There was something he was hiding for reasons he thought noble, but she had a right to know. Ella was hers, too.
“What are you asking Ella not to tell us?” she repeated. “If you really want to help her, tell me.”
“Just give her the note,” Jep said. He broke away, heading for the beach steps at a jog. She watched him take them two at a time until he disappeared at the top of the parking lot.
“That was intense. What are you going to do?” Reya asked, breathless.
Lucy felt all the wind of indignation leave her sails. Something about Jep’s desperation had hit a nerve. “I have no idea.”
When she arrived at Spaulding, Lucy found her sister’s bed empty. Trish, one of Ella’s nurses, sailed into the room and began stripping the bed.
“Oh hi, honey! Love the sneakers.”
Lucy glanced down at her pink Converse’s then at the empty bed. “Where’s Ella? Is she okay?”
“Better than okay!”
As much as she needed her escape at the Sandy Page, Lucy missed Ella. It was why she’d decided to ask Leah for the afternoon off. “Spend time with your sister,” her mother had urged when she dropped Lucy off that afternoon at Spaulding. “She needs you.”
Lucy knew her mom didn’t mean to make her feel bad, but the words did. That summer the whole focus had been on Ella—as well it should have been—but sometimes Lucy grew weary of the intense vigil. From the medical stuff and the legal stuff and all of the unknown fear that they went to sleep withnight after night. Was it wrong of her to seek refuge in the pages of the books at the store? To pedal away from home each morning on her bike like her life depended on it? Everyone deserved a break. But as she watched her mother drive away, a fresh lump of guilt settled inside her. When did her mother ever get one?
“Where’s Ella now?” Lucy asked Trish. Today she would make up for her absence. She’d spend as much time as her sister wanted.
“She’s just finishing up at PT. You can go down to the gym and say hi. Danny won’t mind.”
Danny was the physical therapist, and almost as upbeat as Trish but a little firmer, like an athletic coach. The more time Ella spent at Spaulding the more Lucy began to feel like the staff there were becoming part of their family. Lucy had to wonder at the kind of people who worked there; they saw perfectly healthy teens and children come in with traumatic injuries. Devastated parents. Lives upended by a single senseless accident. And yet every member of the staff there seemed happy. Always smiling. Encouraging. Seizing upon the smallest sign of progress and feeding it back to their patients like nourishment. Lucy wondered if the staff there realized they were helping the family members as much as they were the patients.
She found Ella and Danny on the first floor, in what they called the gym. Lucy hovered in the doorway, watching. Danny had Ella standing between a set of parallel bars lowered to hip level. Lucy watched her sister, arms braced, hands on the bars asshe moved slowly along. The look on her face was pure determination, all just to walk with balance.
“That’s it, nice and easy,” Danny said. “Let’s try to rely less on the bars. Can you straighten, just a little?”
Ella lifted one hand from the bar too quickly and her lower body swung hard out from under her. Lucy found herself leaping forward arms outstretched, though she was too far away to make any difference. Neither Danny nor Ella saw her: like a reflex, Danny tucked one arm around Ella’s waist to steady her, and then, to Lucy’s exasperation, let go again.
“Alright, let’s try once more.”
Lucy watched nervously as Danny positioned himself alongside Ella. Why didn’t he stand closer? What if she fell? What if she hit her head again?
Ella didn’t seem afraid, however. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her brow knit with focus. Lucy knew that look. She stepped closer, not wanting to interrupt, but drawn in nonetheless. As she did, she could hear Ella’s deep intakes of breath between steps. See the tremor in her thigh muscles. A stray strand of hair stuck to the side of her forehead. It was then Lucy realized Ella’s face was drenched in a sheen of sweat. A chorus of silent cheering swelled in her throat.You can do this, Ella. Keep going.
Ella made it to the end of the parallel bars and slumped against them. But her expression was all smiles as Danny cheered her on.
“Atta girl! That’s the grit I want to see.”
“You did it!” Lucy cried. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but she realized she had when both heads swiveled in her direction. As soon as Ella saw her, her expression shifted. Her knees sank beneath her and Danny reached around her to draw her upright.
“I think we’ve done enough today,” Danny said. “Let’s get you back to your room so you can visit with your sister.” He helped Ella back to her wheelchair. “Hey there, Lucy. What do you think of our superstar?”
“Hey, Danny,” Lucy said, but her eyes were on Ella. “I think she’s amazing.” She reached for Ella’s hand, but Ella slid it out of reach. Her expression of triumph had given way to embarrassment.
“Now, Ella, don’t think you’re getting out of tomorrow’s session just because you nailed it today,” Danny said, wheeling Ella to the door. “I think you’re ready for some steps.”
Lucy followed them back upstairs. When the elevator doors opened to the second floor, a little girl with a bandaged head was waiting outside them with her mother. “Hello, Princess Madeline!” Danny greeted her, as he wheeled Ella by. “I’ll be down to see you in just a minute.”
As she passed them Lucy smiled at the little girl, but kept her eyes averted from the mother’s. She felt bad, but she already knew what she’d see; she’d spent all summer feeling it herself.
She waited as Danny helped Ella rise from her chair, and position herself by the bed. “Sit first, then scoot,” he directed. Lucy tried not to stare as Ella strained to tuck her knees up and swing them over, her face puckered with effort. “Use those stomachmuscles,” Danny encouraged, but he did not step in. It was agonizing to watch. Why couldn’t Danny just help her? Clearly she was exhausted. But when she eventually settled herself against the pillows, Lucy could see the reason why all over Ella’s face. “See? You’re going to put me out of work,” Danny joked. Ella was so tired she could only offer a weak smile.
Lucy excused herself and went to the bathroom. Only a few days ago she’d hid in there with the note from Jep. And here she was with it, again. It wasn’t clear to her why she’d brought it with her until she saw Ella in the PT room. Now she knew what she had to do.
