Chapter 13
CHAPTER
I t’s almost four in the morning, and I’m staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell is going on.
Because something surely is.
Those eyes. I have no idea how I didn’t recognize them immediately.
Noah Sawyer, his son . . . just happening upon me at a bar tonight?
I chew my lip, roll over, gaze out the dirty, tobacco-stained window.
A wiry tree climbs toward the sky, two birds perched there, chirping at each other.
My vision goes out of focus as I stare. This is a small town.
There are only a couple bars. Maybe . . .
Maybe it was a coincidence. The other men there knew him, called him by name. The bartender knew him, too, even his drink. So it’s not like it was his first time there.
Of course, he walked up to me , bought me drinks, took a real strong interest.
Maybe he’d have done that for any half-attractive woman who was new in town.
No doubt he’s a flirt, with plenty of confidence, oodles of swagger.
I swallow, stop myself from thinking of him like that —the way his lips fluttered over my ear, the look of excitement on his face when I walked into the men’s room.
I slept with Noah Sawyer.
I was about to go home with Mr. Sawyer’s son.
The son of the man I killed . . .
It’s revolting to think that monster even had a child.
But what if Noah knows ?
What if Noah is Hannah ?
He said he was a writer . . .
I blow out a deep breath and roll off the side of the bed.
I can’t lie here and do this anymore. I’m still nowhere near ready to sleep after what almost happened earlier.
It feels like I might be awake for days, I’m so wired.
The drinks I had at the bar have long worn off.
Finding out Noah’s last name shocked me into instant sobriety.
My gaze finds my suitcase. My flight home is Saturday, but maybe I can get one tomorrow instead.
Or today, rather, since it’s long past midnight.
I hate to leave my mother right now, but I need to be back at work next week anyway, and really, she doesn’t want me here.
Plus, I’m no use to her when I’m on edge, spiraling out of control.
I’m paranoid, sure everyone’s involved in whatever the hell is going on—Noah, Mom, the freaking priest, Ivy, even Chief Unger.
If I stay here much longer, half the town will be suspects.
I should get a list going. I could title it “People I Think Want to Ruin My Life.”
I need coffee. Coffee will wake me up from this awful foggy haze I’m stuck in.
I walk out into the kitchen, and the smell hits me.
Sour, mildew, decay —both of this house and of human life.
My mother is dying. I swallow and lift the old silver percolator that my mom has used since I was a kid, and a rush of emotion hits me again.
It seems to come in waves. I haven’t cried yet.
And I think it’s because none of my feelings are pure.
Sadness about my mother’s health is mixed with resentment.
Guilt for not being here is mingled with anger that she doesn’t want me to be. It’s exhausting, yet I can’t sleep.
I scoop grinds into the old pot, fill it with water, look around as I wait for it to percolate.
The floors have a layer of dirt on them, and the sink is stained with yellow scum.
Both need bleach and scrubbing. Maybe I can get someone in here to help Mom.
She’d probably say it’s a waste of money, that she doesn’t need my help.
Perhaps I could ask the church to say it’s their doing, and give them the money for a cleaning company and an aide.
I have a decent amount in my savings. Though .
. . that would mean talking to Father Preston, wouldn’t it?
Random thoughts rattle around in my head as the smell of coffee floats through the kitchen.
A few minutes later, with my caffeine in hand, I go back to the tiny bedroom. I toss my suitcase on the bed, pull out a clean outfit, and begin folding shirts and pants, shoving everything inside. I’ll take a quick shower, and then I can pack my toiletries and call the airline—
A thud stops me.
I let a shoe fall from my fingers and turn to look over my shoulder and listen. Silence.
“Mom?” I call.
Nothing.
I almost ignore it—probably she drank herself to sleep, and the bottle tumbled from her hand. But it was too loud of a clunk, bigger than a bottle.
“Mom?” This time, I walk into the hall so my voice carries. Again, there’s no response. My heart begins to pound faster in my chest. “Hello?” I step hesitantly back toward the kitchen. I see her foot first. A white cotton sock with a hole in the heel, worn to nothing.
“Mom!” I’m on my knees beside her in the next second, touching her gray face, fingers feeling for a pulse.
At first, there’s nothing—just hot, fevered skin— at least she’s not ice-cold —but then I find it.
A slow, steady thump, thump, thump . Her eyes are shut; her mouth gapes open.
Her hand twitches, at least a sign of life.
She . . . fell? I feel my forehead wrinkle in a frown. She’s probably drunk. Of course she fell. Then I see the blood trickling from the back of her head. Shit.
I scramble back to the bedroom, search all over for my cell phone before finding it in my pocket, and dial 911.
I give the operator the address, tell her my mother fell, that she’s unconscious and bleeding.
The rest is a blur, but she makes me stay on the line while I wait fifteen long minutes, holding my mother’s hand, afraid to move her—what if she has spinal cord damage?
I remember a Grey’s Anatomy where I swear they said never to move someone if you’re not sure.
After much too long, there’s a knock at the door, then two people sweep in, both men.
They ask questions in calm voices, and somehow I manage to match the tone with my responses, when inside, I’m anything but calm.
“My mother fell,” I tell them, and I explain what little I know. That I got coffee, that I was packing, that I heard a thud . . . “God, what if I weren’t here?” My eyes, wide with emotion, meet the gaze of the taller paramedic.
He says something like, “We’ll take good care of her,” totally ignoring my question as he locks the stretcher on wheels into place waist-high. “We’re going to bring her to Memorial Hospital. Do you know the way?”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember. I haven’t lived here in a long time.”
“You can follow us.”
“Okay.”
I get in the car, not having a clue what is happening. But there’s one thing I know for sure. I can’t leave town now.
“The medication she’s taking can compromise her immune system.
So when the infection set in, it really took hold.
” The doctor glances down at Mom and uses her pointer finger to push her glasses up her nose.
“But the antibiotics we’re giving her should work.
We’ll add a prophylactic antifungal therapy, just in case.
She’s weak, but we should be able to get her through this setback. ”
It’s not lost on me that all of the staff have used should and not will —the medication should work, my mother should make it. I swallow. “Okay. Thank you.”
The doctor leaves the room, and it’s just Mom and me.
She’s beneath a sheet, the head of her bed elevated. There’s an IV taped to her hand, pumping clear liquids— four IV bags of them—into her body. The machines make a quiet chugging sound, keeping time with the monitor over her head.
Mom’s not just in the hospital. She’s in the ICU . A cold, creepy place, full of serious nurses who don’t seem to smile. And of course, they shouldn’t have to—they’re literally keeping people alive. Keeping my mom alive, even though she’s destined to die soon enough.
Six hours and twenty minutes later—I know, because I’ve been switching between staring at Mom and the clock on the wall—one of the serious nurses walks in.
She presses her hand to my shoulder. “I don’t think anything is going to change over the next twenty-four hours.
The medications need to do their job, and we’re giving her a sedative to keep her resting.
Her vitals are stable. It’s fine if you want to go home and rest.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
The nurse leaves, and I stand and stare down at my mother.
I’ve obviously known she was critically ill since I walked in and took my first look at her—her skin color and sunken face told me before she confirmed it.
Yet somehow it’s not until this moment that it sinks in that it’s going to be soon, very soon .
If not this hospital admission, then the next or the one after that, but there won’t be very much time between.
I take my mother’s hand and squeeze it. “Bye, Mom. I’ll be back in a bit. ”
I’m lost in my head as I make my way out of the ICU, take the elevator down to the lobby, and walk through the automatic revolving front door. As I step out, a person is stepping in, but I don’t even take note of them until I hear my name.
“Elizabeth?”
I look up and blink a few times. “Lucas?”
“I thought that was you.” He smiles, swamps me in a hug that catches me off guard. “How the heck are you? It’s been forever.”
He shakes his head when he pulls back. “Damn, you look great.”
I smile. “You do, too.” And he really does.
Lucas was lanky in high school, but now he’s bulked up, grown into his looks, very manly looking.
He used to fool around with Jocelyn, but I always had a little crush on him, too.
He’s wearing black scrubs, like a few people I saw in the ICU. “Do you work here?”
He nods. “I’m a PA. Are you visiting someone?”
“My mom.”
He frowns. “I heard she was sick. You know how this town is—nothing’s private. I’m sorry. Everything okay?”
I force a smile. “It will be.”
“Good.” He shakes his head, eyes sweeping over my face. “You really look amazing.”
My belly warms. “Thank you.”
“You live in New York, right? I always ask your mom how you’re doing whenever I run into her. She brags about you being a professor.”
“She does?”
He nods. “Are you married?”
“No. You?”
Lucas shakes his head. “I was engaged until about six months ago, but it didn’t work out.”
There’s a short chirp, a beep of some kind. Lucas looks down and presses a button on a pager clipped to his scrub pants. He frowns and thumbs to the hospital. “I gotta run. How long are you in town for?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Maybe we can get a drink, catch up. Let me get your number.”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to have a drink, but because I’m suspicious of everyone lately. And Lucas was just mentioned in one of the chapters Hannah sent. Though that feels like one coincidence that is actually a coincidence. So I smile and nod. “Sure.”
“I actually forgot my cell phone at home today. I didn’t realize until I parked. So we’ll have to do this old school.” He pulls a leather satchel from his shoulder and unzips it, then tears off the corner of a piece of paper and hands me a pen. “Just like we did it back in the old days.”
I jot down my number and hand it back with a smile.
“Thanks,” he says. “I work three twelves—three days on, four off. Today is my last day on, but I’ll check in on your mom this afternoon.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I’ll call you?”
I smile. “Okay.”
The hospital is only a twenty-minute drive from my mom’s, but I yawn twice on the way there.
Not having slept all night is catching up to me fast. I need at least a nap, and I should eat something, too, but probably after because I’m too tired to cook anything or go to a store.
I pull into the driveway with big plans in my head, but it looks like they might have to wait, because there’s another car there already.
An unfamiliar pickup truck, red, a little rusty.
Typical Louisiana. A man steps—no, swaggers —out of it, and I know immediately who it is, even before he shuts the door and I see his handsome face.
“Noah,” I murmur. If I had any emotion left, I suspect I’d feel panicked. Angry. Suspicious. Instead, I feel like I might be a little drunk, though this time, alcohol has nothing to do with it. “What are you doing here?”