Page 4 of Distant Shores (Stapled Magnolias #2)

IRELAND

M y phone beeped, and my stomach clenched.

I was already here, on time, as always.

I stared at the electronic lock in front of me. Key card or knock ? I never knew which was better.

I raised my fist but then dropped it.

Shaking myself, I pressed my card to the scanner, and it beeped, allowing me inside.

Apartment 2C of Zinnia House was open concept and more like a dorm room than an apartment, with one living space and a door that led to a small bedroom with an attached bathroom.

The living room was empty, and anxiety pushed me right back out into the hallway.

It should not be this fucking hard to walk into the place where you lived even if you lived there semi-illegally.

I caught the door with my foot before it closed all the way but didn’t move to go inside.

I just… stared at the wood, pulling the loose threads at the hem of my cut-offs for several seconds before raising my fist to knock on the open door .

Like a coward.

My knuckles rapped on the door three times before I stepped back inside and called out, “Hey! Anyone home?”

Like a moron.

I kept my movements loud and obvious as I closed the door and walked through the wide hallway.

For safety reasons, there were no kitchens in the apartments, but there was a small table where residents could take their meals if they didn’t or couldn’t travel to the cafeteria.

The coastal chic decor that’d previously decorated the space was gone, replaced with photos, art, and decorations from home.

Throw pillows and blankets that didn’t smell like home anymore decorated the small couch.

The bedroom door was ajar, and I stepped toward it, pausing just outside of it to tackle my emotions to the vinyl floor before they could override me and trigger another senseless retreat.

The scene when I walked into the bedroom was basically the human equivalent of entering Miss Lenny’s home: haphazard and overwhelming, with some order if you looked closely enough, but no nudity.

My gaze drifted over the discarded paintings strewn across the floor, and I averted my gaze toward the ceiling in exasperation.

Well. Not zero nudity, it seemed. Just less.

Stepping over the erotic scenes, I waved again, back to being a moron. “Hi, there.”

Blue eyes met mine briefly from the corner of the room before Dad readjusted his position on the stool and turned his attention back to his easel, dismissing me.

I blew out a breath as I ran my gaze over him, looking for anything out of place.

His hands were smudged black, and there was a distinct charcoal mustache and beard on his face from his own hands. His shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair that was more salt these days was sticking up in all directions like he’d been electrocuted, but that was on par for Beck Sewell.

“Find any happiness today?” he finally asked, his gaze still focused on his work.

I relaxed, grasping the good sign with both hands.

“I did,” I answered with relative honesty, thinking of Miss Lenny’s dogs and an emergency-free class. “Did you?”

He tucked his piece of charcoal behind his ear, dotting a dark smudge on his temple as he did. “Good, good. Yes, but… my hills aren’t…” He swooped his hand in the air with a flourish. “Hilly enough, and I’m out of the good paint.”

Two raps on the apartment’s door punctuated a cheery, sing-song voice. “Knock, knock!”

Nurse Emily breezed in a moment later, tablet in one hand and a half-eaten apple in the other, her blonde hair held back by a black plastic hairband.

“Oh, dear.” She swept her gaze over the mess but kept the dismay off her face.

A courtesy that had been rare from any of the staff at the first facility I moved Dad into.

“Mr. Sewell. You’ve been busy since lunchtime,” she said as she glanced my way.

“I’ll clean it up,” I told her, keeping my voice low.

And I’d make a new daily alarm for the early afternoon. I made sure to be here twice per day already, once around breakfast and again near dinner, like I was now, but if this was going to be the new norm for him, I needed to do a third check-in.

I was glad Dad was coming back to life here at Live Oak, though, and it sure as hell was better than him staring at the wall for hours like he did when we first moved here, his usually vibrant blue eyes looking at nothing. Seeing nothing.

Nurse Emily nodded, but there was something else behind her calculating look as she made a note on her tablet that had my heart rate speeding up. Before I could try to assure her further, she stepped over the papers and walked to Dad’s side.

“How was your lunch, Mr. Sewell? Any requests for dinner?”

“Mr. Sewell was an asshole,” he said casually, then glanced at her with a small smile. “Call me Beck.”

She didn’t react to Dad’s language, used to it by now, as one of the regular nurses on this floor. “Yes, Mr. Beck,” she answered kindly.

He stood up from his stool and patted all over his body for several seconds before he found his glasses dangling from his crumpled linen shirt and put them on.

Dad gave Emily his full attention then, his trademark swagger and charm coming out as he offered her a bright, genuine smile. “That’ll work.”

I liked Emily. I really did. However, when Dad found his charm for others but not for me, resentment reared its ugly head, no matter how much I tried to smother it alongside everything else.

It was hard to not feel like everyone was the enemy.

I eased back into the living room as she continued her check-in and turned my attention to tidying up the living room, but… there was nothing to do. Not a thing.

Everything was exactly as it had been when I’d left this morning.

The book I’d been reading last night was on the table by the couch, a miracle considering how boundary averse Dad was.

It wasn’t uncommon for me to find a second bookmark added to my books or annotations in his chaotic scrawl, a combination of cursive and all caps.

I walked over to the couch—my bed when I didn’t have a house-sitting job—and fussed with the two green throw pillows even though they were perfectly in place.

It was as if Dad hadn’t so much as walked through here today.

“Ireland…,” Nurse Emily called as she emerged from the bedroom. “I’ll see you at the care-team meeting in the morning with Director Links?”

I abandoned the pillows. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

She nodded and made a note on her tablet. “Good. I’ll see you at eight, then. Now… will Mr. Sewell be eating in the cafeteria, or should I arrange for something to be brought up? He didn’t give me a concrete answer.”

The sound of something being knocked over followed by a string of colorful, muffled curses came from Dad’s room.

I internally winced but kept my face blank as I answered, “He’ll eat in tonight. Seems he’s… in the zone.”

To her credit, she didn’t push me on it and instead gave me a little pat on the shoulder before walking out the door and moving on to her next patient.

Dad came out moments after the door closed. “That woman is always very interested in me. It’s flattering, but she’s oblivious to my hints that I don’t have the time to indulge such things right now.”

I didn’t have a thing to say to that, but it seemed he didn’t need one, as he then shuffled by me to the couch and clicked on the TV to some random channel.

He made a frustrated noise as he sat down. “I hate the commercials on this TV. They don’t make ’em like they used to. No pizzazz, no story. Never pushing boundaries.”

“I know,” I replied, a surge of fondness for him and his peculiar opinions filling me.

For several minutes, I just stood there, catching my breath as I watched him, enjoying his mild fussing.

“Want me to put on a movie instead?” I asked when the next round of commercials started, and he repeated his earlier sentiments.

Then he ignored me, caught up in a commercial for toilet paper, so I left him to it and went into his bedroom to clean up. I kept my eyes unfocused as I gathered the risqué paintings into a pile in his bedroom and put them in the bottom drawer of his dresser, where they joined countless others.

A caregiver knocked quietly on the door before opening it and wheeling in Dad’s customized, nutritionist-approved meal. I quickly ran two washcloths under the tap in his bathroom, adding soap to one.

When I joined him at the table, I waved the cloth in front of him, and he automatically stuck out his hand.

The perpetual knot in my chest eased just a fraction. Today, right now, he remembered this.

Dad was a gifted artist. I was not. But while I was growing up, he still insisted I create something every day to “get my demons out.” In elementary school, it was modeling clay or coloring when I’d get into fights with kids, usually after they told me I was too mean to dance or made fun of Dad because of rumors the shitheads heard from their parents.

During my teen years, it became more frequent, with him sitting me down at the kitchen table at least twice per day, forcing me to draw my feelings.

He thought every human condition could be solved by art.

If only that were true.

Most nights, even the ones without drama or trauma, we’d sit at the kitchen table together after dinner and draw, color, or paint.

Afterward, we’d clean off each other’s hands with a cloth.

The entire thing was almost ceremonial, and it was always cathartic, even when my demons were only as big as blisters on my toes from my pointe shoes.

There wasn’t a canvas grand enough or a cloth big enough for the demons of the past year.