I shook her hand and gave her a smile. I wanted, with my whole working body, to take Bonnie’s hand and run. I wanted to be in the elevator. I wanted to be in the cab. I wanted to be three blocks from any of them with the door of my apartment closed behind me.
I also — and this was the betrayal — wanted Beau.
I’d wanted Beau through the previous evening and the night that followed it, and when I’d rounded the corner and seen him, the desire had jumped before the rest of me could catch up. And it was still there, even in the corridor with my daughter and his family present.
But I hadn't signed up to meet his entire family. I hadn't signed up to be looked at by his mother. The walls came back up — I wasn't subtle about it, I never had been — and I pulled Bonnie a half step closer to me.
"And I" — the sandy-haired man leaned down a little — "am Theo. I'm the fun one."
Bonnie eyed him. She had her water bottle in both hands. "You don't look very fun."
He grinned. "That's because you don't know me yet."
Bonnie didn't commit either way. She had her opinions about him pending.
The older woman in cream came around to my elbow with the paper cup of tea cradled in both hands. Her smile was the gentle kind. Her eyes were red at the corners.
"I'm Vivienne." She tipped her head to the side. "What brings you to the hospital, sweetheart?"
My mouth opened. I didn't have a sentence in it.
I had a list of evasions ready — annual physical checkup, routine workup, cousin's appendix, anything. None of them were going to come out of my mouth in front of Vivienne, who was standing a foot from me, holding a paper cup of tea probablyfor her husband who was severely sick according to what little Beau told me.
I was about to give her an answer anyway.
Bonnie spoke first. "I have a heart thing."
My stomach went out from under me.
Bonnie didn't give private medical information to adults. She didn't give it to her teachers without three meetings and a permission slip. She gave it to the doctor and to Mrs. Park and to me. That was the list. The list now included Vivienne Cross.
The pity moved across them like a wave — Theo first, then Suzanne, then the dark-haired man — and then it landed on Beau.
Beau was looking at me. His face had changed. His eyes were on me, and they weren't asking one question. They were asking too many at once.
I hated the look. I hated being on the receiving end of it. Hated that he was finding out this way, and I hated more that I hadn't — at any point in the last four weeks — given him a way to find out a different way.
Vivienne moved before anyone else could. She crouched down in front of Bonnie — slow, careful with the cup — until she was at Bonnie's eye level.
"You," she said, "are very pretty."
Bonnie considered her for a second. "Thank you. I was just thinking the same about you."
Vivienne let out a sound that was not quite a laugh. "Well." She blinked at me. Then she blinked back at Bonnie. "I needed that today."
She balanced the cup on her thigh. "My husband is here too," she told Bonnie. "He's been here a few weeks. He's barely awake these days."
Bonnie watched her face. "Are you sad?"
Vivienne nodded.
"I'm sorry," Bonnie said.
Vivienne reached up and touched the side of Bonnie's face — the kind of touch a grandmother gives a granddaughter she's known her whole life.
Vivienne and I looked at each other over Bonnie's head.
"It's a hard place to run into someone, isn't it?" Her voice was low.
