Never In Another Life novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Everyone's Friend

Margo is warm in public and hands Kira a deadline in private.

Margo hugged me before I could step back.

She smelled like the same vanilla perfume she had worn to my wedding.

"I thought you were gone," she sobbed into my shoulder. "I thought we'd lost you. Every night, Kira. Every single night."

Over her shoulder I could see the hallway had filled up.

Two nurses, the guard, the man with the phone, and a row of visitors who had decided a woman's grief was better than television.

Margo cried beautifully.

She let her tears fall without wiping them, and she kept one hand on my arm.

"You must be exhausted," she said. "Look at you. Look at this place. Nobody is angry with you, sweetheart. We were just so scared."

"Let go of me."

"Of course." She stepped back at once and pressed her fingers to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just can't believe it."

The nurse by the door had tears in her eyes.

The guard looked at me like I was being unreasonable.

That was Margo's gift.

She never once raised her voice, and she always made the other person sound like they had.

"I brought a coat," she said, and held up a camel wool coat I had never seen. "It's freezing out there. You're in scrubs. Declan said you'd probably left in a hurry."

"I didn't leave in a hurry."

"Of course not." She smiled at me with such tenderness that I almost looked behind myself. "I only meant that you've been through so much. Let us help you. We can sort everything out tonight. Constance has the guest room made up."

"I'm not going to Constance's."

"Then a hotel. Anything you want. I'll drive Sammy home so you can rest, and Declan can stay and talk to you."

She reached for my son's hand.

Sammy stood very still.

She straightened the collar of his jacket, quick and neat.

His shoulders locked up to his ears.

It was a tiny thing.

A friend of the family would have missed it.

I had spent six years watching pediatric patients decide whether an adult was safe, and I did not miss it.

"Sammy stays with me for now," I said.

"Oh, honey."

Margo's face crumpled with sympathy.

"You haven't seen him in three years. He's a lot to handle. He wakes up screaming at night, you know. He needs a routine, and I know his routine."

"I'm sure you do."

I let that sit between us for one second.

She looked back at me with perfect, wide-eyed softness.

Then Declan said from the doorway, "Margo, go outside."

She turned, hurt and gentle.

"Declan. I'm only trying to help."

"I know what you're trying to do."

His voice was rough.

His hands were not out this time, but they were curled so tight at his sides that his knuckles were white.

"Go outside," he said again.

"Of course." She squeezed my arm once more. "I'll wait in the lobby. Take all the time you need."

She walked out past the audience, and I heard a nurse whisper, "What a good friend."

I stood there with my skin crawling.

Declan stayed in the doorway and did not look at me.

"I didn't bring her," he said. "I swear to you. I didn't tell her where we were going."

"Then how is she here?"

"I don't know yet."

He didn't know.

I believed that, too, and I hated that I believed it.

"Ten minutes are up," I said.

"I know."

"Take Sammy to the lobby. I'll come out and say goodbye."

Sammy squeezed my hand until the bones ground together.

"I'll be right behind you, baby. I'm not going anywhere."

"Promise?"

I had made that promise once before, on a gray dawn in a hospital parking lot, and I had not kept it.

"I'm not going anywhere tonight," I said. "That's what I can promise."

He went.

Declan put a hand on the back of his head, gentle, and walked him out.

I kissed my mother's forehead and told her I would be back in five minutes.

Then I walked out to the lobby with my chin up.

The lobby was crowded now.

Margo stood by the front window with her arms around Sammy's shoulders, and she was talking to the nurse manager in her warm, low, helpful voice.

"We just need a moment of privacy for the family," she said. "Kira has been through such a trauma."

"Of course, Doctor," the manager said.

Margo had told them she was a doctor, and they had believed her.

She saw me coming and held out her hands.

"Kira. Walk me out to my car? I want to give you something."

"Give it to me here."

"It's private," she said. "It's for you and Sammy. I don't want to embarrass you."

Her smile was sweet.

Something in her eyes was not.

I looked at Declan, who was crouched in front of Sammy, tying a shoelace that was already tied.

I walked out into the cold.

The wind off the lake bit through my scrubs.

Margo opened her car door, leaned in, and took out a plain white envelope.

When she turned back to me, the tears were gone.

They had not dried.

They were simply gone.

"Here's a bus ticket to Vancouver," she said. "One way, nonrefundable, for Friday at 6 a.m., and two thousand dollars in cash."

I stared at her.

"You go quietly, you keep your secret, and Sammy keeps his life," she said, pleasant as a flight attendant. "You stay past Friday, and I take the old report from Constance's safe to the county."

She pressed the envelope into my hand.

"You remember the one," she said. "The one with your name on it."

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