Chapter 29
Twenty-nine
Liz
Monday mornings in early March always feel colder than they should. The wind freezes my fingers as I walk the five blocks from my rental to the hospital, sidewalks still wet from last night’s rain and the bare branches overhead rattling in the breeze.
It’s just after eight, the sun still low behind the ridge on the far side of Black Bear Lake, and Paradise is waking up slowly around me—cars idling at the lights, a delivery truck backing into the loading bay of the café I pass every day.
The smell of roasted beans drifts into the street, warm and sweet, a sharp contrast to the chilly air cutting through my coat.
I push my hands deeper into my pockets and breathe through the unease curling in my stomach. There’s another leadership meeting ahead, another round of pretending my personal life isn’t unraveling.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Trinity.
I swipe to answer. “Tell me you’re calling with something normal.” My words fog in the morning air.
She lets out a laugh that’s a little strained. “Not even close. I just survived a grocery-store interrogation.”
I wince. “Evelyn’s subpoena?”
“Oh yes. Apparently, Trace is ‘destroying an innocent woman.’” Trinity makes her voice high and dramatic. “And then the cashier refused to check me out. Said she didn’t want to be part of whatever the Paradises are plotting.”
I stop at the crosswalk, dumbfounded. “That’s unhinged.”
“Welcome to Paradise,” she mutters. “Everyone’s choosing sides.”
“Because Evelyn Dempsey says so,” I ask, incredulous. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve to deal with that.”
“No one in our family is asking people to pick sides,” she says. “Not Vicky or Trace. Not even Tarryn, and she’s got every reason to be furious because it affects the vineyard. But that hasn’t stopped the gossip.”
The light turns green, and the walk signal flashes. I start walking again, the hospital coming into view. “People love a spectacle. And Evelyn always makes sure she’s center stage.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then Trinity asks, “Have you talked to Alaric since the press conference?”
My stomach tightens. “No.”
“Is he slammed with this drama?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “He walked out on me at Mikey’s last week.”
The line goes silent for a second. “Liz. Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I was upset with him, and I lost it. And then he walked out. I’m fine,” I lie. “At least I know what caused him to leave this time.”
“Still. Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”
“It just happened the other day,” I say, stepping around a patch of ice. “And I don’t really know how I feel. I mean, I have closure this time, which helps. But we usually get along so well. It’s strange to go from that to nothing.”
Trinity’s voice softens. “I hate that for you. I wish I could hug you right now.”
“I know. Thanks.” I exhale, the hospital doors ahead of me. “I’m almost at my office. I should go.”
“Call me later?”
“Of course.”
I hang up and slip the phone into my pocket.
Upstairs, I push open the office door. She’s unavoidable, so I decide to be professional. “Morning, Misty.”
She doesn’t look up from her monitor. Not even a nod. Just a stiff turn of her shoulder, like my voice is something she can dodge. She was out all last week on unpaid leave—a result of HR’s findings about her conduct, I would guess; Hudson told me it had been handled—and I can’t say I missed her.
I glance toward Hudson’s office. The door is open, but the lights are off. It’s empty. Of course, he’s not there. The man shows up at the crack of dawn every day, and I’m sure he’s getting ready for this morning’s leadership meeting.
I continue on to my own office instead. My bag lands on the chair with a soft thud. I boot up my computer, shuffle through the pages I printed yesterday, and force myself into work mode. This leadership meeting means I need to be sharp, composed.
I run through my morning routine. Emails. Calendar. Meeting notes. A quick skim of the latest ED numbers. By the time I’m ready, my coffee is only half gone and completely cold. I toss it in the sink, grab my notebook, and straighten my blouse before heading out a few minutes before nine.
The boardroom is only a short walk down the hall, but every step is a reminder that I’m going to sit at that table and pretend I don’t care whether Alaric is present.
I take a steadying breath and reach for the door.
The boardroom is already half full when I walk in. Papers shuffling, low conversations, the usual pre-meeting noise. I keep my eyes forward as I take my seat, but I can’t stop myself from glancing around as the room fills. No Alaric. One empty chair.
I tell myself it’s a good thing. It should make things easier, sparing me the awkwardness and the risk of my emotions slipping through in front of everyone.
But my disappointment ratchets up anyway.
I grip my pen until my fingers ache. I’m supposed to be moving on, and yet one empty chair derails me before the meeting even starts.
Hudson walks in a minute later, followed by the CEO, and conversation dies down. I sit straighter, tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and try to look like someone whose heart is not currently a slow-motion train wreck.
The meeting starts. Agenda items. Procedural updates. Financial reports. People talk around me, monotone and slow, and I nod along while drifting back to the conference in Hawaii.
Sun on my skin. Alaric’s hand at my back. Our mornings spent in sessions and the afternoons exploring. Laughing over nothing. The two of us without the noise of the hospital or the never-ending gravitational pull of his family.
It felt easy. In hindsight, I can see it was dangerous. Deceptive.
Someone coughs at the far end of the table, and I blink back into the room just as the conversation shifts. My attention focuses when I hear his name.
“Dr. Dempsey’s CME credits,” Dr. Morris says. “We still haven’t addressed the delay.”
I sit up a little straighter. The mention feels like a warning.
Hudson steps in immediately. “The provincial regulation board has accepted his CME submission.”
A low ripple moves through the room. Dr. Morris doesn’t even try to hide his annoyance. “He should still be sanctioned for the lateness. And for not being here today.”
My pen taps once against my notebook. Hard. The sound jolts me into speaking before I overthink it. “We only have three people covering psychiatry and psychology,” I say. “Mental health is at the forefront right now. Emergency is seeing almost twenty mental-health-related patients a day.”
Dr. Morris snorts. “And what would he do with my schedule?”
I turn toward him. “As a radiologist, you interpret images and provide diagnostic reports. Occasionally, you perform image-guided procedures. Your work is crucial, but it’s not the same. His team can spend hours with patients in crisis in the emergency room. The comparison doesn’t hold.”
As the words leave my mouth, something twists in my chest. I hate that instinct made me protect him. I hate that it still feels natural.
Dr. Morris’s mouth snaps shut.
The CEO nods. “If the provincial board accepted his CMEs, then so do we. The matter is closed.”
A beat of silence follows. But the room feels different now. Not peaceful. Just resigned. People go back to their papers, clicking pens, flipping pages like we didn’t just spend ten minutes dissecting the absence of the man I’m trying not to think about.
I stare at the agenda in front of me, but the words blur. My pulse is still elevated, a dull thrum at the base of my throat. I shouldn’t have said anything. Or maybe I should have. I can’t tell which truth makes me feel worse.
I can feel Dr. Morris glaring holes into the side of my head, but I keep my eyes on my notes, pretending I’m too busy to notice. The conversation moves on to staffing shortages, budget forecasts, and the usual bureaucratic noise.
I should be listening. I should be taking better notes.
But all I can think about is the empty chair and the way my chest tightened when they said his name.
Hawaii floods in like a tide I can’t hold back.
The way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
The little bubble of peace we created, far away from everything that always ruins us.
The contrast feels brutal now.
A question comes my way—something about discharge delays—and I answer on autopilot. I hear the words come out of my mouth and watch people nod, but I’m detached from all of it, like I’ve slipped out of my body.
It’s not until Hudson starts talking again that my attention anchors itself. He’s explaining staffing allocations for the next quarter, and I force myself to breathe slowly and focus.
By the time the CEO calls for the next item, I’m exhausted, emotionally wrung out from pretending I’m not caught between missing Alaric and being furious that I still care.
“Next,” the CEO says, shuffling papers, “we’ll review the updated emergency metrics.”
The meeting drones on, but I feel a tightening of my resolve. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep drifting between past and present, waiting for something that’s clearly already ended. Again.
The meeting finally adjourns. Chairs scrape back.
People gather their things. I stay seated one heartbeat longer than everyone else, and when I stand, my legs feel steadier than when I walked in.
Not fixed. Not healed. Just…clearer. And seeing the path ahead has to be the first step in getting somewhere new.