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“Good. We’ll be in touch.”
“Can’t I see her?”
“I’m afraid not,” the doctor said. “She’s sedated, like I said, and she’s in the ICU. It won’t help; it will just upset you even more.”
A shudder ran through my body, and Troy took my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“Let’s get you home,” Troy said.
I shook my head. “I have to pick up the kids and call my brothers.”
“Let’s go get the kids together,” Troy offered. “I’ll drive, you make your calls, and then we’ll take the kids back to the house and keep them busy for the afternoon.”
“You’re willing to do that for me?” I asked.
Troy nodded. “Family comes first, and yours needs you. We’ll figure this out.”
“It’s notyourfamily,” I pointed out.
Troy only glanced at me before he led me out of the hospital and to his car.
19
TROY
Shit.
I’d meant to call Mackenzie and see if I could talk to her tonight, but then Scott had called and told me what was going on, and I’d dropped everything and run.
So far, it didn’t look great for Mackenzie’s sister, but there was still hope. Hope was everything.
While I drove to the school—she’d programmed the address into my GPS—I listened to her call her brothers, one after the other.
She had a close relationship with all of them. It was easy to tell by the way she talked to them, the way her tears stayed close to the surface and she wasn’t scared to cry when she told them what was going on.
I envied that. I had Scott and we were close, but we weren’t close at all with our parents. After Jake, my dad shut down and started drinking, my parents got divorced, and my mom went on a soul-searching expedition where she always looked for inner peace and never seemed to find it.
When Mackenzie finally ended the last call, she took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Aaron can’t make it home right away, he’s in South America right now, hiking in some small town. He’ll make his way back but it could take up to a week. Tom will fly in tonight to be with her, and Randall can get away by tomorrow.”
“They all dropped everything?” I asked.
Mackenzie nodded. “Rachel is the glue that keeps this family together. They all grew up together, so they’re all practically joined at the hip. I’m not nearly as close with my brothers as I am with Rachel. They left home while Rachel stuck around to raise me, and—”
She stopped talking when her voice caught in her throat, and she let out a breath through her nose, giving up on her story.
“It’s going to be okay."
“How do you know?” Mackenzie asked.
It sounded so much like the conversation I’d had with my brother yesterday.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “But it has to be, and as long as you have people in your corner, you’re going to make it through.”
Mackenzie pursed her lips and nodded, turning her head toward the window.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m in your corner, too. Whatever you need, we’ll figure it out.”
