“Only two more weeks,” I agreed. If he wanted me to be offended that he’d rather go to school than stay at home with me, then he was going to be sorely disappointed. I loved teaching them their lessons, but it wasn’t good for them to be cooped up around adults all the time. Both of them needed to be around other children, like normal kids. This big old house with its empty bedrooms and winding hallways, though beautifully decorated and comfortable beyond measure, wasn’t an appropriate playground for children.
“Will you go and see him?” Rose said out of the blue.
“Who?”
She quirked one eyebrow at me, sighing. “You know who.”
“Oh, god. No. Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because it might be nice for him to see a friendly, familiar face. I doubt anyone else on the island is going to be stopping by to check on him.”
“I doubt he considers my face either friendly or familiar, Rose. We’ve spoken on a handful of occasions, and every single time he’s been an ass, and I’ve been angry. I’m probably the last person he’d want visiting him while he’s recuperating.”
“I think you’re wrong,” she said, stirring the soup faster and faster, as though she wasn’t really paying attention to what she was doing. “I think people underestimate him. I think he can be capable of kindness. Then again, I think he also feeds on bickering with people, so he’d probably enjoy a good sniping session with you. It’d have him on his feet in no time.”
“Are you going to visit him?”
Rose stopped what she was doing and fully turned around to face me, horror on her face. “Hell no. That man’s as ornery as a bear with its head stuck in a trap, especially when he’s sick. You couldn’t pay me to step foot into that medical center.”
******
Call me a glutton for punishment, but later that night I found myself pushing open the medical center doors, trying to figure out if I wanted to bolt and run, or if I really did want to ask the nurse at the reception desk which room Sully was in and pay him a visit.
Rose had stayed with the kids. I was so glad Ronan hadn’t really fucked me over and left me to do this entirely on my own. Ronan had been a single father for a little over a year, but he’d had two nannies on rotation at all times, running them around to whatever class or recital they needed to be at, watching over them while he was working, making their meals for them and generally taking care of business. Without Rose’s help, I would have been drowning. There were plenty of people out there taking care of their kids all by themselves, and I was sure they were doing a fine job. I admired them, in fact, but I was a firm believer that it took a village to raise children, and I was willing to take all the help I could get.
The medical center was a quiet, sterile place. Single story, the size of a typical outpatient clinic. The walls of the waiting area were plastered with such greats as, “Causeway General Medical Center is not equipped to deliver babies. At the first signs of labor, please head directly to the mainland to receive medical attention at a suitable facility,” and “Chest pains? Our out-of-hours service runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Please feel free to call for a consultation with a registered nurse.”
There was no mention of how you were supposed to head directly to the mainland if you went into labor in the middle of the night and Jerry wasn’t running the boat service. Nor was there any mention of what action should be taken if you were experiencing chest pains on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday any time after nine o’clock, and you actually wanted to see a physical doctor.
“Miss? Excuse me, Miss? Can I help you?”
I turned away from the bizarre wall of printed public service announcements, all of which were in very aggressive capitols, I might add, to find the red-headed woman from Rose’s party sitting behind the reception desk. She was wearing a set of dark blue scrubs, pinned to which was an obscenely large name badge that read “Gale.” Underneath the name, someone, presumably Gale, had written “Trainee Nurse” in Sharpie. She gave me a bright smile, displaying a wall of cutely jumbled teeth that somehow made her look adorable.
“Ah, yeah. I was—I was looking for Sully Fletcher. I was told he’d been brought back from the mainland this evening.”
Gale nodded. “Yeah, that’s right! They did bring him here.” She seemed way too excited.
“Can you tell me which room he’s in? I’d like to visit him.”
Her broad smile faded. “Oh. No, I can’t.” I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely upset by the fact that she was unable to do as I’d asked, or if she was managing to pull off a mix of extreme passive aggression, coupled with a liberal side helping of sarcasm.
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“Sully’s not here.”
“But I thought you just said the EMTs brought him back here earlier on this evening?”
“They did.” She nodded again, red curls bouncing everywhere.
“So? Where did he go?”
“Oh, he went home. He didn’t want to sleep here. He said it smells of death,” she said brightly.
“Okay. So…he was well enough to go home by himself?”