Page 83 of Tell Me You Love Me

“Both of you?” Alana’s eyes flicker with faux happiness, but the fakery makes way for real when Franky flips around in his chair, setting his game aside and grinning for my brother.

He doesn’t really give a shit that I’m here. But Chris…

“Must be a special occasion,” Alana murmurs. “Both Watkins at the same time, even though it’s the middle of the day.”

“You wanna come for a walk with me, Franky?” Chris wanders across and stops in front of the boy. “I don’t know about you, but hospitals give me the heebie-jeebies, and last I heard, you’ve been here since last night. Wanna get a snack?”

He swings back around to search Alana’s eyes.

“Of course, baby.” Listlessly, she releases her mom’s hand and leans to the side of her chair. “Let me get you some cash so you can?—”

“We’re not broke anymore.” Quietly chuckling, Chris presses his hand to the back of Franky’s hair and guides him through the door. “Not gonna nickel and dime you for the price of a pack of gum, Page. Come on. Let’s see if we can find some wheelchairs. We’ll race ‘em in the halls.”

Once they’re gone, Alana rights herself in her chair, lifting her feet to the cushion and folding her arms. She’s hiding from me, which is something only this adult after-New-York version of her does. Before, when we were younger, she would have come to mefirst.

And I figure she’s thinking the same thing, because she nibbles on her pinky nail and looks anywhere but into my eyes.

“You could have called me, Lana.” I want to walk around the bed and scoop her into my arms. Force her to love me. Beg her to rely on me. But I go to Franky’s abandoned chair instead, dragging it a little closer to Bitsy and setting the game by her leg.

Sitting, I rest my elbows on the bed, too, and my chin in my hands. But I don’t even look at the old woman who lies between us.

She doesn’t need me the way her child does.

“You didn’t want me to know?”

“I didn’t have time to think,” she rasps. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Bother me,” I bite out. I sit back, open my legs wide, and search her eyes. The tears that glisten in her lashes and the sadness that envelops her every thought. Every feeling. Then I pat my thigh and breathe easier when she drops her feet and dashes around the bed. Her breath catches. Her shoulders and back bouncing with emotions she won’t verbalize. She sits on my lap for the first time in ten long years, curling into my chest and tucking her head under my chin.

And when I wrap her in my arms and squeeze, she releases the sob she’s been holding on to since last night.

“You must be so tired.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “Did you sleep at all?”

“No.” She slides her hand beneath my shirt and rests her fingertips over my heart. It’s theoldher from before life tore us apart, when she knew she could come to me and I’d make everything better. “Franky slept for a while.”

“How’s he coping?”

“Okay.” She sighs when I stroke her thigh, breathing perhaps for the first time since she discovered her mother unresponsive on the kitchen floor.Yeah, I got that from the gossip vines, too. “As long as I’m calm, he’s calm. As long as it’s quiet, he’s okay.”

“Which is good for him. But it means you’ve locked everything up since last night.” I draw patterns against her thigh. Pictures. Words.Love. “You can let it all go while he’s gone, Lana. Let it out, so when he’s back, you can be strong again.” I lay a kiss on her forehead. “What’s happening with Bitsy?”

“They’re not expecting her to wake up.” She chokes on her tears, bouncing against my chest and whimpering when I simply pull her closer. Tighter. “Ollie came by about an hour ago. He said she’s already signed directives that meant, in the event she ended up here, like this, he could tell me everything.”

“And?”

“It started in her lungs and traveled to…” she moans. “All over. Everywhere. He gave her six months to live… six months ago.”

“Fuck.” I bring my hand up and cup her face, crushing her against my chest so maybe she’ll hear my heart. Maybe she’ll feel it. “I’m so sorry. I know things are complicated between you two, but that doesn’t make the pain go away.”

“He said she refused treatment around the start of the year. That shewanted to spend her time with her friends instead and with me and Franky.” Tears burst free of her soul, drenching her face and rocking her chest. “She asked us to come home, Tommy, and it was easy to see she wasn’t well. But I didn’t know it was so bad, and the whole time, we argued.”

“Sheknew.” I drag her face up and search her eyes. “She knew, Lana, and she still did things the way she did. Maybe she wanted therealyou and not a fake everyone-has-to-be-nice-to-the-dying-lady show.”

“I don’t think we had a single kind conversation since I got to town.” Her voice breaks. “Every time we talked, we bickered.”

“If she wanted something different, she would have asked.” I slide my thumb beneath her eye and clean away the tears. Useless, really, when more follow. “She asked you to come, and you did. That’s what matters.”

“I called her a self-absorbed jerk before we left the house last night.” She strokes my chest, thoughtlessly massaging the muscle where our ink sits. “She said I was selfish and stupid for bringing Franky to your home for dinner since it was clear I would only pack up and leave again eventually.”

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