Perfect Rhythm

by Jae

  “N-not recover?” Leo’s mother stammered. “What does that mean? Will he die?”

  “I’m sorry. We’re doing all we can, but the odds of survival are very remote. You should prepare for the worst. I don’t think he has long.”

  Leo swayed, feeling as if he had punched her. She gripped Holly’s hand to stay upright.

  Her mother burst into sobs, grabbed Leo in a desperate hug, and buried her face against her shoulder. Warm tears soaked Leo’s shirt.

  She let go of Holly and wrapped both arms around her mother.

  The doctor met her gaze over her mother’s head. His face was a professional mask, but compassion shone in his eyes. “We’ll be sending him up to the stroke unit in a minute. You can stay with him if you want to.”

  Leo couldn’t speak, but Holly did it for her. “Thank you. We’d like that.”

  The door swung shut behind the doctor, but his words continued to echo through Leo’s mind. I don’t think he has long. She pressed her hand to her mouth. He will die. Oh God, he will die.

  Her father’s hospital room looked like the bridge of a spaceship. A large monitor dominated the space at the head of his bed, and Leo couldn’t look away from the green and white lines moving across the screen in a hypnotizing pattern. Constantly changing numbers were displayed next to them, but they meant little to her.

  A breathing tube was taped to her father’s mouth, but there was none of the hissing, pumping, and beeping she had expected. This wasn’t like the scenes she had seen on TV at all. An eerie silence filled the room, interrupted every now and then by the shrill alarm of a monitor in one of the other rooms.

  Leo almost wished for more sounds, anything to distract her from the unmoving figure in the bed. Her mother was talking to him, stroking his pale face around the breathing tube, and kissing his forehead, but he never reacted.

  This was what she’d expected when she had first gotten her mother’s call, four weeks ago. Now, after she had talked to her father just last night, it caught her unawares. Part of her still couldn’t grasp that the patient lying motionless beneath the white hospital blanket was him.

  The only thing that felt real was Holly’s presence. Since there were only two visitor’s chairs, she stood behind Leo like a guardian angel, one hand on Leo’s shoulder. “You can hold his hand if you want,” Holly whispered to her.

  Leo glanced back at her.

  Holly gave her an encouraging nod.

  A clip was attached to his finger on the right, measuring the oxygen in his blood or something, and her mother had a careful grasp on that hand, so Leo took hold of the other. Somehow, she had expected his skin to be warm, as it had always been, but now it was cool against her own. A shiver went through her.

  Holly rubbed her shoulder, sending a bit of warmth back into her.

  Grateful, Leo reached up with her other hand and put it on Holly’s for a moment. She sat very still, watching his shrunken face. When was the last time she had held his hand like this? Had she ever? She must have, as a child, but she couldn’t remember.

  Her mother slid her chair closer to the bed and reached across his lap for Leo’s other hand.

  Leo let go of Holly’s hand to hold her mother’s.

  Her fingers were warm, especially in comparison to his. Tears trickled down her mother’s face, but she didn’t reach up to wipe them away. One, then another dripped onto the stark white sheet.

  Leo’s heart went out to her mother, but no tears came for her. This was all too surreal. She didn’t even know what time of day it was or how long they had been in here. The blinds on the large window were down, shutting out the rest of the world. It might as well have ceased to exist for all she knew.

  “If you want, you could play him some music,” Holly said quietly.

  Grateful for anything that would interrupt the awful silence, Leo fumbled her cell phone from her pocket and searched for Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”

  Soon, the low, soothing strains of violins filled the room.

  She sat there for what felt like hours but could easily have been minutes. Her father’s hand in hers seemed to become cooler, and the numbers on the monitor fell slowly but steadily.

  “Dad,” she heard her own voice croak out, as if that could call him back from where he was going.

  A muscle twitched in his face.

  Had he heard her?

  “Dad?” she tried again.

  Wasn’t it ironic? Except for last night, they hadn’t talked in fourteen years, and she hadn’t wanted to, and now she longed for a single word or sign of recognition from him.

  She watched him so intently that she jumped when the blood pressure cuff buzzed. For a moment, she had thought his arm was moving. But when the blood pressure cuff deflated, all went still.

  “We’re here,” she whispered anyway.

  Her mother gripped her hand more tightly, and Holly’s fingers fanned out over her shoulder as if trying to soak up her pain.

  A piercing alarm from the monitor interrupted the peaceful ebb and flow of the violins.

  Even though Leo had known this would happen at some point, panic swept through her. She wanted to run to the door and call for help, but her mother didn’t let go.

  Rapid footfalls approached, and a nurse came in, followed by a doctor. Neither asked any questions. One of them turned off the shrill alarm while the other switched off the ventilator before murmuring “sorry for your loss” and quietly leaving the room.

  Leo’s mother buried her face against her husband’s unmoving chest and wept.

  Slowly, as if any jarring movement would disturb his peace, Leo slid her hand out of her father’s and turned off the music on her phone. When silence fell, she latched on to Holly’s hand, hoping she would keep her afloat in a sea of pain and grief.

  Later, she couldn’t have said how long they stayed with her dad, what words they exchanged with the hospital staff, or how they got back home. The only thing she knew was that Holly stayed by her side through it all.

  Chapter 17

  It felt strange not to check on Gil last thing in the evening. She had been his nurse for a year and a half and had shared his home for months. He’d been grumpy for most of that time, but never in a mean way. Somehow, she had come to like him and his curmudgeon ways. She would miss him.

  She stood in the doorway of his room and stared at the empty bed for quite some time. Finally, she wiped her eyes, gave herself a mental nudge, and went in to pick up the empty wrappers and other trash the EMTs had left behind.

  Technically, her job as his nurse had ended, and she was free to go home, but she didn’t consider it for even a second. Not before she had made sure Leo was okay—or at least as okay as she was going to get today.

  She put the remainder of the food the neighbors and the members of Gil’s church choir had brought over into the fridge and tiptoed upstairs.

  A quick glance into Sharon’s room showed her that she was asleep. The sleeping pill Holly had given her must have finally kicked in. Sharon had cried all the way home. By the time they had entered the house, she’d been so exhausted that Holly and Leo nearly had to carry her upstairs, yet she had still been too agitated to settle down.

  Holly quietly closed the door and continued on to Leo’s room.

  No answer came to her knock. Hesitantly, she opened the door a few inches and peeked in.

  Leo’s room was empty. For a second, fear surged through her veins. Had Leo gotten into her car and driven off, not knowing where she was going, just away from the empty bedroom downstairs and the memories it evoked?

  But then a light breeze brushed her cheek. The dormer window stood open. Holly knew instantly where Leo had gone.

  She crossed the room, climbed onto the desk chair, and stepped out onto the roof. Once her eyes had adapted to the darkness, she spread her arms to both sides and bala
nced along the roof. When she rounded the chimney, she could make out a shadowy figure huddling against the bricks.

  Leo.

  She sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees and stared out over the town. Holly wasn’t sure she actually saw any of it.

  “Hey,” she said softly as she approached so she wouldn’t startle her.

  Leo didn’t flinch, almost as if she had expected Holly to show up on the roof. Or maybe she had just heard her climb up.

  Holly settled next to her. They sat with their shoulders pressing into each other, neither of them speaking. She wanted to ask if Leo was okay but held back. Of course Leo wasn’t okay. Who would be after a day like this?

  While Holly turned her head to study her, Leo continued to stare straight ahead. When they had been in the hospital, Leo hadn’t cried a single tear, not even right after her father had died. But now tears trembled on her lashes. It had been the same for Holly after her own father’s accident. She had held herself together for her mother and had only fallen apart after Sasha had taken her home.

  Leo sniffed and brushed the tears away with an abrupt movement, as if she was annoyed at herself for allowing that display of emotion.

  Holly wrapped one arm around her. “It’s okay to cry and be sad, Leo. Let it out.”

  Leo stiffened. “I don’t need to…” she started to mumble, but the tears were already falling, much too fast now to brush them all away.

  Holly’s eyes grew damp too. “It’s okay,” she said again.

  With a groan, Leo buried her face against Holly’s shoulder. Tears soaked into the fabric of Holly’s shirt. Leo made no sound as she cried, but her body shook with silent sobs.

  “God,” she got out, even as she cried, “what is this? I don’t normally…”

  “Shhh.” Holly slid her fingers into Leo’s hair to keep her face against her shoulder and bent to kiss the top of her head. “This wasn’t a normal day.”

  Finally, the shaking and the tears stopped. Leo hiccuped once and took a shuddery breath before lifting her face off Holly’s shoulder.

  Her eyes were puffy; her nose was red and her hair a tangled mess. She blew her nose on a tissue, ran the back of her hand over both cheeks, and gave Holly a weak smile. “If my fans could see me now… Sexy, right?”

  Holly regarded her seriously. “I don’t care how sexy you are. I just care about how you are here.” She gently touched her fingertips to Leo’s chest, right over her heart.

  For a second, Leo looked as if she might start to cry again. Instead, she put her hand on Holly’s and pressed it to her chest. “Thank you for everything you did today. I don’t know how I would have survived all of it without you. I was in no shape to drive us to Kansas City and back without crashing.”

  “Of course you weren’t. I wasn’t either when my dad…when we got the call from the hospital.” It had been five years, but right now, Holly felt raw, as if it had happened only a few hours ago.

  “That’s different,” Leo said. “You and your father…you were close, right?”

  Holly nodded and smiled, trying to hang on to the good memories, not the bad ones. “I was the quintessential daddy’s girl.”

  “That’s just it. It was never like that between my father and me. We never got along. I really don’t know why…” Her voice wobbled. “…why it’s hitting me like this.”

  “He was your father,” Holly said, as if that explained it all. To her, it did. She turned her hand and intertwined their fingers. “And maybe it’s hitting you like this because you never got along. You’re grieving not just for your father, but also for all the lost opportunities. It’s gotta be tough to know you’ll never get the chance to settle things between you.”

  Leo slid her knees away from her chest, stretched out her legs, and put their hands down on her thigh. She studied their linked fingers for a while before looking up. “We did, you know? Settle things between us. Well, kind of.”

  “You did?”

  Leo nodded. “After what you said to me at the creek…about me wanting to spend time with you only so I didn’t have to deal with my dad…”

  “I shouldn’t have said that or that you were okay with no sex only so it would be easy to walk away.” Truth be told, she’d been grabbing at straws, trying to find reasons to keep her distance so she wouldn’t end up getting her heart broken.

  “No, you were right.”

  A stab went through Holly’s chest, but she forced herself not to react.

  But apparently, Leo knew her well enough by now to sense how much that had hurt. She tipped up Holly’s chin with her free hand so their gazes met. “I didn’t mean it like that. I love spending time with you, just because…because you’re you. You get me. You see me—the real me.”

  The pain in Holly’s chest was replaced by warmth. They looked into each other’s eyes.

  Leo cleared her throat. “What I meant is that you were right about me avoiding having to deal with my father. I knew it all along, but I was content not to think about it or do anything about it. What you said at the creek…that really hurt.”

  Holly bowed her head, unable to look her in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Leo squeezed her hand in silent acknowledgment. “At least it kicked my butt in gear and forced me to face the past. To face my dad. So when I got back home, I offered to take over the night shift.”

  “How did that go?”

  Leo covered her eyes with her free hand. For a moment, Holly thought she might be hiding renewed tears, but then Leo chuckled. “God, I might be the world’s most inept nurse. Dad got pretty frustrated with me. He is…was not the most patient man.”

  “So unlike his daughter,” Holly said with a smile.

  Leo grimaced. “Who threw a bottle of wine and stormed off instead of staying and talking it out. Yeah, maybe he and I really do have something in common. That’s where our awkward conversation ended up last night—Dad pointing out that we have two things in common.”

  Holly gave her a questioning gaze.

  “Music,” Leo said. “And women.”

  Gil had really said that? “Wow, that’s—”

  Leo sighed. “I know it’s not much.”

  “No, no, that’s great. For a man like your father, that’s a huge concession.”

  “It is. It didn’t magically erase all the problems between us, but I thought…I thought maybe it could be a new beginning. And now…” She raised her empty palm skyward as if trying to reach for something that would forever escape her grasp.

  “Sometimes, that beginning is all that counts, and you’ll have to trust that it would have been the start to something great, even though you can’t be sure of it. It’s still a good thing that you got to share that with him.”

  Leo seemed to think about it for several seconds, then she slowly nodded and turned to look at Holly.

  “What?” Holly squirmed a little under that intense gaze.

  “I’m just wondering whether that’s true about us—you and me—too. Maybe we should have that kind of trust too and just…try.”

  “Are you really up for that discussion now?” Holly wasn’t. All she wanted right now was to hold Leo and take away her pain. Rejecting her a second time was impossible tonight. Because you don’t want to hurt her…or because you want to say yes to whatever she’s offering?

  “You’re right. Add awful timing to the list of things my father and I have in common.”

  Holly shook her head. “You talked and found some common ground just in time…” She bit her lip. “I’d say that’s pretty good timing.”

  Leo wrapped her other hand around Holly’s and gave a gentle squeeze.

  Again, their gazes connected.

  Holly swallowed. She had to get Leo off the roof, out of this emotionally charged atmosphere, before she could do something stupid. Like kiss her. It surpr
ised her how much she wanted to do that.

  Leo looked away first. “Is Mom still sleeping?”

  “Yes. I gave her something so she could sleep through the night.” She got up, carefully balancing on the roof, and pulled Leo up with her by their joined hands. “And now I’ll take you to bed too. Uh, I mean…”

  “Relax. I know what you mean.”

  They climbed back to the window, with Holly leading the way, and slipped into the room.

  “Are you going home?” Leo asked. “Or will you sleep in your…in the guest room?”

  It didn’t sound like a casual question. There was need behind it. Holly studied Leo’s face, which was still a little puffy from crying. “Where do you want me to sleep?”

  Leo’s shoulders lifted and fell under a deep breath. “I want you to stay. But not over there.” She waved toward the guest room and lifted her gaze to Holly’s eyes. “I want you to sleep with me.”

  Holly’s mouth was as dry as a bag of sawdust.

  “Uh, I mean, sleep,” Leo added hastily. “Just sleep. I…I don’t want to be alone tonight. But if it would make you uncomfortable…”

  The tremor of vulnerability in her voice made Holly’s heart melt. She couldn’t say no—and she didn’t want to. “No, it doesn’t. Come on. Let’s get ready for bed.”

  She tried to make it sound casual, as if it were something she did every day, but Leo seemed to look right through her.

  “Are you sure?”

  Holly nodded. “I’m sure. Do you want the bathroom first?”

  “No, you go ahead.”

  As Holly passed her on the way to the door, she squeezed her hand. Amazing how naturally little touches like that came.

  She went into the guest room to get her pajamas before stepping into the bathroom. Her hands were a little unsteady as she slid out of her clothes and turned on the water in the shower.

  There was no reason to be nervous, she told herself. Nothing would happen. Leo was grieving.

  But maybe that wasn’t what made her so nervous. Okay, not just that. Sleeping with someone—just sleeping—was pretty intimate for her, especially in a bed as narrow as the one in Leo’s childhood room. There was no way to avoid touching, being in some kind of contact all night. Would she be able to sleep like this?