by Dawn Edwards
I nodded, ‘Ok, can I go see him?’
‘Why do you think they went through all this to get you here?’
I smiled, ‘I thought you sprung for the private jet.’
‘Cupcake, if I could afford that, I’d have had you here months ago.’ He kissed me again before taking my hand in his, and my carry-on suitcase in the other.
It had been one year, three months and nine days since I was last on American soil. I viewed the landmarks as we drove through Boston to Mass General; not much had changed and even at 10:45 on a Saturday morning the traffic was still congested. Thankfully it was a bright and sunny day, so I was getting away with my large sunglasses. I had on my red wig, a pair of black leggings and a form-fitting grey long-sleeved tunic-length shirt. On top of that, I was wearing a wool coat that went to my mid-thigh and a pair of black ankle boots with a slight heel on them.
Underneath the disguise of the wig, contacts, and sunglasses, I wasn’t the same girl that had left Boston over a year ago. Gone was my long blonde hair, now a bit shorter and back to my natural brown. When not in a bun under my wig, it was past my shoulders, which I liked to put a few curls in to give it volume when I wore it down. I had my teeth whitened; they had never been bad, I just could, so I did. And felt more confident than ever to flash my bright new smile, which, I did a lot more now that I was discovering things that made me truly happy. My chest was nearly flat, and gone was almost half of my former self, physically, but had doubled if not tripled my mental and emotional resolve.
But at my core, I was still Jessa Cahill, a loving daughter, a loyal cousin, a faithful girlfriend and girl—no, woman—who missed her best friends dearly.
I had grown so much over the past year and truly found out who I was. The one thing I was positive about was my devotion to my family and the love I had for Drew. I had missed and needed them more in the past 8 hours than the last year and a half combined. Including birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Despite all the information I’d uncovered, all the wrong I was trying to put right, I felt completely and utterly helpless at the moment.
As we pulled into the hospital parking lot I looked around. ‘Do you know if you were followed?’ I asked him.
‘I don’t think so,’ he told me, shrugging and looking around. ‘I doubt it. If Brett thought you were in any danger, he’d have never let you get on that flight.’
I nodded and agreed with him. Breton had always been a bit protective over me, but since moving to London and living with him, I saw a level of caring from him that I never had imagined before.
‘Thanks for driving all the way down to Providence to pick me up,’ I turned to face Drew. He looked tired and I could tell he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and it appeared he was still wearing his work clothing from yesterday. I would have bet that he spent the night at the hospital and didn’t sleep at all.
‘I’d have driven to the moon to see you for a moment.’ He lifted my hand, which hadn’t really left his the entire hour-and-a-half drive, to his lips to kiss.
He parked as I looked at myself in the mirror. ‘Does the wig look straight to you?’
He looked me over. ‘You look amazing, and trust me, if I have a hard time telling it’s you, you are going to pass.’
The unknown of my father’s health, seeing my family and the lingering fear of being caught was too much for me. I was thankful for him as he held my hand walking into the hospital. I needed his assurance and his strength as I was so on edge and feeling totally out of control. For over the past year I ran the show, I was my own boss for once. I was away from danger and lived in my bubble of a safe routine, where I had few surprises and my situations were pretty much controlled and predictable. But I couldn't have predicted my father having a heart attack, nor did I know if I’d be recognized at the hospital and caught. Breton and I just needed a few more weeks maybe a month to get everything organized and our stories sorted.
While I was more than ready to be home, our evidence to finally put all the Taggarts away once and for all wasn’t.
Drew’s presence was the calm that I needed, that I would always need. He led me up to the cardiac floor where my father was in the intensive care unit. ‘He has his own room, but why don’t you wait here, and I’ll see if the coast is clear?’
I waited by the nursing station as Drew left me to walk the fifteen feet down the hall to where my father’s room was. I rooted through my purse, keeping my head down. I put on some lip balm and then took out my phone as Drew came back, wrapping his arm around my waist. ‘Abby is in there at the moment,’ he whispered, pulling me as he started walking away from the room and back towards the elevators we just came up on. ‘I’m going on a coffee run, she’s got to catch a flight soon to meet a client out of town, so she should be gone when we’re back.’
I pulled my scarf from my purse as we stepped outside and wrapped it around my head to prevent the wig from flying off in the wind. We walked to a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby and got a few coffees and two boxes of donuts.
‘What’s with all the donuts?’ I asked as we left the store, eyeing the boxes suspiciously.
‘For the nurses,’ he looked down to me. ‘They are amazing, so I want to say thanks to them.’
‘And just when I didn’t think I could love you any more.’
He smiled, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to kiss me, causing people to walk around us, muttering not-so-dear endearments, but nothing mattered when his lips were on me.
I was worried about how my mom was going to react to seeing me. We spoke nearly every day, and texted often too, but had only ever FaceTimed a few times over the past year since they found out about me still being alive.
I knew my mother would be a big ball of stress at the moment. Hell, I couldn't blame her, I was too. She truly was in love with my father, and him with her. They had a happily-ever-after kind of marriage that not everyone gets nowadays. It was special, and I could imagine how scared she must have been right about now. Scared enough to ask me to come home, that was telling.
Over the past year, she all but begged me to come home, to meet her and my father, or to tell them where I was so they could visit me. Breton and I had to explain to them that it wasn’t safe. They understood, but it didn’t stop them from asking and wanting to know when this ordeal would finally be over and done with for good.
I got it, I wanted it to be over and done with too, and really soon it would be; just as soon as my exit plan was hatched out. I just prayed this trip didn’t put a snag into our plans. If I got caught, all my sacrifice would be for nothing.
Over the past few weeks, Breton and I started to talk about my exit plan, and he’d already started to put some things in motion. In order to go further, we would need to involve Abby, but we weren't ready for that yet. It was a close call back in the hospital. I knew in the next few hours I would need to speak with Breton and look at our timelines—if I was here for any length of time, we might as well involve Abby, as it may be hard to keep hidden.
I waited outside my father’s door as Drew went in and I heard my mother say, ‘Where is she?’
‘Hi Colleen. Oh, you’re welcome for the coffee,’ he laughed, teasing her. It was so refreshing to hear their playful banter had only increased over the past year and a half. That at a time like this, he could joke with her, to try and lighten the mood. ‘I just wanted to make sure the coast was clear,’ he laughed and stepped back out in the hall and took the two boxes of donuts from me and nodded at me to go in. ‘I’m going to give the nurses one of these.’
I walked into the room and stood there in front of my mother, and heard the door close behind me. Her eyes went wide and then roamed over my body as I walked towards her. ‘It is really you?’ she whispered, her voice cracking as she took me in her arms.
‘Yes,’ I said into her neck, feeling the tears roll down my face.
She hugged me back, her arms going all the way around my thin frame. ‘But there’s nothing to you,’ and she ran a f
inger through my hair.
‘It’s a wig,’ I whispered, taking off my sunglasses, ‘And I’ve got contacts in.’
‘I don’t think I’d recognize you if you passed me on the street and I wasn’t aware you were around.’
I took off my jacket and placed it on the chair. I knew how thin I looked at the moment, but I was hoping that my bones weren’t poking out through the shirt I had on.
‘Are you ok?’ she asked, rubbing my arm.
‘Well, I lost some weight after the surgery and infections, so I know I have to put on a few pounds. I look sick at the moment, but I took my final round of antibiotics last night.’
‘It’s just unreal,’ she couldn’t keep her eyes off me.
The curtain was closed around my father's bed, and all I could see was the end of his bed from where I stood and the overbed hospital table with some flowers on it.
‘How’s Da...How’s he doing?’ I didn’t want to call him dad, should a nurse be in there or walk in.
‘He’s as well as to be expected,’ she told me, walking forward and pulling the curtain back. I saw my father lying in bed, looking like he was sleeping with a few wires poking out from underneath the hospital shirt. I’d never seen him like this. He rarely ever got sick and had never looked as vulnerable as he did at this moment.
‘What happened,’ I asked. ‘I thought he was healthy.’
‘We all did,’ she started, ‘But you know how much he works. He’d been cutting down some hours, but he was stressed, something about a pilot drinking again or something like that. He came into the kitchen and was all sweaty and breathing heavy, then he gripped his left side and fell… to the ground. I was on the phone with 911 before I knew it and then next thing I know, I’m in the back of an ambulance driving to the hospital with the paramedics.’
‘That must have been so scary.’ I hugged her tighter than before.
‘It really was.’ She wiped a tear from her eye as she pulled back to clasp my hands in hers. ‘I knew at that moment I needed you here with me, that I couldn’t go through this without you. And I also knew that you would be beside yourself being so far away. I’m so relieved to have you back, you have no idea how much it means.’
‘Of course, I’m here, you’re not alone. We got this, Mom…’ I let it slip, but I didn’t care. I needed my mom, and I needed to be there for her just as much.
‘Has he woken up yet?’ I asked.
My mother shook her head, ‘No, they will start to claw back the sedation overnight, by then the blood pressure meds should have kicked in and it will be less of a shock to his system.’
‘Am I going to be a shock to him?’
She smiled and put an arm around my shoulder. ‘The best one of his life.’
‘But will it affect his recovery?’
‘I think it will be good, you will be one less thing for him to worry about.’ She pulled me in and kissed the top of my head as I wrapped my arms around her, hearing the door of his room slide open and then close again.
I didn’t have to look, I knew it was Drew. I could always sense his presence.
My mother turned around, eyeing the box of donuts. ‘We should give them to the nurses.’
‘I bought two boxes, the other is already delivered and half was eaten before I got back to the room.’ He sat down in one of the chairs and opened the box. ‘These are mine, but if you’re nice, I’ll share with you.’
My mother looking in the box he held out to her and took out an apple fritter and turned to me, ‘There’s a chocolate dip, your favorite.’
I didn’t make a move to dig in and then she laughed, ‘When was the last time you ate a donut?’
‘After my surgery, Breton got me a box of Krispy Kreme,’ I stated. ‘But I just want some coffee, I ate on the plane.’
I took a cup from the holder on the windowsill then sat in one of the chairs in my father’s room and pulled it close to his bed. ‘Can I touch him?’
‘Of course,’ my mother said. ‘Just don't pull the wires out, the nurses get a bit angry when they come off.’
I laughed and rolled my eyes. ‘I don’t even want to know…’
‘I was just giving him a hug last night and my arm rested on a wire and it came off…’
Drew laughed, ‘It was quite the scene. Deb and I were asleep, and all of a sudden the alarms go off and next thing we knew a team of nurses rush in here with a crash cart only to discover the monitoring tab came off.’
‘Deb’s been here?’ I asked and looked around. Drew had told me that he and my mother explained to her about me last night and how she felt slighted that she hadn't been told. In all the excitement of seeing my parents, I completely forgot about Deb. I had been nagging Breton over the past few months to tell her, that she would be upset to not be in the know, especially when Drew knew.
‘She’s at the townhouse showering, napping, and said she would pick up some food for us for dinner,’ my mother told me, taking a seat next to me, as I held my father’s hand.
The three of us spent the day in my father's hospital room. My mother read a book in between answering calls from friends, family and my father’s company.
I didn’t realize how this could affect my father’s business, but I saw how serious it all was given all the calls and information being exchanged.
Drew was on his laptop doing work and made a few calls to his crew, some he took in the hallway, and others he answered in the room. I was so proud of him and all his accomplishments in such a short amount of time.
But despite all of that, he was very much the same guy he always had been. He was simple, loyal and loving to the few who deserved his love.
I considered myself very fortunate to be among the few. I could tell my mother adored him, and he loved her right back, in a very maternal kind of way. It was clear in the way they spoke and interacted with one another. He was concerned about her, asking how she was doing, if she needed anything. He’d done the same for me, but it was different. Our love was all-consuming, he loved her like a son loves a mother. There was a protectiveness over her, and it was clear he took responsibility for her at the moment. It was refreshing to know that at a time when my father was at his most vulnerable, he stepped in without even being asked to take care of her. I knew my father would appreciate this, my mother was the most important person and her happiness and safety trumped everything.
And I worked on my course work and dabbled with my business plan a bit also. I wasn’t ready to share my plans about my business with anyone yet. I’d mentioned small bits to both Breton and Drew but wasn’t ready for my big reveal yet. For one thing, my future was too uncertain, and the other thing, I wanted my business plan perfect before I went public because then I couldn't take it back, it would be out there, and I knew I’d never want to walk away from it once it was. Aside from that, there would be expectations, and right now, inside my head, I only had to contend with my own apprehensions of starting a business.
The idea for my business started organically when I was encouraged to journal at the retreat. . At first, I wrote about my days and my feelings. Eventually, I started writing about the exercising, the motivation and the books I’d been reading. Exploring ideas of how nothing like the retreat existed back home, how much of an impact it was having not just on my physical transformation, but also my mindset, transitioning me from a daughter hiding in her father’s shadow to a woman coming into her own person.
I didn’t even realize I had started asking questions of staff, mainly Marcus, until he pointed it out one day. It was then that I realized I had something brewing in my mind. Knowing my time at the retreat was limited, I needed to be strategic with my time there, to learn the most I could.
It was going to be a lot of work to get it up and running, but I also knew it was what I wanted to do. The seed was planted within me, I needed to foster it to grow. There was a need for it, and I wanted to be the one to offer such services. For so long I worked for my father, furthering his dream
. It was time to follow my own. Now that I discovered my passion, I wanted to help change people’s lives, just as mine had been. Since I started mulling it over in my mind, it hadn’t left, every day I thought of something new to add to my plan. I was obsessed with it at times, not able to walk away from it. It was inside me, and I couldn't wait to finally start making my dream a reality.
The nurses came in every hour or so to do their rounds. I had been introduced to the nursing staff as Sarah, Drew’s girlfriend, and was asked to have unconditional access to the room. Drew, I was told, was put down as immediate family, but no other explanation was given to the hospital. I still wasn’t comfortable, and each time someone came into the room, I kept my head down reading my tablet, or took the time to use the washroom in the room.
I was paranoid, feeling that they knew exactly who I was and would tell. Drew and my mother told me it was all in my head and that I should just be acting natural.
But that was hard for me, I was stressed and worried over my father. It didn’t help matters that I was used to exercising, eating healthy food and limiting caffeine. We had donuts for lunch, and some fruit from a basket sent to us from one of my father’s business associates, and lots of coffee.
At four, when Drew came back from making a call, he put on his jacket. ‘I’m going to get some fresh air and coffee, anyone want to come or put in an order?’
‘I don’t want to leave Steve, but get me my usual?’ my mother asked, looking to me, nodding at the door. ‘Go stretch your legs.’
I put my boots back on and Drew helped me into my jacket. I took my purse and straightened the wig on my head.
He put his hand on my lower back, guiding me out of the room. We’d been good with our PDA in front of my mother; I sat for a while with my feet in his lap, and he rubbed my shoulders once, but other than that, there was nothing. I wasn’t sure if my parents knew we were together or not, but I wasn’t about to hide it—not anymore.
He took my hand as we walked down the hall to the elevators and didn't let it go until we were at the coffee shop.