Page 108 of Pity Party

CHAPTERFORTY

JAMIE

My day started out normally enough. I dropped Sammy at her job, and then I did some grocery shopping to make sure she has what she calls an adequate selection of lunch foods. Apparently, peanut butter and jelly aren’t going to cut it anymore. Her new friends have told her that wraps are all the rage for lunch, so I needed to acquire the proper ingredients.

After grocery shopping, I cleaned bathrooms and vacuumed. My domestic skills have never been as spot on as they have been this week. I’ve been so distracted with thoughts of Melissa that I had to do something to keep from going crazy. I chose cleaning.

Twenty minutes before I left the house to pick Sammy up from work, my phone rang. The number was the new one I’d programmed in for Beth. My first guess was that she was calling to cancel. But that quickly went away when I heard a man’s voice on the other end. He had a German accent. “Is this Jamie?”

“Yes.” I knew who it was, but I couldn’t figure out why he was calling me.

“This is Karl Albus. Beth’s husband.”

“Go on.” I had planned on never meeting the guy if I could help it, but for some reason he was calling from his wife’s phone, and I had no choice but to find out why.

“Beth has been in an accident. She’s been taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.”

A thousand thoughts swirled through my head at once, but I couldn’t seem to slow them down long enough to ask any questions.

Karl seemed to understand because he kept talking. “She is in critical condition and has just gone into surgery.”

I finally came to my senses long enough to say, “So I guess our meeting isn’t going to happen tomorrow.”

“I think you should bring your daughter here tonight.”

“Why?” The last thing I wanted to do is sit in a hospital room with Beth’s new family. I couldn’t imagine anything more excruciating.

“Because your child should have the opportunity to meet her mother. And as we don’t know how the surgery will go …”

“Could she die?” The thought hadn’t occurred to me.

“She was hit by a bus while crossing the street to our hotel,” he said.

My brain couldn’t absorb the magnitude of that, but I knew enough to know time was of the essence. As such, I told Karl that we’d be there as soon as we could. Then I flew out the door to pick up Sammy and Melissa.

That was an hour ago. Melissa is currently driving, and Sammy is staring out the window of the passenger seat. For some reason I got into the back. Melissa puts on her turn signal and pulls off at the next exit. “We need gas, and we should run through a drive-through for something to eat.”

I don’t think I can eat anything, but I’m so relieved someone else is playing the role of grown up that I don’t say anything. After we pull into a truck stop, I get out of the car to pump the gas, but Melissa stops me. “Go talk to Sammy. I’ll get the gas.”

I walk to the front passenger door and open it. My heart breaks all over again when I see my little girl. She’s slumped in her seat, leaning against the middle console. “How are you doing?” I ask her.

She turns toward me and forces herself to sit up straighter. “Dad … how can this be happening?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“I feel like we made it happen by talking about Beth dying that night in the bowling alley.” I don’t quite remember what we said, so she explains, “Remember how we were saying that it would have been easier if she died rather than going away?”

“Sammy.” I sit down on the running board. “We didn’t cause this to happen.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if saying bad things made bad things happen, then Beth would have died a long time ago.” God knows I’ve said my fair share of hateful things. Things I now regret.

“Okay.” She seems to accept my words for what they are—a vehicle to pause feelings of guilt. “But what if she dies now?”

“Then we’ll be there with her.” What else can I say? I can’t tell her that everything will be all right, because it most certainly won’t. Sammy has come so close to meeting her mother that nothing short of a reunion complete with a happy ending would ever make a dent in her cumulative grief.

“We’ll have to meet her husband and her stepson,” she says.

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