Page 43 of Dear Henry, Love Edith
“The sign at the edge of town that says ‘Welcome to Westshire.’ One of the O’Reilly boys got to it, so now it says ‘Welcome toWorstshire.’ And I’m not even going to say what the little potty mouth did to the sign advertising the fireworks tonight.”
Knowing Peg’s definition of “potty mouth” and the O’Reilly boys’ affinity for bathroom humor, Henry had a fairly good idea what sort of explosions were being advertised on that sign. He glanced to where Steve ambled down the sidewalk toward the medical tent. “Thing is, I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
“Doing what? Holding up the wall? This will only take a minute. Besides, this festival brings in tons of outside visitors. You want us to be the laughingstock of the entire county? Go. Fix it. Be the town hero.”
Paint dripped down his pants and pooled on his shoes. Sure, because this was what a town hero looked like.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Edith lifted her hair away from the back of her neck, aiming the little handheld fan over her skin for a minute before dropping her hair. Sweet mercy. Sharon hadn’t been kidding when she said today was going to be a scorcher.
Edith shoved the fan under her shirt. Barely ten in the morning and her bra was soaked in sweat. Lovely. It would be a miracle if she didn’t send anybody into the emergency department for heatstroke. Other than bandaging up one scraped elbow and passing out several notepads with the crisis center nursery address at the top, the morning had been uneventful.
“Edith.”
Ugh.Uneventful until now. Edith turned off the fan. “Steve.” She twisted round to face him. “Steve,” she said again with a gasp. “You look awful. What’s wrong with you?”
Sweat poured down his flushed face, his hair sat plastered to his forehead like a wet mop, and his eyes blinked without focus. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong withyou?” He pressed his palms flat on the table and leaned forward. “What kind of game are you playing? You don’t belong here. This town, these people... c’mon. Get real. Who are you kidding?”
Edith plunked the fan on the table and lifted a shoulder. “Who says I’m kidding anybody?”
He straightened, leaving behind two sweaty palm prints. “Henry. If that’s not a joke, I don’t know what is.” He wiped his shirtsleeve across his forehead, for all the good it did. Sweat dripped off his face onto the table. “Brian may be gone, but you’re still a Sherman. It’s time to come back home and act like it.”
“Act like I don’t matter again? No. Your family doesn’t need me. They never did. You shouldn’t have come here.” Edith reached down to a cooler filled with ice and water bottles. She yanked one out, twisted the cap off, and thrust it at Steve. “And for crying out loud, drink some water before you keel over. You cannot survive on orange soda when the heat index is over a hundred.”
“My parents miss you.”
She snorted. “Right. I’m sure they’re beside themselves in grief.” The heat must be getting to Steve if he thought Edith was going to buy that for a second. “Your parents made it pretty clear how they felt about me. Take this.” She jiggled the water bottle.
He pushed it away. “They weren’t happy you guys eloped straight out of high school. It wasn’t personal against you.”
“Really? Because it felt personal. In fact, the words they said to me after the funeral felt very personal.”
“Their son had just died. Cut them some slack.”
She chucked the bottle back into the cooler. “What about before their son died, then, huh?”
“What are you talking about? My parents were great to you. They paid for half of Brian’s law degree.”
“They coerced him into giving up the future we had planned by paying for half of Brian’s law degree. He didn’t even want to be a lawyer. At least not right away. We were going to join the Peace Corps together. We were going to travel to South Africa together. We were—”
“Stop.” Steve held up a hand. Swayed a little. “It doesn’t matter. The past is in the past. Just come home. We can... we can...” His sways grew more pronounced. Like he was standing on the deck of a ship in turbulent seas.
“Steve? Oh, sheesh.” He was going down. Edith lunged across the table to grab hold of his shirt. If she could maybe guide his torso onto the table... He staggered a step back. She missed. He collapsed.
“Perfect,” Edith muttered as she hopped over the table and crouched down next to him. His color looked worse, the flush in his cheeks replaced by a gray pallor. And he’d smacked his head. A tiny pool of blood leaked from the back of his scalp. “Great.”
At least he had a pulse and was breathing. It could be worse. Like he could still be standing and talking.
Oh, she was terrible. Edith reached for her back pocket to grab her phone and call 911. Except she didn’t have her phone. Now she really was terrible. She’d left it charging atthe house this morning. What kind of medical tent worker did that? One who clearly wasn’t planning on needing it.
“Hey.” Edith waved her hands back and forth over her head and yelled toward a group of men at the car show.
A couple lifted their hands and waved back. Then returned to looking at the cars.
“Ohhh,” a woman’s voice, filled with delight, sounded behind Edith. It was Julie, the owner of the coffee shop and bakery. She wore a hat with an attached fan on the brim. “Sharon had said you were going to be doing some rescue demonstrations. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.”
“This isn’t—” Edith tried saying, but Julie’s shouts drowned her out.
