So, as Sara had many times throughout the day, she found herself back at the same point she’d started at this morning. The twenty-four-hour clock had been reset. Jared had survived the surgery. Only time would tell if he survived the infection.
Sara put the magazine back on the table. She’d read the same celebrity gossip story three times and still couldn’t follow the details. She was in some sort of weird fugue state. Yet again, she regretted the large scotch she’d had earlier that evening. Self-medication was never a good idea, but stress, alcohol, and thirty hours straight without sleep were a lethal combination. Sara had all of the hangover and none of the buzz. Her head ached. She was jittery. The fact that Sara knew when she was drinking the scotch that she was making a huge mistake only added to her misery. Her only consolation was that she hadn’t ordered another one after talking on the phone with Will.
There was a conversation she wished she’d never had. Either Sara was a very cheap drunk or their relationship wasn’t heading in the direction she’d thought it was. Her desperate sexual enticement had gone over like an IRS audit. Thank God she hadn’t told him that she was in love with him. She could only imagine how embarrassing it would’ve been to have her pronouncement met with complete silence. Will was obviously pulling away. Sara had either done something or said something wrong. He was probably relieved she hadn’t asked him to make the drive down. Or up. Or over. Sara still had no idea where he was.
She was just glad that he wasn’t here.
And she fervently wished that she wasn’t, either.
Sara couldn’t sit anymore. She stood up and stretched her back. The vertebrae felt fused together. Polite smiles greeted her around the room. She walked into the hall for some privacy.
The lights were dimmed in deference to the late hour. Possum was exactly where she’d seen him thirty minutes ago. His back was to Sara. He stood at the closed doors to the ICU, looking through the window. He couldn’t see into Jared’s room from that angle. The cop was in his line of sight. Sara could tell the vigilance was grating on the young man. He kept glancing at Possum, then looking back at the nurses’ station as if the poor woman could help him.
Possum could barely speak to Sara—not out of rudeness, but because every time he saw her, his eyes filled with tears. She didn’t know whether he was crying over the loss of Jeffrey, the threat to Jared, or the unbearable combination of both.
Sara just knew she was sick of being here.
She went to the elevator, then decided the stairs would at least give her some exercise. She needed some air, to be in a room that wasn’t stale with fear and tragedy. And she should probably have a conversation with herself about Will. Maybe she’d been blind to the deeper truth behind his silences. Sara had never told Will that she loved him, but then Will had never told Sara the words, either.
In her experience, the simplest explanation was usually the crappiest one.
Sara went down two flights before she saw a pink and blue sign. The maternity ward. She gladly took the detour. Whenever she was having a particularly horrendous day at Grady, she would go look at the babies. There was something so reassuring about watching brand-new eyes blink open, toothless mouths pucker into a smile. Newborns were proof that life could not only continue, but thrive.
Sara guessed not many people would be there at this time of the morning, and she was right. Visiting hours were well over. There was no nurse to send stragglers away. No one had bothered to lower the shade over the large windows so the babies could sleep in peace.
The dimmed hallway lights cast a warm glow on the rows of bassinets. The newborns were all wearing pink or blue knit hats. They were swaddled tightly in matching blankets. Their little faces were like raisins, some of them so new that their heads moved gently side to side, as if they were still floating in the womb.
Sara pressed her forehead to the window. The glass was cold. One of the babies was awake. His squinty eyes scanned the ceiling. Colorful cartoons were painted overhead—rainbows and fluffy clouds and plump rabbits. This was more for the parents than the babies. Newborns were extremely nearsighted. The basic eye structures were there, but months would pass before they learned how to use them. For now, the ceiling art was a pleasant blob.
The door behind Sara opened. She turned, expecting to find a nurse coming out of the bathroom. Instead, it was Lena Adams.
She had a tissue in her hand. Sara could see the dismay when their eyes met, then something like resignation. Lena headed toward the elevator.
“Wait,” Sara said.
Lena stopped, but didn’t turn around.
Sara instantly regretted the word. She didn’t know what to say. Was she sorry? Certainly, she felt bad that Lena had lost the baby. But that didn’t change what had come before.
All Sara could manage was, “You don’t have to leave.”
Slowly, Lena turned. She didn’t acknowledge Sara. Instead, she walked over to the viewing window. Her fingers rested on the edge of the sill. She leaned her forehead against the glass, the same as Sara had. She seemed to wall off everything else around her. There was something so tragic about the way she looked at the newborns. Her longing seemed to pierce the glass.
The familiar sense of trespass took hold. Sara opened her mouth to take her leave, but Lena didn’t give her a chance to speak.
“Is he the same?”
“Jared?” Sara asked. “Yes.”
Lena just nodded, her eyes still trained straight ahead. She moved her hand to her stomach, pressed the palm flat.
Again, Sara struggled against the instinct to offer comfort, to spin the situation in a more positive light. In the end, she couldn’t summon the energy. Somewhere in the pit of her chest, there was the capacity to feel compassion for this woman. Sara felt it stir occasionally, like a car engine trying to start on a cold day. It would rev and rev, but eventually, it always sputtered out and died.
Again, Sara tried to leave. “I should—”
“I never realized they were so small.” Lena’s features softened as she watched the newborn in front of her. “It must be scary to know how fragile they are.” Her breath fogged the glass. She seemed to be waiting for a response.
“You learn what to do.” Sara had grown up around babies. She couldn’t imagine a life without them.
Lena said, “I’ve never held a baby before.”
“You don’t have cousins?”
“No. And I never babysat or anything.” She gave a low laugh. “I wasn’t the kind of teenager people trusted with their kids.” Sara could imagine.
Lena stuttered out a long sigh. “I didn’t think it was possible to love something that needed me so much.”
“I’m sorry,” Sara said. “For what it’s worth.”
“For what it’s worth,” Lena repeated. “Nell doesn’t hate me so much anymore.”
Sara had felt the change, too, but she wasn’t sure it would last.
Lena said, “It was better when she hated me. I knew how to deal with that. We both did.” She turned her head to look at Sara. “It’s like she thinks losing the baby makes me a better person.”
Sara weighed the words, trying to decipher her motivations. Lena wanted something. She always wanted something.
“Thank you, Sara.” Lena turned back to the window. “I knew I could depend on you to not feel sorry for me.”
Sara needed to leave. She couldn’t muster her old hatred right now, but she knew she could be persuaded. “I should check on Possum.”
“It kills him every time he sees you.”
Sara couldn’t argue with that. “Still—”
“Did you get my letter?”
The letter.
Four years ago, Sara had opened her mailbox to find a handwritten letter from Lena. Sara had shoved the sealed envelope into her purse. She was late for work. She didn’t want to read it. Neither, apparently, did she want to throw it away. For almost a year, the letter had traveled around with Sara. To work, to the store, to dinner, back
home. She moved it when she switched purses. She saw it every time she pulled out her wallet or searched for her keys.
Lena was studying her. “You read it.”
Sara didn’t want to admit it, but she said, “Eventually.”
“I was wrong.”
“Really?” Sara asked. The letter was three pages from a legal pad. Three tedious, tearstained pages filled with excuses and lies and blame shifting. “Which part were you wrong about?”
“All of it.” She leaned her shoulder against the glass. “I knew Jeffrey would come save me. And I knew that I was putting his life in danger.”
Sara felt her face start to flush. Her heart was a bird trapped in a cage. She had waited so long to hear this admission, this validation, and now all she could think was that Lena was working an angle.
Lena said, “You can’t light a match, then act surprised when your house burns down.”
Sara worked to keep her tone even. “You tried to warn him.” At least Lena had said as much in the letter. She’d devoted four lengthy paragraphs to her regret that Jeffrey simply would not take her sound advice. “You said you told him to stay away.”
“I knew he wouldn’t.” Lena stared openly at Sara. “I should be dead now, not him.”
Sara didn’t buy the sudden conversion. She tried to trick Lena, quoting the words Jared had told Nell. “He knew the risks when he put on the badge.”
“You think Will feels the same way when he goes to work?”
From nowhere, Sara was seized by the impulse to slap Will’s name out of her mouth. He’d investigated Lena almost two years ago when she’d let a suspect die in custody and stood by as another cop was stabbed nearly to death. Sara had been more disappointed than Will that he couldn’t make the case stick.
She told Lena, “The only thing you know about Will Trent is that he almost sent you to prison.”
“Almost.” Lena’s lips teased into a smile. The mask was starting to fall. “You know what I remember about my time with Agent Trent?” There was a strange lilt to her voice. “Seeing that he was already lost in you. And you’re in love with him, too, right? I can see it in your face. You were always so good at being in love.”
Sara shook her head. Now she could see where this was going. “It doesn’t make up for it.”
“You’ve obviously moved on,” Lena told her. “Both of us have moved on.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Lena. I had to move on because my husband was murdered.” Sara bit back the venom in her mouth. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“No matter what you think, I’m not a bad person. I let myself believe that for a long time. I let you convince me I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t worthy enough.”
“Well, I’m so sorry,” Sara quipped. “Please tell me how I can make it up to you.”
“You’re going to find out eventually that I’ve changed.”
“You haven’t changed. Neither one of us would be here if you had.” Sara struggled to keep the bitterness out of her tone. “Everything is always a game to you. What we’re doing right now is a game. You never walk away. You never let anybody get the upper hand. You think you’re a good cop, but you don’t care about the job or anyone else who’s doing it. You just want to make sure that you win no matter what it costs.”
Lena smirked. “Whatever you say, Doc.”
“I’m not doing this.” Sara started to walk away.
“I can’t believe I used to be jealous of you.”
Sara turned, mouth open in disbelief.
“Your family. Your life. Your marriage. Everybody in town respected you. Worshipped you.” Lena shrugged. “And then I realized one day that I didn’t want to be like you. Couldn’t be like you if I tried. No one can. You’re too perfect. Too demanding. Nobody can meet your high standards. Jeffrey couldn’t.” She shook her head, as if she genuinely felt sorry. “Will doesn’t stand a chance.”
For a moment, Sara was too stunned to speak—not because of what Lena had said, but because she’d so masterfully turned the conversation.
Sara said, “You want me to feel guilty for moving on with my life?”
The smirk on Lena’s face said it all. She echoed Sara’s words from before. “Now you know how it feels.”
Sara asked, “Are we going to do this now? Are we really going to do it?”
“Aren’t you scared I’m going to win?” Sara crossed her arms, waiting.
“All those years I wasted thinking you were better than me. Poor Sara, the tragic widow. And then I find out you jumped right back into the saddle with the first cop you could find.”
Guilt flooded Sara’s senses. Lena had always been a shark who could smell even the tiniest drop of blood in the water. “That’s not how it happened.”
“That’s exactly how it happened,” Lena shot back. “You’re just a fancy piece of trim. You know that?”
Sara laughed, relieved that was the worst of it. Trim was slang for women who slept with cops. “And?”
“You know what you loved about Jeffrey? That he took risks. That he went out there and beat down anybody who got in his way.”
“Is that all you have?”
Lena stepped closer. “You never would’ve given him the time of day if he was just some pussy who let everybody else fight his battles.”
“You mean like you?”
Lena pursed her lips, the only indication that she’d heard the words. “I saw the way you used to look at him—your hero. Your big, tough cop. I bet it’s the same way with Will. Funny how you just slotted in one cop for the other. Wonder how Jeffrey would’ve felt about that?”
Sara shook her head, as if the blows weren’t landing. “Is this going somewhere?”
“You wanted Jeffrey out there fighting the good fight. You loved it when he swung his dick around, kicked ass, and took names. Lemme tell you something, Sara, he took risks because you wanted him to. You got some kind of cheap thrill out of pushing him to the edge. I gave him a place to go, but you—you—were the one who rewarded him for it.”
“Shut up,” Sara snapped. The cut was too deep. “Just shut up.”
“Doesn’t feel so good, does it? Being blamed for something you couldn’t control.”
“This conversation is over.” Sara tried to walk away, but Lena grabbed her arm. “Get your hand off me.”
“I thought we were doing this.”
Sara jerked her arm out of Lena’s grasp.
Lena said, “You always think you’re so damn smart, but you can’t even see what’s right in front of you.” She gave a surprised laugh that echoed down the empty hallway. “Hey, I guess you make mistakes after all.”
“You think I don’t make mistakes?” Sara’s voice shook with rage. She could barely restrain herself. “I was the one who told Jeffrey to hire you. I was the one who told him to promote you. I was the one who thought you could do your goddamn job and keep him safe.”
Lena was backed against the window. Sara loomed over her. She couldn’t remember moving, couldn’t understand how her finger had jammed into Lena’s chest or how her hand had clenched into a fist.
Slowly, Lena turned her head, offering her cheek. “Go on,” she said, her voice smooth as silk. “Take your best shot.”
There was a weird tickle in Sara’s feet. She felt as if she was standing at the edge of a bottomless pit. She forced herself to look over Lena’s shoulder at the rows of newborns swaddled in blankets. The cheerful rainbows and clouds painted on the ceiling above them.
Sara couldn’t let Lena win. Not this time. Not like this. She stepped back from the edge. She dropped her hand. She straightened her spine. Sara held up her head as she walked down the long hallway.
Lena asked, “That’s it?”
She just needed to make it downstairs. Once Sara was outside, once she had fresh, cold air in her lungs, she would find a way to put this behind her. The last five minutes were not going to erase the last five years. Lena had no idea what Sara had been through. How she’d str
uggled. How she’d carved out a new life for herself. She didn’t know Jeffrey and she sure as hell didn’t know Will.
The sound of slow clapping echoed down the hall. Sara forced herself not to flinch. Each clap sounded like a gunshot.
“Good for you, Doc.” Lena clapped louder. “Ride your high horse right on out of here.”
Sara didn’t turn around. She couldn’t turn around. She’d end up giving Lena the catfight she’d been spoiling for.
She pushed open the door to the stairs. Her hands would not unclench. Sara rounded the landing at a jog. Each step she took only served to ramp up her anger.
Of course Sara had loved Jeffrey because he was tough. There wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t want a strong man in her life. That didn’t make Sara responsible for his murder. She had begged him not to trust Lena, to just once let her hang herself with her own rope. And the idea that Sara could just slot in Will for Jeffrey was preposterous. The two men had nothing in common, except that both of them would’ve kicked Lena to the curb if they’d heard her talking to Sara the way she just had.
Sara almost wept with relief when she reached the main floor landing. She found herself in another dimly lit hallway. There were no stragglers or visitors at this time of night. Sara followed the green line on the floor, knowing it would take her to the elevators, to the exit.
Too demanding.
Too perfect.
If only.
Sara couldn’t stop herself from making mistakes. She was overwhelmed with mistakes. Little ones. Big ones. Life-altering, earth-shattering fuckups had followed her for the last five years of her life, culminating in her drive down to this godforsaken hospital.
Her cell phone rang. Sara didn’t answer. She passed the closed gift shop. Mylar balloons were pressed against the ceiling. The cooler was chained shut. Sara’s phone stopped ringing. Almost immediately, it started back up again. She let it ring out, go to voicemail. There were a few seconds of silence, then the ringing started up again.
Sara checked the caller ID.
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