I nodded, agreeing and feeling the same way. “Some of them didn’t get the memo.”
Jacob’s eye rose to meet mine again, a curious look crossing his face.
“My father wasn’t good at protecting us either. He ignored or tried to downplay my mother’s illness until one day he finally couldn’t take it and left when I was nine years old and Journey was just three. He left the two of us to fend for ourselves in a home with a very sick woman.”
“Do you hate him?”
I shook my head. “I thought I did. Even when he took Journey in when she was eleven, after our mother died. She’d parked her car on the train tracks of an oncoming train during one of her depressive episodes. I was seventeen and refused to move in with my father.”
“How could you not hate him for making you live through that alone?”
I removed the ice packs from Jacob’s hands and massaged his knuckles with my fingers to warm them back up. “When I was diagnosed with cancer, he and his wife, Elaine, were there for me. I’d bought my home by then, and they practically moved in to help take me back and forth to my treatments, clean, grocery shop, handle the bills. Everything. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them. He’d apologized for leaving before but his actions spoke louder than words. But I still get angry sometimes.”
“Over Journey.”
I nodded. “He ignored her symptoms for a while. Same as with my mother, but he’s coming around to accepting the reality of her diagnosis.”
“You were there for your little sister. I wasn’t there for Luke. Not the way he needed me to be. I graduated high school at sixteen and went to college, leaving him behind. I wouldn’t have survived another moment in that fucking house.” The guilt written all over his face was crushing.
“Jacob.” I leaned forward, gripping his hands tighter. “What were you supposed to do? You were a child. A scared child of a very sick and demented woman.”
He grunted and looked over my shoulder.
There was more to this story. More to his guilt than he wasn’t letting on. However, I wouldn’t push it.
“You look tired.” I ran my hand down the side of his face. His eyelids hung heavy. “Lay down.”
I would’ve gone to cover him with a blanket or sheet, but none were present, just like the last time I was at his home.
Their absence didn’t seem to bother Jacob, as he curled an arm around one of his pillows and laid on his side.
“I’ll head out.”
My departure was stopped by his arm gripping my wrist. “Stay.”
“Are you sure?”
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, his strong arm tugged me back down to the bed.
He pulled me into his side and wrapped his arm around me, eliminating any space between our bodies. Even if there were a blanket, I doubted I’d need it considering the warmth of Jacob’s body so close to mine, warming me to the core. I listened carefully as his breathing eventually slowed into a rhythm alerting me that he’d fallen asleep. I closed my eyes and gave over to sleep soon after.
Chapter Nineteen
Grace
“That was beautiful stitch work you did on the procedure the other day, Dr. Reynolds.”
I stopped myself from grimacing at the sound of Suzanne’s voice as I rounded the corner. Unfortunately, I wasn’t skilled at schooling my face when displeased. The grimace returned full force. Suzanne was standing less than a foot away from Jacob, staring up into his face, in the middle of the hallway.
“I was thinking I could assist you sometime soon on your next ca—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She jumped when Jacob and I both spoke at once. I watched her dark brown eyes narrow, but then the crease in her forehead smoothed out as she forced a smile. “Grace, I didn’t know you were there.”
“I bet you didn’t. Anyway, I think Beth’s trying to find you,” I said, referencing the charge nurse who’d just taken over for our shift.
“Guess I should go see what she wants.”
