by Nancy Adams
When Sam was halfway along the corridor, he could suddenly make out Marya’s screams above the racket of the alarm. Ahead of him, he saw several medical professionals running into Marya’s room and his heart sank.
When he reached the room, Sam saw that Jess was standing several meters behind the doctors as they tried to calm Marya, the little girl’s teddy bear dangling from one of her hands. Sam instantly jogged across the floor and scooped up Jess in his arms, the tired and forlorn little girl nestling herself into her father’s shoulder. Marya instantly darted a look at Sam as she sat up in bed.
“Where were you?” she exclaimed loudly in a voice that sounded odd.
“She can’t hear,” Jess whispered into Sam’s shoulder.
“Please, hold me, Sam,” Marya pleaded up to him.
“Can I?” Sam asked one of the doctors.
“Of course,” the doctor replied standing to one side. “There’s nothing we can do, I’m afraid. We were trying to get your wife to wear an ECG cap so we could record her brain activity—”
“What would be the point?” Sam interrupted.
“To record the changes in her brain activity and know how long before—”
Sam waved his hand at the man and the doctor stopped speaking. The rest of the medical staff then stepped aside for him, and Sam dropped Jess onto the bed, the little girl letting go and wrapping her arms around her mother. Sam then sat down beside them and placed his arms around Marya, the poor woman crying into him.
Meanwhile, with nothing left to do, the staff began leaving the room and passed a solitary person standing at the door.
It was Claire.
She had followed Sam out and was now watching the heartbreaking scene of the family with an element of her own hopelessness creeping over her. As one of the nurses walked past her, the woman leaned into Claire and whispered, “She won’t last the night. If I were them, I’d take that kid away. This is no place for a child.”
The nurse continued on her way out of the room as Claire stood gazing across at them with teary eyes, and, as she did, Marya suddenly gazed across at her and the two women’s eyes met. Marya immediately smiled at her friend and the smile broke Claire into a million pieces, forcing her to run out of the room.
Marya merely sighed, closed her eyes and buried her numb body into her husband and child.
CHAPTER FIVE
Claire ran all the way out of the hospital, down into the basement carpark to her car. When she was sitting inside, Claire immediately burst into the most wretched tears, banging her hands down on the steering wheel in rage. She had gone against so much of her own values to be with this man. She had dropped her guard completely, told him about the most terrible secret that she held in her heart, a secret that not even Beth, her best friend, knew. And they’d been close ever since fourth grade. She had allowed herself to be swept along in the current of infatuation and for that, she had become deceitful toward everyone she knew. No one knew of her affair with Sam; she was completely alone in her turmoil.
Just then, Claire’s phone went off in her handbag. She reached across to the passenger side and took it out. When she checked the screen, she saw that it was Beth.
Wiping the tears from her face, she answered in a trembling voice, “Hey, Beth.”
“Hey, girl,” came Beth’s exuberant voice on the other end. “You sound really low. What’s up?”
“Oh, Beth!” Claire let out before bursting into tears. “I’ve done something terrible,” she continued to sob into the phone. “Something unforgivable.”
“Hey,” Beth cooed. “It’s okay. I’m sure there’s nothing that you’ve done that is that serious, is there?”
“Can we meet up?” Claire asked. “I can’t speak about it on the phone.”
“Okay,” Beth said, her voice more serious now. “Can you come to my apartment?”
“Is Will there?”
“Yeah, but I can get him to leave.”
“That would be good, because what I’m about to tell you can’t be shared with anyone, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Beth replied. “But you’re worrying me now.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in fifteen, put the kettle on.”
“I’ll do better than that, I’ll open a bottle of wine.”
Claire put the phone down and wiped her teary eyes. Toward the end of the conversation, her sobbing had abated slightly. Hearing Beth’s familiar voice on the other end of the line had filled her with a sudden resolve. She would share everything with her best friend and finally have someone to turn to about this mess that she was in.
She would no longer be alone in it all.
Soon, Claire was pulling up outside Beth’s apartment. When she left her car and was approaching the front steps, she suddenly heard the sound of Will’s bassy voice. On reaching the foot of the steps, she looked up and saw him placing his coat on and being gently pushed out of the door by Beth.
“Okay,” he was complaining, “I got it. I gotta leave the apartment so you girls can talk. But I don’t see why you gotta shove me out like this.”
“Sorry, Will,” Claire said from the bottom of the steps, making Will instantly freeze and turn to her.
“Hey, Claire,” he smiled. “You good?”
“Of course she’s not good,” Beth snapped in his ear. “Does she look good?”
Will turned to his girlfriend and shrugged, “Sorry. I was only asking.”
He then shoved the other arm into his jacket and pulled it over his shoulders with a shrug.
“Well, I’ll be going then,” he said, smirking.
“I don’t mean to get you kicked out of your own place, Will,” Claire said to him as he passed her on the stairs.
“It’s cool,” he smiled to her. “You two talk. I’m gonna go to O’Rileys and have a couple of beers and a few games of pool. You take as long as you want.”
With that he left, and Claire ascended the stairs to meet her friend’s warm hug at the top.
“He’s a good guy, really,” Beth whispered into Claire’s ear, referring to her long-suffering boyfriend.
“You’re lucky,” Claire whispered back.
Having greeted, the two girls went inside Beth’s apartment, and while Claire took a seat on the couch, Beth went to the kitchen and opened a chilled bottle of Sancerre and got two glasses from the cupboard. Beth then sat on the other end off the couch, pouring them each a glass and handing one to Claire, who immediately slugged it down in one for courage, set her glass down on the coffee table in front of them and nodded to Beth to pour her another.
“That bad,” Beth remarked as she poured her friend a second glass.
“You’ll know just how much in a minute,” Claire said.
Once Beth had poured the fresh glass, she sat back, took a sip of her own wine, and gazed across at her trembling friend.
“You know, in the ten years that we’ve been friends,” Beth began, her eyes settled upon Claire’s forlorn figure, “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to look so sad.”
“I lost my virginity last night,” Claire suddenly let out, in need of the confession's release.
Beth opened her eyes wide.
“And that's made you so sad?” she exclaimed to Claire.
“He’s married,” was Claire's next confession.
Beth was stunned. She had known nothing of her friend’s transgression. They had spoken every day for the past month—in fact, Claire had slept over only the last weekend—but at no time did Claire mention anything or did Beth consider that her friend was romantically involved with anyone. Beth was fully under the impression that Claire was busy in her voluntary placement at the ward for the terminally ill in the Mary Magdalene hospital, Denver, not running around with married men. When they'd spoken recently, the only thing that Claire had informed Beth of were a few snippets of information about her time at the hospital and no more.
“Is he one of the doctors?” Beth asked after a second or two of silence.
&nb
sp; “No.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Beth let out. “At least you’re not jeopardizing your career before it’s even started.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Claire admitted, picking up her glass of wine and taking a sip.
“How so?”
Claire finished her sip before announcing in a trembling voice, “Because it’s a patient’s husband.”
Again, more shock, and Beth sat with her mouth open as Claire stared forward into space.
Claire had always been the good one. At school, it had been Beth who’d had all the boyfriends. As for Claire, she had merely had one, Jimmy Boyne. On prom night, Jimmy had wanted to take Claire to bed, but the girl had refused because she was so chaste. This Beth knew through Will, not Claire; her boyfriend being good friends with Jimmy. Indeed, whenever Beth would mention sex to Claire, her friend would go all red and refuse to talk about it.
But here she was, sitting beside Beth, confessing to her that she was sleeping with the husband of a dying woman.
“This patient,” Beth began, wanting to make sure, “is she dying?”
Claire visibly trembled at the question before opening her mouth and saying, “Yes, she is.”
“C-l-a-i-r-e,” Beth let out slowly. “Sweetheart, how did it happen?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Claire admitted. “I got talking to his wife one time and we became friends. It was then that she asked if I could stay with them up on the floor that they'd taken. I agreed and the hospital transferred me up there with her. Then, as the days went by, I began talking to the husband. He was so upset by it all, and he'd become so distressed at times that he'd need to leave the room, unable to see her suffer anymore. On one of the occasions, I was present and followed him out. We ended up going into one of the side rooms for a coffee and got talking. At first, we just talked about nothing, but as the days went by we began talking freely about everything, until our meetings were a regular occurrence. At first, I just wanted to help him, give him a shoulder to cry on. But then I began leaning on him as well. I began telling him all about my hopes and dreams, why I wanted to be a doctor, all of that crap. He would give me insight into it all and I found him a really wise ear.”
“Wiser than me?” Beth suddenly asked with a playful frown.
“Okay, perhaps not wiser, but older, and someone who was real smart. I found myself looking forward to our meetings, putting on perfume in the morning so that he’d notice me, doing my hair nicely, waking up half an hour before my alarm went off, just because I couldn’t wait to see him. I’d never felt that way before.”
“Who is he?” Beth wanted to know.
Claire hung her head between her shoulders and, without turning to face her friend, she said, “Sam Burgess.”
The name hit Beth like a flaming bullet.
“Oh! My God!” she exclaimed, her mouth opening wide as she glared at her best friend in shock. “The fucking billionaire technology tycoon!?” she asked in an incredulous tone, leaning toward her friend as she did.
“Yes—the fucking billionaire technology tycoon.”
“I mean, my God!” Beth let out, placing her glass back down on the coffee table and frowning as she did. “You couldn’t have picked any other guy to go sleeping with while his wife lay dying? Someone who didn’t perhaps have at least a hundred cameras pointed at him at all times?”
“Please, Beth,” Claire pleaded, breaking into tears, “I need support.”
Beth’s stern look suddenly melted and one of benevolence replaced it. She moved forward and took Claire in her arms, pulling her forlorn friend into her like a mother.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Beth cooed to her. “I guess you just caught me off guard, is all. I didn’t mean to be so blunt. It’s just I could’ve never believed that you’d find your way into such a mess. It was me that dropped out of high school with no grades. It was me that left home at eighteen to live with my boyfriend in this crummy apartment. It’s always me who makes the stupid choices and you who goes through life with such determination and purpose. I guess it shocks me to be the one not screwing up for once.”
“I love him,” Claire suddenly sobbed into Beth. “I really love him.”
“That’s even worse,” Beth admitted to her friend in a soothing tone.
“I know. I’ve never felt like this in my whole life.”
“Oh! Sweetie!”
“It’s so cruel. I’ve fallen in love with someone that I’ve started a relationship with based on sin. I told Brother Keane about it last Sunday.”
“What, that you were having an affair with Sam Burgess?” Beth exclaimed.
“No, not any details, just the basics.”
“What’d the old fart say?”
“He told me to break it off immediately.”
“Wise advice,” Beth remarked.
“I was going to, but then he invited me away from the hospital for a day or two. He had some business to attend to and was going home for a couple of days. He asked if I’d like to join him on his reserve.”
“His reserve,” Beth let out gently to herself.
“And I simply let go of everything and said yes. We went away in his helicopter and back to his house.”
“What was it like?”
“His house?” Claire enquired.
“Yeah.”
“He and his wife designed it themselves. It’s built into the precipice of a cliff with a giant glass wall at the front looking out over the whole valley. Behind the place runs a waterfall with another glass wall looking out at it. Underneath roars a river that then spreads down through the valley.”
“Wow!” Beth uttered. “So what happened then?”
“We ate dinner on a picnic blanket at the top of a cliff and talked until the sun went down behind the mountains. Then it got cold, so we went inside. It was then, in his lounge, after a few glasses of wine, that I told him things that I’ve never told another soul.”
“Not even me?” Beth asked.
Claire slowly turned her head to face her friend.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a withered tone, “you know how private I am and there’s things about me that I just think are better kept away from our friendship. I don’t want you to look at me and see anything other than your best friend.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. I shouldn’t have interrupted, you. Go on.”
Claire smiled at her through her tears. Beth was always so good to her, so willing to forgive her any indiscretion, always willing to accept that there were things that her friend didn’t tell her and that she should simply leave it at that, not push Claire to places that she wasn’t prepared to go.
“Anyway,” Claire continued, “I hadn’t even really thought that I would sleep with him. I guess I was kidding myself or something. But no sooner was the moon hanging in the sky, shining through the glass facade of the house, than we were on the floor rolling around on a sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. It all just felt so right and I simply flew away with him.”
Claire went silent as she recalled their sweet, delicate lovemaking in front of the fire, all alone in the house, how soft and gentle he had been, knowing parts of her body yet to be discovered by herself. It had been then that he had taken Claire upstairs, picking her up off of the sheepskin and carrying her in his arms up the flight of marble stairs that led to his bedroom. There they made slow, passionate love for an hour before falling asleep in each other’s sweat-drenched, quivering arms.
“So afterwards,” Claire went on after the brief pause, “we fell to sleep in bed and I was awoken in the night by him getting up. I didn’t let on that I was awake and just waited to see what he was doing. Beside me, he sat up in bed, before getting out. I then watched in secret as he walked up to the glass wall, stood in front of it and looked out at the starry night, a full moon shining brightly in vanilla rays hovering in the sky…”
Claire paused, the next part upsetting her the moment she thought of it.
“Do you
know what he did next?” Claire asked, turning to her friend.
“No,” Beth let out, fixed on Claire’s sad expression.
“He began crying. I watched as he cried at the moon like a lost little boy. Crying because he’d betrayed his wife and child with me. He didn’t know that I was watching, but it made me feel terrible, Beth. I felt so alone and so horrible then that I didn’t recognize myself anymore.”
Claire's tears erupted and Beth caught ahold of her even more tightly than before, comforting the poor girl in her arms.
“It’s not your fault,” Beth observed to Claire. “This prick has done a number on you and his wife, and now he’s got you feeling all sorry for him. Fuck him! Keane was dead right, you should have had nothing to do with him, but you shouldn’t feel like you were guilty in anything more than not letting go of your feelings. Sure, you shouldn’t have gone to his place, but he’s clearly got you under his spell.” Beth let go and then took Claire’s face in her hands, gently bringing it level with her own. Looking into Claire’s eyes, Beth said in a solemn tone, “This is something that builds character, sis. You’ll look back on it all one day and laugh—heck, we’ll both laugh out loud over a couple of glasses of wine when you’re a doctor and I’m running my own bar. It will be one of those lessons that you learned and a secret that we’ll share—how you once had an affair with one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. But for now, you gotta leave this guy alone, okay. Is his wife still alive?”
“Yeah,” Claire replied.
“And you think he loves her?”
Claire raised her eyes to Beth and solemnly said, “I really believe he does, Beth.”
“Then you leave them to get on with their final moments. Call in sick tomorrow—after all, you’re only a volunteer doing this so that you’ve got something to put on you résumé. You’ve got, what…a week left?”
“Yeah.”
“So call in sick. They’ll understand and, if he’s got any decency, so will this guy. You leave it all alone from now on, walk away, get on with your life and forget all about Sam Burgess.”
“Yes,” Claire burst out. “That’s exactly what I thought. I just needed some support. I’ve been so alone in it all.”
