Kit had their new matching suitcases packed and waiting by the sliding glass doors of the kitchen.
She couldn’t relax. What a day of torture. She’d been keyed up from the second she opened her eyes that morning, and then to have to make two presentations and sit through a bunch of meetings . . . She could have screamed. The entire day she’d thought about one thing: running. What if she were kidding herself about her condition? What if she didn’t make the time she needed for Boston and had to miss it again?
“Here he is.” Maris looked through the sliding glass doors. Cole’s old white Mustang was pulling into the driveway. “I’ll be glad when he gets you out of here. You’re too antsy.”
The phone rang as he walked in the door and Kit looked at him in alarm. He held up a hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, “Kevin’s covering. I’m free until Monday.”
Maris answered the phone, then held it out to Cole. “Blair for Cole Perelle,” she said apologetically. “Sorry.”
Damn Blair, she thought. Why couldn’t they leave him alone for once?
“This is Cole Perelle,” he said. He frowned at the floor, then ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, no.” He looked at Kit, but she had no idea what was behind the worry in his eyes. “What are her vital signs?” He listened a moment. “No, I’d rather not,” he said. “She has family. I’ll try to get in touch with them.” He hung up the phone and turned to her. “Estelle swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. She’s in a coma.”
Kit sat down at the kitchen table. She could see outside to the terrace where Cole had stacked the lumber he’d bought the day before. He was going to build beach chairs like John Chapel’s to set in their new backyard on the bay. He was anxious to get them built, he’d told her. Anxious to see a part of himself in that house.
Why a coma, damn it? Why couldn’t she have done the job right?
“Do they expect her to make it?” Maris asked.
Cole leafed through the phone book. “They’re not saying.” He picked up the receiver and dialed. Kit listened as he spoke with Marc, Estelle’s younger brother. It was obvious from Cole’s end of the conversation that Marc had no idea Estelle was even in town. He hadn’t seen her since before she’d left New Jersey. Then Cole began arguing with him. Wouldn’t Marc go to Blair to be with her, and what did he mean, he really didn’t care if she lived or died? Cole hung up the phone and began dialing again, this time Estelle’s mother. The conversation was even shorter than the one with Marc.
“Unreal,” he said, hanging up the phone. “What a cold bunch of people.”
She comes by it naturally, Kit thought.
“Her mother said, ‘Well, if she wakes up, then I’ll come down, but I don’t see the point in coming all the way to New Jersey if she’s unconscious.’ Her mother. Can you believe it?”
“She didn’t even endear herself to her own family,” said Maris.
Every muscle in her body was tight, waiting for what was coming next. She knew him too well. The way he was looking at her, the apology in his eyes before he spoke. She felt her own eyes fill with tears before he’d uttered the first word.
Please don’t do this to me, Cole.
“I have to stay here,” he said.
“No you don’t.”
“What if she comes out of it and there’s no one there? Not a soul who cares about her?”
“You can’t stay out of guilt.”
“It’s not guilt. She tried to kill herself. If she wakes up alone, she’ll . . . I don’t want her to regret that she didn’t succeed.”
“But this is my marathon. I want you with me.”
“If it were one of my nieces or Maris or Jay or anyone, I’d do the same thing.”
She knew that was true. She stood up. “You’re not going with me then?” She forced the words past the knot in her throat.
“I’ll take you to the airport.”
She shook her head. “I’ll drive myself.” She stood up and squeezed his shoulder. It was the most she could manage just then to let him know she understood. Or at least a part of her did. She walked toward the stairs. “Your suitcase is the one on the left,” she said without turning around.