Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
My mother walks to the side of the bed where Denise was just at and sits next to Jack, taking him in her arms. “Do you want to sleep a little?” she asks him, and he shakes his head, but his eyelids have other plans. Soon, his snoring fills the room.
“She’s something else,” my mother says, and I sit at the end of the bed, looking at her and Jack. “When I first met her, I didn’t think much of it, but then I saw her with Jack.”
“She’s good with him.”
“No, she’s great with him,” she corrects me. “I’ve never heard him laugh so much. I’ve never seen such happiness in him when he was just playing cars with her. She gives him all of her.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t because she does, and she has from the beginning. “We are very lucky she took the case.”
“I don’t think luck has anything to do with it,” she tells me. “Jack isn’t the only one I see her saving.”
“Mom,” I tell her, and she just shakes her head.
“No, you let me have my say,” she says a bit forceful. “When you brought Chantal home, I didn’t say anything. In fact, I bit my tongue. A lot.” She opens her eyes wide. I just laugh, thinking about the first time I brought her to my parents’ and how she cried when she got mud on her shoe. “Then you came back, and you were engaged, and I thought to myself. My son wouldn’t marry someone like that; I was hoping I was wrong.”
“Mom,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“I’m sure you loved her,” she continues. “She was easy on the eyes, as your father says, but then you came back, and she was pregnant, and I tried. God knows I tried to form a bond with her, but I couldn’t. She just was ...” She looks up at the ceiling like she is trying to find the right words. “She was a bitch.” I laugh now because my mother hates to swear. “Then she had Jack, and I tried to bond with her over Jack, and well, we all know what happened there.”
“You mean your visit to our house that lasted four days?” I ask her, thinking back to when Jack was born and I flew her and Dad down. I was so proud to be a dad, so proud to show her Jack, my son. Well, I was the only one happy. Chantal made it quite clear that she wasn’t up for any visitors, so my mother took the hint, and she and Dad packed up and left the next day.
“Exactly,” she says, “but then I meet Denise, and when she comes into the house, do you know how she greeted me?” she asks me, and I shake my head. “She came in and hugged me right away. She literally hugged me standing in the entrance of your house, thanking me for having her over.”
“She’s a good person.”
“She sat down and played cars with Jack and Michael for three hours and not once did she raise her voice. She wiped up mess after mess at the table, and not once did she scold them or tell them what a mess they were.” Her eyes find mine as if she is trying to burn the image in my brain.
“I get it, Mom,” I tell her.
“Do you?” she asks me. “Do you really? She saw the look on your face when you were looking at Jack. She saw you leave, and she made an excuse to walk out to see to you.” I look down at my hands. “She took care of you, something I don’t think Chantal ever did.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” I try to tell her, but she just looks at me.
“I want you to find love, son,” she starts. “I want you to be loved, and I want you to be so loved that you never have to second-guess it. I want you to find that love and hold onto it, make it bigger, make it everything.”
“She’s probably like that with all her patients,” I tell her.
“Bullshit,” she says loudly. “Stop finding excuses and do something about it.”
“I can’t cross the line. Because then if things don’t work out, it’s awkward for her and especially for Jack,” I tell her, and it’s just another excuse.
“But what if it isn’t?” she says, and I let the question linger in the air, not ready to answer it. Scared to answer it. She doesn’t get a chance to say anything else because we hear a commotion in the hallway and then see nurses flying down the hall.
Chapter Seventeen
Denise
I walk out of the room, and I now have Zack’s smell on my coat. I smell him everywhere. So now not only is he on my mind every second of the day, but he’s also all around me.