by Nicole Helm
JACOB PULLED UP to Leah’s house, whistling as plans for the Jasmine Street house whirled in his head. Timelines and how to fit it into everyone’s schedule.
Kyle had been less than enthused, but once he’d heard Jacob’s plans to sell the main house next year, he’d changed his tune a little bit. Jacob might take risks from time to time, but he wasn’t fiscally irresponsible. Not with so many people depending on him for a paycheck.
He stepped out of his truck, checking his phone again. Mom and Dad hadn’t returned his morning call, which was unusual. For the first time today, his mood dampened. It might be silly to worry, but his parents were usually as dependable as clockwork. And with Mom’s flu lingering...
“Everything okay?”
He looked up to see Leah sitting on the stairs. She was wearing her oversize coat and a black stocking cap.
He grinned. “That excited to see me, had to meet me at the door?”
“Something like that.” She pulled a little white box out of her pocket. “Got you something. A congratulations present of sorts.”
He took a seat next to her on the cold steps. “And I just realized I haven’t given you a Christmas present.”
“I wasn’t your secret Santa, and you weren’t mine. Why would you give me a Christmas gift?”
He shrugged. “I should have gotten you one anyway. Unless the sex counts.”
She gave his shoulder a shove. “I think we’re okay. You can make it up to me next year.”
He grinned, dropping his phone back in his pocket. “Next year, huh? Is that a promise?”
She rolled her eyes. “Would you just open the damn thing?”
He took the box from her outstretched hand. Baffled by the tiny size, he lifted the lid. Inside was a tiny brass trumpet figurine. He pulled it out, turned it over in his hand. “I... Thank you.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“Not even a little bit.”
She laughed, nudging him. “Remember the first night you spent here and you made that crack about the Walls of Jericho? Well, consider this your Clark Gable trumpet.”
“Hey, you said you’d never seen that movie.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
She sighed and looked out at her yard. “When I was a kid and home sick all the time, I used to watch every kind of movie that was on TV. And Mom loved the old ones, so I got to watch those even if I’d already used up my TV allotment for the day. So, I’ve seen It Happened One Night many times, but I... It’s not really a fun, pleasant memory being sick and in pain. So I pretended like I’d never seen any of them, instead of...remembering.”
She killed him sometimes. He couldn’t imagine how hard that childhood would have been. To know, before you were even thirteen, how easy it would be to die. His heart constricted and he slung his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close.
“Thank you,” he murmured into her ear, kissing her temple. She tensed, presumably because she knew where his mind was going, so he focused on making a joke. “I’ll keep it on my desk and think of sex with you constantly.”
She snorted and the tenseness in her shoulders dissipated, as he’d hoped.
“Anyway, congratulations on your terrible investment.”
He kissed behind her ear, lingering until she shivered. “You can’t wait to work on it. Admit it.”
“Please. I told you it was a money pit.”
“And you’ve already thought about how you’ll rewire everything, the materials you’ll need. You probably have a list.” He moved his mouth to her neck, tugging at the collar of her jacket so he could press his lips to her collarbone.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar,” he said, grasping her chin and turning her to face him. Her lips were pressed together in that I-don’t-want-to-smile smile, so he kissed her until she leaned into him.
“I love you,” he murmured against her mouth, because the feeling slammed into him a million different ways. That she would buy him a gift, that she was just as excited as he was about the project and didn’t want to admit it, that she was here, hands clutching his coat.
She pulled back just a hair, smiled. “I love you, too.”
“Look at that—no stuttering, no adding ‘I think.’ Why, we might just be grown-ups after all.”
“Don’t get carried away now.”
His phone rang and he held up a finger. “Hold that thought. I’ve been trying to get ahold of Mom and Dad all day.”
It was Grace’s name on the caller ID, but maybe she was with them. “Hey, Grace, what’s up?”
“Jacob.”
The grave note in her voice immediately made his stomach sink. “What’s going on? Are you with Mom and Dad?”
“Y-yes.”
Her stutter did nothing to ease the pit of dread. He pushed to his feet. “Where are you? Home?”
“No. I... Jacob, I need you to be calm, okay?”
“Grace, tell me.”
He barely noticed that Leah had stood with him, and her gloved hand twining with his did nothing to ease the fear at Grace’s silence.
“I’m at the hospital. Mom... Apparently Mom had some surgery.”
“What? Surgery? What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to spit it out. There was a...c-cancerous tumor, and she’s getting it removed. She didn’t want to worry us beforehand. But Dad was getting worried and called me and asked me to call you.”
“Bluff City General?”
“Yes. You’re coming?”
“Of course I’m fucking coming. Text me where to go.” He hit End so forcefully it was a wonder his screen didn’t break. He was already striding to his car.
“Jacob, what’s going on?”
“I have to go to the hospital.”
“Is it Grace? Is everything ok—”
“It’s my mother. She’s having a tumor removed. I have to go.” He reached for his truck door, barely registering that his arm was shaking until Leah’s hand covered his.
“Let me drive you.”
He couldn’t bear to look at her, to look at anything beyond the handle of his truck door. If he did, he might lose what little control he had on the emotions raging through him.
“It’s your last night with your parents. Go on inside. I’ll call you later.”
“Jacob.” She pried his hand from the door. “I’m going to drive you. I’m going to walk you in. I’m going to see if you or Grace need anything, and then I will come back and spend the rest of the evening with my family. Got it?”
He was afraid if he argued, he’d blow. Completely. All the anger and frustration raging inside of him, right next to fear. Absolute bone-shaking fear. So he nodded curtly and followed her to her truck.
He was grateful she didn’t try to talk. She just started her truck, tapped something on her phone—he assumed a message to her family about what she was doing—and then backed out of the driveway. Once she was on the main road, without looking at him, without saying anything, she took his hand.
The gesture was...nice. Just nice, not asking for anything. Comfort. She was offering him comfort, and it made him want to curl up in her lap or something equally childish.
Instead, he cleared his throat and drew his hand away. He stared hard at the yellow lines in the center of the road. “Grace was upset.”
“The hospital is an upsetting place.”
For the first time since he’d answered his phone, he looked at her. Her face was blank, if a little tense. Her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Hospitals bother you.”
“I’ll deal.”
She said it so forcefully he had no doubt she would. What he wondered was how well he’d deal. “Why didn’t they tell me?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
She didn’t throw around endearments often. Whether it was a direct retaliation for him calling her baby all the time or something she said naturally, he didn’t know. But it helped his jaw relax, just a little.
He looked back at the road. “What if...?”
“Don’t what-if it. We’re going to focus on getting there, on finding out what’s going on. That’s all. Not much farther now.”
Beauty of living in a smallish city, he guessed.
“She hadn’t been feeling well. I knew that, but she said it was the flu.”
Leah was silent for a few ticking seconds. “I guess that’s her way of coping.”
“I guess you would know.”
She flicked a glance at him. “Yup.”
“I really instill a lot of trust in the women I love.” Because what were the chances two women in his life were hiding their life-threatening issues from him? He had to be the common denominator, didn’t he? Someone had said that somewhere along the way.
“Jacob, the way we handle things isn’t about you.”
For some reason that put him back to when Barry was loose and threatening Grace. How often she’d told him, This isn’t about you.
Maybe that was what he needed to realize. Not a damn thing was about him. Not good. Not bad. He was in control of nothing. Ever.
He could barely breathe through the lump in his throat. How was this happening again?
Leah approached the hospital and Jacob read the text from Grace so they could park in the appropriate place.
He had the door open before she’d even pushed the gearshift into Park. Somewhere in the recesses of his brain he thought he should probably wait for Leah to catch up, but he couldn’t make himself slow down.
He followed Grace’s directions through the maze of the hospital, frustration mounting after he realized he’d taken a wrong turn. Finally, he found the right waiting room, Dad and Grace huddled together on a little bench.
Both looked as if they’d been crying and Jacob felt shaky and unsure. He felt like an outsider, as if he didn’t belong here. He almost turned around, but Leah stepped next to him.
Jacob swallowed all the emotions he felt and stepped into the room. Dad and Grace stood and he walked over and stiffly hugged both of them. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Grace and Dad exchanged a look, and when Dad nodded, Grace took a deep breath. She tried to smile, but it was more of a shaky grimace. “Apparently, they found a lump at one of Mom’s checkups a few weeks ago.”
“Where?” He winced at the own demand in his voice. It wasn’t fair to be angry with Grace. She hadn’t kept this from him, and he couldn’t even be angry at Dad or Mom for keeping him in the dark.
But that was what he felt. Anger. Burning and bubbling. And no matter how many times he tried to swallow it down, it kept growing.
“Her...breast. It’s...breast cancer, but...” Grace took a shaky breath and looked at Dad. “It’s going to be okay. We know she can beat it because...”
Dad stepped in, put a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “I know this may come as a shock, but when you were in high school, Mom had—”
“You don’t think I fucking knew?” Jacob could feel tears burning his eyes, but he fought them with everything he had.
“You...knew...”
“The weight she lost. The wig. The...everything. You really, really thought I didn’t put two and two together?” Stop yelling. Stop yelling. But he couldn’t. “You think so little of me? Both of you? I knew. I damn well knew the mother I loved was going through chemo and hell, and no one wanted me to know, so I had to pretend.”
Grace sat down in a chair and covered her face with her hands, sobs obviously racking her body. Dad didn’t move, but tears streamed down his cheeks.
He’d never seen his father cry. Never...even back then. He sank into his own chair and, screw it, let his own tears fall. And when someone put their arm around him, he knew it was Leah. So he leaned into it.
What the hell else was there to do?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LEAH DIDN’T EVEN begin to know how to navigate this situation. Three people crying. Sickness and death hanging in the air around them. And a past she wasn’t a part of.
She’d never been on this side of the coin before. And she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. At all.
Except hurt. She rested her head against Jacob’s shoulder, only holding on to her own tears because it wasn’t her place. It wasn’t her mother, though she did know and like Mrs. McKnight.
Mr. McKnight cleared his throat, and Jacob looked up. Though she knew Jacob had shed some tears, only his red-rimmed eyes gave any indication.
“She was supposed to be out an hour ago,” Mr. McKnight said unevenly.
“Why didn’t she tell me? I’m not a kid anymore. This...”
“We were going to. We wanted to get through Christmas, and then with Grace’s announcement...”
Grace let out a little choked noise and Leah had to close her eyes. It was a role reversal she hadn’t at all expected or prepared for. To be waiting for news on someone else’s prognosis.
“This is such bullshit.”
Leah winced at the hurt and pain in Jacob’s voice. “Jacob...”
“What? It is. An hour ago? What if something’s wrong and we didn’t know? And for what? So we didn’t spend Christmas doing what we could together? So Grace could have a moment? Was that really worth this?”
“Not now, Jacob,” Grace said wearily.
“Then when?” he demanded, pushing to his feet and raking fingers through his hair. “When? When it’s too damn late to matter?”
Mr. McKnight stood, some of the anguish on his face tightening. “Don’t you dare say that to me right now.”
“You’re mad? You’re mad? I should have been here! I should have known then. Things should be a million ways different than they are, so you do not get to be mad.”
“My wife is in there with a malignant tumor. I damn well get to be whatever I want. Now, you sit down and be quiet, young man, or you are welcome to go.”
Leah’s breath caught. Jesus, this could not be going any worse. She didn’t know if it was her place, but as the only one with any kind of distance from the situation, maybe she should get involved.
Not at all certain of what she was doing, Leah stepped between the two seething, hurting men. “Jacob, walk with me.”
She tugged on his arm, but he didn’t move. She braced herself for another accusation, more angry words, but after another moment he turned to her and let her lead him away.
“Let’s just step outside for a few minutes, huh?” There was a door right next to the waiting room that led outside. Maybe some fresh air would...calm him. Everything.
“Yes, that’ll fix every damn thing, won’t it?”
Leah bit her lip against the snippy comment that was her instinctual response. Not what he needed right now. He needed to calm down. Get some perspective. Work through his anger before he stepped back into that waiting room.
This is what he’ll be like when it’s you...
The thought was selfish and came out of nowhere, but it made her stomach roll over. She took a deep breath of the frigid air, hoping that the nausea faded.
It didn’t. She wanted to blame part of it on the hospital. The lights, the linoleum, the people, the smell that all hospitals seemed to have. It brought her back to a lot of unpleasant days.
But it all had to do with the reality that someday she’d be in his mother’s place, and this was how he’d be. They could talk about her condition ad nauseam. They could prepare and discuss, but if something happened out of the blue, Jacob would be the angry, lashing-out guy in the waiting room while everyone else tried to keep it together.
She’d already lived through that. She didn’t want to do it again.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to will away that thought. Not what the here and now was about. She’d have to deal with that thought later. Much, much later.
“I can’t believe...” He looked off at some distant point in the dark night beyond the parking lot, jaw working, eyes filled with tears he seemed unwilling to shed.
“I know you’re upset. And angry.” She swallowed against the squeakiness in her voice. “Scared, and you have a right to all those feelings.”
“Gee, thank you for your permission,” he muttered, turning away from her, jamming his hands in his pockets.
It was hard to swallow the retort. So damn hard she curled her hands into fists. “I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me that way.”
“And I would appreciate you not trying to tell me how to feel.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Yes, you are. I’m not scared. I’m not upset. I’m livid. I’m fucking terrified. And I’m so damn furious I could hit my own father.”
“Don’t you think he’s all those things, too?”
“Of course he is. But he got to prepare for this. To understand what was happening. He got to take her here and hug her and kiss her before...” Jacob’s voice broke. “You want to comfort me, Leah? Here’s a tip. Don’t be on their fucking side. Don’t treat me like a child.”
“I’m not doing that. I’m not trying to do that.” Her words were choked because she didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help him. And she desperately wanted to. To take away his pain or ease it. At least undercut the anger inside of him that was overshadowing everything.
“Well, try a little harder. I don’t need this shit from you.”
“I know you’re angry, but I don’t plan on being your punching bag.” She said it as evenly as she could, as stoically as possible because he was walking on dangerous ground. They both were.
“Good to know. And what do you plan on being? Unhelpful? Condescending? On their side?”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to hit him and knock some sense into his fear and grief that he was wielding like anger. “There aren’t sides. This isn’t a war. Your mother—”