Page 59 of Backward Motion

A small sob came through the receiver. “It’s not looking good. Pneumonia—it progressed very quickly. One of the risk factors of the disease.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Sam asked, though what he really wanted to ask was, “How’s Connor?”

“Thank you. We’re hanging in there. If you could just let your mom know.” Maureen said goodbye and hung up abruptly.

Sam placed the receiver back in its cradle as his mother strode into the kitchen.

“There you are,” she snapped. “What is it with the men in this house and getting organized? Your father’s loading the bags into the car now.” She must have taken in his slackened face because she froze midscowl. “What’s happened?”

“Ian Finnegan’s in the hospital. That was Maureen saying it’s not looking good.”

His mother gasped. “Oh my God, poor Maureen!”

“And Connor,” Sam whispered, suddenly overcome by emotion. He could only imagine what Connor was feeling, with everything so strained between him and his father, so much still unresolved.

“Oh, Sam.” His mom reached out to pull him into a hug. He held her close, struck by how life could turn on a dime. “Do you still want to try and make your flight?” she murmured.

Sam remembered lying in bed in his apartment in Austin, paralyzed with fear. He’d called Felix over and over and sent him increasingly unhinged messages, becoming convinced that no one had ever felt this bad and lived. He hadn’t even wanted Felix to appear in the role of doting boyfriend; he’d just wanted a person—anyone—to show up for him. Felix’s silence said what he’d long suspected but was too afraid to admit to himself: that when it came down to it, Sam had meant nothing.

He wouldn’t let Connor go through this alone. The fact that they were no longer together didn’t change how Sam felt about him. It didn’t mean he couldn’t be a person who showed up.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Connor sat beside his father’s bed in the ICU and listened to the beeps and hums of the machines pumping air into his dad’s failing lungs. His mother sat in the chair next to him, motionless. Connor’s body felt like a hunk of metal, cold and unfeeling yet capable of manipulating its limbs in a way that vaguely resembled a human being.

He reached over and took his mother’s hand. “Are you okay, Mom?”

She looked at him with a sad smile. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through this.”

With all the practicalities that had occupied his mind since his mom had called from the ambulance on the way to the hospital—medical insurance and advance directives and the jobs he had lined up for that afternoon—he hadn’t given much thought to what it was they would get through.

“What about you, honey?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

Connor stared back at her. The question floored him. He couldn’t bring himself to answer. He wasn’t all right. Not in the slightest.

“I’m seeing someone,” he blurted instead.

His mother blinked in surprise.

“Or I was. Not anymore. It’s Sam—was Sam. Bryant.”

Connor let go of her hand and gripped his knees. He fixed his eyes on the linoleum beneath his feet and felt like he was about to besick. He couldn’t look at his mother. He was too afraid of what he might see. Then he heard the chair beside him creak, and his mom reached out and once again took his hand in hers.

“I’m so happy you told me,” she said in a strained voice.

He glanced up and saw tears gathering in her eyes. “I wanted to tell Dad,” Connor choked. “I should have told him, but I left it too late.”

His mother embraced him, and he pressed his face into her shoulder, all the guilt and regret bubbling to the surface. He was ashamed of himself. And now he would have to spend the rest of his life knowing he hadn’t made things right.

“He may have had some idea,” his mother whispered.

Connor lurched back in astonishment. “What?” He remembered the panic he’d felt returning home from school that day and seeing his journal on the table. “Did he read it—the journal?”

His mother’s forehead creased. “What journal?”

“The one I left in Dad’s van, back at school.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember a journal. But we talked about it once briefly—he and I. Only speculation, of course. We were just trying to fill in the gaps and answer our own questions. You give us so little, Connor. You’re so careful with what you share about your life.”