Chapter 14: On Harold's Schedule

Hannah's POV

Margaret found me in the corridor at seven, still in her camel coat, with her silver hair flat on one side from the window glass.

"Come in with me," she said.

"It's not my place."

"It is exactly your place. He asked for you."

She opened the door of the cardiac unit room without knocking.

Harold lay propped on three pillows, gray under the lights, with a clip on his finger and a line in his arm.

He was awake.

He saw his wife, and then he saw me behind her, and his two fingers began to tap the blanket.

"Margaret," he said. "Sit down. You look tired."

"I have been tired for thirty-five years," Margaret said. "Today I'm standing."

The monitor beeped faster.

"Don't excite him," said a nurse from the doorway.

"I'm not exciting him," Margaret said. "I'm asking him a question."

The nurse looked at her face and went away.

Margaret stood at the foot of the bed with her purse held in front of her in both hands.

"The bookkeeper," she said. "How many summers?"

"Margaret."

"How many?"

"Two," Harold said. "It was two summers. It was over before Nathan could walk."

"And then you wrote to her until the girl was nine."

"I was supporting my child."

"You were keeping a second house," Margaret said, "with letters."

Harold turned his head on the pillow and found me.

"Hannah," he said. "Tell her this is a family matter, and it's being handled."

I stayed where I was.

"Mr. Mercer," I said, "I'm in this family. It isn't a matter I can leave."

He took a long, careful breath.

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