A Child's Wish

Perhaps he should get Kelsey a pool this summer. She’d been asking for one for years. Maybe that would make her happy again.

Happy with him.

“And I most particularly wouldn’t want to see Larry Barnett eat me up and spit me out,” Meredith said, her voice welcome in his darkness. “What purpose would that serve?”

None. At least none that was productive. But most people would’ve watched anyway. He would have.

He didn’t answer, figuring her question had been rhetorical.

“Well, did he?” she asked.

“Eat you up? Yeah,” he said softly, offended all over again as he thought about the interview. It hadn’t been so much what Barnett had said—some of it Mark would have had to verify, had he been asked. It had been the way he’d said it, making Meredith sound like some kind of freak. “But before he could spit you out, there you were, sounding so…sane.”

“Yes, well, that’s me,” she chuckled. “Sane as they come.”

Fifteen minutes ago he’d been ready to fire her. “You take everything in stride, don’t you?”

“I try to.”

“I try, too, but you seem to be much better at it than I am. What’s your secret?”

“I live alone,” she quipped. “I hide a lot.”

“Really.”

She paused and Mark wondered if he’d been too transparent, said too much and allowed her to figure out that at the moment he admired her a lot. Personally.

He hoped not. He had to hang up. Should never have called.

“I just know that there are only certain things I can control in this life,” she said softly after a moment. “I try to focus on those and let go of the rest. It’s that ‘rest’ that drives us all crazy—and we’re never going to be able to change it anyway.”

He needed to think about that.

“And while we’re so busy fretting about stuff we have no control over, we miss opportunities to make choices that will direct the things we actually can change.”

“Are you always philosophical late at night?” he asked, afraid of what he couldn’t control at the moment; afraid she might know that he wanted the conversation to continue, that her voice sounded good to him. That even while he didn’t believe in her so-called abilities, he trusted her logical insights. And that right now, with his daughter seemingly slipping away from him, she was a safety net.

“It’s not that late. And I’m philosophical all the time, Mark,” she said, laughing at him again—or at herself. “But I normally spare those around me and keep my torture to myself.”

He needed to call Susan. Immediately. Before his thoughts took him into territory that would only prove his own instability. There were a few things he admired about Meredith Foster, that was all. He didn’t want to stay on the phone with her—or think about how she looked late at night in her own home. That was none of his business.

His focus had to remain on the choices she made that he didn’t agree with. And to make certain that she didn’t continue to make them at work.

Susan had been doing rounds at the hospital tonight. Perhaps she was still awake and would be willing to drive over for a glass of wine.

“Well, I apologize again for calling so late,” he said, back beside his nightstand, poised to drop the phone in its cradle. “I just wanted to tell you you’d done a good job.” Not that he expected anything she said to have noticeable effect on Larry Barnett.

“Hey, don’t apologize. I appreciate the comment, especially coming from you.”

Mark smiled—it was nice pleasing someone. Even if that someone was a general pain in the ass. Go figure.

He’d tell Susan about it when he called her.

“Okay, then, see you tomorrow.”

“Okay, good night—”

She clicked off before Mark could say the “sleep well” that was on the tip of his tongue.