by Amy Vastine
The last update was that Eva was in Recovery. She was doing well and Gianna was going to go with her when they moved her to a room. Pete’s parents had come up from the South Side and his brother and sister were there, as well. One of them was going to take Sean and Mia home as soon as they knew what was going on with Pete.
Emma felt out of place until she sat down next to Charlie. “Thanks for coming up, Nightingale.”
She threaded her fingers through his. Holding his hand felt so right, despite all the warning bells ringing in her head. “Pete needs all the well-wishers he can get.”
The large group sat quietly. There was a television on, but the children were the only ones paying any attention to it. Some of the firefighters messed around on their phones. A couple of them tried to keep the kids occupied.
After five hours of surgery, the surgical nurse came out and let them know they were finished and Pete was on his way to Recovery.
She wouldn’t say much, letting them know the surgeon would be out soon to give them all the details. She could only say that they’d done what they could, but Pete still had a very tough fight ahead of him.
It wasn’t long after the doctor gave his update that Gianna had to go to sit with Eva, and Pete’s family took the kids to get some dinner and go home to bed. Most of the firefighters went home to be with their families before they had to go on shift.
Charlie didn’t want to leave. Pete had a long night ahead of him and no one to sit by his side. Emma offered to stay, but Charlie talked to the lieutenant and got special permission to hang back. The waiting room went from full to empty in a matter of minutes.
“They were supposed to go to the Dells over the Fourth,” Charlie said when they were alone. “They rescheduled because I asked him to cater the wedding.”
Emma felt sick. This was why she didn’t mess with the plan. Stick to the plan and no one got hurt.
“And then he had to bring us dinner because we always complain when the lieutenant is in charge of the kitchen. He didn’t have to do that. He could have jumped on the expressway down by his place. The only reason he was driving through that intersection is because he’s too good to everyone he cares about. He’d do anything for any one of the guys who were sitting here tonight. That’s the kind of guy Pete is. Selfless.”
Charlie’s head dropped into his hands and his shoulders shook as his emotions took over. Emma had to push aside her own anxiety and guilt. She placed her hand on his broad back. “It’s not your fault, Charlie,” she said over and over as he cried.
It was hers. This was what happened when she even thought about changing the plan. Fate swooped in and set her straight.
* * *
CHARLIE TOLD HER to go home and get some rest when the nurse came to let them know Pete was being moved to a room. He promised to eat something and go back to the station to get some sleep when Pete’s parents returned from dinner.
Going home to an empty apartment didn’t seem very appealing to Emma. She couldn’t bother Kendall with all this. She’d surely feel as guilt ridden as Charlie did when she found out why the O’Reillys were headed out of town today instead of the Fourth of July.
She texted Lucy, who was awake and more than willing to have company. Emma stopped and grabbed some food on her way over because there was not going to be anything edible at her sister’s. The woman ate things that were gluten free, dairy free and yummy free.
Lucy frowned when she opened the door and saw Emma was holding a bag from a fast-food restaurant. “Why do you do that to your body?”
“My body loves it. It says, ‘Thank you, Emma, for putting all this yumminess inside me.’”
“Your body is a child who doesn’t know any better, then. Someday, it’s going to realize what you did to it and say, ‘Why, Emma, why?’” Lucy wrapped her hands around her neck and flailed as if she was choking.
Emma ignored her and headed for the kitchen. She deserved some comfort food after the day she’d had. A bacon double cheeseburger, fries and a vanilla milk shake fit the bill. “Do you have ketchup? You are allowed to eat ketchup, right?”
Lucy opened up her fridge and pulled out some organic broccoli florets and a bottle of organic ketchup. She set them on the table as Emma sunk her teeth into the greasy but delicious burger.
“Please eat a bit of this. It might help counteract some of the damage you’re doing right now.”
“I’m not eating broccoli.”
“It’s a super vegetable.”
Emma devoured her burger and washed it down with the tasty milk shake. Broccoli and milk shakes did not go together, but fries dipped in creamy vanilla ice cream was magic.
“That is so gross,” Lucy said, averting her eyes.
Making her older sister squirm was almost making her feel better. “You’re the one who taught me this trick, back when you ate like the rest of us humans.”
“I never did that. You must have me confused with the other unhealthy eater in the family. Kendall thinks pizza is a well-balanced meal.”
“What’s not balanced about it?” Emma argued. “There are carbs in the crust, protein in the meat, veggies in the sauce and dairy in the cheese. It’s the food pyramid come to life.”
“Nice try.” Lucy laughed. “Is that what you tell your patients at the hospital, Nurse Everhart?”
Just mentioning the hospital brought back all the bad feels. Lucy must have noticed a change in Emma’s disposition.
“Tough shift?”
“One of the toughest. The people we hired to cater Kendall’s reception were in a car accident today. Some guy ran a red light and smashed into them. Their five-year-old daughter and the husband were badly hurt. They both made it through surgery, but the doctor wasn’t offering up any promises, at least not in Pete’s case.”
Dr. Roland had said the same things as the surgical nurse. Pete wasn’t out of the woods yet. The next twenty-four hours were going to be the most challenging.
“That’s terrible.” Lucy reached out for her sister. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“They are the nicest people, too. I’m sure Kendall told you about dinner at their house. They were so welcoming, so kind. They made us all feel at home and we had just met them. Charlie’s a mess.”
“Charlie’s a mess?”
“He’s Pete’s friend. They work at the station together,” she said, making the connection for Lucy.
“So you spent the last few hours comforting Charlie, the guy who is madly in love with you?”
“Don’t you start with me,” Emma warned.
“Kendall told me all about it. He’s crazy about you and offered to help with this wedding to spend time with you. But you haven’t told him about Emma’s life plan, have you? You’re destined to be a doctor’s wife—doesn’t Charlie understand?”
Unexpected tears began to well up and roll down Emma’s cheeks. Her throat tightened so that she couldn’t even respond to Lucy’s teasing. Her stupid plan was the reason for all the pain today.
“Em, I’m kidding.” Lucy jumped up and snatched the tissue box out of the other room. “I’m being a jerk. I’ll stop. Don’t cry.”
Emma blew her nose into a tissue and fell into her sister’s arms. The guilt was overwhelming. “I’m ruining everything!” she sobbed.
“You aren’t ruining anything. What are you talking about?”
She tried to catch her breath. “This is always what happens when I second-guess the plan.”
“Handsome boys fall in love with you? If you don’t like him that way, he’ll get over it. Don’t worry about it.” Lucy didn’t understand. She had never believed in Emma’s theory about her plan. She thought it was ridiculous to think you could map out your life.
“The problem isn’t not liking him. The problem is liking him too much. I’m supposed t
o be falling in love with Scott. He’s perfect for me. I should be thinking about him day and night, night and day. But all I think about is Charlie. Even when I’m with Scott, I think about Charlie. But when I’m with Charlie, I don’t think about Scott. I’m not wondering what he’s doing or who he’ll be kissing if we don’t get together. Someday Charlie is going to kiss somebody and make her forget everything and she’s going to make him forget all about me and that is not supposed to be what I’m thinking about!” Emma hiccuped as she continued to cry.
Lucy held her baby sister and let her get it all out.
“Everybody loves Charlie. Even Tessa. And she usually doesn’t like anyone. And I have to go on this double date with her and Ian, who is crazy for taking her back because she’s like you.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Tessa hates men,” Emma answered flippantly. “I don’t want to take them to Sato’s because Max is going to see us and what if he tells Charlie he saw us? I don’t want to hurt Charlie.”
“I don’t hate all men,” Lucy said as Emma blew her nose. It sounded like the L train was running through the apartment.
“Bad things happen when I don’t stick to the plan. My feelings for Charlie are the reason the O’Reillys are in the hospital. I just know it.”
“That’s crazy talk. Your feelings for some guy are not the reason a family got in a car accident. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You think that, but I’ve seen it happen before. I was going to quit nursing school.” Emma’s hand flew up and covered her mouth. She had never told anyone that before.
“What?” Lucy didn’t believe her, as usual. “You’ve wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember. None of us were as excited about going to college as you were because you knew exactly what you wanted to do with your life.”
Emma dropped her hand. “I did. I wanted to be a nurse until it got really hard and I was taking this creative-writing class and I thought, what if I wasn’t a nurse but a teacher? I’m good with kids. Simon likes me. I could have been a good teacher, don’t you think?”
Lucy shook her head, not at the question but the entire conversation. “So what terrible thing happened because you were thinking about being a teacher for a millisecond?”
“Everything! My counselor got me into an Intro to Schooling class and it was like I had signed up to learn Mandarin. I bombed the first quiz and major test. A failing grade in that class would have made me ineligible to play volleyball, which could have cost me my scholarship. I had to drop the stupid class before that happened. When have I ever failed in school? Never.”
“That’s how normal people find out something isn’t for them, Em.”
That wasn’t the worst of it. Emma believed there had been other penalties for changing her plans. “All of this happened around the same time Mom got diagnosed,” she whispered.
Lucy froze for a few seconds while she let that information sink in. She had to be thinking Emma wasn’t as crazy as originally thought.
“Mom got cancer because you changed your plans?”
Obviously, she didn’t give her mother cancer, but the timing of it was a bit too coincidental. “Fate was pushing me back toward medicine, don’t you see?”
“What part of the plan were you considering changing when I got diagnosed?”
Emma blew her nose again. “I wasn’t changing anything then.”
“Oh, so you’re only responsible for giving some people cancer. Other people get cancer because of a genetic predisposition or environmental factors or because of what they put in their bodies. Mom was the only one to get it because of your selfish desire to be a teacher, is that right?”
She was mocking her. Emma didn’t like it one bit. Not in her fragile state.
“There are signs and you have to pay attention to them,” Emma argued. “I almost considered working at the hospital in Milwaukee where I did my clinical studies. The day of the interview, everything that could go wrong went wrong. My car got a flat tire, so I called a cab. When we got to the hospital, I realized I left my purse in my car. The driver turned around to take me back to my car but got in an accident before we made it there. I couldn’t get another cab because I had no money, so I decided to walk to the hospital. That’s when it started to rain. Not just any rain, though. It was a torrential downpour. My umbrella, of course, was also back in my car. The same moment I decided to forget about the interview and head home, the rain stopped.”
“Now you control the weather? What other secret powers have you been hiding from me all this time? Can you fly? Maybe turn invisible?”
“Stop it, Lucy.”
“No.” Her sister slammed both hands on the table. “You stop it, Emma. Bad things happen every day. A bad day is just a bad day. Maybe that job would have been the best job you ever had, but you’ll never know because it stopped raining the second you gave up trying to get to the interview.”
“I believe that was a sign. Signs tell us if we’re going down the right path or not.”
Lucy shook her head. “Rain is not a sign. It’s weather. Mom’s cancer was not a sign. It was bad genes. Grandma passed them to Mom and she passed them down to me. A guy who ran a red light put those people in the hospital today. Not your feelings for Charlie. This tragedy is not some sign.”
“Then why does everything come up roses when I follow the plan?”
“Were you following the plan when Kendall lost Trevor?”
“Yes,” Emma answered warily.
“How about when your team lost a volleyball game?”
“I understand that I don’t control everything with my plan. I just know that when I don’t follow it, things happen that guide me right back where I belong.”
“Bad things happen all the time,” Lucy said pointedly. “The only reason you don’t lose hope when some things go bad is because you’re following your plan, but who’s to say if you had rescheduled that interview or retaken that education class, that your new plan wouldn’t have worked out for the best? You’ll never know because you gave up when you were taking a risk. That wasn’t fate. That was you making a choice to play it safe, plain and simple.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“Don’t choose something because you’re afraid random bad things are going to happen if you don’t. Especially when that choice is about who to love, Em. That’s not a choice you want to make without listening carefully to your heart.”
Emma couldn’t believe this was the advice she was getting from Lucy, of all people. “Are you really telling me to follow my heart and not my head? Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “I’m telling you not to choose someone because he fits your idea of what’s right. Choose the one who is right.”
“How will I know he’s the right one for me?”
Lucy’s smile was wistful. “I don’t know. I can only tell you that if you let the right one go, you’ll know it as soon as he’s gone because nothing will ever be quite right again.”
That was as honest as Lucy had ever been about what had happened to her. Being vulnerable was not something Lucy was very often.
“I thought you didn’t believe in soul mates.”
“Who said anything about soul mates?”
Emma held her head in her hands. Her sister was making her brain hurt.
Lucy gave her a pat on the back. “Stop making everything into some supernatural phenomenon,” she said, her moment of self-disclosure over. “You can live without Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong. You don’t need a man to make you complete. Just don’t pick Mr. Wrong out of some crazy belief that you have to stick to some plan you made for yourself years ago.”
Emma had a lot to think about. Making decisions without a plan to reference would be the hardest thing she’d ever do. But what if Lucy was r
ight? What if she missed out on something amazing because she was afraid? Fear could not hold her back any longer. Not when her heart was at stake.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHARLIE GOT OFF shift and went straight back to the hospital, where he planned to spend the next three days. Pete had made it through the night and so had Eva. Pete was being kept in a medically induced coma, while Eva was simply heavily sedated. Gianna said they were going to try to wake the little girl up later today.
Pete’s head injury had been bad. He’d had a small brain bleed that could have killed him if the doctors hadn’t stopped it when they did. There was no telling what the long-term effects would be. Also up in the air was whether or not Pete would ever be able to fight another fire. Injuries like his were usually career-ending in his line of work.
Charlie didn’t want to think about that. He stopped to get Gianna some coffee before heading up to Eva’s room. The two of them sat in the tiny space, sipping their much-needed caffeine. Neither of them had slept much last night.
“Her color is better, don’t you think?” Gianna whispered. As if her voice could wake her with all those drugs running through her tiny body.
“She looks much better. She’s a tough cookie.”
“She is. She’s like her father. Tenacious when she needs to be.”
Charlie nodded; the lump in his throat had grown too big for words to pass. Eva looked as frail as could be. No one should have to see their little girl with all these tubes coming out of her. The toughest cookie was sitting next to him.
“The worst part of this is not having Pete here to help me make all the decisions. They ask me if I want them to do this or that to her, and I don’t know. Then Pete’s doctors come up and ask me if I want them to do this or that to him and I’m even more lost. We made all the big decisions together. I wish he could tell me what he wants them to do.”
Charlie wished Pete was here, too. “You do the best you can do. I’m here to help if you need me. I can’t tell you what to do, but I can help you ask them the right questions.”