The door creaked as I pushed it open the rest of the way. When Lindsey saw me, she closed her eyes in obvious relief. Isabella, clutching her koala, ran for me. I braced myself against the crutches just in time. She flung herself against me, and I winced in pain. With her arms wrapped tightly around my legs, she looked up at me with a haunted expression and lifted her arms for me to pick her up.
“Hang on, Bells; let me sit down.” I made my way to her bed and sat. Before I could lay down the crutches, she climbed onto my lap and buried her head in my arm.
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” Lindsey said. “We just didn’t know what else to do.”
I rubbed Isabella’s back as I rocked her. “It’s okay. David’s right. We’ve got to try something.”
When I looked down at Isabella, her eyes were closed and she was sucking her thumb—something she hadn’t done since she was a baby. I continued to rock her until her back stopped heaving. Lindsey leaned against the radiator, holding her silk robe closed and studying us as though she were watching a documentary. I realized then that she was probably trying to learn from me how to mother my daughter. I doubted she understood that what worked for me wouldn’t necessarily work for her. She and Isabella would have to forge their own path.
After a few minutes of silence, Lindsey whispered, “Do you think it’s safe for you to go now?”
Isabella’s panic-filled eyes shot open.
“I’ve got another idea,” I said. “What if I lie with you for a while?”
The fear left her eyes as she slid her thumb from her mouth. She stared at me a moment, then nodded. I eyed the single bed with its headboard painted to look like a giant tiara. Even this narrow mattress was plenty big enough for the two of us.
Lindsey laid her hand on the doorknob and turned around. “Is there anything you two need—covers, an extra pillow—”
“Water,” Isabella blurted.
I shook my head. “Bella knows very well that she can’t have anything to drink after seven.”
Lindsey frowned. “We always give her a glass of water at night.”
“It makes her wet the bed,” I said.
“She’s never done that.”
“That’s only because she hasn’t slept through the night here yet. Right around four, she would. It happens every time.” I thought of the last half-dozen times my father had brought Isabella home in the middle of the night from here. No wonder she always made a beeline straight to the bathroom.
It occurred to me then how many of those little details Lindsey didn’t know about Isabella. She hadn’t known to ask, and I hadn’t thought to tell her. I moved the pillow to the top of the bed and patted it. Isabella crawled off my lap and lay on it.
Suddenly I remembered my father still waiting for me outside. As Lindsey closed the door, I called to her. “Could you or David drive me home later? I hate to keep my dad waiting.”
In the shadow of the hall light, she turned to face me. “It’s the least we can do. I’ll tell him he can go home.” The door clicked shut behind her.
I lay on the pillow next to my daughter and pulled the down comforter around us. When she smiled sleepily and curled her body tight against me, my heart ached. Soon I wouldn’t be around to do this for her.
Cocoa fell from her fingers. I heard the clink of his hard nose hitting the wood floor as she clutched me instead. Leaning into her, I kissed her forehead and did my best to mask my sadness. “You know, Bella, you’re going to have to get used to sleeping here without me.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to have to be a brave girl.”
Her eyes pleaded with me. “I’m trying, Mommy.”
I stroked her soft cheek. “Why were you so upset?”
Her thumb found her mouth again, making her words slur. “I wanted you, and Daddy just kept telling me to be a big girl and go to sleep.”
Of course he did.
“What did Lindsey say?”
“She came after I was crying real hard.”
“Was she nice to you?”
“I guess.”
“Did she tell you to be a big girl too?”
Isabella reached over with her free hand and rubbed my earlobe. “No, she told me I could call you on the phone.”
“So why didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer for a minute. Her bottom lip pooched out as though she were getting ready to shed more tears. She continued to rub my ear as she let out a deep breath that smelled like bubblegum toothpaste. “I had a bad dream,” she finally said and buried her face in my neck.
I heard a soft whimper. “What is it, sweetness? What’s wrong?”
When she looked at me, I saw that same broken look in her eyes I had seen at the beach during our talk. “I dreamed you were drowning. You kept yelling for me to help you.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “You were sinking . . . and I couldn’t find you. Daddy made me stop looking.”
Her words pierced the deepest layer of my heart. Her dream was, in a strange way, both memory and premonition—except that it was she who was sinking, not I. “Shh.” I kissed her tears. “I’m here. I’m right here.” I laid my cheek against hers, wishing I’d used the setting sun analogy instead of the ocean metaphor. “Bella, baby, Mommy isn’t going to drown.”
She sniffled. “You will. You’re not strong anymore. You can’t swim all the way across.”
I pulled back and looked into her eyes. “I don’t have to swim across the ocean. Jesus is going to carry me.”
She rubbed her wet face against my T-shirt. “Is He a good swimmer?”
I held her tight. “He doesn’t have to be. He walks on water, remember?”
“You don’t.”
I laughed. “You used to think I did. Please don’t worry. He won’t let me drown, I promise. He’s going to carry me all the way across.”
She looked askance at the wall for a moment as though considering it. Finally her eyes began to flutter and eventually close. I was at the cusp of falling asleep myself when she asked, “Mommy, why didn’t Jesus carry
me
when I was drowning?”
I tried to open my eyes, but they were too heavy. “Because He wanted Craig to do it.”
* * *
I had intended to stay only until Isabella fell asleep. Instead, I woke hours later, scrunched up against my daughter in a princess bed with the bright morning sun shining through Barbie suncatchers into my eyes.
I shielded my face with my hand and looked up to see Lindsey’s bright, perfectly made-up face in the doorway. “Good morning, ladies!” She sounded disgustingly chipper. Of course she would be a morning person. She probably woke up whistling, with bluebirds and bunnies following her around. I groaned and flopped over, giving her my back.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll let you go back to sleep, but as soon as you’re awake, David and I need to talk to you.” She paused as if waiting for me to answer. “We’ve got a plan that I think you’re going to like.” She sounded far more enthusiastic than anyone should at . . . whatever time of morning it was.
Staring at the pink wall, I rolled my eyes. Oh, good, another talk. Those always led to wonderful things with the Prestons. “Can’t wait,” I muttered.
When I kissed Isabella’s cheek, she moaned and turned over. I quietly gathered my crutches from the floor and made my way out of her bedroom into the hallway. The crutches rubbed against my already-sore underarms as I hobbled past paintings of European landscapes hanging on rich, gold walls, toward the grating sound of David’s voice and Lindsey’s laughter.
My stomach tightened as I neared the room they occupied. I couldn’t think of anything I’d like less than having a sit-down with my ex-boyfriend and his adoring wife. But the sooner we had our little talk, the sooner I could get out of there and back to the comfort and familiarity of my own house. Touching the diamond ring hanging from my neck, I inhaled a fresh breath of nerves and stepped through the doorway.
Lindsey sat next to David at an oval table, holding a glazed mug in her slender fingers and laughing. David grinned, looking pleased with her reaction. When she laid her head on his shoulder, I cleared my throat.
They both turned toward me. David’s smile disappeared while Lindsey’s widened.
Her cheeks flushed as she stood. “Jenny, I didn’t mean you had to wake up now.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I needed to get up anyway. I have a lot of stuff to do today.” I ran my tongue over my teeth, wishing I’d stopped at the bathroom to at least rinse my mouth out.
Lindsey wore a men’s dress shirt over her designer jeans. It was the same shirt David had been wearing the last time he’d dropped off Isabella. Despite the fact that I loved Craig now, not David, jealousy still nipped at me.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Thirsty? We have coffee, orange juice—”
“I’ll eat when I go home,” I said, hoping my tone didn’t sound as abrasive to her as it had to me. “Thanks anyway.”
“Please—” she gestured to an empty chair—“have a seat.”
As I did, I scanned the room full of wood trim and clean lines. A dozen red roses occupied a vase in the center of the table. They were so perfect-looking that I couldn’t tell if they were real or fake. Behind David’s chair sat a lowboy, on top of which rested three black-and-whites in matching silver frames. The first was David and Lindsey’s wedding portrait. The second was of Isabella sitting on a park swing, wearing corduroy overalls I didn’t recognize. The third was a candid shot of the three of them playing in a pile of raked leaves in front of their house.
I leaned my crutches against the table as I thought of the photo album I had put together for Isabella. I needed to remember to give it to her while I still could. As she created new memories, I hated the thought that she’d forget the ones we had already made. Hated the thought that she’d forget me.
Lindsey stared at David expectantly. When he turned his attention to his lap, I knew this idea of theirs was going to be a doozie. My good leg shook back and forth as I waited for one of them to say something. When neither did, I decided to expedite things. “Please tell me you have some thoughts on what we can do about Isabella.”
David’s gaze moved from his lap to Lindsey and back again.
“If you do, I’m all ears.”
Lindsey waited, but when David wouldn’t look up to make eye contact, she turned to me. “Do you remember the day you broke your foot?”
Before I could answer, she giggled nervously. “Of course you do. That was a stupid question.”
Already I didn’t like where this conversation was headed. A chill moved through me, and I rubbed absently at my arms.
“We felt bad because your dad’s only one man with two sick women and a little girl to care for. That’s a lot to put on him. Too much, maybe.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’m not a complete invalid. Neither is Mama Peg, for that matter. Besides, it’s not just my father. Craig’s there too.”
She looked at me as though I’d said something cryptic. “Your boarder?”
“My fiancé.”
Lindsey looked as though I’d just thrown a glass of ice water on her. “I didn’t know that.” She frowned at David. “Honey, did we know that?”
“It just happened,” I said. “Yesterday.”
David gave me a slow once-over. I was sure it was all he could do not to state the obvious. To ask what the point of it was since it couldn’t last. To call Craig crazy for wanting to marry a dying woman, and me crazy for letting him. For once in my life, I couldn’t have cared less what David Preston thought.
They both looked at my left hand, then each other. I decided not to tell them where I wore my ring. The details of my engagement were sacred and special. I felt no desire to share any of it with them.
“Interesting timing,” David said flatly.
Lindsey pressed her fingers against her lips as she studied his profile. Their reactions told me that whatever their plan had been, I’d just thrown a wrench into it.
David rubbed the back of his neck.
“Just spit it out,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
He nodded at Lindsey. She gripped her coffee cup, tapping French-manicured nails against ceramic. “We thought—David and I thought—that we might have a win-win solution to Isabella’s problem transitioning to us and your problem of needing to be taken care of. If you were to move in with us, Isabella would get used to living here. Get used to us. And you’ll have a live-in nurse. What I can’t do, we’ll bring in hospice to take care of.”
I was so stunned by the ridiculousness of her offer that it took me a moment to pick my chin up off the floor. “Are you kidding me? You want me to spend my last days watching you two play Ozzie and Harriet? If I wanted hospice, I could call them myself. I already have the rest of my life planned out, and it includes seeing as little of you two as humanly possible.”
Lindsey’s hand stilled. “Jenny, it wasn’t just an idea we pulled out of the sky. We spoke to a counselor, and she said . . .”
As she explained why the child psychologist thought my moving in with them was the only way my daughter stood a chance at acclimating to her new home and parents, my gaze traveled from Lindsey’s pink cheeks to the healthy sheen of her hair, to her hand resting atop David’s, and finally to the gold band that fit just right on her left hand.
Cutting her off midsentence, I said, “You can spin it anyway you like, but I’m marrying Craig.” I stood and gathered my crutches, afraid that if I sat there any longer entertaining their insane idea, it might just happen. I couldn’t live with them. I wouldn’t. “This week.” I slid the crutches under my arms.
Lindsey held out her hand as if to stop me. “Take your time. We don’t need an answer right now. It’s a lot, I know. Just think about it. We have a guest room all ready for you.” Her smile seemed at odds with the troubled look in her eyes. “Do you want to see it? It’s really pretty.”
I made a face to show my disgust. “Do you really think I care if my room’s pretty?”
David planted his palms on the table. “Sit down, Jenny.”
I glared at him. “I don’t take orders from you.”
When Lindsey touched his shoulder, he added a meeker, “Please. Sit down and hear us out.”
I didn’t want to sit back down. I knew that if I stayed any longer and listened to their reasoning, I might just agree to sacrifice my last chance at happiness. David reached out to touch my arm. I jerked away from him and grabbed my ring as though he’d intended to rip it from my neck.