Her Sister's Shoes (23 page)

“Yep. My recovery was brutal. For a long time, all I wanted to do was die.”

“I know how that feels,” Jamie said.

Shay approached the table with two large bottles of sparkling water. “Shay was my nurse. She saved my life, didn’t you, honey?”

She set the water on the table. “He was a real bastard in the beginning.”

Kyle grabbed his wife’s hand and kissed it. “She makes me pay for it now. Every single day.”

“How did the two of you get into the restaurant business?” Sam asked.

“I grew up working the food industry,” Shay said. “My parents own a sushi shack back in Seattle, where I’m from.”

“Don’t let the name fool you. This Sushi Shack”—Kyle used air quotes—“is a three-story palace packed with people all year long.”

When a server delivered two platters of sushi to the table, Shay pointed to each piece while Kyle listed the ingredients and then described the accompanying sauces. Next, he gave a quick tutorial on how to hold the chopsticks, using his metal fingers and amazing everyone with his adept demonstration.

“Your turn, Jamie,” Kyle said once Shay had returned to the kitchen and their plates were full of sushi. “How’d you end up in the chair?”

“An ATV accident. I was driving, and my best friend was killed,” Jamie said, maintaining composure despite his quivering lip.

“Sorry, dude. I know how that feels. I lost a lot of buddies in Afghanistan. After awhile, I stopped making friends, because I couldn’t deal with the pain of losing them.”

Everyone dug into the sushi to avoid the awkward silence. They tasted and sampled, each one talking about which rolls they like the best.

Kyle dipped a California roll in the soy sauce. “What’s your prognosis, Jamie, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Jamie cast a nervous glance at his mother. “According to my doctors, I should be walking by now.”

Chopsticks poised in midair, Kyle asked, “What are you waiting for?”

Jamie shrugged. “It’s not that easy.”

“Ha. Nothing ever is.” Kyle placed a metal hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Seriously, bro. I lay in that hospital bed for months wishing I had died in the accident, wondering how in the hell I would make it through life without my hands. But Shay and Eli helped me see how selfish I was being.”

Jamie narrowed his eyes. “Selfish?”

“Yes. Selfish. God had spared my life, and I owed it to all my friends who died in Afghanistan to make the best of it. I may not have any hands, but I’m alive. I have a beautiful bride, and one day I hope God will bless us with children. And I can cook, the one thing I love to do above all else.”

“I like to cook, too,” Jamie admitted. He popped a tuna roll in his mouth. “Now that I think about it, I’ve eaten sushi before. Not with all this fancy stuff, but raw tuna straight out of the ocean.”

Kyle pointed his chopsticks at Jamie. “Now you’re talking.”

Jamie took a slice of sushi between his fingers and studied the contents up close. “How do you get all these little pieces to stay in there like that?”

Kyle set his chopsticks down, pushed his chair back from the table, and reached for the handles on Jamie’s wheelchair. “Come with me, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

As soon as they left, Sam turned to Eli. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For bringing us here. For giving Jamie the opportunity to see that people can live full lives with physical challenges. For introducing me to your adorable brother and his beautiful wife. For teaching me how to eat sushi.”

Eli shook his head. “I can’t take credit for teaching you about sushi.”

Sam considered his response. “Okay, so I’ll give Kyle credit for teaching us to eat sushi. But thank you, Eli, for taking Jamie fishing the other day and for keeping an eye on Curtis and for arranging the interview with Janie.”

Eli held his hands up to silence her. “I get the picture. And you’re welcome. You can take me out to dinner on Saturday night to pay me back.”

Sam smiled. “As long as you’re okay with McDonald’s, which is about all I can afford at the moment.”

“Throw in a chocolate sundae and you’ve got a deal.” When his eyes met hers and she thought he might kiss her right there in the middle of the crowded restaurant, Kyle and Jamie reappeared.

Eli reached for his wallet, but Kyle refused. “It’s on the house, bro. I enjoyed the company. Just don’t be such a stranger.”

They said their goodbyes, then hustled out to the car and across town to pick up the wine. They were headed back toward the Ashley River Bridge when Sam spotted her sister hurrying from the main building of Finley Hall to her SUV parked out front.

Sam slapped the dashboard. “Pull over.”

Eli whipped his truck across two lanes to the curb.

Sam rolled down the window. “What on earth are you doing at Finley Hall?”

“I can’t talk now,” Jackie said, flustered. “Cooper’s been in an accident.”

Sam hopped out of the truck. “What kind of accident?”

“He slipped while hiking this morning. They medevacked him to Charlotte Memorial. He has a fractured skull, and a broken arm, but I don’t know the details.” She pointed her key at her car door, but couldn’t get it to unlock. “I’ve got to get to him, Sam.”

Sam took hold of her sister’s shoulders. “Look at me, Jacqueline. You can’t go anywhere until you calm down. Take some deep breaths. Do you know how to get to Charlotte from here?”

“Yes. You take I-26 to I-77. My GPS will get me there.”

Sam’s brain kicked into crisis mode. “Okay, but since you don’t know how long you’ll be there, why don’t I pick up some of your things and bring them to you at the hospital.”

Visibly relieved, Jackie removed her house key from her key ring and handed it to Sam. “Here’s my key. I’m so glad I saw you. I’ll text you my alarm code when I stop at the first stop light.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Jackie,” Jamie called from the car. “Cooper’s gonna be fine. He has a really hard head.”

Jackie managed a smile for her nephew. “He does have a hard head, doesn’t he?” Then, turning to Sam, she said, “I need to get on the road now.”

“Has anyone called Bill?” Sam asked.

“Not unless someone from camp called him.”

Sam hugged her sister tight. “Cooper will make it through this, Jackie. But he will need the strength of both his parents to do so.”

Twenty-Eight

Jacqueline

A
s soon as
Jackie hit I-26 heading toward Columbia, she called the hospital in Charlotte to tell them she was on her way. The nurse assured her they were doing everything possible for Cooper and cautioned her to drive safely.

She placed a second call to Bill, who answered his cell right away.

“Cooper has been in an accident,” she said, her tone curt. “He’s at Charlotte Memorial. According to the camp director, he fell during a rock climb earlier today. He has a fractured skull and several broken bones in his left arm. That’s all I know. I’m on my way there now.”

There was silence on the other end, and Jackie imagined Bill massaging his eyebrow in worry. “Where’s Sean?” he asked.

“He’s in the emergency room with Cooper. But I haven’t spoken to him yet. I don’t even know if he has his cell phone, but I will try to call him when I hang up with you.”

“I can be on the road in thirty minutes,” he said. “I just need to run to the house and throw a few things in a bag.”

Irritation crawled across her ski
n. “By house
, I assume you mean the place where you now live with your lover.”

“Now is not the time, Jack.”

“There’s no need for you to come, Bill. I can handle this alone. In my book, when you walk out on your wife, you walk out on your family.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m coming. When you speak to the doctor, please have him call me on my cell.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, and hung up.

Jackie knew she was acting like a teenage drama queen who’d recently been dumped by her boyfriend. Bill’s expertise as a doctor would be invaluable in this situation, but she hated being in the position of needing anything from him.

Images of the past flashed before her as she drove. The tournament-winning blue marlin the twins caught with their grandfather. The excitement on Cooper’s face when he shot his first deer, and the pride on Sean’s face when he killed his first buck with a bow and arrow. The touchdowns Cooper had scored and the tackles Sean had made. Each of them had suffered a concussion along the way, but somehow they’d managed to avoid major head trauma. Until now.

It dawned on Jackie that these images were merely snapshots in her mind. She’d held the camera but had no memories associated with her photographs. She had never taken an interest in activities her sons enjoyed. She’d never gone fishing with them. Or hunting or crabbing or mud-hole punching. She’d never gone to their out-of-town football games. Hell, more often than not, she’d missed the first quarter, if not the first half, of their home games. Hunting and fishing and football were pastimes men enjoyed, dirty activities unsuitable for a lady. Yet Sam had done all those things with Jamie, had never missed a single one of his baseball games. Cooper and Sean still had two more years of high school. She’d make it up to them. If she got the chance.

The headmistress at Finley Hall had basically offered her the dance instructor position. Interim, of course, until they could find someone permanent. Accepting the offer would mean moving to Charleston, which would enable her to rent Mrs. Graves’s guest cottage and start building her client base for the interior design firm she hoped to launch. But the cottage wasn’t big enough for the three of them. And she certainly couldn’t uproot the twins in their junior year of high school. Moving to Charleston meant leaving Bill alone to raise the boys. No way would she allow that to happen with Daisy Calhoun in his life. She’d all but accepted a job offer and rented a cottage without giving one ounce of consideration to her sons. What kind of mother was she?

A selfish one.

The nurses were wheeling an unconscious Cooper into surgery when she arrived at the hospital. She walked alongside his gurney and kissed his forehead before they whisked him into the operating room.

The doctor, an orthopedic surgeon with a salt–and-pepper beard and an aquiline nose, spoke briefly with Jackie. “Your son suffered a compound fracture to the humerus and extensive damage to the elbow on his left arm. We are going in now to repair the damage to both.”

“What about his brain injury?” Jackie asked.

“The CT scan showed a simple linear fracture, the good kind of brain injury if there is such a thing. Dr. Blackwell, one of our top neurologists, is monitoring your son closely. He will be in to speak with you shortly.”

Dr. Grossman directed her to a waiting room, where she found Sean crumpled in a heap in the corner. His eyes were red and swollen from crying. His clothes were torn and bloody, whether from the scratches on his arms and legs or from his brother’s injuries.

“Sean?” In a state of shock, it took a minute for her son to assimilate her presence. But when he broke down in sobs, she took him in her arms and held him tight.

When his sobs finally subsided, she pulled away from him. “It’s okay now, son. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

“I couldn’t hold on to him,” Sean said, his voice hoarse. “He tripped on a rock and fell over the ledge. He was hanging on to a tree limb, but I couldn’t reach him. His hands slipped and he fell, right in front of my eyes.”

Chills traveled Jackie’s spine. “How far did he fall?”

Sean wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Not that far. But he landed on a huge boulder. He hit his head and tore up his arm. The bone was sticking out of the skin.”

Jackie rubbed her son’s back. “We’re at a trauma hospital, in the best possible hands. All we can do now is pray.”

She grasped Sean’s hand and they sat side by side on the sofa in the waiting room, staring out the bank of windows in front of them. Jackie had a hard time letting go of his hand when the nurse called his name.

“You’re welcome to come with us,” the nurse said. “I’m just taking him down to the ER to get him cleaned up.”

Jackie glanced at the double doors that led to the operating room, then back at Sean. She’d never been torn between her boys before. They’d always been a package deal. They’d never needed her, had always been there to support one another. But now, one without the other, both of them alone. She had no idea how to choose.

“You need to stay here, Mom, to wait for an update,” Sean said.

She nodded. “That’s probably best.”

Bill arrived a few minutes later. Sinking to the sofa beside her, he wrapped his arm around her and told her everything would be okay, as though nothing had changed between them. The warmth of his body reminded Jackie of nights they used to lie in bed, talking until the late hours. Now he spent his nights with Daisy, making plans for his future with her.

“I spoke to the orthopedist on the phone. It sounds like the worst of the damage is to Cooper’s arm and not his head, like we originally thought.”

“He has a fractured skull, Bill. Any kind of brain injury is serious in my book.”

“I won’t argue with you there,” he said. “Do we have any idea how things are going in surgery?”

“
We
?” Seething with anger, she pushed him away. “How dare you come in here acting as though we’re a family again, just because we are in crisis.”

“Shh! Lower your voice,” he said, glancing around the room. “As far as the boys are concerned, we are still a family. I haven’t told them about our separation. Have you?”

“That exciting news is yours to share, not mine.”

“Look, Jack, I know you’re mad—”

“You don’t know the half of it.” She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “You are a bastard for breaking up our family. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t deserve to be here.”

“For the sake of the boys, we need to put our differences aside.”

“Does that mean you’re willing to put Daisy Calhoun aside?”

“I can’t win with you. Where’s Sean?”

“In the emergency room, getting cleaned up.” Bill removed his cell phone from his coat pocket and began texting. “For God’s sake, Bill. Can’t you even be apart from your lover for a minute?”

“Give it a rest, Jack. I’m responding to emails from patients.”

Jackie moved to the empty chair opposite them, sitting sideways so she could look out the window behind her. While Bill conducted his business, she watched the people in the courtyard below, coming and going through the hospital’s side entrance.

Sean returned from the ER a little while later. The nurse had bandaged his scraped-up hands and given him a clean pair of scrubs to wear. “Any word?” he asked, sliding onto the sofa beside his father.

Bill shook his head. “Not yet. We are probably in for a long wait. Tell me how this happened, son. You must have been terrified.”

Sean reported a much longer version of the accident to Bill than the one he’d told her earlier. He spoke in such a hushed tone Jackie could only hear bits and pieces of what he said. She could have been in another room, for all the attention they paid her. Meanwhile his adoration and respect for his father was written all over her son’s face.

What will Sean think of his father when he learn
s he’s left them for another woman?
she wondered.

The waiting room had cleared by the time Sam arrived with bags of burgers and fries and a carton of milkshakes from Cook-Out. She offered Jackie a foil-wrapped burger.

“Seriously, Sam. How could I possibly think about eating when my son’s fighting for his life on the operating table?”

“Because you need to keep up your strength for Cooper.”

Jackie waved the burger away, and Sam put it back in the bag.

Without asking them to move over, Sam crowded in next to Sean on the sofa. She used her teeth to open a packet of ketchup, then squirted the condiment over a box of french fries. When she handed Sean a fry, he gobbled it down in one bite.

Jackie’s boys had always cozied up to their aunt. Sam had a sixth sense, the mother’s intuition Jackie lacked, for knowing what they needed, food or sleep or someone to help them work out a problem at school. And it irritated the hell out of her.

Sam nudged Sean. “How’re you holding up?”

“Not so good. I can’t get the image of Cooper hanging from that tree branch out of my head. It’s all my fault. If only I could’ve reached him.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Sam said, rubbing his back. “Accidents sometimes happen, no matter how careful we are.”

“Sean has been through enough for one day, Sam,” Jackie said with a snarl. “Don’t make him relive the accident again.”

“He doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to. But sometimes it helps.” Sam looked at Sean for confirmation, and he nodded. She fed him french fries while he repeated his story again, remembering details he’d left out the first two times.

Why is Sam even here? No one invited her to come.
Jackie had respected her sister’s privacy after Jamie’s accident. She hadn’t rushed food over to the hospital or held Sam’s hand while Jamie was in surgery.

The waiting was torture for Jackie as she watched the second hand on the wall clock tick away one agonizing second at a time. It was nearly eight o’clock when an OR nurse appeared. “The surgery went well. Dr. Grossman will be up to talk to you soon.”

“How soon is soon?” Jackie asked.

“Another hour, maybe a little longer,” the nurse said.

They watched the nurse disappear through the double doors. “I reserved two rooms at the Marriott next door,” Sam said to Jackie. “I’m happy to go with you, if you want to freshen up.”

Jackie glared at her little sister. “You’ve just thought of everything now, haven’t you?”

“Geez, Mom,” Sean said, rolling his eyes. “She’s only trying to help.”

Bill removed a prescription pill bottle from his coat pocket. “Your mother’s under a lot of stress, son. We all are.” He unscrewed the lid and shook a few white caplets out in his hand. “Here, take one of these.” He held his hand out to her. “It will help take the edge off.”

“I don’t handle my problems by popping pills.” Jackie swatted his hand away, sending the pills to the floor.

“What is wrong with you, Mom?” Sean asked, aghast.

“You wanna know what’s wrong with me?” Jackie’s face was purple with rage. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. Your father thinks he can waltz in here and act like nothing’s wrong after he’s spent the last three weeks in another woman’s bed.”

A range of emotions paraded across Sean’s face—confusion, shock, and then disbelief. His eyes met his father’s, his brows raised in question.

“Let me explain, son.”

Sean jumped to his feet. “You mean it’s true?”

Bill stood to face him. “Yes, but—”

Sean shoved his father aside and bolted down the hall.

Bill glared at Jackie. “You handled that well,” he said and took off after his son.

Jackie stared after them in a daze. She’d blown it. Instead of considering what was best for Sean, she’d let her need for revenge take control.

Jackie grabbed her purse, and with Sam on her heels, she ran toward the bank of elevators in the hall. She arrived as the elevator doors were closing, swooping Bill and Sean away to another part of the hospital.