Chapter 22
"She's always been so proud of you, Vanessa." Zoe taps me on the back. "I remember when you told me about your perfect report card in the third grade and how she took you to buy a jump rope."
I rest my forehead on the coarse blanket that covers the hospital bed. I can't lift my head to respond to her. I've been sitting in this wooden chair for the past five hours holding tightly to my mother's hand.
After I'd met with Jonah yesterday afternoon, I'd come to the hospital for my shift. I had taken the vital signs of a boy they had pulled out of the Hudson River who was going to be fine. I'd helped stitch up the forehead of a young man who had decided it would be a good idea to jump off the roof of a house in Queens onto a pile of worn mattresses he found in a dumpster. I had laughed with a couple who passed through the ER on their way home with their newborn baby wrapped snuggly in a car seat, and I had held onto Ben's arm for support when an ambulance brought my mother in just as I was walking out the entrance to go home.
"You should go home," I say quietly into the air. "You shouldn't be here, Zoe. You should be resting."
"I'm not leaving." Her voice is firm and unyielding. "I won't go."
"I'll be fine." I twist my neck to the left to look up at her. "I have so many friends here. I'm not going to be alone."
"Do you want me to call Garrett?" She reaches towards me. "Give me your phone and I'll call him to tell him what's going on."
"No." I reach down to my pocket. "I don't want him to come here."
"He would want to be here, Van." She pulls on my ponytail. "He'll be upset that you didn't tell him."
I haven't told Zoe about Garrett's response when I tried to tell him about what my mother did. "You don't understand, Zoe. Things aren't great between us right now."
"Why not?" Her voice is barely more than a whisper. I have to strain to hear her. It's as if she thinks that we're going to wake my mother even though I've already explained to her that Ben sedated her so she could rest.
"I don't want to get into it right now." I rub my hand across my forehead. "I only have the energy to deal with my mom right now."
She nods. I can tell she's not completely agreeing with my decision, but she's not arguing against it, so I take that as a small victory.
"Go home, Zoe. You've been here most of the night" I reach for her hand. "I'll text you in a few hours."
"You promise me that if anything changes, you'll call." She pats her purse. "I'll have my phone with me all day. I can be back here in fifteen minutes."
"I promise." I squeeze her hand. "Go get some sleep."
She leans as far forward as her stomach allows before she kisses me softly on my cheek. "She's going to be okay, Van. She's a fighter."
She is. I watch her walk out of the room before I turn back to look at my mother. "Don't leave me yet, mom. Please, please don't leave me."
***
"There's an available bed on the fifth floor." Ben touches my mother's arm softly. "I'm going to admit her. She needs to stay for at least a few days. We have to clear that congestion out of her lungs."
"It's pneumonia again?" I already know the answer to the question. It's the very same ailment that landed her in this same hospital nine months ago. It's not uncommon for someone with my mother's condition to face this.
"It's not nearly as bad as it was last time, Vanessa." Ben punches a button on her heart monitor. "She'll bounce back from this in a few days."
"You always take the best care of her." I look up at him. "Thank you for sticking around to watch over her."
"There was no way I was going to leave when one of my favorite patients was on her way in to see me." He smiles. "I'll handle the admitting and then I'll take off. You should too."
I glance down at my watch. It's now past noon. I've been here almost twenty-four hours. "I start another shift at three. I'm going to sleep for a couple of hours in the staff lounge and have a shower. It's easier than going home."
"I got another nurse to switch with you. Your next shift isn't until eleven tonight."
"You're kidding?" I'm relieved and I know it shows. "I'll go home then. I'll be back before tonight to check on her though."
"Can I offer a suggestion?" He falls in step beside me as we walk out into the corridor.
"What kind of a suggestion?" I pull my hair free from the messy ponytail I shoved it into when I started my shift. "About my mom?"
"About Garrett." His chest expands as he pulls in a deep breath. "I told him about your mom. He's been texting me non-stop for hours about it. Give him a call. Tell him she's okay. Tell him you're okay too, Vanessa."
I can't chide him for sharing with one of his closest friends. "He hasn't texted me at all."
"He said that he's trying to give you some space to work through some stuff," he explains. "He also said that it's killing him to do that. He misses you. I've never seen him this crazy about a woman before."
Chapter 23
"Well, hello." A blonde haired man extends his hand towards me as I step off the elevator. "What can I do for you?"
"You can take your hands off of her." Garrett rounds the corner, a stack of file folders in his hand. "Get away from her. Now, Bruce."
I laugh at the voracity of his tone. I look back at Bruce. "Bruce, is it?"
"You're Vanessa, aren't you?" He holds out his hand again. "I've heard a lot about you."
I shake his hand lightly as Garrett steps closer. "Vanessa, you look beautiful. Wow."
I look down at the simple t-shirt and jeans I'm wearing. I'd wrapped a colorful scarf around my neck and had left my hair down after I showered. After listening to Ben talk about Garrett's concern, I decided that a visit to his office was in order. Talking things over on the phone was too impersonal. I wanted to see his face.
"You're busy." I touch the edge of the folders he's holding. "I didn't come at a good time."
"I have a short meeting." He turns to look at Bruce. "Take these and go up. Tell them I'll be five minutes."
Five minutes isn't long enough to begin to explain things to him. On my way home from the hospital, Jonah had called. He wanted to reassure me that things were in place for my meeting with the detective. The police want to see me as soon as possible so Jonah and I are going in tomorrow morning as soon as my shift is over. Jonah had given them the broad details of my situation, and they'd assured him that they'd consider everything in carefully.
"Come to my office." Garrett holds out his hand. "We can talk in there."
I wind my fingers through his as we walk past countless people all sitting next to desks. Some are speaking on the phone, other are typing away on the keyboards of their laptops. Not one of them looks up as we pass.
"In here, Vanessa." He guides me into a large office with a breathtaking view of the city. "I'm so glad you came."
"I wanted to see you in person." I look down to where my smartphone is in my hand. "I didn't want to call. I need to tell you some things."
"How's your mother?" He leans down slightly so we're at eye level. "Ben said that she was brought to the hospital."
"She'll be fine," I say through a sigh. "She'll stay a few days but Ben says she'll be okay."
"I'm so glad." He wraps his arms around me. "I was worried."
"I spoke to your friend. I talked to Jonah."
"Yes." His gaze narrows as he pulls back to look at me. "He told me you were there. He said it went well."
"It did. I want to tell you about it. I need to tell you."
"I want that." He glides his lush lips across my forehead. "I'm going to go do this meeting and I'll be back down here in fifteen minutes. Can you wait for me?"
I glance at my watch. I have time. I'll go to the hospital after I'm done here to check on my mom and then back home to sleep until I need to leave for my shift. "I'll wait. I want to talk."
"It killed me inside to not be the one to help you, Vanessa." He cups my face in his palms. "I need you to understand something before I go to my mee
ting."
"What is it?"
"I only want to protect you." He takes a heavy breath. "I want you to have the best legal advice money can buy. Jonah is the best. He will help you and your mom, regardless of what's happened."
"He's helping." I pat him on the shoulder. "I'm going to talk to the police tomorrow."
"I can come with you." He traces a line over my eyebrow with the pad of his thumb. "I'll come with you. I can wait outside the interview room if you want. I just want to be there."
It's an offer that touches me deeply. "I'd like that. I want that."
"We'll talk about it when I get back." He leans down to rest his forehead against mine. "I'll go do this meeting, and then I'll be back. You won't move from this spot."
"I'll stay. I'll be right here waiting for you."
***
"Can you tell me where Garrett Ryan is?" I ask a middle-aged woman who is sitting at a desk outside of Garrett's office. "I need to tell him something."
"You're Vanessa, aren't you?" She stands quickly. "Garrett talks about you all the time. You're as pretty as he says you are. I'm Donna. I'm his assistant."
"Thank you." I pull my hands together to stop them from shaking. "I need to talk to him. My mother…she's in the hospital, and I just got a call that I need to go back there."
"Oh no." Her hand leaps to her chin. "Is it serious?"
"I'm supposed to wait for Garrett in his office, but I need to go."
"I can tell him that you had to leave." Her eyes dart around her desk. "Or do you want to leave him a note?"
"I can text him." I look down at my smartphone. "I'll text him to explain."
I type out a simple message, explaining to him that the nurse in charge on my mother's ward called to tell me to hurry back. I press send.
"Dammit." Donna points towards his office when the sound of a smartphone chime fills the air. "That's his phone. Let me call up to the conference room to see if he can come back down."
I don't have time to wait. I want to get back. I didn't get any concrete details from the charge nurse on the phone but I know enough to read between the lines. We don't call family back to the hospital, unless things are grave.
"I'm just going to go." I point towards the elevator. "Please tell him to call me when he's done."
She nods as she speaks into the phone. I hear her say something about Garrett as I race past her desk towards the bank of elevators at the end of the hall.
Chapter 24
"Why the hell are you here?" Connie grabs onto my scarf the moment I step out of the lift. "You tell me what you're doing in this building."
I try to push her off of me, but her grip is too firm. "Let me go. I have to go."
"Were you here to see Garrett?" She pulls on my elbow with her free hand. "Did you finally tell him who you are?"
"I'm not telling you anything." I push against her chest. "What I tell Garrett is none of your business."
"You haven't told him because of that woman who raised you. That's the reason, isn't it? You're trying to protect her."
I stare at the faces of the people passing by us in the lobby. Some turn briefly to look at the two of us, but most continue on their way, oblivious to the scuffle that is taking place right in front of them.
"No," I counter. "I'm not talking to you about this."
"I wish you would have stayed away," she hisses the words at me. "Everything was better when you were gone."
"I wouldn't have stayed away if I knew then who I was." I pull on her fingers, trying in vain to dislodge her grip on my arm. "I wish I could have seen her before she died."
"I took care of her before she died." Her eyes float over my head. "I was the one who helped her get into bed because she was too weak. I was the one who rubbed her back after she vomited half the night. That was me."
"It should have been me." The words leave me before I have time to consider them. "I'm a nurse. I could have taken care of her better than anyone else."
"That's not fair." She finally drops my arm. "I did everything I could for her. I sat there for months watching her slip away."
"I'm sorry." I don't know what type of education she has, but I doubt that it's in medicine. She lacks a basic sense of compassion I can instantly spot in my co-workers. "I know it couldn't have been easy."
"My life hasn’t been easy since that day in the park." Her mouth thins. "Everything changed that day. It never was the same again."
"A lot changed for all of us that day." I try not to sound completely annoyed by her inference that her life was somehow impacted as deeply as mine when I was taken from my family.
"I was at the park with my mother that day." She finally drops my arm. "I was sitting on a bench. I saw the entire thing happen."
"You were too young to remember any of that." I study her face. I doubt that she's more than a few years older than me. Her memory of that day can't be rooted in fact. It has to be born mostly of fiction. She's likely listened to our mother retelling the story time and time again and her young mind picked out the parts she felt were most substantial.
"I was eight that day, Charlotte. I can tell you every detail of that day. I'll tell you exactly what you were wearing. I'll tell you how much mother cried for weeks after that day."
"Don't." I put my hand out to stop the words, as much as to ward off her vindictiveness. "I don't want to hear about it."
"Do you want to read about it?" She pulls an envelope from the bag that is slung over her shoulder. "My mother wrote you a letter. Do you want to read that?"
My eyes scan the plain business sized envelope. It's sealed and thin. It can't contain more than a single piece of paper. "Is that the letter from her will?"
"I knew you'd come sniffing around the estate." She waves the envelope in the air. "You heard about this? I was bringing it up to Garrett's office for safe keeping."
"I don't believe you." I try to sound as sincere as I can. "Why would you have that envelope?"
"It was in mother's desk. She locked it away in a drawer." She holds it in front of her. "Leif found it when he was cleaning it out. He insisted I bring it to Garrett."
I stare at the elegant handwriting. It's Charlotte's name. "You could have written that."
"Why the hell would I write a letter to you? I wish you had stayed missing."
"Give it to me." I hold out my hands. "I have to go. I want you to give it to me."
"It doesn't belong to you yet." She dangles it between her fingers. "You have to jump over a bunch of legal hurdles before Garrett will give it to you."
"You can give it to me. You know that I'm Charlotte." I'm almost sobbing. I need to go to the hospital but I can't tear myself away from this spot.
"I don't know if I should."
"I want to have it." I reach towards her.
"If I give you the letter, will you stay away from us?"
"What?" I try to grab hold of the envelope but she's too quick. She hides it behind her back. "Give it to me."
"You're going to be twenty-five on the 26th of January. I'll inherit everything the day after that."
"My birthday is the 4th of February," I push back. "I won't be twenty-five until then."
"No, Charlotte." She takes a step closer to me. "You were born on the 26th of January."
I feel my bottom lip tremble. Even my birth date has been a lie. "I promise. Please. I'll stay away forever. You can have everything. I just want the letter."
"I'll make your life a living hell if you try and claim a dime." She pushes on my shoulder. "I will make you regret it."
"Give me the letter," I spit out. "Just give it to me."
"Here." She laughs as she tosses the envelope into the air between us.
I scramble to catch it but the crowds of people heading toward the elevators get in my way. I fall to my knees, wanting to scoop it into my hands before anyone steps on it.
I hear the faint sound of my smartphone ringing as I rip open the seam of the envelope. I feel people pushin
g against my thighs as I rest on my knees in the crowded lobby of the building, there's a hand on my shoulder but I ignore everything.
I carefully unfold the paper. I see the name Charlotte written in beautiful handwriting at the top of the note and I read each word carefully and slowly until I reach the last line.
I hear Garrett's angry voice calling Connie's name. I look up.
"She can't be Charlotte." His arms are flying through the air over her head. "She would have told me. She wouldn't keep something like that from me."
"She's Charlotte. Get a DNA test if you want. You'll see that I'm right." Connie points down at me. "I gave her the letter our mother wrote to her. She doesn't want anything else."
"I told you weeks ago that she's not Charlotte." His voice cracks as he turns to face me. "Tell her, Vanessa. Tell her that you're not Charlotte."
I don't answer. I can't find any words that will satiate his frantic need to understand why I've hidden this from him.
"Vanessa," he repeats my name. "Say something. Please, just say something."
I stare back down at the letter as I dart my tongue over my bottom lip.
"My mother gave me away that day. She dressed me in a pretty dress when I was a baby, put her rope bracelet on my arm and handed me to a stranger in the park because she didn't want me anymore. She just didn't want me anymore."
Thank You!
Thank you for purchasing and downloading my book. I can’t even begin to put to words what it means to me. If you enjoyed it, please remember to write a review for it. Let me know your thoughts! I want to keep my readers happy.
For more information on upcoming series as well as updates, please visit my website, www.deborahbladon.com. There are book trailers and other goodies to check out.
If you want to chat with me personally, please LIKE my page on Facebook. I love connecting with all of my readers because without you, none of this would be possible. www.facebook.com/authordeborahbladon
Trace - Part Two Page 7
