“Olivia must have got my message. Otherwise she wouldn’t have known you were hurt.”
“She only knows because Melody Baker called her. She and Olivia were tight as could be when they were in school. Always together. If you saw one, the other one was close behind. Kind of like you and Jake Cragun.”
Caitlin made a face. “We’re not together that much.”
Both of them knew that wasn’t true. Their neighbor had been Caitlin’s closest friend since grade school.
Caitlin had girlfriends, too, good ones, but Jake was her BFF, her confidant.
Juliet had always thought it was so sweet, the way the two of them were always talking a mile a minute to each other. When they weren’t together, they were texting each other or sending memes back and forth.
They had supported each other through some pretty tough things. Despite her young age, Caitlin had been a rock to Jake when his mother died of cancer three years earlier.
Juliet felt a pang when she thought of her dear friend Lilianne, who kept a smile on her face even when she lost her hair and when the grueling effects of chemotherapy treatment kept her on the couch for days afterward.
“How’s your English homework? Did you finish the essay you needed to write?”
“You’re in a hospital bed and you’re still going to nag me about my homework? Really, Mimi?” Caitlin said. She always called Juliet that, from the days when Caitlin had been learning to talk and instinctively tried to call her Mama, since Juliet had been her primary caregiver most of her life.
“It’s my job to worry about your homework.” Juliet frowned as she tried to adjust. Pain clawed at her and she couldn’t hold back a moan.
Worry furrowed Caitlin’s brow. “Right now, my English homework should be the last thing on your mind. For once, can’t you just rest and focus on yourself?”
Juliet wasn’t completely sure she knew how to do that. She had been taking care of those she loved all her life, from the time her own mother died when she was fourteen and she had to help her father raise her younger sister.
She hadn’t minded. She loved her family, loved cooking nutritious meals and keeping house. Marrying Steve right out of high school and slipping into life as a full-time mother and wife by accidentally getting pregnant on their honeymoon had seemed a natural transition.
And then, after all those wonderful years of marriage, Steve had been killed and she had been left to handle everything. The garden center. Sea Glass Cottage. The girls, with Natalie in and out of jail and treatment centers as she battled her addictions and Olivia slipping further and further away, like a freesia blossom bobbing on the breakers, being carried out to sea by a riptide.
She was trying. Exercising more, eating better. She had lost some of the stress weight she had gained after Steve died and she wanted to think she was more fit than she’d been her entire adult life, especially after her doctor told her regular exercise was one of the best ways to slow the progression of her condition.
What would happen now? Would she regain all the weight while she recovered from her injuries?
Had this stupid fall ruined everything?
The questions seemed to rattle together in her brain like dry seeds in a gourd.
“You should rest while you can,” Caitlin said, fluffing her pillow and adjusting the blanket.
Sleep did sound lovely. In sleep, she could push away all the fears and worries and unfinished tasks she didn’t make it to that day.
“What about you? Do I need to arrange a ride home for you? It will be dark soon.”
“I could take the bus if I had to, but I don’t because I’m staying here. The nurse told me this chair folds out to a bed, so I will just sleep in the room with you in case you need anything.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Why? It’s just one night.”
“Because you have school tomorrow. How do you think you’ll do on your history test on two hours of sleep in an uncomfortable hospital chair?”
“I’m planning to take a sick day tomorrow. You need someone here when you have surgery.”
She almost told Caitlin she had asked Olivia to come home, but suspected her granddaughter would not be thrilled at the information. For some reason, Caitlin didn’t seem to like her aunt right now, though they had been de facto siblings for most of Caitlin’s life and certainly since Juliet took full custody of her granddaughter after Natalie’s death, when Caitlin was not quite three.
Yet another thing Juliet couldn’t fix. Pain lodged in her chest, this time having nothing to do with her broken bones. She had tried to dig out the root of Caitlin’s anger toward her aunt, but this was one thing the girl wouldn’t share with her.
Oh well. It probably wouldn’t be an issue. She doubted Olivia would be able to come home. Her daughter was far too busy and successful and happy in the life she had created away from Cape Sanctuary. It was for the best anyway.
“I will call one of my friends to be here during the surgery. Maybe Stella or Jane could come while I’m in surgery. I understand that you might not want to stay at Sea Glass Cottage by yourself tonight. Let me call Henry and see if he can pick you up and let you stay at their place tonight.”
Caitlin lifted her chin. “Stop worrying about me. I don’t need a ride and I don’t need a babysitter because I’m staying here tonight.”
Some part of Juliet was grateful for her granddaughter’s loyalty. Caitlin could be the sweetest thing, affectionate and helpful, eager to please.
She could also be as stubborn as a mule with a canker sore.
“You have school tomorrow,” she repeated. “You can’t stay here all night. I appreciate the offer, honey. Truly I do. I’ll be okay. I can press a button if I need a single thing and the nurses will be here soon.”
“How are you going to stop me?”
She narrowed her gaze at the defiant tone, so familiar. When she spoke like that, she looked and sounded just like her mother had in the last few years when Nat had been so troubled. Slipping out at night, going to wild parties, coming home drunk or stoned.
She had learned some bitter lessons through the experience of being Natalie’s only remaining parent in the last three years of her oldest daughter’s life. She wasn’t about to make the same mistakes: passivity, inertia, acquiescence. Forget that.
“Young lady,” she said sternly. “You are still a minor and I am still your grandmother, not to mention your legal guardian. I might be in a hospital bed but that doesn’t make me completely helpless. You are not staying at this hospital tonight. I will make that clear to the entire medical staff if I have to. You don’t have to stay with Henry and Jake if you don’t want to. I can call another of your friends. Maybe Emma or Allie. It doesn’t matter to me. You choose. But you’re not staying here.”