Page 28 of To Belong Together
She returned to work and fought to keep her mind on task. John’s car was too fresh a reminder of the damage distraction could inflict.
10
John opened his right eye long enough to spot blurry versions of Mom and Kate in the doorway of his hospital room. He let his lid close again. “You didn’t need to come.”
Mom and Hank had arrived sometime in the night. Only Kate was a new addition. He’d rather have gone through this with only Hank by his side. Or Hank and Gannon. The more women from his family who arrived, the louder the room would grow, and the worse his headache would become.
A rustle indicated Mom returning to the chair where she’d kept vigil through the night. “Family shows up for each other.”
“Wasn’t sure Kate still wanted to claim me.”
“As family?” His mother’s incredulous question meant he probably shouldn’t have shared his reaction. “Why ever not?”
“Give him a break.” Hank’s voice remained calm. The man had hardly moved from the armchair on John’s right since he’d arrived. “He’s not feeling like himself.”
He also didn’t look like himself, if everyone’s reactions to seeing him were a reliable gauge.
When Gannon had been allowed into the room last night, he had gripped John’s hand and sat nearby, holding on.
John had been in rough enough shape to let him.
A few hours later, Mom had cried and bent over him for a hug that hurt as much as it helped.
Kate reacted with stillness and silence.
John peeled open his right eye—the left one was swollen shut—long enough to confirm she was staring.
“Are we good?” he asked.
“I want you to be okay.”
So, no, she remained angry about the Tanner thing, and he couldn’t blame her. “I understand if you don’t want me on stage for your wedding.”
“That’s still two weeks away. You’ll be better by then.”
“The bruises might not be gone, the cast definitely won’t be”—he lifted his left arm—“and anyway, I meant about the Tanner thing.”
“What Tanner thing?”
Oh, right. Mom was in the room. Was Gannon still there too? He opened his good eye but didn’t see his friend.
Just Kate, her mouth tense. “I thought we were letting that go.”
Letting what go? Oh, yeah. “Tanner and the stripper. You’re the one who brought it up. I just want you to know I love you and I’d do anything for you. I think of you every day.” He pulled the neck of his hospital gown, revealing at least part of the tattoo on his chest. The black ink copied a stick-figure drawing Kate had done of their family years ago.
After a few beats of silence, Hank’s hand rubbed his shoulder. “We should let you rest. We’ll be nearby if you need us. Here’s the button to call a nurse.” The plastic device appeared in his good hand.
He was having trouble keeping up. He sensed he’d made a mistake but couldn’t sort out what it was.
Erin pulledonto the shoulder of Old Sawmill Road. In the quiet of the countryside, her door slammed like a gunshot.
This time of year, the sun would set soon, but even in the evening light, she’d easily spotted the scene of John’s accident. The tire that had frozen up left a strip of rubber. Black dirt had sprayed across the snow both from the car’s initial journey into the ditch and the recovery effort.
John said he’d shown her who he was, but whatever he’d supposedly shown her, she’d missed. She hoped to make up some lost ground here, studying the scene of this traumatic event.
The tracks left in the snow would take her to the area where the final impact had occurred, but ice had already slicked the compressed areas. She forged her own trail, half sliding, half walking down the slope, icy snow crystals working their way under the hem of her pants and over her boots to the skin of her calves.
Sections of bark had ripped off one of the trees. Splintered gouges marked its trunk, and the flat, pale ends of two of its limbs proved more than one had been sawed.
