He had only been with Destiny. Inside her. Around her. His heart and breath loud in his ears, right then, keeping him alive right then.
His unreasonable love for her freed, right then. Hers. All hers.
“What it is, Lace?” Destiny asked. “Please.”
Hefin eased Destiny down to sit. Lacey looked at her notepad for a moment. Paul put his hand between her shoulder blades, rubbing in circles, and Lacey closed her eyes just for a moment.
“Okay. First, I want you guys to know she’s going to be okay. Right now, she’s stable.”
Destiny reached for his hand, held tight. “Okay,” she breathed. “Okay.”
Lacey looked at Destiny. “She had what’s called a pulmonary embolism. For Sarah, this was another complication of her surgeries and reduced mobility, lately. Blood in the deep veins of our legs gets back to the heart and lungs by muscles moving around them. Also, veins are vulnerable to stress and can get inflamed. Sarah was on blood thinners in the hospital, and for a while after her surgeries, but not lately, and she still needed them. A clot formed in a deep vein of her leg, below her injured hip, and broke free. When it traveled to her lungs, she went into severe respiratory distress until she received thrombolysis treatment with a special drug.”
Destiny squeezed harder. Her tears had finally come, so he grabbed the napkins he had brought with her biscuits and handed her one. She took it, but just looked at it. Held it while tears dripped from her chin. He felt sick.
“But you said she’d be okay?”
Lacey took a deep breath. “PJ found her in time. She got the tPA in time. She was taken into this department in case they had to insert a special filter in her large vessels. They decided not to. Right now, an orthopedic specialist is consulting with the thoracic surgeon who was on standby. She’s stable, and over the most dangerous part, but they are very concerned about her hip. The pinning should have worked in a patient her age, but it’s not healing correctly.
“Her problems have been going on for too long. She’s been healing for too long. Been in pain for too long. The problem is, right now, she’s not a candidate for surgery.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s going to be on blood thinners for a while. Her nutritional status is poor. She has an abscess and it’s not responding to antibiotics.”
“She’s staying with me. Sam and I already decided. I can help, a lot.”
“Oh, honey,” Lacey said, her big eyes sad. “Sarah’s being transferred to the rehabilitation unit until she’s cleared for the surgery her team decides will provide the best outcome.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’ll be hospitalized in that unit for at least twelve weeks.”
Even Hefin felt his breath catch in his throat. Destiny hunched over, and he followed the curve of her back with his arm, trying to cover her, protect her. Paul had gone pale. Three months in this place? He couldn’t imagine, seeing the brief glimpse of who Sarah really was in her face, that she’d tolerate it.
“Oh my God, Lace.”
“I know. But you guys, Sarah is young. And when she was injured, she was ridiculously healthy. She knows how to work. I know she’s motivated to recover. She’ll have pain guys on call, all the time. PT will work with her every single day. Dieticians, too. She’s really motivated. I think this is a good thing.”
“Lace?”
“Yeah, Desbaby?”
“I was there, earlier, before PJ. She was tired, but okay. Her hip hurt. Her leg too. Was that because? Could I?” Destiny couldn’t say it, and she finally started crying in earnest. Hefin just held on. He wished he could take her out of this foul-smelling, ugly place. Let her cry. Bring Lacey to convince her it would be okay because he was certain he was out of his depth on that one.
He had been carving bits and pieces of Ohio for weeks. Lived here for years.
It hadn’t ever felt like a home until this moment. This terrible moment in this terrible waiting room with these people receiving terrible news. It should have felt like home when he arrived here with the woman he was in love with.
Instead, it felt like home when he was getting ready to leave the woman he loved behind.
So he held Destiny while she started to cry and looked at Lacey and willed her to tell her that none of this was Destiny’s fault.
“You couldn’t have done anything, Desbaby. There was no way for you to know.”
Hefin relaxed when he felt Destiny relax.
Then Lacey looked down at her notepad again and Hefin watched as she gripped it. Hard. Her brows dipped in. She looked up, at him, and met his eyes for a long moment and Hefin felt the entire world slip from under their feet.
“The thing is, honey.” Lacey kept her eyes on Hefin. “You know Sam.”
Destiny’s back locked. “What is it? Lace? Please.”
“Sam is such a fucking idiot,” is what Lacey said.
“Lacey?” Hefin interrupted. “Destiny’s had a long night.”
“It’s okay. What’d he say?”
“Sarah was asked about how long she’s had leg pain. Leg pain, versus hip pain.”
Destiny sat straight up. Put her hands over her mouth. “Oh shit. Shit! Lace. Lacey, when I was over, she—”
“Look, I know. Actually she’s probably been having it for a while. But Sam is a total dick right now. You know how he is, he blames himself so much that he has extra for everyone else.”
PJ stood up and pulled his sunglasses back down. “I’m going to get a coffee. Des?”
Des shook her head, her color an alarming map of red and white splotches. “I remember, the first time she was in the hospital, the nurses asking all the time if her legs hurt. The information about the clot stuff was in her discharge. I think they said it like a thousand times. Oh God, Lace. I just—didn’t even. I didn’t even think about it. I was … Angry with her. I’d already been over there. She was … Oh my God.”
Hefin moved to put both arms around her and she jerked away, he looked at Lacey, and was livid to see her hesitate. “Destiny, I was there too. You made her food. You had been over earlier. She wasn’t clear about her pain, or her problems. I don’t—”
“You have no idea, Hefin. Just don’t.”
“Hefin’s right, Des. He’s right. This is not on you. I am only, reluctantly, saying anything at all because Sam can’t calm down and is yelling at all of us. Sarah, too. He was almost kicked out twice. It’s unreasonable for you to think about and apply discharge info from all that time ago. Of everyone, you’ve been there for Sarah. Sam’s just mad at himself. For good reason.”
“I’ve got to see her.”
Lacey started shaking her head even as she answered. “She’s going to go up to ICU. One family member at a time, you have Hefin here, and—”
“He’s going.”
Hefin closed his eyes. Tried to stay right where he was.
“It’s not that, Des, it’s that Sam’s going to stay. It’s probably the only thing he can tolerate, and it’s better because he should probably be alone, anyway, and he can get around the visiting regulations and stay with her continuously.”
“I’m staying.”
“You’ll be in the ICU waiting room all day, Des.”
“I don’t care. When Sam is willing to switch out with me, I want to see her.”
“Sam is—”
“I can deal with Sam.”
Destiny turned to him. She was exhausted, her eyes swollen with blueish lumps pushing under the thin skin around her eyes. The mica shards had all gone green, but flat, jadelike. He had no business leaving her like this. No business leaving anyone like this.
“I’ll stay with you.”
“No. I know it’s not fair, because it’s hard to deal with, but please do me a favor and drive the limo home. Give the keys to Betty next door. Or if Lacey needs a ride home, take her. She can drive it. I’m sorry, you’ll have to take a cab home from my place.”
“I’ll stay here with you.”
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“No. You have to go. You have to at least stop by work, talk to your crew. Talk to Carrie for me. This isn’t—” She looked away.
He wasn’t hers. This wasn’t his to help with. These weren’t his people. He looked at Lacey and her look was sympathetic, but he could tell. She agreed with him.
Not hers. Not his.
“Actually, Hefin, if you don’t mind … I came here with Sam. My kid’s at Betty’s and I should see if he got enough sleep last night to get him ready for school.”
Destiny pulled her giant keychain from her pocket, its labeled keys as colorful as jewels. Her whole life. Keys to the people all around her. She flipped through the ring and sorted out a key with a navy blue tag. “This will unlock the limo, the one next to it is the starter. If you’re not sure about driving it, Lace can.”
She turned away. He looked at the tag. In small neat letters it said DAD’S LIMO. Then a hand-drawn heart.
“Come on,” Lacey said, and touched his arm. He turned away to embrace Destiny, but she had already walked up to Paul, who had been waiting by a reception desk.
“Come on,” Lacey said again.
Destiny walked away from him and he walked away from Destiny. He started to take a wrong turn down one of the strange hallways, and Lacey pulled him in the right direction.
But it wasn’t right. He looked back and couldn’t see her anymore.
The bank of doors exiting the hospital air-locked so that when you opened them, the stagnant air of the hospital rushed out without letting any of the outside air in. Hefin walked several paces before he realized that the morning spring air was cool and sweet.
Several more paces before the air started to choke him.
Chapter Twenty
Destiny woke up to the sound of loud clanking nearby. In fact, it sounded like whatever was being clanked was right by her head.
She pulled her pillow over her head, then regretted it, because underneath the pillow and the covers she could smell tea and sugar and sawdust and also, something sort of musky and not polite.
No more tears came though, just dry-tears heaves. The worst.
So she burrowed deeper and took shallow breaths to protect her against the impolite love smells and dry cried and hated the clanking that had woken her up and reminded her that she was completely miserable.
When Sam had dropped her off after an entire day of first freezing and starving and crying in the ICU waiting room, then watching Sarah breathe, then cry, and finally demand to go home, they sat in his car in front of her house.
Des hated in-the-car conversations with Sam. She’d put her hand on the door handle to escape and winced when he put his hand on her shoulder.
“Wait.”
“I’m pretty tired, Sam.”
“Just. Wait.”
“Okay. No yelling.”
“I’m not …” He blew out a hard breath and was quiet. Miracle.
Des had closed her eyes and leaned back in Sam’s bucket seat. Sam had stopped smoking around the time their dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer, but his car still held the acrid edge of however many dozens and dozens of cigarettes he had burned through driving around.
It was comforting. It smelled like Dad. Like Sam, too, except not anymore. Which was good. It was weird how something that would be awful and disgusting associated with anyone else was so good when it was connected to someone you loved. Des hated breathing in the cigarette smoke that clung to a certain coworker after she came back from smoke breaks, but here, now, breathing in Sam’s old Camel Lights, she’d felt a little better.
“Desbaby—”
“Don’t call me that. Not right now.”
“You’re mad.”
She’d rolled her head to look at Sam. His red hair was in clumped spikes all over his head, his whiskers mixed up with his freckles. He had his hand on the steering wheel and he was rhythmically squeezing it, hard, like it was one of those weird hand-and-forearm exercisers he used to use when he was a teenager while he did sit-ups in front of the TV. Which was weird.
Sam did a lot of sports back then. Even now he was always moving. Des had thought he looked like he’d been working out. A lot. He was probably the only person in their entire neighborhood who ran, besides Darby Miller, this guy in his sixties who ran relay in the Olympics a million years ago.
Des couldn’t remember a time she didn’t idolize Sam. When she was a kid, she loved that they shared their dad’s red hair. It was like the three of them were in a club. Except Sam never seemed to want to be in the club.
He always seemed like he wanted to be someplace else.
And he kind of had a problem with yelling. It kind of scared her when she was little, but then she realized that his storms were fast and furious. The best strategy was to stand right in the face of them and wait for the eye. Sam wasn’t so bad in the eye of his storms.
In fact, he could be kind of great.
So she’d waited in the car, looking at him. Had realized he was as tired as she was, probably even more tired, because he had been working for who knows how long before he met PJ and Sarah at the hospital. Then all the yelling at the hospital. Then all the yelling at her.
Exhausting.
She’d looked at him and waited in the eye of Sam’s storm.
“I’m sorry,” he’d said.
“You don’t sound sorry.”
He’d put both hands on the steering wheel to squeeze. Muscles popped out of his arms. It was sort of gross and fascinating at the same time. “She could’ve died, Des.”
She’d had a few more tears left, then, and she lost them down her face, hot and overly salty. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
He’d looked at her, his eyes so bloodshot it made her own burn in sympathy. “It’s not your fault.”
“You don’t sound like you think it’s not my fault.”
His eyes had closed and he’d squeezed the steering wheel tighter. “Who’s that guy?”
“Hefin?”
No one could make an incredulous look more incredulous than Sam. “Hefin?”
“He’s Welsh.”
“He’s old.”
“Jesus, Sam, he’s your age.”
“I’m ten years older than you.”
“And I’m not an infant.”
“No, but you’re young. And vulnerable.”
“You’re making me sound like fancy lettuce.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means I’m not tender and bruiseable and young. It means I am a grown woman, who has grown friends, some of whom come from other countries. It means I get it, I get why you’re angry, I’m angry at me. All day, all I have been able to think about is why I couldn’t put it together. I remember, now, what they said about leg pain. But I’ve been going over there, all the time, Sam. All the time. Even when she doesn’t want me to, which is basically a hundred percent of the time. I fucked up. I got tired. I wanted help.”
“You have help.”
She’d closed her eyes again. Breathed in the Camel-scented air. “I know.”
“Sarah needed all of us.”
“She has all of us.”
“And now she’s in the hospital.”
“I thought we were somehow happy about this. The hospital is, after all, your territory.”
“I hate the hospital.”
“Says the doctor.”
“It’s a great place to get a nosocomial infection, have a serious fall, receive an incorrect medication or dose of medication, or get surgery on the wrong part.”
“The wrong part of what?”
“Your body.”
“Like, you go in to get your appendix out and—”
“They take out your spleen. Which is on the other side.”
“Holy shit, Sam. And you’re one of them. One of these nosocomial wrong-part removers.”
Sam had pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I know. It sucks.”
Destiny had suddenly wanted to sleep, to make the day
go away. She had remembered the hurt on Hefin’s face when she sent him away with Lacey, and as soon as she did, she remembered holding Sarah’s hand while she wept in the ICU.
She needed sleep.
She had made to leave again, then impulsively leaned over and kissed Sam on the cheek.
“What’s that for?”
“For yelling at everyone to take good care of Sarah.”
“I yelled at you, too.”
“Yeah, but I’m used to it.”
“We really haven’t figured anything out here, Desbaby.”
“I know. We will. We always do.”
They’d sat together, just being quiet together, for what seemed liked a long time. Then Sam’d said “Where’s POS Limo?”
“Probably in the back. If Lacey drove, she can never make it into the garage. If Hefin drove, no way.”
“You and Dad were the only ones who could really maneuver that limo. Learning to drive on it scarred me for life. I’ll never drive anything bigger than a compact.”
Then she’d hauled herself out of Sam’s Accord and into her dark house. When she went into the kitchen to get herself a drink of water before dropping into what she’d hoped would be a long and dreamless sleep, she’d found the plate, wrapped in aluminum foil, on the counter.
She’d lifted off the sticky note, instantly recognizing Betty’s schoolgirl script.
Take the brownie off the plate before you put it under the broiler for a few minutes to heat this up. In the morning you can tell me how Sarah’s doing.
The plate had a giant slice of Betty’s meat loaf. Extra glaze. Canned green beans. The brownie was wrapped in plastic wrap and was the kind with the white chocolate chips in it.
It turned out she’d had a few more tears left.
She’d wolfed down the meat loaf in giant bites, sitting in her father’s creaky leather recliner.
I hope you’re looking after Sarah, Dad.
Then, I don’t know what to do.
Finally, I love him, too. But isn’t that about the biggest mess ever. As you’d say.
Now, she was surrounded by Hefin and Des smell, her eyes gritty and dry, clanking and pounding vibrating the vinyl windows in her bedroom.
She dragged herself to a sitting position. Dragged herself to the shower. About halfway through, she experienced a singular jolt of panic, remember that she had a job just after she remembered it was Saturday morning.
Live (The Burnside Series): The Burnside Series Page 21