Page 91 of What We Break
"Reid..."
"I'm serious. I know what it's like to lose someone you love. If your dad needs you, you go. We'll figure out the rest."
I search his face. Waiting for the flinch, the tight jaw, the tell that says he's just telling me what I want to hear. But there's nothing. He means it. He'd let me walk out that door without a single guilt trip or passive-aggressive sigh.
Which, naturally, makes me want to stay even more.
How is that not the most annoying thing in the world?
Then the guilt rolls in. Right on schedule. I should be with my family. That's what a good daughter does, right? My parents gave up everything. Stability. Comfort. A normal life. All of it, handed over so they could serve others. And here I am, hesitating because I have a boyfriend and a fiddle leaf fig.
But here's the thing. No matter where I live, it won't be near my parents long term. They're nomads. Always the next project, the next community, the next church in some town I can't pronounce. Am I supposed to follow them around the globe forever? Just trailing behind like a lost piece of luggage?
They would never ask that. Never. Not once. That's not the kind of life they want for me.
"I still might need to go," I say, but with less urgency now. "Depending on what the tests show."
"I know. And if you do, we'll handle it."
Reid presses a soft kiss to the top of my head. "Come on. Let's get you something to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Come on, that toast is long gone. That's not enough. Especially notwhen you're stressed." He stands up, pulling me with him. "I'll make some lunch."
"Reid, you don't have to?—"
"I want to." His hands curve around my face, thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. "Let me take care of you."
Don't cry because a man wants to feed you, Mitchell. Have some dignity.
In the kitchen, Reid moves with barely contained energy. Cabinet doors open and close with more force than necessary. Pots clang together. He mutters something about my "tragic lack of spices" which is pretty funny coming from him.
He can't fix my Dad. Can't fix the distance or the fear or the helplessness. So he's feeding me. Giving his hands a job.
"My parents have never lived anywhere with good medical care," I say after a while. "When I was a kid, we were always in these remote places where the nearest hospital was hours away."
Reid glances up from the can opener. "That must have been scary."
"I broke my arm when I was eight. Fell out of a tree at this mission compound in Cuba." I can still feel it — the sharp crack, the way my forearm bent at an angle arms aren't supposed to bend. "The closest orthopedic surgeon was a six-hour drive. Mom held me in her lap the whole way, singing hymns to keep me calm."
"Six hours with a broken arm. Jesus." He's shaking his head, but his hands keep moving — chopping, stirring, doing. "That's brutal."
"Yeah. Dad kept apologizing, like it was his fault for bringing us there." I watch Reid's hands. Steady. Confident. "That's what I keep thinking about. What if Dad needs surgery they can't perform there? What if something goes wrong and they can't get him the help he needs?"
Reid abandons whatever he's building and comes to sit beside me, pulling my chair closer so our knees touch. His hand finds mine on the table, fingers intertwining.
"Tell me about the medical situation where they are now."
He's asking me to assess. Analyze. Use my brain instead of drowning in the what-ifs. Smart man.
"Cambodia's better than some places we lived, but still..." I shrug. "The hospital in Siem Reap is decent for basic care, but if he needs cardiac surgery or intensive care, they'd probably have to evacuate him to Bangkok or Singapore."
"Have they had to do medical evacuations before?"
"A few times. There was this missionary family we knew in Papua New Guinea — the dad had a heart attack in the middle of nowhere. Took them eighteen hours to get him to a real hospital." I lean into Reid because I can't not. "He lived, but barely."
Reid's arm tightens around me. "Your dad's going to be okay."
