A Deceiving Passion

A Ghost

Lindsey had been nonresponsive for a few hours, but once he was in the hospital, he was beginning to come to, he was able to move a little bit better; he was definitely slow with everything however.

He groaned, doing what he could to get up.

Amarice flew up when she heard him and she nearly yelped, "Dad?"

He looked over and he sighed, "What happened?"

"You drank on an empty stomach... You know you can't do that, dad, you're hypoglycemic."

"I had a sip..." he explained. "I forgot..."

She wiped her tears.

"What the hell?" he complained of the intravenous drip.

"They thought you were just drunk when they brought you in and Eli had to bang into their heads that you weren't. He gave you some juice but you weren't reacting..."

He looked over and he extended his arm out to her, "I didn't mean to scare you, I'm sorry."

She walked over and she embraced him, ever so vulnerable with him.

He kissed the top of her head and he swiped  the back of it, patting her upper back.

Pulling away, she wiped her tears.

"Don't cry, baby, you know I'm fine."

"I know," she nodded.

"Where's Rhea?" he then wondered.

"Lance took her out. Aunt Lori and Aunt Sharon left to Greenland and when Eli found you, Karen panicked... We didn't want to tell Rhea. So everybody's just getting their bearings on. They said you could leave tomorrow morning. We're gonna switch out before they don't allow anybody in, Lance will have your clothes. I'm gonna take Rhea to my place and tell her we're having a girls' night in," she explained.

Though he nodded, he shifted uncomfortably as he closed his eyes again. "You didn't have to go through all that trouble... You could have told her the truth."

"Yeah, but she would have freaked out. The idea of you being in the hospital just a year after mom's gone missing..."

He opened his eyes to look at her.

"We're all tender, dad... We still feel raw from losing mom and obviously we're not doing well."

"You should tell your aunts to just come back..." he explained. "There's no point anymore."

"Daddy..." she sighed.

"I'm tired of everybody traveling back and forth and coming back without her. If she would have had the capacity, she would have come back already... We would have found her that very same week. Authorities in Greenland aren't going to do much at this point but humor us..." As he spoke, tears formed in his eyes and he tried hard to fight them, but he couldn't.

He couldn't possibly fight them after a year of holding them back; all he wanted to do was breakdown. He wanted to just vanish as his wife had.

"It's been a full year of silence and I'm tired..."

"I know," she sniffled and she leaned in in order to hug him, comforting his tears. "Just let our aunts do what they have to do and we'll tell them not to go back. But they have an appointment with somebody from the investigators team."

He nodded. "Unless they have any kind of real lead, I don't want to hear about it."

"I'll make sure," she agreed with him.

~~

As Sharon and Lori were getting acquainted in their hotel room, they began opening their suitcases, getting a little more properly dressed for the cold weather by layering their clothing.