Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
He looked surprised. “Cake?”
“Sure. We’ll eat the whole thing and make up for all the birthdays we spent in a hospital.” She took a bite and swallowed. “When is your birthday, Sam?”
“I don’t know.”
“They never told you?” They never sang? Never gathered in the lunchroom—not for cake, their systems couldn’t handle that, but for applesauce or sugar-free pudding—as they had in her area of Mercy? That seemed very odd. And terribly cruel.
He shook his head, but he didn’t seem upset about it, not like her.
“Well then, we’ll definitely make that cake,” she said.
Sam smiled and nodded, and then they did talk about happier, more mundane topics. A little about the town she’d grown up in, her schooling, the career she loved, and about the apple farm he’d worked on, doing odd jobs for the blind man named Adam. When they were done with dinner, Sam cleared the table as Autumn stoked the fire.
She kneeled in front of it, staring into the flames, enjoying the moment of peace and safety, the sounds of water and dishes clicking behind her. She glanced back at him, and the vision held an absurdity that made her want to giggle. Sam. Doing dishes. The man belonged emblazoned across the pages of a comic book, fighting for peace and equality, not standing in a quaint cottage kitchen doing dishes. His back was so broad, his waist so narrow. Her eyes went lower, and a flare of heat arced up her spine. Speaking of things that should be emblazoned across pages of just about anything…
She turned back to the fire before he could catch her ogling his ass.
Very professional, Nurse Clancy.
Except she wasn’t only his nurse. Not even close, and she knew it. Their connection, even barring any ass ogling, went far beyond professional.
He cleared his throat behind her, and she startled, a blush moving up her neck as if he’d caught her thinking about him. Stop being ridiculous. She turned.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” he said. “I haven’t yet today, and I…need one.”
“You don’t have to explain your reasons for wanting to shower,” she teased him.
He seemed confused for a moment but then smiled awkwardly. “Okay. Well.” Then he turned stiffly and walked to the bathroom.
To take a shower without hot water. She assumed.
We didn’t have hot water in the hospital. I guess I’m just used to it.
She stood and walked back to the table where she sat down and opened the recreated journal again so she could look through it more closely. Reading the words made her feel so emotional, so sad for the girl she’d been. Sick. Confused. Searching for love.
In some ways, she’d been relieved to leave this girl behind. To cast her off. Forget her. Because it had been a hard, lonely time. The girl in the pages of this journal had thought her days were numbered, and she’d lived in a constant state of fear, waiting for another friend to die.
But…
Reading these words, the questions, the phrases, made Autumn remember that she’d been a fighter too, despite all she had going against her, despite the fact that she barely had the energy to walk a flight of steps. She’d fought hard and she’d loved hard, and Autumn felt proud of her younger self for how she’d conducted her limited life even in the midst of sickness and pain and loss. Her eyes filled with tears. Sam had carried that girl in his heart and his mind even when Autumn herself had not.
What a gift he’d given her. She suddenly felt even more overwhelmed than she had when she first realized what he’d done.
The sound of the shower drummed behind the bathroom door.
That sweet, wounded, brave, sensitive man should not shower under frigid water.
It wasn’t right.
The injustice couldn’t stand.
Autumn closed the journal, and then with a deep intake of breath, she stood, heading toward the bathroom. Heading toward Sam.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mark knocked on the door of the duplex, the shouts and laughter of children playing ringing through the air from the park across the street. Something savory was cooking in one of the units, and the smell wafted to him below.
The door opened a crack, and a tiny face peeked out, a little boy with dark skin and a short-cropped Afro staring curiously up at him.
Mark smiled. “Hi. Is your mom home?”
The little boy shook his head, not offering more.
“Your grandma?” The woman he was there to see was in her fifties, plenty old enough to be a grandma, though from the woman’s name, he’d assumed she was Middle Eastern. “Is there an adult here?” Mark finally tried.
The little boy nodded.
“Can I talk to him or her?”
The little boy nodded again and then closed the door. Mark was hopeful the boy was going to get this unknown adult, though he couldn’t be sure. A moment later though, the door was pulled open again, and an older woman with dark swept-back hair laced with gray stood there, wearing a similar curious expression to the one the little boy had given him.