Tom pressed two blood-spattered fingers to her cheek. “Christine, stop.”
“I have to try. Let me try.”
He was the surgeon in the family. He knew damn well what was happening. But now was the one time she refused to let him talk sense into her. He grabbed one of the lapels of her coat. “Fuck. Chrissy, stop. Please.”
The grasp he had on the wool was weak. She could slap his hand away, keep the pressure on the injury, try to staunch the bleeding. Prove him wrong. She could do this. She could save him. She couldn’t help Jessie but she could help her husband. She was a doctor, for Christ’s sake. That was what doctors did.
“You need to go,” he whispered.
“I’m not leaving.” She ignored the hitch in his voice, the amount of blood on the ground, the gradual weakening of his heartbeat. “You’re going to be fine.”
He wrapped his hands around hers, his fingernails digging into her skin. “You need to run.” He groaned. “We promised her we’d keep them safe.”
Caroline. Marguerite and Sophie. “I know.”
Christine could hear Marguerite behind her, kneeling down and slowly inching up until her hands were on Christine’s shoulders. She pressed on the scarf again, knowing it was nothing but a delay of the inevitable.
Tom coughed. “You have a window. Use it. Dundee is right over the border. Find some Canadians. They’ll do what’s right. They’re not assholes like us.” He tried to laugh but instead a tear rolled down his cheek. “You’ll be okay. I’ll take care of Jessie.”
“She’s—”
“I know. I saw—she was next to me when it happened. I got the one who… I killed the man who shot her. We’ll make it all right. We have each other.” He coughed again. “It doesn’t hurt, Chrissy. Don’t worry.”
There were so many things she had to say. That he had to hear. “Thomas—”
He squeezed her hands tighter. “Don’t. I love you. That’s all you need to know. And I’ll see you again. Good Catholic girls go straight to the top without any layovers. I’ll be waiting for you if I manage to get there first.” He closed his eyes.
“Tom, wait. Don’t go. I can’t do this alone. Stay and talk to me. Please—” She slapped his face, trying to keep him conscious. He was leaving her and she couldn’t stop him. “Tommy—” The name she never used unless they were alone. His breathing slowed. His grip eased. His head drooped.
And it was over.
She’d dealt with loss of life before. She’d done the standard rotation in the ER before becoming a general practitioner. She knew what death looked like. What the wails of loved ones sounded like. The unsettling silence of the end coupled with the sense of finality that never seemed to come.
Christine pressed her forehead to her husband’s, let her hands drift up to his hair. She couldn’t let go. Refused to let go. If she held onto him, he’d come back. Jess would come back. They could get in the car and go back to Pennsylvania and everything would be fine. Like nothing ever happened. She’d wake up and the nightmare would cease.
Marguerite wrapped her arms around her. Christine wept quietly but Marguerite stayed silent, her nose pressed into the back of her guardian’s coat.
She was Marguerite’s guardian. And Sophie’s. She and Tom had been tasked with guiding the girls to safety, had the paperwork and all the legal gobbledygook to prove it, and now she was left to go it alone. Caroline couldn’t have intended for Christine to do this by herself. Tom had been the reason she had selected the two of them. Tom had been the competent parent, the loving caretaker, the steady and secure spouse. She’d merely been the conduit through which Caroline’s judgment had flowed to her husband. No, Christine had not been meant to do this without him. She knew that for certain.
She didn’t know how long it took before she untangled her fingers from her husband’s hair, robotically wiped her hands in the snow in a futile attempt to clean off the blood, and lifted Marguerite to her feet. It was forever and never and not nearly enough.
Marguerite gestured toward the pine tree in the distance. “Sophie.”
Christine shook her head, knocking the cobwebs loose. Begging the grief to subside, if only long enough to get somewhere safe. She slogged over to Sophie, who was tucking her mother’s stuffed hippo into Jessica’s arms. A gift the child had given her mother after Caroline had been injured in a shooting at the Capitol Visitors Center a few years prior.
Caroline had returned the hippo to her youngest daughter before entrusting her children to the care of the two people she trusted most to keep them safe, just as she’d done with Marguerite and the Marquette scarf. The significance was not lost on Christine, nor was the irony. But now was not the time to dwell on such things. She could deal with reality later. Much later.
Sophie looked up at Christine. “I want Jess to have him. So she won’t be lonely.”
They had to leave. There wasn’t time. No time for grief, no time for peace, no time for rest. Christine yanked Sophie to her feet, dragging her toward the trees. The young girl started to scream, begging to stay with Jessica. Marguerite led the way. Christine blocked out all sound save for the buzzing in her ears.
They didn’t look back.
*****
Sobbing uncontrollably while telling your sorta-boyfriend about the violent deaths of your husband and daughter proved to be an excruciating process. Ugly crying, hyperventilating, and pausing to take water breaks was even more humbling. It took me a good ten minutes to recover, and Alex didn’t talk much. Then again, there wasn’t much to say.
“I wasn’t ready for them to be gone,” I whispered.
He took me in his arms. Alex was nice, and warm, and safe, and I began to wonder if I’d ever begin to mend what I’d broken.
“No one could ever prepare for anything like that,” he said softly. “My god, Christine. I know the words seem empty but I am so very, very sorry.”
I bit back a bitter laugh. “Now you know why I have a hard time talking about them.” A twisted thought occurred to me. “I don’t want you to think I miss Tom more than I miss Jess, because I don’t.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a child.”
“It’s just—” How could I explain this without sounding like a hideous human being? “Tom and Caroline are the only two people not related to me who have loved me unconditionally. Jess, Susannah, my mother… they didn’t really get that choice. Our relationships were foisted on each other by heredity.”
“Three,” Alexander corrected gently. “I can tell you with some certainty that there are at least three people in this world who are not genetically tied to you and have loved you unconditionally of their own volition.”
“Can you say that again?”
“Sure.” He cleared his throat. “I can tell you with some certainty that—”
“No, I didn’t mean the whole thing. Can you just skip to the loving me part?”
He smiled. “I love you, Christine Sullivan. Very much.”
“Good,” I said, taking a deep breath. I cared for him. More than cared. I wouldn’t have been able to tell him about that night in the woods if I didn’t. “Because I love you too.”
“You know,” he said. “You could have mentioned that earlier and we could have avoided all this unnecessary angst, temporary though it was.”
“Maybe we needed it to happen. Otherwise I might not have ever had the courage to tell you about what happened to Tom and Jess.”
“Now that you’re here, there’s no going back. You can’t stuff your emotions back inside of you. That’s not part of the deal.”
“I may need to talk about it again. Soon. It was oddly purifying.”
“Yes, yes,” Alex said. “We all know how pure you are.”
His not so understated reference coaxed an unintended laugh. “I can’t believe that man made a damn purgatory joke while he… you know.”
Alex gave me a small smile. “From what I know of you, the crack ab
out you being a good Catholic girl wasn’t all that accurate either.” He held up his hands, bracing for a sharp retort. “I’m just saying.”
“No, it’s all right.” I took a deep breath. “I suppose I’m lucky to have a man who cares about me enough to try to make me smile right after reliving the most gut-wrenching experience of my life.”
“Did it work?”
I wiped away a few stray tears. “A little.”
“This moment is the beginning of this part of your journey,” he said. “Not the end. I want to hear about Tom. And Jess. And your mom. And anything else you want to talk about. You’ve bottled up a lot of things for too long. You don’t have to be afraid to cry, or think you’re feeling or doing the wrong thing, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered, thinking now was as good a time as any to prove I meant what I said. I held out my arm. “This was Tom’s watch. I wear it all the time. I gave it to him a few years ago. He was wearing it the night he died. Caroline managed to recover it and give it back to me.” One of the many things I should have told him about before. I took it off and handed it to Alex. “You can read what’s on the back, if you want.”
“To Tommy. Happy fiftieth birthday. Love, Dr. Spencer,” he quoted.
“Tom and I got married rather suddenly,” I explained. “Our second semester of medical school. I was, uh, pregnant with Susannah. He proposed outside an abortion clinic.”
“Oh.”
I’d managed to shock him. More so than I had already. His jaw hadn’t dropped to the floor or anything, but he appeared thrown off. Alex rubbed his chin. “I see.”
“I’m nothing if not a spectacular hypocrite,” I said.
“No,” he said quietly. “You’re an honest one.”
“Tom used to call me Dr. Spencer as a joke sometimes. Everything—the pregnancy, the marriage, those first few years together—happened so quickly and at first I didn’t want to change my name but I did anyway and, well, it was a term of endearment.”
“A good one, I’d say.” Alexander slid the watch back onto my wrist, fastening the clasp. “Christine, I want you to know that I understand why you wear this. And I do not expect you to take it off or dispose of it quietly. If and when that day comes, we can talk about it first, but please don’t feel it’s required of you.”
“I spent all this time trying to erase that night, but I think what I was really trying to do was to make sure I wouldn’t forget everything else. Does that make sense?”
“In a circuitous way, yes. But that’s why you might want to keep wearing that watch and your wedding rings. You had over thirty years with Tom. If I’m lucky, I’ll equal that longevity. But it’s going to take me a while to catch up, and I know he wouldn’t want me, or you, to feel like it’s a competition between the old and the new. I don’t ever want either one of us to diminish what he was to you.”
“Wow.” I sniffled. “You’re a really good boyfriend.”
“Does that mean we’re a couple again?”
I blushed. “I don’t know. Does it?”
“I want you with me. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m just asking you to come with me. I’ve been offered a good opportunity. I want to take it. With you by my side.”
“In Spain.”
“Yes. You’re a good influence on me, Christine. I’d like to see how that influence is exercised in a different setting.”
“I’d say Barcelona is a lot different than Philadelphia.”
“Yes,” he said. “They play real football there. And the tapas is better.”
“Will I be issued a Barça jersey, along with an array of small plated dishes as soon as the plane lands?”
“It is the law. As per my understanding.”
Maybe I could get away with a fan scarf. That seemed to have a bit more panache. “We’re going to Spain.” As if he hadn’t just said that.
“I hope so, yes.”
“And we will live in sin.”
“I consider sin to be a relative term, hence my willingness to explore its outer boundaries.”
“What kind of commitment is this?”
“The only kind that matters.” He kissed me lightly. “If you need a proposal, you can have a proposal. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I’ll take you however I can get you, with whatever strings you want to attach. As long as those strings are psychologically sound,” he added.
“I’m working through some things.” In case he hadn’t noticed.
“You probably always will be.”
“I might need to come home a lot.”
“That’s not an issue.”
“I might get sick of Europe.”
“I find that very doubtful. If you get sick of Barcelona that means you’ll be sick of me and I don’t see that happening.”
“What if I decide I want to move back to Pennsylvania at some point?”
He kissed me again. “Nothing is forever, Christine. You of all people know that. We do what we can with the time we have. I promise not to judge, not to prod, not to make any insensitive statements. Or,” he corrected. “if I do make said statements, I expect you to tell me so I can do better.”
“Are we going to be okay?” I whispered.
“I hope so,” he said. “But I do have to lay down some ground rules. Flying across the ocean is a great way to start anew, but it’s also equally effective in allowing someone to run away from their problems. Once we get to Barcelona, I want you to find an English-speaking therapist. Weekly visits.”
Wow. “Alex—”
“That’s non-negotiable. Christine, I am not equipped to meet all of your emotional needs. I feel no shame in saying that. You need someone who’s got a background in grief counseling to help you get a firm hold on everything that happened to you. And—”
If he was going to start stacking requirements on me, it couldn’t be good. “Oh god, what else?”
“It’s nothing bad,” he reassured me. “You need to talk to Susannah and your grandkids once a week on Skype. That’s just healthy.” He grinned at me. “I expect you to talk to Caroline a lot more frequently than that but I want to make sure you know she’s a requirement as well.”
I had a feeling she’d end up with a cottage in Marseille and an apartment somewhere in the Gothic Quarter before the year was out. “I can live with that. Are you still flying out in a few days?”
He nodded. “Doesn’t hurt to scout things a bit. Although I feel much better about this entire thing now that I know you’re going with me.”
“I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
“You can come with me.”
“But then you’ll have no one waiting for you when you get back. Perhaps in some sort of negligee or equally improper attire.”
“At the airport? That might not be legal.”
“We’ll figure out the details.”
“Is it bad form for me to request a kiss in order to seal the deal?”
There were logistics to discuss. More ways for me to open up emotionally, tell him about my past, discuss our mutual plans for the future. But for now, a healthy reunion kissing session that would in all probability lead to makeup sex seemed like a much more desirable option than anything else on the table. The nuts and bolts and everything else could wait a bit longer.
I leaned toward him and smiled for what seemed like the first time in days.
“That would be terribly uncouth, Alexander. But I shall grant the request nonetheless.”
*****
The drive to Susannah’s house in Haverford brought with it a sense of freedom I hadn’t tasted in years. I’d officially relinquished Secret Service protection, trusting my instincts to guide me during my few remaining weeks in the United States.
The move across the Atlantic was something I couldn’t tell my daughter over the phone. No, this had to be done in person. Plus it gave me an excuse to tuck her kiddos into bed and lavish them with the… grandmotherly affection I’d been learning to express.
Alexander had jokingly called me abuelita during dinner the other night. Maybe I’d let Desmond and Spencer adopt that as my official title.
I dispensed with the small talk as soon as Susannah and I sat down to chat. “I’m moving to Barcelona.”
She almost dropped her cup of coffee. Maybe I should have eased into it a little more. “When?”
“Next month.”
“I see. This is sudden.”
By definition, yes, a transcontinental move in less than a month was sudden. “I—Alexander asked me to go with him and I agreed.”
She forced a smile. “At least you’re not going by yourself. I didn’t realize things were so serious between you two.”
I’d mentioned, rather evasively, that I was dating her former mentor’s son, but hadn’t really expanded upon that initial statement. It was partly my fault that she was taken aback. “I didn’t expect it to be. It just happened.”
Susannah took a sip out of her mug. “These things usually do.”
“You don’t seem all that shocked.”
“I’ve inherited almost all your superpowers, including the ones that allow me to appear to be a detached observer when inside I’m quietly judging you and thinking, what the fuck are you doing, mother?”
“You said the quiet part loud,” I pointed out.
“How long have you known Alex? Two, three months?”
“That’s long enough.” I patted her hand. “He’s helped me deal with some of my stuff. How long did you date Jacob before you ran off with him?”
“Are you marrying Alexander Guardiola?”
“No,” I said calmly. “At least, not yet. So you’ve got me beat on that.”
“Jacob and I knew each other way longer than you’ve known Alex.”
“Five months. You eloped after five months. I know. I counted.” Not that I wasn’t still hurt that she’d gotten married, then told her parents after the fact. Not at all.
“Mother—”
“I didn’t come here to argue with you,” I told her. “I was hoping you’d be happy for me.”
Songbird (Bellator Saga Book 7) Page 24