CHAPTER SEVEN
I REFUSEDto leave, hoping Charlie would wake up. Clay grudgingly said okay and that he’d look in on me. It turned out he’d been right. Charlie slept soundly for several hours. The nurses checked him routinely, and I sat in the corner of the room, out of the way. Clay had told them to leave me be, and they did, a fact I was grateful for.
When they told us that visiting hours were ending soon, Clay again offered me a ride home. When I told him I had a cab waiting, he said he’d already taken care of that. “You want a ride, you call me. I’d be more comfortable having you with me than someone you don’t know.”
I didn’t argue. If Charlie would be leaving, I wanted a chance to say goodbye, though the thought had me all twisted up inside. My brother hadn’t been wrong. I could take care of myself, despite the loneliness I now knew had been buried deep inside me for a long time. But the fact that my fears kept me away from people showed I wouldn’t be able to have Charlie in my house, no matter how much I wanted it.
Clay showed up at my place about ten the next morning to take me back to the hospital to see Charlie. It worked, because that would be the time I’d normally see him, so I talked myself into going. Like he’d done the day before, Clay had his arm around me as we walked.
“I talked to Aaron yesterday. He was the young man at the desk. Do you remember him?”
Oh yes, I most certainly did. My stomach still hadn’t completely settled. “Oh?”
“He claimed you spoke so softly, and there were so many things going on, he misheard you. He said he’s very sorry, and if you want, he’ll apologize to you if you come back to the desk today.”
The whole confrontation stood out in my mind. I had been so nervous that I hadn’t spoken up, even when he questioned what I asked for.
“No. He’s probably right,” I admitted.
“I thought as much from when I found you.”
My stomach roiled. Leave it to Clay to poke at the embarrassment.
“Do you remember me telling you how proud of you I am?” He squeezed my shoulder gently. When I looked at him, the emotion stood out clearly. He wasn’t kidding. He really was proud of me.
“Thank you,” I muttered.
“I know how hard it is for you, doing things like this. I honestly never thought you’d be able to do it.”
I looked down at the linoleum flooring as I clenched my fingers, pressing the nails into my palm to keep me in the moment. “Makes two of us.”
“I need to ask, though. Can you tell me why? I mean, for years I’ve been trying to get you to come to town so you could see me or Mom. But you never did. Yet you got into a cab and came to the hospital to visit Charlie. Why?”
“What can I say that you’ll believe? What’s the right answer?”
“There isn’t one. I’m just curious.”
Why could I come to see Charlie when I hadn’t really seen much of my family in several years? How was it that Charlie could sit on my porch and sip lemonade? Why did I accept a gift from him when I’d always been self-reliant? The answer seemed very simple, but at the same time, too complicated.
When I looked up, Clay had guided us into the chapel. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I figured this might be an easier place for you to talk.”
Years before, I’d gone to church with my family. It had become a tradition from the time when my father was alive. After the incident, I couldn’t go anymore. For a long time, I railed against everyone who didn’t keep me safe—my mother, the sheriff, our school board, and even God. Eventually I ended up realizing my mother had nothing to do with it and forgave her. Everyone else, not so much.
Walking into the rectory wasn’t as uncomfortable as I thought it might be. A small statue of Jesus stood in the middle of the room. Clay walked up and knelt before it, crossing himself as he did. I didn’t feel like it was right for me to do it when I couldn’t even be sure I still believed. Wanting to show the respect I’d been taught since I was a kid, I did incline my head.
Clay took a seat in one of the short wooden pews and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say? You know what happened. When we were kids, you saw how it affected me. Charlie is the first person to not make me feel awkward. I don’t mean I’m completely comfortable with him, but after all those months of seeing him every day—”
“And calling me to complain about it, of course.”
I ignored him. “He became a part of my world. Like my books, or like the animals on my property. He fit there.”
He got up and moved over to me. He sat beside me and sighed. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he told me, the frown on his face punctuating his point.
“But it does to me. Sort of.” I tapped my temple. “In here, it makes perfect sense. My world has to be all laid out for me. It’s got to have symmetry. When Charlie started running by the house, he stripped that away. It made me edgy and irritable—” Clay raised a hand, and I glared at him until he dropped it again. “But as time went by, and he came every day, same time, same route, I began to accept him there.”
