Page 43 of By A Thread
She started shaking again and reached for the handle. “I can’t. The train will be faster. But thank you,” she said.
“Ally,” I said again. I couldn’t let her just jump out of the car and disappear.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” There was nothing in her tone that remotely reassured me.
Nelson signaled as he changed lanes, inching toward the subway station.
“Here. Take this,” I said, yanking out my wallet. I threw a fifty at her. “Take a cab when you get to Jersey.”
She looked at the money in her lap and started to shake her head.Newly and temporarily poor but permanently, stupidly stubborn.
“I c—”
“If the next word out of your mouth is ‘can’t,’ I’m going to insist on personally seeing you to your destination,” I threatened.
She looked at the bill in her lap again then up at me. I dared her to defy me.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said. Her voice was tight, and those golden eyes looked a little watery to me. I didn’t want her to go.
“I’ll fire you if you do. Take the car. Please,” I added, not liking how the word felt in my mouth.
“Train’s faster.”
Nelson roared up to the curb. He hopped out from behind the wheel.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her.
“Everything’s fine. I’m fine,” she said. “Thank you, Dom.”
I didn’t expect the thank you. Or the chaste, friendly kiss she pressed to my cheek after.
Nelson opened my door, and Ally climbed right over me and hopped out.
I watched until she and that ridiculous backpack disappeared down the stairs.
“Back to the office, sir?” Nelson asked, sliding behind the wheel again.
I was still staring at the space that Ally and her backpack had occupied. “Actually, I have a stop to make.”
15
Ally
“Dad?”
I poked my head around the curtain that provided a sliver of privacy in the small room. It was like every other hospital room. Beige tile, industrial gray walls, and that stomach-turning smell of antiseptic and illness.
Dad’s bed was next to the window, and he was staring listlessly at the gray world beyond while a nurse fussed over him. He was conscious, upright. And some of the knots in my stomach loosened.
An untouched tray sat in front of him.
His roommate on the other side of the curtain let out a tremulous snore over theJudge Judyepisode he’d left on at full volume.
Thank God for health insurance. Judging from the IVs and brace on my father’s leg, we’d already be bankrupt otherwise.
“Mr. Morales?” the nurse tried. This time my father glanced up.
His weight loss had slowed, thankfully. But he’d never be back to the pleasingly plump guy he’d been just a few years ago. The mustache he’d had forever was gone, too. They shaved it for him weekly at the nursing home.
