Private (Private 1)

Horns honked as freeway traffic flashed by me at seventy. My hands shook as I restarted the engine and finally made it safely down the off-ramp. Jeez, I’d almost totaled my car, and maybe myself.

Twenty-five minutes after getting Donahue’s call, I bulled my way through the lobby of Glendale Memorial and stabbed the elevator button until the doors opened and then closed behind me.

By some kind of blind bloodhound instinct, I found Colleen’s room on the first try.

I strong-armed the swinging door, and Donahue got up from the bedside chair, came toward me, and shook my hand.

“Take it easy on her, Jack. She’s not well.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

Colleen’s cheeks were flushed. Her hair was damp at her temples. The white cotton blankets covered her to her chin.

She looked very small in the bed, like a feverish child.

I took Mike’s vacated chair, leaned over, and touched her shoulder. I was scared for her. She’d never been sick since I’d met her. Not a day.

“Colleen. It’s Jack.”

She opened her blue eyes and nodded when she saw me.

“Are you okay? What happened?” I asked.

Medication dragged at her voice. “I’m going home.”

“What are you saying? To Dublin?”

A terrible thought came to me—like a balled fist to the gut. “Were you pregnant? Did you lose the baby?”

Colleen’s blank expression became a smile. She laughed and then she was swept up in a kind of hysteria that turned to sobs. She put her hands up by her cheeks, and I saw shocking white bands of gauze and tape binding her wrists.

The gauze was striped with bright blood, which was seeping through.

What had she done?

“I told Mike not to call you. I’m mortified for you to see me like this…. I’ll be all right. Please go, Jack. I’m fine now.”

“What were you thinking, Colleen?”

I thought back over the past weeks and months. I hadn’t noticed that Colleen was depressed. How had I missed it? What the hell was wrong with me sometimes?

“I was completely daft,” she said. “I just hurt so much. You don’t have to tell me again. I know it’s over.”

“Colleen. Oh, Colleen,” I whispered.

She closed her eyes, and shame washed over me. Guilt and shame. I did care about Colleen, but she cared more. It had been selfish of me to stay with her for so long, when I knew we’d gone as far as we could go. I’d hurt this woman—and she’d done this to herself. What a terrible thing.

I don’t know how long the silence between us lasted. Maybe it was only a minute, but it was time enough to think about what Colleen meant to me and to try to imagine a future for the two of us. It was sad, but I just couldn’t see it.

“At least you won’t be having to listen to my queer way of talkin’,” she said.

“Don’t you know that I love to listen to your voice?”

“You were good to me, Jack. Always. I won’t forget that.”

“Damn it, Molloy. I want you to be happy.”