She didn’t turn to me, or the nurses who walked past, just drew inward as if she knew her only source of solace was going to come from somewhere deep within herself. My composure deserted me as I realized that she didn’t look for comfort because she wasn’t used to getting any, that this scene would be identical if I wasn’t here.
But I was here.
Knowing it was an intrusion, and beyond caring, I walked forward until I stood in front of her. Her eyes were closed, her throat working as she battled for control. Everything in me ached to hold her, to carry as much of the burden as she’d let me.
“Ella.”
Her eyes fluttered open, shining with unshed tears.
“Come on, it’s going to be a long day. Let’s get you some food and some coffee.” If I couldn’t care for her heart, I could at least sustain her body.
“I…I don’t know if I can move.” Her head rolled slightly as she looked toward the doors. “I’ve fought every day for the last five months. I’ve taken her to treatments, argued with the insurance companies, fought with her over capfuls of water when the chemo made her so sick she dehydrated. Everything we’ve fought for has been for this moment, and now that it’s here, I don’t know what to do.”
I got a firm grip on my volatile emotions and reached for her face, only to stop myself and lightly grasp her shoulders.
“You’ve done everything you can. And what you’ve accomplished, how far you’ve brought her is astounding. You’ve done your job, Ella. Now you have to let the doctors do theirs.”
Her eyes found their way back to mine, and I felt her torture like it was a physical pain through my stomach, the ceaseless cut from a dull knife tearing me in two. “I don’t know how to give that control over to someone else. She’s my little girl, Beckett.”
“I know. But the hard part is already over. You signed the papers, no matter how difficult it was, and all we can do now is wait. Now, please. Let me feed you.”
She pushed off the wall, and I retreated a step, putting a respectable amount of distance between us. “You don’t have to stay. They said it’s going to be hours, and not just a few.”
“I know. Her tumor is on the left adrenal gland, and though it’s shrunk, there’s still some very real danger that she’ll lose that kidney. A longer surgery means they’re doing everything they can to save it, and that they’re being thorough to get every scrap of that tumor out. I was listening when they prepped you this morning.”
A sad half smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “You do that a lot. Listen. Pay attention.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No. Just surprising.”
“I don’t care how many hours it takes. I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”
An eternity passed as she made her choice, not just to get food but to believe me. To trust that I meant what I said. I knew the moment she’d decided, when her shoulders dipped, a tiny bit of the tension draining from her frame.
“Okay. Then we’re most definitely going to need some coffee.”
Relief was a sweet taste in my mouth, a gentle, full feeling in my heart. Unable to find the right words, I simply nodded.
…
“So the bear?” I asked two hours later as we sat in the waiting room, side by side on the couch, our feet propped up on the coffee table.
“Aah, this is Colt,” Ella explained, lovingly stroking the face of the fuzzy, well-loved bear.
“Colt is…a girl.”
“Maybe Colt just likes pink. You know, only real men can pull off wearing pink.” She shot me a sideways glance.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
After a light breakfast—her stomach was too queasy for more—we’d fallen into an easy rhythm of conversation. Effortless, even.
“The bears were a gift to the twins from my grandma. One pink, one blue, just like everything back then. But Colt fell in love with the pink one. Had to have it with him all the time, so the blue one became Maisie’s. When they were three, Ryan came in and took Colt camping overnight. Maisie was always more of an indoor girl, and she begged to stay home, so I let her. But Colt almost refused to go. Maisie knew it was because they couldn’t stand being separated. So she grabbed the blue bear, told him it was Maisie, and sent him on his way.”
“So that’s actually Colt’s bear?”
Ella nodded. “He sends it with her every time she’s hospitalized so they can be together, and he has the blue one at home.”
Yeah, that gnawing pain had moved to my heart.
“You have incredible children.”
Her smile was genuine, and I nearly lost my breath when she turned slightly, sharing it with me. “I’m blessed. I wasn’t sure how I would do it when Jeff walked out, but they were always so…they were everything. I mean, sure, they were exhausting, and loud, and messy, but they brought out the color in life. I can’t remember what the world looked like before I held them, but I know it wasn’t half this vibrant.”
“You’re a great mother.”
She made a motion to shrug off my compliment.
“No. You are,” I repeated, needing her to hear me, to understand my awe of her.
“I just want to be enough.” Her gaze darted to the clock, like it had every five minutes since Maisie had disappeared past those swinging doors.
“You are. You are enough.” She blinked at me, and I cursed my tongue. I was going to give myself away if I wasn’t careful.
“Thank you,” she whispered, but I knew from the way she looked away that she wasn’t sure.
“So what’s next? Monopoly? Life?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood and distract her.
She pointed to the wooden box at the opposite end of the table. “Scrabble. And you’d better be careful. I have no qualms about kicking your butt, even if you are nice enough to sit with me all day.”
I wasn’t nice. I was a lying, manipulative asshole who didn’t deserve to sit in the same room with her. But I couldn’t say that. So instead I grabbed the box and prepared to get schooled.
…
“So you grew up in foster homes?” Ella asked me as we made our sixty-fourth loop of the floor.
Maisie had been in surgery for six hours, and we’d had an update from the surgical team about fifteen minutes ago that all was going well and they were trying their hardest to save her kidney.
“I did.”
“How many?”
“I honestly can’t remember. I got moved a lot. Probably because I was a horrible kid. I fought everyone who tried to help, pushed every rule, and did my best to get kicked out of my placement, hoping that would somehow make my mom come back.”
I didn’t expect her to understand. Most people who grew up in normal houses with a quasi-normal family couldn’t get it.
“Ah, the sweet, illogical logic of a child,” Ella said.
Of course she got it. That was what drew me to her in the first place. Her simple acceptance of me through our letters. But from what I’d seen, she was like that—accepting.
“Pretty much.”
“Which was the best home?” she asked, again surprising me. Most people wanted to know the worst, like my life was fodder for gossip to feed their salacious need for the tragedy of others.
“Uh, my last one. I was with Stella for almost two years, starting around my fifteenth birthday. She was the only person I’d ever wanted to stay with.” Memories hit me, some painful, some sweet, but all glossed over with the kind of filter only time could give.
“Why didn’t you?” We reached the end of another hallway and turned around, walking back.
“She died.” Ella paused, and I had to turn around. “What?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her hand squeezing my biceps. “To finally find someone just to lose them…”
My instinct was to rub my hands over my f
ace, shake it off, and keep walking, but I wasn’t going to move a muscle with her hand on me, no matter how innocent the touch was. “Yeah. There are really no words for it.”
“Like someone picks up your life and shakes it like a snow globe,” Ella offered. “It seems to take forever for the pieces to settle, and then they’re never in the same place.”
“Exactly.”
She’d captured the feeling with the precision of someone who knew. How was it I’d never found anyone who understood what my life had been like, and yet this woman defined it without blinking an eye?
“Come on, we haven’t quite worn a path through the linoleum yet,” she said, and started our sixty-fifth lap.
I followed.
…
“This is taking too long. Why is it taking them so long? What’s going wrong?” Ella paced back and forth in the surgical waiting room.
“They just haven’t updated us in a little while. Maybe they’re finishing up.” I watched her from where I leaned against the windowsill. She’d been calm, collected even, until we reached the hour when they’d estimated the surgery would be done.
As soon as that hour passed, something flipped inside her.
“It’s been eleven hours!” she shouted, pausing with her hands on her head. She’d long ago pulled so many strands of her hair loose that it floated around her, as disheveled as she was.
“It has.”
“It was supposed to take ten!” Her eyes were wide and panicked, and I couldn’t blame her. Hell, she was only giving voice to the same thoughts in my head.
“Is everything okay? Mr. and Mrs. MacKenzie?” A nurse popped her head in. “Anything I can do for you?”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you can find out exactly what’s going on with my daughter. She was supposed to be out of surgery over an hour ago, and there’s been no word. None. Is she okay?”
The woman’s face softened in sympathy. Ella wasn’t the first mom to panic in the waiting room, and she wasn’t going to be the last. “How about I go check for you? I’ll come right back with an update.”
“Please. Thank you.” Some of the wild left Ella’s eyes.
“Of course.” She gave Ella a reassuring smile and left in search of information.
“God, I’m going insane.” Ella’s voice was barely a whisper.
She shook her head as she fought off a lower-lip tremble. I pushed away from the sill and was to her in four long strides, not halting to think about who I was or who she knew me to be. I simply wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to my chest like I’d wanted to since the first moment I saw her.
“You wouldn’t be the mom you are if you weren’t going a little out of your mind,” I reassured her as she relaxed against me.
“I think I’ve blown right by little and straight to asylum-ville,” she mumbled into my chest before turning her head and resting it just under my collarbone.
Damn, she fit against me exactly like I knew she would—perfectly. In another life, this is how we would have faced every challenge together. But in that life, Maisie was healthy and Mac was alive. In this world…well, she wasn’t exactly hugging me back. Right. Because I had her arms pinned between us. Was she pushing me away? Was I that oblivious?
That realization hit me like a fire hose, and I loosened my arms immediately. What the hell had I been thinking? Just because she wanted me to stay with her didn’t mean she wanted me to touch her. I was her default, and lucky to be that, but I sure as hell wasn’t her choice or preference.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. Her hands were still between us, but she wasn’t pushing me away, they were simply resting on my pecs. If anything, she leaned in. “I’d forgotten what this felt like.”
“Being hugged?” My voice was sandpaper-rough.
“Being held together.”
Never before had a single phrase brought me to my emotional knees.
“I’ve got you.” I tightened my hold, splaying one hand wide just beneath her shoulder blades and cupping the back of her head with the other. Using my body the best I could, I surrounded her, imagining I was some kind of wall—that I could keep away whatever heartache was coming for her. My chin rested on the top of her head, and second by second, I felt her melt and give.
Although I couldn’t tell her, I loved this woman. I would take on armies for her, kill for her, or die for her. There was no truth greater than that, and no other truth that I could give her. Because where she was honest and strong and kind, I was a liar who had already hurt her in the worst way possible. I had no right to hold her like this, but even worse—I wasn’t going to move a muscle.
“Mrs. MacKenzie?” The nurse came back in, accompanied by Maisie’s surgeon. “I just caught them as they were coming out of surgery.”
“Yes?” Ella turned in my arms, and I let her free, but she took my hand, squeezing so hard I had a momentary concern for the blood flow to my fingers.
The surgeon smiled, and I felt a rush of relief more powerful than any time I’d escaped battle unscathed.
“We got it all. It was touch and go there for a while with her left kidney, but we managed to save it. You’ve got quite a stubborn little girl on your hands. She’s in recovery right now, resting. As soon as she wakes up, we’ll bring you back to see her, but don’t expect her to stay awake for long, okay?”
“Thank you.” Ella’s voice broke, but those two words carried the kind of meaning that usually took hours to convey.
“You’re welcome.” The surgeon smiled again, exhaustion written on every line of her face, before leaving us alone in the waiting room.
“She’s okay.” Ella’s eyes closed.
“She’s okay.”
“She’s…she’s really okay,” she repeated. Then, as if someone peeled back whatever had been keeping her upright, she collapsed, her knees giving out under her. I caught her before she hit the ground and hauled her up against my side. “She’s okay. She’s okay.” Ella said the phrase over and over again until the words came on heaving cries, the sobs rough and raw.
I hooked one arm under her knees and one behind her back, picking her up as she buried her face in my neck, hot tears streaking down my skin to soak my shirt. Then I settled onto the couch, holding her across my lap as her gut-wrenching cries shook her small frame.
She cried in a way that reminded me of the valve being released on a pressure cooker—the result of too much confined for way too long. And even though the relief was still sweet from the successful surgery, I knew there was so much more ahead for her—for them. This was simply a pause in the fight that allowed her a precious second to catch her breath.
“I’ve got you. She’s okay,” I told her, smoothing my hand over her hair. “You’re both okay.” I spoke in the present tense because that was all I could promise her.
And for right now, with Havoc safe with Colt, and Maisie tumor-free, and Ella curled in my arms, it was enough.
Chapter Eleven
Ella
Letter #21
Ella,
Yes, I can believe the guy at the library asked you out. No, I don’t think it’s odd, or a prank. Why would you? It’s not like I haven’t seen your picture, which yes, I know, puts me at an advantage between us. Not sure if you noticed, but you’re definitely not hurting in the looks department.
Go ahead, give me your excuses. Yes, you have two kids, and yes, one of them is facing incredible odds. You own a very time-consuming business, and from what I know about you, you also tend to put yourself last when factoring anything into your life.
But listen to me—scratch that…read me—none of that makes you “undatable,” as you called it. Do you know what’s undatable? Someone who’s selfish, or consumed with the tiny things in life that don’t mean anything. To me, the most attractive quality in a woman is her ability to give of her
self, and Ella, you do that in spades.
I get that you haven’t gotten out there since Jeff walked out. I understand that for the last five years you’ve been consumed with raising your kids, building your business, and generally being everything to everyone. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t let someone in. Especially now.
I’m not going to say you need someone to lean on, because I know you’ve become the expert on standing on your own. But with what you’re facing, I know it would help to have someone there to support you in the moments when you feel like it’s impossible. Go out to dinner with the guy, Ella. Even if nothing comes of it, you’ll know you gave the universe the shout-out. You can’t turn away every good thing that comes to you because you’re scared of what might happen, or not happen. That’s the coward’s way out, and you are no coward.
And honestly, who wouldn’t fall for you? We’re three months into this, and I’m half in love with you without ever having been in the same room. Just give the guy—give yourself—a shot at some happiness, because you deserve it.
Or you could wait until January, when I get to randomly show up at your door.
Just food for thought.
~ Chaos
…
“Need anything else?” I asked Maisie, handing her the iPad. She was all set up in the living room of the main house’s residence, within shouting distance of Hailey and Ada.
“Nope,” she replied, popping the P as she opened one of the apps her teacher had recommended.
“Your belly feel okay?” It had been two weeks since her surgery and, while the incision site looked to me like a monstrous, pink snake slithering across my daughter’s belly, she swore the pain was nearly gone.
Maybe it was the way she’d slept the first few days after, or her sore throat from the twelve hours of intubation, or the feeding tube that had stayed with her for days, but I had a hard time believing her. Or perhaps it was that my pain tolerance on her behalf was so much lower than hers had grown to be.
“Mom, I’m fine. No puking or anything. It’s okay. Go.” She looked up at me. “Besides, as soon as you leave, Ada will give me the sugar-free ice cream.”
The Last Letter Page 12