by Sue Pethick
Emily stepped over and gave him a kiss.
He glanced at the door. “Where’s your shadow today?”
“I ditched her. She had a meeting at the club.” Emily rolled her eyes. “She’s running the gala again this year.”
“Oh, well. Can’t miss those meetings at the club,” he said solemnly. “Lots of important decisions to make.”
“I know,” she said. “Let’s see, should we have red streamers this year or crimson? Is platinum in now, or should we go with the traditional gold?” Emily laughed. “Remember the year they used Greenery instead of Arcadia? My God, I’m surprised they weren’t arrested by the Pantone police.”
He put his hand on hers and did a perfect imitation of her mother.
“This is not funny, dear. These are matters of life and death.”
It was done in good humor and Emily appreciated his attempt to join in, but try as she might, she couldn’t laugh once the word death was out in the open. As tears filled her eyes, Emily placed her free hand on his.
“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered.
“I know. I know.”
He lay back against the pillows and sighed, his energy spent. Slowly withdrawing her hand, Emily pulled the visitor’s chair closer and sat down. There was a steady rattling in her uncle’s chest that she hadn’t heard the day before. How, she wondered, could he be failing so fast?
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “How much I love you.”
Uncle Danny smiled. “I know that.”
“I’m glad. But I still needed to say it, okay?”
He nodded weakly and closed his eyes. It was like watching an hourglass as its last sands ran out.
“I got a letter today, from Frank Alfano. I’m going to meet with him Monday morning to talk about the trust.”
Emily stared at her hands, feeling her lips tremble.
“Thank you for taking care of it all these years. It means a lot that you were always keeping an eye out for me.”
She looked up and saw a tear run down his nose.
“Also,” Emily said, “I want you to know that the things Mom said, you know, after Dad died—”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she told him. “I never believed any of it.”
He took a shuddering breath.
“Forgive me. Please.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
Emily waited, but he didn’t respond, and after a few seconds she realized he was asleep. She’d said what she came there to say; it was time to go. She stood up and kissed him on the forehead.
“Goodbye, Uncle Danny. I love you.”
Emily went back to her car and sobbed, both in sadness and relief. Thank God she hadn’t let her mother talk her out of coming when she did. As fast as her uncle was fading, he might not even be alive by that evening. It had been hard seeing him like that, but it felt good to be able to tell him what was on her mind. If she never saw him again, she thought, at least there was nothing between them left unsaid.
She only hoped she’d have as much luck talking to Carter.
CHAPTER 26
Emily drove out to University Hospital and left her car with the valet. She’d been hoping to call ahead and let Carter know she was coming but remembered as she was leaving Uncle Danny’s room that her mother had her phone. For a moment, she’d almost changed her mind—failing to warn him seemed like a violation of some fundamental rule of conduct—but decided it was better just to take her chances. Talking with Sensei Doug had made her see how passive she’d been about their engagement, and seeing her uncle had reminded Emily how important it was not to pass up life’s opportunities. There were things she needed to get off her chest, and if she didn’t do it now, she might never have the guts to do it at all.
At least she knew Carter would be at work that day. On the way to the hospital the night before, her mother had filled her in on the impossible hours he was keeping and made a point of mentioning that he was doing a rotation in orthopedics. As Emily headed into the eleven-story hospital tower and stepped into the elevator, her heart was racing.
She wondered what Carter would do when he saw her; after all, they were engaged now. She wished that he’d abandon his natural reticence for once and sweep her into his arms, but a smile and a chaste kiss would do, too, as long as it was sincere. Her attraction to Sam and the fondness she still felt for him had undermined her faith in the decision to marry Carter; she hoped that seeing him again would dispel any lingering doubts. It wasn’t some wild, romantic gesture she was seeking, just confirmation that she’d made the right choice.
Emily headed for the nurse’s station and checked in, explaining who she was and asking if Dr. Trescott was available. After a brief consultation with the other people on duty, the woman confirmed that he was not currently with a patient.
“He’s probably in the doctors’ lounge,” she said. “Do you want me to page him?”
“Would you mind if I just head down there? I know the way.”
“Fine with me. Just make sure you don’t wake anybody up. It was a long night.”
“Thanks,” Emily said, donning her ID badge. “I’ll bring this back when I leave.”
She pushed through the double doors and walked down the hall, trying not to glance into the patients’ rooms as she passed. Having just been at her uncle’s bedside trying to avoid the stares of curious strangers, she had no wish to intrude on anyone else’s privacy.
At the end of the hall, she turned left and stopped at the door marked PERSONNEL ONLY.
Here goes nothing.
There were two doctors inside—one sitting at a table playing solitaire, the other stretched out on a couch. On the left was a sleeping area, its privacy curtain drawn. Emily closed the door carefully and approached the man on the couch, an intern she recognized as a friend of Carter’s. It took her a second to remember his name.
“Hi . . . Tran,” she said quietly. “Is Carter around?”
He and the other doctor exchanged glances.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in Alaska.”
“I was,” she said. “But I got back yesterday. My uncle’s in the hospital—stage four lung cancer.”
“Oh, man. That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Emily glanced at the privacy curtain. “Is he taking a nap?”
Tran laughed uneasily. “Nah. Nobody’s in there.”
As if on cue, the sound of laughter came tumbling out from behind the curtain. High and sweet, it was definitely female. Emily frowned.
“If nobody’s in there, who’s laughing?”
The doctor at the table flipped over another card. “Maybe you should check.”
Emily pursed her lips. “Maybe I will.”
As she walked over and reached for the curtain, though, a combination of uncertainty and fear stayed her hand. She could walk away, Emily told herself, turn around, go home, and forget she’d ever come. If she didn’t go in there, she thought, she’d never know for certain who was inside. Then she heard another voice, this one deeper, seductive.
Carter?
Emily yanked the curtain aside.
“Hey! What the hell? I told you guys—”
“I’m not one of the guys,” she said. “I’m your fiancée.”
In the dim light, all she could see was the outline of a pair of bunk beds on either side of the room. As she searched the wall for a light switch, she heard urgent whispered voices.
“Emily?”
“Who else?” she said, switching on the lights.
Carter was standing next to the right-hand bunk in his socks and boxer shorts. Sitting in the bed behind him was a young blond woman, sheets clutched against her bare chest. Emily had been expecting embarrassment and remorse. Instead, he went on the offensive.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came back to see my dying uncle,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“You can’t just barge
in here,” he snapped. “This is the doctors’ lounge. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
In the face of her fiancé’s outrage, Emily hesitated. For a moment, she even felt as if she were the one at fault. Then something caught her eye: a flash of green coming from the bed. As she narrowed her eyes, the girl slid her hand under the sheets, but it was too late. Emily glared at Carter.
“You gave her my ring?”
“I didn’t give it to her. It’s still yours.”
The blonde in the bed nodded.
“It’s so beautiful, I just had to try it on,” she chirped. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
In the face of such bizarre logic, Emily could only laugh. She felt giddy and reckless.
“Of course I don’t mind,” she said. “Keep it, it’s yours.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Carter scowled. “Shut up. She doesn’t mean it.”
“Sure I do,” Emily said.
He took a step toward her and held out his hand.
“Come on, Em, don’t be silly. Why don’t you go home and I’ll call you later? We’ll get this all straightened out.”
Emily looked at her fiancé, standing there in his sad little socks and matching boxer shorts, and felt a weight she didn’t know she’d been carrying lift from her shoulders. She glanced over at the girl in bed and her smile broadened.
“Come to think of it,” she said, pointing at Carter. “Why don’t you keep him, too?”
* * *
Her mother was in the living room when Emily got home. Sitting stiffly in a wingback chair, her ashen face a stark contrast to the bright coral chinoiserie fabric, she’d obviously been waiting for her daughter to arrive.
“We need to talk.”
Emily gave a quick glance upstairs; she’d been hoping to have a few minutes to compose herself before giving her mother the bad news, but judging from the look on her face, she’d already heard. Emily took a deep breath and walked into the room, putting on a brave smile as she took a seat on the couch. She was sorry the grapevine had broken the news before she had and hoped it hadn’t been too public or too humiliating.
“So,” she said. “I guess you heard.”
Her mother nodded. “He called Sheila at the club. When I found out, I rushed right home.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, she’s very disappointed, obviously. Carter acted like a cad; there’s no excuse for what he did.”
Emily felt tears sting her eyes. At least her mother understood—and it couldn’t be easy for her, either. The perfect wedding she’d envisioned had been ruined, snatched away by the feckless bridegroom in a way both noteworthy and frustratingly banal. The two of them might have disagreed about the size and expense of the ceremony, but Emily had genuinely been looking forward to their planning the day together.
Nevertheless, she thought, a wedding was not a marriage, and even before Carter’s betrayal, she’d had real doubts about marrying him. His attitude toward her had always seemed magnanimous rather than affectionate, as if Emily were some sort of charity case; at times, even his family had acted as if she were there on sufferance. No wonder he’d treated her so shabbily, she thought. As far as Carter was concerned, Emily was lucky to have him. It made his betrayal the one silver lining in this whole sorry episode: no one could blame her for breaking off the engagement.
“Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course I understand,” her mother said. “Believe me, I made it very clear that we expect an apology the minute he gets here on Tuesday.”
Emily blinked. “What?”
“Your birthday dinner, remember?”
“Wait a minute. You don’t expect me to still have dinner with him, do you?”
“Not now, of course not. On Tuesday. After he apologizes.”
“I don’t care if he apologizes. Mother, I just caught him in bed with another woman.”
Her mother’s lips thinned.
“Well, now you’re just being vindictive.”
“I am not being vindictive. I’m being realistic. If he’d cheat on me now, he’ll cheat on me later.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Maybe not, but that’s the way I feel, and I’m not going to change my mind.”
Emily winced. Remembering the scene in the doctors’ lounge brought on a wave of pain and humiliation. In spite of her bravado, she really had cared for Carter. Why couldn’t her mother understand how hard this was for her?
“Oh, my poor baby.” Emily’s mother held out her arms. “Come here.”
As Emily felt her mother’s arms enfold her, the tears she’d been holding back came flooding out. It seemed as if she was losing everything she cared for: Carter, Uncle Danny, Sam, even Bear. She hoped that Sensei Doug was right and that she was stronger than she knew, because at the moment it felt as if she’d been broken into a million pieces.
Her mother patted her back.
“I know it’s hard,” she said. “What happened to you was terrible, but in fairness, I don’t think it was entirely Carter’s fault.”
Emily pulled back and stared at her mother. She felt breathless, as if someone had punched her in the stomach.
“Are you saying this is my fault?”
“In a way, yes. It was you who left him, after all, remember?”
“I didn’t leave him. I had a temporary job, which I took, by the way, hoping it would help me get a job in San Diego so that Carter wouldn’t have to relocate.”
“Yes, but you were gone. Don’t you see?”
“No. No, I don’t see, Mom. What’s your point? That my being gone gave him license to screw someone else?”
Her mother frowned. “Don’t be vulgar, dear.”
“Oh, I’m vulgar? What about Carter? Don’t you think sleeping with a student nurse is a bit outré?”
“All I’m saying is, don’t make up your mind too quickly. Once Carter gets a chance to explain himself and you get the apology you deserve, I’m sure the two of you will be able to straighten everything out.”
Emily was aghast. She knew the Trescotts were old friends, knew that her mother genuinely liked Carter, too, but how could she side with them at a time like this?
“Where’s your purse?”
Her mother pulled back, flustered by the sudden change of subject.
“In the hall closet, why?”
“I need my phone.”
Emily yanked open the closet door and grabbed her mother’s purse; her phone was still inside. She checked the remaining battery life—twenty percent—and huffed in frustration. Where had she left the charger? Then she remembered she could charge it wirelessly in her mother’s car. She dug out the keys to the Lexus and dropped the purse on the floor.
“I’m going for a drive.”
* * *
Emily sat on the cliffs overlooking La Jolla Cove, watching the waves tumble in and crash against the rocks below. She’d been sitting there a long time, so long that she saw lights coming on in the houses along the shore and smelled dinners being prepared, so long that people walking by had stopped giving her anxious looks, satisfied at last that she wasn’t going to jump. As the sun approached the horizon, she’d watched the sky turn from pale blue to pink and coral. Now, there was only a lilac glow to mark the spot where it had disappeared.
In Ketchikan, it would still be full daylight.
With the sun gone, the temperature plummeted and Emily began to shiver. She looked back along the trail and wondered what to do. She couldn’t stay where she was, but she couldn’t bear to go back to the house—not while her mother expected her to put a smile on her face and act as if nothing had happened. Maybe some women could do that, Emily thought, but not her.
She swallowed, feeling her lips tremble. Had her mother been one of those women, accepting her husband’s infidelity as the price to be paid for a life of comfort and ease? Parents’ private lives were a mystery to their children, and rightly so; compared
to a child’s idealized version, even a good marriage might seem hopelessly flawed. No, Emily thought, whatever accommodation her mother might have made was no business of hers, but neither was it her mother’s place to expect the same from her. If things had been different, maybe Emily could have forgiven Carter for what he’d done, but the truth was, she simply didn’t love him enough.
At least Sam had been honest with her, she thought, even if he’d told her what she didn’t want to hear.
Emily took out her phone and dialed his number. She had no idea where Sam was or even whether she could reach him. All she knew was that she wanted to hear his voice more than anything else in the world. She’d done what Sensei Doug had advised: ended the engagement she hadn’t been willing to fight for. Now, she thought, it was time to go after what she did want.
“Hi, you’ve reached Sam’s phone. I’m not here, but if you leave a message I’ll call you back when I can.”
As Emily opened her mouth, emotion overwhelmed her. It took her a second to get the words out.
“Hey, Sam, it’s Emily. Call me when you get a chance, okay? I miss you.”
CHAPTER 27
Emily took out her navy blue suit and brushed the dust off its shoulders. The last time she’d worn it was the day she’d graduated from college, and she hoped it still fit. She shuffled through her blouses and took out the cream silk with the shawl collar. As impossible as it seemed, she’d be a wealthy woman soon. She figured she might as well look the part.
Her mother was at the funeral home, making arrangements for Uncle Danny’s cremation. Emily hadn’t come home until after midnight on Saturday, and she had only a vague recollection of her mother waking her up Sunday morning to tell her he’d passed. She’d accepted the news with a calm that would have surprised her a week ago, but which felt right given their last visit. She felt at peace with his departure, just as she finally felt at peace with the rest of her life.
Marilyn had called after breakfast to tell her that Sam was at sea, but that she was monitoring his voice mail and had heard Emily’s message. She was in contact with the Skippy Lou via VHF radio, she said, and wanted to know what was going on. Knowing how protective Marilyn was of “Sandy Sam,” Emily told her everything that had happened since she’d gotten home, including the scene in the doctors’ lounge and the cancellation of her engagement.