He swallows, and I squeeze his hand. “What was that?”
His eyes shut, and I bite my lip—but again, they flutter open. “Sorry.” It’s barely a rasp.
“For what?” My voice cracks. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
His eyes roll back slightly, but his arm is tugging me closer. Still sweating and hardly able to breathe from shock, I lean down and wrap my arms around his shoulders.
“It’s okay,” I whisper against his neck. I’m stroking his hair, wanting to be sure that he knows he’s loved. “I’m sorry, too. We’re friends again. You’re my best friend. Stay here with me, please.”
I feel him draw a raspy breath. Then his eyelids are sagging again, his lashes tickling against my face. His eyes are shut as he says, “Stay…”
That soft word is the last thing that I hear before a nurse bursts into the room, and Cross is gone again.
THE REST OF the week crawls by. I’m spending a lot of my time in mandatory group study sessions, which I definitely don’t need in order to understand and apply our class material. If I wanted to spend all my time with other people, I’d have joined a think tank, not endeavored to become an ethics professor.
I’m grouchy and tired when I come home from campus Friday afternoon, toting a little brass scale for a presentation my Plato & Aristotle group is making to a high school honors class next Wednesday.
The driveway at Crestwood Place is almost half a mile long, taking me through a beautiful apple orchard and then around several fields where horses graze. The horses belong to Suri’s parents, who are so seriously amazing that at times I pretend they’re my own.
Trent Dalton is the most modest Silicon Valley tycoon you could ever meet, and Gretchen is an elementary school counselor, working entirely pro bono. Suri has two younger sisters, Rachel and Edith. I spot Edith’s white horse, Samson, as I pull into the circle drive directly in front of the house.
I toss my leather pack over my arm and scoop the scale up. The columned brick home has a wide, stone staircase, and it takes me forever to drag my tired self up it. I press my thumb against the keyless entry and the door pops open immediately—so quickly, in fact, I worry that it wasn’t locked. Which is strange since Suri always uses the kitchen door.
I wiggle my cell phone out of the pocket of my sagging jeans and quickly pull up the emergency services phone number, conveniently stored as No. 2, in honor of the bullshit usually going down with Mom when I have to use it. I’m not sure what worries me most as I slowly step inside—the idea of Crestwood being burglarized like the Dalton’s city home has been a time or two, or the images that resurrect themselves inside my mind: visions of my mom lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the stairs or passed out in a pile of Oxy.
Thinking of Oxy—or any drug, for that matter—makes me think of Cross, which makes my heart ache.
After the miracle of Wednesday, I skipped my classes Thursday to be at the hospital with him, convinced he would wake up for good. He squeezed my hand when I asked if he was glad to see me, but that was all. This morning when I called, Nanette sounded weird.
I’m wondering if I can slip in during her shift tonight when the scent of cinnamon rolls hits my nose.
I race through the foyer, past the spiral staircase, through the formal dining room, and into the massive kitchen like a kid hot off the school bus.
I come to a stop on the rug that spans most of the kitchen and grin at the sight before me. Suri, turned toward the counter, is wearing a pink and green paisley apron. Her curly brown hair is locked away in pigtails. She looks like she just stepped out of Martha Stewart Living.
My smile disappears when she turns to me and I see her face.
I hold up my hands, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. “Remember what we said last time with Mom. Just spit it out, Sur.”
I bite down on my lip when Suri’s eyes tear and she steps over, closer to me, fiddling with her oven mitt and meeting my eyes with a deep frown. “You’re going to be so upset, Lizzy.”
“Dude!”
She wrings her hands and starts speaking on fast-forward. “My mother told me today. She heard from their new housekeeper—she cleans the Carlson’s home, too.” My stomach takes a nose-dive. “They’ve dropped him off their insurance. They’re not going to pay for his healthcare anymore. They’ve moved him, Lizzy. This morning, to a really crappy place in L.A.”
“What?”
“They got shut down last year, temporarily. They had a lot of different violations. Bed sores, people getting resistant bacterial infections…” Tears glimmer in her eyes. “It’s not good. It’s a hell hole.”