Rewrite the Stars by Christina Consolino (classic fiction TXT) 📗

ago, and I’ll admit...I even called Sadie to talk about in-patient possibilities—”

“You did what?” I rose, ready to punch not Doc, but the wall, the door, the chair, whatever I found in my path.

“Hey!” Doc got up from her chair, palms facing me. “Hold up. I didn’t speak to her. She never returned my call, and I admit, I dropped the ball. But now, I need to speak with her.”

“Not yet. Let me talk to her first.”

Doc tapped her chin with her finger. “Okay, I’ll give you until after you return from vacation. Is that fair? We can hold a virtual session or two while you’re gone, but check in with me when you return, and if you haven’t spoken to her about your feelings, and even if you have, if you’d be best in hospital, that’s where we’re going.”

My vacation plans had veered in a direction I didn’t want them to go. Such was the state of my life.

Chapter 19: Sadie

 

Kettering sat about fifty miles north of the Ohio-Kentucky border, while Walloon Lake was nestled almost the same distance south of the tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. With three kids and a front-seat passenger who might need to take frequent breaks, I wasn’t sure how much time the journey would take or how many hours it would feel like it took.

The strum of the tires against the pavement lulled me into a false sense of security. Inside the car, with the radio on low and Theo and the kids asleep, it was easy to imagine this vacation would be like any other Walloon vacation we’d taken in the past. Lexie would point out the taxidermy on the walls of the gas stations where we stopped, and Delia would clamor for snacks from Ann Arbor to Elmira. Nonstop talking from Charlie—about the merits of Petoskey stones—would begin about the time we turned onto Evergreen Road. While Theo had proven beyond measure that Walloon Lake vacations agreed with him, this time, based on the reason for booking this vacation, my confidence waned.

After our third stop in five hours, discontent engulfed me. Little things jumped to my attention: the dust covering the dashboard; the large amount of paper receipts left in the console; Theo’s snoring drowning out my beloved alternative music. I pushed away at the minor annoyances and tried to concentrate on the passing landscape—barren, the skeletal trees projected foreboding—but even there, the poor driving skills of the truck to the right of me drew my attention.

With a quick shake of my head and a roll of my neck, I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. When had I become so focused on the negative?

A slight shuffle from the passenger seat alerted me Theo was awake, with sleep still trying to hold his eyelids shut. Dragging my gaze back to the road, I waited for him to speak.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Traffic okay?” Theo shimmied his shoulders against the back of the car seat—an attempt to get more comfortable.

“Yeah. You need anything?” While the snack bag and drinks sat nearer to his feet, I was used to asking that question. As for the seat belt and the lack of circulation he was sure to be experiencing—something that might tip his irritation off—there was nothing to do.

“No, I’m good. Thanks.”

The angle of the road shifted enough, and the muted afternoon sun sliced into my eyes. One more little aggravation that took on monumental proportions the longer I sat in the car. Envisioning the quaint houses lining the streets surrounding Walloon Lake helped my ire dissipate. “Remember when we looked at the cottage on East Street? The one with the three bedrooms and front porch?”

We’d considered purchasing a piece of property near the foot of the lake, but once Theo’s symptoms set in, we pulled back on any extra expenditures in case we lost insurance coverage or another emergency emerged. A short vacation once or twice a year was no trouble; purchasing a second home constituted a grandiose dream that had to be shelved, at least for the interim. And now with an impending divorce....

“I do. It would be nice to have that house right now though. We’d come up here whenever and however often we wanted to.” Theo’s voice sounded wistful, as if he longed to be somewhere else in his life, and I imagined he did. What would he say if he knew I did too?

“Sure, but what about your treatment? Another doctor might not want to take you on.” Pausing, I pursed my lips because of my mangled words, somewhat annoyed Theo had woken, and he had started this conversation in the first place. “You know what I mean...I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. It’s just that, you’d miss Doc.” The dust motes on the dashboard caught my attention once again.

Theo chuckled, and the vestiges of his old self rang out loud and clear. “We’ve been together long enough. I knew what you meant and didn’t take it any other way.” He awkwardly patted my knee once, a sign that he stood behind his words. But how long had it been since Theo had performed such a gesture? And how did I feel about it? Truth be told, I felt nothing beneath his touch, and that realization—

“Charlie! You can’t do that!” In the few moments Theo and I had been speaking, Charlie must have woken and erected a mountain of pillows that blocked my view out the back window.

“Sorry, Mom.”

I tried to catch his gaze in the rearview mirror. “It’s okay. I need to see out the back. Just keep the pillows down, all right?”

“Okay.” He lifted his arms above his head and cracked his back, a motion I’d always loathed. “Are we there yet?”

“Hush! If you say it loud enough, Lexie will wake, and that’s all we’ll hear for the rest of the trip.”

Charlie nodded once and grabbed his most recent acquisition from the library—the next book in the Percy Jackson series—and within minutes,