Page 31 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Josie

The ground is even cooler than the air, but I lie on it anyway. It clings to the cold of overnight, and I cling to the memory of my sister Jezebelle.

Today marks another anniversary of the day she passed, and I clutch at the J necklace of hers I’ve worn around my neck ever since and try to reconcile my emotions.

It’s been so long and yet feels like no time at all since she passed, and the events of Grandma Rose’s funeral only emphasize the contradiction.

Jezzy died because of my mother’s negligence before she reached her third birthday.

The guilt in my heart for that tragic day is still there, lining my veins with a parasitic plaque. I know I was just a kid myself, but I still wish I could go back in time and change it all.

I wish I could’ve been wise enough to know that my mother sending me out on an errand to Earl’s while she “entertained” Ralph Rigo—an old friend of my father’s and a rich businessman from two towns over—would mean that she wouldn’t have been paying attention to Jezzy at all.

My mother was always trying to climb the social ladder. She was always trying to find a way to live a life that revolved around money and greed, even if that meant having an affair while my father was out of town.

I don’t know all of the details of what went down that day, but I know when I walked back to the house, Norah was outside playing in the yard. “We not allowed inside, Josie. Mom said we has to play outside,” she’d said.

But I went inside anyway.

The door to our parents’ bedroom was locked—my mother and Hank inside.

And I found Jezzy facedown in the bathtub.

At the time, Sheriff Pete was only a deputy and Mitchell Moreland was the Sheriff.

When I tried to tell Sheriff Moreland what happened, tried to speak the truth about how Jezzy was left alone and my mother was locked in her bedroom with a man who wasn’t my father, Eleanor Ellis made me the villain. The problem child. The liar .

The cycle continued from there. I was made out to be the troubled child she couldn’t control, and the treatment only got worse after my father died.

When we were kids, my sister Norah and I were close.

I watched out for her much like a mother would and cared for her in all the ways I wished our mother would’ve cared for me.

I was the voice of reason in a clog of mis-influence by Eleanor, and I thought I was doing right by leaving Norah to come back to Red Bridge when I did.

She was young, but I still thought she’d see through our mother’s bullshit enough to come find me when she came of age.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Seeing her at the funeral, clinging to our mother’s back, was like a sharp knife to how I thought everything would be. I talked Clay’s ear off about it all last night, including all the sordid details of Jezzy’s death and the truth about how tragic it really was.

I burdened him with all my heartache and all the pain, and I let him comfort me when it all became too much.

He asked if he could come with me this morning to visit with Jezzy and to the doctor after, but there’s still a selfish part of me that feels like all of this is mine to work through and mine alone.

It’s shortsighted and not quite fair—I know—but I’m still working on getting past it.

The alarm on my phone goes off, and I lift my head carefully, my neck stiff from how long I’ve been lying here in the cold.

I sit up and touch my hand to Jezzy’s headstone and pray that wherever she is, Grandma Rose has found her.

“Love you, Jezz,” I whisper one last time before climbing to my feet and dusting leaves and dead grass from my leggings.

My lungs sting and my breath puffs in front of me as I walk back through the cemetery to my Civic, passing straight by Grandma Rose’s gravestone without stopping.

It’s not that I wouldn’t like to visit her—I want it more than almost anything else in this world.

It’s that if I do, I’ll never be able to make myself leave in time to get to my doctor’s appointment.

And it’s taken me nearly three weeks to get in as it is.

The last thing I need is to miss this thing.

I climb in the car and start it, heading straight for our tiny health clinic on the outskirts of town. Dr. Klenny is my regular doctor here in Red Bridge, but something about going to someone I’ve known my whole life and asking for drugs to help me survive didn’t sit right.

I’d rather see someone I don’t know, someone with a fresh perspective on me as a patient, rather than knowing my whole life story the second I set foot in the door.

Dr. Masterson is new to town and moved here from Indianapolis, so she’s got more of a big-city, none-of-my-business attitude.

My phone rings from the passenger seat just as I’m pulling into the parking lot, and upon seeing Clay’s name on the screen, I pick it up and answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, babe. Just checking in. You doing okay?”

I know it’s probably killing him not to be here, but with just the sound of his voice, I’m glad he isn’t.

Not because I don’t love him or he wouldn’t be supportive.

But because I’m tired of him seeing me so incredibly weak.

I want to be the woman he so desperately wanted to marry, and I need to find a way to be her on my own.

“I just pulled in. I stopped to see Jezz first.”

“That’s good. She was talkative, I bet.” I can hear the smile in his voice.

I surprise myself by laughing. It’s not something I do a lot anymore. It figures it’d be something seriously twisted and morose that would actually do it for me.

“Oh yeah,” I reply. “Chatty Cathy, that one.”

I can hear the relief in his voice as he says, “Okay, babe. Call me after? Or come see me. Whatever you want.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Jose.”

“Love you too,” I say simply. Because for as much of a mess as I am and as hard as it’s been to rationalize how the timing of our union intersected with Grandma Rose’s death, I do love him. So much it hurts sometimes.

Running late now, I click out of the call and gather my purse quickly to jump out into the parking lot. I wrap my scarf around my neck a little tighter and jog to the front door, pausing only briefly when the sickening wave of furnace heat hits me in the face.

Almost as quickly as I wound it, I unfurl my scarf and pull it off and into my hand as I approach the front desk. There’s a sign-in sheet on the little window ledge, and I fill out my name and information while the receptionist smiles at me. I don’t recognize her, and that feels like a good thing.

“Here,” she says, handing me a clipboard through the opening. “If you’ll just fill out some of these forms with your info, I’ll let the doctor know you’re here, and she’ll get to you shortly.”

I take a pen from the cup and then sit down in the corner to fill out all my information. It’s pretty quick and easy since I don’t have medical insurance, and as soon as I turn the clipboard in again, they go ahead and wave me back.

It’s a tiny office with just one doctor, so it makes sense that I’d be the only one here for my appointment since it’s a scheduled time.

“Hi,” a brunette nurse in blue scrubs and stylish white sneakers greets as I step through the door. “Josie Ellis, right?”

I nod. “That’s me.”

“I’m Lindsey, Dr. Masterson’s nurse.” Her smile is friendly as she waves me forward to follow her.

“Come on back. We’ll do your height and weight first, and then I’ll give you a cup to give me a quick urine sample, okay?

It said in your appointment notes that you’ve been having some trouble sleeping? ”

I lick my lips, moving my head up and down. “Y…yes. My grandmother passed recently, and I…I’ve been struggling a bit.”

Her eyes melt in compassion, and she reaches out to touch my elbow softly. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

My voice sounds raw as I reply, “Thank you.”

“Well, don’t worry, okay? Dr. Masterson is going to do a full checkup today just to make sure we’re not dealing with anything underlying, and then we’ll go over all the ways we might be able to help.”

“That sounds good.”

She smiles softly. “Go ahead and step on the scale for me.”

I do, and she writes down my weight on the clipboard in her hand. For the first time in my life, I don’t even pay attention to how much it is. It’s a funny thing, being a woman, but evidently, if you’re dealing with enough other stuff, being skinny actually stops mattering.

She moves a spindle above my head and writes down my height too, and I step off the scale and pick my purse up off the chair I set it on.

“Here,” she says, handing me a clear plastic cup with a blue lid and a Sharpie marker. “I know you’re the only one here right now, but go ahead and write your name on the label and then give me a sample in the cup. You don’t have to fill it. Just about halfway is good enough.”

“Okay.”

“Then just bring it out with you and set it on the sink in this room right here.” She gestures to the exam room behind her.

I give her a thumbs-up. Seems simple enough.

It doesn’t take me long in the bathroom to pee in the cup and seal it up, wash my hands, and gather myself enough in the mirror to come back out, and when I do, Nurse Lindsey is waiting.

I put the cup on the sink and my purse on the chair in the corner and climb up onto the crinkly white paper of the exam table.

She dips test strips inside the cup and lays them out on the counter on top of a medical-grade sheet, and then she smiles as she walks to the door. “Dr. Masterson will be right in, okay?”

“Thanks.”

Hands in my lap, I scour the signs in the room, looking for something of interest to occupy my time. I read one about HPV and another about school physicals and then finish up on a poster of the human body with arrows pointing to each and every major muscle.

I turn my head to read one of the weird names for something in the groin area, and the door swings open with the doctor’s arrival.

She’s blond and petite, and her hair is pulled halfway back in a long silver barrette. “Hi, Josie. I’m Dr. Masterson.” She holds out a hand, and I take it, shaking firmly before she steps over to the sink to wash her hands.

As she washes, she glances at the now-developed test strips Lindsey took in my pee. Fascinatingly, her hands screech to a stop, pausing completely mid-wash.

A couple seconds later, she starts back up again until she finishes, shutting off the water and drying her hands with a paper towel before turning to me. “Lindsey said you’re here to talk about some options to help with sleeping and general stress levels from a loved one’s passing.”

I nod. “Yes. My grandma passed away about a month and a half ago.”

There’s a careful look on her face I can’t quite decipher, and she pulls up a stool to sit in front of me, her clasped hands pursed in front of her chest. “I’m sorry for your loss, and I think there are definitely some things we can do to help.

But, Josie…I’d like to talk first about one of your urine tests. ”

“Is there something wrong?”

“You’ve got a positive pregnancy test, Josie, and it’s not a faint positive either.”

“What?” My head jerks back in surprise. “I’m pregnant?”

“We can run a blood test to be sure, but yes, I’d say there’s a good chance you are.

Which, honey, would explain a lot of your exhaustion and hormonal imbalance, too.

The early stages of pregnancy are a tough time both mentally and physically, and combining that with grief would be a lot for anyone. ”

“I’m really pregnant?” I ask, a million and one happinesses and heartbreaks running through my mind at once.

Dr. Masterson nods, her smile gentle. “I feel confident saying yes. False positives are a rarity with the tests these days, but we’ll definitely take some blood to confirm before you leave.”

“Will it take a long time to get the results?”

She shakes her head. “We have a rapid test we can do if you’d prefer. That way, we get the results while you’re here. If it’s positive, I’ll just refer you for a follow-up with an OB.”

“Yes.” I bob my chin up and down several times. “Please.” I can’t leave here without knowing for sure.

“Of course,” Dr. Masterson agrees. Getting up from the stool, she peeks her head out the door and calls for Lindsey. “Hey, Linds. Grab a rapid HCG blood panel for me, would you?”

“Sure!” I hear Lindsey chirp, and in what seems like no time at all, she’s knocking on the door with it in her hand. She takes a couple of gloves from the box by the sink and dons them before stepping over to me with a small, sharp device.

“This just takes a finger prick,” she assures, taking my hand and flipping it over to poke it into the pad of my index finger.

It stings a little, but with the way I’ve been feeling emotionally lately, it’s almost a welcome release.

She pools the blood and feeds it onto the test, and then sets it on the counter with the rest of the strips from my urine. “Should be ready shortly.”

As time ticks, so do I through my catalog of memories.

Of childhood with Jezzy and Norah, of arriving back to Red Bridge as a young and na?ve woman, of cherished dinners and heartfelt conversations with Grandma Rose, and catching cheaters in my spare time.

Of Clay’s larger-than-life love and of water towers and stolen kisses.

Of late nights at the bar teasing and laughing while he works and of community in a town I love more than I ever thought it was possible to love a place.

Of days and nights with Bennett and Summer and of the amazing feeling I know comes from loving something so much you’ll literally give up your whole life for it.

Bennett knows the feeling. My grandma and my dad. And if this really is happening, soon, so will Clay and I.

Dr. Masterson’s voice is soft and confident and matches the smile I know is already on my face. “Congratulations, Josie. It looks like you’re going to be a mama.”

My mind races and zooms and turns over on itself with elation and consideration and fear and joy.

I’m pregnant .

Now, I just have to figure out how to tell Clay.