Chapter Seventeen #2
The nurse with kind eyes and a tight red perm stood, motioning toward the corridor. “I’ll show you both the way to the surgical waiting area.”
Both ... How had I forgotten about Keith? Worse yet, how had I let concern for Libby slide to the back corners of my mind? “And Libby Farrell? How is she?” I asked the nurse. “This is her son.”
“They’ll be moving her up to a room when one becomes available. Then you’ll be able to see her.” She hugged the clipboard to her chest. “I’m so sorry about the fire at your place. Thank goodness you’re all alive.”
I slid an arm around Keith’s shoulders, feeling the shudder rack him.
Guilt gnawed at my already ragged nerves.
I’d let my friend down by not looking after her child.
Yes, I loved Russell, with all my heart, but a mature heart should also have room for friends and family.
Had I fallen into old habits of letting my love become obsessive?
I hoped not, because that dishonored my friends and Russell.
I owed him my best. I just prayed he would live to receive it—and place that ring on my finger.
An hour, then two ticked by on the wall clock with no news about Russell’s surgery. Already three other families had left and another had come in to wait. No matter how many times I told myself that no news was good news, I worried over the length of the procedure.
Thea had shown up to bring us food from the cafeteria with Destiny in tow. Keith had stepped in to see Libby with a meal for them both. Meanwhile, Destiny sat as far away from me as possible and tore into the cafeteria fried chicken like it was five-star cuisine.
I cradled a Styrofoam cup of coffee in my hands but didn’t do more than inhale the scent. Eating wasn’t an option for me either. My stomach was in turmoil.
Thea tapped a pack of sugar into her cup of hot tea.
People in town joked about Thea’s gloves, calling her the Queen of England.
The fitted skirt-and-jacket sets didn’t help.
I wondered if Thea would ever let go of her worry of fingerprints being traced.
But then the past could be hard to shake, especially on an evening like this.
“Thank you for coming up here,” I said, grateful that all the decision-making didn’t rest solely on my shoulders. My confidence had taken a serious hit. “I appreciate you picking up the pieces tonight.”
“Of course. You just focus on yourself and Russell.” She blew into her tea and took a sip before setting it aside.
I got her point, but after the way I’d all but forgotten about Keith, I needed to pull myself together. “You’re all dressed up. Please tell Howard I’m sorry for cutting short your date.”
“Don’t give it another thought.” She waved off my concern, her eyes tracking the staff as they walked back and forth along the corridor, shoes squeaking.
Thea never missed much. No doubt she wouldn’t have missed the phone call and lost track of Libby. At that moment, I felt defeated, like I should throw my hands up and pass over the whole operation before someone else got hurt.
“Thea, I am so afraid.” I’d never uttered those words out loud. Not even in my previous life.
Thea gave me her stern look that was somehow laced with caring. “You are the bravest person I know. The way you and Russell have built a relationship in this convoluted existence of ours is nothing short of incredible ...”
“You might want to rethink that. Russell has been proposing to me, and I keep telling him no. In fact, I turned him down again this evening.”
“Honey, I’m so sorry.” She slid a gloved hand over mine and squeezed. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
“So many reasons.” I realized that I’d never shared anything about my past with her. Thea had every reason to assume my life was just as I’d told her. That my secrets only involved the help I gave Annette. “Do you understand I landed here in much the same way that you did?”
“I wondered,” she said with a sigh, “but I didn’t know for sure.”
“Russell understands too and says it doesn’t matter to him .
.. The legality of a marriage ...” My voice cracked on the last word, out of fear and regret that I may have missed my chance with him.
Instead, I focused on Thea. “Were you single—before coming here? You don’t have to answer if you would rather not. ”
“Is that the reason you won’t make it official with Russell? Because you have someone out there?”
I looked around to check again that we wouldn’t be overheard by Destiny or anyone else, then measured my words carefully all the same. “According to the courts, I’m legally dead. So anyone who may have been attached to me in some way is free to move on.”
“Why not go ahead, then?” Thea’s eyes held no judgment. Only caring.
“That’s exactly what I’m asking myself.” I rubbed the empty place on my ring finger and called myself ten kinds of a fool.
It was one thing to deny myself happiness.
But it wasn’t fair of me to deny Russell’s when he’d been nothing but wonderful to me.
I glanced back at Thea. “What about you and Howard? You two have been dating for quite a while.”
“He has plans to run for town council one day, maybe even be the mayor. If I tell him, I’ll put him in an awful position. If I don’t tell him, that could blow up in my face too.”
How well I understood. “You could walk away from him.”
“That’s the one thing I can’t do. I’ve lost so much. I won’t lose him too.” Her dark eyes flashed with a fire that reminded me what a formidable woman she was.
“Then you’ll have to follow your heart on how best to handle that.” The words sounded hypocritical to my own ears. If I had followed my heart, I would have accepted Russell’s proposal.
“Thank you for the advice. I have to admit, I’m better with logic and math than I am at trusting emotions.” Thea patted my hand again before nodding toward Destiny. “If you’re okay staying here with our bottomless pit over there, I would like to pop in and check on Libby.”
“Of course,” I said. “Yes, please. And give her my love.”
Thea nodded as she rushed to catch up to a nurse in a crisp uniform, who then pointed the way.
Thea clutched her fake pearl necklace as her heels clicked along the tile, a little slower than normal.
The foundation had been rocked under all of us, and I wondered if we would ever be able to recapture our secure little utopia.
Maybe if we’d all been more upfront with each other about our pasts, we might have navigated the stresses better. Libby could have had more support with Keith’s challenges.
My glance slid over to Destiny, currently cracking apart a chicken wing to get every bit off the bone.
“You can have mine too if you want,” I offered. “I’m not hungry.”
“Okay.” She slid the extra Styrofoam container off the end table and tucked it under her backpack as if saving it for later.
I shifted to a closer chair and stretched my legs out in front of me. “We should start a fashion show for these scrubs. Sorry they don’t come in black.”
Destiny grunted. Then mumbled, “Thanks for the food.”
“Sorry your time with our ‘rinky-dink’ organization hasn’t run smoother.” When she didn’t laugh or snap back, I ducked to meet her eyes. “I’m really sorry you had to go through that tonight.”
She pushed her dyed hair back from her face. “I’ve seen worse.”
I hated that we’d added more trauma to her load.
“I had a daughter,” I confessed, not altogether sure why. “Before I got to Bent Oak. She died.” Those sparse few words about my stillborn baby made my throat burn.
Destiny met my gaze fully for the first time. “What was her name?”
I thought long and hard about whether to answer.
Sharing about our pasts could be helpful but also dicey.
I didn’t want to launch into this without thinking.
It was one thing for me and Thea to share a few benign details, but I also needed to be careful not to set a precedent for this teen as she tackled a new beginning.
A secret beginning.
Yet taking in her terrified blue eyes and her freckled young face scrubbed fresh from the rain, I realized reassuring her meant more than the concerns. Giving her a stable start—and a friend—would serve her best.
I understood all the risks in sharing, but I told her anyway. “Her name was April, because she was born on a beautiful spring morning that month.”
Phillip and I had been debating names, never settling on one. When our little girl had come early, seven months into the pregnancy, stillborn, he hadn’t wanted to use his preferred name. He’d insisted on saving it for a live child and told me to pick whatever I wanted for the casket and tombstone.
I’d been gutted even before his callous words. Afterward, I understood how profoundly alone I was in my marriage.
My depression had been deep, and truthfully, if my husband had institutionalized me then, I’m not sure he would have been wrong to do so.
But he hadn’t. He’d just left me to cry alone for ten months in a postpartum fog of despair.
It wasn’t until another year later, when I was at my strongest in such a very long time, when I had begun to make plans for adoption, that he locked me away.
I’d never been so terrified. Until tonight.
The teenage girl beside me fidgeted with the tie to her scrub pants. “Is your daughter the reason you helped me?”
That question I could answer without hesitation.
Because even though Russell was right that I had a soft spot when it came to girls in need, I still saw each person as an individual.
A special soul worthy of the best life has to offer.
“I helped you because you needed it. You’re not a substitute for anyone. You matter.”
I could see Destiny would need time to believe in her own self-worth.
Part of me regretted that I wouldn’t get to watch her come into her own someday.
She’d made a big impression on my heart in such a short time, showing up for Keith—and by extension, for Libby and me—without a thought for her own safety.
She’d been so brave. Would the people at her final stop look past the dyed hair, thick makeup, and bravado to the spirit sparkling inside her?
Would they understand that her black clothes would shine light on them if they looked close enough?
And in an impulsive decision I refused to question, while I understood she wasn’t a substitute for my daughter, I also realized I wouldn’t be sending her to another outpost in the network.
I didn’t know how I would secure a future for a troubled sixteen-year-old girl who didn’t even have her high school diploma yet.
But I knew one thing with an unshaken certainty.
Bent Oak would be her home.
“Would you like to choose your new name?”
Her eyes went wide. “I can do that?”
The gratitude over something so simple affirmed I’d been right in my decision. I would work out the details later, with Thea’s help this time.
“Since you arrived sooner than expected, we don’t have the paperwork complete.” I’d planned for her to be in transit for another couple of weeks. “As long as you don’t choose something like Jodie Foster or that Blondie singer Debbie Harry, we should be fine.”
She laughed, a rusty kind of sound, while tugging at her coal-black locks, which had dried in clumps. “Now there’s an idea. I could bleach my hair like Blondie, or dye it all sorts of colors, just to throw people off the trail. Maybe even rub lemon juice on my freckles.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, even as I grieved inside that this girl couldn’t be a regular teen instead of thinking of ways to hide herself. But I could give her control over this one thing. “Have you decided on your name?”
She stared at her combat boots, so at odds with the surgical scrubs, clicking her clunky heels together while thinking. Yet it called to mind her own odd sort of Dorothy clicking her way out of Oz.
Destiny looked up with her eyes taking on the first light I’d seen in her, all the brighter for shining through the darkness.
“June,” she said, simply. “As in the month. Because my life starts today, on June the first.”