I remember catching myself holding my breath, like I was waiting.
And then I realized I was waiting.
For her.
For Mom to put her arms around us.
Libby was crumbling, and Mom wasn’t coming.
It was like a collapsed sandcastle leapt back into place inside me, rearranging my heart into something passably sturdy. I wrapped my arms around my sister and tried to whisper, Let it out. I couldn’t get the words past my lips.
So instead I dropped my mouth beside Libby’s ear and whispered, “Hey.”
She gave a stuttering breath, like, What?
“If Mom had known how hot the reverend here is,” I said, “she probably would’ve made it down here sooner.”
Libby’s saucer eyes looked up at me, glazed with tears, and my chest felt like a can being crushed until she let out a scratchy jolt of laughter loud enough that Hot Reverend stumbled over his next few words.
She lay her head on my shoulder, turned her face into my jacket, and shook her head. “That is so fucked up,” she said, but she was shaking with teary laughter.
For that second, she was okay. Now, though, when she really needs me, I’m useless.
“Why couldn’t we be in the room for tests?” I get out.
Charlie inhales, shifting between his feet. “Maybe they think you’ll give her the answers.”
There is absolutely no conviction in his joke. When I draw back, I realize he’s not doing so hot himself.
“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“Just don’t like hospitals,” he says. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
He takes my hands, holds them between our chests. “I’m not leaving you here.”
“I can handle it.”
His mouth shrinks, the crease beneath it deepening. “I know. I want to be here.”
A group of nurses pass with a gurney, and an ashen cast seeps onto Charlie’s face.
I scrounge around for something to say, anything else to think about. “Sharon called me.”
His lips press into a knot.
“She told me you put me up for a job.”
After a beat, he murmurs, “If I overstepped, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not that.” My face prickles. “It’s just . . . what if I’m bad at it?”
His hands skim up my arms until he’s cradling my jaw. “Impossible.”
My brow arches of its own volition. “Because I helped edit one book?”
He shakes his head. “Because you’re smart and intuitive. And good at getting the best writing out of people, and you put the work before your ego. You know when to push and when to let something go. You’re trustworthy — partly because you’re so bad at lying — and you take care of the things that matter to you.
“If I had to pick one person to be in my corner, it’d be you. Every time. You take care of shit.”
With a sharp throb in my chest, my gaze falls to the floor. “Not always.”
“Hey.” Charlie’s rough fingers come back to mine. He lifts my hand, brushing his mouth over my knuckles. “We’ll figure out what’s wrong and do everything we can to fix it.”
“That fucking list.” My chest is too tight to let anything out but a whisper. “She’s been doing too much. I shouldn’t have let her. We slept out in the heat and — we’ve been working on this fundraiser. She should’ve been resting.”
Charlie sits, drawing me into his lap, every thought of discretion, of avoiding complication gone in an instant. I need him, and he’s here, I realize. Fully, not with caveats or stipulations. His hand slides up the back of my neck, tucked beneath my hair, and I’m wrapped up in him like he’s my personal stone fortress. Like even if I came apart, nothing could get to me.
“Libby makes Libby’s decisions,” he says. “Imagine how you’d react if someone tried to stop you from doing what you want, Stephens.” A hint of a smile tugs at his pout. “Actually, don’t imagine it. It’s inappropriate to get turned on in a hospital.”
I laugh weakly into his chest, another knot unwinding in my own. “I missed something. I’m here with her, and Brendan isn’t, and—” My voice catches. The rest tumbles out painfully: “It’s my job to watch out for her.”
“I know it’s scary, being here,” he says. “But this is a good hospital. They know what they’re doing.” His fingers move in soothing, rhythmic circles against the nape of my neck. “This is where my dad came.”
The words sweet guy sear through my mind, like the afterimage left behind by the pop of a camera’s bulb.
That’s what Charlie called his father. A sweet guy. The best person I know.
“What happened?” I ask.
After a protracted silence, he says, “The first stroke wasn’t bad. But this last one . . . he was in a coma for six days.” He watches the progress of his thumb running back and forth over mine. His brow tightens. The day we met, I mistook this expression for surliness, brooding, proof he was as warm and human as a block of marble.
Now all it does is bring out the lost look in his eyes. “This huge, handy guy who can fix anything, build anything. And in that hospital bed, he looked—” He breaks off. I twine my free hand into the hair at the base of his neck.
“He looked old,” Charlie says, then, after a fraught silence, “When I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to be like him, and I wasn’t. But he always made me feel like it was okay to be the way I am.”
I cup his jaw and lift his gaze. I wonder if he can see every word in my expression, because I feel them tunneling up from the lowest part of my gut. You’re more than okay.
He clears his throat. “My dad’s alive because of what they were able to do for him here. Between them and you, Libby’s going to be all right. She has to be.”
As if on cue, the doctor, a balding man with a Salman Rushdie goatee and brow, walks out of the exam room. “Is she okay?” I lurch to my feet.
“She’s resting,” he says. “But she gave me permission to speak with both of you.” He nods toward Charlie, who stands, tightening his grip on my hand, anchoring me.
“What happened?” I ask.
In an instant, my mind cycles through every ailment it knows of.
Heart attack.
Stroke.
Miscarriage.
And then it snags: PULMONARY EMBOLISM.
The words repeat. They echo. They reach back to the beginning of my life and forward to the end of it, this outstretched Slinky of a phrase, looping through time, fucking with everything, warping my life in places, ripping through it in others. Pulmonary embolism.
The doctor says, “Your sister is anemic.”
The words slam into a wall. Or maybe run off a cliff — that’s how it feels, like I’ve stepped off a ledge and am hovering before the drop.
“Her body is lacking in iron and B12,” he explains. “So she’s not manufacturing enough healthy red blood cells. It’s not uncommon during pregnancy, and especially unsurprising for someone who’s already dealt with this issue in a previous pregnancy.”
“Libby hasn’t had this before.”
He studies the clipboard in his hands. “Well, it wasn’t as severe, but her levels were definitely low. I spoke with her ob-gyn, and apparently your sister was a bit more stable in her first trimester, but they’ve been keeping an eye on this since the beginning.”
My fingers are tingling again. My brain works to clear the smoke and start a checklist, but it’s just not happening.