What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 17

Wednesday, August 11th

Bennett

“Jeez, Daddy. Hurry up!” A sigh follows that mouthful of sass, leaving the lips of the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Even though she’s rarely ever on her own two feet, she’s a tiny thing, standing at only three foot five. She loves girlie stuff and sparkles and reality television. Her birth certificate reads Summer Beatrice Bishop, but to me, she’ll always be my Summblebee.

This little girl right here was love at first sight for me. And the past seven years have only made me love her more. Love her more than I love myself.

“I’m moving as fast as I can, Bossy Pants.” I roll my eyes at the annoyed purse of her lips, but I laugh a little at the same time as I unclick her custom-made mobility seat from her wheelchair and lift her up with the carefulness I’d use to carry around an egg made of glass.

God, I hate that she feels lighter in my arms than she did a few weeks ago.

As I walk us from the living room toward the front door, I never once take my eyes off her face, watching like a hawk for the first sign of discomfort.

Once we’re on the porch, the warm wind brushes through her blond ringlets, and her bright blue eyes stare up at me. A cute little pirate’s smile follows, crinkling her nose, and my heart expands inside my chest.

“You’re a total slow-mo today, Daddy,” she teases, her sweet, melodic voice filling my ears as I reach the golf cart I parked near the bottom of the porch.

“I’m a slow-mo?” I question on a chuckle.

“Yeah.” She giggles. “You’re takin’ forevah!”

With cautious movements, I set Summer down into the passenger’s seat of the golf cart, clicking her into the specially made apparatus I had installed a few years ago. She rolls her pretty little eyes at me when I double- and triple-check her safety straps, but it only makes me smile.

“You all set?” I ask, gently kissing her on the forehead.

“Actually, no,” she responds and dramatically blinks her eyelashes toward me. “You see anything we’re missing?” When I stare down at her, confused, she adds, “Perhaps a pair of the prettiest sunglasses you’ve ever seen in your whole life?”

Shit. Seeing as those are one of Summer’s favorite belongings—and something she rarely gets the chance to wear—this is a huge dad fail.

“Sit tight, honey,” I tell her and head back into the house on a jog.

It only takes a minute for me to locate them on the dresser in her room and another minute for me to get back to the golf cart and set them gently on her face.

“Looking good, Summblebee.”

Immediately, a little girl with her favorite pair of heart-shaped pink sunglasses looks up at me with a smile and a giggle. “Thanks, Daddy.”

The sunglasses are still too big for her face, but Summer doesn’t care. She’s been in love with these lenses since she saw them in a magazine and begged me to get her a pair. And since she’s had me wrapped around her finger since the moment I held her in my arms, I scoured the internet for hours until I found an exact replica.

“Now are we all set? Or do you want me to run back in the house—”

“No!” she exclaims. “Let’s go!”

Without delay and before receiving any more eye rolls from Sassafras, I round the golf cart to climb in on the other side. Once I hit the gas, my ears are blessed with the sounds of her excited giggles as we slowly take off.

There is nothing I love more than the sound of her laughter.

Away from the main house, I drive us toward the barn on the other side of the pasture. Summer’s face is the picture of peace and joy, everything I’d want it to be, but I’m terrified like never before.

Yesterday, we went to Burlington for her monthly scans. It’s an important part of her treatment and care, but it is undoubtedly the single most devastating day of the month for me. That’s why I always did the assistant interviews on Tuesdays—I knew we’d be gone, and I knew we’d need something to look forward to on the day after.

It’s been over a year since someone’s attempted to apply for the job, but the sentiments are the same. Summer and I need cheering up.

Two broken ribs, a fractured clavicle, and a severely deteriorating patella are just the tip of the iceberg in the latest complications of my miracle girl’s battle with Osteogenesis Imperfecta Type III. For weeks, she hasn’t even left the damned house. She’s also been tired and in pain, and I swear, it’s getting harder and harder for her to breathe. Just like the season, my sweet Summer is starting to dim.

The doctors have been preparing me for so long—reminding me the time would come—but even the thought of it really happening makes my heart feel like it’s ripping in two.

“You okay, Summblebee?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. For me, knowing how rough these rides are on her body, every time we venture on the golf cart, I’m tortured. For Summer, it’s her joy.

“This is…the best…ever!” she shouts into the wind, her only way of expressing herself since her limbs are all secured.

Despite my misery, I smile. “Guess what, baby girl? I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” Her eyes widen even further with joy. “What is it? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me!”

“Mr. Doug said someone came and painted the barn yesterday, so I thought we’d go see it.” Every week, my groundskeeper Doug checks the barn and lets me know if anyone has come. It’s been a long time since they actually have—so long, in fact, that Doug was nearly out of breath with excitement when he told me this morning.

“Yay!” she cheers. “No one has painted in forever!”

I don’t bother mentioning why they haven’t, or that it’s my fault since I only just bothered to repost the opening for the position on Earl’s board, when I know the other posting has been missing for a year. Instead, I focus on her and the way she lights up when she sees other people’s creations, no matter their skill level.

“I thought you might be excited.”

“Are you kidding? Paint days are my favorite! I wonder what colors they used! I hope it’s pink!”

Pink is Summer’s absolute favorite color. Truthfully, it’s the only color in her eyes. All the other colors don’t stand a chance or ever get selected if Summer has the choice.

I shake my head with a small laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because who wouldn’t hope for pink? Pink is the best!”

“Okay, Summble. You’re right. I hope it’s pink too.”

She giggles again, her eyes rolling back toward the sky, she’s doing it so hard. We’ve always had to be careful since she was born with the worst and most progressive type of brittle bone that a baby can actually survive, but I can’t imagine how she must feel these days, practically—purposely—paralyzed for her own good. When it comes to Summer’s disease, even the simplest of movements can cause a bone fracture. Hell, sometimes—lately, a lot of times—her bones fracture for no reason at all.

She cheers as I pull to a stop right in front of the red barn doors and push the brake pedal to its locked position to keep the cart from rolling at all. I grab her mobility stroller from the back and gingerly lift her—while she’s still strapped into her seat—out of the golf cart and secure her in place.

“Come on, Dad,” she complains when I start doing my usual double- and triple-check thing. “I want to see the wall.”

“Hold your horses,” I chastise with a chuckle. “This isn’t a race.”

“It should be,” she argues. For as long as I can remember, Summer’s been in a hurry. She’s eager and voracious and demanding of both excitement and affection, and because of all those things, she’s impossible to placate. She wants what she wants, and if I’m completely honest, I’ve never even tried not to give any of it to her.

Seven years ago, her mom skipped out as soon as she had her, too selfish to be weighed down by a daughter, especially one in need of extra care, and I did the only thing I could do—turn my life around in a hurry. I cut ties with everyone of questionable influence and moved the two of us to Red Bridge, swearing to myself that nothing—and no one—would ever come between me and what my daughter needed.

Even damsels in seeming distress like Norah Ellis.

I slide open the big red doors and step inside the vacant barn, pushing Summer ahead of me. The sun shines through one of the upper windows and lands right on the wall that is no longer white. Instead, a beautiful shade of pastel pink with hues of orange and yellow and red is now front and center.

I take off her sunglasses, and Summer’s reaction is instantaneous. Mine lingers in my gut like it’s been punched.

“Oh my gosh, Daddy! I love it so much! This is the one! It looks just like the sunset we saw last week on the back porch! Right?”

It does. I wasn’t sure Summer would notice, but now that she has, my stomach churns ten times harder. Every sunset we share together feels like one fewer is left.

Leaving Summer there to admire the wall with excitement, I walk over to the neatly sorted paint cans and clean brushes to see if the paper is there. I barely even glance at it before I’m shocked by a name—Norah Ellis.

Her phone number sits right below it in the same delicate, feminine handwriting.

Holy shit.

I have to blink several times before my brain can fully comprehend how to feel about the revelation.

She’s a pain in the ass, weighed down by complicated baggage, and she makes me do stupid things. In a week’s time, her presence has had me both punching strangers and engaging in the best kiss I’ve ever had.

Norah Ellis is the very last person I need working for me.

“Dad, you have to leave this one up,” Summer continues, her exuberance temporarily knocking me out of my confused stupor. “This way, we can come out here and see that sunset all the time!”

Even though I wish I could erase Norah Ellis and everything related to her from my life, there’s no way in hell I can say no. “Okay, baby. We’ll leave it.”

“Forever?” she asks.

Fuck. “Forever.”

I feel slightly sick as we leave the barn to finish our ride around the property, and by the time we get back to the house for Summer’s daily bathing and evening medications, I’m ready to come out of my skin.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to worry about hiring an assistant while I have so many bigger things to worry about, and how to reconcile that Norah Ellis is the assistant in question.

I want to do right by my sister and my daughter, and I want to be able to afford the care Summer so desperately needs. And for the love of God, I want to stop thinking about that fucking kiss.

In need of distraction, I grab my keys and give a heads-up to Summer and her nurse before taking off for town in my truck.

Less than ten minutes later, gravel crunches beneath my tires as I park in front of The Country Club. It’s not busy, thank fuck, so I know I’ll have immediate access to a stool and a glass of bourbon.

Unfortunately, since this is the only bar in town, I’ll also have a nosy-ass Clay getting in my business. But since I don’t keep booze in my house anymore, if I want a drink, this is what I have to do.

Hawkeyes engaged, the busybody spots me the second I step through his door and makes a dramatic showing of stepping away from the customer and setting his hands on his hips.

“My God. What in the world’s going on? Bennett Bishop in my bar on a Wednesday evening? Must be the apocalypse.”

I roll my eyes and take my seat on a stool at the far end of the bar where no one else is sitting, and Clay doesn’t waste any time trotting over to me.

I swear, he is such a pain in the ass sometimes.

“Well, howdy there, good buddy. What brings you in this time? Get in another shootout with some out-of-towner and spend the day in holding?”

“Give me a glass of bourbon, Clay,” I reply rather than dignifying his stupid shit.

“Wowee, okay, then. Not in the mood for teasing, I see.”

I breathe deeply, and he stands there, waiting.

“Clay. Bourbon, please. Then I’ll consider talking.”

Finally motivated, he obliges, setting a glass in front of me and filling it nearly to the brim with ice and amber liquid. I take one sip, and then another, and that gives me a reason to blame the burn in my throat on something other than Norah Ellis.

Clay is uncharacteristically quiet as I indulge some more, and for some reason, the new strategy proves effective. I start to talk.

“Breezy’s been on my ass about replaceing an assistant again. Says the bills are piling up, and I need to start selling shit so I can keep Summer at home and give her the care she needs.”

Clay nods just once.

“So I put that old ad up at Earl’s again, and someone actually found the damn thing and came to paint the barn yesterday. Summer and I took a ride down there to see it, and for once, someone actually did something worthwhile.”

“Great.”

“Yeah,” I scoff. “Except the someone is Norah fucking Ellis.”

“And?”

“And? We’ve had a lot of shit between us in the short time she’s been here, Clay, and not one piece of it is good. You think it’s a good idea I hire her, make her a permanent fixture in my life? In Summer’s?” I shake my head. It’s the worst fucking idea I’ve ever heard, especially because there was something good—something explosive—in that stupid-as-shit kiss I have no intention of sharing with Clay if the town hasn’t been yapping about it already.

He considers me for long moments that cross into minutes, and I consider nothing but my glass—the condensation that was quick to form on the outside and the taste of the liquor inside.

Visuals of that stupid barn wall and the way Summer’s face lit up when she first saw it dance inside my head. She begged me to keep it forever, and I felt like my heart was cracked in two because of what it symbolized for me.

There’s nothing I want more than to give her everything she wants, and there’s nothing I want less than to feel like I have to because time is running out.

Truth is, some days, I can barely breathe.

“You’re afraid Summer is going to like her, aren’t you?” Clay finally asks, cutting me so deep it bleeds.

I roll my eyes before admitting, “Are you kidding? All that fanciness? She’ll fall in love.”

“Maybe…I don’t know, Ben,” Clay says as softly and as gently as he can in a loud bar. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing, you know? Maybe a little Norah Ellis in your lives is exactly what you need.”

My stomach burns, and my throat feels like it’s closing in on itself.

Maybe a little Norah Ellis in your lives is exactly what you need.

That’s what I’m afraid of.