The Night He Chose Her Over Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Stable, He Said

Cora calls Lydia's father on speaker in front of Dalton and Lydia, learns he is on a golf course in Arizona, and signs herself out with Agnes, only to find a stranger from the bridge has paid her hospital bill.

Dalton came into my hospital room at eight the next morning with a bouquet of white roses and a very tired face.

I had three cracked ribs, a stitched shoulder and a bruise down my whole left side.

I had not slept.

"Cora." He set the flowers on the tray table. "Thank God. They called me at six."

"Who called you?"

"The hospital. I was at St. Luke's all night with Lydia's father." He took my hand. "I never got your message until the nurses got hold of me."

I looked at his hand on mine.

"Which floor is her father on?"

"Intensive care. Fourth floor. No visitors."

"I saw you last night, Dalton. You were in the waiting room on this floor, at eleven, with your hand on Lydia."

He did not blink.

"She was in shock," he said. "I was holding her up. You were being scanned, and nobody told me it was you."

"I called you twice from the bridge."

"My phone was dead."

"You texted me at ten-thirteen."

He opened his mouth and shut it.

I turned my phone over on the blanket and showed him the call screen.

"Two rings," I said. "Then it ended. Someone pressed the button."

"It must have glitched."

"Dalton."

The door opened behind him.

Lydia came in with a paper bag, her hair pinned up and her eyes red.

"Oh, Cora." She put the bag down and bent over the bed to hug me, careful of my ribs. "I'm so sorry. If I hadn't called him, you would never have been on that bridge. I brought you chicken soup from the place you like."

She smelled of Dalton's cologne.

I had not noticed that before.

"How is your father?" I asked.

"Stable. He's a fighter."

"Give me his number. I want to send him flowers."

Her smile held for one second too long.

"He's in intensive care, honey. He can't have a phone."

"His house phone, then. His wife will answer."

"My mother died years ago."

"I know," I said. "That's why I'm asking for the house phone."

Lydia looked at Dalton.

Dalton looked at the ceiling.

"Please," I said.

She recited a number from Arizona.

I dialed it from the hospital phone and put it on speaker.

It rang three times.

"Hello?" A man's voice, cheerful and out of breath.

"Hello, it's Cora Hargrove. Dalton's wife."

"Cora! Well, hello there. Lydia said you were having a rough night. Everything all right?"

"I was in a car accident," I said. "Are you all right?"

"Me? I just walked in off the eighteenth hole. Shot an eighty-four." He laughed. "Why, what's wrong?"

Nobody in the room breathed.

Lydia's mouth had gone small.

"Nothing's wrong," I said. "Thank you. Go have lunch."

I hung up.

The room was very quiet.

"It was a mix-up," Dalton said. "A misunderstanding with the call. Cora, let's not do this in a hospital."

"Dad must have had a scare," Lydia said quickly. "He gets confused. I'll call him and sort it out."

"You told my husband he had collapsed."

"I told him what I was told."

"By whom?"

She had no answer.

A nurse leaned in at the door, saw our faces, and leaned back out again.

"Cora," Dalton said, softly, in the voice he used on investors. "You have a concussion. You're not thinking straight. Let me take you home and we'll talk about this tomorrow."

"I'll get your things from the house, too," Lydia said. "I have the code."

"No," I said.

It came out hard, and both of them looked at me.

I had not told either of them no in three years.

I pressed the call button, and a nurse came in.

"I want to sign myself out," I said. "Today. And I want these two to leave my room."

"Cora, you can't be serious."

"Please," the nurse said, in a voice that carried. "Sir. Ma'am. Out."

They went.

Lydia glanced back once from the doorway, and it was not a sad look.

Agnes Dunleavy arrived at noon, with flour still on her sleeve and my old coat over her arm.

She was sixty-three and five foot three and she had driven through the snow in her bakery van with the heater broken.

"I got the call at two a.m.," she said. "I would have come sooner, but your man's name was still on half the forms."

"He's not my man."

"Good." She looked at my ribs, my shoulder and my face. "You look like something the cat wouldn't finish. Get dressed. You're coming home with me."

"I don't have a home."

"You have the room above the shop," Agnes said. "It has a bed, a radiator and me. Move."

At the discharge desk the clerk slid a folded paper across.

"Your balance is zero, Mrs. Hargrove."

"That can't be. I haven't paid anything."

"It was settled at six this morning. Eleven thousand four hundred. Card payment."

"By whom?"

She turned the screen.

The name on the card was Gabriel Hollander.

I did not know anyone by that name.

Then I remembered a shaking hand through the broken window, and a voice saying he was sorry.

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