I curl the fingers in the cast, beckoning her toward me. “Please.”
She glances to the door, then to the monitors next to my bed.
“Please,” I repeat.
She comes a moment later.
I ask her haltingly to read the letter. “That’s me,” I assure her. “She wrote it for me.”
“I can wake her up?—”
“No. Please not yet.”
The woman seems to do battle with herself. I might be getting her fired. I’ll make it up to her. I’ll tell them it was my fault.
Finally, Jojo lets out a breath and slips the letter out of theenvelope. She reads it out loud, biting her lip in the middle, her eyes going wide. But she finishes, and sets it down, her eyes wet. “I’m getting the nurses now,” she says.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I turn to Noelle. It hurts to change the angle of my head, but I’d walk through fire to say this to her. I’d go to the sun.
With all the strength I have, I shift the hand in Noelle’s hair. I stroke my fingers across her temple.
Noelle stirs. Her eyes open. When they meet mine, she sits up, gasping.
“I wish for you,” I whisper. “I always wish for you, Noelle.”
CHAPTER 23
Noelle
CHRISTMAS DAY
“Icould do the airplane noises if you want,” Griffin offers as I insert another spoonful of soup into Leif’s mouth. “He always loved that when he was little.”
I have to look away to keep from laughing.
“Yuk it up,” Leif says. “But I’m the one getting spoon-fed by a beautiful woman for Christmas.”
Griffin eyes his wife, waggling his brows.
“Don’t even think about it,” Sasha says to her husband, eyes narrowed, making all of us laugh.
God, it feels good to laugh again.
I give Leif another spoonful. “You know the physical therapist isn’t going to let me do this after tomorrow,” I say.
“Exactly—I need to savor it while it lasts.” He winks at me, which I think is a feat given how hard everything is for him.
“This issogood,” Sasha says to Mom, taking a sip of her own soup.
Mom smiles, pulling on her coat. “It’s an old family recipe. Grandma Betty’s actually.”
She smiles, saying she’ll send Dan back tonight with Christmas dinner. “He and Monique are overseeing the turkey right now, and I confess I’m a bit worried. She’s brilliant and earnest with her attempts at cooking, but she’s a self-confessed disaster in the kitchen.”
Was it torturous for Mom to have us apart this year, on her favorite holiday?
As if reading my mind, Mom smiles softly. “I can’t wait for next Christmas. I hope all of you will come by?”
