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“ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT to come in here?” I asked Lisa when she stepped inside. “You’ve probably heard the rumors by now—you might not leave alive.”
She screwed up her face at me. “What does that mean? Of course I want to be in here with you. I’ve been dying to see you. And look,” she said, holding up a glass of water. “I bring liquid!”
“I’ll give you a hundred dollars right now if you can turn that liquid into vodka.”
As she closed the door behind her and stepped beside my bed, she shook her head at me. “Sorry, lovey, but that’s not happening. Though I do have this.” She held out her hand, and in it was a mint wrapped in cellophane. “Blackwell gave it to me. She said that you needed one.”
I rolled my eyes at that, and as Lisa leaned down toward me so I could take a sip of the water, I found it cold and wet and necessary. “I can’t believe she gave you a mint.”
“It’s Blackwell,” she said, sitting beside me. “What do you expect?”
“A slap across my ass, for one thing. I’m afraid I’m not being a very good patient.”
“Why would you be? Look at what you’ve been through.”
“No, I’ve crossed a few lines, which I regret. I’ve had these moments when I’ve become very difficult to people who are only trying to help me. I need to start apologizing—and fast—because I’m coming on way too strong. I’m not myself, but that’s no excuse. I hate how I’m behaving. This isn’t who I am.”
“I think just about everyone here is willing to give you a few very big passes.”
“And I’m telling you that I’ve burned through all of them.”
“How so?”
I told her about my treatment of Alex, Tank, and Blackwell.
“All right, so it will be awhile before you can pass Go again.”
“I just kept demanding things. I was in a terrible state, and I feel awful about it.”
“I would imagine that you’re feeling a lot of things right now, and that those feelings are getting the best of you. I doubt that anyone is taking it personally. Lighten up on yourself.”
I smiled at her. “I’ve missed you. How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. So is everyone else, with the exception of Alex. He’s as upset as you are. And why wouldn’t he be? I’m so sorry, Jennifer.”
Tears stung my eyes when she said that. “So am I.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m talked out at this point. And whenever I do talk about it, anger takes over and I become a monster filled with displaced rage.”
“How does your shoulder feel?”
“Believe it or not, I’m not in much pain.”
“I heard the doctor talking to Alex. Apparently, you have five stitches in front, six in back, and some internal stitching to help mend the damage done to the muscle. The good news is that the muscle wasn’t damaged as badly as it could have been, so you should heal well and relatively quickly.” She shrugged. “At least that’s what I gathered from what I overheard, and believe me, I was eavesdropping.”
“You’ve heard about Wenn?”
“I have. And there’s no need to talk about it. You’ll just get upset again.”
“If I did, I’d at least give you something to write about. You think you know monsters? You haven’t seen me at my worst. Your zombies have nothing on me. I could inspire your next book.”
“Oh, Jennifer.”
I reached out for her hand. “I really had hope, you know? Minor spotting. No major signs that I’d lost the child other than the initial cramping, which likely is when I did lose it. But that ended so quickly, I went through those next two weeks with real hope that the baby was OK. I had lingering doubts, of course, but because I didn’t have my period, I thought that maybe somehow the love Alex and I had for that child was enough to help pull it through. Somehow, I thought we were going to be all right. And then I came here. And then I learned the news. I’d be lying if I said that I was in a total shock, but it came pretty close to that, Lisa. That’s how naive and deluded I was. And how disappointed.”
“Actually, that’s how human you are.”
“Everyone keeps talking about us just having another baby, as if that will take away the pain. And to be fair, I was right there with them when they were saying it, believing that the sooner we got pregnant again, the sooner we could move on. But the more I think of it, the more I know that it doesn’t work like that. There are no easy fixes here. But there are risks.”
“What risks?”
“What if I lose the next child? And if I do, how is that going to affect my marriage to Alex, the one person in this world who means everything to me? And please don’t take that the wrong way—you also mean everything to me. It’s just that he’s my husband.”
She squeezed my hand. “Look—I get it. The love I have for Tank is different from the love I have for you. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you just as much as I love him—if that makes any sense.”
“It does.”
“So, where do we go from here?” she asked.
I looked up at the ceiling and took a breath. “I need to get on with it,” I said. “I need to accept the loss, feel it, grieve it, and move on. What other choice do I have? I can wallow in self-pity and mourning for a good year or more, but where will that get me? Not to a good place, I can tell you that.”
“I think that’s the right answer.”
“Then, I guess I need to do the work.” I shook my head at her. “Anyway, let’s change the subject. I know what I have to do, and I’ll do what it takes. It’s not going to be easy, though. For Alex or me.”
“But you have each other.”
“And thank God that we do.”
“So,” she said. “Change of subject?”
“Yes, please.”
“What’s all this I keep hearing about Stephen Rowe?” she asked.
“Are you sure you want to go there? Just hearing his name is enough to make me grow another head.”
“Only if you want to.”
“Apparently, he’s running Wenn now,” I said. “The board thought we were dead, and he was voted in as the new CEO and chairman of the board. Alex still has a seat on the board because he has controlling shares, but it’s not the same. He no longer runs Wenn. Rowe does—for now at least.”
“What does that mean?”
“Have I ever told you what I know about Rowe?”
“You haven’t.”
“Then get ready for me to get angry again,” I said. “Because when I tell you what I know about him, you’ll see where my focus is about to go. And why I plan to publicly crush him.”
