He Saved Her Son and Let Mine Burn novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Check

Celia arrives with flowers and a check, and says Terrence is her husband; Hannah realizes Sawyer knew exactly whose son he carried out, and that his Saturday shifts were spent in a park with that boy.

At nine in the morning Terrence came out of surgery and found me asleep in a chair.

He did not wake me.

A nurse did, with a paper cup of water, and told me Lottie was in recovery and doing well.

"Dr. McCormick will talk to you at noon," she said. "He's scrubbing in for the second stage."

"The second stage?"

"The grafts. Your daughter is very strong."

She said it with a kind face, and I held on to it.

I sat down again with Biscuit in my lap.

At ten the door opened and Celia Stafford came in with an armful of white roses and a large envelope.

She had changed into a soft gray sweater, and her hair was back in a neat knot.

Her eyes were red.

"I hope I'm not intruding," she said. "I couldn't sleep without seeing how she was."

I did not know what to say, so I said, "She's in recovery."

"Thank God." She sat down beside me and put the roses on the empty chair.

"Sammy keeps asking about her. He says she gave him her rabbit's ear to hold."

"Her rabbit's ear."

"He says Lottie told him not to look at the fire. She told him to look at her instead."

My eyes stung, and I looked at Biscuit.

Celia held out the envelope.

"This is from the Stafford Families Fund. It's for Lottie's care, whatever it comes to."

"Please don't think of it as charity. It's the least I owe your daughter."

"I can't take that."

"Take it for her, not for me." She pressed it into my hand and her fingers were warm.

"I own the building. The fire started on my property. I can't put that right, but I can pay."

I opened the envelope.

It was a check, and there were a lot of zeroes on it.

I could not make myself close it.

Lottie was going to need months of care.

I had four hundred dollars in the bank and a husband who had just threatened to take her from me.

"Thank you," I said, and it came out small.

"It's nothing."

She was quiet for a moment.

"I'm glad Terrence is the one operating on her," she said.

"There's no one better. I've told everyone he's the best burn surgeon in the state."

I looked at her.

"You know Terrence?"

Her face showed surprise.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought Sawyer had told you. Terrence is my husband."

I sat very still.

"We've been separated for two years," she said. "It's amicable. But he's still Sammy's father, and I'd trust him with my life."

"Sammy is his son."

"Of course."

"Then Sammy is my nephew."

"Yes." She smiled gently, a little puzzled. "Sawyer and Terrence's family, we're all the same family. You didn't know."

Nobody had ever told me Terrence had a wife.

Nobody had told me he had a son.

I tried to put the pieces in order.

My husband had said the sleepover was a donor's event.

He had said, "She's nobody, Han. She gives money to the department. Lottie will get free pizza."

He had said it three weeks ago, in the kitchen, while he signed Lottie's name on the form.

He had never said that the donor was his brother's wife.

And the boy on the ladder was his brother's son.

Which meant Sawyer had stood on that street and looked at two children, and he had known exactly whose child he was carrying.

"Sawyer told me he didn't know your family," I said.

My voice was strange.

"Oh, honey." Celia put a hand over mine. "He's known us a long time. He's wonderful with Sammy."

"Is he."

"Every Saturday for two years he takes him to the park. Sammy waits at the window for his Uncle G."

She said it with so much love that I almost missed what she had told me.

Every Saturday for two years, Sawyer had told me he was working a shift.

I took my hand out from under hers.

"I need a minute," I said.

"Of course." She stood and smoothed her sweater. "I'll look in on Lottie later. I'll bring Sammy, if you'd let me."

"Thank you for the check."

"Please. Anything."

She picked up her purse and went out, and I watched her go down the hall with her head high.

She had not once asked where my husband was.

I realized that when the door had already closed.

I looked down at the check in my hand.

Sawyer had not been at work on those Saturdays.

He had been at a park with another woman's son.

He had come home smelling of cut grass and told me it was the firehouse lawn.

I folded the check in half, and my hand would not stop shaking.

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