"Has Dallas been by?" Adele asks. "I assumed I'd see him here."
"He was right here when Jane woke up," my mom assures her.
"But he left?" Adele isn't even trying to keep the surprise out of her voice.
"I asked him to go," I admit, then immediately regret my words because I don't have an explanation for that. At least not one that I'm willing to share.
But Adele doesn't seem to need one. "That was smart. If he hangs around here, sooner or later the press will notice. An orderly will sneak a picture. And then you'll be all over Twitter. And you definitely don't need that."
"No," I agree. "I don't."
She looks between me and my mom, and though I have never thought of Adele as a soft person, right then her expression is almost maternal. "I'm going to leave you two alone. Jane, I'm so sorry this happened to you, and I'm so glad you're okay. You'll be released soon?"
"We're hoping for tonight," Mom says. "But as slow as the lab has been, it may be the morning."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed. And in the meantime, I'll go see Dallas. Let him know that you're okay. That you miss him," she adds, her lips curving in a small smile.
"You don't have to do that." I try to keep my voice light, even airy. Inside, I'm dying. I know there's nothing going on between Adele and Dallas anymore. And yet the thought of her being close to him makes me nauseous.
"Nonsense. Someone needs to check on him. Really, sweetie, it's no trouble at all." She blows me a kiss, gives my mom a hug, then strides out the door, her Jimmy Choos clicking on the floor as her Hermes Kelly handbag swings on her arm.
I lay back in my bed and draw in a deep breath, trying to steady myself. Trying to wrap my head around everything I'm feeling right n
ow. The deep wound from Dallas's secrets about Colin. The sharp pain from Adele's casual familiarity.
Intellectually, I know that one has nothing to do with the other, but that doesn't matter. I want to scratch her eyes out.
More, I want Dallas right here, right now.
And I hate that weakness in me that craves Dallas even when he is the one who has made me hurt. Not the physical hurt of the attack, but the emotional hurt of the betrayal.
"I've always thought that woman was something of a bitch, bless her little heart."
I stare at my mom, see the twinkle in her eye, and burst out laughing.
"She's okay," I say, because I know damn well my mother has no clue that there was ever anything sexual between Dallas and Adele. "She just pokes her nose in where it isn't wanted."
"And you want Dallas here," Mom says. "Not with her."
I only shrug, neither admitting nor denying.
"Hmmm," she says in that way she has. She pulls up a chair and sits next to the bed. "You know," she begins conversationally, "I really do understand why you're upset with your father. Disinheriting you both, and so publicly. I imagine you're just as mad at me."
"No," I assure her, a little flummoxed by this sudden shift in the conversation. "I get it--I know Daddy. It's not like we didn't expect him to cut us off. So I'm not mad, not really. Not at Daddy. Not at you." I lick my lips and look up at her. "But I am..." I trail off with a shrug. "Disappointed?"
Frowning slightly, she picks up her coffee cup, then gently blows at the surface of the hot liquid. "I'm disappointed in myself, too," she says after a moment. "But that's not what I meant. I'm just saying that I understand why you're upset with your father and me. But I don't understand what happened between you and Dallas."
"Nothing happened," I lie.
The corners of her mouth tighten slightly. "When you sent him away, I thought it was because it was just too much. Because you needed some Mom time." Her smile is gentle. "But this isn't about me at all, is it?"
I consider perpetuating my lie a little bit longer, but I can't stand tossing yet another deception into the mix. "It's not," I finally admit, and I try to find the words to tell her the truth about Dallas's betrayal. About the huge secret he kept and how deeply it wounded me. If anyone would understand, she would, because although she and Colin have been divorced for years and years, I know that part of her still loves him, despite all the ways he hurt and disappointed her.
But I can't tell her.
I sit there in my hospital bed, my head bursting with one singular absolute--I flat-out can't tell her.
She's already been through so much with him, and if she knew that there was even the tiniest possibility that Colin--a man she was married to, a man with whom she fathered a child--was the instigator behind the kidnapping of me and Dallas seventeen years ago...