Rose lost her edge.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close as she cried again. She had her face turned away from Vivian and Molly.
I sucked in a deep breath, not wanting myself to get worked up and stress her out even more.
My right hand crept up into her hair.
“Oh, Rose,” I whispered. “He’ll be okay. He’s tough. Jesus, he’s tough. He raised you and Vivian. He put up with me.”
“I know,” Rose said. “I just never thought… it never hit me that someday he’ll be gone.”
I broke the hug and slowly reached for her face. My hands cupped her soft cheeks. Her eyes were light brown in the light, glossy from the tears. She was the most beautiful person I had ever been near. Beautiful inside and out. A beauty that was so strong that it made my stomach sick.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered as my thumbs stroked her tears away.
She started to smile. “I hate that you say that to me. Every time you do, something bad happens. But I needed you to say that. That’s why I called you.”
“Well, if that’s all you needed, I could have been out of here hours ago,” I said.
“You’re such a jerk,” Rose said.
“I know,” I whispered. “But it’s going to be okay. What’s the plan now?”
“We get to see him soon, I hope,” she said. “I’m going to spend the night. I told Vivian to go to my place. She’ll want to stay too.”
I nodded. “I’ll stay with you as long as you need.”
“No. You should go home.”
“Rose, I’m not going anywhere.”
Rose opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything.
The doors next to me opened and out came two doctors.
They were looking for Rose and Vivian.
I stepped away and let them all talk.
They were going to get to see their father.
He had pulled through. But he still had a long way to go.
I slipped my hands into my pocket and watched Rose go through the open doors. They started to automatically shut and she looked back at me. I smiled and nodded.
I meant what I said to her.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
But even I knew that was probably a lie.
13
A Type of Forever
Rose
It was mostly dark in the hospital room. I wanted to spend the night but we were told no. My father was and would be in intensive care and watched for the time being. The warnings were clear from the doctors that he had really gotten lucky. It didn’t seem that way, you know, almost dropping dead and needing emergency surgery. But in the grand scheme of things, Vivian and I could have been standing in a funeral home instead of a hospital room.
I hated seeing my father like this. Unconscious with machines beeping and monitoring everything his body was doing. I let Vivian go first and she grabbed his left hand. She leaned over and whispered something to him. I turned my head. As much as Vivian and I were close, she and Dad had a special bond. Her being the first born and all. Which used to make me jealous, but I came to understand it and accept it.
Vivian stood and wiped her eyes. She looked at me and walked out of the room.
I approached the bed. I mentally told myself and Dad that he was going to be okay. That we’d be back first thing in the morning. That he’d better get a good night’s rest because we expected him to be awake and ready to go tomorrow. That part was a little bit of a lie because the doctors already warned us that Dad would need to undergo therapy to get back to his normal routine. Even that - normal routine - wasn’t going to exist again. He was going to have to change his diet and work habits. Everything.
But that was a conversation for later.
I kissed his cheek and exited the room.
Vivian had her back against a wall, hands to her face.
I hugged her until she stopped crying and said, “I’m so tired.”
“Let’s go to my place, Viv. Let me drive you. Leave your car here. We’re coming right back in the morning.”
“I have nothing with me,” she said.
“I have clothes.”
“My makeup…”
“You’re worried about makeup right now?” I asked.
She half smiled. “What if a cute doctor sees me without makeup?”
I quickly laughed. “You’re really something, Viv, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what else to do or say right now.”
“I know,” I whispered. “Let’s get some sleep. I’m sure I have some makeup you can wear.”
“It’s okay, Rose, I always bring a bag with me.”
We both laughed. It was short lived and replaced with tears.
That walk from the hospital was the worst walk of my life. Leaving Dad behind. Getting into my car with my sister next to me. Driving away.
We had come so close to losing our father.
And yet my mind couldn’t stop wondering why the first thing I did was call Foster for help… and the fact that he showed up, stayed, helped, and made sure I was okay before leaving.
I had the spare room just because it came with the apartment. I would have preferred something more along the lines of a flat with lots of wooden floors and no real defined rooms, but this place worked. It was cozy. It was quiet. And I could afford it.
In the hallway closet, I opened the door and found an extra thick blanket and two pillows.
I dropped them to the bed as Vivian came into the bedroom from the bathroom, her face washed up for the night. It made me smile seeing her like that. Without any makeup on. She was suddenly my big sister when we were little, if that made any sense. Forever walking shoulder to shoulder, bumping into each other, leaning close so we could talk and giggle about cute boys.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I got you some extra pillows and a heavy comforter. Know you can’t sleep until you’re wrapped up like a mummy and buried in pillows.”
Vivian smiled. “Always the sister, Rose. You know everything about me.”
I pulled the sheets back and tossed the extra pillows on top of the two that were already there. “Have at it. If you need anything, you know where the kitchen is. We can get something to eat on the way to the hospital in the morning. I think we can go visit around seven or eight. I’ll call at six. Or whenever we want.”
“Like right now?” Vivian asked.
I swallowed hard. “I know. This sucks. This fucking sucks.”
Vivian moved toward the bed and sat on the corner. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
My sister looked at me. “Foster…?”
My heart raced a little. “Yeah?”
“You know, he was the last person I’d expect to see there.”
“Me too.”
“Yet he was there.”
“I called him.”
“Right.”
“What?” I asked. “We sell coffee to the place where he does guitar lessons and plays gigs. I bumped into him. No big deal, right? It’s not like we’re strangers. It’s not like we’re enemies. I mean, things just never went our way.”
“Which was basically his fault, Rose.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think I can blame anyone. And even if I could, what would that get me?”
“Well, when you don’t blame him, you get hurt,” Vivian said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Vivian said. “Sorry. I should keep my mouth shut. I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Rose. I think it’s nice that you two can exist in the same town and bump into each other. But having him there when Dad…”
“Wait a second,” I said. “You realize how close he and Dad were, right?”
“Were,” Vivian said.
I sighed. “I know. You’re probably right. I saw Foster at one of his gigs. Okay? We talked. Caught up on things. Nothing happened. Then today when you called, I suddenly felt
alone. I mean, yeah, I was at work and stuff, but my first instinct… call Foster for help. So I did. He showed up. He was there for me. For you. That’s that.”
Vivian inched up the bed to get closer to me. She touched my hand. “I’ve been in love maybe twice in my life, Rose. And one of those times I don’t think it was real love. So what do I know here, right? I can tell you that as a person outside all of this… when you and Foster get close, things happen. Things explode. I don’t know how he feels because I’m not close to him, but when the explosion clears, you’re usually hurt.”
I put my head on Vivian’s shoulder. I took a deep breath. I knew she was right. But I also wanted her to know the truth, since she didn’t understand it.
“Viv… here’s the truth about Foster… whatever happens, it’s always worth it.”
I barely slept and I was sure Vivian tossed and turned as much as I did. I finally caught a few hours of sleep before climbing out of bed to make some coffee and call the hospital. There were no changes overnight, which was both good and bad.
I sat alone at the small table in the kitchen and held my coffee mug with two hands, smelling it and not really sipping it.
I promised myself a distraction, so I thought about work. Kind of dumb to do, but my mind needed the break. I thought about the new marketing campaign we had put together. I thought about the new breakfast blend. Hell, I could have taken a picture of myself right where I was. That was our target, right? A woman like me, sitting at a table, deep in thought, holding a mug of coffee. And Molly’s breakfast blend was the exact thing I would need to face anything that happened that day.
Picturing the ad, the text, the corniness of it all, it made me roll my eyes.
My phone buzzed with a text from Molly, checking on things. I hadn’t texted or called her last night when I got home and settled. I told her nothing had changed and I was heading to the hospital soon. She said she sent her love and was on call for anything I needed.
Anything I needed…
“Morning,” Vivian’s groggy voice said as she shuffled into view.
“Hey, Viv,” I whispered.
Her hair was a tangled mess and her eyes looked heavy as though she had lost a boxing match. Not that I looked any better.
“I’m taking this coffee to go,” she said. “To the shower. Then I want to go to the hospital.”
“You got it,” I said.
I took my coffee to my bedroom and got changed.
For the next thirty minutes or so I stared at the text I had sent to Foster.
I need you
I needed him and he showed up.
I bit my lip.
My thumbs touched the screen.
“Should we leave?” Vivian asked as she appeared at the open bedroom door.
I quickly shut the screen off and stood up. “Let’s get moving. We’ll get something to eat.”
We left the apartment and didn’t speak a word about Dad. Or about Foster. Even though both subjects lingered between us. She talked about her job. Growing her clientele and wanting to maybe get her own place someday. I was proud that Vivian took life seriously now. Dad was always worried she’d end up getting swept off her feet by some loser jock, and end up in a rut with a miserable life and no way out. Vivian sort of shocked us all by doing what she was doing.
Halfway through a sentence, Vivian stopped as her phone rang. She looked at me. It was the hospital calling. I put a hand to my mouth then held her hand as she took the call.
It was good news though. Dad was awake. Asking for us.
Vivian cried. I held my tears back for the moment.
Dad was so far from being in the clear, but at least he was alive.
It made me think about Foster. All we’d been through. Yet we were alive, bumping into each other, still flirting as though it was the first day we met.
It made no sense as to why things just didn’t click the way they should have.
I always thought we’d end up together forever, one way or another.
But the thing was… there were different types of forever… some good and some bad.
14
The Coffee I Sell
Foster
I treated myself to a couple lonely shots of whiskey last night when I got home from the hospital. I stopped to grab a bite to eat, had those couple shots of whiskey, and spent the night sitting on the couch convincing myself not to drink anymore, because that was a road I didn’t feel like walking, alone and in the dark.
So I spent hours thinking about Rose. Thinking about Frank and all the conversations we had in life. The times I’d get taken to another family and then run away to see Rose or see Frank. He’d always talk to me. He’d always say the right shit and then tell me go the hell home before he had to call the cops. I think somewhere in my heart I dreamed of Frank wanting to take me in, but he knew better. That would be trouble putting me and Rose close like that. And Frank knew that if he was in control of me, it would ruin the relationship we had. By talking to me and then kicking me in the ass, he taught me more about life and survival than anything else in life ever did.
I ended up passing out on the couch and waking the next morning with one foot on the floor and my neck feeling like someone had twisted it all the way around. I swung my hand in the direction of the table and grabbed my phone. No calls. No texts.
It was almost nine in the morning.
I hadn’t slept that well in a while. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was because I’d had a chance to help Rose without breaking her heart.
I lived in a cheap studio apartment. One gigantic room with a little section that I considered to be a bedroom. There were three doors in the apartment. One being the front door. The other two being a closet and the bathroom. The walls were old stone and I had some vintage music posters framed and hung up. It was a total bachelor jam pad looking thing, even though I couldn’t remember the last time another person was in the apartment.
When I got the place I had visions of hanging with friends, jamming all night, sneaking up to the roof in the middle of the night with a beautiful woman to look at the stars… in her eyes… and live in that dream of music that had been burning inside me since I was a kid.
Hey, Rose. Sorry about that time I slipped away. Left you waiting on another day. Leaving the ashes of forever spread around, my footprint in the middle. Of your heart.
I ran a hand through my hair and went to pick up my guitar case and my bag. Some men wore suits and carried briefcases. Not me. The same jeans from yesterday. The same flannel. I had changed my t-shirt and brushed my teeth, which was enough self-care for the moment. I kept a bag packed out of habit. I learned as a kid to keep anything important with me at all times. You never knew when the cops were going to show up or when some social worker was going to want to pick me up and take me somewhere safe.
I left the apartment and went to the café. The sign hanging above the door read The Jonesy, a tribute to Stephanie’s father, Cheeky. I wasn’t sure of his actual first name, but his last name was Jonesy.
My day was pretty much open as far as guitar lessons went. I had a few calls to return which were going to be conversations about songs that weren’t quite good enough for what they’re looking for. All that blah, blah professional talk bullshit.
The coffeehouse was bustling with people. A mix of casual people looking to grab a coffee and bite to eat and chill while there was a line of people dressed for work, ordering something to go. I just slipped through the crowd with a quick wave to Beth that made her blush. I went to the back room and Stephanie was there, hustling around in a sweaty mess, trying to get something off the top shelf.
I dropped my bag and guitar case and reached up, easily able to get what she wanted.
“Thanks,” she said, blowing hair out of her face.
“Busy?” I asked.
“You can’t imagine. No idea why.”
“That’s good though.”
“Hey, want to earn free drinks for a week?”
“Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I need help out there.”
“I’m not running a register, Stephanie.”
“How about just bring stuff out? Do what I say for about an hour? Beth is getting slammed and she moves so slowly.” Stephanie rolled her eyes at so slowly.
“Fine,” I said. “I’m not wearing an apron or anything.”
“Put a hat on at least,” Stephanie said.
“Backwards.”
“Deal.”
We shook on it and for the first time in a long time, I had a real job.
I stacked up some boxes and carried them to the front of the building. I ripped them open and started to stock some empty shelves, and then I set my sights on the coffee machines that were getting a hell of a workout. I moved fast, tossing dirty filters and replacing them with new ones. I turned and grabbed empty trays of food from the glass case. Stephanie told me where the fresh baked goods were and I got that stocked back up for her.
The line was impressive. The tables were all full.
A really busy morning.
I had nothing else to do and I wasn’t going to touch the damn register.
So I picked up my guitar and walked to the stage. I sat on the edge of the stage and pulled the mic down as far as it could go.
Then I began to serenade the morning rush with some acoustic tunes. Just me and my guitar. My fingers plucking the strings, telling the story of the song through the notes. No words needed.
I only played for twenty minutes or so, but it was enough that when I finished, I won myself a little bit of a round of applause. Which I didn’t expect.
“That’s Foster,” Stephanie called out. “If you haven’t seen him really sing and play, come back! He has a gig Thursday night! Starts at seven!”
I walked to the counter and eyed Stephanie. “I have a gig Thursday?”
“You do now,” Stephanie said.
I took my guitar and went to the back room. I grabbed my stuff and finally went down the basement steps to the long and creepy hallway. The musty old carpet smell would forever be tattooed in my mind - just like the sweet and perfect clean smell of Rose’s skin…
Let You Go Page 9