Treading Water (37 page)

Kate wiped her face and nodded.

Anna ushered her granddaughters into the
hallway.

When they were alone, Jack took Clare’s hand
again and perched on the edge of the bed. He had no idea how to
tell her what she needed to hear.

“
Jack, what’s wrong with
me? Why is everyone so upset?”

He rested his forehead on their joined hands
for a moment trying to collect himself and then looked up at her.
“Almost three years ago, you were hit by a car.”

She gasped when he told her
the date. “
Three years?
”

“
You suffered a massive
head injury, and they said you probably wouldn’t recover. But you
have, and it’s a miracle.”

“
That can’t be. I was with
the girls…”

“
It happened in the mall
parking lot. Do you remember anything about it?”

“
Nothing.” She looked away
from him to process what he’d told her. “Where’s Jill?”

“
In college at Brown. She’s
been here, but she had to go back yesterday.”

She turned back to him,
eyes wide. “She’s in
college
? Oh my God.”

“
I called her. She’ll be
here soon.” His emotions again overwhelmed him, and his voice
broke. “So much has happened, Clare.” For the first time in an
hour, he thought of Andi at home, pregnant with his babies, while
he talked to the wife he’d thought lost to him forever. The
magnitude of it all settled like a block of ice in his
gut.

“
The girls are so grown
up.”

“
You’d have been so proud
of them. We visited you often.”

“
Where was I?”

He pushed the button on her bed to help her
sit up a bit. “We had you at home with us for more than a year.
After a while, when we’d accepted you weren’t coming back to us—or
we thought you weren’t—I bought a place for you. I hired nurses to
take care of you. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She hung on his every word.

“
I’ll tell you something
else that’s new,” he said with a smile. “Frannie married Jamie more
than a year ago, and they had twins last summer.”

She gasped. “They did not.”

As if on cue, they walked into the room.
Frannie put a hand over her mouth and shook her head in disbelief
when she heard Clare talking.

“
Oh, it’s true!” she cried
as she moved to Clare’s bedside. “Oh, thank God!”

“
You guys are
married
?”

Blinking back tears, Jamie showed Clare his
wedding ring. “Married with eight-month-old twins, Owen and
Olivia.” He took a photo out of his wallet and held it up for
her.

As she gazed at the picture of the babies,
tears leaked from Clare’s eyes.

“
Frannie saved my life,”
Jack said. “She lived with us for the first year and a half and
took care of the girls. I don’t know what I would’ve done without
her.”

“
Thank you,” Clare
whispered to Frannie, who gripped her hand.

Kate stuck her head into the room. “Dad? Can
we come back in?”

“
Of course.”

Maggie still looked shocked, but this time
she walked right over to her mother’s bedside.

“
It’s okay, Maggie,” Clare
whispered.

“
Are you going away
again?”

Heartbroken for her, Jack put his arm around
his daughter.

“
Not if I can help it,”
Clare said.

Maggie reached for her mother’s hand. “I
missed you so much.”

“
I’m sorry, baby. I’m so
terribly sorry.”

The door burst open again, and Jill came
flying in, stopping short when she saw her mother talking to
Maggie.

“
Jill,” Clare whispered.
“Oh, you’re all grown up! Come here so I can see you.”

Jill took a few steps forward, and Jack
moved to let her in. She leaned down to kiss her mother’s cheek and
shook with sobs.

Jack ran his hand over Jill’s back.

The doctor on call returned with the
neurologist who’d treated Clare early on.

“
Mr. Harrington, I’m Dr.
Blake. I consulted on your wife’s case.”

Recalling their grim meeting weeks after the
accident, Jack shook his hand. “I remember.”

“
This is quite a
development.” Dr. Blake smiled and nodded toward Clare, who was
absorbed in the girls’ excitement. “It’s nothing short of a
miracle.”

“
Indeed,” Jack said, his
stomach aching at the implications.

“
As you can imagine, we’re
anxious to fully examine her,” Dr. Blake said. “But I can see this
isn’t the time.”

“
She’s been through a lot,
especially over the last twelve days,” the attending physician
added. “We don’t want to wear her out.”

“
I’ll clear the girls out
soon, and the rest of us will go, too, so she can get some rest,”
Jack assured the doctors.

He let the girls visit with their mother for
another half hour before he sent them home. Frannie and Jamie took
Anna home with them for the night, and they promised to come back
the next day.

After everyone left, Jack returned his
attention to Clare. “Are you tired?”

She nodded, and her eyes
filled again. “I can’t stand that I missed three years of their
lives,
our
lives.”

“
I can’t imagine how that
must feel.” He paused and debated, not sure if it might be too
soon… “Clare, there was something kind of odd about your
accident.”

“
How so?”

He hesitated again, but three years of
horrible uncertainty won out against his better judgment. “When the
car hit you, it seemed like you didn’t really try to get out of the
way.”

“
I don’t
understand.”

“
The girls said you seemed
to let the car hit you. I didn’t believe you’d do something like
that until I saw the video—”

“
What video?”

“
From mall
security.”

“
I want to see
it.”

“
That’s not a good idea.
It’s very upsetting.”

“
I want to see it,” she
insisted.

Reluctantly, he said, “I’ll bring it with me
tomorrow.”

She had a faraway look on her face as she
tried to think back. “I remember shopping with the girls, but
nothing else from around that time. It’s all fuzzy.”

“
Don’t worry too much about
it tonight, okay?” He smoothed her blonde hair back from her brow
and kissed her forehead. “We’ll figure it all out. You need some
rest.” He stood up and reached for his jacket. “I’ll be back in the
morning.”

“
Jack?”

He turned to her.

“
What else did I miss?” she
asked, her brows knitted with worry.

Swallowing hard, he said, “Nothing that
won’t keep until tomorrow.”

On his way upstairs, Jack checked on each of
the girls, who were euphoric to have their mother back, but he
could tell they were still processing it, as he was himself. He
walked up the spiral stairs to find Andi packing a small bag. Eric
sat on the bed with his backpack next to him. His eyes were red
from crying.

“
What are you doing?” Jack
asked.

Andi kept her head down. “I’m taking what we
need for a couple of days. I’ll send for the rest later.”

He put his hand over hers to stop her. “A
couple of days? Where’re you going?”

Eric watched them intently.

“
To the hotel until we find
something more permanent,” Andi said. She still hadn’t looked at
him.

“
You aren’t leaving, Andi.
This is ridiculous. You’re pregnant. This is your home,” he said
desperately. He signed to Eric, asking him to please take his bag
and wait for them in his room. “Everything’s all right, buddy. I’ll
be down in a minute, okay?”

Eric nodded and did as Jack asked.

Jack turned back to Andi as she zipped the
small black bag. He took her hand and tugged her down next to him
on the bed.

“
Look at me.” He used his
finger on her chin to compel her to meet his gaze. Her eyes were
broken, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around
her. “I don’t want you to go.”

“
This is her home, and
she’ll want it back now. It was on loan to me, just as you
were.”

“
No
, Andi. I was never on loan to you. I
love
you. I want you to stay.” He
tried to embrace her, but she moved out of his reach. “I need
you.”

“
You’re married, Jack. My
mother was right all along.”

When she stood, he took hold of her arm.

“
Your wife will need you,
and she won’t want to share you. Please don’t make this any harder
than it already is.” She tugged her arm free and picked up her
bag.

“
So that’s it? You’re just
leaving? What about Eric? What about our babies?”

“
Eric will want to see you,
but that’ll be up to you. We’ll work something out when the babies
are born. Please, Jack. Let me go now.”

Brushing past him, she took her bag and went
downstairs to Eric’s room, where she put his backpack on him and
took his hand.

“
Honey, listen to me,” Jack
said. “Let’s talk about this. We don’t have to decide anything
tonight.” He followed her through the darkened house to the front
door. He caught up to her and put a hand on the door so she
couldn’t open it. “Please.”

She reached for the door handle, and when
she pulled to open it, he removed his hand to let her.

Eric looked up at Jack with big blue eyes.
“I love you,” he signed.

“
I love you, too. I always
will.” Jack felt like his heart had been ripped out and run over as
they walked to her car.

Andi opened the back door for Eric, helped
him into his booster seat, and got into the driver’s seat.

Jack walked up to the door before she could
close it. “Andi, honey. Please don’t go. I love you so much.”

“
Bye, Jack.” She closed the
door and drove off without looking back.

He watched her taillights fade out of sight
and then took off running. He ran for miles without paying any
attention to where he was or where he was going, emerging from his
daze to discover he was on the beach. Exhausted, he fell to his
knees on the sand and screamed, with agony and joy at war inside of
him.

When he had screamed himself hoarse, he
wept.

Andi got Eric settled in bed and tried again
to explain why they’d had to leave Jack’s house.

“
He loves you,” she
reminded her son as she brushed tears off his cheeks. “He’ll be in
touch with you. I know he will.”

“
It won’t be the same as
when we lived there.”

“
No, baby, it
won’t.”

After he’d nodded off, still sobbing in his
sleep, she tucked the covers up around him and walked out of his
room. Swiping at fresh tears of her own, she blamed herself for his
heartbreak. She’d allowed him to love a man and a family that
didn’t really belong to them.

They were staying in the suite Infinity
provided to each of its property managers so they could live at the
hotel if they wished to. Since she hadn’t needed the suite before
now, it’d been available to guests. Fortunately, it wasn’t booked
that night. They could stay there as long as they needed to, but
she hoped to find more of a real home for Eric and the babies when
she caught her breath.

Andi sat on the sofa and put her feet up on
the coffee table, seeking relief for her swollen ankles. When she
ran her hand along her burgeoning waistline she felt a first
flutter and recognized it as a baby moving. In that moment, the dam
broke, and her gut-wrenching sobs would’ve woken Eric if he
could’ve heard them. She cried until there was nothing left, and
then she slept on the sofa, dreaming of Jack. But when she reached
out to him in her sleep, she couldn’t get to him. Suddenly awake
and forced to absorb the blow all over again, she dragged herself
to bed and drifted back into a fitful sleep. This time she dreamed
of two beautiful babies with dark hair and gray eyes.

Jack spent a sleepless night worrying about
Clare as well as Andi and Eric. In the morning, when he tried to
reach Andi at the hotel, she refused his call.

Despite their protests, he sent the girls to
school. They’d missed enough days since Clare had been in the
hospital, and he promised they could see their mother right after
school.

Jill wondered how she’d ever concentrate on
her classes, but he encouraged her to try.

“
Where’re Andi and Eric?”
Maggie asked over breakfast.

“
They went to stay at the
hotel for a few days.”

“
They can’t live with us
anymore, can they?” she asked sadly.

The pain must’ve shown on his face, because
Kate intervened.

“
Let’s go, Maggie,” Kate
said. “I’ll drop her off, Dad.”

“
Thanks.” He kissed them
good-bye. “I’ll see you after school.”

Feeling as though he were trudging through
quicksand, Jack walked into the hospital and took the elevator to
the seventh floor, where Clare had been moved from the intensive
care unit after her fever broke.

Propped up in bed, she lit up when he came
in.