Chapter 13: Maple Street

Lydia ran down the drive with her coat open and her bag left on the grass.

Hayden caught her at the gate and pulled her into the passenger seat of the nearest car.

It was the driver's car, and the driver stood watching them with the keys still in his hand.

"Maple Street," Hayden said. "Now."

The driver did not ask a question.

He drove through four red lights.

Cissy's little white car was already gone from the road.

"She has a ten minute start," Lydia said.

"She'll park in the front lot and smile at the desk."

"Everybody on that ward loves her."

"I know," Hayden said, and he gripped the door handle until his knuckles went pale.

They came through the glass doors of the hospital at a run.

The night nurse at the desk looked up.

She had been the one to call Lydia "Mrs. VanAlen" in the first place.

"Third floor," she said. "Miss Channing went up a few minutes ago. She said Mrs. VanAlen had asked for her."

Lydia was already on the stairs.

She took them two at a time, in her travel shoes, with her lungs burning.

The door of Henrietta's room stood open.

Cissy sat in the visitor's chair with her phone held out in both hands, and her face was wet.

"I'm so sorry, Henrietta," she was saying. "I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else."

Lydia's own voice came out of the little speaker, small and cracked and three years old.

"I hope that house falls down on his head."

"Stop it," Lydia said from the doorway.

Cissy did not stop.

She turned her shoulder and let the tape run on.

"I'm done. I'm so done. I never want to see either of you."

The heart monitor by the bed began to beep faster.

Hayden shoved past Lydia and reached for the phone.

"Don't," Henrietta said.

It was a small voice, but it stopped him.

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