Here, however? I just might.
We slide into a pew, and a sort of stillness enters me. Or maybe it’s a stillness that was here all along, but there was just too much noise and distraction to notice it.
I take a deep breath, and close my eyes. My problems feel small and inconsequential here.Thomas. Sofia Leigh. My career. How everyone will treat me if Thomas and I aren’t back together. What I’ll do with myself if it doesn’t work out.All of these things that mattered so very much...they matter a lot less, now.
Elijah’s pinky brushes mine, and I open my eyes to glance up at him. He holds my gaze with this quiet smile on his face, as if he knows everything I’m thinking.
I want to think all of my feelings for him are inconsequential too, but they’re not. Though we’ve spent many years apart, though he broke me into a million pieces, he’s still the only thing that really matters. I ache for him the same way I did a decade ago. I’m as wrapped around his finger as I ever was.
I’m doomed to want something I can’t have, forever, and I wish I hadn’t realized it.
The service ends quicklyand we eat at a seafood place afterward—probably the first of four meals we’ll enjoy before returning to the townhouse.
“Are you sure you want to come to the graveyard, Easton?” Mrs. Cabot asks, her voice prickly and her mouth pursed. “It’s a long drive.”
Clearly she doesn’t want me there, but before I can respond, Elijah’s hand lands on my thigh, stopping me.
“I asked her to come,” he says in a firm voice, one that brooks no argument.
I expect Mrs. Cabot to scowl, to mutter, to narrow her eyes. But instead she blinks, staring too long at Elijah and then at me, as if she’s actually seeing us here for the first time.
Betty and Mrs. Cabot insist on stopping for snacks before the road trip can begin. We’ve only been on the road for fifteen minutes when Mrs. Cabot tells Elijah to pull over again. He glances around in the rearview mirror while I twist in my seat. “What’s wrong?”
She frowns at me through pinched lips. “My heart is beating too fast.”
Elijah swerves three lanes to the nearest exit. As soon as he’s stopped the car, I jump out and grab the kit I left in the trunk. I haven’t used a stethoscope or taken someone’s blood pressure in over four years. It’s not hard to do, but I sure wish I wasn’t about to test out an old skill on Mrs. Cabot, for any number of reasons.
My heart thrums in my chest—if there was time, I’d check my own pulse too—as I throw open the door closest to her.
“Take a few slow, deep breaths,” I tell her. “I’m sure everything’s fine, but we’re just gonna take a little peek.”
“You’re not even a doctor,” she says faintly. I’m glad she’s still got enough steam in the engine to criticize me. I’d be seriously worried if she didn’t.
With my fingers on her carotid artery, I check her pulse. “A hundred ten beats per minute,” I tell her. “It’s fast but nothing to panic about, okay? Do you happen to know what your resting pulse is normally?”
“How would I know something like that?” she cries.
I shake my head. “I was just checking. Now I’m going to listen to make sure everything sounds okay.” I don the stethoscope and blow on the chestpiece to warm it up before I slide it beneath the collar of her shirt.
“You could have asked,” she bites out, but I ignore her, listening for the sounds that indicate heart failure or a valve abnormality.
“Everything sounds good,” I tell her. This is positive news, obviously, but I wish I had some definitive sign indicating we should just go to the hospital. “I’m going to check your blood pressure. You did take your meds this morning, yes?”
“Of course I did!” she barks.
I nod, wrapping the cuff around her arm. “Uncross your legs for me.”
She manages to comply without flying into a rage. With the stethoscope pressed to her brachial artery, I squeeze the bulb then slowly release the air as I listen. Her pressure is high, but I’m not sure what’s normal for her either. “You’re a little elevated,” I tell her. “Nothing crazy, but a little above where I’d like to see it. So we have two options. The first is that we can go to the hospital and ask them to monitor you. The second is that we pull over to that gas station and get you a little water and try this again in about ten minutes and see what direction you’re heading.”
I want her to vote for the hospital, but I guess I know where Elijah gets his stubborn streak. “I’m not going to the hospital. And I already have a drink.”
She lifts a purple energy drink from the cupholder and I stifle a sigh that is one half relieved and one half exasperated. “Oh dear lord, where did you get this?” I ask, pulling it from her hand and dumping the little that remains on the pavement.
“At the gas station,” she says, “and how dare you empty it out like that?”
I set the empty can back in her cupholder. “Mrs. Cabot, this has four-hundred milligrams of caffeine per serving, and there are two servings. I guarantee your cardiologist warned you about drinks like this.”
“Grandma,” Elijah groans, running a hand over his face, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
