Chapter 16

I love how fresh my bathroom smells when I kill a spider with an entire bottle of Febreeze.

-Meme

Kennedy

The day after Evander walked out, I was literally broken.

I was standing outside of my sister’s hospital room, and I was looking in at my dad at her bedside, along with her three kids, my brother, as well as my brother-in-law.

They were all talking quietly around Trixie’s bedside, and I wondered if I should even bother going in.

They’d obviously been there for a while.

Food was on the table in the corner, and there were three beds made up at the back of the room.

The kids were all sitting on the bed in the corner of the room, all of them huddled onto one cot, staring at an iPad that the eldest boy, DJ, was holding.

DJ was the first one to see me standing there, and the moment he did, his eyes lit up.

“Aunt Kennedy!” He handed off the iPad to his sister, Lucy, who discarded it, too, and started running toward me.

I dropped to my knee in the hallway and opened my arm as two wiggly bodies hit me with all the force that an eight-and-a-half-year-old and a four-year-old could muster.

The last one to hit me was little Jaxon, and he wormed his way in between his brother and sister and put his sticky hands on my neck and offered me a kiss.

“Where have you been?”

That was DJ, and his tone of voice sounded accusatory.

“I was told that visiting hours started at eight. I would’ve been here earlier had I known that I could, bud.”

DJ looked into my eyes to gauge my sincerity.

“The doctors let us in here all night since mommy’s sick.”

My heart clenched.

“Are you okay, buddy?”

He nodded, but I could tell the only thing that was keeping him strong was the fact that his brother and sister were standing with us, rapt attention on his every word.

Not that the four-year-old, Lucy, or the three-year-old, Jaxon, really had any clue what was going on.

Likely, they never would.

One day, Trixie would be here and the next she wouldn’t, and they’d never understand what happened.

“I’m here now, buddy. Have y’all had something to eat?”

My eyes went to Darren, who was practically glaring at me.

“No, they haven’t had anything in a couple of hours.”

I looked at Trixie, who was in the bed lying deathly still. “Do you…do you want me to take them to the cafeteria for a while?”

Darren’s jaw clenched. “Yeah, that would be good.”

I bit my lip and nodded, then turned my head down to stare at Lucy. “Do you want to go to the cafeteria and see what yummy food we can find? I hear they have awesome cookies!”

I had her at the word ‘cookie’ and knew it.

She nodded enthusiastically.

The girl was a cookie monster.

“Cookie!” she agreed. “Jax, do you want a cookie?”

Jax would do anything his brother would do, so I looked at DJ and raised my brows. “You want to go?”

He looked at his mother who was still in the bed, her face bruised, and her hands and arms covered in gauze. “Yeah, that would be okay.”

I stood up from my kneeling position and held out my hand. “Let’s go.”

Jaxon and Lucy grabbed a hand, and DJ followed on the other side of Jack.

“You want to talk about it, buddy?”

DJ shook his head quickly, averting his eyes so that I couldn’t gauge his honesty.

My stomach tightened even more.

“Did you make it to baseball last night?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject.

“Dad asked if I wanted to go…but no. I didn’t. He was angry that I didn’t, said I had an obligation to the team. But I didn’t want to go.”

I clenched my jaw. That’d been why I’d never gotten the call to take him. Go figure. Who would’ve thought to call the person that was waiting for your call and tell them that you no longer needed them?

“Did someone call your teacher to tell her that you wouldn’t be there today?”

He shook his head. “No. Dad already got a call from the school for it, too. They said it would be an unexcused absence.”

I stopped in front of the elevators and pressed the up button, stopping and turning to face him. “How about we call when we get to the cafeteria. I’ll explain to them what’s going on, okay?”

He looked relieved.

Darren and Trixie didn’t put the same importance on school that most parents would.

Baseball, yes. The farm and doing chores, absolutely. School? That would be a big fat no.

Trixie and Darren barely graduated high school, and they felt that school, although a necessary evil, wasn’t something that was crucial. Especially if there was farming business to be done or they needed the extra hand that DJ could offer.

How my sister got her nursing degree still baffled me. Then again, it baffled me that she didn’t use it. I would have.

It was sad, really. Although farming was our way of life, I didn’t think that it needed to be the way of life for everyone.

Hell, my own personal story of how my meager farming income was killed off—literally—in a little less than a few hours was proof enough that you should always have a backup plan.

Sure, I had gone to college and graduated with a degree in business, but I hadn’t worked an office job with a boss in well over a half decade.

“Sounds good, Aunt Kennedy,” he hesitated. “I’m glad you’re here.”

My face softened at the sweet boy’s words. “I’m here if you need me. If you ever need me…just call, okay?”

DJ looked away before I could get a gauge on how he was really doing, but the small glimpse that I did see was enough to tell me that he wasn’t doing anywhere near as well as he was making himself out to be.

Dammit.

I’d have to have a talk with Darren.

After this was all over. I’d have him keep an eye on DJ to make sure that things didn’t get out of hand.

***

Turns out, the cafeteria did have amazing cookies. We all had two, and when the cafeteria workers got a load of Lucy’s beautiful blue eyes, they gave her some hot ones from the back. And a glass of milk.

Everyone was a sucker for Lucy’s blue eyes.

Hell, I was, too.

“Y’all ready to head back?” I asked as I gathered up our wrappers, napkins and cups and headed for the trashcan that was only a few feet away.

When I turned around, all three were still sitting there, shaking their heads.

“How about we run down to the gift shop…get something nice for mommy?”

That got a bunch of head nods, so that’s what we did next.

Thirty minutes later, we were on our way back up to the room, when a nurse flagged me down.

I gestured for DJ to keep walking, thinking that it was something to do with Trixie.

“Head on down there. I’ll be there in a minute.”

DJ nodded, the big stuffed octopus in his hands as he lightly shoved Jack in the right direction.

I watched for a few seconds before turning at the sound of the woman’s cleared voice.

“Ma’am?”

I turned, a smile on my face.

“Yes?”

Those kids made my heart happy, even when I was sad.

“Can you meet me on the other side of the station?”

I agreed, but held up a finger. “Let me make sure they get in the room all right.”

She nodded thoughtfully, and I watched as Jaxon finally turned the corner to Trixie’s room, and then turned on my heel and met the woman on the other side of the nurses’ station, nearest the exit.

When I met her at the corner, right at the opening of the nurses’ station, she started to wring her hands.

“I’ve been asked to explain to you that you’re not allowed back inside the room while the family is there.”

My mouth opened in surprise.

“What?”

She visibly winced.

“The family has requested that no visitors be allowed back until they say.”

“But…but she’s my twin sister.”

The woman looked torn, but she held strong. “I’m so sorry.”

Fucking Darren.

Why did he hate me?

If I was being honest, he’d always disliked me, and I could never figure out exactly why.

I was good enough to watch his kids. I was good enough to do things for him and help around the farm when he needed it.

“Are you okay?”

I looked up, not realizing that I’d dropped my head, and gave one firm nod.

“Yeah,” my voice cracked.

“Are you sure?”

No, I wasn’t okay. And no, I wouldn’t be okay.

My sister was dying, and I’d never get to see her alive again because her husband was a douche bag.

“Will you…will you call me?” I asked, my throat thick and my hands clenched tightly.

Her eyes filled with sorrow.

“I will. The moment that anything changes, I’ll give you a call,” she hesitated before saying what she said next. “I’m not supposed to give you any information on her, but she won’t make it through the night.”

I closed my eyes for a few long seconds, then nodded once mutely. “Thank you.”

My voice cracked, but I held strong.

I made it all the way to my truck, which thankfully had started today, before I broke.

***

Evander

I watched her cry.

I watched her cry for so long that I worried for her health.

Just when I was about to get out of the truck, she seemed to pull herself together and left.

I watched her go, then went on to the job I was supposed to be at over an hour ago.