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“Beck…”
“Don’t Beck me. She’s not even thirty. She’s young and healthy. There’s got to be something they can do for her.”
Gram frowned. “She’s had three open-heart surgeries in ten years, and just as many rounds of chemo. The tumors returned with a vengeance, and they’re in a place that they can’t be resected.”
“Who said? Someone has to be able to fix it.”
“Not everything in life is fixable, sweetheart. And Nora has made her wishes very clear. She doesn’t want any more treatments. She wants to go out on her terms.”
It felt like someone had cracked open my ribs and pulledmyheart out. I shook my head and yanked my cell phone from my pocket. “I need to make some calls. Find someone she hasn’t seen before, someone who can help her.”
“The only thing you need to do isbe therefor her. Support her decisions.”
“No.” I was already Googling the head of cardiac surgery at Mass General. “I can’t sit by and let two people I love die because they think it’s time to quit!”
My grandmother’s face went soft. For a moment I wasn’t sure why.
She lifted her hand and covered her heart. “You weren’t supposed to fall in love with her, Beck.”
I froze. Was I in love with her?
Oh fuck.
CHAPTER 24
Beck
HOURS LATER, Iwanted to pull my hair out. I’d found two doctors who’d agreed to look at Nora’s chart, but no one would help me here in Utah.
Not the nurse.
Not the doctor.
Not the asshole administrator who threatened to have security escort me off the premises if I didn’t stop harassing the staff.
Worst of all, my grandmother wouldn’t even help me.
I felt helpless. Useless. Powerless.
Somehow I’d wandered into the chapel a half hour ago. I was sitting in the back row, staring at a statue of Jesus on the cross hanging above the altar when a man interrupted my thoughts.
“Is that seat next to you taken?” he asked.
I was the only one in the damn chapel. There were six or eight empty pews and two sides of the aisle. I turned, annoyed. “Take a damn seat somewh…” I trailed off when I saw the collar. “Shit. Sorry, Father.” I shook my head. “And sorry for saying shit.”
He smiled. “It’s fine. But can I sit next to you?”
I wasn’t in the mood to talk, particularly to someone I had to think before speaking to. Yet I moved down so he wouldn’t have to climb over me.
He sat with a sigh and extended a hand. “Father Kelly. Kelly’s my first name, not my last.”
I shook. “How you doing, Father?”
“My knees hurt, I need a hip replacement, and my secretary still uses a typewriter even though there’s a perfectly good computer sitting right on her desk.” He smiled. “But from the looks of it, I think I’m better than you right now.”
I smiled halfheartedly, but said nothing, still hoping he’d take the hint.
He didn’t.
