“Obviously, it would be better if it weren’t a baby,” I said, trying to smile. It didn’t feel convincing. “But I can handle it.”
Justin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was quiet for a long time, then turned to stare out the window. “Are you sure you should do this story, babe?” He had this expression on his face when he looked at me again: tragic, as though I were the tragedy. “I know it’s an opportunity, and that’s important. But maybe it’s not worth it.”
“I have to do it,” I said, probably too forcefully. I smiled weakly, trying to claw back some credibility. “It feels—I don’t know, connected somehow. To what happened to us.”
“But it’s not.” Justin eyed me seriously. If he was trying to hide his alarm, he was not succeeding. “You know that, right? This has nothing to do with what happened to us.”
“Of course I know that, Justin.” And I did. Didn’t I?
“I just, I don’t want you to . . .” He looked more than worried. He looked petrified. “Where’s Richard, anyway? Shouldn’t he be back soon?”
Justin loved me and wanted to help. But there was a difference between protecting me and making me feel irrevocably damaged.
“This is my story, Justin,” I said, wishing I hadn’t phrased it quite that way. “It’s my responsibility. And I have the expertise—both personally and professionally—to handle it. I’m not going to ‘give’ it back to Richard because it’s a little ‘uncomfortable’ for me. Life is uncomfortable. I can’t hide from it.”
My phone buzzed with a text, saving me from further interrogation. I braced for it to be from Erik, Nancy having told him that I’d seemed too unstable to be trusted with such an important story. But it was Stella. Can you meet me at Univ. Hospital? Please?
“Who’s that?” Justin asked, pointing his chin toward the phone.
“Stella,” I said, wondering how worried I should be.
“What is it this time?” he asked tightly.
“She’s at the hospital. Aidan, I’m assuming.”
“And let me guess,” Justin said. “It’s an emergency.”
From the start, Justin had pegged Stella as a drama queen, which she was. But he’d always tolerated her with good humor. Lately, though, she and her late-night calls seemed to be grating on him. Justin was probably wary of Stella dragging me back down in a blaze of unbridled nuttiness.
“She’s entertaining, I get that,” Justin had said when we got home from the first—and one of the few—dinners the three of us had eaten together. If it had been up to Stella, we would have done it much more often. She was utterly unfazed by being a third wheel. But Justin always demurred. “From ten miles off, Stella’s batshit crazy. You’ve got to see that.”
I’d laughed. “‘Batshit’? That’s a tad melodramatic, don’t you think?” We were standing side by side in our huge sparkling-white bathroom with its polished double sinks. Yet another benefit of Ridgedale living—clean, wide-open spaces.
“Be friends with her if you want, I don’t care,” Justin said through a mouthful of toothpaste. He spat into the sink. “But I’ve known a bunch of girls like Stella in my time, and—”
“Eww, please. Must we do a ‘who I’ve slept with’ walk down memory lane?” Justin had not been a monk before we met, and he’d never pretended otherwise.
“I’m just saying, women like Stella are fun to be around. Until they’re really, really not.”
But I didn’t care if Stella’s scalding sunshine came with a little extra drama on the side. That was a price I was willing to pay.
Please? came another text from Stella. Quick as you can?
“It’s okay,” Justin said, probably reading the tension on my face. “Go check on your crazy friend.” He reached forward to squeeze my hand. “As long as you can look me in the eye and promise me you’ll be okay on this story.”
“Come on, you know me.” I smiled playfully as I stood, then leaned over to kiss him. “When have I ever really been okay?”
Stella had directed me to a room on the second floor of the hospital. When I arrived, she was sitting in a chair next to the far bed. Her arms were crossed, her elegant face bunched and gray. I looked past the empty bed closest to the door, bracing myself to see Aidan lying in the bed against the windows—face smashed, some terrible tube helping him breathe. But there was a dark-haired woman lying there, pretty and young—twenties, maybe. Or she would have been pretty if her face hadn’t been swollen and bruised about the eyes.
“Oh, Molly.” Stella jumped to her feet and rushed over. “Thank you so much for coming.” She wrapped me in her warm embrace and pressed her smooth, cool cheek against mine. Her perfume smelled of flowers and citrus.
The woman in the bed raised a hand in something like a wave. “Hi,” I said, smiling back politely. I had no idea who she was.
“Rose was in a car accident this morning, the poor thing,” Stella said, going over to put a protective hand on the woman’s arm.
“That’s terrible,” I said.
Stella was talking to me like I was supposed to know Rose. But Stella didn’t have any local relatives, and the girl looked too young to be a friend. I wouldn’t have put it past Stella to show up at the hospital room of a woman she didn’t know, but I gathered from the equally warm way the young woman reached out and put her IV’d hand over Stella’s that they did have some kind of genuine relationship.
“A truck driver texting,” Rose said. Her voice was hoarse, and it seemed to be taking great effort for her to talk. “But I’m fine. It’s only some stitches and a lot of ugly bruises.”
“What is that Zen saying of yours, Rose? ‘Let go or be dragged’? I think we should find that driver and drag him.”