Chapter 6
I sat hunched in a stiff vinyl chair, tucked in the corner of one of the many identical emergency rooms that made up the hospital’s endless maze.
The walls were a bland beige. A thin, light-blue curtain separated me from the rest of the ER.
Through the gap, I could see the crisis counselor speaking quietly with the doctor.
Both of them were facing Daniel. He kept glancing over at me, worry etched so deeply into his face it looked like it might remain there forever.
Daniel nodded a few times at whatever they were saying. Then he turned and walked over to me.
Without a word, he gently grabbed my bag off the floor.
We’d been in this hospital for hours. Nurses had come in and out.
So had doctors, running tests and exchanging observations.
The crisis counselor had stopped by a few times.
Most of their words didn’t register. They were like voices underwater, distant and muffled.
I’d just nod or stare at them with that empty, dead-eyed look people had in movies after something exploded.
I was still wearing the bloody clothes. The fabric clung to me like a memory I couldn’t peel off fast enough. I wanted them gone. I wanted out of this skin.
“They said they could keep you overnight if you want,” Daniel said.
I shook my head. “I want to go home.”
He nodded and held out his hand. I took it.
The drive home blurred past me like a dream I couldn’t hold onto.
I didn’t even remember stepping through the grand entrance of our apartment building or greeting Gerald, the doorman.
We must have passed him with polite nods and blank faces.
Next thing I knew, we were in our multilevel penthouse in Seaport.
I stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at Boston Harbor. The city lights shimmered, looking like colored stars flung across the water. It was night, deep night, and the world felt both too quiet and too loud.
I was in pajamas. My hair was damp. I’d showered. Sort of. I think Daniel had helped me through most of it. I couldn’t really remember. Everything felt like I’d watched it happen from underwater.
Mochi sat on my shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed him land there.
“Nighttime, sleep, sleep,” he chirped in his usual robotic tone.
Daniel’s voice—soft and warm—broke through the noise in my head. “Mochi,” he said. “Let’s give your mom some rest, yeah?” He reached up beside me, palm out. Mochi waddled onto his hand without fuss, and Daniel placed him gently in his cage.
“Nighttime, time to sleep,” Mochi said once more as Daniel draped a blanket over the cage.
He turned to me. “Do you feel like going to bed?”
I shook my head.
“I could grab blankets and pillows and set them up on the couch. Leave the TV on all night?” He shrugged. “It always helps me when I can’t sleep.”
I nodded.
He disappeared into the bedroom and returned with arms full of bedding. I watched as he laid everything out on the massive designer couch. His movements slowed as the weight of everything caught up with him. He shook his head, muttering under his breath.
“Fucking Christ,” he said. “I still can’t believe someone shot Cynthia.”
He was right. It was unthinkable. It made no sense.
I was exhausted but also terrified of closing my eyes. What if I saw it all over again? What if it replayed in slow motion?
And then it did anyway. The moment I blinked, Cynthia’s face flashed in front of me. Her eyes, wide and lifeless. Blood and bone sprayed from the side of her head.
My head dropped into my hands.
“Emily.”
I shook it slowly, then harder.
“Emily!”
Daniel rushed over and pulled me into his arms. It was like his body already knew how to hold mine when it broke.
“She’s dead, Daniel!” I sobbed.
“I know.”
“Someone shot her in the freaking face!” The words erupted from me like an explosion. Tears finally came, hot and unstoppable, like a dam had given way.
“I know, hon. I know.” When my knees gave out, he sank down with me, holding me as I collapsed. We knelt there together, tangled and trembling, as I cried into his shoulder for what felt like forever.
We ended up sleeping on the couch. Or trying to. Reality shows buzzed in the background. Someone laughed on screen—too bright, too fake, too wrong for this moment. I drifted in and out of sleep, torn between nightmares and memories, none of them merciful or kind.
I was up by 2 a.m., too scared to try to sleep again. Every time I closed my eyes, Cynthia’s face waited for me.
By seven, the sky had started to bleed into the apartment. The first hints of sunrise painted the walls in burnt orange and soft red, the in-between hue of night giving way to morning.
Curled on the couch, I stared through the TV.
“Would you like some coffee?” Daniel asked.
I nodded.
“I don’t think I want to go to work today,” I said.
“Oh, God, no, of course not,” he said. “You don’t ever have to go back there.”
I heard the soft clink of mugs in the kitchen. The hiss of the machine. He came back and handed a mug of coffee to me. Steam curled into the quiet space between us as he sat next to me on the couch. He looked calm but not quite rested.
“In fact”—he placed a hand gently over mine—“the crisis counselor at the hospital suggested taking some time off. A longer break. Focusing on”—he paused, seeming to choose his words carefully—“on your well-being. Less stress.”
I nodded again. His voice conveyed no judgment—just love and a terrifying amount of truth.
He was worried this would be the thing that finally broke me.
And honestly, no matter how strong I thought I was, right here, right now, I was afraid too.
The thought of stepping into that building again made me physically ill.
“We could go on a trip,” he suggested. “Name any place. I know it all feels unreal right now, and if you need more time to think, that’s okay. But a change of pace might be what we need. I already emailed Cliff and told him to free my schedule for the next weeks.”
“Leaving Boston behind for a bit does sound nice,” I said.
It really did. I loved our home, but lately, it felt haunted. The nightmares clung to the walls, lingering in every corner like smoke that wouldn’t clear.
“We always talked about Italy. For our honeymoon,” Daniel said.
And we had. But with my NREM parasomnia disorder and everything in between, we kept putting it off.
“Italy would be nice,” I said.
“But?”
“It seems a bit far. What about something more local?”
The next words were already forming in my head before I even realized where they were heading. Cynthia had planted the seed right before she died. And now, it was growing roots.
“Sure,” Daniel said. “What were you thinking?”
I took a breath, steady and deep, but the second I exhaled, I said it.
“What about the Breakers?”
His mug slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor. I flinched as porcelain shattered, and hot coffee splashed across our feet. His expression froze. He looked stunned, pale, rattled.
“Shit, did I burn you?” he asked, rushing into the kitchen.
I didn’t answer, just watched him. Daniel never dropped things. Ever.
My eyes darted to Mochi’s cage. I expected him to stir. But the blanket was still draped over the cage, and he remained quiet. Fast asleep and undisturbed.
Daniel returned with a towel and crouched down, picking up the shards piece by piece. Then he wiped the floor with slow, careful movements. Mechanical, almost robotic. The silence between us stretched on.
I’d never seen him like this. Ruffled. Nervous.
“The Breakers,” he finally murmured. “Funny you say that. It’s my childhood home.” His voice was flat. When he looked up, our eyes locked.
“I . . . I know.” I tried to brush it off, to make it sound like less of a betrayal. But of course, he wanted to know where that name had come from.
“Cynthia told me about it.”
He went back to mopping. “I see.”
“During our last session, she mentioned that her brother recognized the name Winthrop. Said it was old Boston money.”
Daniel stood and carried the broken mug to the kitchen. He tossed the pieces into the trash before rinsing the towel under the faucet.
“It is,” he called over the running water. “But I have no family left up there. It’s just an empty place. And the weather’s terrible there right now. Violent spring storms almost every day.”
“Oh,” I said.
The water shut off, but Daniel stayed where he was, facing the sink, not turning around.
I didn’t need to see his face to know that a war was raging within.
I’d never seen him like this. Of course, I wanted to know what was going on inside him, but this wasn’t the moment to press.
We didn’t need more stress. Possibly even a fight.
“About Italy,” I said, forcing a smile. “We always wanted to go there.”
He turned instantly. Our eyes met. Relief passed over his face like a breeze smoothing out creased fabric.
“And you love ancient Roman history,” he said. “We could go to Rome, Venice, Pompeii—”
“Pompeii,” I echoed, still holding the smile. “That sounds amazing.”
He came over and sat beside me. “Let’s do it,” he said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s leave cold Boston behind for a while. What do you say?”
I nodded. “I vote yes.”
He grinned and kissed me. “I’ll grab the laptop. Let’s check flights. We can leave tomorrow, this weekend, next week—whenever you feel ready.”
As he walked off, I thought about it. This felt awfully rushed, but there was nothing keeping me here.
I wouldn’t be invited to Cynthia’s funeral.
Not as her patient. And I couldn’t imagine stepping into the office again anytime soon.
Mochi would be fine at the bird luxury boarding facility.
The lady who ran it loved him almost as much as I did, and he enjoyed spending time with her two parrots.
“We could leave next week,” I said, trying to sound excited.
“Next week,” Mochi echoed softly from beneath the blanket. He was awake. I walked over to open his cage while Daniel disappeared into the bedroom, rambling about wine tastings and how the Amalfi Coast was supposed to be heaven on Earth.
But I wasn’t thinking about Italy.
I was thinking about poor Cynthia. Her heartbreaking death. And the things she’d tried to tell me before she was killed.
She’d managed to give me the Breakers.
But what else had she been trying to tell me?