“It is no trouble,” Greta said.
They returned to the waiting room, where Stella inquired about Billy Long’s injuries. The woman at the front desk asked Stella about her relationship to the injured person, and Greta interjected, saying Stella was Billy’s wife. At that moment, Stella felt her baby flutter in her stomach.
The attendant went off to check on Billy, and Stella waited with anticipation, eager to see him. Eager to hold his hand and explain. Eager to kiss him again.
But when the attendant returned, she said Billy Long had told her he wasn’t married and didn’t want to see anyone. “He said you must be mistaken,” she said. She gave them an awful, cold look.
Stella bit her tongue to keep from crying. She’d cried enough today. She turned on her heel and left the hospital, sure that Billy would wake up tomorrow and want to see her immediately. He was probably just rattled or confused. Tomorrow, she could explain everything. She just had to be patient.
Outside,Stella explained to Greta that she had to go home and find her sister. “My guess is that she went there to hide out and wait for all this to end,” she said.
“I come with you,” Greta said.
“No,” Stella said, exhaustion overwhelming her.
Greta winced, and Stella hurried to explain herself.
“You’ve been wonderful. Really. You’ve been my guardian angel tonight. But I really need to find my sister and regroup. We’ve been through so much together. I can’t let this one night ruin everything.”
Greta nodded somberly. “You must do what you need to do.”
They got in the car. Greta drove Stella to the house she’d purchased for herself and her sister, where Stella thanked Greta another three times and hugged her in the front seat of the car. Stella got out, waved, then limped her way up the front walk to the door. As soon as she opened the door, she called, “Sally!” But the house was empty and filled with shadows. As an afterthought, she tried, “Carrie?” then cursed herself. She and her sister weren’t Heidi and Carrie any longer, no matter how loudly their father had screamed those names.
Stella continued to creep around, turning on lights and trying to calm herself down. Everything looked exactly as it had before they’d gone to the bar tonight. Her water glass remained in the sink, and there was still a grocery list on the fridge. Sally wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t coming back soon. She hated where Isaac lived. She never slept there because she thought it was too dirty, too chaotic. She wouldn’t stay there long.
Stella collapsed on her bed and didn’t undress before falling asleep. Nightmares chased her through the long dark hours till she awoke, gasping and sweaty, in the light of the dawn. Immediately, she took a shower, then called Isaac’s place. The phone rang and rang. Nobody answered. Rather than wait around, she walked to Boo’s bar and picked up her car, which she drove to Isaac’s place. There, she banged on the door until Isaac’s roommate Scott answered and told her, “Isaac didn’t come home last night.” And then he coughed and said, “But I heard about what happened. That was wild. Are you okay?”
Stella couldn’t answer because her throat was too tight. She turned on her heel and ran back to her car, trying and failing to come up with a way to fix this. Immediately, she drove to the hospital, where she managed to slip past the front desk and make her way to the ward she knew Billy was in. Furtively, she walked from door to door, poking her head in, until she found him—Billy Long, his nose bandaged and one of his legs raised slightly higher than the other. He was looking out the window. He looked much older than he had yesterday, as though the attack had aged him ten years. Stella thought she was going to throw up.
Was now a good time to tell him about the baby? Was that a way to restructure his mind and his priorities and remind him of how much he loved her?
When Stella reached the side of his bed, she sat gently and reached for his hand. Slowly, he slid his gaze over to her. He didn’t move his hand, but it felt strange and cold in hers.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Stella’s voice was meek. “I wanted to make sure you’re all right. And…” She felt crushed. “And I’ve been so worried about you. I’m so sorry about what happened. Billy, I never thought…”
Billy raised his free hand to silence her. “You’re married,” he said.
Stella let her head loll back ever so slightly. “I was. In my past life. But we had to escape that life, Billy. It’s hard to explain. We…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Billy asked. He looked alien and awful with the bandage on his nose. His eyes were bloodshot.
Stella searched herself for answers. “I wanted to pretend it wasn’t true,” she said finally. “I wanted to be Stella McGee and only Stella McGee. And the thing is, Billy, it worked. Sally and I have the best song on the charts! This is just a blip, you know? And my father and Harvey will be in jail after this.”
Billy closed his eyes. “It’s not a good look, honey. People don’t like it when a woman leaves her husband, especially not for someone like me.”
Stella felt that he was making things up as he went along. She couldn’t fathom why that would be so. “I love you, Billy,” she said. “And I’m…” She wanted to tell him she was pregnant. She wanted to finally, finally give him every ounce of her truth.
But just then, the doctor came in to talk about Billy’s healing. Billy asked Stella point-blank to head out. Stella staggered to her feet, nearly taking a tumble. “I can wait outside,” she said to Billy.
“You can’t be in here,” Billy said. “We aren’t married. We aren’t related.” He turned his attention to the doctor, as though she were no longer there.
Over the next few days, Stella continued the search for her sister. But it was increasingly clear that Sally was no longer anywhere in Nashville, and neither was Isaac. Stella could picture them, speeding across the wild American night, talking fast, feeling as though they’d escaped something horrendous.
But why would Sally abandon Stella like that? Didn’t she remember that Stella had done everything for Sally from the get-go? Stella felt her heart growing sour.
When Billy got out of the hospital, he arranged for his lawyer to meet with Stella and dissolve the contract they’d set up for future work together. Stella nearly threw the contract back in the lawyer’s face, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to seem anything like her violent father or husband. “I want to talk to Billy before I sign anything,” she said.
