Seven Lies (ARC)
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to come to his office immediately, because there was something we
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needed to discuss and it was important.
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I turned around, back toward the elevators, and squeezed in with a
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dozen others, all on their way to the top floors in their neat skirt suits 22
and pinstripe jackets. My trainers squeaked against the polished tiles.
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As they exited, at floors five and six and seven, I saw them looking at
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me, wondering what on earth I was doing heading toward the eighth
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floor. I suppose they, too, assumed that I was about to be fired.
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My boss had an office that overlooked the city, a single- paned glass
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window stretching from one side of the room to the other. He was sit-
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ting at his desk. His tie was undone around his neck and he had shad-
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ows beneath his eyes, his dark skin sallow, as though the warmth had
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been siphoned from within him. The door was open, but I knocked
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beneath his nameplate regardless. Duncan Brin. Director of Customer
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Service.
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He jolted and glanced up. “Jane,” he said. “Come in. Sit down. Do
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you need anything? Coffee?”
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I shook my head.
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“You’re early. Not that I’m surprised by that. I’ve been hearing lots
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of good things about you.”
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I felt my shoulders relax, my stomach unfurl, and I sank into the
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too- low armchair, which was actually an ordinary office chair disguised
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as something more elegant and which then spun unexpectedly on its
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axis. I drilled my feet into the floor to hold myself steady.
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“In fact, I’ve not only been hearing good things, but seeing the result
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of those good things myself. Do you know what I’m talking about? I
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think you do. We’re up on calls, you know that, but we’re up on cus-
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tomers too— good for us— so that’s not much of a surprise. Not a lot to 13
be done on that front. But what we can do— and what you are doing—
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is dropping the percentage of customers who call back to complain a
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second time because they aren’t happy with our initial response. And,
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more than that, the processes you’re putting in place based on data col-
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lected by your team are drastically reducing the number of customers
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who call at all. Against the overall number of orders, we got a third
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fewer calls in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter 20
of last. That’s quite something, right? And that’s your team. Your work.
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Your recruits. And we wanted to recognize that. Don’t look so fright-
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ened. This is good news. We’d like to promote you.”
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He reached into his drawer and slid an envelope across the desk. It
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had my name typed on the front in small black capitals.
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“There’s a lot more detail in there but the gist of it is we’d like you
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to be our Senior Customer Service Manager. We want you on the strat-
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egy. Drilling into the numbers. We want you to keep doing what you’re
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doing— train up that team!— and doing more of it. Can you do that?”
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I nodded. There was barely the space for me to interject and I didn’t
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know what I’d have said if I could.
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“Well, take this, check you’re happy, sign, and get it back to HR.
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Effective immediately. Well done, Jane. Go- getters. That’s what we’re
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looking for. Now back to it. Lots more getting to be gotten downstairs.”
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I’m not going to pretend that this encounter felt anything other than
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ridiculous. Duncan Brin was a strange man at best. He spoke only in
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short sentences and he often shouted them, and he had a bizarre array
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of hand gestures that accompanied his every word. But odd as it was, it
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was rather nice, too.
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Here was a place in which I mattered. Here was a place in which my
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efforts were recognized. I meant something to someone. I went back to
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my desk and I told my new team, and Peter went out at lunchtime and
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returned with a brown paper bag from the bakery.
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“It’s a celebratory muffin,” he said. “For you. To say well done.”
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Chapter Thirty
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k
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09
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I
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wish the day had ended there. It didn’t.
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Peter and I worked late. I had been working on a new software
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system for months, and we were going live in just a few weeks. The
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other four excused themselves between five and six, rushing back to
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their parents or to their children, to see friends in the pub or to watch 16
the latest play at the National. But Peter had no one to go home to— his 17
wife had left him somewhere in the midst of his depression— and there
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was no one waiting for me, either.
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“You’re a fool,” said Peter, lifting his head above his monitor.
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“Pardon?” I replied, thinking I’d misheard.
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“You’re a fool, Jane,” he repeated.
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I was shocked but not unpleasantly so. I didn’t doubt that I was a
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fool and in a great many ways. And I felt sure that Peter was a wise man
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and I was eager to hear what he had to say. I wanted to be distracted.
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He smiled and nodded his head in the direction of the large white
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clock that hung above the door.
It had just gone midnight.
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“Get it?” he said.
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I shook my head.
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“April Fools’.” He grinned and I felt disappointed, and also stupid for
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feeling disappointed, and also somewhat charmed by his ridiculous
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humor.
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“Oh, very good,” I said. “Although the same can be said for you.
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We’re both here far too late when there must be something else out
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there for us to be doing.”
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We stared at each other for a moment and it felt nice. In among all
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the shit that seemed to be floating to the surface, here was something
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good. I was— for the first time in a long time— being recognized for my 07
contribution and, more than that, here was someone who liked me
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enough to tease me. I thought that maybe the summer wouldn’t be so
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bad that year, that perhaps I’d be suitably joyful and buoyant and bright.
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But it didn’t last long. Don’t you know now that it never does?
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Because then my phone rang and we both sat straight up in our seats,
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startled not only by the noise itself but by its alarming sound, the sharp 13
tinkling tune, too cheery and high- pitched for the middle of the night.
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“I better get this,” I said, lifting the phone to my cheek. “Hello?”
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“I’ve been trying to get through to a Mrs. Jane Black.” The woman’s
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voice was clipped, her accent posh and her tone formal. “But I’ve
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been . . . Well, I’ve spoken to a great number of people who are not Mrs.
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Jane Black. Have I . . . Are you . . . ?”
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“I’m Jane,” I said. I swiveled in my seat so that I was no longer facing
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Peter. “You’re through to the right person now. Sorry,” and then I added, 21
in a voice similar to hers, “for the inconvenience.”
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“My name is Lillian Brown. I’m a nurse. I’m calling from St. Thomas’
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Hospital. We have you down as the next of kin for a . . .” The pause as
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she bent her head to check her notes felt eternal, the rustling of pages
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and the hiss of her finger against the paper, searching for the right name.
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“For a Ms. Emma Baxter. Is that right?”
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I felt suddenly breathless. “Yes, I’m her sister. What’s happened? Is
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she . . . ? What’s happened?”
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“She collapsed. She’s doing well, considering the circumstances, but
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we do have some concerns. Perhaps you might be able to visit? She’s
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just arrived. I’m afraid we aren’t yet in a position to discharge her. But 32N
she’s being quite insistent that she won’t stay here.”
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“I’m on my way. I’ll be half an hour. Tell her I’m coming?”
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“Thank you, Mrs. Black. That’s much appreciated.”
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The line went dead.
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“I have to go,” I said to Peter.
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I was meant to be the last out, to turn out the lights, but I didn’t
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have time to wait while he shut down his computer and went to the
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bathroom and washed his mug in the sink.
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I looked up at the ceiling. “Will you get them?” I asked. “When you
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leave?”
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“Sure,” he said. “I hope everything’s okay.”
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I nodded and pulled my coat from the back of my chair.
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“Thanks,” I replied.
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The hospital was quiet. The white walls and the tiled floors and that 15
recognizable smell of disinfectant had a library- style effect and we all 16
shuffled along the corridors in silence, just the smack of our shoes and
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the rustle of our coat sleeves against our bodies.
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I asked at the front desk, almost whispering, and was directed to an
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assessment ward on the third floor. I followed the signs and distracted
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myself from the reality of my being there by focusing instead on the
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framed photographs of children with cancer smiling and elderly women
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waving and mothers clutching their newborns.
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I had visited Emma in many different hospitals, but for five years
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she had been teetering in a space that could almost be defined as “well.”
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I entered the ward and the nurse at the desk was on the phone, cancel-
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ing a hospital transfer for the following morning because the patient
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had unexpectedly been rushed to surgery and wouldn’t be leaving any-
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time soon.
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I hovered, waiting for her to hang up and yet eager for her conversa-
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tion to continue and to postpone what would inevitably come next.
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“Your turn, love,” she said eventually. “Who’re you here for?”
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“My sister,” I said. “Emma Baxter.”
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“Bay two,” she replied. “Just through those doors.”
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“Thank you,” I said, but she had already turned back to her com-
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puter and to the stack of pages piled beside it.
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There were six beds in bay two and five patients. There was a steady
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stream of noises: gentle snores and intermittent beeps and the quiet
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murmur of a television. There were two elderly women sleeping with
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their duvets pulled up to their chins and their bedding tucked beneath
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their frail bodies. There was a younger woman, perhaps in her thirties
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or forties, with her leg raised above the bed in a hoist and the pay- as-
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you- go screen positioned directly in front of her. One of the beds was
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empty, without sheets or spare chairs or gurneys. Another was hidden,
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soft wheezes seeping from behind a thin blue curtain, and diagonally
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opposite, nearest the window, was my little sister.
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She didn’t notice me straightaway. She was on her phone, the back-
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light casting a blue- white glow across her face. It highlighted her bone 17
structure: her too- big eyes that sat in hollow pools, her sunken cheeks, 18
the tendons that jutted from her neck. Her fingers, clasping her phone,
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looked too long, her knuckles bulbous, the bones of her wrists pressing
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up against the skin.
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I exhaled slowly and my stomach groaned as the knot that had tight-
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ened there tried to untangle itself.
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Emma looked up. She smiled. “You came,” she said. She placed her
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phone on the table.
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“Of course I did,” I replied, pulling up a wooden dining chair to sit
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beside her bed. “What happened?”
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“I fainted,” she said, and I must have rolled my eyes or raised my
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brows because she frowned and then became defensive. “Really,” she
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insisted. “It was nothing more than that. They’re all just overreacting.
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And that nurse. Brown, I think— is she the one who called you?— she
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won’t stop fussing.”
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“She’s probably just good at her job.”
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“If she was, she’d have sent me home by now.”
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“Did someone call an ambulance?”
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“Yes.”
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“So it must have been more than a faint. Or you’d have been fine by
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the time the paramedics arrived.”
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“Oh, Jane. Stop it. Please don’t do this.”
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“They’re clearly worried about you,” I said. “Or you wouldn’t still
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be here.”
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“They don’t need to be,” Emma replied.
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I sighed and placed my hand over hers, willing her to confide in me,
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to share the truth and to be as confident and open as Peter had been just 11
a few weeks before.
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“What are they worried about?” I asked.
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“My heart,” she replied. She looked away from me, embarrassed,
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and I wanted to take her in my arms and promise her that every-
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thing would be okay and to tell her that she didn’t need to hide from
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me because I understood that we didn’t all become the people we
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wanted to be.
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“It’s okay,” I whispered instead. “We’ll find a way to fix this.”
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When she looked back at me, her eyes were wet with tears.