Sweet Fate

by Laurelin Paige

  She stared into me, her chest rising and falling with shallow, riled breaths, her cheeks pink with emotion. “Say something!”

  There were so many things to say. I wanted to tell her that I did feel something for her. That Jana meant nothing. That I was deeply and hopelessly in love with her. That I could give her all those things she wanted. That I could be The Guy, the someone who ran to her and took care of her and put her first. All I had to do was open the door to my cage and step out. I could taste the nearness to freedom, could feel it beckoning to me like sunshine streaming through the bars of my prison. Could vividly imagine taking flight with her in the sky.

  But I’d hesitated too long.

  “I guess that’s my answer,” she said, her eyes brimming. She spun on her heel and headed toward the door.

  She was walking away. I didn’t want her walking away, and that sprung me into action.

  “No, Audrey.” The house phone started ringing, but I ignored it to chase after her. “Wait. Please, wait.”

  She didn’t turn around. “I can’t talk to you right now,” she said in a choked voice. “Answer your phone.”

  I didn’t give a fuck about the bloody phone. She was at the door now, opening it with haste and slamming it shut, just as I got to it. Cursing, I opened it and called again to her as she jogged down the hall toward the lift.

  Janice Morgan, my next door neighbor, stepped out of her flat with her two German shepherds, blocking my path.

  I danced this way and that, trying to get around the threesome. Finally, I put my hands on her shoulders and scooted her out of the way.

  “Mr. Locke!” she said sharply at my back.

  I stopped to see if I’d hurt her in some way, but found her pinched expression was directed at my clothing—or lack thereof.

  A glance back at Audrey told me I wasn’t going to catch her in the lift, and I couldn’t go running down the icy sidewalk with no shoes and no shirt.

  “Bloody hell,” I muttered, turning back to my flat. I opened the cupboard next to the front door and pulled out a coat and slipped on a pair of loafers. Then I grabbed my mobile and my wallet (in case I needed to catch a cab and go directly to her house) and renewed my pursuit.

  I took the stairs, pulling up Audrey’s number on my phone as I raced down. It rang three times before her outgoing message picked up.

  “Fuck.” I tried again. This time it went immediately to her voicemail. She was avoiding me. I redialed, ignoring the annoyed look of the doorman as I blustered past him to the street. When the buoyant sound of her recorded voice filled my ear, I left a message. “Audrey, pick up. Ring me. Let’s talk. Please.”

  Outside, I searched in both directions, trying to guess if she’d gone toward the underground station, and if so, which one, since I lived squarely between two. I couldn’t see her either way so I scanned instead for a cab. None were in sight.

  I picked a direction and started walking, typing out a text as I walked.

  DYLAN: You surprised me. That’s all.

  An incoming call interrupted my message, but I cursed when I saw Ellen’s name instead of Audrey’s. I sent my ex to voicemail and was about to go back to typing when I heard a car. I looked up to see it was a cab. Too late, I reached out to summon it and let out another string of swearing when it drove on by.

  I went back to my message.

  Please come back. Please let me tell you everything in my heart.

  I pushed SEND as my mobile vibrated with another call. Ellen, again.

  “Jesus, what?” I roared.

  “Dylan, I’m at the hospital. You have to come. It’s Aaron.”

  Sixteen

  I moved in a fog back into my flat. Thoughts raced through my mind, but I couldn’t grasp any of them, like they were on the Autobahn and I was a pedestrian standing on the side of the road, watching them fly by. Simple words and phrases sped by like fuzzy blobs, the emotions and meanings impossible to fully comprehend: Infection. Pain. It’s serious. Hurry.

  There was only one thing I could cling to, letting it drive me through the haze—get to New York. Get to my son.

  The next half hour was spent on the phone. With my assistant, mainly. She took over the major task of booking me on the next flight over the pond and arranging a car both to take me to Heathrow and another to pick me up at LaGuardia. Next, I talked to Amy, putting the reins of the company in her hands until who knew when. A call to Donovan followed, apprising him of the situation. Finally, my mother, who cried even when I assured her it was too soon to panic.

  It was a lie anyway. If it were really too soon to panic, Ellen wouldn’t have said I should come. But I couldn’t think about that right now. I could barely think at all.

  I didn’t pack a bag. Even if I didn’t have clothes and essentials in my New York apartment, I would have left empty-handed. My flight took off too soon—I was going to be scrambling through security to make it as it was—and I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on what I needed, what I didn’t need. I had no idea how long I’d be gone. I was barely thinking clearly enough to remember to grab my passport.

  I was in the cab on my way to the airport before I could identify the one thing I did need—Audrey. I was devastated when I got her voicemail again and was sure she hadn’t turned her phone back on, but I tried over and over, hanging up each time the recording was finished. It was comforting to hear her voice, even if all she said was I’m obviously not available or I’m avoiding you. If you don’t leave a message after the tone, you’ll never find out which.

  Finally, when I was checked in and boarded, I left a brief message telling her what was going on. Then I typed out a text, knowing she’d see it sooner.

  DYLAN: Aaron has a serious infection and is in hospital. I’m about to take off to the U.S. now. Please, call. I need you. I need to tell you

  I stared at the screen, trying to figure out what I needed to tell her.

  Everything. That’s what. Every bloody thing I’d never told her. That I loved her. That I wanted her. That I wanted to talk this through.

  It was too much of a declaration over message. I deleted the last lines and ended with

  Please, call.

  Then I put the phone on airplane mode and buckled in for the eight-hour flight.

  There was a lot of time to think in the air, without internet connection. I thought about Aaron, of course, replaying Ellen’s words in my mind.

  “I took him into the clinic yesterday because he was complaining that his face hurt,” she’d said. “They diagnosed him with a sinus infection and gave us antibiotics. His upper lip was a little bit swollen when he went to bed. When he woke up today, he was in a lot of pain and the swelling had spread down to his chin and up to the middle of his cheeks. I called the doctor again, and they said to take him to the E.R. They admitted him immediately, and Dylan, it’s serious. You have to hurry and get here. He’s getting an MRI now so they can try to determine the cause, and they’re putting him on IV antibiotics and pain meds, but if they don’t stop the infection, if the swelling moves past his eyes and to his brain…”

  She hadn’t finished her sentence, but she hadn’t needed to. I understood clearly what she was saying even without hearing the words.

  I didn’t like thinking about that for too long, but almost every time I batted the thought aside, it immediately returned to buzz in my brain like an unwanted fly. The few times I managed to shoo it away for any significant amount of time, my head was filled instead with Audrey. Beautiful Audrey. Sweet, saucy Audrey. Bold and unafraid Audrey. Owner-of-my-heart Audrey. What to do about Audrey?

  I never made it beyond the past. I retraced every step of our relationship, every encounter, every fragment of conversation I could recall. I saw her in her underthings, standing in front of the windows in my New York flat. I heard her humming as she painted her bedroom walls. I felt the pit in my stomach as she called me a coward. I watched her running out my door, two steps ahead of me, leaving me behind.

&
nbsp; If Ellen hadn’t called, I would have gone to her place and waited on her doorstep until she let me in. I could picture that far, but what happened when I saw her, what I said, what I did—that was beyond my imagination. I didn’t know what to do about Audrey, and with Aaron tied up to a hospital IV in another country, it was impossible to consider seriously.

  It was just after midnight when I landed at LaGuardia, and my mobile was dead. I hadn’t thought to grab a charger, and while it was possible there might be one for sale in the airport, I was too eager to get to hospital. Asking Ellen for an update on Aaron could wait until then, and if Audrey had called, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. My priority right now had to be my son. I didn’t have room for distractions, as sweet as that particular distraction might be.

  The ride into the city was smooth and quick, a benefit of my late arrival. There weren’t too many cars, and the warm front the region was experiencing after the prior week’s snow had cleared up any lingering ice from the roads.

  Getting past hospital security was a lengthier process. Visiting hours were over, and even though there were exceptions for minors, I couldn’t ring Ellen to approve my relation to Aaron without my mobile phone. The main entrance was closed and the only way in was through the ER, which was filled with the typical late-night medical emergencies. It took more than thirty minutes to find someone who had the time to talk to me, but eventually I was given a pass and sent to the children’s ward. Then there was another door to be buzzed through and a paper to sign at the Pediatric desk, but finally, I was directed to my son’s room.

  The door was ajar, and I stood outside it for a moment to catch my breath, then pushed it open. The lights were dim, and a curtain hid the bed where, I presumed, Aaron was sleeping. I’d expected to find Ellen stretched out in the recliner next to him, but instead, she was standing just inside the room with her arms crossed over her chest while she talked to a man in a lab coat.

  “Oh, good. You’re here,” my ex-wife said quietly when I walked in. Her voice sounded a bit raspier than usual, and her eyes looked heavy and tired, but otherwise, she seemed as she always did—poised, collected. Cold. Clinical.

  There had been a part of me that had wanted to reach for her the minute I saw her. While we spent most of our interactions these days in battle mode, none of our fights felt relevant at the moment. She was the mother of my child, a woman I still loved fiercely for that reason alone. There was no one who could better know what I was feeling, how distressed and out of my mind with worry.

  But even with the man next to her, she seemed too detached for an embrace. Too withdrawn. It reminded me vividly of a night long ago, another cold night spent in hospital fretting over a child. Her child. Amanda hadn’t made it through that night, and Ellen had shut down the minute her daughter’s time of death had been declared. She’d become unapproachable. Distant. Aloof. It had felt impossible to try to comfort her.

  I’d resented her for that then, and that resentment was a barrier around her now, preventing me from pulling her into my arms.

  “He’s sleeping right now,” she said, before I could ask. “This is Dr. Sharma. Aaron’s going into surgery tomorrow morning, and Dr. Sharma’s associate is to be the surgeon.”

  I shook the doctor’s hand. He had a firm grip, and that reassured me for some reason. “I’m Dylan, Aaron’s father. I’m sorry I don’t know what’s going on—I just arrived from London. Could you possibly get me up to speed? About everything.”

  “Yes, Mr. Locke. I’m sorry to meet you under such serious circumstances. I was actually only hanging around to update you.”

  My chest constricted like it had been gripped with a large hand, squeezing all the air out of my lungs. It hadn’t even occurred to me that medical doctors didn’t usually visit patients in the middle of the night until he’d said something. If he’d been waiting this late specifically to update me, then Aaron’s condition had to have taken a turn for the worse.

  Ellen read the panic on my face. “No, no, it’s not what you think. Donovan hired Dr. Sharma to be available when you arrived. He knew you’d want to talk to a medical professional directly.”

  Bless Donovan Kincaid. Sometimes his overreaching really was appreciated.

  Dr. Sharma explained to me the situation in detail. The MRI they’d conducted while I was in flight indicated that he had a dental abscess, and the infection had moved to his skin. “It’s called cellulitis and is mainly treated by heavy antibiotics. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get the medicine exactly where we need it. The veins in the face are small, and it can take some time before the IV meds get into that area. The surgeon will scrape out as much of the infection as possible tomorrow morning, which should help speed up the process, but the most important component for fighting this is the antibiotics.”

  “They’ve already changed which antibiotic they were giving him once since this morning,” Ellen added.

  I didn’t like the implications of that. “What was the reasoning for the change? It’s been less than twenty-four hours. Surely that couldn’t have been enough time to determine the first medicine wasn’t working.”

  “It’s not as concerning as it sounds,” Dr. Sharma assured me. “We put him on one antibiotic when he checked in, and after watching him for a few hours and seeing the infection was spreading at a faster rate than we’d originally suspected, we decided to move him to a more powerful medicine.”

  “It’s spread?” I sounded more alarmed than I wanted to.

  Ellen met my worried gaze. “It’s just under his eyes now, Dylan. And it’s moving down his neck.”

  “That’s bad, isn’t it? You don’t want it to move past his eyes.” I was only repeating the information she’d given me earlier.

  “That is correct, Mr. Locke. Once the infection gets past the orbital bone, it can easily enter the brain. Encephalitis is quite serious, but I don’t want to worry about that until it reaches that point.”

  “And if it gets into his lymph nodes. That’s bad too.” Ellen wanted me to know all the worst-case scenarios, it seemed.

  I appreciated this. I’d spent most of the flight imagining what they could be. I needed to know what the reality was. “What happens if it gets into his lymph nodes?” I asked.

  “The lymph nodes can easily deliver the infection through the bloodstream, spreading the bacteria throughout the body. There is a possibility that could lead to sepsis.”

  The vice grip around my chest tightened. “Aunt Edna died of sepsis.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Ellen said. Her lip trembled, the only indication of the desperate emotions that had to be raging inside her.

  Dr. Sharma tried to soothe us. “Again, that’s not something we should worry about until necessary. Right now we have a clear path of attack. Let’s give the antibiotics time to work.”

  I thanked the doctor for his time and for staying so late and giving us reassurance. The minute he left the room, though, the anxiety of the possibilities pressed heavier on my shoulders. I caught Ellen’s eye. Her features were smooth, but I knew her well enough to see the agitation simmering underneath. She was still closed off, her arms wrapped around herself. Nothing about her posture was inviting.

  But I pulled her into my arms and clung to her anyway, something I maybe should have done more of when her child had died, because this time it was also my child, and I needed her, even if she didn’t need me.

  She didn’t pull away, and after a while, I could feel her body soften in my embrace. We stood there for a long time, talking to each other only through touch, sharing the weight of this hardship as well as we could. When she finally broke away, her eyes were brimming, and she excused herself to go to the ensuite bathroom.

  Alone, I took a beat to get myself together. Then I stepped around the curtain to see my son. He was sleeping on his back, his body twisted as though he wanted to be on his side, but couldn’t manage it with the various hookups to machines. Or possibly, the pressure of laying that wa
y hurt too much, which was understandable. His entire face, from his eye sockets down, was swollen. Much more swollen than I’d imagined. I couldn’t even tell where his cheekbones were. Even his nose was misshaped with edema. He looked like a puffed-up marshmallow, and I didn’t doubt he was in incredible pain.

  I stood over him and gripped the bedrail until my knuckles were white. He looked so small and fragile, and I suddenly remembered standing over Amanda’s bed. Remembered how she’d seemed small and fragile. Remembered how much it hurt to watch her slip away from this life and into the next.

  It had been unbearable, really.

  More unbearable than all the things that happened next—Ellen’s complete shutdown, her string of affairs, our divorce. Amanda had been thirteen when I’d married her mother, and six years later, when she’d sat on her deathbed, I’d grown to love her as though she were my own. Losing her had ripped me apart. It had destroyed parts of me that could never be recovered. It was her death, not the end of my marriage, that had taught me the lesson I held onto so resolutely now—love leads to loss.

  And I never wanted to feel that kind of loss again. If Aaron died…if he was no longer in my world…

  A sob escaped from my throat.

  I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t. Whatever I had to do, whatever I had to pay, Aaron had to stay alive. He was lodged inside me so deeply, that I was sure I couldn’t exist without him. I was helpless at his side, but I silently vowed to do anything within my power to keep him here.

  And I renewed an older vow too, the vow I’d made when I closed down my heart after Amanda—never let anyone else inside. No one. Not even Audrey. She’d worked her way past my walls, but not all of them, not yet, and it couldn’t be too late to build more. If I didn’t let Audrey in any farther than she already was, if I pushed her out of my heart all together, then there would be less chance that I’d ever be here again, standing on the brink of sanity while my world crumbled to pieces in front of me.