Fall With Me

to god truth. He winks, then the two leave the room, locking the door behind them. There’s no way my father would pay that much money. Not for me, anyway. Maybe for my brother, Cameron, but there’s no sign of him here, and anyway, he would never let himself get in a situation where abduction would be possible. He’s just not that kind of guy. I, on the other hand, apparently am.
    “Shit,” I say, to no one in particular.
    I’m going to have to get myself out of this one.
     

Chapter 2: Jill
     
    It’s bittersweet, this graduation. I attend because most of my friends are up there on stage, while I’m sitting in the audience. I can’t help but wonder how things might have worked out differently if the accident hadn’t happened. Dad would be alive. Mom would not be in a wheelchair. I would be up there graduating, too.
    Of course, I shouldn’t be thinking like this, and I know it. I’ll graduate next year—hopefully—and then I can still do everything I imagined I would. Get a job, my own place, try to carve out a life of my own. Except I won’t be traveling to any far off city; I can’t leave Mom, even though she’s told me more than once that I shouldn’t let any of this get in the way of what I want to do.
    I get home that evening after celebrating out on the town with my friend, Jessica, and her family, who flew in from the Midwest. Mom’s nurse, Sharon, is on her way out, but she stops at the door and asks me how my day was.
    “It was good,” I tell her. “The graduation was really nice.”
    “It’ll be your time soon,” she tells me. Sharon is slightly heavyset with short, curled blond hair, exactly the way you’d picture a nurse, minus the white uniform and nurse’s cap. “Your mom’s still awake; I think she wouldn’t mind if you stopped in there for a few minutes.”
    I drop my purse on the kitchen table next to a pile of mail. I walk down the hallway and into the living room, which, since the accident, has been converted into Mom’s bedroom. The blinds aren’t closed all the way on the bay windows and the moonlight filters in, casting the room in a milky glow. Mom’s wheelchair sits near the bed like a faithful steed.
    “Hi, Mom,” I say.
    She’s lying in bed but turns her head to look at me. Even though the room is dimly lit, I can see that her eyes have that cloudy look they sometimes get when she’s on her pain medication.
    “Hi, honey,” she says. “How was graduation? I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the ceremony—I really would’ve liked to see you get your diploma. I know how hard you’ve worked for it.”
    I sit in the wingback chair beside her bed. Underneath the sheet and lightweight cotton blanket, her body is little more than skin wrapped around bones. We looked a lot like, my mother and I; before the accident, people used to ask if we were sisters. She always got a big kick out of that, but it was true: she looked great. She did yoga regularly and was training to do her first half marathon. Her vibrant blond hair showed no signs of going gray, and she had bright blue eyes, like sapphires with the sun shining through them. I’d overheard my father say that to her admiringly on more than one occasion.
    “It wasn’t my graduation, Mom,” I gently remind her. “You’ll get to see me graduate next year.”
    “Somehow, I doubt that.” She smiles thinly and sighs. “You should go to bed, sweetheart. It’s late. You’ve got to be up early tomorrow.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’ll miss you.”
    “I’ll be back to visit on Sunday,” I tell her. “I’ll email you pictures, too.”
    “No, I’m glad you’re going down there. It would do you some good to get away. Lorrie and Bill need you. I just wish I could go with you.”
    I’ve been working at Sea Horse Ranch, down in Half Moon Bay, since I was thirteen. My mom’s childhood friend, Lorrie, and her husband, Bill, own it, and they’d hired me one summer to muck out stalls and help take care of the horses. As I’d gotten older, my duties expanded to include teaching lessons, training horses, finally culminating in supervising the teenagers who attended the ranch’s summer camp program. Working there was, in a way, like a rite of passage in my circle of friends, yet they had all moved on; they’re living in places like New York City and Boston as newly minted college graduates, on their way to fulfilling careers. I try not to think of myself as the one who got left