Generous? Or stupid. I’d never had much sense where Ash was concerned. “You got someplace to go?”
“I’ll find something.” A pause. “I’ve been recommended for a clinical pastoral care position in D.C.”
This was the Ash I knew. All our lives, he’d made decisions about his career without consulting me, leaving me to deal with the consequences.
I’d told him once if he left not to come back. But it still hurt when he listened.
“When do you go?” I asked, proud of my steady voice.
“They haven’t made a formal offer yet,” Ash said.
I feathered a fine layer of ash across the rack. “You’re welcome to stay until then.”
“I might not be right for the position. Or it may not be right for me.” He lifted my finished rack. Slid it into its slot with precision. “Did you ever imagine being somewhere else?”
“You mean, did I think I’d be a fifty-four-year-old divorced goat farmer?” I asked wryly.
“We’re not divorced.” His eyes were light and clear as ice. “And I was speaking geographically.”
I shrugged. “Where would I go?”
He tilted his head. “Where would you want to go?”
That was new. Him, asking.
The farm was my heritage. I’d never pictured myself living anywhere but here. But what came out of my mouth was, “The Loire Valley.”
His brows raised. “France?”
I flushed, embarrassed by my dream. By my pronunciation. “Not to live. Just for a visit. The cheese cultures I use are manufactured there.” I’d seen pictures, like something from a storybook, tiny farms and gilded palaces and strange, stiff, styled gardens. “I’d like to see where they come from, that’s all.”
“Abby...” He took my hands.
My phone rang in my pocket.
I pulled free. “I should get that.”
I didn’t recognize the number. Probably somebody selling extended car warranties or time-shares in Florida. I answered it anyway, before I made a bigger fool of myself. “Hello?”
“Abigail March?”
Definitely a robocall. “Yes?”
“This is Megan Fitzpatrick. From Cape Fear Regional? I’m sorry to tell you that your daughter Beth was brought into our emergency department this morning.”
Collapsed, they told us at the hospital. A passing driver found her on the side of the road and called 911.
There was more, but I couldn’t seem to process. Facts and phrases swam at me, elusive as fish in murky water.Dehydrated.Tachycardic.Seizure. The last one leaped out at me. Possible heat exhaustion, they said.
They wouldn’t let me into the trauma room.
“I want to speak to her doctor,” Ash said.
A woman in scrubs came out. I looked at her badge for her name. Forgot it a moment later.
No, I said in reply to her questions, no history of seizures. Epilepsy, no. Diabetes, no. Medications? Was she on drugs?
I shook my head.
