“A train? Holy shit. He’s okay?”
“The article said ‘stable.’ That means okay, right?”
“I think, yeah. Yikes.”
“Yikes,” echoed Sophie. “Anyway, thanks for taking me. I really appreciate it. I don’t often get frustrated that I’m not allowed to drive, but this is one of those times.”
Dominic dropped her at the visitor entrance. She hadn’t been to this particular hospital, but she was hospital level: expert. She’d never been on this side of things, was all. Never rolled up on an information desk on her own to ask where David Geller-Bradley was, yes, she was immediate family. Never slapped a visitor sticker on her chest instead of an ID bracelet around her wrist.
She rode the elevator to the fourth floor, medical surgical, and followed the room numbers. His was a double room, but the first bed was empty. David was in the second bed, David with an IV and several monitors, but no bandages on his head, David awake and smiling a not-quite-David smile at her.
Val rose from the chair beside the bed and flung her arms around Sophie. “I didn’t know if you got my voice mails.”
“I just got them. I’m sorry. Have you ever considered text messages? They’ve been all the rage for my entire life.”
David snorted, and Sophie turned on him. “Oh, sure, laugh, train boy. What happened?”
“I’m still trying to work that out,” he said. “Everything is fuzzy.”
“But you’re okay? You look surprisingly okay.”
David nodded, then gestured at himself. She followed his hand down the bed. A sheet was draped over his legs, but something was wrong with the shapes.
“Oh,” Sophie said, trying to sort it out.
“The foot they had to amputate is the left, but it looks like it’s the other way around because the stump is all bandaged. Ma says they did a bunch of scans and brought in a vascular surgeon but they couldn’t save it.”
“Oh,” she said again. He was remarkably blasé for a guy talking about his own emergency foot amputation. “Does it hurt?”
“Probably,” he said. “But whatever they’ve got me on is pretty amazing. It even cuts the noise.”
He smiled again, and she realized why his smile looked funny. He didn’t look like himself without noise behind his expression. Something about it made her feel like crying, but she didn’t want to cry in front of him if he was taking it so well. She swallowed it and smiled back.
Julie’s voice arrived in the room before she did. “I brought ice cr—” Her voice trailed off when she saw Sophie. She hesitated in the doorway, her hands full of ice cream bars. “I can leave if you want.”
Sophie shook her head. “I’m still mad at you, but not the kind of mad where you have to leave.”
“That’s what I said, too.” David smiled his un-David smile again. “Truce and ice cream.”
Julie looked at her hands. “I only have three! I can go get another.”
“Sophie can have mine. I don’t need one.” Val’s expression was easy for Sophie to read; she didn’t care if she never had ice cream again if her whole family was in one room and talking to one another. It was strange to have everyone talking and laughing, and nobody mentioning the train and the foot and whatever David would have to deal with in the coming months. The weirdest reason for a reunion, or maybe bad reasons were sometimes necessary for family to come together.
• • •
Sophie had spent a lot of time proving to her parents that she was an adult, not the kid in the back seat, but now that nobody was making her feel small, there was something comforting about riding in back with her moms in the front. Heading to the house that felt like home, on a night when home was a comfort, too, not an idea she had to push back against. God, she was tired of pushing.
She didn’t mean to cry. It started as quiet tears, which she thought she was hiding, until she heard a sniffle from the passenger seat, and then Julie was bawling, and they were all crying, and the crying turned into laughter, because it was all so ridiculous.
“Only David could get hit by a train and only lose a foot,” Sophie said. “How does anyone walk through the world with that much luck?”
“Ssh,” said Julie. “It’s bad luck to talk about luck.”
That set them all cry-giggling again, although Sophie was pretty sure Julie was serious.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
VAL
David had kicked everyone out toward the end of visiting hours. Sophie rode home with them, and didn’t ask why Val ducked into her room ahead of her, which Val was grateful for. When Val carried her pajamas and clothes into their own bedroom, Julie gave her a look of such joy she forgot for a moment what had made her so angry she’d moved into their daughter’s room.
It meant she had to settle things in her mind quickly, so she didn’t confuse Julie. Was she back because she was ready to forgive, or because she missed being comforted by her wife? Her person. She absolutely missed that.
She settled for echoing their children. “I’m still upset, and I think I will be until I’m sure you understand what you did that I found so hurtful, but I miss you, and I need to be with you tonight. Is that okay?”
“You’re looking for my permission to come back to our bed? You know you’re welcome.”
“I just want to make sure you know it isn’t done just because I’m here.”
Julie sighed. “I understand.”
When they got into bed, each of them settled on the far edge, their backs to each other, not touching. After a few minutes, Julie shifted so the bottoms of her feet grazed the back of Val’s calves, and her breath got quiet
