Page 92 of Good Days Bad Days
She drove me to the hospital, where they dressed my second-degree burns and stitched up the cut on my arm. After being administered a dose of pain medication, I told Olivia I’d be fine on my own and asked her to check on Betty. As soon as she was gone, I looked at my phone. Plenty of texts and calls from pretty much everyone in my life, but there was only one I decided to respond to—Cam.
Within fifteen minutes of my text, Cam bursts into my treatment room, pulling me out of my regret-filled thoughts.
“You didn’t have to come,” I say. I didn’t ask him to come. I just filled him in on the intense breakdown at Ike’s, and when he asked where I was now, I told him the truth. I should’ve known he’d rush in to help if given the chance. Maybe somewhere deep inside I did.
“You came all the way to Janesville—the least I could do is stop by for a visit,” he says, attempting a joke that falls a bit flat before growing serious. “I canceled the rest of my day.”
“Cam, you’re the best,” I say with a slight slur from the medication.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” he says, politely reminding me of how I’ve basically ghosted him as he sits in the chair next to the hospital bed.
“Oh, Cam, I’m sorry. It’s been a shitty few days.”
“I get that, but ...” He takes out a photocopy of a record of some sort. “I have some information that might help. I don’t know about the rest of the story, but that waitress was right. You do have a sister.”
“What?” I pick up the paper and lean in to examine the faded lettering, finding it difficult to read in the dimmed light, especially after a dose of pain medication.
“She was born in 1973. Her name was Laura.”
The revelation hits my body like a cannonball in the gut. That’s the name my mother has called me from the first day I walked into her room at Shore Path.
“So it’s true? The murder thing—it’s true?” I drop the incriminating document, unsettled by the loss of a sister I never knew.
“I don’t know. This was as far as I got. I’m sure we can look for more information ...”
My mom’s cries and Olivia begging me to stop pestering Betty with my questions play in the back of my mind. “I should’ve let sleeping dogs lay—or lie, or sleep, or whatever.”
“I see the painkillers are working,” he jokes, this one funnier than the last, probably because of the morphine. “But seriously, Charlie, I don’t agree. ‘What’s past is prologue’ is also a saying, a better one thanthe stuff about dogs, I think. I could pull every tooth that had decay, you know, but then you’d end up with no teeth.”
“It’s notmydecay,” I rationalize. “It’s my parents’, my mom’s.”
“I’m dropping the tooth metaphor, but whatever this rot is—whether it’s the house, the trauma, or the past—it’s also a part of you. It shaped you. Take my parents, for example.”
“Sue and John? I love them.”
“I know. Everyone does. They seemed so happy forever, perfectly matched. But what no one knows is that they’re moving to Florida because my dad got caught in another affair.”
“What?” My mouth drops open. I thought his parents were perfect. “What do you mean ‘another’?”
“Another. As in he’s been having affairs for their whole marriage. I found out about it like a year after you left. My mom considered leaving him and moving in with her parents in Milwaukee. She said she stayed for us, to keep the family together. I always felt guilty about that—her choice to stay with a philanderer ’cause of her kids. But even when Sammy and I moved out, he kept cheating and she stayed.”
“I had no idea,” I say, reaching out clumsily for Cam with my unbandaged hand. He secures it with his, covering both of our hands with the scratchy hospital bedding.
“Yeah, no one did. All families have the rot, Charlie. You know, it’s OK to want to understand some of it, keep what’s healthy and dump the rest.”
Emotion tickles at my tear ducts, my vision blurring.
“Hey, come here,” I say, tugging at his arm until he’s close enough for me to see his eye freckles again. I caress his cheek, realizing it’s smooth, his light beard shaven. Amid the haze of painkillers, I grapple with the ache of everything that’s transpired today. I’m comforted by the familiar face of Cam, someone who knows about my rot because he was there when it started. “I think you’re one of the things I want to keep.”
Cam, the boy with the spotted eyes who made me feel loved when I felt like another piece of junk in my mom’s house, brushes my hairback from my forehead and places a soft, lingering kiss there. He takes a long look at me and shakes his head as he speaks.
“Here’s the thing, Lottie. I read your book, the one about you and Ian.” I groan and start to protest, but Cam continues his thought. “Are you two over? Like, for good?” he asks.
I want to explain everything—the messages, the fight at the Grand Geneva, the demands from Alex McNamara—but that’s not what he’s asking. He wants to know if we’re getting divorced, and I don’t have an answer for that yet. I shake my head.
“I didn’t think so.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “I like you, Lottie. I like you a lot, but I don’t want to mess you guys up.”
“You’re not the problem—” I begin to say, but he hushes me.
