CHAPTER ONE
1
Nick
The three of us sat at one end of the long, shiny conference table. I didn’t know why the hospital administrator had chosen this big room for a meeting with only four people. My sister Julia was a little late—perfectly understandable for someone in a wheelchair. The administrator and the Chief of the ICU were both staring at their phones. Very important, busy men, waiting for my sister.
I say sister, she’s my stepsister, actually. I hadn’t seen her for almost three years, and honestly? I was terrified. I kept drinking coffee, like more caffeine was what I needed to calm down. I didn’t know what Julia would do. Would she accuse me, make a big scene? God help me, would she cry? I’d been gone since before she started life in a wheelchair, and I didn’t even know how she was handling it. Dad and Lucy, her mom, wouldn’t tell me anything about her, at her insistence, they both said. Jesus, she must have wanted to kill me. I had to be out of my mind to be setting all this up.
“Does Julia have an aide or a nurse helping her?” I asked.
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” the doctor said. He gave me kind of a weird look. “She hasn’t needed that level of care for quite a while.”
“Well, good,” I said. I mean, what do you say? I’m so glad she can drag her useless legs through life without help?
This meeting was happening because I was donating a new ICU to Greenwood Hospital, the hospital that saved Julia’s life. I wanted to dedicate it to her, name it after her, put her beautiful face on all the publicity for it. It was almost ready to be opened for business and this was the point where Julia’s part would start. It was the least I could do.
“I think your sister’s involvement—” the administrator said.
“Step. She’s my stepsister.”
“Okay. I think she is just what the project needs,” he finished.
“Yes, I’m hoping it will be inspirational for the public,” I said. “To see how well she’s doing, even with the limitations she has, thanks to the care she received here.” I know I sounded like an ass, but I couldn’t help myself. The doctor was giving me that funny look again, so I went on, “It’s so brave of her to be willing to do this.”
A young woman in nurse’s scrubs walked into the room and sat down at the table across from me. I had taken the breath to ask her who she was when she looked into my eyes.
It was Julia.
The other two men, the hospital administrator and the doctor, had risen to their feet to shake Julia’s hand and greet her. I could only sit there and stare.
That face. That thick honey-colored hair. That little mole at the corner of her mouth that I couldn’t look at without wanting to touch. Julia. The last time I saw her face, it was twisted in pain, barely conscious, in this hospital. How could I let years go by without a glimpse of that face?
She had walked into this room. Walked! I felt like I’d fallen asleep in the middle of a movie and woken to realize I didn’t know what was going on. What the hell was going on?
She had politely greeted the other men, now she was looking at me. Not smiling. “Nick?” she finally said.
I couldn’t think. I said the words that were flashing red in my mind: “I thought you were in a wheelchair!”
“I was in a wheelchair,” she said. “Now I’m not. Can we get started?”
The hospital administrator took control of the meeting. The sound of his voice floated around the room. My part—the money part—was really already done. It’s a good thing, too, because I could not concentrate on anything. Except Julia, and she didn’t say much. She didn’t look at me at all, but I could not stop staring at her. Her face had changed a bit. It was thinner, more angular. She was only twenty-one years old, but the soft roundness of her teens was gone. Her eyes seemed larger, the hollows of her cheeks more noticeable. And there was something else. Before the accident, I used to love to watch that little mole dip and dance as emotions crossed her face, as she laughed, even at things that weren’t very funny. Now, the mole was still. Her face was like a mask. A beautiful mask. Had I done this to her, too?
She glanced at me, tightened her lips, and said, “I’m not sure why I have to be involved in this at all. I don’t object to the hospital using my name if you want to. But won’t people come to the ICU when they need it no matter what it’s called? I don’t see what my picture will do.”
“Julia, your brother—”
“Stepbrother,” she said, glancing at me again.
“Okay, stepbrother. He planned this project from the beginning to be centered around you, around your story of survival and healing in this hospital.”
“He can un-plan it, can’t he?” she said.
Oh no. Why was she doing this?
“Julia, the whole thing is for you,” I said. God, my voice sounded bad. Strangled.
The administrator smoothly explained, “When a donor makes such a generous gift, it’s important that the hospital publicizes it by telling a compelling story. It encourages more giving. People from all walks of life, from the simplest right up to philanthropists like your brother will be inspired to help the hospital.”
“Oh, right. I forgot for a minute that I’m inspirational.” The bitterness in her voice was a surprise. She looked out the window. The hospital was surrounded by acres of parking lots, and the cars glittered in the sun. “Fine,” she sighed. “What do I have to do?”
The administrator and the doctor jumped in to tell her all the parts of the project that needed her participation. Photo shoots, making a commercial, that kind of stuff.
I didn’t need to say anything, thank god. I still felt like I’d been pole-axed. How did it happen that she was walking again, and why didn’t anyone tell me? I couldn’t get over it. The relief. And the hope. This one little seed of hope had always been planted in my heart, and it was like someone just watered it.
And her physical presence kept knocking me on my ass. Her golden skin, the flash of her green eyes, the swell of her breasts under the loose scrubs. It took me this long to wonder why she was wearing scrubs. She had one of those plastic name tags on a ribbon around her neck, and under her name it said in big red letters, “Student Nurse.”
She was in nursing school, apparently. I was impressed. Befo
re, she was the most squeamish person you’ve ever met. Even the red juice in a package of steak would make her queasy. I guess she got over that.
The administrator was gathering up his papers, and the doctor whipped out his phone. The meeting was over.
Julia looked my way, and her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second before her lips twisted and she looked away. “Nick,” she said, dismissing me.
She got out of her chair in one smooth motion and headed for the door.
“Julia, wait!” I called out.
She didn’t.
I left my papers and my briefcase behind and followed her into the hall. “Julia, please. I want to talk to you.”
She turned on me, her face as ferocious as a wild cat’s for a second, and then blank. A mask. “I’m afraid I don’t have time right now,” she said. “I’m due back on the surgical floor.”
“Can I take to you dinner then?”
“No, thank you,” she said. Cold as ice.
“I just need to talk to you.”
“What is it exactly you need to say?”
When she asked me flat out like that I could barely think. “Just…. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Her smooth blank mask said, “No apology needed. I’m fine now.”
“I see that, but I still need to tell you. We need to talk about the accident, about—”
“I have talked about the accident, Nick, and I don’t need to talk about it any more. It was years ago. You’re fine. Everything’s fine. And I have to go.” She turned and walked away, her steps going faster and faster until she hit the stairwell door almost at a run.
I followed. When I opened the door, I expected to hear her footsteps pounding down the stairs below, but she was right there. She had her back against the cement-block wall, hands to her face, shoulders shaking. As soon as she knew I was there, she took her hands down and straightened up, looking away from me so I couldn’t see her face.
She was so close to me. After years of only having memories of her face, her presence, it was almost unreal to be standing right in front of her. I could smell her, the same Julia-smell she’d always had, and the past washed over me in a wave of scent. I don’t know if it was perfume or shampoo, but it was kind of flowery with some vanilla-smell in there too. She smelled like a big bouquet of candy, and I just wanted to bury my nose in it. A lock of her honey hair was stuck to her cheek. She still wouldn’t look at me.
I reached out to smooth that piece of hair back, and touched her face. She finally met my eyes. My thumb found that tiny mole beside her mouth and I stroked her sweet face with just the tips of my fingers. For one instant, one split second, she leaned her face into my hand.