“No, no,” I say. “Of course I want you here. I’m just saying, don’t feel bad if you have other things to do.”
“What’s more important than this?” She squints. “You’re acting like he’s recovering from a ruptured spleen and he’s getting out in a couple of days.”
Am I?
The doctor and nurse leave the room without so much as an update. But I get it. Brenda gets all the updates. I’m not married to Brooks. Lawfully, I can’t make any decisions about his healthcare. Legally, I have no weight.
“I care about him,” I say to my sister, though it feels like a reminder to myself.
Her face wrinkles. “Where’d that come from? No one said you didn’t.”
“You said I’m acting too calm, and that implies that I don’t care. I’m telling you I care.”
She grabs a nearby magazine and flips to the middle. From here, I can tell it’s interior design related, and I’m sure Brenda left it the other day. They’ve been redecorating their Montauk estate, and Brenda treats it like a full-time job.
“I don’t know, Dem. I guess I just remember how you freaked out when Royal left years ago.” She turns a page, eyes scanning an ad for rustic furniture. “I mean, you love Brooks enough to spend the rest of your life with him, and you’re just taking it all in stride. Just expected you to be falling apart a little more than you are, that’s all.”
“Freaking out isn’t going to make him wake up. Nothing’s wrong with trying to stay strong, is there?”
Delilah crosses her legs, shuts the magazine, and tosses it aside.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t come here to critique the way you’re acting. I’m sorry.” She places her hand on her heart. “I’m here for you. And Brooks. And I’ll be here when he wakes up, and I’ll be here when he walks you down the aisle.”
“Thanks.” I take the seat by Brooks and slip my hand into his to see if I feel anything. His palm is warm.
That’s all I feel.
Warmth.
And nothing.
“Sometimes, I think Brooks was the universe’s answer to the whole Royal thing,” Delilah muses from the corner. She chews the inside of her lip and leans forward on her knees.
“What are you talking about?”
“We never knew why Royal left. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe you were always supposed to end up with Brooks, and had Royal stuck around, that never would’ve happened.”
“I don’t think that way.”
“I do.” She sits up. “Everything happens for a reason. Life is one giant row of dominoes.”
Her analogy doesn’t satiate me. I need to know what happened. I refuse to settle for some bullshit cliché.
“Anyway, I don’t think the powers that be would take Royal away and give you Brooks if you weren’t meant to spend the rest of your life with Brooks.”
A bouquet of bright pink daisies rests by Brooks’s window. Not sure how I didn’t notice them before, and I’m not sure where they came from since they don’t allow flowers in the ICU rooms. I bet Brenda snuck them in. Flowers are her weakness. She loves them all. She doesn’t discriminate.
Unlike Brooks.
The daisies remind me of the fight we had months ago while picking wedding flowers. I wanted daisies in bright shades of oranges and yellows and pinks. Brooks said they were too basic. And cheap. He insisted on peonies, which I reminded him were out of season in February. He insisted on having some flown in from Israel to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
We fought the rest of the day over the flowers.
And the flower fight led to a fight over our wedding cake the following day. He wanted a classic white with raspberry filling, claiming it was Abbott tradition. I wanted German chocolate with coconut filling. Something offbeat and unexpected. My proposal to go every-other-tier went unaccepted.
Looking back, that was always the way Brooks operated. He was incapable of meeting in the middle. The man wanted what he wanted, and he always seemed to get it, one way or another.
The night of the cake fight, he apologized for being a “groomzilla” and insisted it was only because he cared and wanted our day to be perfect. His mother had already invited some five hundred guests, and that didn’t account for the Rosewood side. Brooks kissed the tops of my hands that night, apologized again, pulled me into his embrace, and described the most beautiful winter wedding I’d ever imagined.
And I forgave him for being an ass.
For the hundredth time.
Like a fool.
Chapter Eight
Demi
“Thanks for coming with me today.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and grab the passenger door handle of Delilah’s car before she’s shifted into park. She leaves the car idling in my driveway and turns my way.