She’s dead. Ellie thought as matter-of-factly as she could manage. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She repeated it over and over again in her mind, thinking that maybe if she repeated the phrase enough times, it wouldn’t hurt when she heard the words coming out of Dr. Floyd’s mouth.
“We treated Amelia for two very serious gunshot wounds. She’d already lost a lot of blood, but we were able to stop the bleeding and get her stable enough to work on repairing some of the damage. The surgery itself was a great success, but”—Travis’s fingers tightened around her hand like he knew something bad was about to happen—“now it will just take time . . .”
Ellie went to stand up, but the doctor gestured for her to stay seated. Take time? What did that even mean?
“Wait, so the surgery went well?” Even Ellie could hear the hopeful lilt to her voice.
Dr. Floyd glanced at his chart again and cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, but your sister is . . .” Ellie took in a sharp breath and held it. The words. She’d hear them now. Dr. Floyd started again. “Unfortunately, there were some complications. At a certain point in the surgery, her heart stopped beating and we had to resuscitate her. We were able to get her heart beating again, but you never know how someone’s brain will handle being without oxygen. We can’t promise that there won’t be any permanent damage.”
“Permanent damage? What does that mean?”
The doctor dropped the chart to his side and didn’t break eye contact. “I’m sorry, Ms. Brown, but your sister might not wake up.”
CHAPTER 14
AMELIA
Thursday, April 14
Four weeks earlier
“So, who is this guy again?” Steve asked for the third time as Amelia tossed her wallet into her oversize canvas purse that she’d purchased as a makeshift diaper bag when Kate was a baby.
“I told you, he’s a real estate agent. Um, Randy Mraz. He is building a house on the Slattery place and fixing up the old house for tenants. Kate hit it off with his kid at the park.”
Kate, hair in stubby pigtails today, bounced up and down on her toes, fully dressed and clad in her sparkly silver flats since seven a.m. Her little fingers clutched the edge of the Formica counter, little bits of red and pink still clinging close to her cuticle.
“Yeah, he’s really funny, Daddy. And I’m totally stronger than him. I beat him in arm wrestling and the wood chips game.”
Steve, his Broadlands Roofing shirt tucked into his belted khakis as usual with his work clothes, put up his hand, and Kate reeled back and landed a loud and hefty high five. It’d taken Amelia nearly a year to get used to Steve without his uniform. The firefighting job became such a big part of your existence that when you left, it was like leaving your family or your way of life in many more ways than just the clothes. But it was always those outer evidences that people tended to notice first.
“I’m not surprised, K. You could take down any of the boys in your class, I’m sure.” He chuckled and tussled Kate’s hair till she pulled away, a few strands sticking out around the rubber bands.
“Daddy!” Already imbued with a far keener fashion sense than Amelia had ever possessed on her own, she squealed and put her hand up to cover her head from further damage. “Now I need more spray on it. Oh, Daddy.” She gave him a very disappointed glare and then looked to her mother for permission. “Where is the stuff, Mommy?”
“The hair spray? It’s in my bathroom. I’ll grab it.” Amelia dropped her bag on the table and put out her hand for Kate, but she batted it away.
“No, Mommy, I wanna do it myself.” Amelia put her hands up like she was in a holdup and held back a smile as Kate headed toward the stairs, covering her damaged hairdo.
“I hope she doesn’t get that crap everywhere,” Steve said quietly so that only Amelia could hear. “That bathroom is already a disaster.”
Amelia nodded, trying not to look at Steve, afraid she’d see the frustration in his eyes. The pit opening up in her stomach reminded her that he still wasn’t happy with how far behind she was on . . . everything in the house. And here she was going away for the morning, her only free morning of the week, to hang out with Randy Mraz.
Argh. Even though part of her felt like she should probably be home scrubbing the caked-on hair-spray residue off her bathroom wall, another part of her couldn’t deny that she was looking forward to a few hours away from her real life. She couldn’t resist the potential of a stimulating adult conversation that had nothing to do with figuring out schedules, when her dad last pooped, or how to get Cora to soccer at the same time Kate needed to be at ballet.
“I’ll clean it tonight, I swear.”
“No you won’t. You’ve got your dad tonight even though it is supposed to be your night off, and now we’ll have him for three days in a row.” He gestured toward the calendar hanging on the refrigerator, marked up in multicolored ink. There was an edge of frustration to his voice that was becoming all too familiar.
“It’s a fair trade, Steve. Ellie and Collin wanted to go out of town for the weekend to celebrate their engagement. She’s taking three days next weekend so we can go strawberry picking and maybe clean out the garage.” Amelia closed her purse and made sure the magnetic snap was fastened. “I need to go now. We can talk about this later.” She tossed the strap over her shoulder and called up to Kate from the bottom of the stairs. Then, turning on the balls of both feet, she gave Steve a firm look, tears of anger and frustration pushing at the back of her eyes. “By the way, if the bathroom is bothering you that much, then maybe you should clean it.”
The deep lines across Steve’s forehead softened. He crossed the kitchen, and she tried to ignore his approach, watching up the stairs for Kate to finally come down so they could get in the car and escape all the signs that Amelia was a failure. But soon, his large hands settled carefully on her shoulders, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles on her shoulder blades, and she had to bite down hard, crushing her molars together, to keep from crying. Steve moved in closer until his lips met the soft spot under her jaw that always made her knees weak.
“I’m sorry, babe. I don’t want to make you so sad. I’m sorry.” His lips moved against her neck as he spoke, his breath only serving to warm her skin in a very enticing way. She leaned in to his embrace and closed her eyes, surrendering to his apology.
“It’s okay. I know I keep saying it, but this will get better.”
He pulled back a little, but then his hands traced down the silky green satin of her blouse, her shoulders covered by a loosely knit sweater, then down to her bare elbows, her hands, and then landed on her hips. From there he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back in toward him, almost like he used to when they’d first gotten married and were still into snuggling nearly every minute of every night.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he whispered in her ear playfully. She jabbed him lightly in the ribs with her elbow.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . you big skeptic . . .”