Chapter Thirteen Jenn
Chapter Thirteen
Jenn
Friday morning
When I arrive at the hospital coffee shop, Doug and Terry Langston are already waiting at a corner table by the window, set apart from the buzz of the breakfast crowd. Their pallor, the tremor in their hands as they stir untouched lattes—these are the faces of people who haven’t slept in days.
There’s a third cup on the table.
Before I can process that, a familiar baritone sounds behind me.
“Jennifer.”
Every nerve in my body braces. I turn to find Julian—whose office I left not an hour ago—standing there, a plate of pastries in hand.
“I thought I’d join long enough to make introductions,” he says smoothly, reiterating his offer from our earlier conversation.
The one I declined.
“I see.”
“I didn’t want to leave Doug and Terry alone at a time like this,” he explains softly.
I manage a tight smile. Actually, that would’ve been exactly the point. I’d wanted a clean read on them—no third-party interference, least of all his. Whatever thawing that began back in his armchair has started to reverse course.
Doug rises at once, relief and deference flickering across his face as we approach.
“You must be Dr. Flores. I’m Doug Langston,” the man begins, then gestures toward his wife, who’s still seated. “And this is my wife, Theresa—Terry. Julian’s told us so much about you.”
Has he now?
My old mentor gives that practiced paternal half smile.
“Indeed! Jennifer and I go back a long way. One of the finest residents I ever had.”
My throat feels dry as chalk. “I understand you’ve known Dr. Braithwaite for quite some time.”
“Yes, we’re so grateful for Julian. Thank God we have him to help us navigate this nightmare,” Terry says in the raspy voice of the emotionally exhausted.
Julian lays a hand on her shoulder. “You focus on your daughter, Theresa. Let the rest of us worry about logistics.” His tone is a tranquilizer in human form.
Doug looks at me, desperate. “They still won’t let us see her. Julian says it’s standard, but she’s our child. She won’t even talk to us.”
“She’s frightened,” Julian answers before I can. “And familiar faces can be . . . overwhelming at a time like this. But I can assure you, Mary is in excellent hands with Dr. Flores here.”
“I’ll do everything I can for her,” I tell them, in as comforting a tone as I can manage.
Braithwaite deposits the plate of pastries on the table and grabs his coffee. “I’ll leave you to talk. Call me when you’ve finished, Doug.”
His hand squeezes Doug’s shoulder.
When he leaves the cafeteria, my chest seems to loosen, my lungs expanding more deeply. I offer the Langstons a warm smile. Not that they notice.
“I don’t know what we would have done without that man,” Terry murmurs, watching as he walks away.
I slip into the chair he was occupying before I arrived and use a napkin to wipe away the ring of condensation left behind by his mug and take my first good look at the couple.
Terry Langston is all sharp lines and lean strength, her short salt-and-pepper layers swept back off her face in an easy, no-nonsense style that gives her a trim, slightly boyish look that somehow suits her completely.
Beside her, Doug carries more heft than his wife, though not in an unhealthy way—just the sturdy, softened edges that come with middle age.
His hair is a mix of brown and silver that looks sun faded rather than aged.
“You seem very close,” I note.
The couple nods in tandem.
“But it wasn’t just that,” Terry Langston pipes up. “Julian was a sort of . . . a peace broker . . . between Doug and his father. They’d had a terrible falling out after we got married . . .”
Doug lets out an incredulous bark of laughter. “Hah! More like Dad had a colossal meltdown! He disowned me. Wrote me out of the will, the whole thing. My father was a miserable man for a long time after my mother died. He hated the world and everyone in it, including me.”
“So what changed?”
“Julian. He knew we’d been trying desperately to have a baby for a few years with no luck. Turns out he sat on the board of a private adoption agency and pulled some strings to get us to the top of the waitlist.”
My jaw tightens. This is a pretty big detail that dear Dr. Braithwaite neglected to share with me. And it explains the vibe I’m getting here—that they see him as a savior, a benevolent hand behind the curtain.
I keep my expression neutral. “That was very generous of him.”
“Julian’s been more than generous,” Terry says. “He’s family.”
I file that away. Family.
And we all know you don’t treat your own family. It’s unethical. And in this hospital—in most every hospital—it’s strictly forbidden.
But then, if you can bring in someone else to do it for you . . . someone you think you can manage . . .
I shake my head slightly as if I can pry the thought loose.
It’s entirely possible I’m overthinking this.
Before he failed to support me against Kellogg, I, too, thought the world of Julian.
Just because our relationship soured doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person.
Or a bad doctor. Before I can give this any more consideration, Terry continues with the story.
“Julian made sure Lloyd—my father-in-law—knew he had a granddaughter, and that she’d been named for Doug’s mother, Mary Louise,” she explained, tears brimming behind her lashes. “The first time Lloyd laid eyes on her . . . he just wept.”
“Dr. Flores, my father had liver cancer and wasn’t expected to live long. So we moved in to help with his care and so he could spend as much time with the baby as possible. But then . . . it was amazing—he didn’t die!”
I shift in my chair so I’m leaning in closer to the couple. “Really?”
“Really! Tough old bird went on to live another six years!” Doug exclaims. “I swear it was that little girl. It was Mary. She’s always had a way of bringing sunshine with her wherever she goes.”
At this comment Terry chokes back a sob, placing a hand over her mouth. “But now . . .”
“But now . . . what?” I coax.
Doug sighs heavily as he pats his wife on the arm. “She’s totally cut us out of her life. We haven’t spoken to her in nearly two years. She won’t see us. Not even now . . . now that all this has happened. But we’re praying that she’ll talk to you.”
I offer them my warmest smile. The one that—hopefully—conveys my empathy and concern, the latter of which I suddenly have a lot of as I take in their haggard appearances.
Her forehead is permanently creased where the brows pull it down into a frown, while his mouth is set in a perpetual pucker of concern.
It’s the kind of wear and tear that comes from years of protracted worrying.
“Well, I’ll be meeting her later this afternoon, and I promise you I’ll broach the subject with her,” I assure them. “From there, though, it’s totally up to her.”
Terry grabs onto my comment like it’s a life raft.
“So she’s well enough to speak with you?” She starts wiping her damp face with the back of her hands. “Do you know—can you at least tell us how she’s doing? Physically, I mean? Is she terribly hurt? Should we be contacting larger hospitals with more resources or a specialist of some sort?”
Time to inch my way out onto the tightrope. Julian was right about this much: Their intentions are so sincere that I can’t help but be affected by their love and concern. Still, I have to be careful with how much I disclose.
“As I said, I have yet to meet her personally, but, from what I’ve been told, she’s stable.”
Theresa Langston presses a hand to her chest and closes her eyes. “Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thank you,” she murmurs, crossing herself with a trembling hand.
Before they can ask for more details than I’m able to give them, I lean forward in my seat slightly, both hands wrapped around my paper cup on the table. “I wonder . . . would you be comfortable telling me what happened? Why it is, exactly, there’s this rift between all of you?”
Doug doesn’t let an entire second tick by before spitting his response. “It was her.”
The three words are a pronouncement, a condemnation. And it takes me a second to figure out who he’s talking about.
“You mean . . . Samantha?”
They nod in somber agreement, unquestionably united in their belief that Mary’s twin is responsible for the breakdown of their relationship with their daughter.
“We were always so close,” Terry tells me insistently.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but we never had any of that tween or teen drama.
She shared everything with us—wanted us to know every little thing that was going on in her life!
We were just that kind of family. Then she went off to college . . .”
Doug smirks, running a hand through his hair as he shakes his head, conveying total and complete disbelief.
“It was a total fluke. One in a million, maybe. I mean, Mary got into Vassar, NYU, and UC Berkeley!” he says, pointing his index finger at me as he rattles off the colleges.
“If she’d gone to any one of those—hell, if she’d gone anywhere else .
. .” He lets himself fall back against the chair with a sigh that’s brimming with regret.
“If any one of a thousand tiny things had been different, then they never would have crossed paths, and none of this would have ever happened.”
Terry picks up the narrative here. It’s like watching a relay race with participants handing off the verbal baton between laps.
“It was the first time she’d really been away from home—from us,” she explains.
“And she was only there a few days when”—she makes a circular gesture with her hand as if to encompass something floating in the ether around us—“when that girl turned up out of nowhere. That’s when all hell broke loose. ”
This is a decidedly darker spin than the one that was peddled in the news and across social media—the miraculous reunion of identical twins separated at birth.
“May I ask—I can’t recall ever having seen a comment or quote from either of you. No interviews or talk show appearances. Nothing like that.”