A Walk Along the Beach by Debbie Macomber Page 0,64
went silent before she said, “I think so, too. He’s good for you, you know?”
I shrugged, not wanting to discuss Sean; that only made me miss him more. He’d been away a little more than a week and I already felt lost without him. A zillion times a day I’d think of something I wanted to tell him, something I wanted to say. Instead of moping and feeling bereft, I’d taken to writing him long letters, sort of like a journal. I wrote about my worries and fears for Harper, about this battle we were about to engage in and how surprised I was by my father’s determination to help. I told him news from Bean There and how grateful I was for my staff and their willingness to lean in and give me the space so that I could be with my sister. At the end of each entry, I wrote how much I missed him and that I was quickly falling in love with him.
“You’re going to have beautiful babies,” she added.
“Stop.”
“I’m serious.”
“Harper,” I protested, “you’re getting way ahead of yourself with Sean and me.”
“Mark my words!”
I held up my hand, embarrassed and uneasy to be talking about the future, especially knowing that there might not be one for Harper.
* * *
—
We left for Seattle the following morning. Harper had a small bag packed with essentials while at the hospital. A meeting with the team treating her had advised us that following two rounds of chemo she would need a lymphocyte infusion to fight the tumor, since her white blood cells were depleted and unable to aid the body’s fight against the disease. The good news was that Harper would be able to leave the hospital between the chemotherapy sessions, although she would need to remain close by. We were fortunate that Lucas had a two-bedroom apartment and we would be able to stay there.
Harper’s spirits lifted when she learned that John, one of the men she’d trained with for the Mount Rainier climb, was part of the medical team that had been assigned to her. I remembered how her face lit up when she first mentioned him.
With the dire news that the cancer was back, I’d been paying close attention to my sister. It may well have been my imagination, my fears leaping to the forefront of my mind; nevertheless, I noticed a decline in her coloring and in her general appearance, as if she’d recently recovered from a bad case of the flu.
Harper gripped my hand hard enough to capture my attention. “I want you to promise me that if I don’t come out of this, you aren’t going to mope around, bemoaning my fate.”
“You’re going to make it, Harper.” I refused to listen to anything that suggested otherwise.
“I know you, big sister, and how you are. You seem to think your resolve alone will pull me through. You’re strong. So am I. We’re going to fight this together, but if the worst happens, I want you to deal with it, got me?”
“Who’s mothering whom now?” I jested.
“You’re going to do fine without me,” Harper whispered.
That was the first note of defeat I’d heard in her voice since we got the news. Part of me wanted to argue with her, insist she needed to have a better attitude. She was right, though: As much as I would have liked to, I didn’t control the future.
I double-checked my suitcase to be sure I had everything I needed for the next month. Lucas had cleared out the second bedroom in his apartment so I could stay with him. He and Chantelle would take over in the evenings and on weekends as needed. That would give me a chance to return to Oceanside to check on my little café.
Harper’s bag was half the size of mine. She brought a few personal items. A photo of our mother, her Bible, and lip gloss, along with socks and a knitted shawl. The chemo often left her chilled, shaking with the cold, and she wanted to be prepared.
“What about a wig?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not this time. Bald is beautiful.”
* * *
—
The engagement party was fun and exactly what both Harper and I needed before we checked into the hospital. We played silly games, drank wine and spiked punch, and stuffed ourselves with a variety of appetizers and cupcakes, artfully displayed in the shape of a wedding dress.
Lucas had promised to tell Chantelle after the party where Harper