“Why would that surprise you?”
“Well, have you asked anyone yet?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Maybe you’re making it difficult on purpose.”
“I’m definitely making it more awkward.”
Carly flipped over, facing the ceiling. “So, are you going to tell me what happened after you ran off with Dr. Bridge? You smell horrific. Like dirty river water.”
“I kind of don’t mind it. It’s covering me like a hair shirt. I’m atoning for my debauchery.”
“You were debauched? Spill. Now. You owe me full disclosure.”
“I sort of kissed Garrett,” I said, wincing.
Carly’s eyes widened, and she snorted a laugh. “What does that mean? A real kiss? Tongue and all?”
I felt like we’d suddenly tumbled through the rabbit hole and were back in our shared room, fourteen and sixteen years old, me swapping tales of mortification for hers of adventure. Kissing Garrett seemed exciting when our lips were touching, but now, after telling her, it bordered on juvenile, something Maura would do. “Yeah. A real one.”
“Let me guess—he tasted like coffee and desperation.”
She was joking, but that hurt. Painful as it was to move, I sat up, threw the covers off, and staggered to the bathroom, where I turned on the shower. I stripped and stood completely still under the hot water as it pummeled my sore muscles. Donal knew how to get the best water pressure. He’d made sure I had the best, even though I lived in the basement. I couldn’t be angry with him. If Carly punched him in the face, he’d stand there and take it. I wouldn’t stand between them, but I’d yank her hair, pulling her off him.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Carly said through the shower curtain.
“I need to be alone. Let me drown in my watery cocoon.”
It was tempting to stay until the water ran cold, but I shared a house with six other people, and that was selfish. Paul’s words came back to me. You need to be better. Could you become a better person by making small, seemingly insignificant changes, or were the big, sweeping ones necessary for any real change? It seemed I was only equipped to do the small things, spending my whole life wondering if they would be enough. I toweled my hair and tried to ignore the headache that erupted over my entire head, hair follicles included.
Carly was still sitting on my bed when I opened the door. “You didn’t think we were done talking, did you?”
Shivering, I ignored her while I pulled on underwear, jeans, and an Irish sweater.
“You look like a fisherman’s wife,” Carly said.
“Not all of us can pull off your artfully disheveled look,” I said irritably.
“I didn’t say that was a bad thing. Stop interpreting my words the way you want to and understand that they are coming from me, and interpret accordingly.”
“I can’t follow your logic. Or illogic.”
“Stop moving for a minute!”
“Gladly.” An angry pulse stabbed at my temple, and every joint in my body screamed in protest as I dropped onto the bed.
“I’m scared,” Carly said softly. “I want Dad.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think he’d do in this situation?”
“Threaten to kick Donal’s ass.”
“But he wouldn’t do it.”
“No.”
We were quiet for a while, both of us bouncing our legs lightly against the bed frame. “I’m still going to have Donal’s party,” Carly said. “Only now it’s got a patriotic theme. We’ll take photos and bring them to the hearing.”
“That sounds like a good idea, but honestly, I don’t think that’s the kind of thing to sway a judge.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” she admitted. “I’ll tell Donal about it. I don’t want any more secrets in this house.”
I put my arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “Well, then a party it is. When has a party ever made anything worse?”
“Exactly.”
“Can I invite Garrett?”
Carly hesitated. “Fine.”
“You know, he’s got a job interview scheduled.”
“Well, that makes more things to celebrate,” she said, a bit woodenly.
I reached down and knocked the bed’s frame. “We can only hope.”
“There’s got to be other things we can do,” Carly added, but she knocked, too. “Because if all we have is hope, we’re completely screwed.”
Before meeting up with Garrett, I had to make a stop at Estelle’s. Her gossipy daughter-in-law called to see if I’d like to put in a few extra hours, and I jumped all over the offer.
“I know we’re supposed to visit on Sundays and my husband loves his mother, but she’s impossible to deal with, don’t you think?” she half whispered into the phone, and I worried Estelle was in earshot. “Freddie, her late husband, was the warm one. Him you could talk to. With Estelle, it’s just bitch, bitch, bitch. Did you know she used to volunteer at the hospital and they asked her not to come back? One of my girlfriends is a nurse in the ICU and she said—”
“What time do you want me to be there?” I interrupted.
“The earlier the better. Stay as long as you want.” She sighed dramatically. “Our wallets are open when it comes to Estelle.”
It was early enough when I pulled into Estelle’s driveway. The relentless morning sun made me want to curl up like a pill bug, and I shoved some sunglasses over my nose. The iced tea I’d downed on the way over hadn’t appeased my hangover—millions of dried-out cells soaked it up and begged for more. While not ideal, Estelle’s instant coffee would do the trick, and I hoped she’d let me in the kitchen for long enough to make it.
Tiny Estelle sat on her tiny porch like Little Miss Muffet, eyes narrowed as she waited for my approach, a loose-limbed, dehydrated, weak-stomached spider.
“Mind if I sit with you?”
“Yes, I do,” she responded. “You aren’t being paid to sit.”
I took a deep breath, too deep, and almost dry heaved.
“See all these mums?” she said irritably, and gestured toward rows of crimson flowers planted neatly along the front of her home. “I want them gone. Pull them up and be sure to get the roots.”
“They’ve still got time,” I said, trying to soothe her. “At least a few weeks. Don’t you want to enjoy them for a little while longer?”
“Only trash like mums. They’re barely one step ahead of carnations. My son put them in a few weeks ago, and he didn’t even ask permission. His wife’s doing, if you ask me.”
“Won’t they be disappointed if you take them up?”
“Why should I care? If they’d had the decency to ask, I would have said no, saved them time and money.” She sneezed. “I’m probably allergic to them. They need to go, Leona, and you need to pull them out. I’ve hurt my hand. I’m sure that’s why Jason and Mindy called you over on a Sunday.”
“I’m sure that’s why,” I said, pushing my sunglasses to the top of my head. “Let me take a look.”
The only thing wrong with Estelle’s hand was a chip in her manicure.
“Are you in pain?”
“Off and on. It’s . . . diffuse. Difficult to pinpoint.”
I placed her hand back on her lap. “You rest. Tell me where the garden tools are and I’ll get to work.”
Mums aren’t difficult to remove, but I still worked up a Jose Cuervo–scented sweat. The only thing stopping me from getting sick on her lawn was the thought of Estelle watching me do it. She’d convince herself I had Ebola.
After finishing the mums, I raked her leaves and then bagged all the plants, set them at the street for pickup, and put away the garden tools. “All done,” I said to Estelle, who hadn’t moved from her post.
“I suppose you’ll be going now.”
“I have a minute.” I squeezed in next to her, but she didn’t scooch over to make room. What kind of person doesn’t scooch? One butt cheek hung off the side of the step, and I held on
to the rail to stay upright. “Maybe just a minute,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You have to rush off to Jerry’s, don’t you?”
“No, just meeting a friend. I don’t work for Jerry any longer.”
Estelle’s eyes sparked to life. “He fired you! What did you do?”
“His son fired me. I was talking to Jerry about personal business, and Paul, his son, felt it was inappropriate. Maybe it was, but I didn’t think so.” The words spilled out; obviously my body wanted to get rid of something, and they would have to do.
“What kinds of inappropriate topics?” She stiffened. “Are you a drug addict? I always suspected—”
“I’m not an addict, for heaven’s sake.”
“Then tell me what’s considered inappropriate,” she demanded. “No one ever discusses inappropriate topics with me. What are you hiding?”
Professor Larmon said a nurse is best judged by how she handles her most difficult patients. Hardening your heart to someone makes it too easy to dismiss her complaints. Though the patients may never witness it, they’re the ones who get the eye rolls, the flagged files, the vacant smiles. A good nurse treated all of her patients with dignity and respect, even the ones who set her nerves on fire.
Did Estelle have a right to know my personal business? No. Did I have a responsibility to try to make her feel better about herself? I believed that I did.
“I want to have a baby,” I told her. “I don’t have a man in my life, and this makes the whole thing a more difficult and expensive process. I was discussing my problem with Mr. Pietrowski, and his son overheard.”
Estelle screwed up her face in disgust. “Why in the world would you want a baby now? You’re too old, for one. It’s risky. Something could go wrong.”
“That’s true. I don’t usually like risks, but if I want a child, I’ll need to accept a lot of them.”
“I had Jason at forty,” Estelle said. “I would never have gone through with it if Freddie hadn’t asked me to. I agreed because I didn’t think the baby would survive. The doctors told me I’d never carry full-term, but to everyone’s surprise, I did.”
“Then, don’t you think he was meant to be on this planet?”
“Nothing is meant to be,” she said flatly. “It happens or it doesn’t. Life is a random pile of tragedies with a couple of good moments slipped in to keep you from offing yourself.”
“Estelle—”
“I hated being a mother. Every minute of it.”
“Every minute?”
“Well, I did enjoy watching Jason play baseball. He was quite good at it. Hurt his pitching arm in high school and that was the end of that.”
I hated the bitterness in her voice. How sad her life must be, if I needed to talk her into recognizing that somewhere along the line, she’d experienced joy. “Jason planted those mums for you. There must have been something he liked about your mothering skills.”
“Jason planted those because he wants to sell this house and there’s a problem with the drainage. The flowers cover up the worst of it.”
“Oh.”
“You’re seeing the world how you want to see it, Leona, not how it actually is,” Estelle pronounced, quite proud of her deduction. “That’s the problem with your generation. You’ve decided you don’t like reality, so you try to pretend it doesn’t exist. You think your imagination will save you, but it won’t. Keeping your head in the sand only means you’ll suffocate.”
“You might be right,” I said, and pulled myself to standing.
Estelle nodded. “I’m a realist, and realists are always right in the end.”
I wasn’t sure “realist” was the best definition of Estelle, but calling her misanthropic was just mean. “I’ll be back on Tuesday,” I promised her. “If you want, I’ll clean out the garage. You’ve got kind of a situation going on in there.”
I shouldered my purse and, impulsively, leaned over and kissed her cheek. “See you in a few days.”
“Your purse,” she said.
“What?”
“I need to check inside your purse.” Her voice held the same suspicious intensity it always did when I left.
“Do you honestly think I swiped your garden spade when you weren’t looking?”
She held out her hand without answering, the “injured” one.
I looped my bag over it. “Fine,” I said. “Knock yourself out.”
She took her time, running her fingers over the smooth leather of my wallet, studying my grocery-store receipts, shaking her head when she found a scratch-off lottery ticket. “You’ll never win,” she muttered.
“Are you done?”
She returned my purse. “Don’t be so angry,” she said as I walked to my car. “At least I didn’t fire you.”
CHAPTER 22
Garrett wasn’t at the library when I arrived, breathless, late, and smelling of sweat and moldy leaves. The main floor was mostly deserted, and I chose a table in the corner, keeping an eye out for a tall man with a dirty duffel bag.
Anxiety grated my nerves, and my skin itched underneath my fisherman’s sweater. I shifted my weight in my chair, turning over what Carly said in my mind. Why not just ask him? We hadn’t known each other long enough for that to change things. I could make it light—can I ask a little favor?—and then he wouldn’t feel bad when he had to say no. I wouldn’t be pushy. That lesson was learned with Darryl. I’d checked my e-mail before leaving the house. Not one message. I’d worried he would be the one to flake out, but it was me who went off the rails. Would I be finishing up our project alone?
So. Five minutes. Ten. Garrett’s no-show ratcheted up my soaring anxiety. Maybe I got the time wrong. Maybe he decided to prepare on his own, or to not do anything at all. Maybe I didn’t really know that much about him. He could be lying in an alley, heroin needle sticking out of his arm. He could have been beaten and left for dead.
He could have simply left town. Rachel, a nurse friend, said that when homeless people were brought into the emergency room, they often disappeared before treatment. Just gone, she said. She always wondered if they’d find them in the surrounding area, half-dead and in pain, but they never did. It was like they disappeared into thin air.
Of course there was always the possibility I was being melodramatic.
“Have you seen Garrett today?” I asked the distracted librarian at the circ desk.
“Who? The homeless guy?”
“Him.”
“He was here earlier, I think.”
Relieved, I thanked her with a smile and wandered upstairs to nonfiction to check the stacks. The upstairs was even more deserted than the main level, stacks of lonely, quiet books, tall windows throwing long shadows on the gray carpeting, a horror movie waiting to happen. I glanced down each row, checked the copy room and the corner reading nook, and stopped short in front of the men’s bathroom.
The faucet squawked, a short, aggressive belch. I knocked. “Garrett?” No answer. The water burst on again. I knocked harder. Nothing.
I pushed gently on the door, opening it a crack. Movement. A sliver of pale flesh, dark hair, faded denim. I couldn’t help myself. I nudged the door another inch with my foot.
Garrett stood at the sink, shirtless, jeans hanging low on his narrow waist. His eyes were closed, hair dripping, water pooling on the floor. Quickly, he slicked his hair back with his fingers. A shiver tore through him, and every muscle in his sharply defined chest bunched. He sneezed.
“Bless you,” I said automatically, and he let out a short bark of a scream. “I’m sorry!” I said quickly, looking anywhere but at him. “I was looking for you, and I couldn’t find you, and I’ll just leave you alone.”
“I’m nearly done. No harm, Miss Leona,” he said. “Time doesn’t usually get away from me like that. I’m the one who should apologize.” He rummaged through his duffel, pulled out a Rocket Industries T-shirt, and used it to wipe the water from his face and chest.
I worked hard at regulat
ing my breath, trying to hide the fact that it was ragged. Garrett wasn’t cut; he was sculpted by some fine artistic hand. He missed a spot, one rivulet of water coursing down the smooth muscle of his shoulder, and it took everything I had not to trace it with my finger.
“I’ll just wait downstairs,” I squeaked. “Our usual spot.”
“Give me two minutes.”
It took that long to start breathing normally, and for my skin to lose its bright red hue. Fully dressed, Garrett sank into the chair next to me and, after a moment’s hesitation, gave me a swift, dry kiss on the cheek. “Sorry about that. I haven’t been sleeping well. Sets me off.”
“No problem,” I managed. I felt shaky inside. “Want to get started?”
We practiced interviewing techniques, from handshakes to “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” to follow-up questions. We created a thank-you note template. We discussed wardrobe and power breakfasts and exit strategies in case things went south.
“I’ve never been a good liar,” he said when we were finishing up. “What if they ask me why I’ve been out of work for so long?” He toyed with the corner of his resume. “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m worried I’ve wasted your time. I’m so sorry, Miss Leona. I don’t think—”
My hand found his shoulder, and I kneaded the taut muscles. “It’s going to be okay. You’re prepared for this, and if it doesn’t work out, there’ll be another. A gap on a resume is not unusual now. Lots of people are in the same predicament. Lots of people are the same as you.”
He caught my eye. “No, not exactly the same. At least, I hope not, for their sake.”
“What happened to you, Garrett?” I asked, keeping my voice mild and nonjudgmental. “Why are you living at the Episcopal church?”
He glanced away. “I don’t know. I’d like to say it happened quickly, that everything spiraled out of my control, but that’s not the truth. I watched it happen. Watched my money run out, watched myself stay in bed all day, watched myself draw further and further away from the life I’d constructed. I watched it all fade away to nothing, and I didn’t do a damn thing about it.”
“What about your family? Did they try to help?”
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