What She Wanted

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  “Yeah.” The picture had been taken at night with a bonfire blazing behind her. Her smile was contagious.

  He lifted the picture and poised it near my head. “You look just like her. Do you have a picture like this of you? You could put them in a frame together.”

  My cheeks flamed, idiotically, as if no one had ever paid me a compliment. “I’ve never gone to the bonfires.”

  He squinted but powered on. “Did you guys have other things in common? You didn’t cheer. I would’ve remembered that. What about her other clubs?” He walked the table’s perimeter. “Drama. Spanish. Student Council. Jeez. When did she have time to study?”

  “She was super girl. I took photos for the yearbook committee.” I lifted my thumb and first finger in a pinch. “I have a small life.”

  “Okay. There’s nothing wrong with small. Pretty awesome things come in little packages. Skittles, for example. M&Ms. Chapstick. Memory sticks.”

  “Chapstick?” I suppressed a smile. “Seriously?”

  “What? Lip care is important.” He pressed his lips together and rubbed them back and forth.

  I looked away. “Can’t argue with that.”

  He went back to the couch and made himself at home.

  I blew out a breath. Interesting as his visit had been, I didn’t get it. “Why are you really here?”

  His easy smile faded. “What do you mean?” He gestured to the pizza.

  “Your mom could’ve brought dinner. You didn’t have to do it. I could’ve even managed to make something myself.”

  “I told you. I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head and dropped his chin. A moment later, he raised clear blue eyes to mine. “Why were you at Ray’s yesterday?”

  A mix of shock and embarrassment ran through me. “I’m moving out in a couple weeks, and there’s an apartment upstairs.”

  He frowned. “What about college?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Yeah, but why move out then move again in a month?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Dean stretched his legs in front of him, apparently mulling it over. “Ray’s isn’t a nice place, you know? They’ve had some serious bar fights. People have been hospitalized. There are rumors he allows prostitution, probably in the room you’re about to rent. Mom’s tried to close it a bunch of times for good reasons.”

  “I know.”

  “Why not stay here for the summer? What’s the rush?”

  I gritted my teeth against the stress of the day. “What’s your major this year? Criminal justice?”

  “Funny.” He repositioned himself, elbows on knees, and relented. “My major’s actually undecided. Mom wants pre-med, but I’m studying agriculture.”

  “Farming?”

  “Not just farming. I’m looking for better ways to utilize our resources.”

  I struggled to unite my ideas of Dean with what he’d confessed. Farming? “Elaborate.”

  He clasped his big hands together and braced them on his head. “Okay, for example, there has to be a more efficient, cost-effective way to grow produce. There are too many regions in the world where farming, like we know it, is impossible. I feel like there has to be a work around. Something feasible, not science fiction.” He sat straighter and dropped his hands to his lap. “Distribution is key right now. Did you know we have enough produce rotting on vines in areas like ours to end hunger for thousands of people? We just can’t get it to them.”

  His sad little smile looked a lot like embarrassment. “Sorry. That sounded like a rant, didn’t it? I’m supposed to be distracting you from your worries about Mark, not burdening you with world hunger.”

  I repeated his monologue internally. Who was this guy? Honestly, I’d figured him for a life in underwear modeling or reality television. The fact he had a brain and a heart was ridiculously endearing and one hundred percent dangerous. When I’d assumed he was hot and dumb, I had no problem forgetting him periodically. I didn’t need another reason to crush on Dean. He should go. I braced my feet to stand, but my body ignored the request.

  He dared a look in my direction.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Even if farmers donated the portion of their crops they anticipated going to waste, and you set up a solid distribution network for the free resources, there’d be the issue of how to pay the workers moving the product, plus gas for trucks and planes, customs issues, refrigeration, etc.”

  A smile spread across his handsome face. “All true.”

  I settled back in Mark’s chair. “How’d you get my number?”

  “Your friend Heidi’s cousin goes to my school. We ran into each other after a game, and I bribed him for her number. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”

  “She did. I wanted to know if you’d lie.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Excellent question.”

  He laughed.

  I finished my pizza and my lemonade, thankful for the easy conversation and curious how it would end.

  My phone erupted with a fresh round of texts from Heidi.

  “Is he still there?”

  “What happened?”

  “Tell me everything.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  Dean stretched onto his feet. “I’d better get going.”

  “Okay.” I walked him to the door, wishing for a reason to keep him longer. “Thanks again for the pizza.”

  “Anytime.” He stepped onto the front porch and turned back. “How about tomorrow?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can bring dinner again tomorrow if you don’t have plans.”

  I stared. That would definitely give Heidi something to freak about. “I have conditions. You have to let me cook, and you have to thank your mom for the casserole.”

  “Deal.” He stretched a hand in my direction.

  I slid my fingers over his huge palm and sighed. “Deal.” The roughness of his hand stirred heat in my core. Images of those broad palms grazing my ribs made my toes curl.

  The landline rang, and I dropped his hand. “I’d better get that. It might be the hospital.”

  “You want me to stay?”

  Yes. “No. I’m fine.”

  I waved good-bye and dashed to the phone. “Hello?”

  “Miss Reese? This is Dr. Ashband at Wetzel County Hospital. I’m afraid your grandfather has slipped into a coma.”

  Chapter 7

  I walked to the hospital early the next morning. Dew and fog clung to the ground. A haze of water thickened the air. The world was silent, save a handful of farmers on tractors and livestock grazing behind stubby fences.

  I slipped between the sliding glass doors and made my way to the third floor. The hospital was eerily still. The overpowering stench of cleansers seemed almost normal this time. Was it like that for Mom at the end? Did she live someplace like this before she died? Did she get used to the masked scents of sickness? My stomach churned at the idea of her suffering.

  “You’re back.” The nurse from yesterday smiled at me.

  “Is he still in a coma?” It was the only thing I’d thought about since I’d climbed into bed at one thirty.

  “Yes.” She slid a hand onto my shoulder and turned me in the opposite direction. “He’s right down here.”

  I followed her down the hallway to a set of double doors that swung open as we approached. The little sign on the wall said “Coma Ward.”

  “Almost there,” she prompted.

  A woman in patterned scrubs stacked files on a giant round desk. She glanced our way without speaking.

  “This is it.” We stopped outside a room with normal walls and a standard obligatory window.

  Mark’s new room wasn’t as scary as the one in recovery.

  “Thanks.”

  The scene was movie-like. He didn’t look real. He was grayer. Vulnerable. Wires and tubes pro
truded from him, attached to a bouquet of machines with purposes I didn’t understand.

  I gripped my camera bag and planned my retreat. I wouldn’t stay long. How long was long enough? I didn’t want to seem rude to the nurses. Mark wouldn’t care. He didn’t want me there, so why was I compelled to come?

  Guilt saddled me to a chair at his bedside. Like it or not, Mark was all I had, and I didn’t want to be alone.

  The nurse hung casually in the doorway. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She sauntered to his bedside and checked the monitors. “You should talk to him. Research suggests coma patients retain sensory perception.” She stoked his arm. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Reese?”

  “Um. I don’t think he would want that.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” She moved away on silent feet and pulled the door partially shut as she left.

  My throat thickened.

  I dug into my bag and extricated a picture of Mark and Mom when she was young. Their heads were tilted in on one another, mouths open in laughter. Grandma had probably taken the picture. Whatever they’d been up to that day, they’d been happy. I leaned the snapshot against a lamp on his nightstand. He’d see it if he woke.

  Traitorous tears stung my eyes. I shouldn’t care if Mark died. I didn’t even know him. He didn’t want me. So, why did the idea of losing him shred my heart into pieces? Why did I need him so much?

  Tears dripped off the end of my nose and onto my lap. I scrubbed a hand over my face, capturing renegade drops on the pads of my fingers. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Mark was supposed to get old, retire, and see me make something of myself. I was going to be something he could be proud of, and one day he’d look at me like I mattered.

  “Ugh.” I swiped a stiff tissue from the box of generics at his bedside. “What am I supposed to say to you? You’d probably race into the light just to get away from my voice.” I laughed at my morbid joke and grabbed another tissue.

  I hated problems I couldn’t fix. I hated not being eighteen. I hated that Mark hadn’t signed the paperwork so I could go to school. I hated being helpless to do it myself. Now, he needed someone, and I was useless to him, too. The nurse said talk to him, but I couldn’t. I never had. I didn’t know how.

  I dropped my face into waiting palms and stifled a frustrated sob. My elbow slid against the journal tucked into my bag. I still had no idea what Mark and Joshua had been arguing about when he had his heart attack. Joshua knew, but I wasn’t speaking to him. Mark knew, but I couldn’t ask him until he woke, and I couldn’t wake him.

  I opened the flap and set the bag at my feet. Mom’s glitter-covered journal was on top. The tiny heart-shaped lock dangled at its side. I pinched the trinket between my fingers and an idea percolated.

  “Would you wake up for her?” I asked the unconscious man before me.

  Of course he would. He’d do anything for her, including grieve for seventeen years.

  I squeezed the book in my hands. Opening it would betray Mom’s trust and invade her privacy. Would it matter, or were trust and privacy earthly constructs, wholly irrelevant to her now?

  He was her dad. He was happy in every photo I’d found of them. I didn’t know that guy. She’d never known this guy. I lifted my gaze to Mark. I didn’t know much about her, but I was confident Mom would want me to help Mark.

  Resolve slowly changed my arguments from reasons to leave the journal alone to reasons she’d want it opened.

  I carried the journal to the nurses’ station. “Excuse me.”

  The nurse beamed. “Yes? Everything okay?”

  I sipped oxygen through gritted teeth.

  This was it. Fate would decide for me. If the nurse could help, I was meant to read the journal. If not, I’d put it away when I got home and stop carrying it around, looking for reasons to peek inside. I cleared my throat. “Do you have any scissors?”

  She furrowed her brows. “I don’t know.”

  I held my breath.

  She opened and closed shallow drawers, rifling through pens and notepads. She lifted stacks of charts and ran her hand into kits with triage supplies. “I thought for sure…”

  Hope dwindled in my heart. What had I expected? Did I think the nurse sat out here scrapbooking? Did I think she had a magic caddy of office supplies? A Mary Poppins bag with one of everything inside?

  “Here you go.” She pushed a pair of tiny silver scissors across the desk between us. “Will these work?”

  Panic wedged in my throat. “Mm-hmm.”

  I accepted the offering stiffly and went back to my chair at Mark’s bedside.

  The journal was heavier as I positioned it on my lap.

  I opened the little scissors and slid narrow blades around the flap that had guarded Mom’s words for nearly two decades. Was I really doing this?

  I closed my eyes and squeezed the handles together. The material split under the pressure. I sucked air and squeezed again. And again. Until the lock swung away.

  A shuddered breath rocked through pounds of painful emotions in my chest.

  I shook my hands out hard at the wrists and fortified my nerves. Inside, a line of delicate, pink metallic script startled me into a sob.

  I pressed shaky fingers to my lips and read the precious words again.

  To Katy, with love.

  I jerked my attention to Mark, then into the hall. No one else saw it. Was it real?

  I followed Mom’s loopy script with my pointer finger. To me. With love.

  I turned the page and marveled at the sight of my name once more.

  Dear Katy,

  If you’re reading this, you’ve either grown up and I’m sharing this with you, or you’ve grown up and I haven’t. If the second one is true, you’ll know what that means. I’m pretty sure that’s the way this is going to go, but I have hope. Never give up on hope.

  I asked your dad to hang on to this journal for you in case I can’t, but your grandpa will have everything else. He’s such a packrat. I think he even kept my retainer. Sometimes he might seem distant, but he’s not. He’s thinking. Overthinking, probably. Just give him lots of hugs and tell him you love him when he gets like that. Hugs usually fix everything.

  Tears streamed stupidly over my hot face, dotting Mom’s handwriting and making it impossible to see. I yanked a handful of tissues from the box and mopped the page then turned them on my face. Hug Mark? A giggle-snort burst free. I grabbed another round of tissues for my nose. Yes, Mom. A hug would totally fix everything. Another laugh wiggled loose.

  She was perky and delusional.

  Guilt squashed the moment of humor. That was mean. Why would I joke about her like that? I pushed the jolt of shame down deep and turned my eyes back to the book in my lap.

  I’m running with the notion I don’t get to raise you. I know I said to hope, but it’s important to plan, too. Your grandma went through something like I’m going through, and it was ugly. I hope you won’t see me that way. I don’t want those memories for you. I want all good things for you. You’re my heart. I didn’t know I wanted you until I found out you existed and now all I think about is what you’ll look like and who you’ll be. I bet you’ll change the world. I know you will. You should make the most of every second you have because the seconds are numbered. Even if we don’t know the exact number. It’s there.

  She’d drawn a line of hearts and squiggly lines between paragraphs. Without proper dates, I couldn’t tell if the day had changed or just the subject. I checked again for peeping nurses or movement from Mark. Nothing.

  Okay, so this journal will probably be all pregnancy hormones and nonsense, but I want to keep a log to share with you. I want to share everything with you. If I’m strong enough, I’ll meet you in a few months, and my life will be complete. It’s all I want. I just want to meet you and know you’re okay.

  Just in case I get too sick to tell you later, I’m going to start
this journal with a list of the most important things. It’ll be sloppy because Mom’s going to call me to dinner soon. (If I so much as smell fish again tonight, I will barf)…

  My name is Amy Reese. I’m seventeen years old. I’m six months pregnant with the most perfect daughter in the entire history of the world and this is what I want for you:

  1. Love your grandparents. Hug them often and tell them you love them. Remind them how much I do, too. Especially if I can’t.

  2. Chase your dreams. Whatever they are, grab on with both hands and don’t let go.

  3. Laugh. Enjoy your life, even the troubles. Not everyone is lucky enough to have them.

  4. Give. Do random acts of kindness. You never know how far those can reach. And, forgive whenever you can. Forgiveness is a gift that blesses both people.

  5. Make friends. Smile at people. Smiles are contagious. Try it. You’ll see.

  6. Fall in love.

  7. Let the world know you. Don’t be afraid of who you are, and don’t apologize for it. You are beautiful and perfect. Embrace it.

  8. Go fishing with your grandpa. He loves the lake. I bet you’ll be a great fisherwoman. I hope I get to go with you.

  9. Know I loved you.

  10. Live.

  If you do these things, I’ll know I was a good mom, and I’ll know you’re going to be okay.

  I leaned over the journal and rested my forehead against Mark’s bed until the tears stopped coming. My eyelids were swollen when I finally righted myself and looked at him for any sign of the man Mom had described. I didn’t see it, but that didn’t matter. He’d wake up for her.

  I turned back to page one, lifted my gravelly voice and read.

  Chapter 8

  While I’d devoured page after page of Mom’s journal, the hot summer sun had climbed into the sky and burned off the early morning haze. I’d read to Mark until two little words had changed my day: Katy Lowe.

  My feet beat a steady rhythm over patches of uneven sidewalk. The temperature was up by fifteen degrees and climbing as I ran the nearly two miles home. A lifetime of walking everywhere had made the trip short and swift. Despite the run’s ease, my heart grew more frantic the closer I got to home.