Page 37 of Don't Go
"I'm…fine." He gave up on the next word and went sideways. "Could be…worse."
He gave me a smile that tried.
I sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand back down on the blanket carefully, like I'd been handed something I didn't want to break.
It had been three weeks since I'd seen Sabrina, reached out, or had any business thinking about another woman while my father was dying eight feet from where I was standing. The pharmacy had been a relief I couldn't afford. I'd walked away from her stoop with the smell of her hair in my hand and the memory of her cheek against my palm, and I'd thought, on the drive home, that I would call her tomorrow, and then in the morning that I would call her tonight, and then in the night that I would call her tomorrow, and the days had stacked up.
What was I supposed to say to her?I need you?I couldn't text that. That wasn't a phone call, but a confession a man should pay for in some other currency.
Theo arrived not long after I did, with no announcement and a paper bag from the bagel place around the corner. He came into the room like the room had been waiting for him.
"Hey, guys."
Mom turned in her chair. Her face went up a notch — there was actual color in her cheeks for the first time since I'd walked in. "Theo."
He bent over the chair, kissed the top of her head, and put the bagel bag on the rolling table beside the bed. "I brought you thebread with the seeds. Stop telling me you're not hungry — you're hungry."
He clapped me on the shoulder on his way past. "Beau."
He went around to the other side of the bed and took my father's other hand. "Mr. Cross. Hi."
Dad's smile reached his eyes for the first time since I'd walked in.
"Theodore."
Theo grinned. "You look like hell."
"Don't…give me…that face."
"I give you the face I have. You raised three of us. You knew the risk." He squeezed Dad's hand. "I want you at Sebring next year for my race."
Mom looked up from the bagel bag. "Theodore — "
"I'm telling you now because you'll need to RSVP early. Vivvie, you're getting an upgrade — fence pass, the suite, the whole thing. You'll wear the team colors and pretend you don't know me."
Mom laughed, wet and surprised. "Sebring is in March."
"I know when Sebring is. We're going."
He turned to me. "And you? How is your social life?"
The smile came up naturally. "My social life is fine."
"That isn't a real answer. Vivvie, has he told you anything?"
Mom pulled the bagel bag toward her. "I think there is something he hasn't told me, and he isn't going to tell me either."
"I'm not telling you because there isn't anything to tell," I shrugged.
Theo grinned at the ceiling. "Liar."
He turned back to my mother and put a hand on her shoulder. "Vivvie, do you have any idea how beautiful you look right now?"
Mom flapped her hand at him. "Theodore, stop. I haven't showered today. I didn't shower yesterday. I'm wearing the same cardigan I was wearing the day before, and my hair is — "
"She is gorgeous," Theo told the room.
Dad rolled his eyes — slow, but he managed it. "I'm…right here, Theo. No need to make moves…on my wife."
