LITMIR.BIZ

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you still appreciate me when I tell you that I called your mom?”

      “You talked to my mom?” The back of her head pounded like someone had smashed the abstract art frame against her head.

      Eddy squeezed the wedding ring tattooed around his ring finger like he always did whenever doubt seized him. “She needed to know.”

      “That I’m fine,” Mia added.

      “That you’re in the hospital and working toward being fine,” Eddy clarified.

      “You told her everything?” Everything would only make her mom worry. And her mom already made a worrywart sound like an optimist. The throb extended around to Mia’s temples and stabbed.

      “I explained that you had a diving accident during a filming session.”

      That was more than enough for her mom to book the first flight from New York to San Francisco. Almost seven hours in the plane for her mom to fret about how Mia should live her life with less risk. To strategize about how Mia could still express her passion for saving the wildlife by donating to charities rather than camping out in the wilderness as if she was a native. Seven hours for her mom to torment her already high-strung nerves into a full-blown anxiety attack over Mia’s refusal to make a big difference in the world from behind a nice, secure cherry-stained desk.

      Mia grabbed her phone and texted her mom, stalling any flight confirmations and keeping her mom at home, where she’d always been the calmest. Still, Mia had to finish her film and get back to her life before her mom arrived to turn Mia’s world inside out. “I’ll deal with my mom later. I just need the laptop now.”

      Eddy tilted his head and studied her, his curls shifting as if to emphasize his internal debate. “You can watch Shane’s footage from Sunday on your phone.”

      “I don’t want Shane’s edited version.” Mia motioned toward the laptop bag that sat on the floor. “I want to watch all of it.”

      “You need to concentrate on healing, not reliving the accident.” Eddy made no move to pick up the computer bag. “It wasn’t easy for us to review.”

      That was Eddy’s sensitivity to blood and hospitals talking. Besides, she already relived the accident every time she closed her eyes. Every time she fell asleep. If she watched the footage, maybe her dreams would find new content, instead of replaying the same thing. “We’re going to need new footage to finish the film.”

      Eddy’s gaze skipped away from her, but it wasn’t the pus and ooze chasing off his focus this time. It was doubt. Doubt that Mia could get new footage. She’d never seen Eddy second-guess any of her father’s decisions. He’d never questioned her father’s ability to get even the most difficult shot.

      But Mia wasn’t her father, and Eddy made that fact more than clear when he said, “We need to wrap it up with what we have and just be done.”

      She wouldn’t just be done until she finished the film to her father’s standards. Nothing else would ensure his legacy. Nothing else would ensure the recognition and accolades her father had always coveted in life. Nothing else would ensure her mother’s lifestyle remained the same just like she’d promised her dad. “We’ll be done when it’s finished like my father expected and it’s worthy of the Fiore name.”

      Eddy stiffened. “You sounded like your dad just now.”

      “Excellent,” she said. Yet confusion creased into the edges of his eyes and uncertainty tipped his chin down. Her friend still doubted her. So be it. She’d become who her father had planned for her to be and prove Eddy and everyone else wrong. “I’d think the more like him I am, the better for all of us.”

      Eddy set the computer bag on the bedside table. “Just be careful you don’t lose yourself in your father’s ghost.”

      Her father wouldn’t be a ghost if she’d stepped further out of her comfort zone. Only the lazy and uninspired curl up in their comfort zones, Mia. I raised you to be more than that. Now she had to be more to keep from disappointing anyone else. “I’m upholding the Fiore family legacy.”

      Her duty as an only child was to continue the Fiore filmmaking tradition as her father had always envisioned. Her responsibility as the only Fiore child was to take care of her mother just as her father had always done. Just as she’d promised him she would.

      Eddy pulled a smaller leather case from the paper shopping bag he’d brought in and dropped it on her lap. “The guys and I got you something.”

      Mia unzipped the top and gaped at the digital camera tucked inside. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

      “Take pictures. Open your creative mind,” Eddy said. “It’ll be a good distraction while you’re here.”

      Her creative mind was open and ready to finish the final documentary in her father’s acclaimed series. Her creative mind was already at full capacity with her film work. Art must always send a message that impacts many lives, Mia.

      Pictures of IV lines, needle containers and hand sanitizer hardly impacted lives. Portraits wouldn’t pay the mortgage on her mother’s house. Unless, of course, those same pictures were taken in the aftermath of a bombing in the Middle East. Yet she wasn’t in Syria and Bay Water Medical wasn’t inside a war zone. Photojournalist wasn’t her job title. Neither was photographer.

      Besides, only her body had been damaged in the accident, not her mind. Not her creative side. She ran her finger along the zipper, the uneven edge matching the uncertainty knotting through her. What if she’d lost something more precious like her passion? Not possible. More than just her livelihood relied on her finishing this film and securing new contracts. “You expect me to take pictures? Here?”

      “It’s a camera, Mia, not a bow and arrow.” Eddy swatted at the air as if annoyed by a pesky mosquito, not his good friend. “We aren’t suggesting you have target practice out in the hallways.”

      No, it was worse than that. Her friends suggested that she betray her father’s memory by wasting her time with still photographs. “What happened to crossword puzzles and books to fill the time?”

      Eddy grinned and walked to the door. “Have to think outside the box to keep the creativity lines open.”

      He’d quoted her father. But her dad had meant with film work. With the important work that touched many lives. With the film work that supported her mother all these years. The soft knock on the door followed by the cheerful greeting from her physical therapist saved Mia from correcting Eddy’s misconception. She set the camera bag on the rolling table and pushed it away, along with her doubts.

      Time to concentrate on therapy and exercise. Walking without pain. Moving without pain. There was nothing wrong with her creative mind. Nothing that a camera could fix. The hospital walls compressed in on her. The bland, dull paint made everything stark, barren and exposed her uncertainties. Clearly, she’d been alone with her own thoughts too much. She needed breathing space. “I want to walk the entire floor today, not just this hall.”

      “How’s your pain?” Robyn unclipped several of Mia’s monitors.

      “Tolerable,” Mia said. Numbness and pain wouldn’t interfere with her therapy. She had to prove she’d made progress, and that had to start now. With every hour she remained inside Bay Water Medical, her resolve leached into the pale walls like blood into white carpet.

      “We’ll take it slow and easy,” Robyn said.

      “We can stop at the nurses’ station,” Mia suggested. “Take stock. Turn back or keep going.” She had no intention of returning to her room until she’d walked every linoleum-covered inch of the third floor.

      Mia managed to cover only one hallway before she leaned against the nurses’ station and tried to wrestle her pain back into submission. Another physical therapist accompanied a woman. Her pure-white hair and the unsteady grip of her hands, all knuckles and veins, on her walker betrayed her age even though

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