Chapter 13: Five Weeks

The chair adjourned the panel for twenty minutes so that Pembrey could "assemble his thoughts."

I did not wait to see him do it.

I walked out of Conference Room C with my phone in my fist and my best suit sticking to my back.

I took the stairs, because the elevator had people in it.

I went up to the landing between four and five, the one with the blind spot, and stood with my forehead against the cold concrete.

Five weeks.

I turned them over in my head.

Five weeks of him checking the hall before he checked anything.

Five weeks of me holding my breath at every door handle.

I heard the stairwell door open below, and I heard the weight of his steps.

I knew them.

"Gretchen."

"Don't."

He stopped two steps below me.

He didn't touch me, which was the right call, and I hated that it was the right call.

"You let me stand up in front of the whole panel," I said.

"I know."

"I offered them my license. I said fire me. I said it in front of the vascular chief."

"I know."

"You could have said one sentence in the closet. One. 'Gretchen, the rule doesn't cover us.'"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

He looked at the stairs for a while, then at his hands.

"Because in the closet you laughed," he said.

I didn't say anything.

"You hadn't laughed in front of me in two years. I'd watched you walk the halls like someone carrying a full glass."

"I carry a full glass because my whole life was a full glass."