What She Wanted

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  Heidi shut the door and wrapped me in her arms.

  Blood whooshed in my ears. I pulled in a long breath and released it until my head lightened. My dad had moved back to town.

  Chapter 5

  Heidi watched Joshua until he was gone.

  I watched the lock.

  When she finally turned from the front window with a sigh, I exhaled ten pounds of tension. “I love you so much. Can you please drive me to the hospital?”

  “Are you curious about what your mom saw in him? I bet she wrote all about him in her journal.”

  I looked at the messy dining room table where the shiny book lay. “I can’t open it. If Mark respected her privacy, so should I.”

  “Fine, but if you want to find out about him, you’ll have to talk to him.” She made a trip to the dining room and returned with another biscuit. “It’s for the road.”

  “Uh-huh.” I grabbed Mom’s journal and stuffed it into my bag with a few pictures from the box.

  We piled into her ancient Mini Cooper a few minutes later. I wedged the backpack at my feet and held my camera bag on my lap.

  We made a pit stop on our way to check on Mark.

  “I’ll be fast.” I patted the Mini’s roof and hustled over the curb to Essence, the photography studio where I worked. Digital chimes played as I swept through the front door.

  Sylvia Reynolds emerged from the back looking dynamic. Her sleek white pencil skirt and gray blouse screamed money. Thirty years as an in-demand photojournalist came with perks. The awards lining her office walls were the sorts of things I daydreamed about. “You’re here early. It’s not even ten.”

  “Sorry.” My mind was scattered between the possible contents of Mom’s journal and the reasons Joshua had to move to this town.

  “Are you okay? Did something happen?” Despite the perks of her success, Sylvia tended to worry. Capturing the worst of humanity on film all those years had come with a nervous breakdown of legendary proportions. She’d flown home from Sudan in the prime of her career, cancelled everything, and moved to an old family farm in Monroe County. A few months later, she’d publicly announced her retirement in favor of reconnection with her roots. She opened Essence and hired me a few years later. She still chatted and Skyped with old colleagues, but she spent more time indoors than out, and these days the most dangerous photographs Sylvia shot were at the local rodeo.

  If only temporary hibernation were an option for me at the moment. “Mark had a heart attack last night, and he’s having surgery this morning. Would it be okay if I worked tomorrow afternoon instead of today? I’m on my way to the hospital now. I think I should be there when they finish to see how it went.”

  She drew her thin gray brows together. “Is he going to be all right? Is there anything I can do?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll know more soon, I hope.”

  “Okay. Take as much time as you need.”

  Heidi honked.

  “I can come back tomorrow.”

  “Fine, but don’t rush back on my account. Stay alert. E-mail me anything you want me to take a look at, or drop it in our shared drive, okay? Don’t stop working just because you aren’t working.”

  “No problem.” I never stopped shooting, not even in my sleep. I’d captured some earth-shattering moments in my dream life. I jogged back to the Mini Cooper, thankful Sylvia didn’t have time to press me for details on my late application to NYFA. I’d made the mistake of showing interest when she mentioned attending a conference there last Christmas. She hadn’t stopped pestering me about the application since.

  Heidi dropped me at the hospital and went home to change before her shift at Retro Chic, her mother’s kitschy craft store where repurposed junk was sold at top dollar. Heidi had painted the logo across the front windows: “Skip dull antiques. Buy retro-chic.” The entire place was a hippie bus explosion of color and whimsy.

  The hospital doors parted and a tsunami of bleach and Band-Aid smells whirled up my nose. I suppressed a gag and headed to the desk. “Mark Reese?”

  The nurse checked her computer and pointed to the elevator. “He’s in surgery. You’re welcome to wait in the family waiting area on the third floor if you’d like.”

  I followed the signs to the new waiting room. A fresh pot of coffee brewed near the rear of the empty room. The third floor was a definite upgrade from the ER. The tables had better magazines and the chairs were padded. I poured myself a coffee and got comfortable.

  A woman appeared in the doorway. “Who are you here to see?”

  The room was empty, except the two of us. She wore maroon scrubs and a stethoscope hung around her neck.

  “Mark Reese.” I shifted in my seat and rearranged the coffee in my hands. “He’s in surgery. The nurse downstairs told me I could wait here.”

  The woman smiled. “Mr. Reese’s in recovery now.”

  “Thank you.” A measure of tension I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying released. I rolled my shoulders back, enjoying the sensation.

  “He’s awake if you’d like to see him.”

  I wavered. As his only living family member, I was obligated to show up at the hospital, but I wasn’t convinced he’d want to see me after such an ordeal. I wouldn’t want to see him. I’d want to get better, go home, and pretend it never happened. “No. He’s probably resting. It’s fine. I can see him another time. I just wanted to know he made it through surgery without…complications.”

  She waved me to her. “He asked about you. I’m sure he wants to see you.”

  “He asked about me?” I set the coffee aside. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you Amy?”

  The punch of disappointment shocked me. “Amy’s my mother.” I slid the shoulder strap of my bag across my body and met her in the doorway. Of course, he wouldn’t want to see me. “I’m Katy. He’s my grandpa.”

  She laughed. “The anesthesia’s still wearing off. Confusion is a common side effect. I’m sure he’ll be glad you’re here. Follow me.”

  I made the trip down antiseptic-laced corridors, creating pretend scenarios where I told Mark what I thought of him keeping Mom’s things hidden in his oily shed. The minute his heart was healed, he and I were going to have a talk. I’d never had the nerve to confront him before, but I’d be eighteen soon and no longer under his roof. He and I could have an adult conversation, and when it went to pot, I’d go home.

  We stopped outside a room in the ICU with glass walls and a nurses’ station five feet away.

  “Mr. Reese,” the nurse prompted. “You have a visitor.”

  His droopy eyes opened a bit farther. “Amy?” He looked older in the weird bed with silver rails. His face was swollen, and he had a bandage on his head. Maybe he’d fallen and hit something on the way down.

  “No, Mr. Reese. It’s your granddaughter.” She made a pouty face. “I’m sorry, I forget your name.”

  “Katy.”

  “It’s Katy,” she parroted.

  “Oh.” He looked like I’d stolen his last beer. “Fine.”

  “I’ll leave you two alone.” She turned to me before leaving. “We only allow ten minute visits until he’s moved to the sixth floor. Don’t get him excited, and let me know if he has any pain or needs anything.”

  I gave her a lame thumbs-up.

  Mark cleared his throat. “I guess I lived.” His voice was raw and gnarly.

  “I guess so.”

  He smoothed the blankets over his legs. A bevy of machines glowed, blinked, and beeped near his head.

  I had no idea what to say to him. “How are you feeling?” seemed stupid.

  “How soon can I get out of here?” He picked at the tape over his IV.

  “They said you go to the sixth floor next. This is recovery.”

  “The hell they say.” He gave up on the tape and tugged at the oxygen tube running under his nose. “You know how much this stuff costs? I feel fine. I need to go home. I can rest the
re.”

  “Um.” I shot a panicked look at the nurse outside the door, checking charts. “You don’t have to hurry home. You had heart surgery this morning. I locked up the shed and the house is fine.”

  “The shed?” His breaths grew wheezy. He tugged and scraped blindly at everything attached to him. He flung the little ET finger cover against the wall. “I can’t afford this. No one can afford to get sick anymore. I’m going home. Stay out of my shed!” He swung his feet over the bed’s edge and stopped at the sight of his bare legs wrapped in inflatable blue sleeves. “What the hell? I don’t need these!”

  “Nurse?” I called weakly, half afraid to be a bother and half afraid he’d kill himself getting all the wires detached.

  “Dammit!” Mark jerked one leg wrap and went stiff. His eyes rolled back into his head and the machines went berserk.

  Someone knocked me against the wall.

  “Mr. Reese?” The nurse appeared at his bedside, prying his eyelids open. “Mr. Reese, can you hear me?”

  “Code Blue” echoed over the speaker system and scrubs came running, pushing carts and calling out letters.

  I watched silently as the room filled with a dozen people working diligently as one, prodding and positioning Mark, but the machines continued to scream the piercing flat wail of death.

  The loudest nurse called for the paddles.

  Bile rose in my throat. I pressed my back to the wall. Thinking Mark had died last night or in surgery today was one thing. Abstract. Distant. Seeing him die before my eyes was something else entirely, and I didn’t want to watch. Helplessness and despair seized my angry, desperate heart. What was it with this family? No one survived.

  I stumbled backward through the doorway and ran for the waiting room, where the nurse had found me. I collapsed onto a love seat and pulled my knees to my chest. I fit my forehead against the groove between my knees and jumped directly from planning ways to tell Mark off to making deals with God to save him. “I won’t bother him,” I whispered. “I’ll keep the box and be thankful for it. I won’t ask questions or complain. Just don’t let him die, too.”

  Pain seared my chest and burned my lungs. I wasn’t made for this kind of emotional turmoil. I couldn’t do it. I counted my breaths, working to settle my thoughts. He could make it. He was strong. “Please, please, please,” I whispered into the ether. “Not him too.”

  Like the night before, my desperate mind drifted.

  * * * *

  The intercom pulled me out of multiple dreams. I couldn’t seem to stay awake no matter how hard I tried. Maybe those four hours on the ground had worn off.

  “Miss Reese?”

  I jolted upright, swinging my feet onto the floor.

  The nurse from earlier stood beside me, car keys in hand. “I wanted to let you know he’s stabilized, and we’ve sedated him for now.”

  I exhaled long and slow. He’d beaten death again. Maybe we weren’t as cursed as I thought, or maybe Heidi was right about his dogged will to live.

  “You should let your mother know he’s going to need a lot of patience to get through this, or he’s going to undo all the work we’ve done.”

  “My mom is dead.”

  She blanched. “What?”

  I normally eased people into my family’s drama, but she was clearly on her way home and presumably worked in Mark’s ward, so there was no point in playing games. “My mom died shortly after I was born. Grandma died when I was eight. It’s just us, now.”

  She raised a hand to her lips. “I see. So, you two are close.”

  “No.”

  Chapter 6

  My phone buzzed at a little after eight that night. Heidi’s single line of exclamation points was hard to decipher. When it buzzed again, I blew out a cleansing breath. Heidi was the overly excitable yin to my yang. I lifted the phone to ask for a little more information on that goofy line of exclamation points and it buzzed again.

  The new number was unknown. “Hungry?”

  I tapped my thumbs against the screen, “Wrong number,” and scrolled back to Heidi’s text.

  She responded before I had a chance to ask for clarification. “Guess who asked Sam about you?”

  “Who’s Sam?”

  “My cousin! Red hair, lisp, plays in the marching band at Kent.”

  “Samuel Saltzman?”

  The other number butted in. “Answer your door. I have dinner.”

  I turned to face my closed bedroom door. How very Scream of this person. “Who is this?”

  Heidi’s text popped up again. “Your neighbor, Mr. Sexy Face.”

  I opened the bedroom door and listened. “Dean Wells asked about me?” Holy Hiddleston!

  Heidi: “Yes!!!”

  Unknown number: “Food’s getting cold.”

  Heidi: “Could you die????”

  Yes, yes I could.

  Heidi: “Sam gave him my number. I gave him your number!”

  I peered down the steps at my front door, imagining Dean on the other side. My feet rooted in place. I responded to Heidi. “I think he’s at my door.”

  Heidi: “ANSWER. Answer answer answer.”

  I forced my feet onto the top step and caught a glimpse of my red-striped tube socks, bike shorts, and Flash T-shirt in the hall mirror. “I look insane.”

  Unknown number. “This is Dean. I should’ve started with that.”

  “I’m not a lunatic trying to coax you outside.”

  “My mom made you a tuna casserole.”

  I crept down the steps and peeked out the window.

  Dean waved.

  I swallowed a swarm of rabid butterflies and opened the door, hoping I looked less crazy than I felt. “I hate to break it to you, but your mom lied. That’s a pizza.”

  He shrugged. “Do you like tuna casserole?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good. I gave her casserole to a homeless guy by the pizza place.”

  “Very thoughtful.” I motioned him inside and texted Heidi. “HE’S COMING INSIDE!”

  “Spill something on his shirt so he takes it off.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Send pics.”

  “Stop.”

  “Selfish.”

  Dean opened the pizza box on my coffee table and rubbed his palms together. “Napkins?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I hustled into the kitchen and grabbed some paper towels. “Do you like lemonade?” I called.

  “Yes, please.” His voice was closer than I’d expected. He’d followed me.

  I hid behind the open refrigerator door, gathering my senses and ignoring the nut blowing up my phone with text requests for topless Dean Wells photos.

  “Need any help?”

  “Nope.” I shut the door and poured two glasses of lemonade.

  He helped himself to one glass and carried the napkins back to the living room.

  I followed, gawking openly at the view from behind.

  His hair was messy and damp from a shower. A cloud of shampoo and body wash traveled around my house with him, and his shirt stuck to the planes and curves of his back and shoulders. I’d dreamed of being that shirt.

  He took a seat on the couch’s middle cushion, forcing me to either sit directly beside him or choose Mark’s recliner. The worn leather recliner was Mark’s personal throne and completely off-limits, but sitting beside Dean required more life experience points than I had available.

  I grabbed a slice and sat in the recliner.

  Dean watched.

  “Thank you for the pizza.”

  “Don’t mention it. It was a shameless ploy. I wanted to see how you were doing, and I thought bringing dinner was a good excuse to come over. I had to practically crowbar the casserole from Mom’s grip. She worries about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  He smiled. “Good.”

  Man, I liked that smile. “How are you?”

  “Good.” He wiped his mouth on a n
apkin and stared again, deliberating, it seemed. “Why haven’t we ever talked before now?”

  “We talked yesterday.”

  “Yeah, but why’d it take eighteen years?”

  I bit into the pizza. All my theories were self-deprecating. I tried to pose my ideas as diplomatically as possible. “You’re older and constantly busy.”

  “I’m nineteen, not thirty. I was a little busy when I lived here, but we shared a backyard.”

  I chewed and swallowed slowly. “You live somewhere else now, so there’s that.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange we were never friends?”

  “Not really.” I tried eating again, but coordinating the effort was difficult. What if I lifted the pizza and he saw my hand shake? What if I took a bite and the entire cheese triangle slid onto my chin then onto my shirt and lap and the floor? I trailed the imaginary cheese path with my gaze. Why was I wearing running shorts and baseball socks?

  “I’m sorry about your grandpa.”

  I hovered the pizza and napkins over my bare legs to cover them. “Thanks. Thank your mom for the dinner.”

  He finished his piece of pizza carelessly, completely unconcerned with sauce at the corner of his mouth. “No problem. Make sure you tell her the tuna casserole was delicious.” He scanned the room with blatant curiosity and stopped on Mom’s senior picture before moving on. When he got to the mess on the dining room table, he stood. “Wow. This is a crap-ton of high school memorabilia. Are you deciding what to keep and what to store?”

  I set my slice aside and slunk into the dining room behind him. “No. These are my mom’s things, actually. I found them in the shed.”

  He fingered a pile of snapshots and lifted an eyebrow. “Found them? You didn’t know they were there?”

  “Mark knew.”

  Recognition lit in his eyes. “Ah.” He bobbed his head. “Gotcha. So, did you find anything good?” He pushed a photograph of her in a ponytail and baggy hoodie with his fingertips. “Wow. She was gorgeous.”