“I’d appreciate that.”
“But we can’t let her stay forever, you realize.”
“I understand.”
She lingered a moment longer and I felt her studying me. I wondered what was going on in that lizard brain of hers. Probably wondering how much money I was going to cost the hospital, and if I was not a big liability—maybe thinking over my contract and trying to see if she could get rid of me.
Unfortunately, I’m too well liked and she knew it. I had stellar overall numbers, I get fantastic patient reviews, and any other hospital in the region would pay truckloads of cash to bring me onto their team. Even if she thought this was strange, she wouldn’t take it out on me.
Being good at my job had a few perks.
“I’ll leave you be then,” she said, turning on her heels. “Congratulations again.”
“Thank you, Maria. I appreciate your help.”
She nodded, more to herself then anything, then stalked off. I watched her recede down the hall then turned back toward Erica’s Mom—back toward where Linda lay in her bed.
“Sorry about that,” I whispered, as if my mother-in-law could hear through the glass and through her coma. “She means well, I think, but she’s a paper pusher. Don’t worry. I won’t let them kick you out.” I touched the glass then turned away before anyone could see me.
That conversation spun through my head. Maria would spread news of my marriage through the hospital over the next few hours and I knew I’d have a lot of questions to answer, but this was the whole point. I wanted this, because I knew that once everyone got past how sudden and strange this marriage seemed—it would only help my career.
But most of all it would help Erica. I told her a half truth when I said I needed her to marry me in order to get a promotion. It’s true that married men tend to move up faster, but it’s not exactly necessary. They’d never knowingly discriminate like that, and I was sure I could squeeze past the review board without a wife if it came to that.
Fortunately, it wouldn’t, and hopefully I could find a solution and keep Linda in the hospital as long as possible.12EricaI leaned forward on my elbows and stared at my mother, still unmoving, still unresponsive. I felt like I lived my life in two rooms: my small bedroom at Gavin’s place, with my tiny bathroom and my dressers and my closet, and this room, this hospital room with its antiseptic stink and the windows too high to draw in good light and the somewhat dirty floor and the creaking bedframe and the machines, the ever-moving machines and their electric buzz. I felt weak and drained, and the ring on my finger felt heavy.
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do, mom,” I said, staring down at her hands, her wrinkled, bruised hands. Cosimo kept running through my mind, the confrontation between him and Gavin still so fresh and so horrible. What he said scared me more than I expected and some big part of me, some dark and awful part of me wanted to run away. I still wanted to run, but I knew I couldn’t, not with my mother here.
The glass door slid open and I jumped up. I didn’t know what I expected—maybe Cosimo and his goons with guns drawn, ready to murder me for daring to disobey them.
Instead, Fiona held up her palms. “I come in peace.”
I relaxed a bit. “Hey. Sorry. I’m a little jumpy.”
“Sure, I get it.”
I sunk back down into my chair as she came into the room. She checked my mother’s chart, checked the saline bag and changed her urine bag, then leaned back against the wall and looked at me, arms crossed over her chest.
“You look like you had a rough night.”
“I’m not sleeping great,” I admitted.
“Gavin?”
“No.” I shook my head. “What’s with you and him, anyway? You started to tell me something earlier.”
She hesitated. “It happened a few years back. He dated a friend of mine, this girl named Celia. She was sweet, you know, but young and naive, and he used her for sex. Broke her heart too, and was a total bastard afterward, wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t even look at her. She felt so awkward and used, she ended up leaving the hospital. I was pretty pissed with him then and he never once apologized or even admitted to doing anything wrong.”
I chewed on my lip and tried to absorb that into my view of Gavin. I could see it, though it was hard. So far he’d done nothing but try to help me, but I could see how a young, hotshot doctor like him might start to think he could take advantage of people, could do whatever he wanted to do. That might include fucking young nurses then fucking them over.