Kate sat in the visitor’s chair next to the bed with her glasses pushed up into her hair, her phone face-down on her thigh, and her mother’s hand in hers.
She had been studying the hand for a long time.
The pink nail polish, still soft and pearly from the manicure she and Maggie had treated themselves to for Tessa’s wedding, was starting to chip a little. Her gold band and humble engagement ring had been taken off and put in her bag of belongings, and those familiar fingers somehow seemed naked. Kate had never, not once, seen her mothernotwear those rings.
There was a smattering of brown age spots, wrinkles on her old knuckles, and…lifelessness in her fingers.
Notlifelessness, no. Life that would return. Ithadto.
She closed her eyes and replayed the moment Dr. Winslow had come into the waiting room, just after eleven on the longest night of Kate’s life.
He gave the results slowly, as if he understood they all had survived a hurricane like the rest of the Panhandle, only to be hit with a new and unthinkable tragedy.
Surgery had been a success, the bleed evacuated within the golden window, the ICP currently controlled at seventeen, sedation holding, mean arterial pressure stable, the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours determinative.
In other words, if she made it to Monday—or Tuesday—she would likely survive. If her brain didn’t swell or her heart didn’tgive out from the stress or something equally catastrophic didn’t happen, all of which were still very much a possibility.
Kate, of course, volunteered to stay the night. After begging Eli to take Emma and Maggie home, she and Tessa and Vivien stayed for the first shift. Vivien left a while ago and Tessa went to get food and coffee.
Eli texted every half hour or so, and she replied, then put the phone down, letting exhaustion and her thoughts weigh on her shoulders while the ventilator clicked and sighed.
A soft knock on the doorframe made Kate turn to see Tessa, who must have gone back to the Summer House because now she wore yoga pants and a Destin sweatshirt. Her hair was damp, loosely pulled back in a ponytail. She held two paper cups, and had a small white bag was tucked under her arm.
The sweet smell of warm donuts wafted in with her.
“Sustenance,” she said. “And by that, I mean sugar and caffeine.”
She set the bag on the rolling table at the foot of the bed and carried a cup to Kate, handing it to her. “Any change?”
“No. Thanks for this.” Kate took the hot coffee and suddenly realized that she wanted it more than her next breath. “Were you home? Emma okay? How’s Olive? And Maggie?”
“Everyone is fine. I had to fight Eli not to come and Meredith helped me. They agreed we can have overnight, since we have daughter priority. We have to leave and get sleep in a few hours.”
“You can leave anytime, Tess.”
“I’m okay. Had a shower.” She gazed at their mother and sighed. “She’s gonna hate that hairstyle when the bald spot grows in.”
Kate smiled at the optimism—a trait Tessa and Mom shared—and watched her sister go around the bed and push the rolling recliner to the other side. She settled into it, crossing her legslike a little kid in school and guiding the IV pole out of her way so she could see Mom and Kate.
“She looks small,” Tessa said after a minute.
“I know.”
“I never think of her as small.” Tessa angled her head and studied their mother. “She’s going to be mad she missed all the excitement.”
Kate snorted her first sip of coffee. “Yeah. She’ll say, ‘Oh, all those cute firefighters and I was out cold.’”
Tessa smiled, but then it faded and her eyes filled. “I don’t think I can go through it again,” she whispered.
Kate knew exactly what she was talking about.
“It hasn’t even been a year,” Tessa added.
“It will be at the end of this month,” Kate said.
A year since they lost Dad. A year since that horrendous five weeks from the diagnosis to hospice. They had stood next to him at that bed, the three Wylie women, saying goodbye to the glue that held them all together.
Kate had been strong because Tessa and Mom were wrecked. For months, she’d been a rock, until somehow, by some fate of the universe, they’d all found their way back to Destin and started to heal.
