“I—” Sydney bit back her reply and grumbled under her breath. “This is useless.”
“What’s going on, Syd?” Sam struck a hand to the back of the bench as she slapped her arm down behind Sydney. “What’s got you so riled?”
“Nothing.”
“Save it and spill. I’m sitting out in the hot sun with you, ruining my pristine ivory complexion. You might as well make it worth my while.”
“How can I compete with a woman like that?”
“She’s T and A. You’re brains and brawn. You win, hands down.” Sam leaned back and Sydney felt the boards groan beneath her. “Next item up for resolution?”
“She’s gorgeous. Flawless.”
“So. You’re gorgeous, too.”
“I am not.”
“You are, too.” She pursed her lips in smug disagreement. “Obviously Clay thinks so or he wouldn’t be chasing you.”
“Another notch on the belt has nothing to do with attractiveness.”
“Sydney—you’re a beautiful woman. You’re smart, tough, ambitious, yet you’re kind and sensitive. You don’t step on other people to get what you want. You care about doing your best. You care about doing what’s right. Where’s the problem? In my book, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Sydney turned away and folded her arms over her midsection. Her stomach growled, which she ignored. She was in no mood to eat. “You’re only saying that because you’re my friend.”
“True. But everyone else is thinking it too, only they’re too afraid to say it aloud. Afraid you’ll clobber them one.”
Sydney glared.
“I mean, seriously,” she slid out with a grin. “You are kind of intimidating-looking. Built like a Mack truck and cut like the Grand Canyon, you’re kind of frightening...” Sam paused and waggled her brow. “In a sexy sort of way.”
Laughter burst from Sydney before she could stop it. The eruption an unexpected relief. She smacked Sam’s knee and chastised her, “Will you stop—you’re not helping here. This isn’t fun for me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not catching knives anymore.” She relaxed and eased toward Sydney. “I’d say I’m doing alright. You just need to lighten up on yourself. Bridge the way you play volleyball to the way you live your life. No holds barred, full focus, with confidence, grace and aplomb.”
“There’s no grace in volleyball.”
Sam winked. “You’ve never watched yourself play. You’re like a gull sweeping down for its prize, swooping off with the win. And you’re good with people—when you want to be. You’re fun-loving and crazy—when you allow yourself to be. Why not allow it with Clay?”
“Sam—” Sydney expelled a sigh and dropped her head forward.
“What?”
“What am I going to do? Clay is leaving in a few days. What am I supposed to do with my feelings for him?”
“You act on them, that’s what you do. You let him know how you feel and let nature take it from there.”
She ground out and rose to face her head on. “Acting on nature is nothing but trouble.”
Sam raised a brow. “Oh? Is there something you haven’t told me?”
Sydney sank elbows to knees and rubbed her face with her hands. “We kissed.”
“Ah, now we’re talking. My favorite subject! Go on, give me the juicy details.”
Sydney turned to Sam. “He kisses like no one’s business and...well...let’s just say I reacted.”
“Oh, slay the dragon with fire—I like it!”
Sydney smiled, warmed by talk of better moments with Clay. “Great. It’s not like I can repeat it when he’s hundreds of miles away.”
“No, silly. You jump on an airplane and do it there and back. Mile high club, anyone?”
She narrowed her gaze. “That’s disgusting.”
“Well, I have to agree with you there.” She wrinkled her nose. “Too stinky for my tastes. But it doesn’t mean you can’t connect on the ground. Miami, South Carolina—not a bad round trip sex hop, if you ask me.”
“Great. I’m going to go broke over sex hopping. Yipee!” she squealed sarcastically.
Sam laughed. “Could be worth it!”
Sydney brushed Sam with an I-don’t-think-so glance and grew somber. “How often would we be able to see each other? My schedule isn’t exactly conducive to travel, you know.” Not at the moment, anyway. And if she changed jobs? God only knows where she’d end up, not to mention she’d have to start at the bottom again.
“You make it what you want. Then, if things prove serious, one of you makes a move.”
“Just like that.” Sydney snapped her fingers. “Poof. You live in South Carolina now!”
“No one says he can’t be the one to move.”
“He has a son and a family in South Carolina,” she said, her gaze drifting back toward the ER doors. “And a job he couldn’t get anywhere else. There’s no way he can move. It would have to be me.” It would be she who was forced to uproot her life, pull out the stops and hurl herself into a world unknown. A life with family. A child. An ex-wife.
A sense of impending disaster swirled through her veins as she imagined it coming to fruition. Moist heat gathered beneath her shirt, flushed at her ears. Beads of perspiration formed along her neck. Clay would have everything he wanted, right where he wanted it. And when they realized it wasn’t going to work? It would be she who would have to pick up the pieces and move on. How was that appealing?
“You’re being negative.”
“I’m being a realist.” And it was the second time in one day she was defending her realistic viewpoint. Why was that? Was she the only grownup around here, living amongst a bunch of fairies flitting about in fantasyland? “I don’t want to set myself up for failure. It’s a waste of time.”
“My God, Syd. Would you give yourself a fighting chance?”
“And end up disappointed? What’s the point? Marriage doesn’t always work out the way it’s supposed to, you know.”
Sam stared at her, a hard edge to her eyes. “This isn’t about your parents.
“Never said it was,” she shot back.
“Not every man cheats.”
“Didn’t say they did.”
“It’s the reason you left Javier.”
“That was a preemptive strike and if you’ll note his behavior of late, it was a good call on my part. He hasn’t changed a bit.”
“You mean Morgan?”
“None other.”
“That girl is a blip on the radar. You don’t know they’d have been together if you hadn’t left.”
“Don’t I? He had no intention of staying with me. I was just his current attraction at the time.”
Sam withdrew her arm from along the seat back. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
Sydney looked at Sam, pained by the disappointment she saw staring back at her. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Sam stood. “Take it however you like, but I’d advise against being a slave to your pride. Ego is a cruel master.” Flicking a stony glance her way she announced, “I’m going to find Jen.” With that she stalked off.
Tears careened into Sydney’s eyes as she watched her friend go. Did Sam think she wanted to feel this way? Slumping back against the bench, wood slats cut into her spine. She wanted to go after Clay, she did, but—
She dumped her gaze to the ground, the sidewalk littered with cigarette stubs and dried gum. What about using her brain instead of following her heart? Sydney kicked her heel at a chip in the concrete. What about level-headed decision making? Talk about a cruel master, it didn’t get any worse than loving someone with all your heart, only to have them rip the muscle clear out of your chest—as soon as they deemed there was someone better out there.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sydney’s attention bolted to the automatic doors as they slid open. Sam breezed outside, accompanied by a slim woman dressed in navy Bermuda shorts and espadrilles, her white cotton blouse just a
s casual and setting off her sun-kissed skin. Sydney vaguely remembered her to be the doctor friend of Sam’s, but she looked like she was on her way to the docks for a tour around the bay, not healing the sick and injured.
She instantly regretted causing the woman to work on her day off. She hated to be trouble, but under the circumstances...she needed all the help she could get.
As Sam and she neared, the doctor said, “Hello, Sydney.”
The worry etched in her blue eyes caused Sydney to fear the worst. She pushed up from the bench, but didn’t extend a hand in greeting. Instead, she wound them together, then knotted them into a knot across her chest.
“Sydney, you remember my friend Jennifer, right?”
She squeezed arms tightly to her body. “I do,” she said, more concerned at the moment with the doctor in her. “How is he?”
Dr. Jennifer Hamilton reached out and touched Sydney’s forearm. “Why don’t we sit,” she suggested.
The lump lodged into her throat, hard and dry. Which means it must be bad. Sydney swallowed. Glancing between the women, she sat back down. Jennifer lowered down next to her. Sam flanked her opposite side. Grateful for the mass of clouds collecting overhead, it cooled the stifling heat rising from the pavement. Without a breeze, the temperature was becoming insufferable.
Peering into blue eyes, Sydney had met Jennifer twice in passing; once when she had stopped by one of her volleyball games with Sam, the other at Sam’s condo. She seemed nice enough. Pleasant. But attempts to read her body language came up empty. Was it bad?
“Q had a seizure.”
“Yes.” That much she knew. “Was it bad?” she mentally knocked herself in the head for the stupid question. Idiot—were seizures ever good? She folded hands in her lap and pressed them together. “Is he okay?” That’s what she wanted to know. Was Q okay? Was Clay okay?
Jennifer reached over and cupped a slender hand over Sydney’s jumbled mass of fists currently punched into her lap. The gesture was as comforting as it was unnerving. Sydney took the fact that she felt the need to comfort as another bad sign.
“He’s fine,” Jennifer said, though her gaze darted to Sam and back. “He’s going to be fine.”
“Does that mean he’s not fine right now?” Was there something she wasn’t saying?
“They’re running tests. Q’s type of autism isn’t normally associated with seizures so they have to rule out other possibilities.”
Sydney’s heart twisted like a steel bolt in her chest, like a foreign object wedged into a space too small. “What else could it be?”
Jennifer paused. She checked with Sam. With a nod, she prodded her to continue. “Seizures can be caused by a number of things, such as organic lesions, cranial bleeding, stroke, vascular malformation. The doctors are running a full workup—EEG, MRI... They’ll know more once the tests come back.”
None of which made any sense to Sydney. “That can’t be good.”
“We don’t know that. Sometimes seizures can occur for no other reason than a child enters into puberty. They believe the influence of hormones in their body can trigger a chain reaction in their brain cells and a new onset occurs.”
Q was twelve. A little early for puberty but who knows—maybe in his family history they hit the “gangly” years before most? “Does that mean the seizures could be temporary?”
“We don’t know. I’m afraid there’s so much we don’t know about autism, we’re still learning new things all the time.”
“You’re a cardiologist...” Sydney murmured as her gaze fell away.
“Jen volunteers over at St. Theresa’s Children’s Hospital,” Sam chimed in. “She knows a lot about illness and kids, beyond the field of cardiology.”
“I’m no expert,” Jennifer objected quickly. “But I can tell you what I know.” That pulled Sydney back to attention. “Autism can be a tricky disease. Some kids can make great strides over the years and go on to live full and independent lives while others seem to remain locked in their minds with no means of escape. We don’t know why some fare better than others, why they can make connections others can’t, or why we can reach a few, but others not at all...” Jennifer’s features were soft and refined, yet Sydney felt a quiet strength running through her as she spoke. “It’s an ongoing area of research. We can only work on the knowledge we have and right now, Q is making progress. He’s still in the ER but will be moved to a room soon. They’ll keep him overnight for observation. If he doesn’t have another seizure within twenty-four hours, his prognosis improves.”
Sydney’s hope plummeted. Now they wait. It felt like the doctor had just draped a chain coat around her shoulders and secured it tight—to the point she became immobile. Helpless. Is this what Clay went through? Each and every day of his life, did he have to worry and wonder what was going on with his child? He said swimming had made a difference for Q. Is this what he meant—the difference between his child making the connection while others did not?
She couldn’t imagine having a child with whom she couldn’t communicate. It would be awful. Horrible. Heartbreaking. Even when you thought your child was making progress, things could change. Stop everything dead in its tracks. Sydney dragged her thoughts back to the doctor and fought visions from earlier; Q’s body jerked and twisted before going straight under. It had been hideously unnatural, gut-wrenching. She didn’t know how a parent was supposed to handle it, let alone the medics who did so with a calm presence of mind. Her heart rebelled against the unfairness. Innocent children shouldn’t have to suffer that way! Sydney breathed in and out, deep as she could, her emotions cluttered in disarray. “Thank you for telling me.”
Jennifer’s eyes shone, a glittery reflection of compassion in oceans of blue, as though tears were mere moments away. “I hope it helps you understand what your friend Clay is going through right now. It’s a tough game of wait and see.”
She nodded and an unexpected flow of tears filled her lids. She wouldn’t wish it upon her worst enemy.
“You may come in and see Q if you’d like. I told his dad you were here.”
His dad. Clay. “Yes, please,” she said eagerly and wiped her cheeks. She very much wanted to see him—see both of them.
“Okay.” Jennifer rose and Sam mirrored her movements. “Follow me.” She gestured quietly.
Sydney forced some rigidity into her legs as she hauled herself up from the bench. Her muscles felt like a gobbledygook mess of weak knees and willowy thighs but she wanted to be strong—strong for Q, strong for Clay. Last thing she wanted was to take a tumble on the sidewalk and fall flat on her face.
Sensors registered their entrance and glass doors opened ahead of them. Jennifer led the way into the emergency room, the atmosphere bright, busy; sterile. Lined with cubicle-like rooms, beds were sectioned off by curtains; people in varying degrees of dress were here with patients in a range of conditions, all of them plucked out of whatever activity they had been engaged in before the crisis descended and deposited here. Sydney fought the urge to peer inside, to compare and contrast their emergency with hers. She wanted reassurance hers wasn’t that bad. “They’re in bed three,” Jennifer directed. She paused feet from the enclosure and Sam remained in place with her.
Sydney thrust a look to her as if to ask, you’re not coming? But realized, just as quickly, there was no reason. Sam didn’t know Clay and Clay didn’t know Sam—other than one night in a bar. A night of carefree chitchat and flirting, Sydney recalled and so far removed from this scene. Her heart weighed heavy at the prospect of speaking with him now. What would she say? She didn’t know anything about hospital visitations or sick people. Doctors and nurses and medical treatments were worlds away from her everyday life. Her chest constricted. Unlike Clay. He’d probably been here before, and not once, but too many times.
Walking toward the bed, the back of his blond head came into view. He sat in the sole chair at the end of Q’s bed. Sydney tried to settle the flutter in her breast, the cluster of bats dodg
ing this way and that as they sought escape. She wanted to be calm for Clay. This had to be difficult for him and if she appeared upset it would only make it harder for him. Slowing, she craned her head to peek inside. Her heart jumped into her throat. Q’s thin body was lying in the bed, white cotton sheets tucked in all around, outlining the length of him. She closed the final distance, she noted his eyes were closed, an IV attached to his arm.
Clay caught sight of her. “Hey. Come in.”
“Uh, sure,” she replied, sounding as though she were surprised by the invitation. Idiot! Be the rock. Be the strong one. Can’t you see he’s hurting?
“Thanks for coming by,” he said.
“No problem,” she replied, hating the dull tone of his voice. She stole a glance in Q’s direction. “How is he?”
“Q had a seizure. Did the doctor tell you?” No longer carefree and flirtatious, his eyes were hollowed, the line of his mouth grim.
She nodded. “Yes, she did.” She wanted to sound intelligent on the matter, but didn’t know the first thing about seizures, about autism, about any of this.
“He’s had them before.”
“He has?” The news caught her like a fist to the chin. If Clay knew this could happen, why in the world would he let Q swim?
“Twice. Years ago. Q was four at the time.” Clay turned back to his son. “But then no more.”
Sydney’s heart cramped. Clay sounded beaten. Lines carved his forehead adding years to his age. The stark fluorescent lighting didn’t help, only colored the room in bleak, his eyes in anguish.
“Can you stay?”
“Sure,” she said in automatic reply. Actually, she wasn’t even supposed to be here. Events continued and she was supposed to be available. But, too late to worry about logistics, she’d have to rely on Charlie. He promised to check into the other venues for her, allowing her some leeway. Over the phone, he’d been so willing to help, so accommodating, which was unusual for him. But rather than guess at his motives, she took him at his word. His reasons didn’t matter. His offer to assist gave her the opportunity to be here, so she took it. Sydney sat. A quick survey of the space revealed screens and tubes, equipment she knew nothing about, a small square bedside table beneath them. It shouted business; the business of healing. Crossing her arms for lack of a better thing to do, she waited for Clay to speak. Above the bed, the repetitive dash and dip of Q’s rhythm caught her attention. At least he was alive, she ruminated. They had that much going for them.
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