The Good Wife (17 page)

That wasn’t the same thing as no, was it? Sarah balled her hands in her lap to hide that they were shaking. “Does Dad know?”

Brianna gave her head the tiniest shake. “No.”

“Shouldn’t he?”

For a moment Brianna said nothing, then she sighed. “I was going to tell him. Mom made me promise that I’d tell him.”

“Well?”

Her shoulder shifted. “But now Jack’s died and Meg’s a little bit crazy and Tommy and Cass—”

“So?”

Brianna shrugged again. “I just . . . I can’t.”

“But if it’s serious, Bree . . .”

“It’s not. Not enough to worry him.” Her voice hardened. Her gaze met Sarah’s and held. “Look at Dad. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t eat. He’s running himself ragged. It just doesn’t seem right, or fair, to lay this on him now. There’s only so much a person can take.”

Brianna had made a good point. And yet Sarah knew that Dad was all about being a dad, and he took his role as a parent seriously. “But your health—”

“Is improving.”

“Is that bullshit, or are you telling me the truth?”

Brianna cracked a smile. “It’s the truth.”

“How do I know?”

Brianna held out an arm. “Look at me. Don’t I look better?”

“No. You look like a skeleton.”

“Hey! I resemble that,” Bree joked, but a shadow darkened her eyes and her chin wobbled. “And okay, I know I’m still really thin, but I’m getting better. I’ve got a doctor here, an amazing doctor. A pioneer in the field, and one of the top specialists in the country. He wasn’t taking new patients but Mom made a call—”

“Do you have AIDS?”

“No! God, no. It’s just hep C.”

Sarah stared blankly at her.

Brianna gestured impatiently. “Hepatitis C. No biggie.”

Sarah shook her head. “Hepatitis C is serious, and it’s chronic, and it can cause liver failure, so don’t act all nonchalant with me!”

“Okay, fine. I’ve got a fairly serious case, but I’m getting help now and I should be as good as new soon.”

“Then why do you look like you’re still at death’s door?”

“Because . . . it’s . . . a serious case . . . but I’ve got the right doctors now, I’ve got a good team—”

“You just said a moment ago it wasn’t serious. Now you say it’s a serious case. What is it?”

“Serious. Pretty damn bad. Happy now? Is that what you want to hear?”

“I want the truth.”

“Great. The truth is, I’m sick. The truth is, I might need a new liver. But I also might not. Happy?”

“No! No. And you know what?”

“What?”

“You should have come home sooner. You should have gotten your ass back here the moment you knew you were sick. Jesus, Bree, we live in San Francisco. Some of the top medical research is done right here, just around the corner from our house at UCSF—”

“I know. I’m being seen there now.”

“But why did you wait? Why wait until it might be too late? Liver failure? Really?”

Brianna lifted her chin. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

“
Yet
. But it could. You could be on dialysis forever, or needing a donor liver. And those give out. They don’t always work—”

“Thanks for the optimistic thoughts, Sarah.”

“I have a right to be angry! I’ve just lost Mom, and Jack’s gone, and now I find out you’re seriously sick.”

“Sick, but not dead, and that’s an important distinction, sis.”

“Maybe. But I know you. I’m looking at you. You’re . . . you’re . . .” Sarah shook her head, her throat aching, her chest so tight it was hard to breathe. “You’re a ghost, Brianna. And it’s not right. You are you. You’ve always been bigger than life, so full of life. My entire life I’ve looked up to you for being adventurous and fierce and alive.
Alive.
” She knocked back tears. She was furious. Beyond furious. And the words were tumbling out of her mouth, one after the other. “How could you be so careless? And selfish? We love you, Brianna. We need you—”

“What’s going on out here?” Dad’s big, booming voice cut Sarah short.

Sarah looked away, bit into her lip, arms crossing her chest to hide her shaking.

Brianna didn’t speak.

And Sarah couldn’t.

“Girls?” Dad prompted impatiently, and his no-nonsense tone made Sarah feel like a child again. She glanced at Brianna, and then at her father.

“Nothing’s going on,” Sarah said tightly as Brianna extracted her hand from hers.

“I heard enough to know something’s wrong,” he answered, walking toward them, hands in his pockets, expression somber, watchful.

Brianna’s lips compressed. Sarah tapped her foot, anxious, restless, feeling trapped. Everyone had known since late March that Brianna wasn’t well. It was all they’d talked about when she first arrived from the Congo, but with Mom’s death, and then Jack’s accident, they’d stopped discussing her, stopped worrying about her.

They shouldn’t have.

But at the same time this was Brianna’s fault. She could have gotten help earlier. She could have taken care of herself. For God’s sake, she was an infectious disease nurse. She treated critically ill patients in Africa. Why didn’t she treat herself?

Dad stopped before them, standing above them, blocking the brightness of the sun. “Well?” he prompted.

“It’s nothing, Dad,” Sarah said. “Just a sister thing.”

“You called her selfish,” he said. “And careless,” he added. “Those are strong words.”

A lump filled Sarah’s throat. It hurt, swallowing around it. “I’m tired of her living in Africa.” She jerked her chin up, looked at her father and then at Brianna. “I’m tired of her living halfway around the world and only seeing us once every couple of years. I think it’s selfish. We miss her.” She got to her feet, stepped around her dad, and gave Brianna another long, hard look. “I miss her.”

And then she headed back into the house and down a flight of stairs to the alcove bedroom that had always been hers. Meg, Kit, and Brianna had shared a large bedroom, but when Sarah was born, her father converted a closet and a storage area under the stairs into a cozy nursery, cutting a window into the storage space to bring in natural light.

The nursery was just supposed to be a temporary room. It was tiny and filled with odd angles from being tucked under the stairs and into the eaves, but Sarah loved her room with its slanted ceiling and little window nook and refused to move up into the “big girls” room when she’d outgrown her toddler bed.

Mom hadn’t been happy at first, as she’d looked forward to turning the nursery into an office for herself, but Dad convinced her that Sarah, being so much younger than the other kids, needed her own space.

Now Sarah flopped onto her bed and stared numbly up at the floral wallpaper on the angled ceiling, unable to process what Brianna had just said, because no, hepatitis C wasn’t a death sentence, but you couldn’t let it ravage your body for months, much less years, and Sarah wondered just how long Brianna had been sick. Her gut told her it had been a long, long time.

A knock sounded on her door, and the bedroom door opened. “Can I come in?”

It was her dad.

Sarah sat up. “Yes.”

He entered and closed the door behind him, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on a sharply angle.

“I forgot how small the Dollhouse is,” he said, stooping as he approached her bed.

She smiled faintly at his use of her bedroom’s nickname. Tommy had called her room the Dollhouse years ago, citing its Lilliputian dimensions and quirky charm. “It’s cozy.”

“You don’t have to stay here. There’s plenty of space in the girls’ room.”

“I like it here. It’s my room.”

He looked around, taking in the peach-and-yellow wallpaper and the dotted curtain. “You know we were going to demo this room, and add the space to our master bath when we did that big remodel.”

“I know. I’m glad it didn’t happen.”

“Your mom wanted a big Jacuzzi.”

That hurt. Sarah felt bruised. “She deserved one.”

“She was a good girl, your mom.”

It took her a second to respond. “Yes. She was.”

He gave her a sharp look. “You miss her.”

“I do.”

“You two were constantly on the phone. Had to up our Verizon plan’s minutes twice because of all your talking and texting.”

Sarah struggled to hold back the tears. “I think about her all the time. I still reach for the phone to call her, or I think, ‘I’ve got to tell Mom this . . .’” She looked up at her dad, emotions tangled and bittersweet. “It’s just so hard. I want to hear her voice. I want her advice. I want to know how you are, and what you guys are doing. And Mom would tell me all that, and more. She was so good at staying in touch, keeping me informed. It didn’t feel like I lived on the other side of the country. Mom made me feel close.”

He folded his arms across his big chest. “I’m not very good at that, am I?”

“You’re a guy. You’ve never liked talking on the phone.”

He nodded and ran a hand through his thick hair, which he still kept short, even though he’d retired from the department earlier in the year. “I should call you more. Check in more often. Make sure we do that keep-in-touch thing your mom was so good at.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. So how often should I do this? Daily—”

“Daddy, get real.”

He shrugged. “Weekly?”

“Weekly is good. But honestly, I’m okay, it shouldn’t be a chore.”

“It’s not a chore. You’re my youngest. My baby.”

“That makes me a thirty-five-year-old baby, Dad.”

“You could be one hundred and you’ll still be my baby. My little girl.”

Sarah unfolded her long limbs and left the bed to hug her dad. “I love you, too, Dad.”

His big arms wrapped around her, gave her a quick squeeze. “We’ve always been so proud of you, your mom and I. You really were a ray of sunshine. Never gave us a moment’s worry.”

“That’s because you guys didn’t know all the bad stuff I used to do.”

He drew back, looked into her eyes. “What bad stuff?”

She laughed, held her hands up. “Just kidding, Dad.”

“But I mean it when I say you made us happy. We lucked out with you.” He gave her another intent look. “You were easy. Sometimes I worried that we didn’t fuss over you enough.”

“I didn’t need fussing over.”

“I know. But sometimes . . . others . . . did.”

Sarah understood where this was going now. “Everyone’s different. People have different needs.”

He was quiet a moment, choosing his words. “You might have been too young to remember, but your sister Brianna . . . she and I butted heads when she was growing up. She was stubborn, and she had her own ideas about things. I didn’t approve of choices she made. It wasn’t easy with her. Not like you.”

Uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken, and aware that at any moment Brianna could walk in, Sarah opened her mouth to protest but her dad continued on.

“That’s not to say I didn’t love her.” His voice deepened. “But I worried about her, and I don’t like worrying. I don’t like lying awake at night, wondering where my little girl is or if she’s okay. So it was easier pushing her away, putting up a wall, telling myself she was out of control. Out of my control.”

He paused, looked down at the ground, jaw tight.

Seconds ticked by. Sarah didn’t try to fill the silence. She knew her dad. He wasn’t finished speaking.

“She’s had challenges, obstacles, along the way, but she’s a good girl, and your mom always worried about her. Worried that Brianna didn’t have anyone. Worried that Brianna lived so far away.” He suddenly looked up, into Sarah’s eyes, his blue gaze burning, intense. “The last thing your mom said to me was to take care of Brianna—” His voice broke. He swallowed, and his strong jaw clenched, and a small muscle worked near his ear. “. . . that Brianna needed me, because more than ever before, our little Bree-girl needed love.”

Sarah’s heart turned over. She studied his face, seeing the small tear that clung to his lower lashes.

“Do you know what’s wrong with Brianna?” he asked, voice husky. “Do you know what’s making her sick?”

Sarah nodded.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it terminal?”

“Shouldn’t be. But she can’t go back to the Congo. She has to stay here. Get well. Her doctors are close. Mom found her good people at UCSF, and now all she needs to do is get treatment and get better.”

“So why did you say she was careless and selfish?”

Sarah lifted her chin. “I was angry.”

“Figured that much out.”

“I just—” She glanced sideways at him. “Brianna just doesn’t take care of herself. She’s just so . . . self-destructive. And it makes me mad.”

His brows pulled, his expression changing, and for a moment he looked stricken, and unbearably sad. “Right. So that’s how it is.”

Sarah’s phone rang but she didn’t move to answer it.

“You can get that,” he said.

She shook her head. “It can go to voice mail.”

Her dad just looked at her an endless moment, and then reached out to pat her cheek. “Our golden girl. Sweet Sarah.” He turned and walked out.

Sarah watched him go, her heart aching, a lump in her throat. He’d looked so lonely for a moment. Lonely and alone.

Her phone rang again. She glanced around, found it on the foot of her bed, and picked it up.

Boone.

“Hey, baby,” she said thickly, answering.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She wiped her eyes, missing Mom, wishing Mom were here because Mom would know what to do. Mom would know what to say. Mom would know how to comfort Dad and love Bree. But then, Mom would know how to love them all. She’d know the right words to bring them together, making them strong, making them a united family.

A family of hope.

A family of love.

Sarah knocked away another tear. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing right now? Don’t you have a game?”

“No.”

She folded her legs and sat cross-legged on the bed. “Rain-out?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I’ve been released.”

Sarah jerked, as if slapped. “What?”

“Tampa Bay let me go.”

“Oh my God.”

“At my request.”

“Boone!”

“It’s okay. It’s good. This is a good thing. I can’t spend the rest of the season sitting on a bench.”