Page 115 of Keeping the Score

“Thanks. I love you.” He kisses me again, soft and warm and heartening.

“I love you, too.” I want to say it over and over. Later I’ll do that. “I’m here for you.”

Because as much as I’m devastated by the thought of losing her… it has to be way worse for Ford. He’s her father. This could destroy him.

When they’re gone, I wrap my arms around my middle and turn in a circle, lost.

Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine.

I believe in those words. I try to live those words. But right now, it’s fucking hard.

33

FORD

Willa sent me her address and my GPS guides me to Newark. As I’m driving slowly down Broadway, I’m not sure if I’m in the right place. This is a hospital. I don’t see the number I’m looking for, so I have to go around the block, and the second time around I realize there’s a smaller building on the hospital grounds. I pull into a parking lot.

I’m not getting a good feeling.

A sign on the building saysDorothy’s House. Whoever Dorothy is.

I walk into a foyer with a reception desk. “Hi. I’m here to see Willa Callahan.”

The woman nods. “Ford?”

“Yes.”

“Willa’s in room E10. That’s in the east wing.” She gestures at double doors and I walk through them into a big lounge that feels like an expensive ski lodge—lots of wood, a big brick fireplace, and different arrangements of comfortable furniture. A few people are gathered together, and voices come from a room on one side that appears to be a dining room. I follow the sign for the east wing and carry Tilly down the carpeted hallwayto yet another lounge, smaller but with the same ambience—comfortable and homelike. A kitchenette takes up one wall, a big TV another, and several doors open off it.

My eyes pass over the woman sitting at a table without recognition, but then it sinks in, and I jerk my gaze back to her. Willa.

Jesus.

I’m frozen. I can’t move. I can’t think.

She’s wearing a scarf on her head, clearly because she has no hair. Her face is different—cheeks hollowed, her skin pale, almost translucent. She’s so thin and fragile looking.

“Ford.” She smiles. “Come here. I want to see my baby.”

I force my feet to move. I set the baby carrier on the table and unfasten Tilly. She’s asleep and her little lips pout as I disturb her. “Wake up, Tilly,” I say gently.

“Tilly?”

“Yeah.” I cough. “That what we’ve… I’ve… been calling her.”

“It’s cute. Hi, honey.” Her voice rises and she reaches for Tilly. “Oh my God, I’ve missed you so much.”

Tilly fusses and lets out a squawk as Willa cuddles her.

“It’s okay, Tilly.” I reach over and rub her back. “This is your mom.”

Willa holds Tilly away from her to study her, still smiling. “Are you still a grouch when you wake up?”

“She can be, yeah.”

I pull out another chair at the table and sit. My stomach is hard as a rock and my heart is thudding rapidly.

“Look how big you are!” Willa sets Tilly on the table in front of her, still holding her. Tilly eyes her, at first with a small notch between her eyebrows, then with a less skeptical look. “Tell me about her. What things is she doing?”

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