From Air (Wildfire)

Chapter Forty-Four

JAYMES

I always try to advocate for my patients, but I have a vested interest in Dwight Keane that I won’t share with his doctors or other nurses. And I’m advocating for fewer meds, more lucid days, fresh air, healthier food, and sunshine.

I’m desperate to fix things in my life, even if I know in my gut they are beyond repair.

Dwight is beyond repair.

My relationship with Fitz is beyond repair.

My shattered dreams ... beyond repair.

“Did you have a good session with Dr. Lin?” I ask Dwight while he eats his dinner.

“I did. I told her about you.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Oh yeah? What did you say?”

“I said I’m the luckiest one here because my daughter is my nurse.”

I chuckle, knowing Dr. Lin doesn’t know or believe I’m Dwight’s daughter. If I thought telling her the truth would help resolve his issues and get him out of this facility, I’d do it. Instead, I think it would lead to me leaving my position earlier than planned. Then who would look out for his best interests?

“Well, I’m a travel nurse. I won’t be here forever. In fact, I might be done after Christmas, unless I get my contract extended, which I’m hoping will happen.”

“How’s your family?” It’s the first time he’s asked me about my family.

“I’m not married. No kids.” I barely get the words out of my mouth with my composure intact. And my hand instinctively goes to the tattoo on my neck every time I think of Fitz, which is often. Clearing my throat, I smile. “However, I have three days off starting tomorrow, and I’m taking a flight to go visit your parents.”

He stops midchew, brow tense. “Their graves?”

“They’re alive.”

Dwight shakes his head, brushing off my reply. “If they were alive, they would have visited me.”

My chest constricts. “Yeah,” I mumble. “You’re probably right.”

Nathan gave me an address for my grandparents, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be here because the landline is disconnected. The cell phone number is questionable because I can’t get an answer, and there is no voicemail set up. However, since I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, it won’t be a wasted trip, even if they’re not here.

I park the rental car on the tree-lined street and inspect the gray ranch house.

“This is a bad idea,” I mumble, combing my fingers through my hair while checking my teeth in the rearview mirror. They abandoned Dwight. They abandoned me and their daughter. Why do I feel this aching need to meet them?

I check my phone. I’ve checked it every five minutes since the day I walked out of Fitz’s house on Thanksgiving.

Nothing.

I know we’re done, but my heart loves living in denial, so I let it cling to irrational hope just to keep from crying twenty-four seven.

With a brave inhale, I step out of the car and trek up their driveway. After three quick knocks on their door, there’s a long pause—so long that I turn around to leave. And part of me is relieved they’re not home. My nerves are knotted in my stomach.

“Hello?” a stout, gray-haired man says upon opening the door.

I turn. “Hi. Are you Waylon? I’m, uh—”

“Barbara,” he whispers, sliding his thick round glasses up his nose and closer to his brown eyes.

It takes a moment for the sound of my untold name from his lips to sink in. It’s not a guess. He knows it’s my name with certainty. “H-how did you know?”

He opens the creaky door a few more feet. “You look just like your mom.”

My smile falters, tripping over unexpected emotion, but I nod and take a deep breath. “So I’ve been told.” I step inside.

We stare at each other for a few awkward seconds. What do I say now? Everything I sorted out on the way here is nothing but a jumbled mess, like the inside of a suitcase that’s been handled roughly.

I glance around the room, wringing my hands. It’s a modest home with outdated walls covered in wood paneling and light-blue floral wallpaper. Water stains on the popcorn ceiling. Dusty rose carpet.

“Can I hug you?”

My gaze flicks back to him and his hopeful expression. It’s endearing and one more thing that knocks me off kilter.

I chuckle and nod, fighting a wave of emotion.

He hugs me. “We were at Samantha’s funeral,” he says before releasing me. His voice breaks when he says her name.

“Why didn’t you introduce yourselves?”

Waylon returns a sad smile. “We weren’t supposed to exist in your life any longer.”

“Oh my goodness.”

I turn toward the woman’s fluttery voice.

Her trembling hand covers her mouth, eyes a blue-gray, face blotched with age spots and creased with wrinkles, white hair matted on the side like she’s been napping. “How?” she asks as if it takes all the oxygen in the room to say that one word.

Before I can answer, she throws her bony arms around me. “You’re such a beautiful young woman.”

“You must be Aubrey.” Keeping my arms around her, I lift my hand to wipe away a stray tear.

“Please, sit down.” Waylon gestures to the living room. “We don’t mean to overwhelm you. It’s just—”

Aubrey releases me and pulls a wadded tissue from her pocket to blot her teary eyes.

I shake my head before sitting on the sofa while they sit in rocking chairs on the opposite side of a faded wood coffee table. “Don’t apologize. I can’t believe I’m here either.” I nervously rub my hands over my jeans. “I’m still processing recent revelations. I thought Samantha was my mom.”

They nod slowly with sympathetic smiles.

“And I thought my father worked at NASA and died when I was really young.”

Again, they nod.

This is harder than I thought it would be. Am I angry that, even now, they’re not sharing everything with me? Or do I admire them for keeping some vow to protect me at all costs? “I haven’t decided if it’s fate or life just being life . But I’m a travel psych nurse, and I took an assignment at a hospital in San Bernardino.” I pause for their reactions.

The change in their expressions tells me everything—they know where their son’s staying.

“I stumbled upon the truth. He—my father—knew me before I knew him.” After another pause, I open my mouth to say more, to tell them exactly how I figured it out. But those details don’t matter. They aren’t necessary anymore. Only one thing matters to me now. “Can I ask why you’ve never visited him?”

Aubrey frowns, again blotting the corners of her eyes while looking at Waylon.

He leans forward, hands folded between his spread legs. “We did, shortly after the trial.” Reaching for Aubrey’s hand, he squeezes it. “He was unrecognizable. When we looked into his eyes, there was nothing there. That’s when we realized we didn’t only lose Annie and the baby that day; we lost our son too. Reporters were harassing us. Our car was vandalized. Bricks were thrown into three windows of our house, and our front tree was set on fire. So we moved. We didn’t change our names like Samantha and you, but we also weren’t protecting an innocent child.”

Swallowing hard, I clear my throat. “You said you lost Annie and the baby . What baby?”

They eye each other for a beat. “Annie was six months pregnant.” Aubrey sniffles.

After the past two weeks, I’m not sure I have any tears left to cry, but my body tries anyhow.

“How is he?” Aubrey asks.

I press my fingers to the corners of my eyes. “He has good days and bad days. I don’t know if he’ll ever live on his own again, but he’s kind, charming, and smart on the good days. He reads so many books when he’s not too heavily medicated.” As the words leave my mouth, I think of Fitz and his voracious consumption of books. “He likes to garden too. I don’t remember him. I barely remember the man I thought was my father. But Dwight is a gentle soul who experienced something unimaginable. Before the connection between us was made, I was drawn to him. And if I don’t get an extension on my time at his facility, it will be hard to leave.”

“Will you visit him when you’re no longer there? Do you think of him as your father?” Waylon asks.

“Do you still think of him as your son?”

Tension pulls at his eyes. “We haven’t seen him in over twenty years.”

“I know. But do you still think of him as your son?”

Again, a look is exchanged. Then they nod.

I smile. “I think of him as my father, even if I still don’t know how I feel about it. And he knows I’m his daughter. He knew it way before I did.”

Aubrey wipes more tears. “Would he recognize us?”

“He thinks you died.”

She flinches. “Why?”

I lift a shoulder into a tiny shrug. “You said it yourselves. You haven’t seen him in over twenty years. I don’t mean to upset you, but the truth matters.”

She leans into Waylon and softly cries.

“I think you should visit him. Help him piece together a reality.”

After two days with my grandparents, including a trip to the Grand Canyon, I fly home only to find out that I won’t be getting an extension at the hospital in San Bernardino.

“I’m heartbroken,” I say to Melissa while eating salad and a side of cauliflower wings at a sports bar near my apartment after work.

All by myself, surrounded by Christmas decorations. And Sinatra in the background suggests I have myself a merry little Christmas.

She cuts out for a second.

“What?” I push my earbud tighter into my ear.

“I said you’ve experienced too much heartbreak lately.”

“Agreed.”

“Have you heard from Maren or Will?”

“Maren called me while I was in Flagstaff. She apologized for waiting so long to contact me but didn’t know what to say.” I take a bite of salad and chew several times before mumbling, “There’s nothing to say.”

“Did she say how Fitz is doing?”

“I didn’t ask. And she didn’t say.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“Because I’m not emotionally ready for the answer. If he’s doing fine, it makes me feel inconsequential. If he’s miserable, it makes me feel like an awful person for ruining us.”

“You didn’t ruin anything. It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.”

I nod to myself, sliding my bowl away from me. This conversation has robbed me of my appetite. “She was pregnant,” I murmur.

“Who?”

“Annie. My mom. She was six months pregnant the day she died.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah. Dwight has never mentioned it. Well, maybe he did. He talked about a baby, but then he said Barbara’s name in the next breath. I can only imagine how repressed the memory is in his mind. And I don’t want to imagine how he would handle that memory surfacing. He’s already so sad, Mel. He reminds me of Fitz’s grandma in a way. Fitz never reminded her that his parents died in a fire instead of a car accident. And he’s never told her that he had a sister. I bet he hopes she never remembers. Well, I hope Dwight never remembers the baby.”

She hums. “How are you doing, hon?”

“I’m fine,” I mumble, handing the waiter my credit card.

“No. How are you really doing? I know you’re not fine.”

With a nervous titter, I sign the credit card slip and hand the copy and pen to the waiter. “I’m in a restaurant. You can’t ask me for that level of honesty when I’m in public.” I snag my purse and zip my lightweight hoodie before exiting the restaurant.

“Oh, Jamie. I wish I were there to hug you.”

“Me too.” I unlock my car. “But then I’d be crying all the time. And my eyes can’t take much more crying. My heart is buried under a pile of sadness and grief. This isn’t sustainable.” I fasten my seat belt. “Maybe leaving San Bernardino is a good thing. I can visit Dwight. And his parents are coming for Christmas to see him. They’re renting a house and staying through New Year’s. Part of me hopes they’ll decide to move here to visit him more often. But I think it’s doubtful.”

“Hey, it never hurts to put that out in the universe. Maybe it will happen.”

I hum. “Perhaps.”

“How did you end things with Maren? Was it a nice-knowing-ya goodbye, or do you think you’ll ever see her or Will again?”

“She said she’d fly to San Bernardino for a girls’ weekend after the holidays, but I don’t know if she was serious or if it was the easiest way to say goodbye without too many tears.”

“Sorry, hon.”

“I’m heading home, so I should get off the phone. I’ll call you tomorrow and talk solely about your love life. Okay?”

Melissa laughs. “It will be a thirty-second conversation.”

“Then we’ll strategize and review your dating app profiles and pictures.”

She giggles, and it’s exactly what I need. “Night, Jamie.”

“Night, Mel.”