Her eyes were closed. Her broken leg was propped up on a pillow. The IV was out and she looked better. I sat down near her bed and took Samantha’s hand. Cora’s words resonated through my mind. What if Samantha had died, she’d asked. I couldn’t even imagine it. Cora’s face, as she said those words sent a chill through me. Pure anger and hatred. Towards me. A few more days and I’d be out of there. Just a few more things I needed to do and it would be over.
She opened her eyes. Just a little. Enough for me to see the gray-blue peeking through her lashes.
I smiled and squeezed her fingers. “Hey.”
“Mackenzie.” She mumbled. I stood and poured water in the plastic cup and put in a straw. I put it to her lips.
“Drink,” I said. She took a couple of sips. “You’re looking better.” She was.
“It must be my accessories.” Her fingers reached for the bandage on her cheek.
“It’s going to be fine. Trust me. Hardly a scar.”
“Liar.” Her eyes blinked a few times and then closed. “Not that I’m shallow or anything, but it’s going to be bad.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“The nurse changed my bandage this morning. It looks like a huge zig-zagged swollen caterpillar across my face. She told me it was pretty deep. I must have cut it when I fell but I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember any of what happened?”
“The police were here earlier asking the same thing. I left the house to walk to the little mini-mart up the street. The Wawa. I walked past that old fire station when it happened.”
I leaned in towards her. “What did you need at the store? You were on your way to bed when I left.”
She looked embarrassed. “Cigarettes.” She looked up at me. “Don’t look at me that way. I haven’t had any in three days. I was sitting out in the back on the glider and I had the urge for one. I was just going to have one. So I walked up the street a little ways and then started to cross.”
“Did you see the car?”
“Only the headlights. It came out of nowhere. I didn’t even have time to move.”
“I was so worried.” I chewed my lip. “I was here when you were in the ER. And I came back the next day. They kept telling me that you were going to be okay but I didn’t believe them. I don’t know what would have happened if…”
I could see all the feelings she had for me in her eyes. “Nothing happened to me. I just have a little more character now.” She touched her face again.
“Samantha, we can go to a plastic surgeon when you’re all healed. We’ll find the best surgeon on the east coast. I promise. You’re not even going see the teeniest scar when they’re done.”
She looked up with tears in her eyes. “Promise?”
“I promise. If it takes every penny I have.” I wasn’t going to tell her she should be thankful she was alive, and what was a little scar anyway, because I knew it was going to be bad. This had all happened because of me and I wasn’t going to rest until I fixed it.
* * *
Samantha came home from the hospital the next day.. She was doing well, and other than her cast and bandages she looked like her old self. Her spirits were good; she was smiling even though she was in pain. The doctors had sent her home with Oxycodone, a morphine derivative, and I knew she was looking forward to crawling into bed, swallowing her pills and going to sleep. When Dylan opened the door she would’ve had to have been a moron not to pick up on the tension in the room. And Samantha was a people person. She was tuned in. That’s how she made her living. She claimed exhaustion and asked me to help her up to bed.
“So, are you going to tell me now, or do I have to make the details up myself.” She winced as she slid into bed.
“Nothing to tell.” I got her pills from her bag and went to get water from the bathroom
“That bad, huh?” she called after me. “Well, you know a lot of times it improves as time goes on.”
I came back and sat on the bed. “Take these.”
She took them from me but held them in her hand. “You’re entitled to go on living your life, you know. You can’t plan how things happen, Mackenzie.”
“I know.” I said.
“Is it perfect timing? No. But good people don’t walk into your life everyday. If you turn him away, God knows when it’ll happen again. We could be old like Cora and Ginny sitting on some porch somewhere, all dried up, no sex in thirty years, and believe me, you’d regret turning him away. And if you didn’t, I’d make sure you did.”
“It’s not like that. There’s a girlfriend in this picture.”
Her eyebrows went up. “A girlfriend?”
“Well, an ex-girlfriend but she’s there.”
She looked at me for a second and then laughed. “I’d be shocked and a little concerned if there weren’t an ex-girlfriend somewhere in his past.” She was silent for a minute. “I’ve known you your whole life. Nick’s been gone a few months, but when you married him you settled, and we both know it. You felt alone and he was like a piece of driftwood to cling to in this big ocean in your mind.” She smiled. “Hey that was pretty good, wasn’t it? I’ll have to write that down.” I tried to give her a weak smile.
“You settled, and you’d probably never admit it, but it’s the truth. God gave you a second chance. Clean slate. It was an accident. You can’t change it and you don’t owe anyone anything.” My eyes filled up and I chewed on my fingernail. “And let me tell you something else. If you think you can turn him away and come back in a few months, a year, forget it. You caught’im in a lull. Someone’s going to snatch him up. Look at him. He’s cute, he’s nice. How long do you think it’ll be before someone catches his eye. And he likes you. That’s the thing. He could probably have a lot of women and he wants you.” She opened her hands to her sides. “Who knows why, it’s probably that wild hair thing you’ve got going.” I smiled and wiped my face. We sat for a few minutes saying nothing.
“Remember when we rented Gone with the Wind?” she asked when she spoke again. I nodded. It had been a rainy Saturday afternoon. We were supposed to drive down to Cape Cod and stay with friends for the weekend but the weather was so bad we cancelled. We’d rented Gone with the Wind instead and gorged ourselves on every kind of junk food imaginable. “Remember when Scarlet O’hara was supposed to be in mourning and couldn’t dance at that ball?” I nodded again. The tears were rolling down my face. “What did you want her to do? Rhett Butler was standing there, for God’s sake. She had to dance. So go dance, Mackenzie. You’ve cried enough.” She put the pills in her mouth and swallowed. “Just don’t wake me up with the noise. I need my rest, you know.”
I hugged her tightly. “Oh, and one more thing.” Her eyes were slits. “For God’s sake, just take it slowly. You should both just have fun and don’t get so serious.” I nodded and closed the door tightly behind me.