Page 105 of Happy Harbor
She squeezed his hand. “I’ve decided that I’m going to go to community college here.”
“Community college? But couldn’t you get in at my college? It would be a lot of fun for us to hang out together and study.”
“I know, and eventually I’ll probably do that, but I just got to Happy Harbor. I want to spend more time with my mom and grandmother, and I’m just not ready to go off to college yet.”
He smiled slightly. “I guess I can understand that. Maybe I should stay home for the first year.”
She shook her head. “No, you shouldn’t. You’ve got a big bright future ahead of you, Scotty. You will not be held back because of me. If this relationship is meant to be, distance will not cause us a problem.”
“Do you think we’re meant to be?”
She shrugged her shoulders and laughed. “I’m still a teenager, and so are you. What do we know?”
“Romeo and Juliet were teenagers.”
She squinted. “Yeah, and that didn’t end up so great.”
* * *
Josie turned down the street toward her house, and she was pretty sure the car was up on two wheels. Nobody drove fast around Happy Harbor, but she had to get to her daughter. On Josie’s drive home, Walker had called and told her Kendra was released from the hospital and resting at home. Josie was eager to get to the house and put eyes on her daughter.
She pulled into the driveway, jumped out of the car, and ran up the steps, flinging the front door open and almost knocking it off its hinges. She found Walker standing in the middle of the foyer, looking a little scared at how fast she was moving.
“Where is she?”
“She’s in bed. They pumped her up with a lot of meds. She was exhausted.”
She ran up the stairs and peeked through the cracked bedroom door. Kendra was sleeping peacefully. Josie exhaled. She didn’t want to disturb her, so she walked back downstairs, careful to avoid the creaky spots.
Walker was waiting, a serious look on his face. “I have to talk to you about something.”
She stared at him. “Is it bad? Is it about Kendra? I can’t take much more, Walker.”
“It’s not about Kendra. Come on,” he said, taking her hand and leading her into one of the drawing rooms. Her grandmother had antique furniture in just about every room of the house. It wasn’t exactly Josie’s style, but it went with the aesthetic.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s about your mother. She’s at the hospital.”
Josie stood up. “What? What’s wrong with her? Did she get stung too?”
He shook his head. “She’s not alone. Ethel is there with her.”
“Walker, why is she in the hospital?”
“An officer found her stumbling around at the edge of town. She was slurring her words, bumping into people.”
Josie slowly sat down and stared straight ahead. This sounded awfully familiar. The description Walker gave sounded exactly like how her mother used to be when Josie was a kid.
All the embarrassment came back to her. Hearing stories of her mother laughing at nothing, talking to herself, running into people, stumbling. These were all descriptions anyone could’ve said about her mom back then.
“Do you want me to take you over there?”
She turned and looked at him. “Absolutely not.”
“Josie, it’s your mother.”
She laughed. “That means nothing to me. She said she was in recovery, and that she would try her hardest to stay sober every day. I trusted her to watch my daughter. And in less than forty-eight hours, she’s lit to the gills and at the hospital? I’m done. I don’t need that in my life.”
