Forever Sheltered (22 page)

“I’m going to head out,” I said. “Let me know if anything else happens.”

Cynthia skated over to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I can’t wait to go home,” she said.

“Me too,” I told her. I knew the better she felt, the more she would start to fight having to stay. Maybe if the second treatment went smoother, we could check her out in between.

I tapped off a note to Tina as I headed out of the hospital.

Things had certainly been intense. That first night, followed by the surgical suite — I felt my blood surge just thinking about it. Then last night.

We probably needed a little bit of normal. Maybe we could have a quiet dinner somewhere.

A cold front was blowing in. The temperature dropped noticeably in the time I drove from the hospital to her apartment. The wind howled as I took the path up to Tina’s door.

She must have been watching for me, as she opened it before I could knock. I hadn’t seen her quite like this before, in jeans and a loose sweatshirt, her hair pulled back in little clips.

We sat on the Pink Monster, and she leaned into me. “Have you looked me up online?” she asked.

This was unexpected. “Hadn’t thought to. Is there a criminal record I should know about?” I tweaked her nose.

“None of the bodies have ever been found,” she said. Her fingers traced the pattern of my sweater across my belly.

“If I ever need to dispose of someone, I’ll know who to call.”

She glanced up at me. Without mascara, her lashes were pale and delicate. “I Googled you as soon as I knew your name.”

“Mine’s a boring story,” I said, grateful, as I had been for years now, that my mother’s obituary had never been public, linking both Cynthia and me as her surviving children. Dad hadn’t been listed at all.

“It was, actually,” Tina said. “You’re squeaky clean and doctorated.”

“I take it you’re not?” I felt a trickle of apprehension. What was she about to tell me?

She hesitated, plucking at her sleeves. “I do these talks, or I used to,” she said. “When I was in college. It was how I made money. It’s what got me the job at the hospital, actually.”

“What kind of talks?”

She paused. When she finally spoke again, her voice wavered. “About suicide.”

My chest tightened. “Is it something you’re familiar with? Someone in your family?”

Tina pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, revealing pale scars from wrist to mid-forearm. Years of experience helped me hold in any reaction to them. I reached out and encircled her slender wrist with my fingers. “How long ago?”

“Same time as everything else. When Peanut died.”

“Was it postpartum depression?”

She laid her arm on her lap. I kept my hold on her. “I don’t think so. I didn’t even do it with the thought of dying. Just to be scarred. I felt like somehow I needed to be permanently marked by what happened.”

I ran my thumb along the lines. “You didn’t realize how dangerous it was to do?”

“I kinda knew. It just didn’t really hit home until I’d already done it.”

“Razors?”

“Nice sharp ones. Part of my art tool chest.”

“You got help after?”

Tina snorted. “More than I wanted. I thought I’d never get free of the social workers.” She snorted again. “And now I’m going to be one. That’s a lark.”

She pulled her sleeves down, forcing me to let go. “Is it too freaky for you?”

I wrapped my arms around her and tucked her in a little closer. “Not too freaky.” Truth be told, this didn’t surprise me at all. The signs had all been there from her history. I wished she hadn’t had to go through it, though.

She relaxed her head on my shoulder. “I have five people who attempted suicide coming to my art class. Four teens and an older man. So much hurt in the world.”

I definitely agreed on that.

She got quiet, as if she was waiting for me to say something else.

“It’s part of who you are, Tina. It’s all right.”

But this didn’t get her to relax.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” she asked.

I tensed a little. Was that what this was about? A secret for a secret?

Had Cynthia spilled something?

I had to go face the whole mess tomorrow to make sure she got her chemotherapy. I couldn’t jeopardize it right now.

Tina began to pull away. Damn it. I needed to do something. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she just expected me to say something else about her history.

“I’m not spooked by it,” I said.

She stood up. “I’m not normally the sort of girl who dates anybody long term,” she said. “I don’t even know how to do this.”

I got up too. “There isn’t any one way. I think we’re doing fine.” I tried to squeeze her shoulders, but she shrugged me off.

“You don’t think there is anything in your history I should know? A marriage? Anything?” She wouldn’t look at me.

“I’ve never been married, Tina. Did the Google search maybe point you in the wrong direction? Or is someone telling you something about me?”

“No. No one knows anything about you.”

“You’ve asked?” I tried to keep my voice even.

She whirled around at that. “Not really. Everyone thinks you’re this obstinate, coldhearted machine.”

“I can’t help the impression people get of me.”

“Of course you can!”

“Tina, what do you want me to be?”

She walked toward the kitchen. “I don’t know! Honest with me, maybe?”

“What do you want to know?”

She leaned against the wall, facing away. I had no idea how to manage her moods. She was so hard to figure out.

“You don’t have a daughter?” she finally asked, quietly.

Where would she get that idea? “No, I do not have any children,” I said. “I’ve never been married.”

“I see,” she said.

I stood in her living room, not sure what else to say. I knew it was probably time to explain about my sister, but she seemed more worried about my marital status. I had no idea where that was coming from. As upset as she was acting, bringing up Cynthia seemed like a bad idea.

“I’m still tired and hungover,” she said. “Can we just call it a day?”

“I was hoping to take you to dinner. Do something simple.”

She hugged herself, still not looking my way. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“I have a twelve-hour —”

“Right,” she said. “That’s fine.”

I walked toward her, but she held up her hand. “Tomorrow,” she said. “That’ll be better.”

I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I just agreed with her. “Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

But I had a feeling that this was the wrong answer.

Chapter 39: Tina

I couldn’t think about anything but Darion, Darion, Darion during all my art therapy sessions the next day. Had he straight out lied about Cynthia? I didn’t think so.

But he wouldn’t tell me anything either.

This wasn’t good. He had been completely unmoved by my confession.

He wasn’t the right guy.

The aide wheeled Albert in, and my excitement over getting to see him was immediately squashed by his haggard appearance.

He slumped in his chair, holding tight to the arms as though if he let go he would simply fall out.

“I didn’t want to bring him,” the aide said, “but he insisted.”

“Pshaw,” Albert said. “You guys are always making me out to be sicker than I am.” His eyes sparkled as they always did when he winked at me. “If I get well, who will they flirt with?”

The aide wrote a number on a piece of art paper. “Page me directly if you need me,” she said.

When she was gone, I said, “You were doing so well on Friday.”

“Easy come, easy go,” Albert said. “The whole thing is one step forward, two steps back. Tricky when you’ve got one foot in the grave.”

He held up his hands, and the shaking was so pronounced that even holding a brush was probably impossible, much less using it.

I tried to think of something we could do, but Albert was shaking his head. “Stop worrying about it. Let’s work on yours.”

“And here I thought you just came down to escape all the unwanted attention of the nurses.”

He laughed weakly. “You have me all figured out.”

I turned my canvas around to show him the colors I’d done so far.

“Very nice,” he said.

“I’m not sure how realistic I want to make the mother and son,” I said.

“Your hand will decide,” he said. “Have you done enough work over the years to find your style?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve been kind of all over the place.”

He waved at the painting. “Then you’ll do this image many times in your life before you get it right. Consider it a trial run. Don’t get too attached to this one effort.”

I laid the canvas flat on the table. No one had said anything like that to me in art school.

A movement in the hall window caught my eye. Darion walked by, slowly, looking in. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught him doing it.

Albert noticed and turned. “An admirer?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

“Ah, a love affair.”

I waved at Darion and turned to face Albert. “What gives you that impression?”

“You changed when you saw him. Even the air around you was different. Suffused with this magnetic charge.”

I folded up the easel. “Time to reverse my polarity, then.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“I don’t think there ever was any paradise.” Not true, I thought. Most of it had been amazing. But it was the same as the one-and-dones, only it had just lasted a little longer this time. Encounters. Nothing more.

Probably for the best.

“You should draw him,” Albert said. “I found I could unknot most of my women problems by putting their image on paper.” He drew a face in the air. “Always, the answer was right in front of me.”

That was an interesting idea. Draw Darion.

Then add horns and a tail and cast him into hell.

Chapter 40: Darion

That hadn’t gone well. I had to stop walking by Tina’s room. She seemed downright annoyed with seeing me.

I stopped by the nurses’ desk to pull up the day’s labs on my iPad.

And felt like dancing.

Cynthia’s bloodwork was spectacular. ANC at 1000! We hadn’t seen that in weeks. If it weren’t for the clinical trial protocol, I would have been sending her home for a few days.

I ordered a bone marrow aspiration, certain she wouldn’t be hypocellular. If we were very very lucky, this new drug was the thing we were looking for. Something to knock this cancer into remission so Cynthia could go back to the business of being an eight-year-old girl.

I began to think ahead. I could enroll her in school instead of using tutors, which I hadn’t even bothered with since we’d been here. She had been too sick.

But now, I felt positively giddy.
 

My hospital phone buzzed. Odd. It wasn’t a patient code. Duffrey himself wanted to see me in the admin offices.

I glanced through my schedule. I might as well do it now. I wouldn’t have another free moment for hours. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted me for.

Unless it was Tina.

Or Cynthia.

Either choice was bad.

I girded myself as I wound through the maze of halls to Duffrey’s office. I didn’t much care what happened to me. But Cynthia. And Tina. Both were vulnerable.

Duffrey’s dour secretary waved me on by as I approached. I didn’t knock on the door, just pushed through.

Duffrey was perched on the corner of his desk, talking on the phone. He motioned for me to sit down.

“Must run, love,” he said. “Meeting. Love you.” He set the phone down. “Mrs. Duffrey number three,” he said. “Trying not to piss this one off.”

I was still standing. I didn’t particularly care to sit for whatever was about to transpire.

Duffrey walked around his desk and picked up a file. “Do you have any idea why you’re here?”

“I can think of twenty reasons.”

Duffrey chuckled. “Good.” He held the folder up. “Pretty good snow job you did on this.”

I glanced at it. The colored labels at the top didn’t match St. Anthony’s system, which was mostly electronic anyway. This was an old file from somewhere else.

“Birth records,” Duffrey said. “Of one of your patients, a girl named Cynthia Miller.”

I kept my face carefully neutral. This was it.

“I know her. Pediatric leukemia, tough case, responding well to the NCI trial. We’re working with M. D. Anderson on it.”

He waved away my summary. “I noticed something in her file.”

My heart hammered, but I didn’t react. “What’s that?”

“A paternity test.”

“She has no father of record.”

“But the man who took the test is your father.”

Where the hell had he found that out? Time to shut up and listen.

“When I saw that, I looked up the mother. Sandy Miller, mother of Cynthia Miller and Darion Marks.” He glanced up at me. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

So, it was out, then. “She was a spectacular lady.”

“And now you’ve brought your sister to my hospital for a clinical trial.”

Time to play it straight. “I have.”

“And you’re violating our rules on the treatment of immediate family.”

“She’s got no one to look after her.”

“And you for damn sure aren’t going to be now.”

My jaw clenched. “My care of her has been perfectly in order.”

“And it’s been transferred to Clements. All your current patients will be.”

“What?”

“You’ll be taking a four-week leave of absence. We’ll convene again at the end of it.”

“What about her drug trial?”

“She’ll remain on it. No reason to discharge her over this. She’s our patient. It’s you with the problem. You violated our protocols from the beginning, covered up your relationship, altered records.”

“Nobody was harmed in it,” I said.

“Which is why this is just a leave of absence. I expect you to obey visiting hours.”

“Parents of pediatric patients are allowed to visit anytime.”

“Don’t make me call in CPS to reassign her guardianship.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Be a normal parent,” he said. “Do normal parent things.”

Duffrey hesitated before he said the next thing, and I wondered if the hammer was coming down about Tina too.