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“Hey...” Wes woke me with a hushed tone and gentle pinches on my leg. “We’re almost there.”

I sat up, startled in spite of how carefully he had attempted to ease me into consciousness, and looked out the window. The

lights of Denver shone all around—like a different world than the one we had come from, where a distant radio tower light

on a mountain and the one intersection in town with traffic lights were the only things distracting you from the moon and

stars at this time of night.

“Jo didn’t call again, did she?”

Before I even asked, I knew she hadn’t, of course. He would have awakened me, just as he had a couple of hours prior when

Jo’s first call managed to slip through while I miraculously had two bars of cell signal. They’d just been starting to get

Dad checked into a room then, and she wasn’t allowed to go back until that was all taken care of.

I tipped my wrist up to look at my watch. Two seventeen.

I leaned forward in my seat and curved my back and stretched as much as I could. After the call from Jo, I had moved back over by the window, which did provide plenty of support to lie against, but I hadn’t slept anywhere near as peacefully without Wes’s warmth against me and his arm around me.

“You doing okay?” I propped my knee up on the bench and my elbow on the back of the seat, then tilted my head over onto my

hand and watched the city lights flash across his face. “I’m sorry I slept so much of the time.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you were able to get some rest.” He leaned forward and looked up at exit signs and then signaled to switch

lanes.

“I bet you’re used to sleepless nights. If you can ever actually get used to sleepless nights, that is.”

He chuckled. “I have gotten sort of used to it, I guess. No one tells you that running for president is a lot of work. I thought

it was going to be a lot of pie-eating contests and kissing babies. ‘Hey, I like babies,’ I told myself. ‘Babies are cute.’

And, you know, you get to travel a lot. But would you believe that not once has anyone let me pull over to see the world’s biggest ball of twine or that park in Georgia with all the creepy doll heads?

I’ve found that to be one of the most disappointing things about the gig. They should really be a little clearer in the job

description.”

“You mean the Constitution?”

“Yeah. The Founding Fathers dropped the ball on that one.”

A couple of turns later, we were pulling into the hospital parking lot. “Want me to drop you off at the door?” he asked.

“No, I want to walk in with you, if that’s okay.”

He reached over and squeezed my knee. “Of course that’s okay.”

Thirty seconds later, Jo met us at the hospital door, took one look at our clasped hands, and muttered, “Nuh-uh. That is not

okay. Your dad will have another coronary.”

My breath caught, and Wes squeezed my hand tighter. “Don’t say stuff like that, Jo. First of all, it’s not like we’re going

to walk in there together when he’s hooked up to machines and everything. You know us both better than that.”

Jo spun on her heel and began leading us down a hallway past Admissions.

“Besides, I think we’re both beating ourselves up enough for whatever role we might have played in all of this.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. Neither of you caused this.” Jo stepped into an elevator, and we followed. “Drinking eight cups

of coffee a day and eating red meat for every meal caused this. Besides, he’s been ignoring symptoms for weeks.”

“He has?” I asked, a new, different wave of guilt beginning to pester me.

“Yeah, and don’t you go thinking you should have seen it, Addie.” Jo pushed the button, and the doors closed. “I’ve seen the

man at least twice a day nearly every day for the past sixtysomething years, and a little bit ago he starts telling the doctor

about fatigue and restlessness and pains and shortness of breath. Not for the past few hours or even the past couple days.

No, for the past month . I guess maybe he just thinks that fancy medical degree of his is for picking his teeth. I’m so mad at him I could spit.”

Wes and I turned to each other, eyes wide, as we stepped out onto the fourth floor, which was silent except for the beeps

and whirrings of machines.

“You okay, Jo?” I asked her, placing my hand on her shoulder to get her to stop for a second.

She turned back to us and crossed her arms. “What are you asking me for? I should be asking you—”

“But I’m asking you.” My lips rose in a subdued grin. “You take good care of us all. Especially him.”

“Especially him.” Jo repeated my words and looked down at her sensible snow boots. “I’m fine, darlin’. I was just... I

don’t know...”

“Scared?” Wes asked gently.

“No, mad!” she reiterated. Her voice was much too loud for the hospital hallway, and she knew it. She looked around and then

back to us, once she was satisfied that—apart from one nurse at the nurse’s station raising her head and glaring at us—no

damage had been done. Then she added in a whisper, “And maybe scared. A little. But so help me, Adelaide, if you tell him

that—”

“I would never. Cross my heart.”

Wes squeezed my hand, and in that subtle gesture I felt him holding in the laughter and, I was guessing, some words that needed

to wait as well. I figured he was probably dying to ask me what was going on between Jo and my dad, but the truth was, I wouldn’t

have any answers for him. They’d always been friends, but somewhere along the line it seemed like maybe the feelings had gotten

deeper. At least for Jo. Just one more thing I hadn’t noticed.

Jo walked a few more steps until she was just a few feet away from room 408. “He’s in here.”

In an instant, the beeps and the whirrings got personal. I took a step toward the dark room, but Wes planted his feet and

pulled me to him before I could go in.

“I’ll be right out here if you need anything,” he whispered before brushing his finger across my chin and lifting my lips

to his.

I nodded. “Thank you.” And I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to say, “ Thank you for driving me to Denver. Thank you for still loving me. Thank you for coming home .” And I would. At some point, if we kept going—or maybe even if we didn’t—I would probably say thank you for all those things.

Because it wasn’t just the hard and painful things that needed to be said but the nice things too. But right then, for just

the smallest percentage of a second, I wondered instead what might have happened if I had asked him to come home, even one time.

It wasn’t my fault that he left. It wasn’t my fault that he didn’t come home sooner. And I’d had every right to sit there

and wait... to be sad and wallow... to get angry and be hurt and allow it all to turn into resentment. I’d had every

right to finally move on, and every single person—Wes included—no doubt thought I should have done that sooner.

But what if I had gone to Connecticut? It wasn’t like I couldn’t have found him.

I could have flown into any airport in the state and asked a taxi driver to take me to the governor’s house.

I could have written him a letter. I could have called him.

Rather than feel confused and hurt and sad—no matter how completely justified I may have been in feeling each of those things—I could have trusted in his love for me.

I could have known that whatever was happening, he clearly needed me too.

And maybe I could have helped, and maybe I couldn’t have.

Maybe it wouldn’t have fixed things, but maybe it would have.

And maybe—probably—I wouldn’t have even wanted it to, knowing what I knew now.

But still... I could have at least asked .

Then again, as he had said, we were just kids. It was all so easy to see now, wasn’t it?

I threw my arms around his neck and stood on my tiptoes to whisper into his ear. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

He looped his arms around my waist and sighed. “Not half as glad as I am.”

***

“Hey, sweets,” Dad greeted me groggily as I entered the hospital room. “I told you not to come.”

He was receiving oxygen through his nose, and he was hooked up to various monitors via wires connected to his chest, but I

have to say, I was greatly relieved. I think I’d been mentally preparing for the worst (the worst—in my imagination, anyway—being

a repeat of thirty-year-old memories of my mom frail and unrecognizable in her hospital bed). But apart from the tube and

the wires and the horrible lime-green gown, he didn’t really look much worse than he had the time Maxine Brogan accidentally

used flour instead of powdered sugar in the icing of the birthday cake she made him. (Come to think of it, the lime-green

gown would have matched his complexion nicely on that day.)

“You didn’t tell me not to come. I haven’t talked to you.”

“Well, I told Jo to tell you not to come.”

I reached the bed and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Thankfully Jo knew better than to pass along that message.”

“Not that you would have listened, anyway.”

I pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat beside him. “How are you?”

“I’m okay.” I scowled at him, and he added, “That’s the honest truth, Addie. I’ll need to make some adjustments to my diet.

Maybe scale back my schedule a little bit. Give up being mayor, maybe, and start putting out some feelers for nearby doctors

to take some of the load. There will be some new medications in the mix. But I really am okay. I don’t even feel all that

bad right now. Just tired more than anything else.”

“Oh!” I jumped up. “Of course. I should let you get some rest.”

He grabbed onto my hand. “No, not yet. In a minute. Sit. Please.” I did as I was told and returned to the chair, and my dad

kept hold of my hand. “So he drove up with you?”

I took a quick peek at the monitor with his heart-rate and blood-pressure measurements so I could get a baseline. “Yes, Wes drove me here.”