“Better?” he whispered.
She nodded. “A little embarrassed. I didn’t expect an audience.”
“I had to get away for a while. Looks like we both turned to the beach. I like the wind and the sound of the waves.”
“Me, too.” She nodded against his T-shirt. “I should get back.…” Losing it was one thing. Willingly staying in his embrace was another. He was so strong, so solid. And as much as he said right now he wasn’t her boss, it wasn’t something they could turn on and off. It was his practice. She worked for him. There was no getting around it.
“Sit still, and chill,” he said. “And tell me what set you off. You said you went to see your mom?”
She nodded. “She’s just outside Springfield, in a home there.”
“She can’t be that old, if you’re only thirty.”
“My mom is only in her sixties.”
“I see.” And the seriousness in his tone told her that he did, indeed, understand.
And then she let out a deep sigh. A sigh of relief from having purged the emotion, a sigh of resignation that there was nothing she could do. And perhaps that was what bothered her the most. There was absolutely nothing she could do to fix the situation. What good was being a doctor if she couldn’t help the ones she loved?
“How advanced is it?” Josh asked quietly.
“It’s been getting worse since my dad died. He really struggled with putting her into care, but he was almost seventy. It was getting harder and harder for him to look after her alone. Particularly when she would forget who he was and be afraid.”
Josh shifted his weight and moved his right leg so that she was sitting more in the lee of his legs, still leaning on his chest. It felt so good, so right. His hand brushed her arm, and his unique scent of man and clean laundry and fresh air imprinted on her memory. “Josh, I’m pretty vulnerable right now, so if this is, well, you know…” She was too embarrassed to finish the sentence.
“It’s not. I’m just here if you want to talk, Lizzie. I know how grief feels. I know how guilt feels. I know what a hurting person looks like. “
“That’s all this is?”
His breath was warm on her hair, strangely intimate even though he hadn’t made any advances whatsoever.
“That’s all this is. So why don’t you tell me about your mom. Did something happen today that was especially difficult?”
Somewhere up the beach a group of vacationers started setting off fireworks. The cheers and laughs filtered through the air and mingled with the lap lap of the little breakers on the sand. Lizzie took a big breath, let it out slowly, imagined the tension leaving her body through her feet, letting go of the stress and pain.
“I took us a picnic to have in the garden. She was actually pretty good when I got there, but during lunch she kept asking if my dad would be joining us. Sometimes she remembers he’s gone, but other times she expects him to walk through the door. And I feel terrible because she’s the one with the disease, not me, and yet I’m the one who gets upset and … and … afraid.”
His arms tightened around her. Another rocket burst in the air, a huge bang followed by a cascade of pink and blue sparks.
“It’s silly, but the worst part of the day was when I took out dessert. I’d bought her favorite, coconut cream pie, from the bakery right here in town. And it wasn’t just a guess. It really was her favorite, for years. It was a running joke in our family. And she looked at me like she was angry that I even insinuated she liked coconut when she hates it. It’s a damned pie, so why should I be so upset? But it made me so sad and angry. Nothing I say or do makes a damned bit of difference. I got her some ice cream in the kitchen and took her back to her room and all of a sudden she’s back to making sense and when I asked her if I could get her anything she asked for my father back.”
“Oh, Lizzie. I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. She’s slipping away more each time, and with my dad gone … dammit, Josh, she?
?s the one who’s sick, not me. So why do I feel so horrible?”
He kissed her hair. “Because you feel helpless. Because you’re a doctor and helping people … fixing people … is what you do. And this time you can’t.”
She closed her eyes. He understood. Someone understood. And the really odd part of it was that Josh was really a stranger when it came down to it. They’d only worked together a few weeks. How was it he could see things so clearly?
“I miss them,” she whispered. “How do you get past the grief, Josh? Does it ever go away?”
He sighed. “It gets better.” Josh was quiet for a moment, and she got the sense he was wondering what to say next. She gave him time to decide, keeping her eyes closed and listening to the waves.
“When my dad died, it was really terrible. It was such a shock, you see.”
“What happened?”