“I-I don’t know.”
“Maybe we can be there for each other.” She paused. “My dad has lung cancer. Stage four. Incurable.”
Harry stood still. “I didn’t know.”
“No one does. I wanted it that way, so I could have a normal life.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d understand. Even without—”
“Yeah,” Harry said, and his head did the sideways tic again. Her gaze didn’t falter.
“We moved down here so he could go to Duke hospital. They don’t know how long he has. He responded pretty well to the chemo and radiation. They think he could have as long as three years. Or he could be gone before spring break. But I don’t want to think about that. I want to be a normal teenager, you know, thinking about this beautiful junior”—she paused and her cheeks glowed—“called Harry.” She twisted her feet. “Can we sit together at lunch tomorrow?”
He was a lot to handle. More energy than a whole power plant when the meds ran out. That was a turnoff for most girls, at least the ones who’d been classmates since third grade. No one had asked him for a lunch date before. (It was a date, right?) No one had ever called him beautiful, either. Except for Mom. She always said, “You’re going to grow up to be such a heartbreaker, Harry.” But moms had to say that crap, didn’t they? And his wasn’t exactly impartial, since she overcompensated for the fact that he was, well, Harry. She never judged him, never criticized. But then again, Dad did enough of that for both of them. Why was he thinking about his parents? He didn’t want to think about anything except Sammie Owen. He moved toward her slowly, focusing on her lips. Shutting out the world.
“Stop right there!”
They jumped apart and Mr. George waved a heavy-duty stapler at them. “No PDA. Time to come downstairs. Both of you. Now.” And then he held the door open and shepherded them through, still waving the stapler.
Sammie looked at Harry and they both giggled. And in that shared moment, nothing mattered beyond the school rule about personal displays of affection. And his almost first kiss.
When could he try again?
EIGHT
At 5:30 a.m., Felix studied the daily and weekly to-do lists Ella had dictated over the phone the night before. Armed with color-coded guidelines, he felt marginally less like he was starting life over as an amputee.
Robert had not taken the news well. There had been much huffing and puffing on the other end of the phone line and a muttered comment about why Felix couldn’t be a normal dad and give his son a house key, a car, and a credit card, and “let him get on with it” while they went to Charlotte for the weekend. Felix tried to imagine what Harry getting on with it would mean.
He hadn’t expected sympathy from his partner, but tolerance would have been an acceptable response, as would a little faith that someone with such a highly developed work ethic as Felix could still deliver. Felix snapped the elastic band he’d slipped on his wrist the night before. Katherine had suggested it as a stress reliever. Bizarre as it sounded, she’d been right.
And he had to-do lists. To-do lists were good; Ella knew this. It was one of the many reasons that he had never doubted their marriage would work: she was a list maker, too.
He walked to the fridge and took out the required sandwich-making supplies.
Thank God she’d packed away the Christmas ornaments before flying to Florida. He knew only two things about Christmas decorations: they had to be hung by Christmas Eve and taken down by Twelfth Night. Mother had always insisted. Over the years, he had fallen into a habit of moving ornaments around while Harry, their tree decorator, slept. Neither Harry nor Ella had ever commented, but several times Felix had caught Ella staring at the tree with raised eyebrows.