Forever This Time (34 page)

When she opened the door, she found herself in a wide foyer with polished wood floors and a curving staircase. Hallways stretched to the left and right, as well as directly in front of her, where quick footsteps were coming from the back of the house.

“Hannah? That you?” Josie's head snapped up at the familiar voice just in time to see Ethan's old friend Josh stutter-step as he entered the foyer. “Josie?”

“Josh?” She stopped as he walked forward, trying to reconcile the gawky teen he'd been with the confident—um, gorgeous—man he now was. Kirsten would totally swoon.

He held out his hand, smiling widely. “Did Ethan finally invite you over here for a tour?”

“Not … exactly.” She shook his hand carefully. “Molly brought me.”

“Well, come on in! Ethan's busy with one of the guests, but I can tell him you're here.” He looked at her face, doubt crowding his features. “Or maybe not tell him quite yet?”

She grimaced. “I'm not exactly sure how he'll feel about me surprising him here.”

“Got it. Well, I give a better tour anyway.” He motioned her down the hallway. “He's too modest. Come on back here. I'll tell you about the place. It's so good to see you!”

An hour later, Josie sat in Josh's office sipping lemonade. Situated in the back of the house just off the kitchen, it had floor-to-ceiling windows and gleaming wood floors. The scent of freshly mowed grass wafted through the lacy curtains and she took deep breaths, letting them out slowly.

She scanned the walls of the office, full of framed black-and-whites. All children, all here, all smiling. She stood up and walked to one wall, looking at each picture in turn. Many of the children were bald, many were in wheelchairs, and still others had metal crutches. Josh had spent the entire last hour filling her in on what Ethan had done here, and she still couldn't wrap her head around it.

She couldn't believe he'd created a foundation, then talked the Spencers into selling him their B and B way below market value when they'd retired to Arizona. According to Josh, Ethan had spent the last five years pounding the pavement all over New England trying to fund a house where sick kids could stay for free.

And
running Snowflake Village.

Her breath hitched as she looked again at the sign in a picture of three kids on the lawn. Avery's House. Ethan had named this little slice of paradise after Avery.

She rubbed her stomach as a sourness threatened to rise to her throat. How could she have thought
she
was the one serving Avery's memory best?

Josh leaned his hip on his desk. “So.”

“So.” She turned from the wall. “I don't even know what to say. Or think.”

“I know.”

“I can't believe you guys have been doing this for five years already.
And
you work at the hospital?”

Josh nodded ruefully. “This is why I have no life, yes.” He pointed at the pictures. “Ethan wouldn't even think about opening the house without a physician on board, though. And I just look at that wall and think about all these kids, and how can I not be happy?”

Josie studied his face for a long moment. “Is
he
happy, Josh?”

He stared back. “In a lot of ways, yeah. He is. He loves this place, loves the kids, spends pretty much every moment here when he's not at the park or with his dad.”

Josie thought back to how he'd cared for Avery when he was way too young to have a clue
how
to, and her chest hurt as she pictured him hauling the little girl around Snowflake Village on piggyback, or sitting with her at the wishing well while she plonked in her pennies. Or in those last weeks at the hospital.

*   *   *

“Are you going to try to get some sleep?” Josie slumped in the uncomfortable chair next to Avery's hospital bed, watching Ethan pace the floor slowly, Avery in his eighteen-year-old arms.

He shook his head. “She wakes up if I stop moving. And then she hurts.”

“Ethan, you're going to fall over from exhaustion. Let me take a turn.” She pushed herself up from the chair and reached out for Avery.

“I'm fine. She's too heavy for you to carry.”

“She's not that heavy, Eth.” Josie's whisper of a voice got stuck in her throat. “Not anymore. I can hold her.”

“I've got her. I'll let you know if I need you to spell me. It's three o'clock in the morning. You should close your eyes and get some sleep.”

“I can't sleep.” She felt tears threatening to break free. “I'm too scared.”

“So am I, Jos. So am I. I wish this didn't have to happen … here. In this dismal, stupid little room. There has to be a better way.”

Josie sank back into the chair, but her eyes wouldn't close. Instead, she watched Ethan as he walked back and forth across the tiny room, blanket wrapped around Avery's scrawny shoulders, her knobby little knees folded over his forearm. In sleep, she looked peaceful for the first time all day.

Ever since Ethan had accepted the job at Camp Ho-Ho, Josie had been struggling to figure out what that meant for her, for him, for their future, and her conclusions had ranged from dire to miserable. The man she'd fallen in love with had been full of dreams, full of hope, full of mischief.

Now, though? Now he seemed content to watch everyone go off to college while he stayed behind and learned the ropes at the park. Seemed content to kiss his old dreams good-bye, nurse his knee injury, and probably go fat and bald in Dad's office.

Here they were, scheduled to get married in less than a month, and she was frightened they'd rushed into the wedding because of Avery, rushed because they were scared to be separated by her enrollment at Wellesley, rushed because they were so, so stupidly young.

The flowers were ordered, the hotel booked, the dress hanging in her closet, but every day her doubts loomed bigger. For six weeks now she'd been one breath away from asking if they should put the brakes on, postpone the wedding, take a break and figure out if they were really doing the whole wedding thing for the right reasons.

And then Avery had taken a turn for the worse, and here they were. Josie had brought her to the ER, and her foster mom had been too busy with the other kids at her house to even come visit since she'd been admitted. Ethan and Josie hadn't left the hospital for three days, and Josie's hope was fading that Avery's chemo was going to win this time.

She sighed. The two of them hadn't managed more than a couple of hours of sleep each night. It was hardly the time to bring up any sort of deep discussion on the topic of their future. And honestly, if Avery wasn't destined to be
part
of their future, she didn't want to think about it anyway.

Avery whimpered softly, and Ethan tucked the blanket around her. “Shh, munchkin. It's okay. I'm right here. Josie and I are right here with you.”

No. It definitely wasn't the time.

*   *   *

Josie shook her head, knocking the memory loose as she glanced again at the pictures on Josh's office wall. Look at what Ethan had built here. Then one picture caught her eye, and she leaned closer to the wall to see it clearly. It had been taken at the base of the Ferris wheel, and she put her hand to her throat as she realized it was Avery. Avery, healthy and full of spunk. Avery, hands up in the air, face practically cracking from her supersized grin. Avery, holding up a Slush-Bomb and pointing to her Official Slush-Bomb Tester T-shirt—the green one this time.

“Do you still miss her, Jos?” Josh's voice was gentle at her shoulder.

She took a deep, shaky breath. “I'll never stop missing her.”

“I can't imagine how hard it is coming back here.”

“
Hard
would be a bit of an understatement.” She sat down on the love seat that faced his desk, and he perched on its arm. “I just—God, Josh, I feel like I've spun myself into another universe here. Parts of it have stood still for ten years, and others?” She waved vaguely around her. “Others are so different I don't even know how to take it all in.”

“And Avery's everywhere.”

“She is. And here I am a counselor, and ten years out from … everything. But I come back here and feel like I'm eighteen again, all discombobulated and anxious and unable to figure any of it out.”

“Maybe you never really gave yourself enough time to—quote—figure it out then. Have you considered that?”

“Because I hightailed it out of town with the cans practically still clanking on the bumper?”

Josie took a deep breath, looked at Josh sitting so comfortably in this space, this space that was Ethan's answer to Avery's death. What had
hers
been, really? “I just—just can't believe I never knew about this place. Can't believe my mother never said anything.”

Josh shifted awkwardly. “It's probably not my place to say it, but I have a feeling … maybe Ethan asked her not to.”

“Wow.” She forced the word over her swollen throat. “Molly said … Wow. Mom, even?”

“In his defense, I'm pretty sure he didn't think you were ever going to come back. Or care
what
he was doing.”

“I know,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “It's just so … so
huge
what he's done here. And Avery's such a big part of why. And Avery was such a big part of … well …
us,
I guess. It just feels so strange not to have known.”

Josh pointed at the pictures again. “The hospital's giving him a huge award Sunday night. Did he tell you about it?” He shuffled some papers into a folder on his desk, then stuck the folder in a wire rack beside his computer. “We both know he had other plans for his life, Jos. We both know it didn't work out that way, for a lot of reasons. But look at this place.”

Josie felt tears gathering behind her eyes, but resisted swiping them and making it obvious to Josh that she was an emotional grenade right now. She blinked quickly, willing them back, and when they wouldn't quite cooperate, she turned toward the French door that led off from his office. She really needed to get a grip.

“What's through that door?” It had a lacy, opaque curtain over it, but behind the lace she could see sunlight streaming into a big, bright room.

Josh turned toward it. “Owners' quarters.”

“Ethan lives here now?” How had she not figured that out in the time she'd been here?

“No. Not yet. No.” Josh shuffled more folders, not meeting her eyes. “He's living back at his parents' house for the time being. Helping his dad.”

“Of course.” She peeked through the door, but couldn't see much beyond the curtain. Just glowing wood floors and buttery yellow walls. “Is he ever going to move in, do you think?”

“Maybe someday.” Josh looked directly at her now. “I'm not sure it's even a conscious plan, but I think maybe he's been saving it.”

“For what?” She felt her eyebrows draw together.

He was silent for a full five seconds. “What do you think, Josie?”

*   *   *

“And this is the dinosaur room.” Josh motioned her inside the second-story room ten minutes later, giving her a tour of the upstairs. “No one's in here right now. Go ahead in and check it out.”

“I'm still trying to get over the creemee machines on every floor.”

“Well, what could be more fun than creemees any time of the day or night, right? Of course, we had to change it to
soft serve
on the website so anyone outside of Vermont would know what it even is.”

“Ethan always did like his creemees.” Josie felt a smile steal up her cheeks, the first one since she'd entered the house.

“So.” Josh adopted his tour-guide voice. “Kid rooms all adjoin adult rooms so families can spread out a little bit. He had someone come in and paint all the kid rooms, but he didn't touch the décor of the old B and B rooms.”

Josie peeked through the open door into a lovely, plush room with a fireplace and canopy bed. “I bet they never want to leave.”

“That's the goal.”

Josh pulled back a bright curtain near the bed. Mounted on the wall were the very same sorts of emergency equipment she'd seen at the head of Dad's bed in the hospital. And Avery's. Then Josh lifted the bedspread to show her the bed. “See? Everything's all hospital-grade equipment. We just hide the fact that it's … hospital-grade equipment.”

Josie sat gingerly in the rocking chair by the window, feeling the warm breeze lift the hair on her forehead. “It's beautiful, Josh. I can't believe you guys have done this with this house.”

“I didn't do it. Ethan did.”

“It must have cost an absolute fortune.”

“He's an incredible grant-writer. And it's an incredible place—the kind people want to get behind.”

Josie heard the unmistakable giggle of a young girl. “Is that one of the patients?” Her stomach flipped.

Josh nodded. “But we call them guests, not patients. That'd be Emmy. She just got out of the hospital and is back for a bit with her mom.” He paused at the doorway. “Want to meet her?”

Josie followed him around the huge staircase at the center of the hallway, going by three sets of guest rooms as they made their way to Emmy's room. At the doorway, he put his hand out to stop her, but what she saw inside the room would have glued her feet to the floor anyway.

 

Chapter 35

Ethan sat in a rocker by the window with a tiny girl on his lap. Their heads were bent toward each other, his dark hair almost touching her shiny little head as they pointed at pictures in an I Spy book. His arm was around her waist and she leaned into him comfortably, swinging her little legs as he rocked slowly.