the tub was emptied, so would her emptiness go.
Johanna clenched her hands until she felt her nails dig into her flesh. She wanted to live, damn it. If Harry was killing her off by inches, making her feel useless, worthless, then Harry was her cancer, just like her mother had had cancer. Except that she was going to cut it out. Cut it out and live.
It was as if something mystical had happened in that steam-filled bathroom, as if a hand had touched her shoulder and cleared her mind. She was still Johanna Lindsey inside, still the same woman she had always been. But she had woken up to her surroundings. She had just been sleeping, benumbed by a stronger drug than Harry was taking.
No more. She was not going to let herself be a prisoner of love, or of past dreams, or of anything else. She was going to be free of it, no matter what it took.
She was going to take charge of her own life.
Johanna shuddered as she picked up the razor from the floor. What she had almost done came back to her in vivid terms. Suddenly, she saw her mother, her blue bathrobe sprawled out in a half circle around her, discolored with blood, her own blood. She had looked so alive, yet so lifeless.
It wasn’t going to happen to her. She was going to fight, goddammit, fight to regain her right to be happy.
She walked back into her room and turned on the light. She wanted light, no more shadows, no more darkness. Sitting down on her bed, she picked up her phone and called a familiar number.
A muffled male voice answered. “Hello?”
“Daddy? Daddy, it’s me, Johanna.”
There was a slight pause as Jim Lindsey collected himself. “Joey?”
She closed her eyes, pulling in strength from his voice. Her father had always been so strong. “Yes.”
He sat up, immediately alerted by the strange tone in her voice. It was breathless, as if she had been running a long way.
And she had, she had been running from death.
“Joey, is anything wrong?”
“No,” she quickly assured him, “everything is all right. Now. I just wanted to call you, to tell you that I love you.”
“Joey, tell me what’s wrong.”
She couldn’t tell him what she had almost done. It wouldn’t be fair. He had lived through so much. He had been the tower of strength for three frightened little girls, hiding his own grief and being both mother and father to them for all these years. In the last part of his life, he deserved only the best. She vowed not to give him any reason to grieve. It was a vow she now knew she could keep. That in itself gave her hope.
“Nothing. I just miss being in the States, miss seeing you.
“You’re welcome to come here any time you want, Joey, you know that. I never get enough of seeing you and my only granddaughter.”
Johanna smiled. It was so wonderful hearing his calm, deep voice. He had chased away so many fears for her as a child. He had never been impatient, never short with her. His work as a pharmacist in the small town they had lived in had been demanding. But no matter how busy he was, no matter how tired, he always had time for her, time for Mary and for Laura. He was the kind of father she would have wished for Jocelyn.
“I might be home sooner than you think,” she told him.
He caught something in her tone, but let it pass. Johanna would tell him in her own time. Although the most cheerful of his three children, she was also stubborn and couldn’t be hurried. It was her spirit he had always been proudest of.
“How’s Harry doing?”
“The same.” She let her voice go flat. “I think it’s over, Dad.”
She knew it was, but thought to begin gently with her father. Jim Lindsey was old-fashioned and believed in marriages lasting until the end of time, like his own had. He had never remarried after her mother had died. He said he would always have a wife.
“Are you sure?”
She shifted, waiting for the discomfort, for the sorrow to seep in. It didn’t.
“Pretty much.”
He knew how much Johanna had loved
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