“So Ethan…” There was a long pause as David looked down and pulled in a long breath, his voice cracking only enough for Ethan to hear.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the job you’ve done there. I know your dreams crashed and burned that night, but you came back stronger and you fought harder because of it. What you’ve done for that hospital, what you’ve done for the town, what you’ve done for the kids? In my book, there is nothing more heroic than that. The fact that we’re all celebrating you tonight is testament to the fact that I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
David turned and nodded to someone offscreen. Suddenly, what looked like an entire platoon of soldiers filtered in behind him. “This is for you, big brother. You are my hero.”
As one, the soldiers saluted, then shouted a loud “Hooah!”
The audience sat in silence for a moment, and then a roar of applause started at the back and rippled toward the front. Before Ethan could take a deep breath and gather himself, the crowd was on its feet, clapping and whistling. He looked around in awe, then at Molly, whose eyes were glistening.
Josh’s voice came back over the microphone. “We chose someone very special to present this award tonight—someone who’s known Ethan forever, someone who grew up with him, loves him, and has threatened to marry him if he doesn’t settle down one of these days.” The audience tittered again as Ethan leveled a glance at Molly.
“She claims she’s got secrets that could tarnish his heroic reputation, but she promises not to reveal them … for the right price.” Josh cocked his head and his eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry, Ethan. I’m not sure I want to know what that means.” More laughter. “But without further ado, to present this year’s Hospital Hero award, Miss Molly Bellini.”
Ethan glanced toward the doorway one more time, but his heart already knew he’d find it empty. Josie wasn’t coming. In fact, Josie was probably already halfway back to Boston. His feet were cement blocks as he pasted on a smile and took Molly’s arm to walk toward the podium.
* * *
“Josie? Where are you? Are you all right?” Kirsten’s worried voice came across the line as Josie sat at a picnic table, idly scratching at the wooden surface with a twig.
“I’m fine. Good.” She took a deep breath. “Well, actually, I’m kind of a disaster, but I’m a disaster with a semblance of a plan.”
“Which is?”
Josie closed her eyes tightly. “I need to go back, Kirsten. I thought I could leave, but I only got to Concord before I had to stop. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t okay. We have a practice together. I need to be in Boston.”
“Josie—”
“I’m so sorry. I hate that I’m doing this to you, but omigod, I love that damn man. I love him even though he’s destined to spend half his life in a stupid Santa costume. I love him even though he needs to learn that there are things more important than the damn park. I just…” She rubbed her forehead. “I can’t leave. I just can’t leave.”
Kirsten laughed, just a tiny one at first, but then it grew. And grew. Josie could picture her rocking back in her lawn chair grabbing her stomach and wiping tears from her eyes, and for a moment, the image choked a surprised laugh out of her own throat.
“Why is this so funny?”
“Because, Jos, you are the most controlled human being I’ve ever met. I’ve never once seen you cry, never seen you frazzled, never seen you out of control of your own emotions. And right now, you’re a certifiable disaster!”
“And this is funny? What kind of a friend are you?”
“It’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous. It’s … it’s love, honey. And you are in it up to your eyeballs and I couldn’t be happier for you. So get in your car, find the next U-turn, and get your butt back to Echo Lake. Everything else will figure itself out, but you need to find Ethan and tell him what you just told me.”
“Oh boy.”
“Second chances are a gift, Jos. Grab this one with all you’ve got.”
Josie nodded slowly, but her gut was still roiling with another emotion. “Okay. You’re right. I know you’re right.” She tossed the twig, getting up from the picnic table. She stared down at the heart she’d drawn without even thinking, stared at the initials she’d scratched inside it.
As she looked around, trying to gather her courage, a butterfly landed on the heart, fluttering its wings in the low evening sunlight. Her breath caught as she stared at the butterfly, reached her fingers toward it.
Her voice was shaky as she steadied the phone. “I’m going back. I’m going to find him. But there’s something I have to do first.”
* * *
“Dad?” Josie knocked on her father’s door. He looked up, and Josie smiled as she saw the right side of his mouth lift in the motion that passed for his smile right now. She sat down next to his bed, checking out the view outside his window.
“Wow, this is quite an upgrade from Mercy. Look at the flowers!”
Carefully manicured gardens decorated the outside lawns of Fairview, and colorful butterfly houses were scattered among the blooms.
Dad motioned with his chin, pointing at his bedside table.
Josie looked over. “Are you thirsty? Need a drink?”
He shook his head.
The only other thing on the table was his letter board. “Want to talk, Dad?”
He nodded, and Josie grabbed the board and set it on his lap, helping his fingers close around the pointer … then stilling them.
“Can I go first?”
He looked at her, nodding imperceptibly.
“I … I just headed back to Boston. Just now. I packed up my suitcase and I left.”
His eyebrows furrowed as he tapped slowly. “Why?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I thought I did, but I don’t.”
He tapped again. “Ethan?”
“Yes. No. Yes. Of course. But also Molly, you, Mom … I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. “Love him?”
She smiled sadly. “Yeah, Dad. I do love him. It’d be a lot easier if I didn’t.”
She paused, and then she reached over and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “I think I want to stay, Dad.” She took a shaky breath. “Echo Lake has changed … a lot.”
Dad nodded and squeezed back.
“I think Avery’s House is amazing, and I think—I think maybe I’d like to see if maybe there’s a place for me there. I’m sure there’s way more to do than there are people to do it. I could maybe do some counseling, and maybe—I don’t know.”
She thought back to her visit to the house—how the entire place had seemed so warm and inviting and … hopeful. She could see herself there. She could see herself and Ethan there together.
She took another shaky breath. “I wish I’d believed Mom was better. I wish … I wish I hadn’t waited so long to come home. Maybe then…” Tears prickled, and she closed her eyes. “Maybe we would have had more time, you and me.”
Dad tapped on the board again. “Stay now?” His eyes were hopeful, and Josie smiled.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I want to stay.”
He pushed aside the letter board, and for a moment, she was unsure of what he was doing as he struggled to reposition his upper body. Then he slowly, slowly put his right hand over his heart.
“Love you,” he said.
Chapter 42
An hour later, Josie sat in a green Ferris wheel chair, pushing softly with her toes to make it swing. The tree frogs were trying to outdo the crickets, and a breeze carried the scent of pine to her nose. She closed her eyes, drinking it in, wondering why it had taken her so long to figure everything out.
She’d gone to Avery’s House, had made herself walk across the lawn to the wishing well, had made herself sit there and remember a little girl with a Red Sox hat and long brown ponytail plonking in pennies and making wishes.
And it had been okay. Well, actually, it had hurt like hell, a
nd she was pretty sure her eyes were still red. But it was a healthy hurt. The kind of hurt she’d been running from for ten years, but the kind of hurt maybe she was ready to finally face.
Sitting at the well had given her a sense of clarity she hadn’t even known she was missing, and though she knew it would be painful to be back where Avery’s sweet face lurked at every turn, she would be okay. With Ethan at her side, everything would be okay.
“Going for a ride, Jos?”
Josie jumped at Ethan’s soft words. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Security camera.” He pointed at a black box mounted in the fir tree. “Ben saw you sneak in.”
“Damn technology. And shouldn’t he be at home watching a game or something?”
He started up the metal stairs. “Can I sit with you?”
“Sure. We’re not going very far, though. I don’t have the keys.”
“But you’re here. You’re on the Ferris wheel.”
“I know.” Josie nodded and took a long, cleansing breath as he settled beside her, keeping his hands clasped in his lap. “I am. It’s progress. I’m sorry I missed the dinner.”
“You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts.”
“Something like that.”
“Anything you want to share?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I just came from Avery’s well. I saw a butterfly … earlier … and I had to make myself go to the well.”
“How was it?”
“Awful. Sad.” Her breath hitched a little. “But just a little bit okay, too. If that makes any sense.”
“Makes perfect sense. It took a long time for me to get to little bit okay.”
“I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how you stayed here afterward without losing your mind.”
He shook his head. “Some days I did. Some days I sat by that well and cursed cancer, cursed the doctors, cursed God…”
“Cursed me?”
His smile was rueful. “At times.”
“How did you finally get over her?”
He slid his arm behind her shoulders, gathering her closer. “God, Jos, I don’t know. Some days I don’t think I ever got over her at all. Other days, I look around Avery’s House and just hope she’d be proud of what we’ve done. Some days I see kids like Emmy and feel like there’s hope. On others, I just pray I can get through.”
He sighed, long and hard. “Jos, when you left that summer, I knew it was because you couldn’t handle being here where Avery’s memories were bound to strangle you at every turn. I got that. I really did. I was pissed at first—royally pissed, as Molly will gladly attest. But after some time went by and I no longer wanted to kill you for ruining my life, I tried to understand it.
“And some part of me did. I knew you had to get out of here. Knew your parents were a disaster tangled up in Christmas lights, knew your mother was sloshing her way to an early death, knew the park was your father’s first wife. So I got it. I did.”
“But?”
“But nothing. Or but everything, maybe. I don’t know. I just—I just thought you’d eventually come back. I thought you’d take the summer, get some space, do some healing, and then you’d come back. To this day, I still don’t always think I really understand why you never did. Why I was never worth coming back for.”
Oh boy. Was she really ready to have this conversation? She’d thought she’d hidden her home life from Ethan for so long that it had become second nature to lie to him. She’d thought he had no idea Mom started the day with a Bloody Mary and often ended it with a bloody lip as she conked her head on the toilet. No idea Dad stopped in for a change of clothes at best. But apparently she’d been wrong on all of those counts.
Apparently the whole damn town had known.
However, she did know something he didn’t.
She knew he had no idea that after Avery’s funeral, she’d driven home in a freakishly calm fog, opened the linen closet and reached behind the washcloths to pull out a vodka bottle. No idea she’d driven to Camp Ho-Ho, hiked the dark pathways to the Ferris wheel, climbed up its metal framework like a possessed monkey, and sat at the top, downing shots until Ben found her and took her back home.
And that was the final straw that had sent her running. On top of everything else, that was the night that had convinced her that if she stayed in Echo Lake, she was destined for the same messed-up life her parents were already living. Because when push came to shove, she was her mother’s daughter, no better.
When the going got tough, she’d reached for the same damn bottle that had consoled her mother.
“It wasn’t nearly as much about you as it was about … everything else.”
“Avery?”
“Of course, but … other things, too.”
He didn’t answer, just looked at her intently, leaving space for her words.
She blew out a breath. “I drank, Ethan. After the funeral, I got rip-roaring drunk. I got so drunk that I climbed this damn Ferris wheel in the middle of the night—with a bottle of Stoli—and Ben had to bring me home when he found me. I’m lucky I didn’t fall off and die.”
Ethan’s eyes widened, but instead of pulling away as she half expected, he only gripped her shoulder tighter, squeezed her closer to his body. “That must have been terrifying.”
“What?” She shook her head, confused at his reaction. “I mean, yes. I mean, God. I don’t know what I mean.”
“Let me see if I can summarize. Six months before that summer, your fiancé was looking forward to a scholarship at Norwich and a medal-strewn military career, but by June he was hitching himself onto the Ho-Ho wagon for what looked like eternity, and you were looking at the possibility of a marriage as miserable as your parents’. And then something really, really awful happened, and you hit the bottle.”
“That summary doesn’t paint me in a very good light, I’m afraid.”
“Wrong. That summary paints you in a very human light. How could you not be scared out of your wits?” He put his finger under her chin, lifting it so she was forced to look into his eyes. “You were eighteen years old, Josie. You should have wanted more than that. You had the right to expect more than that.”
“But I shouldn’t have hurt you to get it.”
“No. You should have believed in me. But luckily for you, I can heal from the jagged wounds you left. If you stay this time.”
She smiled sadly. “That’s all it would take?”
“Stay, Josie.” His voice was gruff, emotional. “Stay here. I can help you.”
“I don’t—I don’t need help.”
“Everybody needs help sometimes. Even big, strong oxes like you.”
She pulled her head away from his chest. “Oxes?”
“See? You’re already smiling. I’m helpful!” He ran his fingers down her jaw, stopping at her chin as his eyes searched hers.
Josie blew out a careful breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. My head is spinning. I’ve spent so long running without even knowing that’s what I was doing. I’m not sure how to turn that part of me off. I’m really not.”
“Y’know what, Jos? We could just take it one day at a time and see what happens.”
“That’s a great strategy when you’re sixteen, Ethan. But we’re not.”
“I don’t personally think it’s a bad strategy even at twenty-eight. Certainly helps me sometimes.” Ethan looked up at the stars. “Hey … since we’re on here … want to go up?”
Her stomach fluttered. It was one thing to sit here practically on the ground. Quite another to sail two stories up, where she and Ethan had sat with Avery on her last night. “Do you have the key?”
“I do.” Ben emerged from the pathway, jingling a huge ring of keys.
Josie glanced from one to the other. “Is this a setup?”
“Nope.” Ben grinned. “Just doing my rounds. Just happened by. Ethan definitely didn’t call me in to check the security cameras. Nope.” He inserted the
key, then leaned over to give Josie a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll be right here when you’re ready to come down, Twinkle-toes.”
His words were like a warm blanket over her shivering shoulders. “You always used to say that to me.”
“I know it. Every night.” He saluted as he pushed the lever forward. “Count the cars at the bowling alley, would ya?”
“Is it league night?” Josie let out a shaky laugh.
The wheel rose slowly, and as it cleared the ground, Josie reached for Ethan’s hand. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Ethan held on to her hand as he pulled her close. “I’m here, Jos. I’m here.”
When the wheel reached the top, it slowed to a stop, leaving the car swinging softly in the night air. “Oh no, you didn’t. You did not tell him to strand us up here.”
Ethan looked over the edge of the car, making it tip forward. “Ben? Ben!”
“Sorry, boss. That switch has been sticky all day. Looks like I need to go get my tools. Might take me a while, though.”
“Ben, this is not funny.” Josie gripped the bar.
“Sorry, you two. Do your best to entertain yourselves till I get back.” They both watched as he headed down the pathway, chuckling.
“You totally paid him to do this, didn’t you?”
Josie expected to feel panicked, but as she tucked back up against Ethan, all she felt was the rightness of being here, in this moment, with this man.
“I wish I’d thought to, but no.” Ethan stretched his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Come here. Want to count the cars?”
A distant train whistle broke through the crickets and tree frogs. “Here comes the train.” Josie pointed toward the tracks as she leaned her head tentatively on his shoulder. “I spent so many years wishing I could hop that train to somewhere more exciting than here.”
“Well, you did. Figuratively, anyway.”
“It seemed like the best plan, at the time.”
Ethan was silent for a long moment. “How about now? Do you have a plan for now?”
Forever This Time Page 31