Between the Sheets (36 page)

“Tell me what happened.”

“Your mom was bit by one of the strays. A fractured arm, broken rib, and a punctured lung.”

Shelby gasped, her hand at her throat, like there just wasn’t enough air. Ty knew the feeling.

“What … what was she even doing out there?”

“Apparently …” Ty let out a long, slow breath; he was exhausted and scared and running on fumes, and maybe because he’d found out about all of this only an hour ago it still seemed unreal. “Apparently your mom was the one walking into people’s houses. She stole some keys the other night.”

“No way.” Shelby shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. Mom doesn’t wander.”

“Casey saw her.”

“Casey?”

“He says he saw her three different times.”

“He saw her and didn’t say anything?”

Ty nodded. The truth shocking to him, the ramifications of it devastating to all of them. All they could do was try to sort through this. Hopefully together.

“That’s a little convenient, isn’t it?” she asked and he knew where she was going with this, only because he’d thought the very ugly thought himself. But it didn’t change the raw smack of it; her lack of faith in Casey hurt him. “He’s been stealing stuff all over town since he’s been here, but now he claims it’s my mother breaking into people’s houses?”

“I know it’s hard to believe—”

“It’s impossible to believe.”

“Then what was your mother doing out in the field tonight?”

“I don’t—” She stopped, pressed her shaking fingers to her lips.

“Casey says she had bells on her waist. A belt of bells.”

“Melody.” Shelby breathed. “Melody must have done that.” She turned away, her shoulders painfully rigid under the worn fleece of her robe. He put a hand on her shoulder, felt the ice-cold skin of her neck against his fingers before she shrugged away.

His hope that she would walk into the hospital and fall into his arms and they could survive this night together, leaning on each other, had been the height of foolishness.

She hadn’t had time to get used to him walking beside her; her instinct would be to go it alone, and that sucked. For both of them.

“Why didn’t he tell anyone?” she asked. “He sees an old woman wandering around in the middle of the night and doesn’t say anything?”

“He said he promised her he wouldn’t tell. That he always made sure she got home safe—”

“That doesn’t make it okay!” she snapped, and he
stepped back. “It’s winter, Ty. What if she got lost? What if he wasn’t there to get her back to her house? What if she wandered onto the highway? He needed to tell someone!”

“He knows that.”

“Does he? Does he really?”

“Listen, my son is terrified and hurt and feels terrible already—heaping more blame on him isn’t going to help.”

“Someone has to take the blame!” she cried. “Someone—”

She reeled back as if Ty had punched her, and he saw her thought process flicker across her face in shades of guilt and shame. She was the only one to blame.

“Don’t, babe. Don’t do this to yourself. It was a shitty accident.” He reached out to touch her, but she flinched away and he stood there with his arms, never so useless before, at his sides.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “What I said about Casey—”

“It’s okay.”

Dry-eyed, she stared right at him. “No. It’s not.”

“Excuse me? Wyatt Svenson?” A nurse in pink scrubs approached them. “Your son is awake and asking for you.”

Ty glanced back at Shelby and that self-contained universe of hers that had seemed so appealing, like a puzzle he couldn’t wait to figure out and experience from the inside—he saw the reality of it.

The cold reality of it.

No one got on the inside.

And he could stand here and take the time to melt her, to make her see that she didn’t have to shoulder the blame for all of this, but his son was asking for him.

That date of theirs, her faith—it was a product of sunny weather. It was easy to open yourself up to the good times, but opening yourself up to the bad? A to
tally different story, and she clearly didn’t have the guts for that.

“I thought I could break down all your doors,” he told her. “I could break your locks and force my way in, but you’ll always find more, won’t you? Something bad will happen in our lives and I’ll be right back on the outside looking for a way in.”

Nearly imperceptibly, she nodded.

His heart, under the too bright lights, shattered against the flecked linoleum floor, right at her feet.

“I’m going to go.” He jerked his thumb back down the hall toward his son’s room.

“That’s for the best,” she told him.

And they both knew he would be going on without her.

Any illusions that she had been doing all right, that despite her failings, on the average her care for her mother had been good—they were all shattered like the windows at the factory. Watching Ty walk away, leaving her alone with all of those things, big and small, that she’d done wrong, she wanted to melt into the linoleum.

She wanted to just stop.

But instead, after a few moments she followed Ty’s footsteps to Casey’s room and stood just outside of it, listening to the quiet hum of the nurse’s voice. The rough reply of Ty’s.

Casey was silent.

Shelby understood that her instincts right now were wrong. That she was living out the programming her father had given her when she was too young to understand. Too young to know that he was sick.

Despite knowing all that, she stood outside Casey’s hospital room and knew that this was her fault. The boy in there. Her mother in surgery. Ty’s barely contained anger and grief. It was all her fault.

Because for a little bit, she’d been happy.

The nurse stepped out of Casey’s room, giving her a quick, understanding smile. It was a marvel, that smile, in all that it managed to convey. Sympathy, a willingness to help, a certain businesslike distance—all of that at the same time.

Shelby wasn’t sure she could hold all those feelings in her body—all those opposing forces.

Taking a breath, determined to do at least one thing right, she knocked lightly on the cracked door. Ty turned to look over his shoulder, saw her, and stood up, blocking her view of the bed. The room was dark, the curtains pulled against the windows, the lamp over the bed on the lowest setting.

“Yeah?” he asked, almost as if she were a stranger. As if in the walk from reception to here he’d shed all his knowledge of her like a skin.

That’s my fault, too
, she thought, gathering up his indifference, his disdain, and adding it to the pile of all that was her due.

“I’d like to talk to him.”

Ty stepped closer, dropped his voice.

“Not if you’re going to make him feel bad.”

She swallowed back the razor wire of emotion scraping her throat. “I won’t. I promise.”

Ty watched her for a second and then shook his head. “I swear to God, I don’t know what to do with you, Shelby.”

“I know. But please, let me put his mind to rest that this isn’t his fault.”

Ty waited a second and she really believed he was going to say no. That was what other parents would have done after the things she’d said. But Ty wasn’t like other parents. Wasn’t like other people, and he seemed to have this tremendous capacity to understand that
second chances were a divine right, so he stepped aside, letting her in.

Casey looked tiny on the bed. A little boat in a sea of white. His red hair a sharp contrast to the white sheets and the paleness of his face.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound as if she weren’t simply a bag of broken pieces. “How are you feeling?”

His big blue eyes filled with tears, his chin creased and wobbled.

“Oh Casey,” she breathed, and she reached for his arm but it was bandaged and in pain, so she clutched the metal bed railing instead. Its cold reality a terrible substitute for human touch.

“Your mom?”

“She’s going to be fine, Casey. Just fine. Don’t worry.”

“She saved me. Scuzz was going to bite me but she pulled me out of the way.”

“Did she?” she breathed, trying to smile. “That’s good.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

“Listen to me,” she said, leaning forward and using her best firm teacher voice. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. You didn’t understand what was happening. And there were adults around who should have been taking better care. This is not your fault.”

“It feels like it is.”

“That’s because you are a great kid.” Finally, unable to resist the compulsion, she allowed herself to touch him. Funny how after the few weeks with Ty she’d gotten so used to touching. To the quiet stroke of fingers through hair. The press of a palm against another person’s palm. She’d thought after that she’d understood incremental relief—but she hadn’t.

Now she did, when it was too late. The soft touch of a loved one letting you know you are not alone, no matter how bad it is—that was relief.

So she stroked back Casey’s hair, touched his sweet face, and watched some of the strain vanish from around his eyes, the load unburden his thin shoulders.

“Shhh,” she whispered, and on impulse she leaned over to kiss his forehead.

His eyelids fluttered shut and she realized that in all the ways she knew children, all the hundreds of hours she’d spent with them, she’d never seen one fall asleep. It was beautiful. That kind of trust was really quite a special thing, and she felt better for having seen it.

Her choice to be a teacher was rooted entirely in the fact that the children passed through her life. They did not stop for long. She could love them and help them, but the relationship was not forever. It was safe.

She realized now what nonsense that was. Another tool to keep herself alone.

She stood up and found Ty standing by the doorway in the shadows left by the bedside lamp. He wore flannel pajama pants and the black Henley he’d worn at their dinner. They’d made out on the couch, deep, long, wet kisses until it had been time for her to go home, and she’d slid her hands under that Henley in an effort to touch as much of him as she could.

I am a hoarder at heart,
she thought,
and I should have taken more of you when I had the chance
.

Tears sparkled in his eyes.

That box where she hid all the things she wanted disintegrated at the sight of those tears, and she ran at that open door inside of him that he’d shown her a few days ago, the door she’d been unable to get to with all of her baggage. “I’m so sorry. Please give me … give me another chance.”

“Another chance at what?”

“Us. You, me, and Casey—” She was dizzy. It felt like
she was floating outside of her body and she reached out to touch him, to ground herself, but he pushed her hand away.

“You’re desperate,” he whispered. “Scared—”

“Yes. I am. I always have been. Except when I’m with you. When I’m with you it’s like I’m the person I’m supposed to be and I want that. I want you, Ty. I want to try. Please let me try.”

“Try?” He laughed, but then it turned into a groan as he rubbed his hands over his face. “Try what?”

Try what? She felt panicked, hysterical laughter build in her throat.
Try loving you. Try being loved. Try an honest, healthy family
.

“Try to let you in,” she whispered.

Never in her life had she been so naked and aching, covered in the raw honesty of her failures and desires.

“What happens if it doesn’t work out?” he asked. “What do I tell my son?”

I don’t know,
she wanted to scream.
I don’t have answers to any of this. You were the one with the answers
.

“Where’s your faith?” she whispered.

You destroyed it
. He didn’t even have to say it—it rolled off his body in choking waves.

Ty looked over her shoulder at his sleeping son. “We’ve already tried, haven’t we? Again and again. I’ve got to take care of Casey.”

Her breath was a moan and he flinched at the sound; the two of them already so broken and battered were only hurting each other more.

Leave
, she told herself.
Leave before you make it worse
.

She pressed shaking fingers to her lips and then, because she was stupidly wearing a robe in the hospital, tightened the belt. Tightened the belt until it bit into her
flesh through the tee shirt she wore, tightened her belt until the pain brought her back into her body.

“I’m going to go see if there’s any word on my mother,” she whispered.

“Good idea,” he said, and stepped past her to be with his son.

Chapter 24

It was about nine a.m. when people started showing up. At first it was Cora and Sean with fritters and a thermos of coffee. And then it was Casey’s friend Scott, from school, and his parents. They left some Percy Jackson books and a few games. Brody came in, his arm around Ashley, who looked green at the gills.

“You didn’t have to come,” Ty told his boss while Ashley and Casey played a game of war with the deck of cards she’d had in her purse.

“Of course we did,” Brody said, squeezing Ty’s hand as they shook.

“Have you seen Shelby?” he asked.

“Her mom is out of surgery but the door to her hospital room is closed,” Ashley said, sweeping a pile of cards into her stack. “We didn’t want to intrude.”

Right
, Ty thought. He tried not to be bothered by the thought of Shelby locking herself up tight in a room with all of her demons, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Mr. Root came with flowers. Mrs. Jordal brought brownies and a book about how to draw superheroes. By two in the afternoon the nurse let them know they could leave after the doctor came by to give Casey one more checkup.

The room was stuffed with flowers and balloons and food. And despite the lingering effects of the painkillers, Casey was buzzing with a sugar rush.

Perhaps it was knowing that Casey was going to be fine and they’d be going home soon while Shelby and her
mother were just beginning their stay, but Ty couldn’t leave without seeing her. He had watched her with Casey, brushing the hair off his forehead, putting his fear to rest, and he’d realized once again what having a son meant.