The Lies I Told(74)
“I don’t have much of a family,” David said. “And you two only have each other. I feel honored that Brit is allowing me into your inner circle.”
Our inner circle. Brit, Clare, and I had been an oddly tight little, disjointed unit bound by our mother’s death, our father’s abdication, and our own destructive habits that kept us looking out for each other. And now the remaining Stockton sisters had David, leaving me to wonder what was wrong with him.
42
HIM
THEN
Monday, January 17, 2022
2:00 p.m.
It took me three days to get up the nerve to visit Marisa in the hospital. I spent too many hours figuring out how to get inside unnoticed. I’d finally resolved to dress in an orderly’s scrubs. These individuals moved about the hospital easily and often went unnoticed. Credentials were an issue, but that turned out to be easier than I thought as I lingered in a coffee shop near the medical center. An older man who went to pay his bill at the register left his lanyard and identification at his table. As his head was turned, I swiped them and slipped outside to the busy sidewalk.
It took some asking around to find Marisa’s floor after she’d been moved from the surgical unit, but again motivation was a powerful tool. I was soon stepping into her room with an armload of clean sheets I’d swiped from a cart.
The room was dimly lit, and the television mounted on the wall was muted. Marisa was lying in her bed, her eyes closed. Her head was wrapped in a large bandage, and I could see the surgeon had cut her hair on the right side of her head. Long hair on the left and shorn on the right, the lopsidedness was almost comical.
Machines beeped as I set my linens down and walked to the bed. Her face looked pale, drawn, and without her expressive eyes staring back at me, rather plain.
“Marisa,” I said softly.
Her chest rose and fell in a steady, even pattern. She was going to live. That much I could see for myself, but what would she remember?
I took her hand in mine as I’d done so many years ago. It was cold, limp. I squeezed it gently at first, but when she didn’t respond, I tightened my grip, knowing I was crushing her knuckles against each other. Finally, her forehead furrowed. Relief surged. Knowing I was hurting her didn’t bother me. She was alive through no fault of her own. She’d been a naughty girl who had put me through a lot of worry during the last twenty-four hours. It seemed only fair she got a little back.
I leaned closer to the bed until my lips brushed her ear. “Marisa, wake up. I need to know you’re in there, Marisa.”
She didn’t react until I folded her wrist back on itself. A self-defense move I’d learned years ago when it had been done to me a few times, and it hurt like hell. No different from what a doctor did with the pins and needles they stuck in a patient.
The frown deepened, the heart rate monitor sped up, and then her eyes fluttered open. I eased off the pressure, knowing a real spike in her heart rate would summon a nurse.
At first her gaze was vacant, and I assumed that she was swimming up toward consciousness. “Marisa, can you see me?”
Her head shifted toward me and those eyes focused. She stared into my face a long moment. I tensed, fearing she’d scream or call for help. But there was no flicker of recognition.
“Can you see me?” I asked.
She nodded.
No sign of panic or worry. No ugly realization that I was not the man she’d once thought I was. I was glad of that. It had been crushing to see the horror and anger in those eyes. I wanted back the dewy, hazy eyes I’d looked into so many years ago as I’d come inside her when she was someone else.
“Can you move your fingers?” I asked.
Fingers painted with chipped red nail polish wiggled.
“That’s good.”
“Where am I?” she whispered.
“You were in a car accident,” I said. “But you’re all right now. You’re going to be fine.”
She swallowed and moistened her lips. I went to the sink, dampened a washcloth, and pressed it to her lips. “The nurse will give you liquids soon. This will have to do for now.”
She sucked on the cloth, drawing in as much moisture as she could.
“Go back to sleep,” I said gently as I touched the side of her face. “I’ll be around, and you’ll see me soon. You’re safe now.”
Her eyes closed, and I carefully draped the damp cloth over the sink. As much as I wanted to linger, the longer I stayed, the more I invited trouble. It wouldn’t be good to be found here. I’d be forced to explain my presence and then perhaps the stolen credentials of a man thirty years my senior.
Out of the room, I ducked my head and headed toward the service elevator. I pressed the button as an orderly rolled a cart past. A phone rang at the nurses’ station. The doors opened and I hurried inside, grateful when they closed. Head still tucked because there were cameras on the elevator, I did my best not to fidget.
When the doors slid apart, I crossed the lobby and moved out into the bright sunshine. Euphoria rushed my system. Marisa was alive. And she didn’t seem to remember me. Her confusion could be a one-off from the drugs, but her heart rate had not spiked, and there’d been no panic or fear registering in her features.
I thought I might have another chance with Clare and Marisa, who in my mind now were one and the same. Two spirits in one body. We had another chance to get it right. To start anew.