“How’s Sophie?” Harper asked gently as if the words themselves were scalpels tearing flesh.
“In surgery.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Allison’s eyes darted toward Darren, but she didn’t turn toward him to offer either comfort or commiseration. “Darren and I were fighting. It got … heated. Libby and Ryan had already left for the bus stop, but I was going to drive Sophie. I thought she was waiting for me in the den.” She held a fist to her mouth.
“She went outside?”
Allison nodded and took a shuddery breath. “I’m not sure if she was planning to walk to the bus stop or if she was trying to get away from us. A motorcycle came around the corner.”
Harper’s heart galloped ahead. “She was hit?”
“The man—kid really, not more than nineteen—said she darted out in front of him.”
“Broken bones?”
“Leg and wrist. She hit her head and hasn’t woken up.” The last emerged on a sob.
“What have the doctors said?”
“Swelling on the brain. If it doesn’t go down, they’ll have to … to drill into my baby’s skull.” Allison seemed to wilt at that point, her head dropping to her knees.
Harper rubbed her back and didn’t press for more information. Darren didn’t look up or offer support. The distance between Allison and Darren yawned deeper and broader than a few feet in a waiting room.
Once Allison had a tenuous hold on her emotions, Harper asked, “What about Libby and Ryan? Do you want me to get them?”
“They don’t know. Could you meet them at the house after they get off the bus and bring them here? I can’t leave in case—” Allison covered her mouth and looked outside. Unmarred by a single cloud, blue sky stretched to forever. It seemed blasphemous.
A doctor in a white coat and carrying a tablet turned the corner. Everyone in the waiting room stood. Darren wavered and hugged his arms over his chest as if he were holding himself together. He looked terrible. Gaunt, with deepened furrows alongside his mouth and along his forehead.
The doctor’s gaze locked on them as he approached. “Mr. and Mrs. Teague?”
“Yes?” Allison grabbed Harper’s arm and pulled her forward to meet with the doctor, ignoring Darren.
“Your daughter is out of surgery. Her leg was a simple break, but her wrist required pins.”
“Is she awake?” Desperation colored Allison’s voice and transmitted loud and clear in the painful clutch she had on Harper’s arm.
“She’s still under anesthesia.”
“But her head?”
“We stitched a gash along her crown. She has a concussion, but the swelling has stabilized, which is a positive sign. It’s a waiting game at this point, Mrs. Teague. She’s being moved to a room in the pediatric ICU. Once she’s settled, a nurse will come get you.”
“That’s all you can tell me? ‘Let’s wait to see if she’ll wake up’? Can’t you do anything?”
“He’s a doctor, not a magician, Allison.” Darren’s voice was scratchy.
Wearing a grimace, the doctor inclined his head and backed out of the waiting room.
The short fuse to a bomb ignited. Allison faced off with Darren. “This is your fault.”
“How do you figure that? You attacked me first thing this morning and started the stupid fight.”
“You aren’t the same man I married. I don’t know who you are.” The truth exploded and left a barren crater.
“I’m dealing with my issues—”
“Issues? You have more than ‘issues,’ and you are most definitely not dealing with them.” Allison’s voice was both mocking and filled with despair. “I’ve tried to help you—I’ve made myself sick trying to help you—but you don’t see or care. Libby and Ryan are scared of you. So am I sometimes. Sophie is the only one … and look what you’ve done.”
Allison made a noise and ran out of the room.
Harper was left behind to bridge the gap. “It was an accident, Darren. Allison is hurting and needs to blame someone.” Harper had been there and done that.
Sinking down in a chair, he didn’t respond. Feeling awkward and like she was betraying Allison somehow, Harper patted his shoulder, not sure what else to offer that wasn’t a lie. If Sophie didn’t wake up, things wouldn’t be fine.
She slipped away to find Allison. The bathroom was dimly lit, the smell of bleach stark in the small space. Harper peeked under the stalls. One of Allison’s tennis shoes was untied.
“It’s me.” Even though Harper kept her voice low, it echoed against the cold white tile.
“Is he gone?”
“He’s not going to leave Sophie, and it’s not fair to ask him to.”
A pause. “I don’t think I can be in the same room with him.”
A sense of helplessness came over Harper. Words didn’t assemble themselves into advice to live by. Wisdom wasn’t bequeathed to a person as a consolation prize for enduring tragedy.
“It was an accident.” Harper settled for a fact.
“If we hadn’t been fighting…”
We. She blamed herself as much as Darren. “People fight. It’s not a crime.”
The sound of toilet paper unspooling was followed by the sound of a nose blowing. The toilet flushed and the door swung open. Allison had a wild, panicked look in her eyes, but when Harper reached to touch her she jerked away.
“I failed him. And her. Everyone.” While the declaration might qualify as melodramatic from another woman, Allison believed the harsh assessment the way she believed the sky was blue—an undeniable truth.
Grief and worry and depression could close the curtains on the good in life. Wrapped in her personal tragedy for months on end, Allison’s reality had been skewed. Her failure to fix Darren had preyed on her mind and soul. She was smart, capable, and because she’d never failed, the magnitude and depth of their life spiraling out of control was like a natural disaster in paradise.
“You haven’t failed anyone. And this is not your fault.” This time when Harper reached for Allison’s hand, the other woman didn’t snatch it away. “You can’t fix everything. Not everything can be fixed. Sometimes a new normal has to be found.”
In the silence, hope broke ground in Harper’s chest.
“I’m leaving him.” Allison’s words ricocheted like bullets off the tile.
“Allison, no,” Harper said more to herself than as an entreaty.
“I can’t do it anymore. The kids need to play and not worry about what kind of mood Darren will wake up in.” A sob escaped even though her eyes were dry. “Maybe it makes me selfish or a terrible wife or a horrible person. I don’t care anymore. I’m so tired. I need peace.”
The exhaustion weighing Allison’s shoulders and aging her a decade wasn’t physical. Or at least not mostly physical. It was mental and emotional and went soul deep.
What was the right thing to do? Did right and wrong even exist in this situation? It all blurred together. “When is spring break for the kids?”
“Next week.”
“How about I take Libby and Ryan back to Nags Head? You can concentrate on Sophie. And Darren.”
Allison’s head popped up and her hand tightened around Harper’s. “What about Gail?”
“Mom will love it. I’ll have her grab some extra canvases and the kids can paint with her. It’ll be like art camp. We’ll go to the beach and the dock to fish. It’ll be…” “Fun” was probably overstating it considering the situation. “A distraction.”
“That would be amazing. Thank you.”
Harper slipped an arm around Allison’s shoulders. “Let’s go see if Sophie is settled and ready for visitors.”
They walked side by side to the waiting room. Darren was gone. Harper grabbed the first nurse she could find and got directions to Sophie’s room. Darren was already by her side, holding the hand that wasn’t in a cast, his forehead resting on the back of her delicate fingers.
Lines and wires con
nected Sophie to machines that beeped and hummed and clicked around her. Her face was almost as white as the bandage wrapped around her head. A tube was under her nose, but she wasn’t on a ventilator. Her leg was in a sling and raised off the bed, her left hand in a blue cast from her fingers to her elbow. She looked like a little shake would wake her right up, but it wouldn’t. She was Sleeping Beauty.
Allison shuffled to the other side of Sophie’s bed. Harper stayed in the doorway, telling herself the room was stuffed with equipment and small, but her leaden feet didn’t move for selfish reasons.
Imagining Ben in Sophie’s place made her stomach heave and an acidic burn of coffee creep up her throat. Yet through the stew, a sliver of thankfulness rose. It wasn’t Ben; he was safe. She pressed her cheek into the cool metal of the doorframe.
Allison brushed her hand over Sophie’s face. “I suppose they had to shave her head. She’s going to hate that when she wakes up.”
“If she wakes up,” Darren rumbled.
“Shut your mouth,” Allison ground out between her teeth, quietly but with a bite.
Darren rose and ambled out of the room. He stood in the hallway, looking down one side of the hall and then the other, obviously disoriented. “I need air.”
Harper watched him disappear around the corner before entering Sophie’s room and laying her hand on Allison’s shoulder. “I’m going to make some calls and meet the kids at the house. I’ll get them packed and bring them by here on our way out of town. Is that okay?”
Allison didn’t look away from Sophie’s face or stop stroking her cheek. “There’s a key under the red flowerpot. I’m going to sleep here as long as she needs me.”
“I’ll bring you a bag, too.”
Allison nodded and Harper backed into the hallway. On the sidewalk outside the hospital, Harper closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the early afternoon sun. The hospital seemed to exist on a different space-time plane. The brightness chased away the chill that had settled near her bones and around her heart and had nothing to do with temperature.
Darren sat on a bench set under a crepe myrtle that was beginning to leaf out. She joined him.
“She hates me.” Darren’s voice was devoid of emotion.
Harper didn’t believe for a millisecond that losing Allison wouldn’t devastate him. “She’s as upset with herself as she is with you about the accident.”
“Is she leaving me?” Darren turned his gaze on her.
“She’ll be staying here with Sophie.”
“And afterward?”
“I don’t know.” What Allison declared in the shadow of an emotional tsunami wouldn’t necessarily come to pass. “I’m going to pick up Libby and Ryan and bring them back to Nags Head for spring break. I’ll try to make things easier for them.”
“You’ve been a good friend to her.”
“Allison’s been a good friend to me.”
His chin dropped to his chest. “What if she dies?”
“She won’t.” Harper wasn’t a doctor or a prognosticator, but sometimes people needed something to hang on to and not the barren facts. “Sophie will be running and playing princess before you know it and this will all be a bad memory.”
“My life is a bad memory.” His laugh was self-deprecating, but the message worried her.
“That’s not true. Remember how happy you were when Sophie was born?”
Harper remembered his euphoria and the kisses he kept giving a tired Allison propped up in the hospital bed and the baby he showed off in his arms to visitors.
“It hurts to remember that,” he said softly. “It feels like someone else’s life.”
She was at a loss, unable and unqualified to drag him back into the light. After Noah had died, she’d had Ben to take care of and eventually he’d swamped her grief with the strength of a love she’d never imagined before she’d had him. Ben had saved her.
She worried Darren was beyond saving. He was falling apart before her very eyes. A decrepit ghetto of lies believed and lies told. Depression scurried and crept into every nook and cranny like rats. The slow decay of hope. Sophie’s accident only sped the process.
When the right words didn’t come, she covered his hand with hers, and they sat in silence, the sun bright, the birds chirping, the sound of laughter carrying from the parking lot.
He pulled his hand away from hers. “By the time you get down there, the kids will be getting off the bus.”
“We’ll stop to see Sophie before we head to Nags Head. Will you be here?”
“I don’t know.” Darren squinted and looked to the far distance where there was nothing but blue sky.
Disappointed but not surprised, Harper walked away. She collected the kids from the bus stop and filled them in on the basics of the situation, painting it with as rosy a brush as possible while preparing them to see their sister in a hospital bed. Libby and Ryan were quiet as Harper pulled in to the driveway of their house.
They stepped inside. The silence had an eerie cast as if the house was haunted. A shiver ran down Harper’s spine. Forcing an upbeat tone, she said, “Let’s get packed up. And don’t forget a swimsuit.”
Libby and Ryan retreated to their respective rooms. Once Harper was assured they had a handle on packing, she sidled into Allison and Darren’s room. On the surface, nothing hinted at the explosive undercurrents of their marriage. A framed wedding picture sat in a place of honor on the dresser.
She didn’t know Darren and Allison back then, but they looked happy. Their love had been tangible the first time Harper had met them. Anything could die, though, no matter how strong.
She ignored the rest of the pictures scattered on the dresser and nightstand and focused on the practicality of packing a small bag with several changes of clothes, underthings, and toiletries.
When she was finished, she stopped in the doorway of Libby’s room first. Libby met Harper’s gaze in the mirror. “We’re not leaving for good, are we?”
In that moment Libby reminded her so much of Bennett. Not in any physical way, of course, but her soul was eons older than her years. The same life experiences yoked Bennett. Hardships faced when they were too young.
Harper sat on the edge of Libby’s bed and gestured her over, but the girl stayed planted out of reach. Lies would only drive Libby further into a shell. “I think you’ll be back. I hope so. Your parents—”
“Are they getting a divorce?” Libby’s voice was mechanical, but her hands were clenched into tight balls at her sides. “My friend David’s parents divorced and he moved away.”
Harper swallowed. “I don’t know, but I do know they love each other despite what’s going on right now.”
Libby dropped her piercing gaze and gnawed her bottom lip, her shoulders slumping. Years sloughed off and she was back to being a kid again, her voice tinny. “Will Sophie really be okay?”
Harper closed the distance and hugged her. Libby’s stiffness melted away and her skinny arms came up around Harper’s back with a grip that squeezed the air out of her. “Once she wakes up, we’ll know.”
“What if she never wakes up?” Libby whispered near Harper’s heart.
“She will.” Like with Darren, Harper abandoned truth and lied for hope. Imagining sassy, sweet Sophie forever locked in sleep was no fairy tale; it was a tragedy.
They stood there until Libby pulled away. “Don’t tell Ryan about Mom and Dad or Sophie. He wants to believe everything is okay.” Libby’s adult-like resignation made tears spring to Harper’s eyes. It wasn’t fair, but life never promised fairness. Life promised nothing.
Chapter 19
Past
The pain, sharper now and drawn out, extended beyond what was tolerable. Harper grabbed hold of the kitchen counter with one hand and pressed at her lower back with the other, her distended belly tight and hard. She was in denial, but she wasn’t an idiot. Ready or not, the baby was coming.
The pains had woken her up in the middle of the night, but she’d done her
best to ignore them, attempting to re-create a dreamscape with Noah waiting to hold her and talk to her about the baby and their future together.
That future had been full of promises Noah had broken when he’d gotten himself killed. Underneath the grief was a wellspring of anger that felt all kinds of wrong. She’d known the risks of marrying a SEAL. Except those risks had seemed abstract and unable to touch them. Instead, luck or Fate or God had drawn Noah’s number, and she was left to suffer.
Other women nodded in that special way and murmured a similar message: Noah would live on in the child she was carrying. Harper had wanted to scream at them to get the hell away from her. They didn’t understand. No one understood.
A guttural groan hit her ears as if it had come from someone else. But no, that was her. A few choice words overlay her short bursts of breath.
The shock of losing Noah had faded into an ambivalence about the baby the last month of her pregnancy. The baby was a distraction from her grief, and not a welcome one.
The past few days, Allison and her mom had to remind her to eat and drink. “For the baby,” they’d say. “Think of the baby.” Like she could forget. She had to pee constantly, her back ached, and she couldn’t see her feet. The baby was a constant reminder of what she’d lost.
Her due date had come and gone. Harper had convinced herself she was willing the baby to stay put, but apparently, nature didn’t take cues from Harper’s emotional state.
Another contraction. Dawn light suffused the sky as she puffed and groaned through the strongest one yet. Harper shuffled out of the kitchen. Her mom and Allison were asleep upstairs. She stopped at her mom’s room first and knocked.
The door jerked open. Her mom was already awake and half-dressed, her nightgown bunched around her waist over a pair of jeans. Her face morphed from worry to determination. “It’s time.”
Even though it wasn’t a question, Harper nodded. Her mom jerked her nightgown off and finished dressing in a T-shirt, half tucking it in. Nimble fingers braided hair that was streaked with gray. Tears pricked Harper’s eyes. She’d played in her mom’s hair countless times as a child or sat still while her own hair was braided by those same fingers.
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