I grabbed a quick shower and then decided to bring some food over to her. I didn’t want to be her friend, I just wanted to find out what was going on. If Sean was going to have me keeping an eye on her, I was going to do some digging and find out everything I could. Something was just wrong with her and her situation. She hadn’t told me anything about her situation with the baby’s father, and I assumed that the baby was the product of a one night stand. She was hiding something and I was determined to find out what.
I walked over to her house with a chicken dish I had made. I was planning on taking it for leftovers, but this was the perfect way to invite myself over. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have an excuse. I knocked on the door and when no one answered, I knocked again harder.
“Sarah! I brought you some dinner,” I shouted through the door.
“It’s open!”
That shocked the hell out of me. I expected her to answer the door and then tell me to fuck off. I hadn’t exactly been the nicest person to her. I opened the door and about lost my shit at the sight before me.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
She turned to me from her position on the highest rung on her ladder and shot me a glare.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, what the fuck are you doing?” I made sure to say it nice and slow in case she was having trouble hearing.
“I’m working on taping so I can start painting.”
“I meant, what the fuck are you doing standing that high on the ladder? You’re pregnant.”
“Does that mean I’m not allowed to work on my house? Is being pregnant somehow an affliction that makes it impossible for me to do things I did in the past?”
“Jesus, woman. It’s not safe for you to do that. If you fell, you could have a miscarriage. Don’t you think at all before you do this shit?”
Putting a hand on her hip, she cocked an eyebrow at me. “I am well aware of how high I’m standing, which is why I am being careful. Besides, someone has to get this house ready for my child and it looks like I’m the only one to do it.” She turned back around and started taping some more around the molding.
“Maybe you should ask the father for help.”
She stiffened as I said it and I took that to mean that she really did have a one night stand and either she didn’t know who the father was or he had already told her he wasn’t interested.
“If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it. Was there some reason you stopped by, other than to give me shit about taking care of my house?”
“I came by to bring you some dinner.” She stopped and looked at me questioningly. “I figured that since you had been gone all week, you probably didn’t have food in your house. I made extra, so I thought I’d offer it.”
She came down from the ladder and walked over to me, lifting the foil and sniffing the food. “It doesn’t smell half bad.”
“Well, I can cook some things. Come on, let’s go eat.”
I walked into her kitchen, ignoring how her mouth dropped open at my statement. I didn’t care. If I was going to find out anything about her, I was going to have to play nice.
“You can just leave it and go home. I’ll eat later.”
“I haven’t eaten yet, so we can eat together.”
I put down the dish and started going through her cabinets looking for plates. I grabbed two and then went through her drawers looking for silverware. I dished out two helpings and then sat at her table, all the while, she stood in the doorway staring at me in disbelief. Finally, she shook her head and sat down to eat. We ate in silence for a few minutes before I started in.
“So, how many rooms are you painting?”
“All of them.”
“All of them?”
“Well, I want to paint before the baby comes. I doubt I’ll be up to it after the baby is born. You know, working and taking care of a baby full time.” She stopped speaking suddenly and dropped her fork with a clatter. “Excuse me,” she murmured and then shot up from the table and ran to her bathroom. I followed behind her and stood at the doorway listening to her break down. Something hurt inside to listen to her so broken up. I didn’t know why I had such a hard time sympathizing with her. I had practically offered to help Harper raise her child, but I couldn’t squeeze an ounce of consideration for this woman, until now. I couldn’t stand to listen to her cry, so I went back to the living room and started taping where she left off. After ten minutes, she walked out and stood in the entry to the living room.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m finishing the taping.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s not okay for you to do it by yourself. If you fell and hurt yourself, I would feel like an ass knowing that you had been over here doing it and I had let you.”
She rolled her eyes at me and crossed her arms. “I’ll let you finish this room, but then you can leave. I have a lot of work to do and I don’t need your help with it.”
I climbed down from the ladder and walked right up to her. “Oh, I’ll be here to help you with all of it. There is no way I’m letting you paint this whole house by yourself. I don’t want to think of you climbing ladders and the fumes aren’t good for the baby.”
“We work opposite schedules. There’s no way we can work on this together.”
“I’ll give you jobs that you can do during the day and I’ll come over and work at night. Together, we’ll have this place done in no time. You just have to let me know what rooms you want painted what color.”
“There’s no way that I’m letting you into my home when I’m not here.”
“Then we’ll have to work on the weekends.”
“I work on the weekends.”
“But not during the day. I can be over here bright and early to get started.”
“I’ll think about it, but for now, you can go home.”
“I’m not done with this yet. I’ll finish up and then head home.”
“Look, Drew, I don’t know what inspired this sudden change of heart that made you feel that you should come over here and barge into my life, but I’m tired. I’ve had a long day, so I’d appreciate it if you would go home so I can go to sleep.”
“Just sit down on the couch and I’ll finish up here.”
She sighed and walked over to the couch, sitting down and pulling a pillow onto her stomach. I turned back and did some more taping and when I turned around five minutes later, she was passed out on the couch. I could see now that she had deep bruises under her eyes, probably from all the traveling. I hadn’t thought to ask her about the funeral and I’m sure that weighed on her also. Since she was asleep on the couch, I decided to do as much taping as possible. I finished the living room and then moved on to the kitchen and then her bedroom. When I finished, it was after ten at night and I had to work in the morning. I walked back into the living room and was about to leave, but my more considerate side said that it wouldn’t be nice to let her sleep on the couch.
I picked her up and carried her into her bedroom. I couldn’t help but notice how tiny she really was. She weighed maybe a buck ten and that was being a few months pregnant. I laid her down on the bed and then brought her blanket up over her. I was about to leave when she moaned.
“Todd.” It was quiet, but I was pretty sure that’s what she said. I wondered who Todd was, but I didn’t think asking her about it would go over so well. I looked down at her again and that’s when I noticed that her left ring finger had a white line where a wedding band should be. Knowing that she wouldn’t want me to witness her talking about someone else in her sleep, I snuck out, being sure to lock the door behind me.
Lying in bed that night, I found my thoughts drifting once again to my sweet Iris. We had been looking forward to the day our baby arrived. She was three months pregnant when she felt the lump in her breast. The doctor told her it was probably a clogged milk duct, but after further testing, it was discovered that she had breast cancer that the doctors said had probably been growing
for years. As we sat in the doctor’s office in stunned silence, he explained our options to us.
“Mrs. Whitaker, your test results show that your breast cancer has already spread to your liver. We need to start treatment as soon as possible if we are going to get ahead of this. We need to be as aggressive as possible.”
Iris was holding it together better than I was. That is, until the doctor said his next thoughts.
“You need to consider terminating your pregnancy.” She immediately shook her head. “We can’t give you proper treatment if you are pregnant. The fetus wouldn’t survive. So either we terminate or we delay treatment until the baby is able to be delivered.”
“Then we wait. There is no way I am killing my own child. Don’t ask me to do that.”
“It’s very possible that the pregnancy will wear you out even faster and you may not survive until delivery. There is no way to predict how this pregnancy will go for you. You’d be taking a huge risk with your life.”
“No. I won’t do it. I could never live with myself if I did that.” She was on the brink of tears, so I asked the doctor to step out of the room.
“Iris, I know this is a tough decision..”
“Don’t you start, too. I can’t do it, Drew.”
“Baby, I don’t want to live without you. Please don’t ask me to do that. We can make another baby, but I can’t make another you. Please. At least consider what he’s saying.”
“Drew, you’re asking me to kill a part of myself. You’re asking me to kill my own child!”
“I understand that and I know it isn’t fair of me to ask, but this child isn’t here yet. You are, and I will fight for you even when you aren’t willing to fight for yourself. You need to look at this from my perspective. If you don’t do this, I will lose both of you. You heard the doctor, there is no guarantee you would even survive the pregnancy.”
She cried for a few minutes before looking up at me with resignation on her face.
A few months after that, the cancer spread to her brain and it wasn’t long after that that I lost her. It had been painful for her. The medication helped, but unless she was constantly medicated, which made her drowsy, she was in some form of pain. Her parents had helped the entire time and we all took shifts staying with her. I would have spent every day with her, and I did for the first few weeks, but her mother came to me and asked for some time with her. She was their only daughter and they wanted to spend as much time as they could with her. I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t deny them the little time they had left with her. I continued to work and my boss was very understanding about giving me time off when I needed it. I eventually went down to part time and then the final month, I hadn’t worked at all. I could tell she was slipping away from me.
That final month went by fast. At first, she had trouble with balance, and then walking was difficult. Then, moving at all was hard. Pretty soon, even talking was a challenge, which was why it surprised the hell out of me when she said those final words to me. ‘I’m forever yours, Drew. Nothing can take me from you.’ She said it so crystal clear that it about tore my heart out. I knew that was the end for her. It was as if God had given her the strength for one final message to me. After that, she fell into unconsciousness. I spent every last minute by her side, holding her hand until the end. She passed on the third morning as the sun was rising. The windows were open and the breeze was blowing through the window just as she liked. The sun shone across her bed, lighting her beautiful face one last time.
When the nurse came to pronounce her dead, I swear I lost my mind. I sat at her bedside begging God to bring her back to me. I couldn’t live in a world without my sweet Iris. It took me several hours to finally accept that she was gone and that I needed to let her go. When she was taken away from the house, her parents were with me and many of the neighbors stood outside with sad expressions on their faces. Iris was loved by everyone because she was a friendly and caring person that made everyone feel like they were special. For days, I went to our church and prayed to God to give Iris back to me. I knew it was crazy, but my grief had become too much for me to handle.
Iris had wanted to be cremated and spread in the wind. Though not legal, I took her to our favorite lake at sunrise and spread her ashes in the breeze. Her parents weren’t with me and they never forgave me for taking away their last chance to say goodbye. The next few weeks were absolutely horrible for me. I locked myself in our bedroom, but people kept stopping by to see how I was. After the second week, I knew that I couldn’t stay in that house with Iris’ memory anymore. I sold everything in the house to anyone that wanted it and informed her parents that they needed to come get anything that they wanted of hers. I asked her mother to take care of all of Iris’ personal effects, as I didn’t have the stomach for it. An offer was accepted on the house within the week and I was in my truck and on the road a few days later. I hadn’t spoken to her parents since.
Thinking about that day again and the after effects sent me into a depression for the next week. Ryan and Logan asked me if I needed anything, but they knew me well enough to know when to leave me alone. One of them must have called Harper because she showed up on my porch Friday night.
I pulled her into my arms, my breath hitching as she held me close. I needed my best friend so much right now. She didn’t ask me what happened or if I wanted to talk, she just pulled me back to my bedroom and laid down in bed with me. That was the great thing about Harper and Jack. Harper always knew when I needed her and Jack always allowed her to come to me without question. There was no way I could ever repay Jack for that kind of understanding. Most men would never allow their woman to go spend the night with another man, but this had been our relationship from the beginning.
I had never told any of my friends about Iris. I found it too painful and I went into a tailspin if I thought about her too much, so I couldn’t imagine what talking about her would do to me. I have never even told Harper, even though she had opened herself up to me when we first met. She never pushed though, and I took that as a sign that I had truly found my best friend. If it hadn’t been for my grief over Iris, Harper would have been a woman I would have pursued, but as it was, I just didn’t have the heart to move on.
I fell asleep holding Harper in my arms and feeling my heart finally start settling again in my chest. The ache lessened and I didn’t feel so much like I had just lost Iris. In the morning, Harper was still wrapped in my arms when the bell rang. I knew it was Jack coming to collect Harper. There was only so long he would allow me to keep her and I was alright with that. I woke her up and we walked down the hall together. I gave her a hug and thanked her for coming over, then opened the door and ushered her into Jack’s arms. Jack gave me a chin lift and turned to leave, but stopped at the last minute.
“Get some rest. You look like shit.”
Words of encouragement if I ever heard them.
CHAPTER SIX
Sarah
I DON’T KNOW why I thought Drew would come over during the week. He had a different schedule than me and I knew we wouldn’t see each other, but part of me had hoped that I would run into him at some point during the week. Or maybe I just hoped that I had someone in my life that would be there for me again. I didn’t need him to come paint my house or feed me, I just needed someone that could be there for me as a friend. Which honestly, was a lot to ask considering that I couldn’t tell anyone the truth about who I was.
After Drew left the other day, I wasn’t able to sleep. The only reason I slept at all was because he was there with me. It was the first time that I had been able to get any sleep since I went back to testify. I wasn’t able to sleep in New York because I was so nervous about testifying, but when I was on my way back, I felt unsettled in the fact that this was my new life. I liked where I was living, but it was completely different from where Todd and I lived. We had lived in a town house on the upper west side in Manhattan. It was pricy, but we both made good money, so that was one luxury we in
dulged in. Todd worked at an elite security agency that catered to high end clients that favored anonymity. I worked as the manager of one of the most prestigious art galleries in Manhattan. We had a completely different life there, one that I would never see again. I was a city girl at heart and now I was living in the country where I rarely even heard a car drive by.
When I came here the first time with the Marshals, I had to leave all traces of my old life behind. Todd and I saved a lot of our money in cash because Todd always wanted to be prepared in case we had to move fast and didn’t want to be traced. I called him paranoid and told him he was spending too much time with his clients, but as it turned out, his security net in cash had really helped. The WitSec program allowed me so much money a year until I found a steady job, which at this point was difficult considering that I was pregnant, but I had no idea when that money would dry up, so I was trying to be as frugal as possible. The one small thing I allowed myself to buy was the paint supplies.
When I packed to come here, I hadn’t known exactly where I would be going, but my case agent told me to pack things that were casual and would help me blend in. Luckily, I had plenty of jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts, so packing was easy enough. However, I also had a lot of art at my house and all of my old stuff. The case agent said that the agency would see to selling all of our belongings and then transfer the money into an account in my new name. Since we only had Todd’s parents, there was no one to leave anything to. They were doing fine on their own and wouldn’t care about any of our stuff. I supposed I should be grateful that I got the money, but what I craved the most was some trinket of my time with Todd.
I was able to keep my wedding ring, but I wasn’t allowed to wear it because it didn’t go along with my new identity. I had an idea to turn it into a heart pendant. It was a simple band because we couldn’t afford anything else when we first got married. I had married Todd when we were twenty-one and he was in the military. I was just out of school and working in a small gallery, not making much money and he was living off the meager salary from the army. I didn’t care though. Todd was all I had needed. We waited to have kids because he didn’t want to have any while he was overseas and then he wanted to wait until he was settled in his new job. That night at dinner, after I told him I was pregnant, he told me he wanted me to consider moving to the suburbs where we could have more space to grow as a family. I was one hundred percent willing to go along with it because I had Todd with me. Now living out here, all alone, left me feeling isolated from everything I knew. I could never work in a gallery again and I wasn’t sure what I could ever do in this town that would leave me satisfied.
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