I frowned at the caller ID. Katie. Did she want to cancel on our lunch plans? I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hey, K. What’s up?”
“Maddie,” she choked out. My heart immediately sank.
“Katie.” My voice quivered. “What happened?”
It was terrible. Asking a question you knew the answer to just so it could be out in the open. So we could deal with it. Layla’s word of the day today was disaster. I should have known.
“It’s Dad.” Her voice sounded soft and hoarse, like it was melting in her throat. “He died.”
The next hour was a blur. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see clearly.
Maybe that was what made me burst in a blaze out of the building wearing a wedding dress that resembled a three-tier cake, before Sven and Nina pulled me back in, kicking and screaming I had to go see the Blacks. Nina shoved me in the bathroom and peeled the dress from my body before dressing me up in my normal clothes. I shook uncontrollably, trying to call Chase and getting hit with the cold, impersonal sound of his voice mail each time. Thank God Nina had been working hard on making amends and being the best version of herself at the office. She made sure I had a taxi waiting downstairs.
The journey to the hospital passed in a blink. I couldn’t decipher the faces or the words of the staff who directed me to Ronan Black’s room. He wasn’t there anymore when I got there. Chase was standing with his back to me, staring out the window, the empty, still-crumpled bed behind him. Lori was curled into herself on a clinically green love seat, her head tucked in Katie’s shoulder. Julian was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands in his lap. Amber and Clementine were nowhere to be seen. I rushed to Katie and Lori first, not quite ready to witness Chase’s pain up close.
“How’d it happen?” I asked, knowing dang well it wasn’t a question they wanted to answer. On the day I’d found out about Mom, Dad hadn’t wanted to talk about anything, much less the technicalities of how it had happened. And yet as friends and family had trickled in, we’d been swamped with questions. How had she died, who’d found her, and how had Dad broken the news to me?
“Mom went into the bedroom to ask him if he’d like her to have lunch by his side.” Katie sniffed, holding the back of Lori’s head. “He wasn’t responsive. She pressed the emergency button.” The Blacks had installed a medical alert on the side of Ronan’s bed. “When the paramedics came in, he still had a faint pulse, so they took him here. He died within minutes.”
I wrapped my arms around both of them, as if I were holding them together somehow. I breathed in their misery and kissed their heads, not sure if I had the right to do that but desperate to console them.
When their ragged breaths calmed, I stood up. Both Julian and Chase had their backs to me in different corners of the room. I went to Julian first. He was pale as an egg. He had that extra lonely shine about him, of someone who had recently lost much more than just his father. I knew he was going through a divorce and that adjusting to the new reality with Clementine wasn’t a picnic for him. Cautiously, and while holding my breath, I put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. His eyes dragged up to meet mine, inch after inch, so slow it was obvious he was expecting some kind of confrontation.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said simply.
“You shouldn’t feel anything but contempt toward me.” He bowed his head. “But I appreciate it.”
“And I know it means nothing right now, when the wound is a gash, torn open and bleeding, but I promise you, there are better days ahead. You just need to hang in there.” I ignored his words.
“Why are you doing this?” His throat bobbed with a swallow. “Why do you even care? I’ve been nothing but awful to you.”
“You were,” I admitted, unable to move my hand from his shoulder. “You uncovered my lie and called me a six. You were unkind to me, but that doesn’t mean I should be unkind to you. I happen to like who I am. A six, but with a ten