Flirting With Pete: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

Holmes was a motherly type whose calmness suggested she had come to terms with caring for those with severe brain injuries. Caroline Ellis had been in her charge for three years.
    Ann waggled a hand. “Not a great day. She had a couple of little seizures this morning. Dr. Jinsji called you, didn’t he?”
    “Yes, but the message said the Valium helped.” The message had also said that the doctor was concerned with the increasing frequency of the seizures, but Casey was more encouraged than concerned. She chose to believe that after so many months of vegetation, seizures were a sign that Caroline was starting to wake up.
    “She did get past them,” the nurse said. “She’s sleeping now.”
    “I’ll be quiet then,” Casey whispered.
    Going on down the hall to her mother’s room, she slipped inside. The room was lit only faintly by the city lights, though Casey could have found her way without. Aside from the few pieces of medical equipment needed for feeding and hydration, the room wasn’t big enough to hold more than a bed, a pair of easy chairs, and a dresser, and since Casey had brought and placed the chairs and dresser herself, she knew where each was. She had also visited Caroline Ellis several times a week for each of the three years since the accident. After so many hours here, walking these floors, staring at these walls, touching this furniture, Casey knew every inch of the space.
    In the shadows, she crossed unerringly to the bed and kissed her mother’s forehead. Caroline smelled newly bathed. She always did, which was one of the reasons Casey kept her here. Well beyond the fresh flowers placed on the bureau each week, care was given to quality-of-life issues such as personal hygiene, though— like the flowers— that often mattered more to the families of patients than to the patients themselves. This was particularly true for Casey. The Caroline she’d known had mucked out stalls for the animals she owned, yet the only smell Casey had ever associated with her was the light, fresh one of the eucalyptus cream she used. Casey kept a supply of it here, and the nurses applied it liberally. They couldn’t prove that it helped Caroline any, but it certainly calmed Casey.
    Sitting by Caroline’s hip, she took her mother’s stiff hand from the sheet, gently unbent her wrist and uncurled her fingers, and pressed them to her own throat. Caroline’s eyes were closed. Though she wasn’t aware of doing so, her body still followed the circadian sleep and wake cycles.
    “Hi, Mom. It’s late. I know you’re sleeping, but I had to stop by.”
    “Bad day?” Caroline asked.
    “I don’t know ‘bad.’ ‘Odd’ is more like it. Connie left me the townhouse.”
    “He what?”
    “Left me the townhouse.”
    “The Beacon Hill townhouse?”
    The question evoked a memory. Casey was suddenly sixteen again, just back from an afternoon in Boston. “Beacon Hill?” Caroline had echoed when, in a rebellious little snit, Casey had slung the word at her. Beacon Hill was a landmark that offered many things, but mention of it in the Ellis home brought one thought: Connie Unger. “Did you go to see him?” Caroline had asked. Casey denied it, but her mother was predictably hurt. “He has not been there for you, Casey. He has not been there for either of us, and we’ve done just fine.”
    Back then, there had been anger and hurt. What Casey imagined from Caroline now had more to do with bewilderment.
    “Why would he leave you the townhouse?”
    “Maybe he didn’t know what else to do with it.”
    Caroline didn’t respond immediately. Casey knew that she was thinking of the best way to handle the situation. Finally, tactfully, she asked, “How do you feel about it?”
    “I don’t know. I only found out about it this afternoon.”
    Casey didn’t mention the memorial service. She wasn’t sure Caroline would understand why she had gone, didn’t want Caroline to think that she had been looking for anything from