I whirled around, almost ramming into the door frame, and tore through the apartment. I ran and ran, out the door, to my car, wrenching it open and shoving the key in the ignition.
I don’t know if Jenny came out. I couldn’t look. I just backed out of the spot and sped away from the scene. I could not handle this. It was the life I had once imagined, longed for, and lost. And now it was the one I might never have.
I wasn’t sure I could be her friend anymore.
Chapter 9: Tina
Both Corabelle and Jenny had texted me multiple times since the pink explosion of a baby shower began, but I only glanced at my cell phone with each soft buzz. I had nothing to say.
I wasn’t anywhere near the venue where the tortuous event was being held. While I originally was supposed to play a role in this day, my duties as bridesmaid had been fulfilled in the ambulance. Now that the wedding was a baby extravaganza, I had no desire to sit around while people grinned like idiots over giraffe rattles and fuzzy blankets.
The charcoal scraped across my textured sketch pad like a whisper. The drawing of Albert in his hospital bed emerged slowly from the curves and lines. He looked peaceful, his eyes closed, the fingers of one hand positioned as if they surrounded an invisible oil brush. Chaotic gray ringlets framed his face. He definitely still had a full head of hair. His cheeks were deeply lined.
I took my time on the crinkles around his eyes, trying to imagine a time when he was younger, his wife and daughter still alive, and happy. That must have been when the smile lines formed, before he put on his perpetual brooding expression so often caught in magazine articles or promotional images once he became a famous artist.
I saw a glimpse of that long-lost joy here and there, particularly when Layla was around. She had brought up a painting Albert once made of his daughter. It hung on the opposite wall of his hospital room in real life so he could see it. But in my drawing of him, I moved it to just behind his head, as though she was looking over him. The little girl was three or four, practically bouncing with happiness in a pair of red overalls. A matching headband failed to contain her mass of curly brown hair.
Albert coughed, and I paused, my charcoal still against the page. He didn’t wake, though, so I resumed the image, smudging a bit of shadow on the pillow next to his head.
I felt at peace here. Knowing Albert and I shared something so concrete, his daughter and my Peanut, helped keep me calm. My guilt pricked that I was skipping the baby shower without telling anyone, but what was I supposed to say? “Hey, Jenny, I know we’re friends, but I’m blowing off your big day because I can’t handle it.” Right. Best to just shut up.
To tell the truth, I hadn’t told Darion either. He had a shift today, so he was here at the hospital. But I knew his routine. I could avoid him. I’d confess later. I just couldn’t risk somebody talking me into going. Not worth it.
A nurse slipped in the room. “Asleep?” she whispered.
I nodded. She made a note on her iPad. “I’ll hold his lunch tray,” she said.
I returned to my sketch. I’d made many of Albert, almost as many as I had of Darion and his sister, Cynthia. Sometimes I drew him painting or sculpting. Other times, it was like this, in a hospital scene. But mostly I liked to capture his expressions. His face always told me so much about him, as much as his art, if I looked closely. He was so haunted. But so eager to impart what he could to me.
While he could.
My breath hitched just thinking about the dark day that surely wasn’t far off. Albert slept more and more. Layla helped me track his wakeful periods so I could visit him at those times. Today she was having lunch with a friend, and I was perfectly content to skip the baby shower and sit with him.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I would get to.
The door eased open again, and I looked up, expecting that the nurse’s message didn’t get to the kitchen and Albert’s tray had arrived anyway.
But it was Darion.
He stepped inside. He had on a crisp white coat today, which meant he’d been doing some administrative work. He was still relentlessly proper about those things despite my efforts to get him to relax.
His attention turned to Albert for a moment, then he raised his eyebrows at me. I sat stonily, then realized I was busted. Jenny or Corabelle must have messaged him.
I closed the sketch pad and slid the charcoal stick into its slot in my art box. Party over. Or pity party. Whatever this was.
The bag bumped my back as I slung it over my shoulder. I squeezed Albert’s arm. He didn’t stir.
Darion reached for my hand as I approached. I took it, trying to calm myself with the touch of his cool fingers. We walked silently down the hall until we passed the nurses’ desk.
“Let’s go to the staff lounge,” he said. “It’s quiet today.”
Saturday afternoons were always a peaceful part of the surgical ward. All the scheduled procedures were done in the morning, and it would be hours before the night activity jumped the ER into gear.