He turned to look at me.
“I worry about you too,” I said. “Don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But I do. It’s like my mom. I don’t want to keep caring and getting hurt, but I do. And it’s nearly wrecked me. My bandwidth is stretched to breaking and I have nothing left to give.” I shook my head against the pillow. “I can’t hurt anymore. I can’t. And that’s why it really sucked when you got out of the car yesterday, but I think…” My voice faded to a whisper. “I think it was the right thing.”
“I get it, Shiloh,” Ronan said. “I really do. The only thing I care about is that you’re safe. And happy.”
“Why does that make me so sad?” A great welling sorrow drowned the tingling, pleasurable anxiety of having Ronan in my bed.
“Because we can’t always have what we want. Sometimes it’s better—safer—to walk away.”
“Safer? For who?”
“You, Shiloh. Always you.”
I shook my head. I was losing the thread of our conversation to exhaustion. My eyes wouldn’t stay open.
“When I wake up, you’ll be gone,” I said from under closed lids.
“Yes.”
“And that’s better. For both of us, right? I can’t give…enough. Don’t want to hurt you…”
I was babbling now but I felt Ronan nod. Felt a shift on the bed, felt him press a soft kiss into my hair.
“Goodnight, Shiloh.”
I started the slide into sleep, but that kiss and the emotion breaking through the cracks in his hard tone made me fight to wake back up. A feeling of making a terrible mistake gripped me, but I was falling down a deep, dark hole, scrabbling for purchase and failing.
When I woke up, the bed was empty. The pillow still smelled like him. Light was streaming in through my window and the clock read a little after seven a.m.
“Bibi.”
I kicked off the covers. Since I was still dressed, I drew on my shoes and sweater and hurried for the garage.
At the hospital, I rushed into Bibi’s room to find her surrounded by nurses and a few doctors. She said something, and a round of laughter rippled through them. I was not laughing.
I pushed through the crowd and threw my arms around her neck.
“There, there, sweetheart. I’m going to be just fine.” She stroked my hair. “Everyone, this is my amazing, brilliant great-granddaughter, Shiloh.”
I straightened, conscious that we were surrounded. I pulled my sweater around me tighter, feeling naked and fragile after talking to Ronan last night. But Bibi was all that mattered.
The doctors dispersed, and one nurse told us she’d be back in a bit to help get Bibi ready for discharge.
“So you’re okay,” I said, dropping into a chair beside her.
“Oh, baby girl. You look so tired. Yes, I’m fine. The docs say my blood pressure is a tad on the low side. But they got me fixed right up with a new pill to add to my repertoire and some ugly old compression stockings they say I need to wear. On the bright side, Dr. Fenton tells me I need more salt in my diet. So what do you say about getting some French fries when we clear out of here?”
“What were you arguing about with Mama?”
Her smile collapsed with a sigh. “Nothing important, I promise you.”
“But Bibi…”
“If I believed for one second that anything I could say would make you feel good, I would say it. But I told you, honey. She’d had too much to drink. It’s not worth giving another thought.”
I looked down at my hands, twisting in my lap. “There’s just so much I don’t know. I hate this feeling, like I’m being excluded from my own life.”
“I know.” She patted my cheek, then cocked her head, studying me.
“What?”
“I can’t see much, but I feel like there’s a new softness in your eyes.”
Ronan.
I sat back in my chair. “I’m just tired. Like you said. You being in the hospital will do that to a gal.”
“Are you sure that’s all?”
Ronan’s words came back to haunt me with their finality. Sometimes it’s better—safer—to walk away.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s all.”
Bibi was discharged a few hours later with a new prescription and a web address for a site that sold medical compression socks to keep the blood from pooling in her legs. The rain had begun again as I drove us home.
I got Bibi set up on the couch, ordered her the socks, and went back out to the pharmacy. Then I called Aunt Bertie, filled her in, and reassured her Bibi was okay.
“If you need anything, Shiloh, you tell us, okay?” Bertie had said. I could hear the subtext—Bibi was eighty years old. We were slowly morphing from her taking care of me to me taking care of her.
After a few hours of hovering, Bibi shooed me away with good-natured teasing and a kiss. I went to the shed in our backyard. The rain had been coming down pretty hard and yet not one leak. Ronan’s craftsmanship was like him—solid and strong.
This is my refuge, I thought as I worked. This is what will save me. Building a future that is just mine. And nothing Mama says—or doesn’t say—can take it away from me.
I had Etsy orders backing up and whatever Ronan and I had started was officially over, but I let my hands reach for what they wanted. I fell into my work, not surprised that it was taking the shape of something masculine. A pendant I knew wasn’t going in my shop.
Around one in the afternoon, a text came in on my phone, pulling me out of the zone. I smiled at the short, straight-to-the-point text.
Bibi?
She’s good, I typed back. Home.
Good.
I bit my lip. Thank you for last night.
No answer. And as the minutes stretched into days, I knew there wouldn’t be.
Part II
Chapter Fifteen
March
“Happy birthday, dear Rowww-nennn,” Holden belted in an off-key tenor. He stood in front of the bonfire at the Shack, arms spread. Miller sat to my right, accompanying him on his guitar and laughing his ass off. “Happy birthday, tooo…yoooooo.”
Miller strummed a flourish and Holden bowed deep, sweeping his long coat behind him.
I gave a slow clap. “That was…”
“Miraculous?” Holden offered as he sat down hard in his beach chair. “Divine? Inspired?”
“I was going to say like a geriatric cat in heat.”
Holden pretended to be offended. “Jeez, tough crowd.”
“Why are you singing instead of him?” I pointed at Miller.
Miller toyed with the frets on his guitar. “Maybe later.”
Holden rolled his eyes. “Ever so modest, our Stratton. The musical program for the evening has only just begun.”
I hoped so but didn’t push it. Miller had crazy talent. Listening to him made everything seem better, even if the song was a sad one. Which it usually was. But he wasn’t a show-off. He played when he felt like it.
“I’m starved,” he said. “Let’s eat.”
We had a strict, unspoken “no gifts” policy when it came to birthdays and Christmas. Miller and I were broke as shit, while Holden could buy up an entire mall’s worth of stuff if we let him. Only food and beer for celebrations, and Holden could go crazy. It didn’t feel as weird if the spread was for all of us.