Page 5 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

It was a mistake.

Before she could say even a little bit of what was in her heart, a swarm of nurses and techs came running into the small, one-window room that was both her jail and her home. All of a sudden, voices were demanding to know what she’d done to her port and was this girl bothering Scarlett and would they like them to remove her so she could take a nap—

“I’m not ababy,” Scarlett said, fearful lest her new friend get the wrong idea.

“No, you’re not. But your vital signs are all over the place, so I think it’s best if we let Chrissie get on with her visit to her brother, don’t you?”

Chrissie.Even the girl’s name was perfect, like a whisper that slipped off the end of the tongue.

“Please don’t take her away,” Scarlett begged. She cast her biggest, saddest eyes up at Nurse Penny, but it was no use. The girl—perfect Chrissie with her perfect hair—was already retreating toward the door.

“You’ll come back,” Scarlett said—not as a question but a plea. She clawed like a wild animal to get out of bed, but Nurse Penny had already put something into her IV to make her sleepy. “Tomorrow, Chrissie. Promise me. Promise me you’ll visit.”

She couldn’t hear Chrissie’s response, but the girl nodded so seriously that Scarlett felt sure she could count on her.

People who looked that seriousalwayskept their word. They had to. After all the cancer and pain and goodbyes, promises were the only thing they had left.

Chapter ThreeBurns, OR

Present Day

They drove less than three hundred miles before stopping for the day.

“At this rate, it’s going to take us twomonthsto get to Vermont, not two weeks,” Chrissie grumbled. She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and prepared to help Scarlett hoist her eighty-pound luggage out of the back. She had no idea what her friend had packed to make her vintage Louis Vuitton trunk so heavy, but she suspected bricks.

“Hopefully the masonry kind instead of the cocaine variety,” she muttered to herself as she took one end of the suitcase and lifted. Scarlett, never one to break a sweat if she could possibly help it, immediately dropped her own end. It was only through the quick reflexes borne of hours of butterfly drills with Kat’s volleyball team that Chrissie managed to avoid toppling over.

“What’s that about cocaine?” Scarlett asked. She looked wholly unconcerned with the bulbous dent now gracing the bottom corner of a piece of luggage Chrissie suspected was worth more than her first car.

Scarlett glanced around the unpaved parking lot of a town that looked like the setting for a low-budget horror movie and frowned. “Ifit’s party drugs you’re after, I think we might want to look elsewhere. I doubt you can even buy full-strength aspirin in a place like this.”

“Scarlett, your beautiful trunk!” Chrissie cried.

“Forget it.” Scarlett waved a negligent hand over the destruction. “It was always a bulky, pretentious piece of luggage anyway. I only bought it because I had grand visions of the two of us boarding a steam packet in our old age and traveling across all four oceans, sipping martinis as we flirted outrageously with men young enough to be our grandsons.”

“That’s a weirdly specific dream.” Chrissie gripped the handle and started dragging the suitcase toward their roadside motel. In the same map-navigation-only spirit of adventure, Scarlett had made her promise they’d stay at non-chain lodgings—the more authentic and dilapidated, the better. “What changed your mind?”

The negligent hand became an airy one. “Oh, you know. By that time, we’ll be teleporting ourselves places and printing clothes from kiosks on the street corner. No one will carry any bags at all.”

Scarlett planted her hands on her narrow hips and scoured the streets for signs of life. Other than a murder of crows picking at the corpse of what appeared to be a raccoon, they had the town to themselves.

“Hmm,” she said. “If we can’t have street drugs or illicit liaisons with young men, what else do you think there is to do around here?”

For once, Chrissie had an answer ready to go. “There was a sign for hot springs a few miles back. Crane something?” She rubbed the back of her neck with a rueful grimace. “I hate to seem like a poor spirit on day one, but I could use a long, hot soak right about now. This trip would have been a lot easier when we were young.”

“Chrissie, we’re thirty-four, not eighty-four.”

“It’s not my fault. I’m not used to sitting in one place all day.” She hesitated only briefly before adding, “Besides, heat helps dilate vesselsand promote blood flow. It’s very good for you—forus, I mean.”

“Fine. I’ll go sit in an old person’s bathtub with you, but only if we smuggle in a few bottles of red wine.”

In a perfect world, the debate would have stopped right there. Unfortunately, Scarlett didn’t believe in a perfect world. She didn’t even believe in thepossibilityof one—a heathenish outlook that her grandmother would have eschewed at the outset.

“You know you don’t have to take care of me, right?” she said. “Turn off whatever’s doing all the worrying and enjoy yourself.”

Chrissie sighed. Sometimes—just sometimes—she wished Scarlett didn’t know her quite so well. “It’s my natural mom instinct. Sorry. I’ve been gone less than one day, and I already miss Kat. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Scarlett had her arms around Chrissie before either one of them knew what had happened. The soft cashmere of her embrace was nothing compared to the warmth of her. Scarlett hugged the same way she gave attention—with the full force of her personality.