The letter crumpled in my fist as the tears spilled over. I tried to hold them back, but it was too much. Too much love for her, too much pain at the thought of what she faced so goddamn bravely. For the first time in ten years, I cried. For her. For me. For the kid who’d been shoved against a fence all his life. I’d been afraid if I faced that pain, I’d drown in it.
Doris and her fucking malevolent taunting were drowned instead.
When I was wrung out, a simple truth remained in the sodden debris: losing Thea was fucking agonizing, but it was better than never having her at all.
But I’m not giving up on her. Not fucking ever.
I grabbed my jacket off the hook and was halfway out the door before I realized I had no truck or motorcycle to get to Roanoke. I whipped out my phone to call an Uber, when it rang in my hand, Rita’s name on the display.
“Jim?” she cried. “We need you here.”
My heart dropped to my knees. “What’s going on?”
“She woke up, and it’s bad,” Rita said. “She won’t stop screaming.”
My eyes fell shut. God, baby. I’m too late.
“You need to come right now, Jim.”
“I’m on my way, but shit, Rita,” I said, “Delia’s going to have me arrested.”
A muffled sound and then to my shock, Delia’s tearful voice filled my ear.
“Jim,” she whispered. “Please come.”
Chapter 38
Jim
Alonzo was already on his way back to get me and pulled up to the curb in his old Toyota as I was struggling to get a signal to call an Uber. I climbed in and he drove faster than I expected a sixty-plus-year-old man to drive at night.
It was a twenty-seven-minute drive. We made it in fifteen.
“She’s not great,” Alonzo said on the way. “Be prepared for that.”
We rushed into the hospital and Delia was there, her face half-buried in Roger’s chest. She turned her tear-streaked face to me, and my heart plummeted.
I’m too late. She’s had a stroke. She’s gone.
Delia rose to her feet and calmly walked to me.
“What?” My throat went dry. “What’s happened. Tell me…”
Even if it kills me…
“She’s hysterical. Terrified. But she’s fallen into an exhausted sleep.”
My hands clenched even as the relief made my eyes fall shut. “I need to see her…”
“Not yet,” Delia said. “Can we talk privately a moment? Roger, Mr. Waters, can you leave us, please?”
“Delia,” I said in a low voice. “She’s suffering.”
She only sat and waited for me to do the same. I moved stiffly to the waiting area and sat in an orange chair across from her.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, a tearful whisper. As if it were a secret she was trying to keep from screaming out loud. “She’s suffering and I can’t do this anymore.”
“Delia—”
“I can’t put things back the way they were before the accident. I keep trying and trying. I just want her to be safe.”
“So do I, Delia,” I said. “And I want her to be happy.”
Her face crumpled. “She had so much potential. She was going to be such an amazing artist…”
“She’s still an amazing artist,” I said. “She’s everything she was before. She’s not lost. She’s still here.”
Delia shook her head. “I can’t do it anymore. The endless repetition. The questions. The smile on her face when inside she’s screaming to get out? I can’t stand the thought. It’ll drive me crazy to see her like this.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
“She’s my sister, of course, I have to.”
“You don’t,” I said. “I’ll come every day. She’s my life. I’m not going to leave her, not ever. You can go, Delia, but only if you let me be with her. Isn’t that why you called me back?”
This is my job interview.
Delia sniffed. “You won’t leave her?”
“Never.”
“You’ll see her every day?”
“Every day.”
Hope flared and died in her eyes. “No. You’ll get bored. You’re a young, handsome man. You’ll need things from her she can’t give so you’ll find them somewhere else.”
“I won’t. I’ll wait for her. However long it takes.”
Delia’s eyes filled again with a hope she didn’t trust. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Because I love her,” I said.
No stutter. Speaking the purest truth of my heart to the enemy who’d tried to keep me from Thea, I knew I was free of it forever.
“I love her,” I said again. “I will never stop loving her. To the day I die.”
Delia stared at me and it seemed as if a shadow lifted from her. “I believe you,” she whispered. She turned her glance away, her eyes spilling over, shame coloring her cheeks. “I can… I can get your job back…”
“I don’t need it. I made a promise to her about that, too. And I intend to keep it.”
She nodded. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m so torn apart by guilt and yet so relieved.”
“You took care of her for two years,” I said. “You can step back. Live your life. That’s what she wants for all of us.”
She slowly got to her feet. “I’ll tell them to let you visit as much as you want. I’ll rescind my power of attorney and give it to you.” She lifted her head. “I’m trusting you with her life.”
“Thank you,” I said, easing a low breath. “I’ll guard it with mine.”
A scream rippled down the hall then. “Jimmy! Where is Jimmy? God, someone tell me where he is. Jimmy!”
Thea had woken up. Alone.
“Go,” Delia cried. “She needs you.”
I was already out of my chair, racing toward her room, my chest caving in at the ragged pain in Thea’s voice.
“Get away from me!” Thea screamed. “Fuck off. I don’t want it. Where is Jimmy?”
A clattering crash as I entered. Thea knocked a tray to the ground, wrestling against a nurse with a syringe in her hand. All the while Rita tried to calm Thea’s flailing arms.
“She doesn’t want to be drugged,” I barked at the nurse, then bent to take Thea in my arms. “Hey. Hey, I’m here. It’s all right.”
She looked up at me, full of suspicion.
“It’s me,” I said. “I’m here now.”
Recognition dawned in her eyes and then she collapsed into sobs and clutched me. “It’s happening. I can’t hold on to anything. It’s slipping away.”
“I know,” I said. “I know, baby.”
“Come here,” she pleaded.
As I climbed onto the narrow bed, the two nurses left the room, shutting the door softly behind.
Thea sobbed into my chest. My tears dampened her hair. I held her so tight, trying to keep her with me. She was in my arms and slipping away at the same time. And she knew it. She was sliding down a steep, unforgiving slope into the blackness of amnesia; desperately scrabbling for purchase, her fingers clutching my shirt.