I know that stare. After Grandpa broke his hip, he wore that stare. For months. For too many months. And then he died.
“Are you cold, Ms. Lynn?” The woman places a blanket over her lap. “I can get another blanket for you.”
“I need to pick Abby up from school.” Ms. Lynn’s voice is weak. Fragile. As if she’s talking from a memory rather than the present. She grabs the woman’s hand and there’s a bit of recognition in her eyes as she makes eye contact with her caretaker. “Can you pick Abby up from school, Nadia? Abby doesn’t like to be forgotten and I’m always the first one in line to pick her up. She’ll get scared and cry if I’m not there to pick her up.”
Pain strikes my heart hard and fast and I jerk with the impact.
“It’s summer,” Nadia replies. “Abby’s not in school.”
And Abby’s too old to be picked up and, if she wasn’t, it’s hard to imagine an Abby that’s not hell on wheels and independent.
Ms. Lynn’s forehead wrinkles. “Then where is she? It’s three. Abby should be home.”
Her voice is gaining strength, picking up speed, and the worry that causes my own mother’s voice to go higher in pitch is recognizable in her tone. Nadia looks over at me and the grandfather clock on the other side of the room begins to chime.
One.
Two.
Three.
Three p.m.—Abby said I needed to give the envelope at three.
My feet feel like they’re cemented in concrete as I force them forward. I hold out the envelope and hope to God this is right. “This yours?”
She lightly bows her head, but then returns her attention to Ms. Lynn as the older woman grows more restless. “It’s three. Abby should be home by three.”
Nadia tucks the blanket tighter to Ms. Lynn. “Abby’ll be home later, but she sent a friend of hers in her place. Isn’t that nice of her?”
Ms. Lynn blinks and looks me over for the first time and there’s not much kindness there. “Are you the boy who made her cry?”
A weight in my chest. Possibly. I don’t know who Abby is anymore. I don’t know a person who could make her cry. Yesterday, I would have claimed that Abby didn’t have emotions or tear ducts. “No, ma’am.”
Ms. Lynn scans the room as if she’s waking up or maybe she’s searching for the guy who made Abby cry. “Abby reads to me...”
At three. I can finish the thought for her. A book is next to her on an end table as well as a picture of her and Abby. The woman is in the same chair she’s in now and Abby is leaning over with her arm around Ms. Lynn. They’re both smiling. Real smiles. Genuine smiles. The type I didn’t think Abby owned. That picture presents Abby was a whole other person.
“I’ll read to you,” I say. “Abby asked me to do it while she...” My mouth dries out as I search for the words.
“Plays with friends?” offers Nadia, and by the look in her eye, she understands how deep of a lie that is.
“Yeah. That. I’ll be right back, Ms. Lynn. I need to talk to Nadia first.”
She briefly sighs like she’s disappointed and pats the blanket over her knees. “Abby says that, too.”
Nadia inclines her head toward the back of the house and when she leads, I follow. Once in the kitchen, Nadia accepts the envelope from me and drops it in her purse.
“Do you need to count it?” I ask.
“I’ve been working for Abby for three years and she’s never once shorted me.” She opens a cabinet and pulls out a bag of those Pepperidge Farm cookies. The type with chocolate lining the bottom. Other than the bag, there’s nothing else in the cabinet.
“Abby gives her two of these and a glass of milk. She’d read to Ms. Lynn for the next hour, even if Ms. Lynn is lost in her own mind again. I’ll stay an extra half hour, and I’ll call Peggy, she’s the next nurse on shift, to come in a half hour early. You don’t hit me as the type that wants to take an old woman into the bathroom to pee and then clean her up.”
“Do you need more money for that?”
She shakes her head. “Abby will compensate us when it’s time.”
I’m lost. In a fog. A lot like I imagine Ms. Lynn must be. “So when other people show, like me, when Abby’s caught up doing things, will other people show to help at night or...”
Nadia holds up her hand to cut off my question then opens the fridge to find the milk. Like the cabinet, the fridge is stark. Milk. Orange juice. A few condiments. “You’re the first person besides Abby, me, Peggy, and Nate to walk into this house in over three years. I don’t know how Abby gets the money to pay for three full-time nurses, but she does. We don’t ask, she doesn’t tell. We make nice tax-free money in a great work environment with a wonderful old woman and a granddaughter who would cut off her right arm for the woman in that room.”
My eyes briefly shut. Her grandmother. Abby’s caring for her grandmother. Damn it all to hell, Abby, why didn’t you tell any of us?
Nadia offers the cookies and milk to me. “Abby always comes home though. Every day from three to four. After that, she comes and goes as she pleases. Sometimes she’s here, sometimes she’s not. We get paid to care for this house and Ms. Lynn and not to ask questions so I’m going to be very careful with the following inquiry—do I need to make sure the afternoon hours between three and four are covered for a while? That’s Abby’s alone time with her grandmother.”
I nod several times then accept the cookies. “But I’ll show. To check on things.” My mind races with all the millions of unknowns, all the questions that I should ask. “Do I need to pay the others? What about food?”
“I pay everyone out. We get paid again next month. Same day. Same time. We prepare Ms. Lynn’s meals at home and bring them here. Abby doesn’t stock the kitchen. Just so you know, there are three shifts—seven to three which is me, four to eleven which is Peggy, and then eleven to seven with is Nate.”
“What if one of you is sick—”
Nadia holds up her hand again. “Abby pays us to take care of that among ourselves. She doesn’t worry about us and you shouldn’t, either. Now go, Ms. Lynn functions better off routine and it’ll be tough enough on her that you’re not Abby, but for now, you’ll do.”
Dismissing me, she scrapes the uneaten food into the garbage and pours dish soap into the sink.
This time, as I walk through the dining room and into the living room, I can’t decide if this place is a home, a nursing home or a tomb. Maybe it’s all three.
I set the milk and cookies on the end table and pull up a folding chair to sit across from Ms. Lynn. Her fingers trace the pattern of the knitted afghan. Alzheimer’s. Has to be. And Abby is selling her soul, endangering her life to care for this woman.
How did it come to this, Abby? “What are we reading?”
“Pride and Prejudice,” she says. “I always read Pride and Prejudice to Abby.”
Which means Abby now reads it to her.
Abby
Sleep is restless, and I have a hard time deciphering what’s real and what’s not. Dreams feel real. The ones where my father is there, sitting by my side, telling me he’ll take over again. In them, Dad’s strong. He’s a towering man who intimidates others not just with his words, but with his strength.
In other dreams, I’m with Grams. I’m on her bed, sitting cross-legged with my army of stuffed animals I had dragged from my room all staring at me as she brushes my hair after she had blow-dried it.
“You should never go to bed with wet hair. My mother said that will give you a cold.”
“Okay,” I said as I picked up the bear Dad had recently got me. He was black with a pink nose and I imagined the bear growling like Daddy had done with a smile on his face when he handed the bear to me.
“I love you.” Grams gathered my hair at the nape of my neck. “I always wanted a daught
er, but God only gave me your father. I messed up with him. Let his father have too much of a say, but things will be different for you, Abby. Your path will be brighter.”
She pulled the brush under my hair and I closed my eyes, loving the feeling, adoring the contact. This was our ritual night after night until her mind slowly began to disintegrate. “Daddy told me that smart businesspeople stay unattached. What does unattached mean?” I was eight and I wanted my father to think I understood everything he said, even when I didn’t.
Gram paused. Her brush in one hand, my hair in the other. “It means your father is sad even when he doesn’t have to be. Don’t worry about business. Just worry about finding happiness.”
“Your grandmother is right.” My heart soared when I spotted my father cocking a hip against the door frame. “You focus on happy. I’ll take care of the bad.”
“Promise?” I asked.
“Promise. And unlike my dad, I plan on sticking around to take care of you.” Dad’s gaze wandered past me to Grams. “To take care of both of you.”
I open my eyes and Dad’s not there. Neither is Grams. So much for sticking around, but then again, I would be the reason my father is in jail. He kept his promise. Dad protected me and that promise landed him in prison.
I blink away the guilt. Emotion over something I can’t change won’t rewrite the past.
A scan of the room and I assess the situation. Mac was here, but then he was gone. Noah’s been here, working on homework, struggling to break free from the streets with a college degree. West’s been here, as well. Typing on his phone, watching footage of opponents for his upcoming fights. And then there’s Isaiah. The room’s quiet then. Too quiet. Him looking out the window. Standing in the doorway. Mentally replaying how we met, why he owes me...why he likes me.
Is this moment real or another dream?
“Have you heard from Logan?” My voice comes out as a squeak and I try to clear it. Mac said there was a breathing tube—when I was first admitted—and my throat is now raw.
Footsteps, Isaiah spins and Logan appears with two plastic grocery bags in his hands. He stares at me, I stare at him and I suck in a breath. Partially in relief. Partially in dread.
“Did you get some rest?” Isaiah asks.
The two of them share a long look and Logan nods. “I’m ready for my shift.”
“Got yourself figured out?”
“Enough.”
Great, they’re speaking in code. “English, boys. Preferably full sentences with nouns and verbs. They teach it in school. Every year. No matter how much it blows.”
Isaiah’s mouth twitches up as he lifts his chin at me in goodbye, I repeat the gesture back, and he leaves me and Logan alone.
Logan raises his eyebrows at me and there’s that condescending, piss-ass expression on that handsome face that draws me in. For the first time since I was wheeled out of Recovery, I feel the first spark of energy that’s a semblance of me.
“You had a stuffed Barney.”
Fucking purple dinosaur. I should never have kept the singing menace or the picture of me holding him on the fridge. “It’s all lies. It was forced upon me in a moment of weakness.”
Logan pulls the chair Linus had sat in toward the bed and drops into it. “Have you slept?”
“I’ve been trying to stay awake.” It’s killing my pride to rely on Logan. To rely on anyone. “She okay?”
Logan grants me the decency of not dragging it out. “Yeah. She’s good. Alzheimer’s?”
“Yep.” And it feels like I should say something else. Something momentous. Something insightful. “It sucks.”
He readjusts the baseball cap on his head and leans forward to rest his arms on his knees. I hate that I made the two of us serious, but guess that was unavoidable.
“Thank you.”
Logan lifts his head and those gorgeous dark eyes land on me. Deep pools of warmth. “I’ve got a million questions.”
And I have no answers. “I’m tired.”
“I know.” The bags crackle as he peers into them. “Rachel and I went to the store and bought you some stuff. PJ’s, toothbrush, hairbrush. Other personal stuff. Rachel bought you a crossword book, but I thought you’d like sudoku.”
My throat tightens and I have to physically shift to get my emotions in check. Damn getting shot making me damn emotional. “You’re not going to ask?”
Logan pauses with the bag still open. “Yeah, but not now.”
I wish he could crawl inside my mind and understand how grateful I am, but my mind’s a frightening place, the playland for fallen angels so he’s safer away from me. “You’re in danger.” Because that’s a way to say thank you.
Logan doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shout how or why, doesn’t react much. Just does that indifferent stare that causes the wild in me to grin. God, he really is crazy and I hate that I like him so much.
“I’m serious,” I say. “And while I’m on subjects of serious, what the hell were you thinking running after me? You should have done what I said, and stayed in your truck.”
“Abby,” he says slowly.
“Yes,” I mimic his tone, even trying to throw in his slight country twang.
That grants me an amused glint. “Thought I made it clear. We’re not talking about it now.”
I raise an eyebrow, trying to decipher his game, but then decide I’m too tired to overly care. “Fine.”
“But before we completely drop it—”
I roll my eyes, because here we go...
“How am I in danger? Did he see me?”
Logan doesn’t have to mention he’s asking about the guy who shot me. “I don’t know. We don’t think so. Word on the street is that they know there was a witness, but they don’t know who. Can you describe him to me?”
He does and my stomach fills with cement when no matter what I ask, he gives me nothing that separates my shooter from half the guys I go to school with.
“I’ll know him if I see him.” Logan dips his head as if he’s sorry he has nothing else to offer.
“I’m scared he’ll know you if he sees you, too.” My thoughts are too slow and I can’t afford this delay and I discover myself thinking out loud. “Linus wants to use you. He thinks there’s a traitor on our side, and he thinks the traitor is associated with my shooter. Linus wants to use you to find my shooter and our traitor.”
Logan settles back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest. “What do you think?”
I briefly close my eyes, hating the ache inside. “I think you should go to the police and tell them the truth. Someone shot me and I don’t know who I can trust, which means I don’t know how to protect you.”
Logan stays silent, and each second that passes creates a heavy weight on my chest. “Are you still in danger?” he asks.
It would be bad to admit how much of an excellent question that is and how jacked-up my mind is that I didn’t bother asking Linus that. I sigh. That’s wrong. I know the answer. I’ve always known the answer.
Living this life means being under a constant threat, and not only me, but the people I care about. Linus is right. Friendships outside this life are wrong. It’s selfish.
“You should go.”
Logan’s eyes flicker over my face, but other than that—no movement.
“I said you should go.” I push some heat into my voice.
He lazily shrugs one shoulder. “You said should. That suggests choice.”
“That was me being nice so I’ll try again—go.”
“No.”
No? My back practically arches like a ticked-off cat’s. Did he just tell me no? “I’ll scream. I’ll tell them to get security. I’ll tell them you’re a serial killer.”
“Okay.”
I blink. Yeah—I w
as totally bluffing. I could do that to most people, but not to him. “Logan!”
“Abby,” he mocks my frustration.
I growl and slam my fist against the bed. “I should never have become your friend. I should have never become Rachel’s friend or West’s friend. I should have never let any of you in and now I have to live with the consequences that I put you in danger and that you’re still in danger and that really pisses me off.”
Logan smiles. Smiles. It’s a shit-eating, I’m-going-to-kill-him-the-moment-I-yank-this-IV-out-of-my-arm smile. “Why are you smiling?”
His grin only grows. “You said we’re friends.”
Oh. My. God. That’s what he heard? “You are crazy.”
“Yeah, I am. This is how it’s going to be—your friends are going to watch over you, you’re going to get better and we’re going to figure out who shot you.”
I’m shaking my head. “There’s no we’re.”
“There is.” He rubs his hands together and I know that motion—he’s buying himself time. “You and I have been a we’re for a while.”
Fear sprints through my veins. “I hate you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I rap my head against the pillow—hating the loss of control, overwhelmed by the pain in my shoulder and the throb in my head. Wishing I could somehow rewind time and have chosen to leave with Logan last night instead of going back into the bar, rewind it back to before I walked into the garage months ago and decided to befriend Rachel, which lead to Logan, rewind it back to before Grams began to forget what day it was, rewind back to before my father made a tragic mistake and went to prison...possibly rewind all the way back to my birth.
I swing my arm over my eyes, loathing all the emotion raging through me. “I can’t do this. Don’t you understand, I can’t do this.”
“What’s this?”
Caring.