The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

He shrugged and went into the bathroom and got into the shower. As he lathered up, it suddenly came to him. “No,” he said, and banged his fist against the glass shower wall. He pushed open the door and stepped out, striding to his dresser. With soap and water dripping from him, he stared down at his pile of things.

His St. Christopher was gone. Cooper didn’t have to think about it. He didn’t have to wonder if he’d dropped it or forgotten it at the Grizzly Lodge. He knew Emma had taken it, had slipped it out of his pocket in her room. He knew she had added it to her bizarre collection of things. He was another number, another one in a long line of men who meant nothing to her.

Cooper’s pulse began to pound with ferocious fury. Hell no, he would not accept this. Emma Tyler would not get away with it.





TWENTY

I know it’s taken me a while to get back to you about my most excellent adventure to Denver to see the Broncos play the Patriots. I’ve been dying to tell you everything, but the trip kind of wore me out, and I had another seizure and had to go to the hospital, which of course Dad said was because I had worn myself out, and then he said, “I’m not going to say I told you so, but I told you so.” If Emma were here right now, she’d be all like, I don’t understand why people say that. He clearly means to say I told you so, and I would have to agree. But here’s where Dad is wrong—the game didn’t make me have a seizure. I mean, I have seizures when I’m not doing anything, so you can’t really blame it on the Broncos stinking it up.

Anyway, while we were at the hospital, the doctors said they were going to have to put me on a feeding tube because I really can’t swallow much anymore, which of course I know, hello! Who do you think has been trying to choke down Dad’s homemade gruel?

But this time when they said it, they looked at Dad instead of me.

Like I wasn’t there.

Or, like because I can’t swallow, that must mean I can’t speak English anymore. I wanted to tell that doctor that I’m a genius, and I know exactly what it means, because I’m sitting in this body every day, feeling it give up and the life leak out of me. If it weren’t so morbid it would be totally awesome that you can actually feel when life is leaving you. It sort of starts in your fingers and toes. It’s hard to describe—kind of like a tide going out.

Okay, well anyway, enough of that. The big news is the game!

So we went to Denver, and even at sub-grandpa speed, which, for those of you who don’t know, is about two miles an hour, we made it to the Mile High Stadium in time to actually see the game. My friend Dante was stoked, but he had to walk a really long way to our most excellent seats, whereas I was in a chair. Dante could have had a chair, too, but he didn’t want to enter the hallowed halls of football that way, and dude, who could blame him? Anyway, I don’t know if it was that walk or all the radiation and chemo he’s been taking, or maybe it was just that the Broncos sucked, but Dante got like, really sick, and he didn’t look to me like he loved the game. Maybe he was just completely depressed that the Broncos lost.

I know, right? They lost! All my hard work and then the Broncos went and blew it.

Don’t you think my story would be so much better if they’d won? It would be like one of those cool sports movies where the cancer kid and the MND guy crawl across mountains and desert to see their favorite team play, and their dying wish is that the Broncos win, and everyone in the audience is worried for those two kids because the Broncos are playing the Goliaths, and you think there is no way they can pull it out, and then, in the last three seconds the Broncos kick the winning field goal!

Well, that didn’t happen. The Broncos fumbled just after the two-minute warning and the Patriots scored. But still, Dad and Buck, the nurse we hired to accompany us to Denver, said it was a really good game, and it was, I guess, if you think a really good game includes losing. Which I totally don’t.

And you know what else? The skybox wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. I mean, it was nice and all, and Dad said the seats were comfortable, and we could see the field. But we couldn’t see it better than I could on my big flat screen at home, you know? Plus, I thought there’d be chicks to serve the drinks and snacks, and maybe even a cheerleader or two to rub my head for good luck. You can imagine my extreme disappointment when it was Dad who served the drinks—Orange Crush, of course, because I insisted—and potato chips, which Dante’s mom had sent with us because they help with his stomach issues, but of course, I can’t eat.