“Go away,” Jax said, glancing at her briefly, and then pressing his face against his mother’s shoulder again.
“I…Is she gone?”
“Just go away,” Jax yelled.
Another nurse came in twenty minutes later, asking if she could do anything, if he’d like her to call anyone.
“Just go away,” Jax said again.
The girls would be mad that he hadn’t called, but what was the point? It was the middle of the night, and none of them had slept in days, and he’d screwed up and brought his mother here and sent the girls home.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he said to no one but the dog.
Romeo whined, as if he agreed for once with something Jax said.
“And it wasn’t supposed to happen yet,” he yelled.
Romeo frowned, then laid his head back down on Jax’s mother’s chest, the two of them in complete accord. Neither one of them wanted to do anything but sit here and hang on to her and pretend she wasn’t gone.
Chapter Two
Jax and the dog stayed until morning came and with it Jax’s three sisters. Katie, the oldest, was twenty-seven, part owner of her own mortgage-finance company and a junior real estate mogul. She wore crisp, no-nonsense power suits with matching pumps, never a hair out of place, and she arrived issuing orders as usual.
“Jax! You haven’t taken the dog home yet? It’s seven! The place is full of people. The doctors will be making rounds soon—”
“Katie?” He stood up slowly, stiffly, every muscle in his body aching, and went to her, taking her by the arms.
“We promised we’d get him in and out without too many people seeing him—”
“Katie?” He looked her right in the eye. “It’s over. She’s gone.”
“And they’re about to serve breakfast. Romeo will want to know where his plate is, the beggar….”
Her voice finally trailed off. She looked to the bed, where the dog was still curled up next to their mother. Romeo whined and put his head down over her silent heart.
“But…we were going to take her home,” Katie said.
“I know.”
“She wanted to be home. We promised.”
“I know.”
Her expression shattered, mouth falling open, lips trembling, eyes blinking furiously at the tears overflowing, as she stepped back, away from Jax, and looked to the bed. He still hadn’t let anyone do anything to her, hadn’t been able to bear it.
Katie reached out and brushed her fingers over their mother’s forehead. “She was supposed to be home.”
As if their plans mattered in this. If they’d had any say in the matter, she wouldn’t be dead.
“Look, I offered to take her last night,” Jax said. “She said it was fine to stay, said the medication was better here, and she didn’t hurt as much. She was ready to go, Katie.”
“But we were all supposed to be here with her.” She sobbed once more.
Order was very, very important to Katie. If she broke things down into a checklist, she could handle anything, and their mother hadn’t died the way she was supposed to. This was a completely typical Katie response. Jax answered all her questions, accepted the blame for sending her and their other two sisters home to rest, for not calling immediately when their mother died, everything.
And when she started to cry harder, he held on to her until she got herself under control.
The middle one, Kathie, was the quietest of the three, and shy in the sweetest of ways. She had the same pretty, blond hair they all did, tended to wear hers long and loose. Her eyes were blue, and she dressed like a Gypsy, except without the bold colors. She liked pastels, long, gauzy skirts that blew in the wind like her hair and peasant tops. Everything about her was soft, including her heart.
She stepped into the room, realized what had happened and got very, very still, as if moving might break some spell, as if by freezing in place she could stop time and never move forward into the time when she had to accept what had happened and go on.
She sat by their mother’s bedside and fussed over the dog, who snuggled against her and buried his nose in her sweater, as if he was hurting as much as the rest of them, and Jax stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders, wishing he could do more.
The last to arrive was Kim, the baby, who bounced into the room with the same enthusiasm she did everything else, her arms full this morning with flowers and the newspaper and another book of crossword puzzles, which their mother loved but couldn’t concentrate enough to do anymore. Kim did them for her, talking through all the answers with her.
She was a tomboy, wore her hair in one, long braid, wore a comfortable pair of jeans and plain, cotton T-shirt. As a girl, she’d tagged along after Jax, trying to be as rough and tough as him or any of his friends, getting muddy, dusty and wet, with scraped knees, bruised shins and the occasional busted lip. A hockey puck had been the culprit, last time he remembered her bruised and bleeding.
“Kimmie, I’m so sorry,” he said, when she slowed down enough to realize what had happened.
She fought not to cry then, to be a true tough-girl. But there was nothing of the tough-girl that morning. Her entire body racked with sobs, and she went from Jax’s arms to Katie’s to Kathie’s and then back to Jax’s.
They were a mess. No two ways about it. All of them heartbroken and lost in a way Jax didn’t think grown-ups could ever be. He was thirty, after all. Surely a man knew who he was by then and knew that he could take care of himself and his family. Surely he didn’t panic at the loss of his mommy when he was thirty.
But she’d been one amazing woman. A rock. Funny, happy, even bubbly at times. Open, honest, trusting as could be. Generous, hardworking, a woman who would have done anything for them.
Life had been hard for her. She’d worked so hard once his father was gone, and she hadn’t had any particular job skills to fall back on, except a mountain of pride. Tons of people had offered to help, but she hadn’t taken a dime from anyone.
It had been him and her, trying to hold things together. Mostly her, he feared, although he’d done what he could.
And now it was just him.
Him and the girls.
They were still crying. One of them would stop and then two, and he’d think the worst was over. Then in trying to get the last one to stop, the other two would start. Or the dog would, and then everyone would get going again.
“Look, we’ve got to go,” he said, feeling like someone had kicked out every tooth he had, broken every bone in his face, in his entire body. He felt like a lump of putty about to fall, and he couldn’t look at the bed anymore, at the woman he loved so much who was in it. “We have to let the hospital do whatever it has to do, and we have all that stuff on Katie’s list to take care of. Staying here…it’s not going to change anything.”
“But I’m not ready to let her go,” Kim cried.
“She’s already gone, Kimmie.”
They hadn’t been able to hang on to her tightly enough to keep her. There was something so wrong in that idea. If you loved someone, and you hung on as tightly as you could, you should be able to keep her safely by your side.
Jax felt a stinging in his eyes, felt raw and weak and uneasy in a way he never had before. He felt alone, even with his sisters clustered around him, wasn’t feeling all