by Marie Force
He shook his head. “Jamie made me eat earlier. He was with me the whole time. I kept trying to get him to go home, but he wouldn’t.”
Andi had never seen Jack looking more exhausted. “I’m glad he was there. How is she?”
“Still the same. They can’t figure out why she’s not responding to the antibiotics.” He rested his head on her shoulder and ran a hand over her pregnant belly. “How are you, hon?”
“I’m fine, Jack. Don’t worry about me.”
“I do worry about you. And them.” He bent to press a kiss to the bump.
She ran her fingers through his hair, her heart aching for the pain she felt coming from him. “We’re fine, sweetheart.”
“I’m going to soak for a bit.”
“I’ll be right here.”
“Good.” He kissed her and went into the bathroom.
Clare’s fever lasted twelve days. Just when Jack was certain he was losing her for good this time, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
Part IV
Backstroke: Swimming forward while appearing to go backward.
Chapter 27
When Clare opened her eyes and focused on him, Jack jumped to his feet. He could see right away that the vacant look she’d worn in her eyes for the last three years was gone, and she was alert. “Clare? Oh my God! Can you hear me?”
“Mmm.”
He ran to the door yelling for a doctor.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered when he returned to her bedside and took her hand. “Why am I here?” Her voice was weak and rough, but it was Clare. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the sound of her voice.
He leaned over the bed rail to kiss her forehead. “You’ve had a bad fever.” Tears rolled unchecked down his face.
“Why are you so upset? Was I sick for a long time?”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely.
“I’m thirsty.”
The doctor came in, followed by two of the nurses who’d been caring for her in the hospital. Jack asked one of them to go get Kate, Maggie, Clare’s mother Anna, and her nurse Sally in the cafeteria.
“Clare, how’re you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Weak,” she replied in a raspy whisper. “And very thirsty.”
“She can have some water,” the doctor told the nurse.
The door opened, and Kate flew into the room ahead of the others, who were close behind. She took one look at her mother and burst into tears.
Clare attempted to hold a weak hand out to her middle daughter. “Kate, honey, come here.”
Kate fell sobbing across her mother’s chest.
Clare struggled to get her hand up to comfort Kate, but the years of inactivity had rendered her muscles almost useless, despite the physical therapy she’d received nearly every day.
Maggie stood frozen in place.
Sobbing softly, Anna moved to the other side of the bed and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
As the surreal scene unfolded before him, Jack couldn’t believe what they’d spent three years hoping for had finally happened. Then he remembered he needed to call Jill at school, so he stepped into the hallway.
“Hi, Dad. What’s up?”
“Honey…”
“Did Mom die?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Quite the opposite. She’s awake. Really awake.”
“What?”
“I want you to come home, but if you don’t think you can concentrate on driving, get someone to bring you. Do you hear me?”
“I’m leaving right now. I’ll be careful,” she assured him. “She’s really awake?”
“Honest to God.”
“I can’t believe this. I’ll be right there.”
“See you soon, honey.”
He ended the call, went back into Clare’s room, and approached Maggie. “Honey, do you want to see Mommy?”
Maggie’s eyes were glassy with shock, and Jack cast a worried look at Sally, who kept an arm around Maggie.
“Sweetie?” He took Maggie’s hand to lead her to Clare’s bedside.
Clare inhaled sharply. “Maggie! You’re so big! How long have I been here, Jack? I don’t remember being sick.”
Maggie stared at her mother while Kate sobbed quietly.
“Guys, can you give me a few minutes with Mom?” Jack asked. “Just a few, and then I’ll bring you right back in, okay?” He helped Kate up and gave her Maggie’s hand. “Will you call Frannie and Jamie?”
Kate wiped her face and nodded.
Anna ushered her granddaughters into the hallway.
When they were alone, Jack took Clare’s hand again and perched on the edge of the bed. He had no idea how to tell her what she needed to hear.
“Jack, what’s wrong with me? Why is everyone so upset?”
He rested his forehead on their joined hands for a moment trying to collect himself and then looked up at her. “Almost three years ago, you were hit by a car.”
She gasped when he told her the date. “Three years?”
“You suffered a massive head injury, and they said you probably wouldn’t recover. But you have, and it’s a miracle.”
“That can’t be. I was with the girls…”
“It happened in the mall parking lot. Do you remember anything about it?”
“Nothing.” She looked away from him to process what he’d told her. “Where’s Jill?”
“In college at Brown. She’s been here, but she had to go back yesterday.”
She turned back to him, eyes wide. “She’s in college? Oh my God.”
“I called her. She’ll be here soon.” His emotions again overwhelmed him, and his voice broke. “So much has happened, Clare.” For the first time in an hour, he thought of Andi at home, pregnant with his babies, while he talked to the wife he’d thought lost to him forever. The magnitude of it all settled like a block of ice in his gut.
“The girls are so grown up.”
“You’d have been so proud of them. We visited you often.”
“Where was I?”
He pushed the button on her bed to help her sit up a bit. “We had you at home with us for more than a year. After a while, when we’d accepted you weren’t coming back to us—or we thought you weren’t—I bought a place for you. I hired nurses to take care of you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
She hung on his every word.
“I’ll tell you something else that’s new,” he said with a smile. “Frannie married Jamie more than a year ago, and they had twins last summer.”
She gasped. “They did not.”
As if on cue, they walked into the room. Frannie put a hand over her mouth and shook her head in disbelief when she heard Clare talking.
“Oh, it’s true!” she cried as she moved to Clare’s bedside. “Oh, thank God!”
“You guys are married?”
Blinking back tears, Jamie showed Clare his wedding ring. “Married with eight-month-old twins, Owen and Olivia.” He took a photo out of his wallet and held it up for her.
As she gazed at the picture of the babies, tears leaked from Clare’s eyes.
“Frannie saved my life,” Jack said. “She lived with us for the first year and a half and took care of the girls. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her.”
“Thank you,” Clare whispered to Frannie, who gripped her hand.
Kate stuck her head into the room. “Dad? Can we come back in?”
“Of course.”
Maggie still looked shocked, but this time she walked right over to her mother’s bedside.
“It’s okay, Maggie,” Clare whispered.
“Are you going away again?”
Heartbroken for her, Jack put his arm around his daughter.
“Not if I can help it,” Clare said.
Maggie reached for her mother’s hand. “I missed you so much.”
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so terribly sorry.”
The door
burst open again, and Jill came flying in, stopping short when she saw her mother talking to Maggie.
“Jill,” Clare whispered. “Oh, you’re all grown up! Come here so I can see you.”
Jill took a few steps forward, and Jack moved to let her in. She leaned down to kiss her mother’s cheek and shook with sobs.
Jack ran his hand over Jill’s back.
The doctor on call returned with the neurologist who’d treated Clare early on.
“Mr. Harrington, I’m Dr. Blake. I consulted on your wife’s case.”
Recalling their grim meeting weeks after the accident, Jack shook his hand. “I remember.”
“This is quite a development.” Dr. Blake smiled and nodded toward Clare, who was absorbed in the girls’ excitement. “It’s nothing short of a miracle.”
“Indeed,” Jack said, his stomach aching at the implications.
“As you can imagine, we’re anxious to fully examine her,” Dr. Blake said. “But I can see this isn’t the time.”
“She’s been through a lot, especially over the last twelve days,” the attending physician added. “We don’t want to wear her out.”
“I’ll clear the girls out soon, and the rest of us will go, too, so she can get some rest,” Jack assured the doctors.
He let the girls visit with their mother for another half hour before he sent them home. Frannie and Jamie took Anna home with them for the night, and they promised to come back the next day.
After everyone left, Jack returned his attention to Clare. “Are you tired?”
She nodded, and her eyes filled again. “I can’t stand that I missed three years of their lives, our lives.”
“I can’t imagine how that must feel.” He paused and debated, not sure if it might be too soon… “Clare, there was something kind of odd about your accident.”
“How so?”
He hesitated again, but three years of horrible uncertainty won out against his better judgment. “When the car hit you, it seemed like you didn’t really try to get out of the way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The girls said you seemed to let the car hit you. I didn’t believe you’d do something like that until I saw the video—”
“What video?”
“From mall security.”
“I want to see it.”
“That’s not a good idea. It’s very upsetting.”
“I want to see it,” she insisted.
Reluctantly, he said, “I’ll bring it with me tomorrow.”
She had a faraway look on her face as she tried to think back. “I remember shopping with the girls, but nothing else from around that time. It’s all fuzzy.”
“Don’t worry too much about it tonight, okay?” He smoothed her blonde hair back from her brow and kissed her forehead. “We’ll figure it all out. You need some rest.” He stood up and reached for his jacket. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Jack?”
He turned to her.
“What else did I miss?” she asked, her brows knitted with worry.
Swallowing hard, he said, “Nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow.”
On his way upstairs, Jack checked on each of the girls, who were euphoric to have their mother back, but he could tell they were still processing it, as he was himself. He walked up the spiral stairs to find Andi packing a small bag. Eric sat on the bed with his backpack next to him. His eyes were red from crying.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked.
Andi kept her head down. “I’m taking what we need for a couple of days. I’ll send for the rest later.”
He put his hand over hers to stop her. “A couple of days? Where’re you going?”
Eric watched them intently.
“To the hotel until we find something more permanent,” Andi said. She still hadn’t looked at him.
“You aren’t leaving, Andi. This is ridiculous. You’re pregnant. This is your home,” he said desperately. He signed to Eric, asking him to please take his bag and wait for them in his room. “Everything’s all right, buddy. I’ll be down in a minute, okay?”
Eric nodded and did as Jack asked.
Jack turned back to Andi as she zipped the small black bag. He took her hand and tugged her down next to him on the bed.
“Look at me.” He used his finger on her chin to compel her to meet his gaze. Her eyes were broken, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her. “I don’t want you to go.”
“This is her home, and she’ll want it back now. It was on loan to me, just as you were.”
“No, Andi. I was never on loan to you. I love you. I want you to stay.” He tried to embrace her, but she moved out of his reach. “I need you.”
“You’re married, Jack. My mother was right all along.”
When she stood, he took hold of her arm.
“Your wife will need you, and she won’t want to share you. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.” She tugged her arm free and picked up her bag.
“So that’s it? You’re just leaving? What about Eric? What about our babies?”
“Eric will want to see you, but that’ll be up to you. We’ll work something out when the babies are born. Please, Jack. Let me go now.”
Brushing past him, she took her bag and went downstairs to Eric’s room, where she put his backpack on him and took his hand.
“Honey, listen to me,” Jack said. “Let’s talk about this. We don’t have to decide anything tonight.” He followed her through the darkened house to the front door. He caught up to her and put a hand on the door so she couldn’t open it. “Please.”
She reached for the door handle, and when she pulled to open it, he removed his hand to let her.
Eric looked up at Jack with big blue eyes. “I love you,” he signed.
“I love you, too. I always will.” Jack felt like his heart had been ripped out and run over as they walked to her car.
Andi opened the back door for Eric, helped him into his booster seat, and got into the driver’s seat.
Jack walked up to the door before she could close it. “Andi, honey. Please don’t go. I love you so much.”
“Bye, Jack.” She closed the door and drove off without looking back.
He watched her taillights fade out of sight and then took off running. He ran for miles without paying any attention to where he was or where he was going, emerging from his daze to discover he was on the beach. Exhausted, he fell to his knees on the sand and screamed, with agony and joy at war inside of him.
When he had screamed himself hoarse, he wept.
Andi got Eric settled in bed and tried again to explain why they’d had to leave Jack’s house.
“He loves you,” she reminded her son as she brushed tears off his cheeks. “He’ll be in touch with you. I know he will.”
“It won’t be the same as when we lived there.”
“No, baby, it won’t.”
After he’d nodded off, still sobbing in his sleep, she tucked the covers up around him and walked out of his room. Swiping at fresh tears of her own, she blamed herself for his heartbreak. She’d allowed him to love a man and a family that didn’t really belong to them.
They were staying in the suite Infinity provided to each of its property managers so they could live at the hotel if they wished to. Since she hadn’t needed the suite before now, it’d been available to guests. Fortunately, it wasn’t booked that night. They could stay there as long as they needed to, but she hoped to find more of a real home for Eric and the babies when she caught her breath.
Andi sat on the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table, seeking relief for her swollen ankles. When she ran her hand along her burgeoning waistline she felt a first flutter and recognized it as a baby moving. In that moment, the dam broke, and her gut-wrenching sobs would’ve woken Eric if he could’ve heard them. She cried until there was nothing left, and then she slept on the sofa, dreaming of Jack. But when she reached out to him in he
r sleep, she couldn’t get to him. Suddenly awake and forced to absorb the blow all over again, she dragged herself to bed and drifted back into a fitful sleep. This time she dreamed of two beautiful babies with dark hair and gray eyes.
Jack spent a sleepless night worrying about Clare as well as Andi and Eric. In the morning, when he tried to reach Andi at the hotel, she refused his call.
Despite their protests, he sent the girls to school. They’d missed enough days since Clare had been in the hospital, and he promised they could see their mother right after school.
Jill wondered how she’d ever concentrate on her classes, but he encouraged her to try.
“Where’re Andi and Eric?” Maggie asked over breakfast.
“They went to stay at the hotel for a few days.”
“They can’t live with us anymore, can they?” she asked sadly.
The pain must’ve shown on his face, because Kate intervened.
“Let’s go, Maggie,” Kate said. “I’ll drop her off, Dad.”
“Thanks.” He kissed them good-bye. “I’ll see you after school.”
Feeling as though he were trudging through quicksand, Jack walked into the hospital and took the elevator to the seventh floor, where Clare had been moved from the intensive care unit after her fever broke.
Propped up in bed, she lit up when he came in.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” He kissed her cheek and set a dozen yellow roses in a crystal vase on the table. Her dazzling blue eyes were filled with life, the way he remembered them, and he was once again so grateful to have her back. But when he thought about what he had to tell her, his stomach ached and his heart raced.
“The flowers are gorgeous. You look exhausted. Didn’t you sleep?”
“I’m fine. Have the doctors been in yet?”
“I talked to the neurologist, but I couldn’t tell him much.” Her voice was already stronger than it’d been the day before. “The psychiatrist will be in later this morning to talk about the accident.”
“What about rehab?”