“It’s not a grudge. I don’t understand how he could just walk away from you and your mom.”
“You might not be here if he hadn’t. Besides, he didn’t know about me back then. He didn’t know my mom was pregnant. She’s as much to blame as he is.”
The admission was as sour as a shot of apple cider vinegar and burned just as badly. But it was true, wasn’t it? Her mother could have told Elliott she was pregnant. She should have told him, and the most frustrating thing about all of this was that Alexis would never be able to ask her mother why.
Candi shook her head as if fighting off the emotions that had made her lips tremble just moments before. “Do you have any pictures of your mom?”
Wordlessly, Alexis slipped off the bed, retrieved her phone from her purse, and tapped the icon for her photos. After clicking on the album where she kept photos of her mom, she handed the phone to Candi.
Candi swiped slowly, studying each photo as if trying to build a connection with the woman who’d once been part of her father’s life. “She was really pretty,” she finally said.
Alexis peered closer at the photo Candi was looking at—a picture of Alexis and her mother at Alexis’s graduation from culinary school.
“Dad was right,” Candi said. “You look so much like her.”
“But the eye color is definitely Elliott’s.”
“And mine.”
“And Cayden’s,” Alexis added. She immediately regretted it when she saw Candi’s face light up.
Candi handed back the phone. “Thank you for showing me those.”
“I don’t have many extended family photos like you,” she said, curling the phone into her hand. “My mom was an only child, and so am I.”
“That sounds kind of lonely.” Candi sucked in a gasp and smacked her forehead. “Why do I keep saying stupid shit?”
“It’s not stupid. It was lonely sometimes.” Another sour admission. Another burn of resentment, this time toward her mother. Her eyes grew wet, so she looked away quickly.
“How come you never looked for him?”
Alexis shrugged and returned the phone to her purse. “I didn’t see the point.”
“But you weren’t curious who your father was?”
“I went through phases, I guess. But I had my mom, and she was all I really needed. I figured any man who would abandon her wasn’t worth my time.”
Candi winced.
“Sorry,” Alexis said. Though why she was apologizing, she didn’t know. There was no point in sugarcoating things. “I obviously didn’t know the truth.”
“But does it matter, really? He did abandon you. He cheated on my mother and walked away like there would be no consequences. Whether he knew about you or not, it’s still a shitty thing to do.”
Alexis climbed back onto the bed. “What part of that actually makes you mad? That he lied? Or that he cheated?”
Candi shook her head and bit her lip, as if to hold in something profound and painful. “He kept you from me,” she finally said. “We could have been sisters. I always wanted a sister.”
“Candi,” Alexis sighed, folding her legs under her again. “Even if things had been different, we have no way of knowing how our lives would have been. You can’t regret a romanticized Hallmark version of a past that never existed. We know each other now. Let go of what might have been and let that be enough.”
“But . . .”
“But what?”
“I just . . . The only bond we have now is because he’s dying. What about after the surgery? Will we still see each other?” She blanched. “I swear I’m not trying to pressure you.”
Alexis rested her hand on Candi’s arm. “I know you’re not. And I wish I could give you an answer that puts your mind at ease, but I can’t. I have no idea what the future will hold.”
“But can we at least try?”
“Try what?”
“Being sisters.”
Something akin to a punch to the chest made her heart crack and bleed. Alexis had to swallow several times to loosen the tight ball of emotion that had become lodged in her throat. “I don’t know how to be a sister.”
“I do. It’s just like being friends. It’s a friend you’re related to.”
A silence descended on the room, but for the muted sounds of the comings and goings of the nursing staff in the hallway. Alexis had come to detest the noises of hospitals when her mother was sick. The incessant beeping of monitors and the squeak of wheels. That and the annoyingly calm, hushed tones with which people seemed to speak around her, as if softening a voice could lessen the blow of bad news. And it was always bad news.
But inside her room now, the only sound Alexis could hear was the beat of her own heart, because, for once, her own thoughts were peaceful. Maybe this would be another one of those before-and-after moments that she’d look back on someday and realize it was when things changed, once again.
She suddenly, desperately wanted it to be.
“I should go,” Candi said, sliding off the bed.
“Thank you for coming by and for the photo album.”
Candi did the nervous lip-bite thing and tugged her hands inside the cuffs of her sweatshirt. “So I guess I’ll see you later?”
“How about if I call you tomorrow to let you know how things went?”
Candi’s smile brightened the room. “That’d be awesome.”
Alexis scooted back on her mattress as Candi turned to leave.
“Hey, Candi.”
Candi turned around.
“I always wanted a sister too.”
“Really?”
Alexis managed a shaky nod. “Thank you for finding me.”
* * *
It felt wrong to leave the hospital. Noah tried going back up to their hotel room, but the silence and the empty spot next to him on the bed drove him to distraction. So he ended up in the lobby bar instead, incessantly checking his phone as he nursed a beer. He’d left the hospital an hour ago, and there was still nothing from Alexis.
Noah lifted his hand to the bartender to order another beer. He
