“Am I fired?”
“No. But I think you should take some time off. Just a short break, until this all dies down. The hospital is sure to get some press. Winter Storm requested a change in facility for her birth—there’s a possibility more will follow suit.”
“That … that’s unbelievable.”
“Being a provider means garnering a patient’s trust. As of tonight, we lost that on several fronts.”
The feeling of dispensability ran through her like hot lava, and rejection singed her insides. She shook her head and willed herself to shut down the emotion. This was about money, that was all.
Aziza continued. “We still have to figure this out. Honestly, in the last ten years, this has never happened. I’m … I’m not sure what to do, or what the CEO will want.”
“So a short break?”
“Just until the end of the month. Unfortunately, because it would be an extended time off for administrative purposes, some of that might be unpaid, depending on your contract and your vacation days.”
About a couple of weeks without work. Diana hadn’t taken off work for that long since college. A spark of panic flared and fizzed just as quickly as she thought of her savings, her bank account—yes, she could still afford the worst-case scenario.
Diana was startled by Aziza’s hand, which now rested on her forearm. “Look, I was going to bring you in soon to chat, off the record. I’ve noticed that you’ve been different recently. That you’ve been unhappy. Though there’s no need to explain—life is a series of peaks and valleys, and I get that sometimes there are rough spots.” She smiled. “Use this as a time to recharge. This is more for your protection, really. Apparently, our Facebook page has received some trolls. That’s the thing with having an active social media account—it’s great when the conversation is positive, but when there’s something up, it gets hairy. Anyway, this will be a good time to catch up and breathe a little, focus on yourself and what you need.”
“Okay, I’ll do what I need to do.” Diana nodded, though she knew she really didn’t have a choice. One thing: she would certainly not be recharging. Vacations had never been her thing.
Chapter Three
What would Leora do?” muttered Margaret Gallagher-Cary. She was seated on one of Diana’s low, European-style couches with a box open in front of her—a pile to throw away on the right side, and the pile to keep on the left. In her hand was a fan of photos, and somehow, she was supposed to decide where they belonged.
Then it came to her. Her mother, the practical Leora Gallagher, a minimalist and Margo’s complete opposite, would have gotten rid of pictures she had no connection to. An old-school Marie Kondo method. It wouldn’t have taken her mother a long time to decide, either. Even in the last days of her life, in the ebb and flow of forgetfulness and lucidity, Leora made decisions quickly and without regret.
Except her mother wasn’t here, was she? She was dead and therefore wasn’t in this conundrum of moving in with Diana and trying to find a way to somehow fit two—no, three homes into her daughter’s town house.
Margo tossed the photos in the keep pile. On principle, photographs shouldn’t be decluttered—they were memories! Besides, her emotions were in a jumble much like her boxes, haphazardly packed before they sold Leora’s home. Perhaps Margo should go through another box. Somewhere there had to be one filled with books that would surely be easier to get through.
But when she tried to get up, she couldn’t. So on a silent count to three, Margo heaved herself onto her feet, toes catching on the hem of her bell-bottom jeans (fashion history was cyclical). But her legs stiffened beneath her, joints groaning under her weight.
“Oh, hell, Ma, this box it is,” she mumbled, falling back onto the cushion. She scooped photos out of the box once again.
“Ma.”
Margo turned to the voice. Diana was at the threshold of the back door—right, Margo had left it open to the storm door so Flossy could get a glimpse of the outside world—with her arms crossed and a grin on her face. “Did I just catch you talking to yourself?”
“I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to your granny. And, no, she doesn’t answer back, so you don’t need to rush me to another specialist. Wanna sit and help me go through these photos?”
“No, thanks, I’m cross-eyed and on the verge of collapse.” Diana hung her coat on the hallway tree and kicked off her shoes. She disappeared into the laundry room behind her and closed the door. The sounds of what Margo had learned was her daughter’s routine commenced: the washing machine door being opened, the melodic buttons of the washer being pressed, the whoosh of the water as it filled the tub, and finally, the squeak of the faucet for that final handwashing before the door opened. Now dressed in a plaid robe, her daughter was all set to take a quick shower before bed.
Diana was so much like her granny that Margo’s heart tore a fraction of a millimeter, in the spot where she wished her mother were still alive. Leora had been tickled that someone had inherited her type A traits.
A hand was in front of her. “Need help?” Diana asked.
Margo nodded, taking it, allowing her daughter to bear her weight. Her feet prickled with pins and needles as blood rushed downward, and she took a moment to wiggle her toes to get the feeling back. “How was your night?”
“Long, and long story.”
“Did you see the picture I posted last night?” Pride, mixed with trepidation, filled her chest. For Margo, once a professional photographer of actual pictures she developed herself—in a darkroom, no less—social media had become an escape while caring for her mother. Her small window to the outside world, when, for almost a year, Margo felt isolated from the living. She’d filled her lonely moments by taking pictures of the quirky things she found in her mother’s home, like Leora’s precious sewing kit and her favorite costume necklace, made with misshapen pearls. The mix-and-match pieces of her beloved wardrobe. Or the sky right before a derecho slammed through Northern Virginia. Under the title of Ms. Margo, her alter ego, Margo thrived at a time when everything around her seemed to crumble.
Quickly, Ms. Margo had caught fire, and now, with thousands of followers, Margo still had a purpose despite losing one of the most important people in her life.
But Diana never showed any interest in her Ms. Margo project.
“Ah, I actually didn’t get a chance to look,” Diana said now.
“I see.” Margo’s shoulders threatened to slump forward, but she kept a smile on her face. “It’s fine.”
Diana looked away for a beat. “Last night was chaotic, hence my not calling back, either.”
Glad for the change in subject, Margo jumped into it headlong. “I wanted to warn you that Carlo came over. I was in the middle of unpacking my bedroom. I wanted to get all this stuff out of your living room this weekend and packed out of sight.” She gestured at the topsy-turvy space in front of them, half-filled with open moving boxes, gifts from clients, and several stacks of photographs and portfolios, so unlike her daughter’s usual way of life that it brought a pang to Margo’s heart. She’d moved in only a month ago, after the sale of Leora’s house was finalized, but one would’ve never known that she’d spent every day trying to put things away. “He asked a lot of questions as soon as I opened the front door, too many for my comfort and some about Flossy, so I asked him to leave.”