“No, he had a heart attack. He’s not dead, but he’s in the hospital. I’m here with him.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Petra, no. No—don’t come over here. It’s late at night, and there’s nowhere to sit. He’s asleep anyway.”
“What did the doctors say?”
“I haven’t talked to them yet. But the nurse said it was a bad heart attack. There’s going to be a surgery in the morning. I think he’s going to be here for a while, and then—then someone’s going to have to be home with him. To help him. He’s really weak.”
“I should be the one to do that.”
“You’re married. You have a life. And Cash has school. I’m the only one with the time. I can—I can defer the last semester of college and graduate next winter instead.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I can see her pacing around her kitchen. Petra used to do the same thing when we were younger. Pace around any available space. “What are you saying? I thought you were staying with Leo Morelli. You said you wanted to be there.”
“I do want to be there.” I want to not cry in this hallway anymore. I want for this terrible night to unwind itself until I’m back in the den with Leo. I want for my father to say no to Caroline, and for her not to be so awful.
“So I’ll come and take over,” Petra says briskly. “I’m the oldest, and I’m most prepared to—”
“I’m already here.” My sister lapses into silence. “And things are over with Leo. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Hales…are you sure? You don’t sound—I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of misunderstanding?”
You were fun to toy with, like the rest of them, but you’re not worth my life.
“I’m sure.”
“And there’s no chance you could talk it out with him?”
“Petra. You’re really trying to convince me to make up with Leo Morelli?”
“Yeah.” Her voice has a helpless shrug written all over it. “You’ve never sounded so sad. And you don’t say things you don’t mean. So I have to think you meant it when you told me you wanted to be with him.”
“I’m sad because Dad had a heart attack.”
The truth. Just not the full truth.
“Was it him or you?” Petra asks.
I want you. I choose you. I love you.
“Him.”
“Then you didn’t want to leave.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.” I straighten up in my seat. “What matters is that someone has to be here for Dad. I have to be here for Dad. I’ll keep you and Cash updated, obviously, but it’s best for everybody if it’s just one of us.”
“Haley—”
“I have to go. The doctor is coming to meet me. I’ll text you after, okay?”
“Okay, but—”
I hang up on her. It doesn’t feel great, but it feels better than listening to my older sister talk about this. She gave up the man she loved to obey Caroline Constantine. She wouldn’t understand my dilemma. I tip my head back against the hospital’s concrete wall. It’s painted a drab sandy color that makes me vaguely sick. A white stripe runs along the middle of the wall. This place is in desperate need of a person like Daphne. I’d rather look at the ocean. I’d rather let the waves swallow me whole.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leo
I lost her.
I lost her.
I lost her.
It’s the only thought that circles my mind as clouds cover the stars and the moon sets. As the weak winter sun rises over fresh snow. As I tell Daphne that Haley is gone and won’t be back. As I take in her shocked expression with detached recognition. Why is she surprised? This is how it has to be. The sun peaks and falls below the horizon.
I lost her.
It’s irritating for its inaccuracy. I didn’t lose Haley. I sent her away. With my own two hands. She fought. Screamed. Cried. I put her in the SUV anyway and sent her to her father. I did it because I had to. We were at the end of the line. She touched her father’s face on the TV screen and I knew, I knew, that was it. That’s all I could ever offer her. Winston wasn’t convinced, or he couldn’t convince Caroline. Either way. Haley can’t live like that. I’ll never be a replacement for her family. She loves them. They love her. People like Haley belong with their families.
End of the line. Now I’m past it.
Mrs. Page comes into my office on the second day with a sandwich.
She tries again on the third day with a bowl of my favorite soup.
On the fourth day, she’s desperate. The teacup trembles in her hands. “It has milk and sugar,” she says. “You need to have something if you’re not eating, Mr. Morelli.”
“I’m not sleeping, either. Is there anything else you wanted to know?”
She leaves the tea on my desk. It goes cold, and after a few hours, it disappears again.
I don’t stop eating to spite Mrs. Page. It just no longer seems worthwhile. Sleeping would be an escape, but it’s not available to me. I’ve never stayed so long at the peak of my pain. It started when I watched Haley lose her shit over her dad having a heart attack and it hasn’t let up. It makes no distinction between my back and the rest of my body. My head throbs and burns. My bones are broken shards. My nerves are piano wire cutting through flesh.
For these four days, I sit through meetings like a fucking corpse. I don’t hear a thing anyone says. I send emails I don’t remember sending. My business runs on autopilot. Daphne pokes her head into my office every afternoon and talks to me with worried eyes. She’s painting a wall in her suite. She’s painting the ocean. She’s painting an underwater forest. Are you okay? I’m fine. I’m busy. I’m working. Go back to your painting, Daphne.
I am not fine.
I’m a pillar of flame. A torched cathedral. Ash burns to ash. It hurts too much to bear. The pain tears out my mind and throws it on the pyre of my soul. Dante would have jumped into boiling glass to escape the heat of purgatory. But he was promised paradise. There’s no such promise for me. I had her in my hands, and I let her go.
On the fourth night I attend a last, desperate Mass at St. Thomas’s. I spend the entire thing on my feet, gripping the back of a pew. Sitting is beyond me. Kneeling is beyond me. When I approach the altar for Communion, Father Simon asks if he should call an ambulance.
Of course not, of course not. What would they do? Bring her back to me?
It’s past one when I return and climb the stairs. I’ve been avoiding my bedroom, and my private library, because Haley’s books are there. I thought it would spare me more pain, but the opposite has happened. As of this morning I’ve started to hallucinate her.
I don’t go to the library. I go to the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. If my mind is already short-circuiting, which it is, I might as well lean into it.
There is a bottle in the medicine cabinet. Every six months, it gets taken out and replaced with a new one. I suspect Gerard, or Mrs. Page. I suspect they are in league with Eva. In eighteen years, I’ve never opened one of the bottles.