Chapter Nine
K insey Abbott stood outside the ICU holding flowers again as Aubrey returned from a quick trip out for fast food.
It was the third time since Emma had been admitted that she’d shown up with flowers.
Aubrey approached her with a smile. The closer she got, the more she noticed that her short-cropped hair looked in need of washing.
She was still wearing the exact same khakis and long-sleeved shirt she’d been in yesterday and the day before.
None of that was normal, but Aubrey decided she must’ve been under more stress than any of them knew.
“Hey, Kinsey. That’s so sweet of you to bring flowers again.”
“Emma likes roses. I wanted her to have them.”
“I know,” Aubrey said, gently. “But listen. I’m sure you didn’t know, but they don’t allow her to have flowers in the ICU. We’ve been taking them home until she gets a real room.”
“Oh,” she replied, not quite meeting Aubrey’s eyes.
“But you’re right. She’d love them. I’ll tell her you brought them. Okay?”
Kinsey held onto the flowers and turned to go.
“You don’t want to leave them with me?”
“Maybe I’ll come back later,” she said without fully turning.
“Hey. How are you doing?” Aubrey asked her.
“Fine.” Then she did turn back. If the dark circles under her eyes were any proof, she didn’t seem fine.
Never very talkative, Kinsey was a bit socially awkward and had never seemed very fond of her.
Aubrey didn’t know why, since they’d only had a few opportunities to talk in the months Aubrey had worked at Emma’s company over the summer.
“I know this has been hard on all of us. I know you’ve been working overtime keeping things going. Thank you for that.”
“Everything’s done. I did it for Emma.”
“Well, she’d thank you, too, Kinsey, if she could. That will really mean everything to her when she wakes up.”
“Will she?”
“Will she…what?”
“Wake up? I asked the nurses, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
She gestured Kinsey over to a waiting room chair, which she reluctantly took.
Aubrey sat down beside her. “They’re hopeful.
That’s what I know. They pulled back on the meds that were keeping her in a coma after her surgery.
She’s off intubation. They’re trying to wake her.
Now it’s just time. Her leg is healing. If her body is healing, then her brain will, too. ”
Kinsey picked off a petal from a rose, rolling it between her fingers. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Yeah. No, it shouldn’t have. We’ll find the person who did it. They’ll pay, believe me. Regardless, she’ll have a long recovery. But Emma’s unstoppable. Everyone knows that.”
“If she dies, then it’ll all go to you. Won’t it?”
Taken aback, Aubrey blinked at her. “I know you didn’t mean that to sound the way it came out, Kinsey, because Emma’s going to live.”
Kinsey blushed, but Aubrey’s hackles were up. Emma’s assistant’s “edit” button was quite different from other people’s. While everyone gave her space for that little idiosyncrasy, right now, Aubrey’s nerves were stretched thin.
“I’m sorry.” Kinsey dropped the bouquet to her side. “I didn’t mean it.”
Aubrey stood. “Okay. This is stressful on all of us. I’m going to go in to see her now. Take care, Kinsey. Get some rest. Do you want me to take the flowers to Emma’s home?”
Kinsey frowned and, without reply, stood and hurried away down the hall.
Aubrey couldn’t help feeling upset. Edit buttons aside, there was something about Kinsey that had always rubbed her the wrong way.
Emma had hired her eight years ago, and she pretty much handled the contracts department like a pro.
Numbers, details were her thing. People were not.
Obviously. Aubrey recalled Emma mentioning that Kinsey had asked her about joining the firm as an associate agent.
They both knew the problems with that. Now with that comment, Aubrey wondered if Kinsey was somehow jealous of her relationship with Emma.
Would I inherit the company? What kind of question was that?
She was twenty-three with no experience in real estate except what she’d done this summer alongside Emma.
No one, least of all her, would imagine she could run the firm the way Emma did.
Or that even Emma would imagine she could.
But all of that speculation was neither here nor there.
Emma was going to live. That’s all there was to it.
At the nurses’ station, she stopped to talk to Mary, the charge nurse. “Any change?”
Mary sent her a sympathetic look. “Not really. I’m sorry.”
“Have you spoken with the doctor?”
“She should be here in the next few minutes. You can speak to her then.”
Aubrey went into Emma’s room and sat down beside her.
It had been a long three days, and the optimism she was showing the world about Emma’s condition was not exactly what she felt deep inside.
Scared was what she felt. Alone. Foolishly, she’d thought Emma would wake twenty-four hours after the accident, then they could move on, putting this whole awful thing behind them.
But that hadn’t happened. The longer her coma lasted, the smaller the odds she would awaken at all.
A second brain scan this morning showed that her brain was still working, active even, but she couldn’t seem to wake up.
Aubrey took her hand. “Emma. Can you hear me? I need you to come back now. Wake up.”
She got no response from Emma. Not even a little squeeze of her fingers.
“Did you know tomorrow’s the Fourth of July?
You never miss the Fourth. The park is all decked out.
The fireworks are ready to go. There’ll be a parade of bicycles.
All the kids will decorate their own at the booth you started a few years ago.
Crepe paper. Flags. Playing cards on their spokes.
And the donuts, Em. Everyone loves them.
They were your idea, too. Everyone’s asked about you.
Everyone misses you. So, you really have no choice here. Can you hear me?”
Doctor Callonet stepped through the sliding glass door with Emma’s chart in her hands. She reached for Aubrey’s. “Hi, Aubrey. How’s she doing?”
“I was going to ask you that question. How is she?”
The doctor glanced at her charts for a moment.
“The good news—her vitals are all good. She’s breathing well.
Her oxygen is good. Her levels are all pretty much where we’d want to see them.
She made it through the surgery with flying colors.
We had hoped she’d be waking by now, but she’s still in a coma. We’re not sure why.”
“And if she doesn’t wake soon?”
She hung the chart at the end of the bed. “We’ll be moving her out of the ICU tonight and bringing her to a regular room. After that, she’ll be heading to a rehab facility.”
“A rehab facility? But if she’s not awake, how can she rehab?”
“Let’s not go there yet. It’s only been a few hours since we lifted the sedation. Let’s see what happens.”
Aubrey nodded because the alternative wasn’t something she could even contemplate right now.
“Your aunt has a lot going for her. She’s young, fit, and a fighter. You need to try to stay positive for the both of you.”
“Doctor, tell me the truth. You’ve seen patients go through things like this before. Do you think she’ll be okay?”
Dr. Callonet sent Aubrey a gentle smile. “I try to never second-guess the powers that be. But I always try to err on the side of hope.”
When she’d gone, Aubrey sat beside Emma again and pressed her forehead to the back of her aunt’s hand. “I’m right here. Can you feel me? Please. Hurry back.”
*
Perhaps this was all just a dream, Emma thought as they arrived back at the hospital parking lot after a heart-thumping, breath-stealing ride back with Connor.
All of this was beyond her imagining. The longer she was separated from the world she’d known, the less she found herself bound to it.
For heaven’s sake, she’d just flown halfway down the coast with an angel!
Perhaps this was the way it happened. The going.
Little by little until the loss wasn’t so shocking or too great.
Until the alternative seemed not so terrifying.
Maybe he’d agreed to humor her because he knew she was almost there.
Or because she’d realized, somehow, that Aubrey would survive without her.
Her niece had her own angels he’d told her, and she guessed that much was true.
If nothing else, this time with Connor had taught her that she was truly in control of nothing but her own happiness, despite imagining the opposite for most of her life.
It was exhausting, trying to control everything.
She’d never realized just how exhausting it was. How futile.
She felt so far away from the woman lying in that bed upstairs.
So disconnected. But every moment that passed with Connor brought her closer and closer to some indefinable end she knew she wasn’t prepared for.
Whether she lived or whether she died, whether she woke or not, this man beside her would disappear from her life. And it made her heart ache.
How ridiculous. How perfectly ironic that at Death’s door, she’d found herself falling in love with her guardian angel—a soul mate she could never have.
After I’m finished here, he’d said to Elspeth not an hour ago about ascending to the Council, whatever that was. After he’d finished with her was what he’d meant. Finished resolving wherever she was heading. And then, they would be over.
As if they were a “they” at all. Yes, he’d kissed her on the dock and, of course, there had been that angry kiss in the hospital. But all of that, she realized, was just his process of letting her—and Violet—go. He’d said as much when he’d first met her.