The silence between us grew thick and weighted.
“Hey,” I said after a time. “Don’t let it get to you. You win some, you lose some, right?”
“Not in this business,” she said bitterly. “You win some, you win some. You lose some, you lose your job.” She paused. “I can’t afford to lose mine.”
There was pain behind her bitterness. It was hidden, but it was there. “Is everything okay?” I almost regretted the words as soon as I’d said them. The last time I’d asked her if everything was okay, she accused me of sexual harassment.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her face, her voice… it seemed as if they were carved out of sorrow and despair. Then tears began to fill her eyes, spilling over, tracing a glistening path down her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?” My voice grew soft, intimate. I wanted to reach across the distance between us and wipe away the sadness I saw in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, keeping her gaze downcast. “It’s just… my son. He’s not…” She paused, sniffling back tears. “He’s not doing too well.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” I paused. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She dabbed away the tears with the back of her hand and took a moment to pull herself together. Then she looked at me and managed a smile. A genuine smile that took some of the exhaustion off her face. “No,” she said. “But thanks for asking.”
In the lingering silence, she took one long last look at me before sliding her gaze back to the computer screen.
I left Sadie to her work and returned to the War Room. The minute I stepped into the conference room, Perry demanded gleefully, “Was the Sadist Ice Queen really bawling her eyes out?”
“No,” I said tersely and skewed him with a savage glare. “And don’t ever call her that again.”
Perry shrank back in his seat, and for the next two hours we continued hammering out ideas for the Daisy Diapers campaign, lighting a hundred little fires to see what would catch.
It was close to midnight when Blinky rapped his knuckles on the table. “Booyah! I’ve got it!” he cried. When he was satisfied he had our full and undivided attention, he said slowly, “We could all use a little change.”
Every single person in the room stopped and stared at Blinky like he was a double fucking rainbow.
I paused to let his words sink in. And when they did, it was like music to my ears.
Like Hamlet’s second soliloquy.
The changing of the diapers made it relatable and Daisy Diapers was relatively new to the market, thus making it a good change. Essentially, this tagline lit two bums with one flame. “Daisy Diapers.” The strength of my voice rent the air. “We Could All Use A Little Change.” I paused. “Goddamn. I think we’ve got it. That’s our tagline.”
“Yasssss!” Blinky threw a punch in the air. “Nailed it, mawfuckers! Now we can get the fuck outta here. Girl, bye!” He grabbed his shit and practically flew out the door.
“Bye, Felicia!” Sara called after his retreating back.
While my team bolted out of the War Room in a celebratory mood, I stayed behind to work on some last-minute changes with the XE campaign and several other projects I was overseeing. I was largely responsible for a campaign’s success or failure. This was great when a campaign was a huge hit. As Creative Director, I shared in the glory. But when the campaign was a flop, I took most of the heat.
It was a high-pressure environment, and I could only imagine the amount of stress Sadie must be under, having to acquire and maintain so many high profile accounts.
Every hour or so, I stopped by the break room to refill my coffee mug, and each time I walked past Sadie’s office, I looked in on her briefly. Either her nose was buried in a pile of papers or she was on the computer, looking fiercely efficient.
I never bothered her, never said anything.
The third time I checked in on Sadie, I found her slumped over her keyboard in a heap, fast asleep. Her lips were slightly parted, her chest rising and falling in uneven breaths.
I took a couple cautious steps toward her and laid a hand on her shoulder, gently rousing her from her sleep.
“Huh?” Her eyelids fluttered open. “God. What time is it?” She sat up groggily and blinked like she was in a mental fog. “I need to go.”
I searched her face. “You’re too tired to drive. Let me take you home.”
“I’m not going home,” she said drowsily, and already her eyelids were starting to droop again.
“Where do you need to go?”
“The children’s hospital,” she murmured, her voice still husky with sleep. “St. Margaret’s.”
“I’ll take you there,” I told her.
“No. No,” she said more clearly, blinking a little under my gaze before frowning. “It’s two hours away.”
“Good. You can sleep during the drive.” I didn’t care if the hospital was ten hours or forty hours away. Sadie was in no state to drive, and I wasn’t going to let her get behind the wheel. Not when it looked like she hadn’t slept in days.
Despite her fervent protestations, I kept on trying to convince her of this.
She was stubborn, but so was I.
In the end, she must have been so exhausted because she finally said, “Fine!” and staggered unsteadily toward the elevator.
I caught up with her in two long strides. “By the way, Sadie?”
“Humph,” she grunted, turning slowly to face me.
I struggled but failed to keep the grin off my face. “I heard you snoring just now.”
Her lips parted in surprise before she tightened them with irritation. “I do not snore.”
The elevator doors pinged open and we stepped inside.
Both she and I faced the front, standing in complete silence while watching the floor numbers change.
Finally, she spoke into the silence. “I didn’t really snore just now, did I?”
Keeping my eyes trained ahead, observing the descending numbers, I said in all seriousness, “Like a freight train.”
Turning to face me, she huffed. “I bet you sound like a wounded warthog when you snore.”
“Nah.” I shot her a quick sideways grin. “I’ve been told I sound more like an asthmatic camel.”
The subtle smile that slowly eased up one corner of her mouth made it all worthwhile. “Oh, I’m sure you do,” she said haughtily.
We took my car, and as I pulled out of the parking lot, a faint smile curved my lips as I turned to find Sadie dozing off in the passenger seat, hand upon her breast, palm hovering over her heart, as if she were afraid someone would break it.
The long drive gave me time to think. I thought about Tim’s warnings.
At the time, I chose to believe him, not because I did, but because I’d wanted to.
I knew Tim was a fucking douchebag, and while he had his own axe to grind with Sadie, I didn’t believe the things he’d said about her.
I didn’t believe she was capable of being malicious.
But in my mind, I’d wanted to believe that. It was the only way I could convince myself to keep my distance, to stay away from her, when all I really wanted was to be near her.
And seeing her tonight, I realized I could no longer pretend I didn’t miss her… that I didn’t care about her.
Briefly, I glanced over at Sadie. She was still fast asleep, her body now bent in an S shape with her head against the window, her breath frosting the pane.
Sighing deeply, I turned my attention back to the road.
I still didn’t know her story, but she seemed to be going through a lot at the moment, not only at work, but also in her personal life.
I’d only learned tonight that her son wasn’t doing so well.
And she’d seemed so shaken up by it.
Vulnerable. Exposed… such naked pain in her eyes.
It was the first time I’d seen her with her guard down, and her confidence had been replaced with worry. Uncertainty.
&n
bsp; Staring straight ahead at the empty stretch of highway, my grip tightened around the steering wheel. Whatever it was, I hoped it wasn’t anything serious.
Chapter Fifteen
The two-hour drive was the best sleep I got in days. Once we arrived at St. Margaret’s Children’s Hospital, my nerves were wound too tightly for sleep or food.
I only wanted to be next to Evan. And all through the night and early morning, Julian was by my side as I sat anxious and nervous about Evan’s heart cath, hoping and praying the procedure would help, that his body would bounce back.
Not for the first time, I found Julian’s presence comforting, and though he hadn’t asked me about Evan’s condition, I felt I owed it to him to say something.
It wasn’t easy. I rarely talked about it. I learned to stop talking about his condition because of the looks of pity I’d begun to receive. And I found it hard to talk about it without choking with emotions myself.
Mom once told me when I could someday tell Evan’s story, and it didn’t make me cry, then I’d know I was healed.
I was still working on this.
“Evan has hypoplastic left heart syndrome,” I said as we sat in Evan’s room, watching him sleep. Just saying the words aloud caused my throat to constrict so much that I paused a moment before continuing. “He has to have a heart cath procedure in the morning.”
Julian stared at me, his eyes questioning.
I quickly skipped over the actual meaning of hypoplastic and switched to the layman’s terms. “He has half a heart.”
He fell silent for a moment, then said, “Which half?”
“His right.” Tears pricked my eyes. “When Evan was in my womb, his left ventricle didn’t develop. Soon after he was born, he had to have a few surgeries to re-plumb the one good side he did have. It’s…” My throat threatened to close up and I swallowed hard, fighting past the tightness in my chest. “It’s literally a heartbreaking disease. Literally.”
There was a familiar flash of sympathy in his eyes, and he gave me a moment to gather myself before asking, “Is Evan okay now?”
I’ve always had a hard time with that question. I wanted to say, “No. He has a two-chambered heart with a bunch of duct tape stuck around it, and I’m trapped in a constant worry over the uncertainty of his life. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, how long he’s gonna be here with us. Every night I go to his room to make sure he is still breathing when he falls asleep.”
Instead, I said, “He was okay, and he would have been okay for five, ten, or maybe fifteen more years until he needed a heart transplant, but now with this other complication…” I paused to gain control of my faltering voice. “I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.”
Our gazes met and held. Without having to say anything, the look in his eyes told me he understood the gravity of the situation, and I felt grateful to have him by my side.
When the sun came up, a nurse walked into the room and informed me that it was almost time to prep Evan for his heart cath procedure.
Julian stood and said, “I’ll go wait outside.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him. “You should go home. You’ve done enough for me already.” I smiled. “Thank you.”
His mouth parted as if he planned to say something, but then Evan stirred from his sleep, and he just nodded and left the room.
“Mom?” Evan’s voice was no more than a whisper.
I went to my son and took his hand. “I’m here, E.” He looked so pale, so weak.
It had been five days since he was admitted, and his body still wasn’t responding to the oral steroids.
He looked no better than he had the first day here. If anything, he looked worse and it scared me. The hardest part was there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
“Mom?” Worry creased his brows. “Am I going to need a heart transplant?”
Sometimes I forgot how aware Evan was about his situation and how he was getting older and smarter and could process what was going on inside his body.
“Maybe someday you will…” My hand came up to caress his cheek. “But not today.” I paused for a moment, trying to think how to best help his young mind grasp such things. “All they’re going to do today is put a long, thin, flexible tube into a blood vessel through your arm and thread it through your heart.”
“Why?” The anguish in his voice nearly broke my heart anew.
For me, hearing pain in my son’s voice… there really were no words to describe that feeling.
I looked at him, my heart cinching into a tight knot. “The plumbing inside your heart is blocked, and they’re going to put in a stent to unblock it.”
If he was afraid, he tried not to show it. “Will I be awake when they do the surgery?”
“No, sweetie.” I wrapped my arms around him, drawing him into the shelter of my body. He was just a scared young boy trying to be brave. “You won’t.”
Evan held on to me more tightly. “Will you tell me a story before they put me to sleep?”
“Of course,” I said softly. “Any story you want.”
He smiled, showing a charming dimple. “I want a Greek mythology.”
“Okay.” I let go of him, and Evan settled back into the pillows. As I sat stroking his soft and wavy curls, the words slowly tumbled from my lips. “The ancient Greek warriors were some of the toughest fighters of their time. In battle, they established a reputation for their unsurpassed bravery and unshakable commitment to victory. When they arrived on enemy shores, the first order their general gave was: ‘Burn the boats!’ And they did. They torched all their boats. Poof!” I said dramatically. “They set them on fire and let them burn to ashes.”
“What?” The dimple disappeared and Evan looked at me quizzically. “Why would they do that?”
“The general wanted his soldiers to win knowing they’d storm the shores and fight harder with no choice of retreat. With no boats to retreat to, the army had to be successful in order to survive. And as the soldiers watched their boats burn to ashes, they knew there was no turning back. No retreat. No surrender. The only way out was to fight. The only way home was through victory.”
Evan grew utterly still, except for his eyes, which shined with intensity. “That’s a cool story, Mom. I like it.”
I took his hand between mine and traced the tiny veins at the back with my forefinger. His hands were so small, and he was always leaving fingerprints on furniture and walls.
I didn’t want those tiny fingerprints to fade.
Not now, not yet.
“You’re gonna be okay, my little Cheese Monster.” I squeezed his hand. “Because you’re gonna fight this, and you’re gonna get better.”
He looked down at our entwined hands. “I’m gonna burn my boats!” Evan’s voice was that of a man he would be one day—calm and commanding, like a Greek general. “And you’re gonna burn yours!”
I blinked twice to clear the confusion from my eyes. “You want me to burn my boats?”
Evan gave a single, determined nod, looking far older than his six years. “That man who was here with you all night, is he the one who gives you butterflies?”
Now it was my turn to nod.
“Then you should burn your boats, Mom, and I’ll burn mine.”
In the next moment, the anesthesiologist breezed in, and I was asked to sign a consent form. Then shortly afterward, a nurse came in to get Evan. “It’s time,” she said. “I need to move him to the cath lab.”
“I love you, E.” I squeezed his hand and pressed my lips to his forehead before the nurse wheeled him away. “I’ll be close by waiting for you!”
As much as I wanted to cry, Evan needed to know that I was strong, that I was here going through this with him and he could depend on me.
“I know,” he called after me. “Love you, Mom.”
Too anxious to move, I stood rooted to the spot, listening to the lonely echo of footsteps as the nurse retreated down the hallway.
“Wi
thout knowing it, I’ve been setting my boats ablaze for years.” The deep voice was Julian’s. “And I thought I was just being clumsy!”
I turned sharply to find him leaning indolently against the doorframe, a sexy smile curving his lips.
“Sorry.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and regarded me contritely. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. The door was open and…”
“It’s okay,” I said, waving his words aside. “How come you’re still here?”
He just shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know…” I stared at him blankly. My thoughts were still frayed and I could hardly think straight.
The first time they took Evan into surgery—six years ago—I cried. I just lost it completely and sobbed uncontrollably.
Right now, even though I appeared calm on the outside, I felt like that on the inside… like I was losing my fucking mind.
As much as the doctor had assured me that this was a simple procedure, surgery was still the practice of medicine. It wasn’t perfect. And right now, I was thinking of all the things that could possibly go wrong.
“Do you want to go down to the cafeteria?” Julian spoke into the silence. “Get some coffee? Something to eat?”
“No.” I shook my head slowly. “I promised Evan I’d stay close by.”
“I’ll wait with you.”
I managed a nod.
“Listen,” he added, trying to draw me out of my head, out of my worries. “I need to run a quick errand. But I’ll be right back, okay?”
I nodded again.
“Will you be right here when I get back?”
“No,” I said a little too forcefully. “I promised Evan I’d wait for him outside the cath lab.”
“Sadie…” He spoke my name softly and waited until I met his gaze. His eyes were narrowed with concern and worry. “I’ll meet you there, okay? At the waiting area outside the cath lab.”
I stared mutely at him, then nodded.
As I sat alone in the waiting area, I went into my survival mode by trying to think of anything—anything at all—but the surgery.
In time, my thoughts drifted to what Evan had said. Burn your boats, Mom. Those were his orders.
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