Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

so much about them, and not enough about me. That’s not your fault,” she added. “Girls get possessive of their dads. But I need to admit something to you. You know that pneumonia I had? When I was thirteen? I think it was my fault.”

“Hope, it’s not our fault when we get sick.”

“How about when you spend a night with the window open and your feet in a bowl of icy water? Then it kind of is, right?”

“Did you seriously do that?”

Hope nodded.

“But why?”

“I wanted to be one of your patients, and for you to stay by my side. And hey, it worked! You closed the practice for a whole three days. I’m telling you, girls get possessive of their dads.”

“I’ll stay by your side. You can count on me.”

“No, Dad. I’m all grown up now. You need to look after sick kids, people you can still convince of having the power to heal. You need to get back to bullying your teammates at the hospital. They must find it too quiet without you. And most important of all, you need to be looking after Amelia.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You’re my daughter. You’re more important than anything.”

“You’re the idiot, here. You’ve been mad since Mom died. You don’t know how to be happy anymore. What are you trying to prove? That she was the love of your life? She was,” Hope continued. “She isn’t anymore. What you can prove to me is that you survived. That you will always be the strong man I know and love. Let Amelia in; marry her. She’s a good person. She deserves you as much as you deserve her.”

Sam leaned in and kissed Hope on the forehead. Finally, he drew back.

“You’re telling me this because you’re dying.”

“Please, Dad. Don’t turn me into Mom.”

“You’re just like her. I can’t lose her twice . . .”

“That’s why I wanted us to have dinner together. You know who’s even more scared than a young woman my age about to die from cancer? Her dad. I don’t want you to scare me any more than I already am. Your fear reminds me every minute of every day that I’m sick, when I’m trying my hardest to forget, just for the short time I have left. So go back to San Francisco.” Hope looked at her father. “And when things get really bad, Josh will give you a call.”

The next day, Josh and Hope took Sam and Amelia to the airport. Sam cried hard as he waved goodbye, but Amelia reassured Hope that he had been crying a lot lately, even when they watched sappy movies. She said she would order him a few vodkas during the flight and would keep a close eye on him.

They hugged, holding each other as tightly as they could, and when they had disappeared through security, Hope sighed. Taking Josh by the arm, she whispered to him with as much poise as she could.

“Finally, it’s just the two of us.”

12

The weeks rolled by, without so much as a peep out of Bart. A few migraines arrived without warning, along with bouts of dizziness that Hope refused to give a second thought. When fear prickled between her shoulder blades, she threw herself into tidying, rearranging the furniture, and lining up trinkets she had sniffed out at the flea market. When Hope fell asleep in the evenings, Josh returned to his work at the Center. Hope had ordered him to do so, and had managed to convince him that his pacing the loft stopped her from getting any rest, and her dad had said that sleep was the best medicine in the world.

For Josh, those brief moments apart gave him the strength that he sometimes felt draining from him.

Luke was discreet enough not to pry beyond polite questions. When Luke asked him how he was doing, Josh simply said that he was doing fine. And that was good enough for them. Anything more, and they worried they would unleash a curse, invoking Bart and reawakening him.

One night when Hope was overwhelmed by a blinding migraine, she took herself to the hospital. Because the Center was cut off from the outside world, she hadn’t been able to call Josh, and instead gathered up her courage in both hands and called herself a cab.

She had at least managed that, she thought to herself, sitting in the back seat. Bart still had work to do if he was hoping to get the better of her.

When he arrived home, Josh was greeted by a note balanced on top of the sandwich she had left him in the fridge.

He called Luke, who had dropped him off mere minutes before. Luke came straight back to the loft and whisked him away to Hope.

This time, the stay was much shorter than before. Hope only spent two sleepless nights at the hospital, giving the doctors a run for their money by continuing to refuse any kind of long-term treatment. The long term no longer held any meaning for her.

The weeks continued to race by, empty quietness alternating with heart-gripping panic. Josh hated the silence, because in it, regret grew like flowers that died before having the chance to bloom. Their conversations felt like they were rummaging through the attic space of their lives, plucking cherished memories out of dusty cardboard storage boxes.

Hope wore her smile like a crown, a rare and beautiful thing, given the circumstances. She never took it off, not even when the time came to sleep, and she only ever shrugged it off in the depths of the night, when insomnia won out and she found herself exposed.

But in the morning, as soon as she smiled again, life resumed its vitality with full force.

Sam had sent Josh money to ensure his daughter didn’t want for anything, but Josh returned the check the day it arrived. Of course, Hope didn’t want for anything. He was there.

When September arrived, Hope didn’t go back to class.