“Ever thought about having a sister who won’t talk to you? Who treats you like she wishes you weren’t there? Ever thought about that? Know how many phone calls with Mom on this trip have ended with talking about how I’m doing? Zero. Like, zero. It’s how’s Ruth. Always. Think about how many times she goes to bed without worrying. None. You do realize that, don’t you? And it’s sure as heck not because of me.”

I can’t shut up.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve been trying to do this trip? For you? Every time I’ve tried to … but when someone else talks to you, if I said it, then it wouldn’t … why can’t you do just this one thing for me? Just once? Why do you not see … why doesn’t this storm matter to you, or the ships? Why doesn’t our box? Our Treasure Hunts? All our Treasure Hunts?”

It’s like I’m speaking past the years and years caught in my throat. We haven’t stepped into the rain, but my face is wet.

“Why don’t I matter?”

And there it is.

All of it. Everything I’ve been holding in, bursting from me as raucous and tumultuous as the rain bursting from the clouds.

The air hangs between us like a minor chord. Like a camera shutter left open.

I let my words and my hurt bore into Ruth. I will not look away.

But her gaze isn’t fighting me back. Her eyes are unfocused. Her forehead looks clammy and there’s a strand of hair sweat-stuck to her left temple.

Her throat clutches.

And then her pupils flip back under her eyelids.

And she slips, slips, slips down to the edge of her pillow.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My fault.

We’re in the hospital waiting room.

I’ve got my camera bag clutched to me. Not intentionally. It was a survival mechanism, an instinctual response, to grab it and hold it tight on our drive to the hospital.

When it happened, I called Ellie and Eddie. I could barely talk. Eddie called an ambulance. Ellie rode in the ambulance with Ruth. Eddie and I followed in the RV, Eddie silently white-knuckling the steering wheel, the shock and roar inside me louder than any storm.

Now the three of us are in the waiting room: Eddie, Ellie, and I.

Ellie says Ruth is starting to wake back up. Ruth was moaning. Now we’re waiting for the doctors to tell us what’s wrong. To tell us how bad it really is.

And it’s all my fault.