Chapter 9
“You gonna talk to his wife?” Nadine asked the next afternoon, her brown eyes glistening with the threat of tears as they walked together from the silent room.
Claire dumped all the paperwork from the cardiac-arrestteam on the desk and straightened. “Yeah,” she said.“Might as well. I sure don’t want Dr. McKenzie telling her.”
Another day until the picnic. It seemed like a year. Itseemed Claire would never get there. Rubbing away thetension in her neck from the hour she’d just spent, sheturned for the door only to find Nadine staring at her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Nadine shook her head a little. “You stopped getting attached to your old guys, didn’t you?”
“Of course not,” Claire retorted instinctively, mining theheaviness in her chest for signs of grief. She’d just lost a patient. The third one in her past two shifts. But, as they said,he’d lived to the fullness of his time. It was hard to rail inprotest when a man dies at eighty with a dozen grandchildren out there to mourn him.
“I feel everyone.”
She felt dry and tired. Anxious. Empty, as if each patienthad taken something from her as they’d left. Weighteddown so that walking was a chore.
She was going on a picnic tomorrow. Today she felt like crying, and it wasn’t because she had to talk to little Mrs.Milner with her crumpled monogrammed handkerchief andher anxious gray eyes.
But Nadine was still shaking her head. “You still ain’t looking much better, girl. Wanna share the load? I couldcome over with some PMS food and we could dis everybody we can think of. I sure don’t have a date tonight...unless that fine, fancy-cookin’ friend of yours isn’tbusy.”
Claire jumped on the subject with relief. “Girl, you easeup on my pastry chef, you hear? Poor thing’s fretted himself down to his last two hundred fifty pounds just fromwonderin’ who’s gonna be poppin’ through his door. I thinkhe’s more afraid of you than a return trip to Raiford.”Claire forced a grin. “But then, so am I.”
Nadine clucked in disgust. “What’s wrong with that manhe can’t see what’s good for him? He’s got a good, God-fearing, hardworkin’ Baptist woman standin’ right therewantin’ to make him an honest man, and he shies away likea horse in a fire. He needs me. He just won’t admit it.”
“I’m sure he does. But every time you surprise him, heends up burning an oven full of pastries, and I can’t afford the flour and sugar.”
“Well, just invite me to Johnny’s party,” Nadine suggested, straightening her uniform as if she were headed thatway right then. “That way, he can be prepared. And I canmake him jealous by talkin’ up that new contractor of yours.Now, there’s afineman, you ask me. Just ripe for nastythoughts.”
“Johnny’s—” That quickly, Claire’s knees gave out. Her chest caught fire. She couldn’t take her eyes off Nadine and couldn’t answer her.
Nadine went back into the outraged-sister routine, handsto hips, head tilted to forty-five degrees. “He’syourbaby,and I have to remind you when his birthday is? What’s thematter with you, girl?”
Two weeks. His birthday was in two weeks.
“Oh, God...” Claire sank back down into her chair, herhead in her hands, her attempt at humor shattered. She’dcompletely lost track of time. The tears welled up in her eyesbefore she knew it and spilled all over her paperwork.
“I forgot. I forgot.”
It was Johnny’s birthday in two weeks, and she didn’t know what to do. For some reason, that was what Clairecouldn’t handle.
“Hey, hey, baby what’s the matter?” Nadine soothed,slipping the paperwork away to a safe place and shooing therest of the staff away. “I tell you what. I’ll go talk to Mrs.Milner. You sit here a minute.”
Claire never heard her. She was fighting the desperation,the sudden, searing sense of loss.
“I forgot...”
She dreamed about Jimmy that night and woke up sobbing. It didn’t matter. She knew better than to brave theyard. Tony might be down there, and she couldn’t deal withhim. She couldn’t deal with anyone. So she sat in her window with the lights out and the ceiling fan on and the nightair washing over her damp skin, and she watched for the sunto come up beyond the trees and the river.
Maybe if she had a beer or a glass of wine, she could getback to sleep. Maybe she shouldn’t go on the picnic tomorrow. In the mood she was in, she doubted sincerely she’d contribute to anybody’s fun.
She felt... God, she didn’t know how she felt. She wasn’tsure she wanted to anymore. All she knew was that something was gnawing at her chest, something was making herstartle and smile and weep. Something was bearing herdown, and something else setting her loose.
Maybe if she could get in her car and shake some of thisloose. Maybe if she could just run her car into somethingand find some peace.
Claire wasn’t surprised by the thought. She’d had it before. A temptation more than an inclination. A sometimes-tantalizing sin of surrender. She was just so tired of hurting. So tired of trying to get by, get along. She was so tiredof the dreams and the faces and the hundreds of reachinghands.
She was tired of waiting to feel something more and living in fear that she would.
