should just be happy to have a healthy baby.”

Cathy shoos my concerns away with a flick of her heavily-ringed hand. “Oh, come on. It’s normal for a man to want a son.”

“Is it? Why?” I grumble. “Because they’ll ‘have more in common?’ What if his son turns out to be an artist who doesn’t want to set foot on a boat? Or hates football? Or likes to dress up in vintage ball gowns and kiss boys? What’s he going to think then?”

Cathy stops a few feet from the waiting room, turning to shoot me a concerned look as she hisses, “What’s eating you all of a sudden? We’ve got nothing but good news here. Dad’s out of surgery and doing well, your father’s not going to jail, and Jen has a healthy baby. All reasons to be happy and grateful.”

“Where does Dad want you to take him after you pick him up?’ I ask, ignoring her questions. “Because he left me a message a couple hours ago about wanting to go to rehab. I can call around now, try to find him a bed before you go get him. That way he can go straight to the facility before he has a chance to get cold feet.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cathy says, plucking at the collar of her cowl neck sweater. “He didn’t say. I was assuming he wanted a ride home or…a ride here, if that was okay with you.”

I snort. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She lifts her hands in mock surrender, even as she lobs her next volley. “I don’t know, Gertie. I don’t know what you’re thinking lately. First, you’re getting involved with the man who ruined your family. Now, you don’t want your dad around when?—”

“He sent me to the ER, Cathy!” I say in a voice too loud for her liking. She shushes me, trying to drag me farther from the waiting room by my good arm. But I pull away, adding in an only slightly softer voice, “I’m in a sling for a week because of him, and I’ll be out of work for at least twelve weeks. Maybe more if my shoulder doesn’t heal as quickly as expected since I have a pre-existing issue in that joint. Unless Dad’s planning to get on the boat and do mine and Gramp’s work for us while we’re out of commission, I don’t see that he has anything worthwhile to offer this family. Certainly nothing better than going to rehab.”

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