The snow was still piled high in Buffalo. It drove a chill deep into Jack’s bones, a chill that St. Anne’s Hospital certainly didn’t thaw.
Sissy looked up from her book the minute he walked in. “What happened?”
“I should know I can’t hide anything from you.” He pulled the chair close to her bed and sat, elbows on thighs, twirling his cap.
“That bad?”
Jack set his cap on the bedside table. No way around it. “The transatlantic attempt is off.”
“Oh, Jackie. I’m so sorry. That was your dream. What happened?”
“Plane crash.” Even the words hurt.
“Thank God you’re not injured. That’s the most important thing. What will you do?”
He shrugged. “Reopen the flight school, I guess.” He stared at the linoleum flooring. Yellow with flecks of gray. Ugly. He wondered how Sissy stood it. “Finances will be tight for a while.”
She nodded solemnly. “I will move to the ward.”
That’s not what he wanted. Why should Sissy suffer for his error? Yet, that’s what happened to the women he loved. In the end, they were the ones that bore the cost of his mistakes. “It won’t be for long.” His voice clotted. “I’m so sorry.”
“Jackie.” Her light touch was meant to console, but it only reminded him of what he’d lost. Darcy. If she died… A tremor shook him.
Her eyes flew open. “You are hurt.”
“No, I was just thinking about…” He couldn’t even speak her name.
Sissy pursed her lips, deep in thought. “You weren’t alone in that plane, were you? Someone else flew with you. It was her, wasn’t it?”
Jack had no idea how Sissy read his mind. He tried to bury his guilt behind an impassive mask, but he was failing badly.
“Was she hurt?” she asked.
Jack couldn’t sit anymore. He walked to the window. “The doctor says she’ll recover.”
“Thank God.” She heaved a sigh. “Oh, Jackie, you must have been terrified.”
She didn’t know the truth of it. She couldn’t. Even now, his stomach tightened at the memory of Darcy’s limp form.
“She’ll recover,” he repeated. At least he hoped she would. A brain hemorrhage. He didn’t know what he’d do if she died.
“Shame on you.”
“What?” Jack snapped to attention.
Sissy sat with arms crossed, glaring at him. “Why are you here, when she needs you?”
Her condemnation scorched his brittle soul. “She doesn’t need me. She has a good family. They’re taking care of her.”
“But she loves you.”
Jack tried to stomach that idea. She did hang on his every word, but that could be because she wanted to fly. “I don’t think she does.”
“Oh.” Her sharp intake of breath meant she was back on his side. “Unrequited love. Oh, Jackie, how sad.”
This whole conversation was unsettling. He didn’t want to think about Darcy. He certainly didn’t want to talk about her. “Would you like to take a walk?”
She nodded. “I saw a robin yesterday.”
Jack glanced at the window, frosty at the edges. The sunshine offered little warmth. “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. It’s cold out.”
“That’s why we have coats. Not to mention mittens and hats and scarves.”
The next several minutes involved the necessities of dressing for the cold. Jack lifted her into the wheelchair and tucked a blanket around her legs.
“I don’t need a blanket,” she protested. “My legs can’t feel cold.”
That stubbornness reminded him of Darcy, but he could be stubborn, too. “That’s exactly why you need it. I won’t go outside unless you cover your legs with a blanket.”
“It makes me look like an invalid.”
Though she grimaced and called him a tyrant, she finally acquiesced. Once outdoors, Sissy directed him to the little courtyard garden she loved. Its sheltered southern exposure melted the snow. Here, the sun warmed. Hyacinths poked their fragrant purple heads through last summer’s rubble. A chickadee hopped from branch to branch, tilting its head inquisitively.
Sissy pulled off a mitten, reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of sunflower seeds. “Tweet, tweet,” she mimicked, drawing the bird close.
“You’ve done this before.”
“Hush.” She persisted until the bird ate from her hand, plucking a seed then nervously hopping back to the branch.
Jack watched the small miracle, his heart breaking. How could she be happy in such a place? How could she delight in the tiniest pleasure that came her way? How many hundred chickadees had he ignored, always striving for the big goal, the grand gesture. And now he couldn’t even do that. He took a ragged breath.
The chickadee flitted away.