“Sure!” Instead of getting up and leaving the room, she threw her hand over her eyes and tilted her head back onto the recliner. She was apparently serious when she said she wasn’t leaving me alone. Lacking the energy to argue, I pulled on some gym shorts and a black t-shirt without a word.
“Excuse me, can I use the bathroom or do you have to supervise that, too?”
“You can be excused.”
When I freshened up and came out, Jules was eating my sandwich. “Hope you don’t mind. I’ll make you another—”
“Didn’t want it.”
“—okay.”
I leaned to tuck the comforter around the sides of my bed and put the pillow in its proper spot. The bend made me wince and gasp. So I left it unmade. A fact that would torture me the rest of the day.
I sat on the edge and looked at Julia, who was still staring out the window, halfway through my sandwich. Her brown hair was pulled into a messy bun again, strands poking this way and that. She looked exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes were part of her normal appearance, but this afternoon they were exaggerated and contrasted by the red lines along her eyelids.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“A little. I crashed on the couch for a few hours.”
“You checked on me a lot, didn’t you?”
She shrugged. “A couple times.”
For the first time, I considered last night from her perspective. No matter who you are, seeing someone dead, or almost dead, is terrifying. At Riverbend I’d walked into the bathroom to see a man hanging by his own jumpsuit. Nightmares about the incident visited me over five years later. The images stick with you for a long, long time.
Before the AED was brought in, Fray and Jules performed CPR for four whole minutes. Which explains why I felt like I got hit by a train. I thought of Jules; it must’ve been traumatic. She’d stayed by my side through five minutes of hell, rode in the ambulance, witnessed me puking my guts up multiple times, and stayed awake all night long. She had her own demons to deal with, yet here she was, shouldering mine.
“I don’t know what to say.”
She stopped rocking and swiveled the recliner toward me. The room was small so our knees almost touched. She swallowed her last bite. “About what?”
“I don’t know if I should say thank you or be upset.”
She nodded with understanding. “Pat, I understand. You don’t have to say anything.”
“I wanted to die.”
Her blue eyes searched mine for a few moments. They moistened in the corners. She turned her head away, blinking. “I know.”
“Not sure if I’m glad to be alive this morning.”
Her gaze met mine again and didn’t waver. “I’m glad you’re alive this morning.”
I scratched the stubble on my chin and almost chuckled. “You don’t know me.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“How so?”
“Nothing is worth your life.”
I found that point debatable, but I let it slide. My eyes traveled to the urn. What would Gracie want for me? The thought was more painful than the broken ribs. Had I fought harder, maybe she’d be my wife and we’d have a small family by now. I must’ve been staring, because Jules turned her head to follow my gaze to the urn.
“Does any of this have to do with Tracy?”
So she had seen it.
“Was she your wife?”
