Darling Rose Gold(35)

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Back in the grocery store, I grab the last couple items on my list and head for the checkout. One lane is open. Four people wait in line while the teenage cashier slowly scans canned goods. I join the back of the line.

A very tall man, thin as a flagpole, stands in front of me. Only one person I know of in Deadwick is almost six feet five inches. The man turns as if he can hear my thoughts. I come face to face with Tom Behan.

He’s almost as startled to see me as I am to see him mustache-less.

“You shaved your mustache,” I blurt.

Tom hovers over me, adjusting his glasses. “I heard they let you out,” he says.

“I seem to be the talk of the town,” I say, chilled by his tone. “It’s strange not to see you in scrubs.”

Tom and I went through the CNA program together at Gallatin. He had been my closest friend. We’d stay up late at his apartment, goofing off when we were supposed to be quizzing each other on infection control. He’d gone on to get his nursing license, and we sometimes worked overlapping shifts at the local hospital. I think Tom had a crush on me back then, although I always thought of him as a brother. Now he has a wife and two kids.

“Let’s cut the horseshit.” He jabs a finger at me. “You may have tricked your daughter into forgiving you, but the rest of us have long memories.”

“That was all a big misunderstanding,” I say. “I made a few missteps, but I served my time. Rose Gold and I are closer than ever.” Not strictly true, but Tom Behan doesn’t need to know that.

Through gritted teeth, Tom says, “I vouched for you. I helped you research her symptoms and suggested treatments and let you cry on my shoulder.” Tom gets this haunted expression and lowers his voice. “Do you know the damage we wreaked on her poor body? On a perfectly healthy body? We took an oath—”

“She could barely walk. I wouldn’t call that perfectly healthy.” I look Tom Behan straight in the eye, suddenly desperate to win my old friend over, and try a softer tone. “I thought we could put the past behind us.”

Tom stares at me. The cashier has gotten through one customer in all this time. Another cart joins the line behind me.

“Well, well, well.”

I turn to see Sean Walsh, a lumberjack of a man I barely know, but who had an awful lot to say about me to the press five years ago. Tom nods at Sean.

“Patty here thinks we should all put the past behind us,” Tom says, loud enough for everyone in earshot to hear. I cringe.

“The past behind us, huh?” Sean says, scratching his beard. He leaves his cart and takes a few steps forward.

“Yes,” I say, because he’s waiting for my response. Sean takes another step closer. I wish he’d back off. Everyone in line in front of us is pretending to examine the register kiosks while they rubberneck.

“We’ve known each other since we were seventeen,” Tom says to me. “Maybe that’s the past we should put behind us.”

Sean takes a sip from a travel coffee mug. “I think the whole town would like to forget you were ever a part of it.”

His drink could use more than a few drops from the small brown bottle with the white cap in my purse.

“Tom, be reasonable,” I say under my breath.

Tom takes a step toward me. “Reasonable?” he chokes. “This coming from the woman who starved her little girl?” He raises his eyebrows at Sean. Tom is putting on a show, but I recognize the pain in his voice. I know how upset he is. If it were just the two of us, I’d give him a bear hug, like I did the day he failed his first certification exam. I was the one who convinced him to try again. If I hugged him right now, in front of Sean Walsh and the rest of the customers, he might slap me.

“Don’t talk to us about reasonable,” Sean says, taking another step forward. He’s close enough to reach out and touch. “The reasonable thing for you to do right now is walk out of this store before I remove you myself.”

Someone, a few feet away, starts to clap. Heat rushes to my cheeks. “But—” I gesture to my cart full of food.

“My brother doesn’t need your business,” Sean says, pointing to the door. Bill Walsh owns the grocery store. “Buy your food elsewhere.”

Tom and Sean form a semicircle around me. The only way out is toward the store exit. Outside, the bare branches lean forward with the wind, reaching for me.

I imagine a tree for every citizen of Deadwick. The long arms of timber lift the people up higher, higher, higher still. Then, when every Tom and Sean and even the little Timmys are fifty feet in the air, the trees release their catches, all at once, in harmony. I am their conductor. The bodies crash to the ground, the opposite of rose petals. They land on the tops of their heads and the backs of their necks and the flats on their spines. Their bodies are my carpet, painted red. I wipe my shoes on their faces.

I stand my ground for a second, chin out, fists clenched. I try to meet Tom’s eyes, to plead for mercy, but he won’t look at me anymore. His facial expression suggests he just stepped in a pile of dog doo.

They’ve left me no choice. I shuffle toward the door, head down, leaving my full shopping cart where it is. I think of the empty fridge at home, of Tom Behan’s misty eyes.

I walk out the door.

Behind me, the crowd erupts in applause.