“Right.” His gaze held hers for a long moment. “It must have been so hard for you. Being married to Cliff. All that attention.”

“I handled it. We were talking about you.”

“Yes. Sorry.” He pushed his empty plate away. “You make plans when you’re a teenager. That’s what people do. But no one tells you that sometimes things just happen that are outside your control, that some decisions can be hard and sometimes plans need to change.” His gaze met hers. “I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t unsettle me, talking about this with you. It’s as if time has jumped backward.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “What happened, Nate?”

“My dad had a heart attack.”

She felt a thud of shock, quickly followed by compassion. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Mel didn’t—”

“She didn’t tell you? She was probably trying to be sensitive. Worried that it might be all too raw given what happened to your dad.”

“It hurts. It will always hurt, but you find a way to live alongside it. But we were talking about your dad.”

“His heart stopped—SCA, sudden cardiac arrest—while he was helping the athletics team at the school. He’d complained of feeling breathless earlier in the day, but otherwise there was no warning. He dropped, right there on the track, but fortunately they had a defibrillator and they used it.”

Joanna could smell the chicken. It was ready to serve. The heat needed to be turned off now. But listening to Nate was more important than producing a perfect meal. “He survived?”

“Yes. It was Greg who saved him. Greg who was standing next to him when it happened. He said my father was chatting away one minute and the next he was on the floor with no pulse, not breathing. He grabbed the AED—”

“The defibrillator?”

“Yes. Used it. Had to shock him twice. But he got him back. That doesn’t always happen. We were lucky. Lucky Dad collapsed right there, where there was help to be had. Lucky that Greg was—is—so calm and steady.”

“How awful for you, and for your mom and Mel.” She kept hold of his hand. Tight hold.

“He was in the hospital for a while, and when he came home he was focused on eating well and exercising—doing all the things the hospital had told him to do. Reduce stress was one of them. No more long hours in the café. Mom couldn’t handle the extra load, and anyway, she wanted to care for him. I was working as a surf instructor in Europe. It was a way to travel and earn money. I came back.”

“Of course you did. That’s what family does.” She felt a pang, because she had no family who would drop everything for her, and no one who needed her to drop everything for them.