Chapter 11: The Desk Drawer

Eli's POV

I drove Eliza to the children's hospital with the truck's heater on high and her hand in mine.

She hadn't asked me to hold it. I had just done it at the first red light, and she hadn't pulled away.

"Fever in a one-year-old," she said, to herself. "Febrile seizure, most likely. It's frightening and it's usually fine."

"Is it?"

"Usually."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then I'll be there," she said.

At the ER doors she kissed me once, fast, and ran inside in my sweatshirt and her ruined heels.

I parked. I sat with my hands on the wheel.

Two hours ago I had been inside her. I could still smell her on my skin.

I should have felt only that, and I did, but under it was something cold.

I had known my brother thirty-four years, and I had stopped asking him questions.

Last March I had flown home through O'Hare, and I had seen Chase at the far end of the terminal.

He was carrying a car seat with a pale knit blanket over the top.

A blonde woman walked beside him with her face turned away.

I had told myself it was a client's baby.

I had gone to my gate. I had said nothing to anyone.

Eliza had been sitting at home in Chicago that week, waiting for a man who was holding a child in an airport.

I put my forehead on the wheel.

Then I started the truck.

The house in Lake Forest was dark when I got there.

I still had a key. Constance had never taken it, because she had never imagined I would use it.