But if he didn’t, who would? His father was never coming back. His mother was never getting better.Neurological, the doctors called her hard-won diagnosis.Lifelong. Chronic. It had come on out of nowhere. One winter, three ugly years before they buried his father, she came down with pneumonia. Her coughing fits lasted for days. And then those days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. She stopped getting out of bed. She slept long hours. She turned brittle and gray, when she’d always been all color. There were treatments for the management of her symptoms. Management, not a cure. But treatments were expensive.
On the bed, his mom was watching him with a too-keen stare. “Your sister has some interesting theories about what you’ve been doing down there in Connecticut.”
He kicked his feet onto the edge of the bed and raised his brows.
“You know how Tessa can be,” she added.
He drew his fingers from his temple. “Imaginative?”
“That’s a very nice way of putting it.”
He could tell she was waiting for more information. It wasn’t like his mother to pry, but then it wasn’t like Thomas to have a secret. He didn’t want to talk about Vivienne. He didn’t know how to explain her. Not in a way his mother would understand.
“How about I make lasagna for dinner?” he asked instead.
Her smile widened, and just like that, she let it go. “Have you taken up cooking at your new mystery job?”
“Not exactly,” he signed, returning her smile. “I saw a box in the freezer.”
•••
The following morning was Sunday. He woke to a cat on his chest, the familiar sight of his converted garage bedroom and his shelves of things. It didn’t settle him the way he’d thought it might. He got up slowly, heading to the kitchen to rustle up breakfast. He was midway through a bowl of cereal when his sister dropped onto the stool across from him and slapped a newspaper onto the counter.
“Read it and weep,” she said. “Your sister is a local hero. Some camper was choking on a grape at mess hall yesterday and I, Tessa Rose Walsh, delivered the Heimlich maneuver so efficiently that he almost took out the eye of the kid sitting across from him.”
“Nice,” said Thomas.
“Check it out.” She nudged the paper toward him. “Page eight. Bottom article. There’s even a picture.”
He set down his bowl and reached for the paper, pausing as his eyes caught on the leading headline.
Business Mogul’s Son Suffers Cardiac Arrest at Sea
His stomach sank. “This is today’s paper?”
“Yes.” Tessa was out of patience, bouncing on her stool. “Can’t you read? Just open it.”
She reached across the countertop to do it for him but he held her at bay with a hand to the face, scanning the attached article until he found what he was looking for.
Donahue, twenty-two, was airlifted to the nearest hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Sources close to the recent college graduate say Donahue, a competitive oarsman, suffered no underlying conditions. He’d been in good health at the start of the day, when he’d headed out for a fishing trip with several friends of the family.
He set the paper down. “I have to go.”
“What?” Tessa climbed off the stool after him. “Tommy, we barely even got to see you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He dropped his dish in the sink and reached out to ruffle her hair. She ducked out from beneath him, furious. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “I promise.”
•••
He returned to find the Farrow estate as silent as he’d left it, only the dogs there to greet him. He fended them off as he searched the house, finding each room empty in turn. If Vivienne was home, she was nowhere to be seen. Not lounging by the pool. Not curled in the living room. Not upstairs in her room, door shut and music playing.
Tailed by the dogs, he made his way to the guest room, a duffel bag stuffed with fresh laundry slung over his shoulder. That was where he found her, seated on the middle of his bed with her knees drawn to her chin. He froze on the threshold, the dogs skidding to ungainly stops against his calves. The commotion drew her gaze to his. She was freshly showered, her hair in braids and her face scrubbed clean. Even so, he could tell she’d been weeping.
“Vivienne?”
She was up immediately. He hardly had time to drop his bag to the floor before she slammed into him hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. His arms went around her, folding her into an embrace. Her fingers tightened in his shirt and he felt her take a great, shuddering breath.
“I came back as soon as I saw,” he said.
