Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 25747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
The second thing that happens at that same time is that my sister texts me.
As I read the text, Walsh’s voicemail greets me when he doesn’t answer and I don’t have the presence of mind to hang up. I’m lost in what my sister wrote more than any of this bullshit. Dread sinks down to the soles of my feet and anchors me there in that moment.
Mom’s in the ER. You need to come home.
Delilah
Just let it pass. Cody’s text is a single line. His answer to my extremely long voicemail is a single line.
Hours go by before he texts again, hours of driving through the mountains of Pennsylvania and up to the Podunk town in New York where I grew up.
I’m at a gas station before he messages again: This break will be good for you. Your mom needs you and by the time you get back, all of this political bullshit will have passed.
My stomach stirs with the faint smell of gas and the whirl of cars driving down the worn asphalt road beside the gas station. Staring up at the faded sign, I do what I’ve always done—I breathe through it all, not letting it get to me.
My mom’s arm is broken. She’s not sick or dying. I won’t be here for long and then I’m going home to look into that journalist. With my message sent, I slip the phone into the cup holder and finish up at the gas station.
Regarding the article, I’m pissed, Cody seemingly couldn’t care less.
When my phone rings at the swinging red light to get back on the interstate, I nearly answer it until I see it’s my sister. I’m pissed at her too. My heart fucking stopped when I saw her message about our mother.
I didn’t even know it was only her arm until I was halfway here.
She wouldn’t answer; neither would Dad.
Anger swarms inside of me. Coupled with disappointment and resentment. Could anything else go wrong this week?
Some days are harder than others in the career I’ve chosen and it took me a long time to realize it’s like that with family too. Some days … some days I just wish they would be honest. I still would have come. I know Cadence would argue that I wouldn’t have, but I had the time off and I didn’t need to be manipulated into coming back home.
That’s exactly what it feels like and my discontent with my sister is why I drive the rest of the way, nearly two hours, without the radio on and my phone on silent. I didn’t even realize it until I parked in the hospital lot that I hadn’t turned the volume back up. Sometimes a person just needs quiet.
A few hours of quiet to clear my head and let Cody’s suggestion sink in: Just let it pass.
I can do that, I think as I climb out of the car, my purse hanging from the crook of my arm and the light jacket I threw on before leaving not doing a damn bit of good up here where it’s colder. At least I can try, but I can’t stop caring.
Absently, I nudge the door shut with my hip, cradling the bouquet of flowers I picked up for my mother in my arms. As I walk into the small hospital, I can’t recollect what I even packed. It was a furious effort to gather up my luggage and leave immediately.
I asked my sister what happened. She said she didn’t know.
It’s a difficult task not to set my jaw into a straight line when I see her as the glass double doors open and the visitor section to the left of the desk is visible. Mom could’ve been dead. I thought she was dying. How could she let me think the worst and not answer me when I demanded to know more? The words pile on top of each other in the back of my throat when I see my sister, but she doesn’t see. She doesn’t see any of the resentment, any of my anger through her blurred vision.
I nearly tumble back when my sister, slightly taller than me, skinnier and frailer in every way, wraps her arms around me and sobs in the crook of my neck.
I’d hold her back but I can’t move my arms; she’s gripping me so tight and my hands are full.
The anxiousness and fear sink back into my blood, slowly coursing through me.
“It’s just her arm,” I whisper to my sister in a dual effort to comfort her and also remind myself. “It’s just her arm, isn’t it?”
Cadence is slow to unwrap her delicate self from my body. She should’ve been a model, I swear. As she does, I take in the scene behind her. Auntie Susan is in the waiting area too. My God, I barely even recognized her. I don’t see Dad anywhere. The only other people in here include the woman working behind the desk and a man with his son in the opposite corner of the waiting area. There are only two rows of seats on the right side of the entrance. But we have our own corner it appears, judging by the two coats spilling over one chair and where Auntie has her purse on the coffee table next to two cups of what I know is tea. None of the women in my family drink coffee but me.