I paused before responding, wondering how much Mrs. Nickleby must hate me by now. Jessie was steady enough that I knew she didn’t give her heart away easily. Even if she didn’t consider herself in love, I couldn’t imagine her parents would be big fans of mine, particularly if she’d shared my parting sentiments that night of the ball. Five minutes later, I got the gumption to text again.
Thanks, Mrs. Nickleby.
Did I dare ask for her room number? I wanted to…needed to. Even if I hadn’t been crazy in love with her, she’d saved my sister’s life. That warranted a visit, didn’t it? Before I could type back my bold request, another message from Mrs. Nickleby made my phone ding.
She’s in room 401. Visiting hours are between four and eight. And she’s allergic to baby’s breath.
I laughed.
Yes, ma’am.
Maybe I wouldn’t have to fight my way into that room after all.
* * *
I arrived the next day, at six-thirty, roses in hand sans baby’s breath. (I’d had to ask the florist what baby’s breath even was.) Her mother was in the waiting room and saw me first. She ran toward me, arms open wide. The moment I hugged her back, she was in tears, crying into my shoulder as Jessie’s father, who was sitting behind her, gave me a more than slightly disapproving stare. I didn’t take offense, though. I’d earned it, and I knew that.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She pulled back and looked at me. “Did you just come from work?”
I looked down at my uniform. “Unfortunately, yes. I wanted to be here earlier, but they’ve had us working overtime with storm rescues and clean up and such.”
She nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’m just glad you came.” She pulled me toward the hall that led away from the waiting room. “She’s asleep,” she sniffed. “They think it’s going to take weeks for her to recover completely. If someone hadn’t put that tourniquet on, they said she probably wouldn’t have made it.” This brought on a whole new bout of tears, but I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t too far behind it myself.
The room was dark when I entered, curtains drawn and lights off.
“She’s had trouble sleeping, so they’re trying to help by keeping it dark,” Jessie’s mother whispered as we stood at the foot of the bed.
“I won’t wake her,” I whispered back. I just wanted to look at her. I needed to see the steady rise and fall of her chest and the color in her cheeks. I desperately wanted to touch her, but—
“Here.”
I turned to see Mrs. Nickleby handing me a manila folder. Raising my eyebrows in question, I took it.
“I don’t know if Jessie ever told you,” she looked at her daughter tenderly, “but when she’s mad at people, she writes them letters and doesn’t send them.”
“She mentioned it once.”
She nodded at the folder. “Those are for you.”
I pulled the first one out of the folder and read the greeting.
Derrick, you pig-faced jerk…
“Well, that’s a promising start,” I said in a low voice.
She pointed to the date, which was written neatly in the corner. The date itself had been smudged out by a water stain, but the beginning at least read back in May.
“Read the starting dates of each. Then keep reading.” She paused and sent Jessie one more look of longing.
“What am I looking for?”
She tilted her head, and for a moment, I could have sworn it was Jessie looking at me twenty years down the road. “I told you you were good for her.” And then she left.
I moved closer to sit in the chair beside the bed. My promise not to wake her had been made with good intentions, but I was unable to stop myself from running the backs of my fingers over the side of her face. Then I looked back down at the first letter in a stack that was surprisingly thick.
The first letter was dated for the week we’d first met. Apparently, I’d been getting under her skin for longer than I remembered. I touched her cheek one more time before settling in for a nice, long read.
What started as a humorous trip down Memory Lane, however, quickly became something else altogether. There were fewer letters during our truce, usually only when I’d done something to really annoy her. But the one that made me stop and reread it, however, was the one she wrote the week after the ball.
