Page 52 of Starting Back
Florida needed to stay in Florida.
TWENTY
LEO
Two months later
“How about a little heat up in here?”
Gabe rolled his eyes at me as I fiddled with the knobs on the SUV console, leaning backward to feel the warmth running up my back from his heated seats.
“Is your blood that thin now, primo?” Gabe teased.
“I think so,” I said, cramming my hands into the front pocket of my hoodie as we headed to the hospital.
Temperatures in the thirties and forties were average for late September in Upstate New York, but I’d been away from New York and any real shift in seasons long enough to get a chill from the slightest bite in the air. Florida did get occasional cooler days, and we’d all shiver and bundle up as if it were the dead of winter.
“I need you to prepare for what you’ll see.” Gabe’s face was as stoic as his tone as he shot a quick glance at me.
I held back an eye roll. My uncle’s condition was serious enough to tell, not ask, me to find the first flight and get here as soon as possible, but I didn’t need to be treated with kid gloves or condescension.
“I’ve taken care of enough stroke patients to have an idea of what to expect when I see tío Joe.”
“I’m talking about what to expect frombothof them. Mom’s Parkinson’s has progressed a lot more than she’s probably told you.”
I nodded, guilt and anxiety now swirling around in my gut, not because of what I was about to see, but how I should have seen it a hell of a lot sooner.
I’d never gone this long without seeing my aunt and uncle, but I’d been so in my head the past couple of months, even for me, that I hardly saw anyone outside of work, which I did all the damn time.
I’d signed up for extra shifts from both jobs to distract myself from the woman I didn’t want to remember but couldn’t stop thinking about.
We hadn’t spent enough time together for me to miss her this much, but she ran through my mind all the time. Our time together was as amazing as it was short, and when she left, I realized how empty my life really was.
Not just because she wasn’t in it, because no one was—not really. The comfortable distance I’d learned to keep everyone at from a young age didn’t seem so comfortable anymore.
And although I was here on a family emergency, knowing Kristina was only a couple of hours away had gnawed at me since my plane landed.
I had enough to worry about on this trip and shouldn’t have been thinking about her to begin with, the same as I should have deleted her number and the photo of us right after she sent it, taking it as the goodbye she probably meant it to be.
But I couldn’t do that or stop looking at that damn photo.
An ominous hold had taken over me since the call from my cousin. I was about to pay the price for my months-long distraction.
“No, tía Lucia never said anything. She said her hands shake but she’s okay.”
My cousin grunted as we made our way into the hospital parking lot.
“She shakes, she falls, and she’s having a harder time getting words out. Now theybothhave trouble speaking.” Gabe shut off the engine and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Although at least she still can.”
“Shit,” I said more to myself as my head fell back on the seat. “She never told me, but she shouldn’t have had to. I shouldn’t have waited so long to visit.”
He waved a hand at me.
“I didn’t mean to put a guilt trip on you. I asked you to come, and you did without a second of hesitation. And the Parkinson’s progression has been relatively fast, so it’s new and tough to see, even for me.”
I nodded, a little of the tension coiling in my stomach loosening, but the guilt wouldn’t let up.
“They both always seemed larger-than-life.”
