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I scrambled for the phone and hit the red button to end the call before shoving the phone under the bed and accidentally scaring the skin off poor Socrates.
The phone rang again. And then again. I ignored all her attempts to call back. Instead, I tried distracting Jack with coffee-flavored kisses. Finally, it was his phone that rang.
“Hello?”
He glanced at me with a frown before saying, “Yeah, he’s right here. Hang on,” and handing me the phone. Since I knew there was no way Fia had Jack’s number, I wondered who it could possibly be.
“Hello?”
“Tee, oh thank god. I need you.” Chris’s voice sounded croaky with emotion which shot my heart rate up immediately. Chris rarely got upset about anything. The last time I’d heard him cry was when he’d slammed his hand in the door of his dad’s truck our senior year in high school.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“It’s Grandpa. He’s had a severe stroke. They say he’s not going to make it through the day.”
22
Jack
When Teo had gotten the news about Mr. Banks’s stroke, it was like a set of steel shutters had come down between us. He’d been in shock at first, and then it had quickly morphed into guilt.
“I should have been there,” he’d said over and over while he’d scrambled to get dressed. Chris had asked him to pick up Mr. Banks’s sister, Hattie, from the senior care facility where she lived and bring her to the hospital to say goodbye.
“You have been there,” I’d reminded him. “You’ve been with him practically around the clock since returning from Canada.”
“I shouldn’t have gone to the game. I shouldn’t have been so fucking selfish! What if I could have—”
“Stop,” I’d said, reaching to pull him into a hug. I’d intended to remind him strokes weren’t something he could have prevented, but he’d yanked himself out of my grip and swatted my hands away.
He’d barely looked at me before leaving me standing out on the sidewalk in front of his building. I’d watched him walk away, knowing in my mind that he was simply upset and distracted by the terrible news. But that hadn’t stopped my heart from sinking.
When I’d found my way to the train station to make my way home, my phone had buzzed with a text.
Teo: Please apologize to your family for me about tonight. I’m sorry.
Jack: They will understand. Do you want me to meet you at the hospital?
I hadn’t gotten an answer. Later that evening, I’d texted to ask how he was doing and again, got no response.
Finally at one in the morning, when I was just finishing up the dishes at my sister’s house, the text had come in saying only, He’s gone.
At that point, I’d finally had to accept the fact I wasn’t his person in this situation. I’d tried to be there for him, but he hadn’t needed me. It hurt worse than it should have. Not the rejection as much as the knowledge that he was there, with the Banks family, hurting so badly and presumably not getting the comfort and care I knew he needed.
“You’ve been staring at that phone screen for five minutes,” Millie said softly, leaning in the doorway of her quaint little kitchen. “What’s going on?”
I looked up at her, and whatever she saw in my face made her own face fall. “Oh shit, Jack. You’ve gone and fallen in love with him, haven’t you?”
My chest tightened uncomfortably. “What? No, god no. Of course not. I’ve barely known him long enough to even…” I took a deep breath and rubbed at my chest. “It’s just… Mr. Banks died, and Teo… he takes responsibility of people he cares about, especially people who’ve been his patients. He had this one patient at the home where he use to work. Her name is Dolores Johnson, but everyone calls her Mrs. J. And when he worked at the senior home, he used to bring Mrs. J. a scratch-off lottery ticket every Wednesday because her husband used to do that for her, and Teo thought it was the sweetest thing ever. He’s a romantic like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, he changed jobs months ago, but every Wednesday he still takes his lunch break early so he can take Mrs. J. her scratch-off before she takes her lunch and lies down for a nap.”
Millie put her hands over her heart. “What a sweet man.”
I nodded. “The sweetest. The woman who worked the front desk at the hotel in Goose Bay had a cast on her hand and arm, so she had trouble writing. Teo asked me to take him to the dollar store so he could find a foam ball and a cheap pen. He stabbed the pen through the foam ball and gave it to her, showing her how to use it to write while she had the cast on.”
