The wind had rocked her earlier, but Gabriel’s words took the wind out of her. And when he slammed the door on the chopper and stalked for the hospital, her chest felt almost caved in from her lack of sufficient breath.
This wasn’t going the way she’d pictured. Of course, she’d known he’d be angry, but after she’d—after they’d saved the mother and child, she’d thought he’d calm down. See the earlier small, and admittedly bigger later risk as justified. But when he said it that way...
She scrambled from the back of the chopper to chase him inside. He was getting onto the elevator as she reached him, and she twisted sideways to slip between the doors.
“Wait, please. I’m sorry. It was okay when I went. It was that second line. Snow isn’t usually so blustery.” She reached for him and he pulled back, shaking his head.
“Don’t. I can’t do this. I cannot do this again. I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering what’s the next dangerous, stupid thing you’ll do.” He swallowed and shook his head. “We can’t do this. This isn’t going to work.”
But he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her the way you kissed someone you loved, or at least felt very deeply for.
“Are you saying you’re moving out? You’re leaving me?”
“We’ve never been together. Not really. It was a trial run. Better we learn this early,” he said, and the elevator started to go down, and brought a sensation of plummeting in her middle. “I’ll move out tonight.”
What could she say? There had to be something to say, something that would make it okay for him. “I couldn’t let her go through that alone...”
“I told you to go home. I told you to go, you’d have never known.”
“You did, but you can’t just order me around. If that’s your idea of marriage, of a relationship, that’s why she left.”
He flinched, the doors opened, and he walked away again. She didn’t even know what floor it was, or where he was aiming. Someone else got on, and she stuck in the corner, unable to bring herself to chase him again.
Go home. Fall apart there. She reached out to press the button for the first floor, but her phone chirruped and she almost lost her mind, fumbling for it, hoping it was him. She wrenched it from her pocket in a heartbeat and looked at the screen.
Text from Charles Davenport. Not Gabriel.
My office.
The new passenger had already pressed the right button, so she slunk back to the corner of the elevator to wait. Like Charles could say anything worse to her than Gabriel had said. If words were teeth, they’d be chewing through her belly, down low where she found her palm pressed and shielding. In that second, she didn’t know what to feel worse about.
All the adrenaline she’d been running on was gone, and when the elevator stopped, she had to drag herself out of the back corner and down the hallway to her eldest brother’s office. Only he wouldn’t be wearing that hat right now, he would be Dr. Charles Davenport, chief of the ER. And she was the pilot who’d violated direct orders.
Charles’s secretary waved her through, but the rueful pinch of her mouth said enough. He’d be in a lather, even if it was a Charles special lather, where he’d be too civilized to shove her out of the window even if he really wanted to.
She opened the door to his office and didn’t smile, didn’t do much of anything except peel her hand away from her womb. She didn’t have much emotional currency left to play, but Charles did. He sat behind his desk, hands pressed flat to the desktop, fingers spread out, face red.
Diffusing this situation seemed less important than the situation with Gabriel, so she just held up one hand to signal to him to wait and sat opposite him. Took a breath. Took another. It didn’t really help, it gave her oxygen but not words.
As soon as she signaled her readiness, he let loose a stream, echoing the words already seared into her by Gabriel.
Risks. Death. Bad, bad Penny. But it was kind of a blur, right up until the end.
“I asked, do you know what you’re doing to the people who love you when you do these things? This isn’t new skydiver on a sunny day with a back-up parachute kind of worry, this is watching your sister torment a cobra worry. Do you care that you put your family and friends through that?”
“Yes,” she said on reflex, the question so shocked her. Did it really seem like she didn’t care about anyone? No other words came. Who knew Charles would be better than Mom with the guilt trip?
Guilt amplified when she remembered the next time she’d see her family. In a few days. At Charles’s wedding. These were the last days of work before he married, and things would be stressful enough for him without having to deal with this.
He hadn’t even been there to watch her land, or see the wind trying to smash them into the building, but the rant that continued was sharp enough that she’d never have guessed it. It was the end, when he threatened to make funeral arrangements so they’d be prepared, that she just gave up listening and slumped forward in her chair, supporting her head with her palms, elbows on knees.
The day officially crossed over into the territory of Too Much.
“When you have children, maybe you’ll understand. Maybe you’ll think of family first.”
Gabriel’s sentiment again, but more pointed. Her direct failure. Her eyes began to well and she could only nod.
He said something about a week-long suspension, and that she’d be fired the next time she violated a no-fly order, like any of that mattered.
Another nod. Her head could move but her mouth could not.
She had to go to Gabriel, that was all she knew, and she stood. She was almost to the door before she realized she probably should ask if he was done. “Am I dismissed?”
He nodded. “Be careful on your way home. The roads are treacherous.”
Another nod. She opened the door.
“Pen, I know you went above and beyond for that woman and her baby. I’m proud you have the heart to do things like that. We all need you to be more rational about it.”
“I know,” she whispered, then, with the tears brimming, she smiled at her brother before leaving. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PENNY RUSHED THROUGH the door to her apartment and the only lights in the darkened space came from Gabriel’s room in the open loft above.
The Christmas lights he’d strung sat dark, no twinkling, and she found herself shaking as she sprinted for the stairs.
After having searched the hospital and called him twice with no answer, Penny had hoped she’d come up with the words to make him stay, but she hadn’t. The best she could do was try to explain again, explain better, explain more. Beg.
Up the stairs, she stopped in the doorway of his room and watched him mechanically moving clothing from the bureau to an open duffle bag on the bed.
A greeting would be too flippant.
Running to him to throw her arms around him and beg him to stay would be too much.
“I know I shouldn’t have gone,” she said, alerting him to her presence. He looked at her, but his eyes were tired. He didn’t look like a man hoping to be convinced to stay, but this felt like the most important test of her bravery since she’d taken those first steps after years in a wheelchair.
“I didn’t think about our baby,” she said, confirming what both Gabriel and Charles had basically said. “I thought about Andrea and how terrified she must’ve been. How grateful I was to have you here when I was just throwing up. I thought about how hard I would’ve been praying for you to drop through the ceiling and make everything okay...if that had been me.”
He stuffed shirts into his bag and sat, sighing, his voice soft, even gentle compared to his earlier yelling. “I know all this.”
“I still needed to say it. And I have to say this too...” But she needed a breath before she fainted from how fas
t her heart was pounding. “I love you. I’m...I’m in love with you. So hard I can’t... I can’t be in a parental partnership either. And I can’t have a marriage like my parents’, all public face and nothing but bitterness and anger inside. No kind of non-relationship with you is going to work for me. If you don’t love me, if you don’t think you can be with me and make compromises—both of us—to make this life together work, then you’re right to leave.”
His dark beautiful eyes left her and fixed on the bureau he’d been working from, no words coming. As the seconds ticked and ticked on, she realized no words were going to come.
It wasn’t enough.
“My whole life, my thinking was always, ‘Can you do this?’” Her voice went wobbly and she felt burning in her eyes again, but she wouldn’t get said what she needed to say if she broke down now. A slow breath was all she allowed herself. “For so long the answer was always no. When the answer finally started becoming yes, I just always did it. Whatever I wondered if I could do, if I could, I did. Tonight there was a lull in the snow, and I confirmed it on radar. Then I asked myself, ‘Can you make it there?’ I knew I could, and it felt like I should help her if I could. I intended to stay there, not fly back. Leave the chopper, ride in the ambulance and return for it once the storm passed. Then she was bleeding and going by ground would’ve been a death sentence for her. I admit it, I didn’t even look at the radar then. I should’ve, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to have to make that call for her. I just took the risk. I can’t explain it better than that.”
She stepped into the room then, pushing every tattered scrap of courage she had left after the day, and rounded the bed to wrap her arms around his bowed head, and curled her head down to rest her cheek on his hair. This might be the last time she ever got to do it, to touch him close. He didn’t push her away as he had, but he didn’t reach for her either. He didn’t put his arms around her to express his own grief at what felt like something dying.
He didn’t move, and said nothing...though she wanted to hear his voice so badly she almost begged him to say something. He wanted her gone, that was all she could surmise.
She kissed his head, lovingly, slowly, breathing him in as much as she could, then let go and reached for the duffle he’d just finished filling, zipped it up, and picked it up. “I’ll take this downstairs for you.”
“Thank you,” he said, and it was something. She’d take anything. She’d even have been grateful for yelling, for more words that would ruin her.
At the door, she stopped and looked back at him. One more time. One more attempt. “I felt like half a person back then. Then I got to be whole, and I...guess I got stuck in that new wholeness where I feel free when I’m not tied to the ground. But I’m not just a whole person now, I’m two. I haven’t worked out how to do that yet. I’ve been focused on getting through the pregnancy and the possible health ramifications of my disease. It’s a lot to get my head around but I’m trying.”
Tears spilled then, and she knew it was going to turn ugly if she didn’t get out of there.
“You should wait until the morning to leave. It’s awful out there, especially if you’re carrying suitcases. In the morning the roads will be better, you’ll be able to trust cabbies and not have to lug this all on the subway.”
He stood up and for a second she thought maybe he was coming to her, but he bent and pulled a suitcase from under the bed.
Right.
“I’m going to bed. You won’t see me. I’ll stay out of the way,” she said.
She might not be as sensible as everyone wanted, but she was sensible enough to not stay there and wait for an answer. She hitched the bag higher and immediately carried it downstairs, leaving him to pack and leave, or pack and loiter until morning.
Downstairs, she eyed the bookcase and the albums she’d hidden from him. Words hadn’t worked. Maybe pictures. Maybe if he knew what she was struggling against. For all she’d been trying to be open and honest, she’d still kept that part of herself hidden from him, protected this vulnerable spot.
She felt sick, but while he packed, she slipped albums into his duffle, then covered them all up with clothes and zipped it up to put by the sofa.
If he was going to reject her forever, it would be for the whole her, not just the parts she’d let him see.
* * *
After Penny’s living space, which had been bright and colorful even before he’d strung thousands of twinkling lights, his apartment couldn’t compare. It had never felt flat and cold before, but now the neutral colors irritated him. Looked lifeless. Like he couldn’t pick a color if he had to. It was supposed to be tasteful, but it was just bland.
He dropped his bags on his brown sofa and sat, using the duffle like an armrest.
He’d stayed until first light, and leaving still didn’t feel right. Even after an afternoon in hell, which had hurt even more than when Nila had left. Being the one to leave didn’t feel any better.
She’d said love, and he knew it was true just as sharply as he knew it wouldn’t work. But he still hated knowing what she was going through too. He’d stayed until morning to keep from giving her worry in return, sitting among the Christmas decorations he’d put up, in a place that now felt more like home to him than his own home.
Over the past two weeks she’d kept hammering about how he didn’t trust her, and there couldn’t be any question now about whether or not he could trust her to stick around. She might love him, but there would never be stability with her.
He scrubbed his hands over his face and forced himself to get up. Sitting here feeling sorry for himself wouldn’t make anything better. He should put up some decorations, try to make his apartment feel like home again. Unpack. Get in some groceries...
Not sit on the couch and mope.
He grabbed the bags and hauled them to his bedroom. Do the things that needed to be done. Keep moving. Don’t think about the way she’d kissed his head, hugged it, and he hadn’t even put his hands on her in return.
Don’t think about how it felt like abandonment and rejection to leave her like that.
He unzipped the duffle and dug his hands into the top layer of shirts, but his knuckles struck something hard. Had he put shoes in there?
Lifting the clothes away, the bottom fell out of his guts. Photo albums sat in his clothes. The albums she’d taken away. Not just taken, the ones she’d hidden behind the others.
His first instinct was to step back from them, ignore them, even put the shirts back and cover them up. A smart man would send them back to her and be done with it.
Hands shaking, he pulled them from the bag. A slip of paper fluttered to the floor.
If this is it, if you’re going, I want you to understand. You seeing these still scares me. I’m still working this out. But this fear feels like one of the things that scare me and I should still run toward it.
Strong, hastily scribbled words, devoid of the usual hallmarks of her notes. No smiley faces anywhere either—even if they were her usual method of punctuation. She hadn’t even signed it. And he hadn’t left her with enough courage to give them to him directly.
Which meant he had to look. She was far from a bad person, and he owed it to her to see what she now wanted him to see. Even if it couldn’t change anything. She was like lightning across a dark sky, beautiful to watch but scarring or deadly if you got too close.
Tucking them under his arm, he headed for the living room, stopping at the fridge to get a beer.
Blue album: Penny’s Birthdays.
Red album: Penny’s Progress.
Progress? A strangely detached way to chronicle your child’s life...
He opened the blue album. It started with the first birthday. His first time seeing baby Penny. She was all eyes, those dazzling blue eyes, and smiles. Ribbons in her baby curls. Pushing a bear-
themed walker around and honking the horn while laughing. People in the background winced.
He felt a small smile. How much would their child look like her? Would his dark brown eyes overwhelm those dazzling blues? His mother had hazel eyes, and her father’s eyes had been green. There was a chance for blue.
Two. Favorite gift, tiny tricycle. No horn, had a bell this time. Chubby toddler legs. Bunnies to pet or chase while laughing, if that picture was anything to go by. Then half-naked and running from Mom, cake and frosting covering her face and mashing her hair up at an insane angle on one side.
He couldn’t help his smile then. That was his girl. Half-naked, running around laughing, covered in cake.
The smile faltered. Was his. Not is.
Three. Small trampoline with safety bars. Pigtails. Skinned knee. Always running.
When had she started to get ill? He felt it lurking, like some hulking monster, ready to take away those rosy cheeks.
He sped through four, through five, six... More of the same, happy, bright, lively.
Seven. The seventh birthday was different. Indoors. At a table. Dressed in ruffles and ribbons. An angry red rash cascaded down her right cheek, around her eyes. Her swollen eyes. So red on her pale skin. She sat behind a cake burning seven candles but didn’t smile for the camera.
Other pictures followed, showing her opening gifts. He could see the rash on her knuckles and marked the ones that had cracked to bleed by the bandages covering them.
Then a picture of a box someone else had to open. Too heavy, he realized, or she’d simply grown too tired. It was a disease that sapped strength. Mom posed for the picture that followed, showing the gift. Telescope.
The gifts on the first six birthdays had been the kind to encourage play, physical toys. But this toy was sedate for the little girl who’d been so active.
His chest burned sharper but hadn’t really stopped since yesterday.
He put the book down and leaned back, just to get his breath. And to guzzle his beer. To remind himself that she’d gotten better. She was better now.
The Rescue Doc's Christmas Miracle Page 15