BEX COULD TELL THE MOMENT Hugh realized that she was the woman in the wheelchair. He took a step forward, and as if that had triggered it, Izzy turned and ran.
Bex couldn’t speak. Her eyes filled with tears as Hugh started to run toward her, but before he could reach her side, the paramedics were there, hoisting Bex out of the wheelchair and onto a gurney and loading her into an ambulance. She twisted, trying to see Hugh, trying to reach her hand toward him. But she was surrounded by people who were prodding and poking and shouting at each other.
What if she got taken off to the hospital before she could talk to Hugh?
“What’s your name, ma’am?” an EMT asked.
“Bex.”
“Bex, we’re going to take care of you.”
She grabbed at his arm. “Need to … tell …”
“We’ll contact your family as soon as we get you settled at the hospital—”
Bex shook her head. The double doors started to close, and then suddenly she heard Hugh’s voice. “I have to speak to her,” he said.
“And I have to get her to an OR.”
She, who knew his face better than perhaps anyone, saw the struggle etched in his features—the desire to connect with her warring with the determination to get her treated.
“Hugh,” she managed. “Need …”
He turned, sending her a warning in his gaze. “You need to tell me something, ma’am?” Hugh glanced at the EMT. “I’ll need a moment of privacy,” he said, dismissing the paramedic, and then they were alone.
She swallowed, emotion damming all the words she had thought she might never get a chance to say to Hugh. “Bex,” he moaned, leaning closer, trying to figure out how to embrace her and settling for folding his hands around her own. “Are you all right?”
“Been … better,” she said. “Wren …”
“Is in there,” Hugh finished. “I know. Is she …”
“Alive. Hiding.”
A small sob escaped, and his head bent until his hair brushed her cheek. Bex looked at him and saw the shadow of Hugh as a boy: jackknifed with grief when his dog was hit by a car, frustrated by a calculus problem set, furious when he didn’t make the varsity football team. She wanted to reach out and pull him into her arms like she used to; to tell him that tomorrow would be easier, but she couldn’t. This time, she was the cause of his pain.
“Nobody knows,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Nobody can know. Do you understand that? If it gets out that my daughter is inside, I’m off the case. I have no control over the outcome here. Period.” He stared down at her, his eyes dark with pain. “Why, Bex? Why did you bring her here?”
She thought of Wren—the way she smiled and raised her right eyebrow, like she had a secret; how she painted her nails in different colors because she could never pick just one; the time she reprogrammed all the SiriusXM radio channels in Bex’s car after decreeing that her aunt needed to move past the eighties. “She asked.”
Hugh’s hands bit into her skin. She knew he was fighting to maintain control. “Wren needed … she had to have …” He couldn’t force the words from his throat.
“No!” Bex said. “Birth control. She … didn’t want you … to know.”
He closed his eyes.
Were some betrayals kinder than others? Bex searched his face, waiting for a shimmer of forgiveness.
Before she could find it, however, the EMT had reappeared. “Lieutenant?” he said. “Are you finished?”
Were they?
Bex willed him to speak. To absolve her of blame.
Instead, he let go of her hands, jumped out of the ambulance, and shut the doors.
—
IT FELT LIKE IT TOOK a hundred years for Izzy to run the last five steps back to the clinic door. She forced herself to stare at the black seam that separated freedom from captivity, until a hand reached out and grabbed her by her braid, yanking her inside again.
George let go of her long enough to close and lock the door, pile the furniture back against it. “Smart gal,” George said. “If you hadn’t come back here, well, who knows how angry I might have got.”
Izzy’s head swam. She could still smell the pavement, baking in the afternoon heat. She could see the necks of all the cameras trained on her as she walked away from the clinic door. She could hear Bex’s shallow breathing as they went over each crack in the sidewalk.
What kind of idiot tastes freedom and spits it out?
She heard a groan behind her and turned to find Dr. Ward’s wound trickling blood. Izzy met George’s gaze. “Can I … ?”
He nodded, and she got to her knees beside Dr. Ward, unwrapping the soaked tourniquet to replace it with a fresh one. As soon as the pressure was relaxed, blood poured from the wound. Izzy wondered how long she had before she needed to beg the shooter to let Dr. Ward get real medical attention. She had a feeling it was different from Bex; that George would see the doctor’s death not as regrettable collateral damage, but as revenge.
With quick efficiency she began to tighten the makeshift bandage again by using the Sharpie as a winding key. She secured it into place with tape. Dr. Ward groaned when she moved his limb, and she tried to distract him with banter. “You know, when I was a kid and my brother broke his arm, I just splinted it and told him to use the other one.”
“Where I grew up we were so poor we didn’t even have wood to make a splint,” Dr. Ward said.
Izzy smiled a little. “Pretty sure I had the flu for whole year, because we couldn’t afford a trip to the pediatrician.”
“We only went to the dentist if a cavity was so bad it made you throw up.”
“And braces,” Izzy said. “They might as well have been tooth jewelry.”
Dr. Ward offered a wobbly smile. “Girl, I know what you’re doing and you can’t use my own medicine on me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You get me talking to distract me from what’s really happening down there with my leg.”
“You know what’s happening down there,” Izzy said.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “If it’s much longer, I could lose it.”
Izzy tried not to think about that. More important, she had to make Dr. Ward not think about that. “You talk like you’re my only patient.” She jerked her chin toward Janine, still unconscious from the blow George had given her with the butt of the gun. “Any change?”
“No,” Dr. Ward said, sobering. “I’ve been watching.”
Izzy made a small noise in the back of her throat. “Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t mind if she stays unconscious.”
Dr. Ward frowned. “Do you know I only once refused to perform an abortion?”
“Was it for a pro-life protester?” Izzy asked.
He hesitated, then shook his head. “It was a racist. A woman came in and saw me and said she preferred a white doctor. Problem was, I was the only person doing procedures that day, and she couldn’t wait any longer to have it done.”
Izzy sat back on her heels. “What happened?”
“I have no idea. Even after she decided my skin color mattered less than her getting that abortion, I said no. I was self-aware enough to know that I had to treat myself like an impaired physician. I was intoxicated with anger, the same way I would have been if I had swigged a fifth of gin. I couldn’t touch her any more than I would have touched a patient if I were drunk. What if she was uncomfortable during the procedure? She might think I was intentionally trying to cause her pain because of what she’d said. And what if there was a complication, and it reinforced her beliefs that I was less than qualified because of my skin color?” He shook his head. “Like Dr. King said: It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”
“I would think that when it comes to abortion, race is the last thing on anyone’s mind.”