Zaney nodded.
She smiled thinly, patted his arm, and walked to where the family was sitting. Vickie and Wanda looked up, smiled uncertainly. Norma wouldn’t look at her, even though she stood directly in front of her. “Mrs. Manning, I am so . . . so sorry,” she said sincerely.
Now Norma lifted her gaze to Robin, piercing her with it. “That’s real nice of you. But right now, we’re a family trying to cope with a tragedy. It’d be best if you came another time.”
That took Robin aback—okay, maybe she deserved it; she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She simply nodded, turned on her heel, and walked out of the waiting room and in the direction Zaney had indicated.
She found Jake in the second hallway, staring intently through a bank of windows across from the wall that seemed to be holding him up. She approached cautiously, not quite sure what to expect. God, he looked awful, like he hadn’t slept in days. The stubble of a beard shadowed his face; his cheeks looked almost sunken.
Jake saw her from the corner of his eye; he seemed surprised, stiffened straight, and shoved a hand through his uncombed hair as if he didn’t quite know what to do.
Robin walked to where he was standing, followed his gaze to the bank of windows . . . and saw Cole. Oh Jesus, there were tubes hooked up in his arms and nose, bandages covering what she could see of him. Stunned, Robin moved toward the window, put her hand against the glass and gaped at him, trying to absorb the extent of his injuries. He wasn’t moving at all; a nurse changing one of his IV drips smiled sadly at Robin. She turned around, saw the tears glistening in Jake’s eyes as he looked at his nephew.
“It’s my fault,” he said hoarsely. “If I had taken him to the coast like I said . . . but I didn’t, and he went out with Frankie—”
A stab of guilt knifed right through her. “Where is Frankie?” she managed to ask. “Is he okay?”
Jake snorted ruefully. “Minor scratches, that’s all, can you believe it? Cole has two broken legs, internal injuries . . . they don’t even know about his head yet. And that little shit Frankie walked away from it.”
He shifted his gaze to Cole again. He looked terribly lost. Robin instinctively reached for his hand, but Jake shoved it in his pocket.
That stung. She clasped her hands together and looked everywhere but at Jake. “Do you know what happened?”
“He snuck out with Frankie. They went down the levee, smoked a couple of joints, apparently. Then Frankie got the bright idea to go for a ride in his brother’s car. He was speeding down one of those little two-lane roads that go down to the bayou. They went off the road where there wasn’t any shoulder, and they rolled.”
“Was there anyone else in the car?”
“No, thank God,” Jake said wearily. “Just Frankie and Cole.” He sighed heavily, pushed away from the wall and went to the window, pressed up against it to look at Cole. After a long moment, he shifted his gaze to Robin. His eyes were swimming in grief; he shook his head. “Thanks for coming by, but . . . I wish you hadn’t.”
Those words were a painful blow.
“I just can’t do this right now, Robin. You and me—it’s obvious we’re just not meant to be. And right now, I need to think about Cole. He needs me,” he said and looked through the window again. “So like I said . . . thanks for coming.” He turned fully toward the window, gazing down at his motionless nephew.
Dumbfounded, Robin stood rooted to her spot, unable to take her eyes from Jake’s back. She could understand, really, she could, on some level. She thought it only fair to walk away and leave him to his grief. Except there was one little problem. “I need you, too, Jake,” she said to his back.
His shoulders tensed. “No, you don’t. You just think you do, and you feel sorry—”
“I feel sorry, all right,” she interrupted him with a strangled laugh. “Sorry for all the things I should have said and didn’t. Sorry that I didn’t listen, sorry that I didn’t understand, sorry for Cole, for you, for your family. But I . . . I need you. And damn it, Jake, you need me.”
He bowed his head for a moment, then glanced at her over his shoulder. “You don’t need me, Robin. You need Minot and—”