Andrew’s words floored me, and the blooming hope in the pit of my stomach unfurled. His moment of truthfulness deserved one in return. “I...I’m not—”
Andrew held up his hand. “I needed to get that out there. I don’t expect to hear it in return. But I didn’t want to let you go without telling you. Now—” Andrew lifted himself from the bench, grabbed my hand, and pulled me up with him. “Go back to Theo, tell him I said hello and welcome back. We’ll figure out how we all fit together another time.”
“Shit, Andrew.” Tears streamed down my face. “You’re more like your mother than I ever realized.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“Yes, but what if...we walked away together, as better people?”
Under the dim light, Andrew’s chocolate brown eyes twinkled, much like they had the first day I met him. “Is that possible?”
Visions swam in my head: a house full of children, his and mine; holidays with Pickles, Theo, Jackie, Pete, Clara, and Kate; vacations at Walloon Lake, high school graduations, college diplomas; Theo and Andrew, passing a new grandbaby from one to the other. Maybe I was being naïve, but somewhere deep within, I knew I was being realistic. All of that could happen if we wanted it to.
“I do,” I leaned into his side and placed my head on his shoulder.
“I like the sound of that,” he said, right before his lips met mine.
Chapter 37: Theo
Lying around in a hospital bed made me cranky. Hence, no one called me a model patient. But after I woke up, and after the doctors and nurses had poked and prodded me and determined a couple weeks in the hospital would fix me up—physically anyway—my mood lifted. At least a little. Doc had been careful to come in each day, gauge my temperament, sit for several minutes to half an hour, and then walk away. I knew what was next: a thorough, in-depth session to get to the bottom of my behavior.
But my behavior was reckless, impulsive. I hadn’t thought about not being here before I decided to do it, had I? Mulling over the past hurt my head too much, but little bits and pieces did come to me as days crept by. Snippets of times I’d been snarky or flippant in my response to Doc’s questions. And of course, Doc confirmed them with her damn notebook, which she arrived with five days after I woke up.
“April sixth, May twentieth, October fifth.”
“What are those?” I rubbed my forehead as the window drew my attention. Even the dull gray sky of Ohio winter held more appeal than the beige cinder block walls and white curtains of this dungeon.
“Each of those is a date when you said something about being worthless, invaluable, and so forth.”
“Of course they are. Do you have the times on there too?”
“Glad to have the snark back, Theo. But yes, I do. And I have others, further back. Sometimes, I’m good at my job.”
Her words made me physically sit back against my bed. “What does that mean? Sometimes you’re not?” I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes, trying to take on the doctor role in this twosome.
“We’re not going there today, Theo. I’m here to check in on you and only you. And we need to come up with a game plan.” Doc tapped her clipboard twice.
“For what?”
“For what you need to do.” She tapped the clipboard again. If she didn’t stop soon, the tapping would drive me over the edge. Didn’t she know that?
“What I need to do is get out of here and go home.”
“Yes, but it’s not that simple,” she said.
Doc had always been savvy and good at her job, regardless of how she felt now. Which meant she was probably right: I had every intention of heading back home and doing what I had been doing, didn’t I? And according to Doc, that wasn’t the right approach.
“But why not? Why can’t I just go back to the way it was?”
She sighed and looked out the window, a thoughtful grin on her face. Then, she turned to me. “Do you believe it’s a possibility? To just get out and go home?”
“Well...why not?”
“You need to answer that.”
Argh. Classic Doc. She hadn’t changed in the time since I’d seen her, which felt like eons. She patiently waited, pen in hand, poised over the clipboard, as if ready to strike again, and a thought hit me. “Do you have a clicky pen?”
“A clicky pen?”
“Yeah. The kind you push down on and the tip comes out.”
“Ah, retractable. No. The sound of the click can annoy patients. I try not to have those. Why?”
“No reason.” I went back to looking at her, and she waited for me. She might wait for me all day. As much as I enjoyed a bit of company, I’d rather see the kids. Or Sadie. Crap, anything at this point would be better than being subjected to the detailed and honed eye of Doc.
“You’re waiting for me to answer the question, aren’t you?”
“You know me well.” She brought the tip of the pen up to her chin.
I sighed. “Well, can I just admit I don’t have an answer? I’m smart enough to realize if you’re asking me the question, life should not go on as it did before. But I’m not sure what to expect or what changes I need to make. My head hurts. Can I say that?”
“Yes, you can. But can I trust you to listen? To think about what I’m saying and to come up with a list of action items, together?”
“Pfft. Action items. That sounds funny. But yes.”
And over the course of the next hour, we came up with the list of things I would need to do: 1. Work
