“Why is he?”
Anna laughed without any humor. Leaning back against the hard chair, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Madeleine patiently waited for her to gather herself. That something had happened between these two was evident. What she was witnessing wasn’t distress or even sorrow. Anna was on full-blown meltdown.
“He said he was done with being sick. He was either going to be cured or he was going to die, but he was done playing. Playing.”
“I’m sorry, Anna. It sounds like Ben.”
“It does. I wouldn’t even have known what he’d decided if I hadn’t checked with his doctor about the week’s schedule. I was bringing him in so early on Friday it didn’t smell right. That’s when the doctor said they were checking him in indefinitely. He’s going through the chemo now. Then they’ll do the radiation treatment. After that, in a couple of days, they’ll do the transplant. Then he has to remain in a solitary ICU for at least forty-five days to prevent infection.”
“Can we visit him during that time?”
She shook her head. “No. They won’t let us in the room. We can see him distantly through the glass walls, but we can’t get close enough to actually speak to him.”
“We’ll send messages with the nurses,” Madeleine said, trying to comfort her. “We’ll let him know we’re here. That he has our support.”
“No, we won’t.” Anna shook her head. “I called you because I can’t leave him alone. Of all the people on his team, you seem to be the closest. I know you consider him a friend.”
“He is my friend. He’s your friend, too.”
“No. He’s not my friend.”
“Anna…”
“We made love,” she blurted. “No, sorry. I made love. He had sex.”
Madeleine said nothing. Anna swallowed, then met her gaze directly. “Did you know how I felt about him?”
“I guessed.” Madeleine sighed. “I think it was one of those things I knew but didn’t want to go there. You work so closely together, and I didn’t know how it would work out for you two. But I will say, I’ve never seen him let anyone get that close. I thought maybe…he felt the same way about you.”
“He doesn’t.”
“How do you know? You said you two made love. That means he was attracted to you. He wanted you.”
“Nope,” she said abruptly. “He realized that what he was about to do might kill him. I think he wanted one last roll in the hay while he could still get it up. It’s not like he could go trolling the bars looking for an easy pickup. And of course, hookers and their possible contaminants were out of the question. I was nothing more than convenient.”
Madeleine closed her eyes against the bitterness in Anna’s voice, knowing it wasn’t borne out of truth, but instead out of Anna’s pain. “You can’t say that. Is that what you were fighting about? When I walked in on you two?”
“I wanted to go with him to the doctor’s. I wanted to be there to discuss his next course of treatment. He wouldn’t let me. Said it was none of my business. When I politely brought up the fact that we were sort of lovers now, and that made a difference, he made his feelings completely clear. ‘It just happened…’ That’s what he said. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’”
Madeleine didn’t believe it, but she didn’t think Anna was in any state to hear that. Sex changed everything. Especially between two people as close as Anna and Ben.
“Anyway, I can’t stay. The doctors said they should know in a month if his body will accept the bone marrow or not. I can’t wait around and see if he’s going to live. I can’t do it. I can’t stand here day in and day out looking through some glass at a man lying in a hospital bed, maybe dying, who made this choice without me. I love him, but he doesn’t love me back. So I can’t stay.”
“Anna, you don’t want to do something you might regret.”
“You don’t know me. I’ve lost too many people in my life to go through this again. He knew it, too. So I’m done with playing, too, and I won’t regret anything.”
Sensing she needed to tread very softly, Madeleine nodded. She didn’t want to alienate Anna, because she knew if Anna left right now she would need a path back someday. The least Madeleine could do was be that path for her.
“Okay. Is there anything you want me to tell him?”
Anna stood and waited a moment as if testing to see if her legs would hold her. “Yes, please. Tell him I quit.”
With that she left the waiting area and didn’t once look back.
* * *
OVER THE NEXT few days Madeleine spent most of her time going between Ben’s home and the hospital, only stopping at her place to shower and change clothes.
Being Anna, she had found a temporary replacement to handle Ben’s business correspondence and had already hired a nurse to help him through his recovery once he returned home. His house had been cleaned and sanitized and was ready for him. Madeleine had inspected all the work and was satisfied with it.
She spent part of her days touching base with each of her coworkers to give them an update on Ben’s condition. The rest of her days were spent doing as Anna had asked of her—being there for Ben. Although she couldn’t say how much he registered her presence. The chemo had left him weak and nauseous and, according to the nurses, as irritable as a bear with a thorn in his paw.
Standing outside the ICU unit, Madeleine could finally see Ben through a glass partition as they settled him into his bed. Ben had undergone the marrow transplant and was recovering. He looked whiter than the sheets he was lying on, but he was alert and speaking with the doctor. He’d looked over once and saw her standing there. She’d smiled and waved, and when he’d turned his head away she could almost feel his disappointment. It had been several days and Anna hadn’t shown herself once. Ben had to realize what that meant.
When the nurse came out, Madeleine waited for any kind of update.
“He feels pretty lousy,” she said. “Not really much to be done about that but to keep him as comfortable as possible. Now we wait and see if the bone marrow will take.”
“I understand. Can he have his tablet in the room with him or his phone so I can talk with him?”
“Maybe tomorrow when he’s a little stronger. Right now he needs rest more than anything. Are you Anna?”
“No.”
The nurse clearly looked uncomfortable.
“It’s okay,” Madeleine assured her, sensing the woman feared she had ratted out her patient. “I’m a friend. Anna is another friend.”
Relieved, the nurse nodded. “He was asking for her, is all.”
Madeleine nodded. She had no intention of letting him know she had quit. Although, given her absence, he had to suspect it. The reality could wait until he felt better. For now, let him think that she was only upset with him and that was why she wasn’t visiting.
Not knowing what else to do, Madeleine made her way back to the waiting area.
She thought of Anna who had done this for days on end alone while he’d been undergoing his first round of chemo treatment. Of course she must have loved him. The question was, did Ben know? For a very smart businessman, it wouldn’t surprise her if he was obtuse in other areas of his life.
In that way they were similar.
Of course Madeleine had called Michael to let him know where she was going and that she would be needed in Philadelphia for several weeks. He’d offered to come with her but she had refused. Things were still too uncertain between them. Asking him to do nothing but be support for her seemed selfish.
And the separation would be a good thing, she told herself. She could spend the time waiting around in the hospital thinking about him, about their relationship and about her obvious trust issues. When she was around him, all rational thought seemed to fly out the door. Without him here, she could really focus. This would be good for them. This would help put their feelings in perspective. This would allow them to objectively evaluate if they were simply two people who had become friends or if they
were something more and what that would mean between them sexually.
Yes, being without him seemed like a very practical idea.
When she got back to the waiting area, the woman who sat quietly knitting wasn’t alone. At the other end of the room sat Michael. In a pair of jeans and a comfortable sweater, he looked as good as anything she had ever seen in her life.
All her grand ideas about wanting separation from him evaporated like water in a steam room. The way they had left each other, even the awkwardness during their phone call when she’d told him not to come, all of it meant nothing.
He was here.
He stood and opened his arms and like she’d never before done in her life, she ran to him and threw herself into him. She held him as if she would never let go.
“You came,” she whispered on his neck.
“Yep.”
“I told you that you didn’t have to.”
“You told me not to,” he corrected her. Then he pulled back and looked into her face. “I don’t like being told what to do. Besides, I missed you.”
And she’d missed him. They had been apart for a couple of days, and she hadn’t realized that she’d felt like a piece of her was missing until she’d seen him again and knew what that piece was.
She was in trouble. Big-time, deep-down trouble. Because she was starting to suspect she was in love with him and it scared the crap out of her.
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes, through glass. He’s not allowed any visitors. He looks…well, not great. But he’s awake and alert. The nurse said all we can do now is wait and see how his body responds to the bone marrow.”
“If I know Ben, he’s probably willing his body into submission right now. He’ll intimidate it into doing whatever he commands.”
Madeleine smiled.
“Do you want to stay here for a while?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to see him after the treatment. But now he’ll sleep for the rest of the day. We can leave.”
Since Michael had taken a cab from the airport to the hospital, Madeleine drove. She looked for signs that he was uneasy being a passenger instead of a driver, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he rested his head back against the seat, and for a moment, Madeleine thought he might have dozed off.
“How far to your place?” he asked out of nowhere.
“Uh, not far. I’m only about fifteen minutes outside the city.”
Of course she was taking him back to her home. It only made sense he would stay with her. They were two people in a relationship. She had plenty of room. Yes, absolutely, it was the only choice. So why did she feel so afraid?
When she glanced over to see if this time he was actually sleeping, she could see that instead he was staring back at her. Assessing her.
“If you don’t want me to stay with you, just drop me off at a hotel.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I want you to stay with me. Why would you suggest I don’t?”
“Because when I asked about your place you got as stiff as a board.”
Madeleine forced herself to relax but it was too late. She shook her head and laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Me. And me with you. I remember being on the phone with you once and I freaked out because I wasn’t wearing shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“We were talking about work. It was a professional call and when I work or interact with anyone I’m always properly dressed. Armor in place and all that, but I was being slightly rebellious and had removed my shoes. Then you wanted to do FaceTime and I panicked.”
Michael sighed. “I’m sorry about the armor comment. You know where I come from. Sometimes I fight dirty.”
“You were right, though. I have…issues.”
This time Michael chuckled.
“Don’t laugh at me, I’m coming clean here.”
“Lady, you didn’t want me to go down on you and give you an orgasm. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you have issues. But I get the sense you admitting them out loud is a big deal. Hell, I know how big a deal admitting my issues was. We’re even in that regard.”
Madeleine squirmed a bit, but he was right. If she was going to come clean about everything, she figured she owed him the truth about why she was shaking in her boots over the idea of him staying in her house with her.
She took the exit off the Schuylkill Expressway for City Line Avenue. A few more turns and she was driving up a small incline of a road and then onto her driveway. She lifted her hand to the sun visor and hit the button on the small remote. The gate to her driveway slid back, allowing the car to enter.
With the fence, the house was completely obscured from the road. On two carefully landscaped acres of land, it was also invisible to any of her neighbors. Only someone who had gotten past the gate and reached the top of the driveway would know a house was there.
She drove up to the house, turned off the engine and sat for a moment. Michael didn’t ask her why she wasn’t moving and he didn’t make any moves to get out, either. Instead he reached over and grabbed her hand. The contact was warm and comforting and reminded her why she’d gone from leaving off her shoes while talking to him to this moment of intimacy.
“I mean it. If you’re uncomfortable with this I can go to a hotel.”
“No. I am not going to lie. I am uncomfortable with this, but I want you here. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m insane. I’ve never had anyone here before. In this house.”
“Ever?”
“Ever. When the scandal hit I had to leave D.C. immediately. I stayed with my father for a time, but he quickly tired of the situation. And my brother and his wife felt the same way. Plus, they had young children in the house they didn’t want to expose to…well, me, I guess. Anyway, I scrambled and bought this house. I needed something with a fence that would clearly delineate the property line so if any reporters crossed it I could call the police and press charges. I also needed…”
“A place to hide.”
He understood. He would. “Yes. In the months following I couldn’t leave at all. Something as simple as going to the grocery store was a battle. So anything I wanted I had delivered here. It was so much easier. My family wanted nothing to do with me. My friends…well, I didn’t have friends as much as I did colleagues, and in political circles I was poison. So I had this house and I filled it with all the things that would comfort me and I hunkered down here.”
“Didn’t it make you go stir-crazy?” he asked. “Not having anyone to talk with about what was happening?”
“Not really. I didn’t want to talk about it. You know what I did, my reasons behind it. How could I tell anyone that? No, I was perfectly content to be here alone. At times I even wondered if I had gotten agoraphobic, because the idea of leaving the house would send me into a small panic. But eventually things calmed down, and the reporters moved on to the next story, and I wasn’t afraid to leave anymore. Still, in the last five years of working, most of it I did out of my house. Yours was the first business trip I made. I didn’t want to go, but Ben made me do it.”
“Thank you, Ben.”
She smiled wryly. “I’m really not crazy. I mean, the scandal is behind me. I can shop now or be about town and hardly anyone recognizes me anymore. But this will be the first time anyone’s actually been inside. I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“What about your family? Surely they had to come around after all this time. I mean, they’re family.”
He said it like he expected all families to be forgiving. But hers wasn’t. At least not her father, not even at the end of his life.
“When it happened, my father’s health was failing. I couldn’t blame him for not having the strength to deal with it. With me. It was easier, for both of us, to stay apart.”
Until the end came and even Robert had to concede that a daughter should see her father for the last time. It had been a mistake. Instead of bringing him any peace in his final
moments, it had only made him more agitated.
Madeleine couldn’t blame the morphine or anything else, because as he thrashed on the sheets he looked right at her and called her Jezebel. In time, she was able to come to understand that he hadn’t been in his right mind. His illness had taken much of his mental health as well as his physical health. Still, it hurt.
She didn’t want to share that with Michael, though. It seemed silly to her, but she didn’t want him to know what her father had thought about her in the end.
“And your brother?”
“After a time, Robert and I came to an…understanding. He hasn’t exactly forgiven me for everything that happened. And as a very high-profile lawyer in Philadelphia, he was never going to invite me to any social events or parties he might host. But he and his wife, Gale, have had me over for the holidays a couple of times in the last few years. I think they felt a little guilty for shutting me out so completely after it happened.”
“They should feel guilty. They should have supported you, not shunned you.”
“You’re defending me again.” She smiled. “I told you not to.”
“I will always defend you. As I said before, you made a mistake. It happens. Your brother should realize that and get over it.”
“Maybe, but the truth is we were never really that close growing up. We were always too competitive with each other, a competition my father liked to fuel. So it’s not like I felt a loss for him in particular. Maybe only family in general.”
“I still want to punch him in the teeth.”
“That might be fun to watch.” She chuckled. “Okay, let’s do this. Michael, would you like to come inside my home?”
“You sure? You’re not worried you left your underwear on the floor?”
“No.” She swatted his arm.
“I bet you’ve got glass ring stains on all your tables. Maybe dried milk at the bottom of cereal bowls left scattered throughout the house.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Oh, shit…you’re not a hoarder, are you? I’ve seen those shows on TV and those houses creep me the hell out.”
He was playing with her, and in an odd way it helped to calm her nerves. “You’ll just have to see.” She got out of the car and he followed, grabbing his overnight bag from the backseat and swinging it over his shoulder.
One Final Step Page 16