Boardwalk Summer

by Kimberly Fisk

  And then the words she’d fought all day to forget came back to her. Ask him. Ask him when he called.

  Through blurry eyes, she looked at him, asked, “When did you call me?”

  “What?”

  “Sixteen years ago, when you called and my mother answered. When?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Think!”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. Ten months or so after I’d left.”

  Ten months.

  “You never had any intention of meeting me, did you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The plans we’d made. To meet on the courthouse steps.”

  “Hope, I told you. I wasn’t even able to support myself.”

  “It rained that day.” She really didn’t know what else to say. And truly, there was nothing left to say.

  * * *

  WEARILY, Hope set her suitcase down in the hallway outside Joshua’s room (she knew its appearance would cause him to ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer) and eased the door open. His room was dark, illuminated solely by a single wall sconce dimmed as low as it could go. She paused in the doorway, let her eyes adjust. From the moment she’d exited the limo Nick had hired and entered the hospital, she’d been inundated by harsh, overly bright lights. As her vision adjusted to his room’s darkness, she saw that Joshua was lying on his side, facing away from her. Careful not to disturb him in case he was asleep, she closed the door quietly, but the moment the latch clicked, he rolled over.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey, baby,” she said, making her way to his bed.

  Even in a room with more shadows than light, she could see how pale he was. How exhaustion pulled at his features, pain clouded his eyes.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked, and it took her a moment to remember the lie she’d told to cover for her trip. Fresh guilt assaulted her.

  “Yes,” she said truthfully. “I am.” No matter what else had happened during the last thirty-six hours, the test was being run to see if her mother was a match. That was all that mattered. “But more importantly, how are you feeling?”

  He tried to smile, but she could see the effort it cost. “Fine, but I missed you.”

  She took his hand in hers, kissed the back of it. “I missed you too.” Once his fingers had been callused by his constant guitar playing; now they were as smooth as a toddler’s. “Anything exciting happen while I was away?”

  “Yeah. The place went nuts. Some crazy in the kitchen decided to swap out the orange Jell-O to strawberry.”

  Hope smiled. “Wild times to be sure.”

  Josh shivered.

  “Are you cold?” She grabbed the extra blanket from the bottom of his bed and went to cover him. But he’d scooted over. She smiled. “Well, now I know you missed me. I usually have to pester, beg, and bribe you to let me snuggle.” She slipped off her shoes and as carefully as she could lay down next to him. Gently, she pulled him into her arms, settling his head in the crook of her shoulder. He’d lost so much weight. She tried not to dwell on that as she kissed the top of his head and rested her cheek against his forehead. He let out a sigh and tucked in deep. She ran her hand up and down his arm, lulling them both with the rhythmic action.

  “You didn’t eat your dinner,” Hope said a few moments later. “Not even the wild new Jell-O flavor.”

  “Who ratted me out?” His voice was tired, but his exhaustion had nothing to do with physical exertion and everything to do with the constant internal battle he fought just to keep going.

  “Everyone’s concerned, honey, that’s all.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Even with the door shut there was no way to block out the noise. Footsteps hurried past the door. Voices drifted in—some quiet, some loud. Equipment was pushed up and down the hallway, wheels squeaking. The intercom system clicked on and off, never seeming to rest. Call holding on line one for Dr. Krajcher. Dr. Krajcher, line one. Dr. Somlyo holding on line three. Dr. Somlyo holding on line three. And even if by some miracle they had been able to block all of that out, the machines surrounding the head of Joshua’s bed, monitoring his vitals, wouldn’t let them forget. Drip. Beep. Whoosh. Drip. Beep. Whoosh.

  “You know what I was thinking about today?” Josh said.

  “No, what?” Her hand kept stroking his arm. Down and up. Down and up.

  “Your homemade pancakes.”

  “With chocolate chips and strawberries?”

  “Are there any other kind? And don’t forget the whipped cream.”

  “And whipped cream.” She smiled against his forehead. “I could make you some and bring them in tomorrow.”

  “Nah. I don’t want them in here. When I get—” His voice caught, broke.

  Hope waited, but only silence stretched before them.

  She tightened her grip around his shoulder. “The minute you get home, I’ll make you the biggest stack of pancakes you’ve ever seen.”

  He let out a sigh that turned into a shudder. She snugged the comforter more firmly around him, enfolded him more securely in her arms.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Tears welled in her eyes and she tilted her head back, willed them not to fall. “Anything for my boy.”

  “Do you have to leave soon?”

  She blinked, surreptitiously wiped at her eyes. “No way are you getting rid of me that easily.” When the town car had dropped her off, she’d thanked the young man and told him he didn’t have to wait as she didn’t know how long she’d be. But the driver had flatly refused to budge, telling her Mr. Fortune had left specific instructions for the car to wait however long he needed to. Even if that meant staying all night. Hope had tried to reason with the young man, telling him she could call a cab when she was ready to leave. At his look of affront at the mention of a cab, she’d said she could call him then instead of a cab. But no matter her arguments or suggestions, the driver wasn’t leaving and he would be waiting for her whenever she was ready to be driven home.

  “I guess I can put up with you a little while longer,” Josh said. “Wanna watch a movie?”

  “Only if it’s not a slasher film.” She reached for the remote that was connected to a long cord.

  “Nuh-uh,” Josh said, taking the remote from her. “You’ll have us watching a chick flick if I let you choose.” He turned on the TV.

  “If I don’t get a chick flick, you don’t get a horror one.”

  “Deal,” Josh said. “Besides, I save those for Susan.”

  They settled on one of the Mission Impossible movies. Hope could not have said which one it was except that Tom Cruise starred in it, but by the time the credits were rolling, Joshua was truly and fully asleep. Hating to leave, she gave him a final kiss, turned off the TV, and eased off the bed.

  True to his word, the driver was waiting for her the moment she exited the hospital.

  Catching sight of her, he jumped out of his car and hurried around, taking her suitcase from her. “I told you to let me keep that while you were inside.”

  “And I told you not to wait.”

  “He said you’d be stubborn,” the chauffeur said as he stowed her suitcase in the trunk of the car.

  Hope had no doubt who “he” was, and she was tempted to ask what else he had said about her. But self-preservation kept her quiet. The less she thought about—or talked about—Nick, the better.

  Eighteen

  DANA was fast asleep on the couch when Hope got home. The blanket Dana had pulled over herself had fallen to the ground and as Hope picked it up, intent on covering Dana, her friend woke.

  “Hey,” Dana said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “You’re home.”

  “I’m sorry it’s so late.” Last time Hope had checked her phone it had been nearing midnight.

  “No worries, I got y
our texts.” Dana swung her feet over the side of the couch and sat up. “Besides, you know I’m here for whenever and however long you need me.”

  “You didn’t have to sleep on the couch. I told you to sleep in my bed.”

  “I like your couch.” She patted the spot next to her.

  Hope sat down. “Good couch. Better friend.” She gently bumped her shoulder against Dana’s. “How’s Susan?”

  “Asleep. Went to bed around nine.”

  “Nine? Really?”

  “Yeah,” Dana said, yawning. “I thought that seemed kinda early too. But the first few times I checked on her, she was on her laptop. And then the last time, she was zonked.”

  “Zonking out sounds pretty good,” Hope said, resting her head on the back of the couch.

  “I made pizza.”

  Hope cocked a brow in Dana’s direction.

  “Yes, from a box. But hey, the crust was self-rising, whatever that means. That’s gotta count for something.”

  Hope smiled. “Yes, it does.”

  “Won’t take but a minute to reheat.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

  It was Dana’s turn to lift an eyebrow in Hope’s direction. “It’s late so I won’t pester, but know I’ve got my eye on you. You get any skinnier and I’m going to have to force-feed you.”

  Hope snagged a throw pillow from the corner of the couch and hugged it to her stomach. “You already do.”

  “Obviously not enough. If I can’t entice you with my fresh-from-the-box pizza, how about with wine? I brought over a nice bottle of pinot grigio. I’ll share as long as you withhold the white-wine-with-meat argument. Though I don’t think meat on pizza really counts. Anyway, you know pinot grigio is my one and only love.”

  “I won’t say no to wine.”

  Dana popped up and was in and out of the kitchen in moments carrying two wineglasses. She handed one to Hope. “To getting Claire tested,” Dana said, gently clinking their glasses.

  Hope returned the toast. “To getting tested.” She took a swallow and couldn’t help the doubt that crept in. What if her mother wasn’t a match for Joshua? What would they do then? The national donor registry hadn’t come up with any compatible matches. Her mother had to be a match because if she wasn’t, the alternative was unbearable.

  Dana gave Hope an assessing look over the rim of her glass. “So, should we toast to anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Like you getting laid.”

  Hope nearly spewed her wine. “I didn’t say—”

  “Exactly. It’s what you didn’t say that told me everything. You wanna tell me about it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “So no, you don’t. But you might as well because we both know that in the end, I’ll find a way to weasel it out of you.”

  Hope hugged the pillow tighter. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  “You’re the last person I’d ever think of as stupid.”

  “You don’t know what I did,” Hope said.

  “I think I do. And about time. You know the saying—use it or lose it. I was afraid that by now you’d lost it, it’d been so long.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  Dana took another drink of her wine. “That blush that is turning your face fifty shades of red tells me differently.”

  Impossibly, Hope felt her face grow even hotter. “Joshua is sick. I have no right to . . .”

  “To what? To be happy? To be human?” Dana ran her fingers up and down the stem of her wineglass. “I thought maybe Nick would be with you when you came home.”

  “He—” Tears pushed against the back of her eyes. “He left. Again.” Hope shook her head. “How could I have brought him back into our lives?”

  Dana scooted closer, put her arm around Hope. “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “I had a choice about last night.”

  “Sometimes our hearts don’t give us one.”

  Our hearts.

  For the second time in her life, she’d fallen in love with Nick. How could she have made the same mistake twice in her life? And then she realized the error of her thinking. She hadn’t made the same mistake twice because she’d never fallen out of love with Nick. But this time it wasn’t only her heart that would end up broken.

  I’m done lying.

  I’m telling Joshua and Susan who I am.

  “Hope, what’s wrong?”

  Hope looked up at Dana. There were so many ways she could answer Dana’s question, so many things she could say. She could tell Dana that while she’d been dreaming of a lifetime of tomorrows with all of them together, Nick hadn’t been able to leave quickly enough.

  “What am I going to do? How I am going to protect them?”

  * * *

  NOT long after, Dana headed home. Hope tried to convince her to spend the night, it was so late after all, but Dana said her man (Oscar, her cat) and her DVR were summoning her.

  “Call if you need anything,” Dana said with a final kiss and hug as she got into her car. “Anytime about anything. I’m getting better about my cell, I promise.” She paused, her keys in her hand. “Now you promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “To?” Dana prompted.

  “To call,” Hope said, closing the car door.

  Dana started the car and rolled down her window. “All I have on tomorrow’s schedule is cleaning, so I’m yours if you need me.”

  “Cleaning? As in clearing out your DVR?”

  “You know me too well. I’m four episodes behind on Game of Thrones.”

  “Ah, your second love. After pinot.”

  “My third,” Dana said, releasing her emergency brake. “You know I was only kidding earlier. You’re my one true love. Now get some sleep. Love you!”

  The house seemed even quieter when Hope went back inside. She locked the door behind her, then took the wineglasses into the kitchen, gave them a quick wash, and set them in the rack to dry. Shutting off lights behind her, she made her way down the hall. She paused at Susan’s door, her hand on the doorknob. She was about to quietly slip in to give her daughter a good-night kiss when she noticed the narrow strip of light under her daughter’s door.

  “Knock, knock,” she said, opening the door.

  Susan was lying on her bed, her phone next to her and a bottle of fingernail polish in her hand. A plate with a half-eaten piece of pizza and her laptop sat next to her.

  Hope leaned against the doorjamb. “Hi, honey. I didn’t think you were awake. It’s so late.”

  Susan gave a halfhearted shrug. “I wasn’t. I mean, I haven’t been for long.” She continued to paint her nail, not bothering to look up.

  “Dana just left.”

  “Yeah, I heard the door.”

  Hope glanced around. Her daughter’s room was usually a chaotic mess of clothes and books and papers and jewelry and everything else deemed vital to a teenager’s life, but now, the room was almost painfully perfect. Everything had been picked up and put away. Even the beige carpet had been vacuumed. The spotless room should have made Hope happy, but it didn’t. It was just yet another reminder of all the changes in their lives lately. “You cleaned.”

  Susan kept her concentration focused on her nails as she tried to put polish on her right hand. “I tried.”

  “It looks great.”

  Another shrug.

  “Did you and Chelsey have fun?”

  “It was okay. We worked on some stuff.”

  “I’d love to know what.”

  Susan paused midstroke, the tiny nail brush in her hand. “And I’d love to know where you went.”

  “I told you—”

  “Never mind.” Susan’s voice held an edge. “I know you won’t tell me. You never tell me anything but exp
ect me to tell you everything.”

  Hope leaned her head against the door and rubbed a hand across her eyes. She was so tired and the last thing she wanted was to argue with Susan. But lately it seemed they couldn’t be in the same room together without being at odds. Nothing Hope did anymore was right. Nothing she said was right. Before Joshua’s illness, the three of them hardly argued. Oh, they had the occasional scuffle but none of the teenage tempers Hope had heard about from so many parents. Joshua and Susan were perfect children. A hard lump caught in Hope’s throat as she remembered her last glimpse of Joshua’s tired body before she’d left him tonight. Nearly perfect, her mind corrected.

  For a fleeting moment, Hope entertained the thought of telling Susan where she’d been—who she’d seen. But as quickly as the thought came, it went. What if Claire wasn’t a match? What if Hope told her children about their grandmother and then it turned out all to be for naught? There would be no way for Hope to protect her children’s hearts from breaking from their grandmother’s years of abandonment. Hope would be the worst possible mother to expose her kids to that type of heartache. “I’m trying to protect you,” Hope said. “You and your brother.”

  “Well, stop.”

  “I can’t. I’m your mom.” Hope crossed the room, tapped Susan’s outstretched legs. “Lift,” she said, just like she’d said thousands of times before. For a long minute, Susan didn’t move, but then she lifted her legs. Hope sat and Susan lowered her legs until they were lying over Hope’s lap.

  As Hope sat there, next to her daughter, she heard the faint strains of music coming from Susan’s iPod. “That’s a pretty song.”

  “Adele.”

  Hope rested her hand on Susan’s leg. “I think I’ve heard of her.”

  Susan rolled her eyes. “You’re old, Mom, but not that old.”

  Hope gave a short laugh. “I’ll take the compliment.”

  “Shoot.” Susan capped her nail polish and grabbed for her remover. Uncorking the pungent-smelling stuff, she poured some on a cotton ball and began scrubbing away the polish she’d just put on. “Why can’t my left hand work as good as my right?” She scrubbed harder with the cotton ball.