The Best I Could (47 page)

The door to the ICU swung open, cutting off
my reply.

Pops stepped out, the sagging expression on
his face transforming when he caught sight of Heather.

They hugged, their embrace long and full of
emotion.

***

The next visiting hour came too quickly, and
I took my place in front of the intercom. Heather had decided to
wait until the next slot, opting for it when Jonathan told her he
didn’t want to go.

Tansy squeezed my hand, offering me what
strength she could, before letting go.

The doors swung open, revealing a long desk
on the left side of the room and a line of sectioned off glass
cubicles on the right, curtains pulled closed for privacy.

“She’s the fourth one down,” a nurse informed
me.

Pausing in front of the curtain, I inhaled,
grasped the material, and shoved it aside.

Mom looked like she’d been abducted by
aliens. Tubes came out of her mouth, the medical tape holding them
down lying against her cheeks, drawing attention to her closed,
swollen eyes. Machines beeped next to the bed.

“She opened her eyes this morning,” the nurse
said, coming in behind me. Her name tag pegged her as Brenna. “We
have her sedated for now until we remove the tubes, but you can
talk to her if you want.” Grabbing a chart, she left.

A brown, metal chair rested next to the bed,
and I lowered myself into it.

My hands rose, and then fell again.

I wanted to touch her, but I also didn’t want
anything to do with her.

Head falling, my hands clasped together, I
breathed, “Shit, Ivy,” because I knew saying Mom wouldn’t help. She
didn’t like that word.

My gaze rose, finding her face, and I felt an
overwhelming surge of pity. “You’re like a princess locked in an
ivory tower,” I told her. “But you always have been, haven’t you?
This royal beauty, the star of her own dream world.” There was no
animosity in my voice. Only honesty and sadness. “Your world
doesn’t always include us, but when it does, you don’t let us
forget it.”

I laughed, no harshness in the sound. “You
were actually really good at games. Remember that? The way you’d
goad me and Heather into playing Twister with you while you sang
high-pitched songs we didn’t know. Show tunes, you called them.” I
sighed. “That’s the Ivy I’m going to think about from now on, not
the one bursting with demons. Despite everything, you know we’ll
always be there for you, right? You may not have wanted us, but
we’re here, and being with this family includes being around you.
So for them, I’ll try. Try for us, too, okay? I won’t ask you to be
a mom anymore. I’m just asking you to be you.” Reaching out, I
touched her hand, the gesture awkward. “I’m asking you to get help.
For you. Not us.”

Pushing the chair back, I stood.

“You’ve still got some time,” Brenna called
when I passed.

“I said what I needed to.”

I pushed a button, and the door opened.
Rather than return to the waiting room, I kept walking.

Tansy

Heather glanced at me curiously. She was a
beautiful, full-figured woman, a dimple flashing in her cheek when
she smiled.

“Eli’s girlfriend, huh?” she asked, catching
my gaze. “If you knew how off-putting my brother can be around
women, you’d understand why I’m so surprised. Shocked even.”

“Oh, I know,” I told her. “He’s not as
distant as he pretends to be though.”

She studied me. “You live in Atlanta?”

“Once,” I answered. “I’ll be back here soon.
For school.”

The door to the ICU unit swung open,
interrupting us.

My gaze shot up to find Eli marching past,
his feet thudding against the floor. Leaving.

I went to the door.

“It’s hard seeing her,” Pops told the room,
waving Eli’s actions off.

I knew better. Not only that, I knew where he
was going.

Flip-flops slapping the floor, I rushed after
him, lights blurring around me, until my hands pressed an ‘Exit’
door. I climbed the stairs, gasping.

When I reached the roof, I stopped short, my
eyes on the man leaning against the parapet, his gaze on the city,
an unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers.

Roof boy.

He was no longer a stranger to me.

Hot air grazed my cheeks. The sun was high in
the sky, startling on air-conditioned chilled skin.

I joined him, my arms resting on the stone.
“Is this spot taken?”

His head lowered, his lips twitching at the
familiar words. “Life is funny, isn’t it? How sometimes it’s the
people who are supposed to build you up that break you down, and
the people you thought would hurt you,” he threw me a knowing look,
“are the ones who help heal the pain.”

Reaching over, I took his hand, entwining my
fingers with his. “I’m staying, okay? This is me,” I squeezed,
“staying.”

He snorted. “I’m not asking you to stay.”

I smiled. “Well, seeing as I’m kind of
involved with this guy who really needs me to be here right now, I
suppose you’re stuck with me. That’s not saying a lot. I’m an ear,
but I’ve got really bony shoulders.”

Out of nowhere, a single, muted tear slid
down Eli’s cheek, the first one I’d ever seen him shed.

“Good,” he mumbled, choking. “You know, I’m
glad I stayed that day. I’m really, really glad I stayed.”

Sweat formed between our clasped hands, but I
didn’t let go.

“You’re still alive. Breathe, Eli,” I
whispered.

His shoulders shook.

Turning, he pulled me
against him. The roof,
our
roof, was a baking hot oven with steam puffing
upward from below, scalding us.

I didn’t care.

Holding me, clinging to me, Eli cried, the
tears falling into my hair. My arms circled his waist.

Damn Death. Damn the fear of death. Damn the
comfort some people found in death. Damn the things we did to push
Death away or, in some cases, draw him in.

My heart broke. It broke for Eli. It broke
for the road his family was going to have to travel. It broke for
the healing his mother was going to have to endure.

Most of all, it broke because I realized
something about death, and it brought startling clarity. In the
end, Death doesn’t say, “I’m doing the best I can.” Death says,
“I’m finished.”

It was people that had to pick up the pieces.
People who had to do what they could with what was left.

Eli

Going into the ICU and
sitting next to Mom had changed something within me. I’d come out
stamped with understanding, this knowledge that seeing her there,
talking to her, wasn’t about forgiveness. It was about moving on.
Not past her. She was going to be my mother for the rest of her
life, or mine, whichever came first. Moving
through
her, however, meant accepting
the past.

Tansy taught me the rest.

By meeting me on the roof,
she opened up every door inside me I’d ever shut on purpose, the
dams holding back the emotions, finally breaking free.
All
of the emotions, not
just the love I’d confessed to Tansy, but the repressed shit I’d
always held back, the emotions which kept me from being more than I
could be.

Jonathan didn’t fare as well.

He finally went into the ICU that afternoon,
confused and angry, and he came out unchanged.

His dad showed up at the hospital, his
sun-kissed fiancée in tow, and Jonathan took it for what it was: an
escape.

Dean, his studious gaze passing over us,
nodded his acknowledgement, but kept his attention on his
turmoil-ridden son.

Grasping Jonathan’s shoulders, he asked, “Are
you okay?”

Jonathan broke. “I want to go home.”

He was running.

I’d been there, and because of that, I knew
there was no stopping him. He’d run, and he’d keep running until he
was ready to quit.

“Is he leaving?” Heather asked
incredulously.

She started for him, and my hand shot out,
holding her back. “We’ve both been there,” I said, remembering all
of the years when she’d run away from home. Time and time again.
“Let him go.”

Still, my heart hurt when I hugged my brother
good-bye. I’d gotten to know him better this summer than I ever
had.

Deena was the last to embrace him.

All tough, she pulled away first, swiped her
nose on her sleeve, and sniffed out, “Don’t be a stranger,
okay?”

Deena was going to break
hearts one day, once men realized how big
her
heart actually was.

Dean crowded his son, protecting him, his
fiancée flanking Jon’s other side, sandwiching him in. Loving him.
Which was good. Jonathan deserved shit loads of love.

“He’s going to feel bad for not staying one
day,” Heather grunted.

I glanced at my grandfather, the memory of
the day I left Mom the summer before still vivid in my head. Pop’s
gaze met mine, and he nodded, remembering, too.

“No, he won’t,” I said. “Sometimes you’ve got
to remove yourself from the puzzle to see the bigger picture.”

Heather looked at me, startled. “What’s
happened to you, Eli?”

I shrugged. “I’m adulting.”

Tansy chuckled, and I glanced down at her,
smiling.

Mom was lying behind a hospital door, her
future full of uncertainty, and yet somehow I knew everything was
going to be okay.

We’d move forward, one painstaking step at a
time.

Because that’s what we did.

Tansy

Having a job meant having to leave the
hospital before the weekend.

Deena, Nana, and I were silent on the way
home, my heart left behind.

As much as I hated to leave, I made the best
of it, throwing myself into work while using my spare time to
finish the garden at the orchard.

There was a little bit of everything in that
garden, hidden secrets everywhere, pieces of Eli’s family in every
plant, flower, and structure.

Nana helped me, buying the few things I
needed to finish the garden as a gift for the Lockstons. It felt
right doing that for them.

I even made a bouquet for my therapist
because, let’s face it, I was going to be seeing her for a while.
With my baggage, she needed flowers.

Eli came home for the week, but only long
enough to finish the community service hours he had left, sleep,
and grab a set of clothes before returning to Atlanta.

The summer was ending. We all knew it, but no
one wanted to admit it.

Ray had found a replacement for Eli at the
gym. I’d finished filing all of my paperwork for school, and I was
apartment hunting. Nothing fancy, just a small place in Atlanta for
me. Something cheap that my landscaping job could pay the rent and
the bills on. I’d filed for a work-study position, and I was
banking on the extra income.

“Not too cheap,” Nana admonished. “I’ll force
help on you before I let you take something in the unsavory part of
town.”

I promised her I’d stay safe.

Every night, Eli and I talked, each
conversation fuller than the next.

Sometimes, when things were slow, I drove up
to Atlanta to see him. His mom had been moved to a regular room.
She was paralyzed from the waist down, her body listless, her
sulking eyes staring at paint-chipped walls.

Pops spent a lot of time talking to her.
Psychiatrists and physical therapists came in, each taking their
turns. She was started on new medications.

“It’s going to take some time,” Eli said,
walking me to my car after my latest visit.

At the Buick, he pulled me into his embrace,
his body pressing against mine. “I miss you,” he whispered.

Releasing me, he drew something from his
pocket, and I gasped, my gaze on the familiar blue box he held. I’d
never seen a Tiffany’s jewelry box before, but there weren’t many
women who didn’t know what it was.

“Open it,” he insisted.

Hands shaking, I took it, carefully removing
the lid. Inside, a ring rested against a pillow of white.

It was a circle of olive leaves.

“It’s a promise,” Eli told me. Taking it, he
slid the jewelry onto my left ring finger. “It’s a promise to wait,
to not lose this great thing we have while we’re separated, while
spending time finding ourselves.” His gaze found mine, trapping it.
“This is your garden, Tansy, and I’m a part of it, okay?”

I nodded, tears springing to my eyes. “I’ve
got something for you, too.”

Swiping at my cheeks, I left him to pop open
the trunk of my car. Pulling out the project I’d been knitting
since the beginning of summer, I brought it to him.

His brows rose. “What is it?”

Amused, I offered it to him. “It’s a sail.
Not one you can actually use on a boat. Obviously. It’s a
figurative one. One to help you navigate the sea of life.” I
paused, grimacing. “That sounded so much cheesier out loud that it
did in my head.”

Accepting the knitted sail, he laughed.
“Nothing you say is cheesy, roof girl. Completely out there maybe,
but never cheesy.”

The sun caught on the ring he’d given me, the
olive leaves glinting. “I love you, Eli.”

He kissed me, his lips urging mine open. I
yielded, allowing him in.

Always.

Eli

I was a day away from flying to Michigan when
I finally returned to the orchard, my grandfather and my mother in
tow.

The whole family was there, my mother’s
brother—better late than never—my cousin, Lincoln, Mandy, Heather,
and even Jonathan, who’d returned with his father for Mom’s
homecoming.

Mom had a long way to go, but she was
improving. Even so, she’d never walk again. Mentally, she was just
there. Existing, but still fighting not to.

Mental illness had torn a path through my
family’s life, giving me a whole new respect for those who suffered
from it and for the families who supported them along the way. It
was going to take a lot of time, but I was determined not to let it
define me or my family. I was determined not to let it change me
into something I didn’t want to be.