Stranger on the Shore (Mirabelle Harbor, Book 4) (21 page)

I glared at my sister who was, in turn, glaring back at me with a ghostly white cast to her face, illuminated as she was by only a sliver of moonlight streaming into the bungalow. So very pale.

I expected her to immediately argue back. Tell me I was full of bullshit. Or claim she wasn’t as condescending and irritating and demanding as I knew she was.

But she just stared back at me with an oddly haunted expression on her face, which somehow telegraphed both discomfort and surprise. She swiped at her forehead repeatedly, as if trying to brush away a pesky bug.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me, but I sensed a new movement from where she was sitting on the sofa. She almost looked like she was shaking.

I reached over to the wall and flipped on the light. Her pallor wasn’t just from the cast of the moon. She really
was
ghostly white. And she was trembling like a frightened animal. Fresh sweat beaded up on her forehead the second she’d managed to wipe it away, and she was struggling to catch her breath.

This freaked me out.

I raced over to her. “Ellen? Are you okay? What’s happening?”

She clutched her chest above her heart and grimaced. “I think—” she began, and then stopped.

“You can tell me,” I said, suddenly flooded with shame that I’d left her alone for the whole night and come back so late, only to argue with her over petty things. I’d had no idea she was so sick, but what kind of flu or virus was this? I felt her forehead. I couldn’t detect a fever, but there was no denying she had other symptoms of illness. “Do you need a doctor?”

She nodded. “Pretty sure I’m having another panic attack. But this is worse than the last one. You’d better take me to the ER.”

Revelations Unexpected

I
f Ellen had been annoyed by that pain-in-the-ass Dr. Joseph Cole back in New Haven, this Sarasota doctor—Dr. Kristy Sutterfield—had brought Ellen’s irritation to a whole new level.

“Ms. Slater, can you try to remember what you were talking about and thinking about just prior to this latest episode?” the doc asked at the hospital an hour later.

She shrugged. “I was arguing with my sister. But that’s nothing new.” Hell, she and Marianna had spent over four decades disagreeing on nearly everything. Hadn’t given her a panic attack before.

“Was there anything
different
about your conversation with your sister this time?” the doc persisted. “Anything that irritated you in particular?”

“In particular?” Ellen repeated. Shit. Everything irritated her right now. Her inability to go to work without worrying about sweating through her clothing. Her longstanding family dynamics with all of the same old dysfunction, which always reared its ugly head when she and her sister fought. Her aging body and being in her forties or whatever.

“Look,” she said to the woman, “all I know is that I was fine until Marianna came back to the bungalow tonight. I mean, I was ticked off at her for getting in so late, but I wasn’t panicky or anything. Not right away.”

“Had your sister promised she’d be back at a specific time?”

Ellen shook her head. “She didn’t tell me a time, although I think she should have. It would’ve been more considerate. Living with her has never been easy, though. And I knew that before I came down here and surprised her last week. She’s not typically a huge fan of the unexpected, but... ” She shrugged.

Dr. Sutterfield glanced at her sharply. “So, you came down knowing that? Were you purposely trying to anger her? Throw her off kilter?”

She glared at the doc. “Of course not. I just needed a place to go for a bit. But when I tried to tell Marianna on the phone about my plans to fly down for a visit, she was too busy to listen to me.”

“Hmm.” The doc jotted some notes down on her clipboard and frowned.

“Hmm... what?”

The lady doctor inhaled slowly, as if she were gathering a supply of much-needed patience, and then she exhaled even more slowly before she spoke. “Would I be correct in surmising that being the one in control is important to you, Ms. Slater? That you’re a Type A personality?”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Do I look like one of those laidback, I-live-for-yoga types?”

The doc cracked a smile. “You do not.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

Dr. Sutterfield regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “Your sister asked to see you after I’d had a chance to conduct my exam and chat with you privately. But after you visit with her for a few minutes, I’m going to instruct her to go home. The nurse is going to run a few tests and, given that it’s so late, I’d prefer to keep you here for observation tonight—”

“What? I have to stay—”

“You do. I’d like for you to get a restful sleep, ideally away from whatever trigger set off this latest panic attack. And I’m going to give you just one small assignment.” She pulled a pocket-sized spiral notebook from one of the drawers and handed it to Ellen, along with a ballpoint pen. “Write down, in chronological order, the conversational progression you had with your sister earlier tonight. Everything that you remember saying to her or hearing her say. Every thought you can recall that ran through your head or emotion you experienced. Pay particularly close attention to how your body feels as you revisit the dialogue from the evening. The way your conversation escalated into a full-blown argument. Do you think you can do that?”

She nodded. “Should I talk with my sister about this? Tell her I’m supposed to write it all down? She might remember something I don’t.”

“No. Not this time. The exercise is about you, not her. It’s your memories and reactions that we need to pinpoint, okay?”

“Okay.”

Then with a competent, kind, and—in Ellen’s opinion—utterly exasperating nod that signaled the end of their discussion, the doc left her in the hospital room alone.

Fifteen seconds later, Marianna rushed in.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” her sister asked, her face flushed with heat and creased with worry, exhaustion, and guilt.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ellen told her.

“Like what?”

“Like it’s your fault that I’m in here.”

Marianna shook her head and held up her cell phone. “I read all of your texts in the waiting room. If I would’ve just let you know I’d be late, we wouldn’t have been arguing and—”

“And nothing. Listen, you were sort of right. You
are
almost forty, and I’m not your mother. You’ll always be my kid sister, though, so there’s a part of me that’s forever going to want to tell you what to do. Seriously, Sis, when are you gonna get used to that?”

Marianna smiled slightly, which was Ellen’s reward. But it was a short-lived victory. Her sister was soon frowning and shaking her head again. “I was never a very obedient kid sister, was I?”

Ellen laughed. “Actually, until you ran off with Donny the A-hole, you played by the rules more often than I did. I was supposed to be the rebel of the family.”
And you took that away from me
, she added in her head.

Funny, she hadn’t thought about that in ages. But it was true. Until Marianna’s defection, Ellen had been on a wilder path. Taking her time getting through college. Navigating boys, beer fests, and the occasional bong. She hadn’t gotten serious about school or her career until after her sister’s surprise marriage, when their parents’ gaze turned toward her to make up for their disappointment in her younger sibling. Then she began working on her profession in earnest.

“What? You were always so reliable and so certain of what you wanted to do, Ellen. Our parents’ favorite child by a long shot,” Marianna said, with only a tinge of her usual resentment. Tonight, it came across more as resignation.

“Nope. Not until after you eloped. Don’t tell me you honestly don’t remember? All the family patterns changed after that. Swiftly and suddenly.”

Marianna shrugged, but Ellen didn’t buy the disinterested act. It had been like an immediate rewriting of history with their parents, and the sisters had remained complicit in their screwed-up family mythology even after Mom and Dad had passed away. That was one of their dirty little secrets. After her elopement, Marianna had become the black sheep overnight, and Ellen had been made over as the good girl, when they all knew it had been the reverse for eighteen years. Marianna was judged forevermore by their parents a deviant, despite having chosen a very traditional domestic life as a wife and mother, along with a “safe” career. (She’d gone into
insurance
, for cripes’ sake. The girl craved safety.) While Ellen had been all but forced by their parents to subdue her natural rebellious streak, and she was only allowed to take out her love of arguing in heated tax meetings. And, occasionally, with her sister.

Could that be part of why she was having these damned panic attacks now? Had her mind finally reached its saturation point, unable to placate her parents’ wishes anymore, especially from beyond the grave? The only praise she’d gotten from them in decades had been for being a successful career woman—not for her marriage to Jared or, heaven forbid, for any maternal instincts she might possess, however remote. Not that she’d ever wanted to taint a new generation with the residual dysfunction of her nuclear family anyway.

She felt the sweat beading up on her forehead again and the shortness of breath returning. Shit.

“I don’t want us to dwell on all of that now, Ellen. No matter how it happened. And, besides, I can tell it’s upsetting you. Why don’t we wait until after you’re back at the bungalow before we start revisiting the unhappy past?”

Her sister had a point, and Ellen readily agreed to let it drop for the time being. But she had the uncomfortable sense that she was getting really close to the source of her panic attacks. In the relative vicinity, at least, though she still hadn’t quite nailed it. Perhaps the dark truth was that she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

The nurse came in to usher Marianna out of the room and to run the tests that Dr. Sutterfield said were coming.

“You may come back in the morning,” the nurse informed her sister. “After nine a.m. We’ll be able to give you both a more thorough update then.”

Marianna squeezed Ellen tight before she left. “I’m so sorry about tonight.”

“Me, too,” Ellen whispered. “But go to the bungalow and get some sleep, would’ya? Otherwise, they just might end up admitting you here, too.” Her sister chuckled. “Oh, and please don’t call Jared to tell him about this, um, episode. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? Because I could—”

“It’s after three in the morning, Marianna. Yeah, I’m sure. A phone call now would scare the crap out of the poor guy.” Plus, she needed time to think of exactly what to say.

After her sister finally left and the nurse had poked and prodded her for fifteen minutes, she was finally left alone with her thoughts and instructed to “rest.” Like that was gonna happen.

So, she pulled out the little spiral notebook that the doc had given her and began writing down the moment-by-moment rundown of everything that’d happened since Marianna had walked into the bungalow after her late date. But try as she might, she couldn’t isolate the trigger. Maybe she was forgetting some important detail or overlooking a tidbit of dialogue that would illuminate the problem. Hell if she knew.

It wasn’t until several hours later—at a quarter to nine, to be precise—that Ellen finally figured it out.

Her bedside phone rang. It was the nurses’ station, telling her that her niece was on the line, hoping to speak with her. “Shall I put her through to you?” the nurse on call asked.

“Of course,” Ellen said. She
loved
Kathryn. She always enjoyed talking with her, although she’d never chitchatted with her niece from a hospital bed before.

“Aunt Ellen?” Marianna’s college-aged daughter said softly.

“Hey, sweetie,” she replied, her throat tightening up a bit. Weirdly overemotional for her, but she’d been running on roughly four hours of sleep.

“My mom told me you were at Sarasota Memorial when I called this morning. I had to worm the details out of her, but I had to call. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and I just wanted to hear the voice of my favorite auntie.”

That last bit was an old joke between them. Donny the Deadbeat was an only child, so Ellen was Kathryn’s only aunt. But, nevertheless, tears sprung to her eyes and her heart began to race at her niece’s loving words.

“Aw, thanks, Kathryn,” she said, forcing herself to sound upbeat, even though she was crying, her throat was tightening, and she could feel a trickle of sweat dripping down her back, beneath her thin hospital gown.

The truth settled over her like a blanket. All of the childhood memories that had been dislodged from her mental vise grip recently—not to mention all of these panic attacks—were leading her to the one realization she’d never expected to have. Not at age forty-four, that was for damn sure.

Did she really want to be endearingly called something other than “auntie”? How would it sound to her heart... to her soul... if she actually wanted to be someone’s “mommy” instead?

Oh, God. I need to talk to Jared. Now.

~*~

I
had to cancel out on my friends for the first time that morning, but there was no way I’d be able to function—let alone work pliers and crimp beads—on so much emotion and so little sleep. As it was, I could barely drag myself out of bed to answer the phone when my daughter called. But, after talking with Kathryn, I figured I’d better tell Joy what was going on.

“I’m so sorry I can’t come in today,” I said to her on the phone. “There’s been a little emergency... ” I explained about Ellen’s panic attack the night before, carefully omitting the reason for our argument. Joy was, of course, very understanding.

“You take all the time you need, lady,” she said sincerely. “Just tell me, what we can do to help. Bring you and your sister dinner? How about some fudge?”

I laughed. “Nothing right now, but thanks. I’m not sure if the doctors are going to prescribe a special diet for her, so we’d better not tempt her with Fudge Fantasia until after we know it’s on the approved list.”