When I got back, I heard noises. Running toward Vi’s room, I found two nurses and a doctor standing around Vi’s bed.
I rushed toward them. Vi looked the same as I had left her, but the monitors were screaming and blinking. “Why are you just standing there?” I yelled.
The nurse I had spoken to before turned toward me. “Her instructions were to not resuscitate.”
I tried to ignore the fact that she had used past tense for Vi and pushed my way, ready to start CPR. The nurses caught me and pulled me back.
“Do something!” I yelled at the doctor. “Don’t just stand there. I was here, waiting for you, like an idiot for two hours!”
“Is she a relative?” she asked the nurses.
“Nursing home aide,” the same nurse replied while the monitors kept screaming that my friend was leaving.
Ignoring me, the doctor leaned toward Vi. Through the blur, I could see her performing the steps to verify death before she declared, “Time of death: 20:04.”
“Do something!” I yelled and tried to approach the bed.
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing left to do. Two hours, or even five, wouldn’t have changed anything. Shewasseventy-eight and with a history of heart failure,” the nurse said while gently pulling me toward the door, leaving the other nurse to follow protocol.
I was as numb as the plastic chairs in the waiting area that she had sat me on.
One moment I had a friend, and the next, she was gone.
“We’ll let you see her,” the nurse said, handing me a paper cup of water.
Vi was covered when the nurse let me back in. I didn’t dare remove the cover. It reminded me of how she used to pull the blanket over her head in the mornings.
I stroked the top of her head gently above the sheet. “Who will tell me to fuck off in the mornings now, Vi? Huh?” I choked on my own tears.
A hospital aide came in. I turned my head and saw the apologetic smile he gave me.
“Be nice to her. Everyone is someone, and she’s my friend.” I sobbed as I moved to the side. It didn’t even occur to me at that moment that I was using the present tense for Vi.
He gave me that look that I knew so well—a blend of cold professionalism and empathy. I gave that look to others many times. “You have to step out, ma’am.”
I went outside, down two floors, out the exit, then crossed the street to the bus stop. I cursed Pretty and the thousands of reasons I had such a shitty car. I cursed having to take public transportation when my heart was broken. And I wasn’t even going home. I had no home to go to.
Everything I had been holding back all these months, all these years maybe, was threatening to burst out of me like an ugly volcano. I took deep breaths as I stood among a few tired looking people. I wasn’t the only one with problems in this world, I kept telling myself. But Vi’s loss wasn’t just a problem I was facing. There was no chance of ever fixingthat. She was gone.
I didn’t even have my kids to hug or a home to be in. My sister’s cramped apartment was all I could look forward to. I needed to be alone, to breathe, cry, mourn, scream if I wanted to.
When the bus reached the station just outside Wayford, I thought of the dark, empty house that belonged to the man who had torn off another chunk of my heart.
Chapter 20
Oliver
The house was dark. Only the garden lights that automatically operated from dusk were on, painting everything in a soft and soothing warmth that made the place look like a family home and not some deserted house. I knew it was deserted because the pool house was bathed in darkness, too.
She’d left.
I climbed back into my car and drove to the only known address I had of January Raine, the stubborn woman who didn’t reply to my text, who probably hated me and didn’t even know that it was better for her.
“Sandy Hills,” the sign outside the C-shaped, one-story building read. I crossed the lawn and walked in.
“Hi, how may I help you?” The bored woman at reception asked without raising her eyes from her cell phone.
“Is January Raine around?”
